She had the most beautiful smile and blue eyes I’d ever seen.
Colin and Marguerite gave me a tour of the house while Maria slipped her hand in her dad’s and gave me color commentary about “her” house. When we reached the theater, Colin convinced Marguerite to play. She sat and her hands rolled across the keys, producing quite possibly the most beautiful thing I’d ever heard, while Maria twirled onstage beneath the spotlight.
Later, we ate lunch and laughed at Hack, who was surrounded by every girl at the party. Late in the afternoon, Colin tapped me on the shoulder. “Got a second?”
This was not my first rodeo. I knew there was more to this tour and boat delivery than met the eye. A guy like this could have had his people deliver this boat with a snap of his fingers, but for some reason he wanted us, and I suspected me more than us.
He led me to the boathouse, where we climbed the crow’s nest to the third floor and stared out across Key Biscayne. Below us, the DJ was getting the party cranked up. He was covered in rings, gold, and tattoos. Colin said, “He’s a rapper. Known as ‘Liv-ed.’ That’s devil spelled backward.” Colin shook his head. “His real name is William Alfred Butler, and he’s currently number one on the charts. We’re rolling out his fragrance line this week.”
“You like rap?”
Colin shook his head. “No, but”—he pointed to the people attending his party—“they do.”
“How’d you get him here?”
“Same way I got you.”
I decided to skip all the BS, so I said, “You always buy your friends?”
“My friends? No. But the people at this party? Yes.”
On the lawn below us, William Butler was instructing Zaul how to hold the microphone, how to wear his hat, and then what to do with his hands while he screamed into the mike. Most gestures gave the indication that he was angry and had something to do with adjusting his groin. His hat sat off to one side and his pants had been lowered down below his buttocks. Whenever he wanted to make a point with emphasis, he held his hand up in the air, like he was holding a gun turned on its side and pulled the trigger. Zaul mimicked as best he could. I watched in mild amusement. “What’s the name of his fragrance?”
“Incarceration.”
A moment passed while the breeze dried the sweat on our skin. I figured I’d take the lid off. “What’s the real reason you’ve got me three stories up staring down on the world you created and yet the one you care very little about?”
A smirk. “Perceptive.” He pointed at Marguerite and the kids swimming in the pool. “They’re the only ones I really care about.” He waved his hand across the landscape below us. “The rest of this is just noise.”
“Why do you listen to it?”
“It’s necessary.” He shrugged. “Which brings me to you. I don’t know you from Adam’s house cat, but I’ve a pretty good idea you didn’t set out in life to build skiffs. You’re running from something, and from what I can tell, you’re really good at the two parts of that vocation.”
“What parts would that be?”
“The first part is cutting all attachments.”
I pointed at Hack, who now had a six-foot blonde sitting on his lap. He was liberally rubbing suntan oil on her shoulders. Others were waiting in line for him to do the same. “Except him. And the second?”
“The ability to keep a secret.”
“How do you know that?”
“I’m pretty well connected on Bimini, and yet I can find no one who knows anything about you, other than that—after almost three years—you seem to get along well with the island legend there and that you keep to yourself. No friends. No girlfriend. No family.”
I didn’t respond.
“Am I right?”
I chuckled. “Answering that would sort of negate the idea behind it.”
He paused. “Let me cut to the chase.”
I waited.
“I’d like to hire you. On the side. Won’t interfere with anything you’ve got going on with Hack. And you’ll make more money than you can spend.”
I didn’t look at him. “Money is not a carrot to me.”
“How about adventure, fast boats, and helicopters, seeing different shores and getting away with something.”
“That would depend on the work.”
“Well, to begin with, it’s not legal.” He waited. “Are you opposed to illegal?”
“I’m opposed to jail.”
He chuckled. “Me, too. If you don’t want me to go any further, you’re free to enjoy the party and the guys will take you back whenever you like.”
Between the bronzed girls with long legs; Hack’s easy laughter; the lobster; the smells of coconut oil, rum, and spent diesel; the flashy boats; the movie stars; and pop divas walking around below me, I was drunk on the atmosphere, intrigue, and mystery.
“I’m listening.”
“My dad came over from Cuba. Started with one corner grocery store. Built several. Then moved into distribution. Trucking. Warehousing. He owned everything from the field to the table. He kept his costs low, smoked out inefficiencies, and made a pile of money. He brought me in early, taught me the business and how to deliver a good product to people. I have no college education, but I know how to run a business. My dad left me $50 million, and because people like to smell good; drink fancy liquor, wine, and champagne; and suck white powder up their noses, I’m now worth close to twenty times that. I don’t need money, but I do like the life and the people, and to be honest, I like the identity that comes with it. I’ve been poor, and given the choice, I prefer wealthy.” A shrug. “That said, my business is a mix of legitimate and not. I need a runner. Someone I can trust in a business where no one is trustworthy.”
His story intrigued me. I watched Marguerite walk across the backyard carrying a plate of food to a guest. “She know?”
He nodded. “I have no secrets from her.”
“How is it that your father was legal and you’re not?”
“You’re assuming he was legal. My father started with one grocery store, and for my first few years of life, we lived in the back of it. I can remember sleeping in the big walk-in refrigerator where we kept all the produce during the August heat. Then my dad figured out how to import rum from his brothers and sell it out the back door. Soon, we were selling it out of the back of his truck, then trucks, then stores—plural.” He smiled. “Dad was mostly legal. More than that, he knew how to make a dollar.”
“Cocaine and rum are two very different things. That doesn’t bother you?”
“If you’re a drunk, don’t blame the man who sold you the alcohol. I’m an entrepreneur. I provide a service. If not me, then someone else.”
The problem with his line of thinking was that I completely agreed with him. “How’s it work? Pragmatically. Like what’s your business model?”
“Spoken like a man with an education.”
So I showed Colin one of the cards I was holding close to my chest. “Harvard MBA.”
He smiled and nodded. “Those people down there are just junkies with money. They think their money insulates them. Only difference is that they don’t want their bad habits paraded across the front page of the newspaper, so they pay me to provide them what they want and keep their secrets. And they pay me a premium to keep it that way. They place an order, a minimum of fifty thousand—some are much higher—they transfer the money to an offshore account, and I make the delivery. Or drop. I have several runners in major cities across the country. I need one around here and up the East Coast.”
“What happened to the last one?”