In the dark warehouse hallway Jack gulps at nothing, like an anxious dog swallowing imaginary food. A single bead of sweat drops from his nose and lands on the front of his shirt. "No way," he whispers. "No way is that happening to me."
He walks back along the hall, exhaling slowly as if trying to get the smell of a low budget life out of his nose.
He pauses for no reason beside a tall metal cabinet standing against the wall. "I don't want to get married," Jack says to the cabinet. "I don't want a kid, either." His voice kind of whiny. "I want to buy a boat and sail off across the Caribbean." His brow wrinkles and it looks like he's gonna break into tears. His head drops in desperations, but suddenly he lifts his head and looks curious. "What is that?" he whispers.
From under the cabinet, an ever so slight smear of dim yellow light shines on the black Formica tiles. Jack glances aside, down the long dark hallway and sees, way down at the far end, the window in the watch office where Doogle is sitting.
He steps over to the metal cabinet. It's a standard military unit. There are countless numbers of them in hallways and storage rooms on military installations all over the world. Without even opening it, Jack knows it contains toilet paper, mop heads, scrubbing pads. Jack's only been in the Coast Guard for seven or eight months, but he knows this for a fact without looking inside.
Why, he wonders, is light shining from underneath this cabinet?
He steps over beside the cabinet and can now see the metal strip of a doorframe in the wall. Without thinking about it, he slides one hand behind the cabinet and pulls it out from the wall. Sure enough there's a door in the wall.
Following his watch orders, Jack grabs the doorknob and to his absolute amazement it clicks and turns easily in his hand. He pushes but it won't budge. So he shoves the locker out from the wall and applies his shoulder to the door and pushes harder. It gives a fraction of an inch; not enough to see what's inside the room though. Something big is blocking the way. Jack figures this is one of the garage bays lining the long side of the building facing the pier. He considers telling Doogle, because there's probably a three-ring binder with instructions on exactly what to do if a doorknob is found unlocked in the warehouse. But, Jack is too curious, so he bends his knees, sets his feet at angles on the floor and presses his shoulder to the door and begins to shove in earnest, but it still won't budge. So he presses harder and harder, and sure enough, it gives a tiny bit.
* * *
In a plain unpainted room, where the dry-wallers hadn't put tape and putty over the seams or the heads of the screws, several banks of florescent lights hang on metal rods from the high ceiling. One of the lights is blinking and flickering intermittently. There's a garage door shut tight against the night outside where several large padlocks secure it. On the wall directly across from the garage door there's a metal door behind wooden pallets. The door opens less than an inch where it bangs against a pallet; one in a row of pallets stacked with pillow-sized, plastic-wrapped bales of marijuana. From outside the door, the sound of someone grunting, pressing shoulder and pushing as hard as possible. Then the door closes and it opens again, this time hitting hard against the pallet, nudging it over ever so slightly. The door closes again and quickly it opens, banging against the pallet, pushing it over a little more. Then in rapid succession, the door is closing and opening, banging against the pallet, pushing each time a little further until finally, Jack Turner sticks his head through into the room. His face is red and slick with sweat after exerting himself and his heart is pounding inside his chest and he's excited, caught up in the moment. Not really thinking clearly about what he's doing - which has proven to be a behavior that has gotten him into quite a bit of trouble in the past. But, that's how he is; not much conscious. He's always done stuff without thinking it through and that's the look on his face now as his eyes pop open like a person who, in that exact moment, has learned that he has in fact won the lottery.
Jack's mouth pinches into a dorky sort of kiss shape, and in total disbelief he mutters, "Dude!"
* * *
The sky glows white from bright-lamps mounted high on utility poles. Across from the pier where the Allmayer is tied up, there's a parking lot with a few cars scattered here and there. A cargo crane sits silent on railroad tracks. Silent warehouses, stocked with Coast Guard war supplies like mops, desks, paint, inflatable rafts, a hundred thousand boxes of toilet paper, crates full of canned whole chickens.
One of the warehouses, according to a sign outside the office where Petty Officer Doogle sits watching wrestling matches, is the headquarters of the Joint Drug Enforcement Agency / Coast Guard Task Force. It's a storage building for contraband taken from smugglers who were trying to bring it into the United States. Crates of cigarettes, alcohol, drugs, guns, produce, flowers, knockoff designer clothing and Cuban cigars.
A door at the end of the warehouse opens. Jack turner sticks his head out and looks around. He scans the pier and doesn't see anyone. He squints and searches the deck of the Allmayer from bow to stern not seeing anyone. He stares at the ship's quarterdeck where the gangway comes up from the pier. He knows there is a watch posted there twenty-four-seven while the ship is in port. He doesn't see any one. He pushes the door open further and walks briskly to his pickup truck in the parking lot. He has two bales of weed under each arm.
CHAPTER 5
A narrow wooden plank leads down from the back porch into tall grass behind the bungalow. Beyond the grass there's a swamp. A man's voice says, "Here, little fella." The man makes clicking noises with his tongue against the roof of his mouth. "You guys gotta see him. I'm training him." The man's voice takes on a little sing-song, "Heeeeeeere, little fellaaaaa."
A big raccoon comes out of the grass and waddles up the ramp and onto the porch.
Max and Jack are there with George. George is a 30-something long-haired, tough-looking stoner. He's crouched down, holding out a bit of food for the raccoon. As the raccoon approaches across the porch, George stands up and raises the bit of food so the raccoon has to stand up on its hind legs. As it grabs with its outstretched paws, the guys see the creature is gigantic.
Its mouth opens and it hisses.
Jack steps back at the sight of the coon's discolored pink gums and sharp teeth.
"Look at the size of that critter," Max says.
"Watch, he'll do a little trick," George says.
"You could get rabies if he bit you," Jack says.
"He'll never bite me, we're buddies," George says.
The raccoon stands on hind legs, hops up and down, clapping its front paws.
"Hey, look at that," Max says. "He's kinda cute."
George holds the food closer and the raccoon takes it; then scurries back down the ramp into the tall grass. "Alright," George says, "enough fun and games, let's do business."
"Let's get going."
They walk down along a path leading to the front of the bungalow toward Jack's pickup truck which is parked in the driveway.
* * *
Heavy traffic on a highway on the outskirts of Miami. It's bumper to bumper but the cars and trucks are going 70 miles an hour like a herd of metal beasts stampeding between the guardrails.
Jack is driving, he keeps his eyes on the road, and asks, "How do we know we can trust these people? I mean, they're drug dealers."
"Right now, Jack, you're the biggest drug dealer in Florida," George chuckles.
"The only drug dealer in Florida," Max adds.
"What I mean is," Jack gets all serious, "is how do we know these guys aren't gonna pull guns and rip us off?
George unzips his fanny pack and pulls out a pistol. "That's exactly why I'm packing."
"Put that away!" Jack swerves a little and a baby-blue Lexus zipping along beside them beeps its horn. The car's smoked-dark driver's side window drops five inches and a hairy-knuckled one-finger-wave pops out. Putting the pickup back between the lin
es, Jack says "Let's not get in a shootout with a bunch a drug dealers, okay."
"Don't worry," George says.
"I'm not so sure I want go through with this," Jack sounds scared.
"Don't worry, these guys aren't gonna start any trouble."
"Yeah, Jack, calm down," Max says. "We're practically giving this grass away."
"This is way out of my league," Jack admits. "I hope you guys know what we're getting into."
"These cats will be armed but not dangerous," George says. "If we don't get weird, they won't either. I've dealt with them before. They're almost friends of mine."
"I'm still nervous."
George points the pistol at the big green sign over the highway and says, "Get over, this is our exit."
"Put that thing away!" Jack says.
At the bottom of the exit ramp, they enter a light industrial area. Warehouses and cramped parking lots surrounded by barbed-wire-topped cyclone fences. George has Jack make a few turns, and the situation, in Jack's opinion is deteriorating rapidly. There's hookers strutting along the sidewalks and lowriders parked at the curbs. It reminds Jack of his old neighborhood back in LA. Boyle Heights was bad, but not this bad.
"Pull over here," George says.
"I got a bad feeling about this," Jack says, but pulls over anyway.
Two muscular guys in clean white wife-beater T-shirts approach. One Caucasian, the other Hispanic, in their late 20s but from the way they are dressed with their faces shadowed under the brims of their crisp Miami Heat ball caps it's hard to tell. They wear saggy dark blue jeans with thick black leather belts and plaid boxers up over their hips.
To Jack, they look like hip hop gangsters.
They approach the driver's side window.
Jack is having an alien encounter, especially after being around Coast Guard people in military uniforms and being at sea aboard a ship that is way cleaner and more organized than any normal person could possibly understand. The whole situation is strange to say the least.
"Hey, Georgie," the white guy says. "How ya doin?"
"I'm great. But I don't wanna waste time on small talk. We're holding, you know what I mean?"
No, I don't know what you mean, Georgie," White Guy says. "What do you mean?"
"Major fucking felony," George says.
"Show me some green and we'll get to work then," White Guy says.
"No," George says, sticking his head in front of Jack, closer to the windows. "That's not how it's going down."
White guy looks at his Cuban friend and smiles.
Cuban rolls a toothpick from one side of his mouth to the other.
"We show some green as soon as we get off this street. Ok?"
"What's a matter, you don't trust us?" Cuban asks.
"Just like it says on the money," George says slyly. "In God We Trust."
"You wanna see some green, George?" White guy says, reaching down the front of his pants and pulls out a thick stack of dirty looking twenties.
"What' that?" George asks. "Your lunch money?"
The hip hop stars laugh.
"Cheddar," Cuban says.
"Cheese for lunch!" White Guy says and they laugh again.
"That's green, but it ain't enough," George says.
Out of nowhere a police car siren squirts through the air and Jack turns his head to the passenger side and almost shits himself when he sees a Miami PD cruiser parked inches away. The cop has his window down and is signaling Max to lower his window.
Max cranks the window down.
Jack imagines white guy and Cuban running away down the sidewalk, disappearing into an alley while the cops pull him and George and Max from the truck. He can already feel the handcuffs on his wrists. Fear competes with disgrace as he imagines Captain Hall when he hears that Jack Turner has been arrested in Miami selling marijuana that he stole from the DEA / Coast Guard warehouse.
But none of that happens.
Max rolls down his window and the cop says, "How you guys doing?"
Jack sees the interior of his truck and himself and George and Max and even White Guy and Cuban all reflected in the cop's gigantic mirrored Ray Bans.
Jack opens his mouth to speak, but Cuban speaks first, says, "It's a fine day here on the street, officer."
"That it is," the cop says. "That it is." He smirks and gives a mock salute to Cuban. Slowly the cop car rolls away. His siren is off but the lights on top of his roof are still flashing.
"Look man," White Guy says, suddenly quite serious. "I'm not here to play around with you, George, so you better not be here to play around with me."
"Sorry if I hurt your feelings," George says. "That's a big wad of cash you got there, but it ain't a fifty thousand dollar wad of cash. Like I said on the phone, we got forty five pounds of killer green and we ain't selling for anything under fifty thousand dollars."
Cuban turns around and gives a signal to a kid standing by the alley. The kid jogs down the alley and a few seconds later he comes jogging back with a gym bag dangling from his hand.
The Cuban takes the bag and pulls open the zipper. White guy reaches in and pulls out two bricks of cash bundled in tight blue rubber bands.
Jack sees some hundreds, but can't tell what else is in the stacks.
"That's more like it," George says. "But we can't just hand you this merchandise here at the curb. Where can we do this deal?"
"Pull around in the alley. We'll be waiting with the garage open."
Jack puts the car in gear and drives to the corner. He turns left and then goes left again into a narrow alley crowded with dumpsters and trash bags piled against brick walls covered in graffiti and gang tags. A little ways down he sees the Cuban guy standing outside an open garage door. Jacks turns in and white guy closes the door behind them. Jack gulps, knowing this deal is beyond the point of no return. He's a felon now and it bothers him. What am I doing, a voice in his demands. His mouth is dry and his hands are shaking. It's like he's not even operating his own body as he climbs out of the truck. He imagines this is what it's like when you get in a serious car accident and you are burned or have a broken leg, you're in shock, but there's so much adrenaline in your veins you are walking around. He can barely feel anything.
George says something.
Jack says, "What?"
"Get the shit from the back of the truck," George says.
Jack opens the tailgate and pulls out his seabag. He expects the cops to come busting in as he unclasps the hook at the top of the green canvas bag. He takes out two of the large bags of marijuana.
White guy takes one of the bags. Cuban tears the corner open and sniffs.
Max and George stand nearby.
"This is the shit, homeboy," Cuban says.
"Yeah, it's decent," White Guy says unimpressed. "So, what are we talking about here?"
"We didn't come to negotiate," George says. "I told you on the phone, fifty thousand."
White Guy reaches in the gym bag.
George immediately reaches into his fanny pack on the front of his pants.
White guy hesitates, glaring at George. "What's up with that?" White Guy points his chin at George's hand.
"I'm just getting ready to make change if you need it," George says.
"White Guy's hand shifts around, pulls out a couple stacks of cash.
"Go on and give it to him," George says.
"So, you're the money man," Cuban says to Jack.
Jack ignores the question, pulls two more big bags of weed from his seabag. "Where do you want this?"
White Guy glances at the kid who ran down the alley earlier to get the gym bag full of money, and quickly the kid rummages in some junk off to one side and produces a black carry-on sized suitcase. "Put it in here," White Guy says as the kid lays the suitcase down and unzips it.
Jack turns the seabag over and dumps all the packages of weed right into the suitcase.
White Guy hands Jack several b
undles of bills and says, "With all of Florida in a major weed drought, where'd you connect with this kind of weight?"
Jack doesn't answer.
Cuban grabs Jack's seabag and points at the Coast Guard insignia sewn on the side.
White Guy is smirking ear to ear as he steps close to Jack and makes a show of studying his short trimmed hair.
"Coast ... Guard ... connection," White guy says.
Jack is stunned. He's thinking, How could I be so stupid?
They're all looking at Cuban who is holding the seabag, showing the big Coast Guard patch sewn on the side.
Cuban points at Jack's license plate and says, "Key West."
"Just be happy the drought is over." George says.
"Ain't it the truth, though?" White guy says to Cuban.
"What's that?" Cuban asks.
"Law enforcement guys always have the best dope."
CHAPTER 6
A muscular tire salesman with a tight cropped afro and clean pin-striped shirt wears a nametag over his left breast pocket that identifies him as Maurice.
Maurice is standing in the Tire Guy's Warehouse showroom in Key Largo. He touches the pen and tire pressure gauge he's placed in the pocket protector in his left breast pocket, and then slaps his hand on a display tire, an oversized 4x4 black rubber donut with aggressive-looking treads and raised white lettering that shouts DUNE DIGGER 4x4.
Jack, George and Max stand beside Maurice. They are all practically drooling at the smell of fresh black rubber tires and shiny custom rims on display in the air conditioned showroom.
"These treads are scientifically engineered," Maurice says, "to give you extra traction."
"Scientifically engineered," Max whispers.
George giggles, then whispers, "Science," with a weird sort of reverence in his voice.
Maurice had figured these guys were baked out of their minds because the odor of burned marijuana was hanging around them like a cloud when they entered the showroom. But Maurice can tell that Jack is the customer in this situation, so he focuses on him. "If you're climbing sand dunes or mucking around the swamps, this tread is going to give you the traction you need."