Chapter 1–part 2
With Park no longer around, Jerry’s fears came true. Waymon Poole proudly told the press that the Grand Jury was working on the bombing incidents and would probably report in February. The police had found two latent fingerprints on one of the clocks and had a suspect.
Jerry was pretty sure that suspect was him. He needed to make a lot of money fast so he could either afford to run or to hire a good lawyer.
And this was why a few weeks later he was looking at the Atlantic from a boat tied to a dock in south Florida. He didn’t like boats, or perhaps it was the sea he didn’t like, but he was here and had already paid most of the money for the marijuana, so he was going to take the 26 foot boat to Jamaica if it killed him. His hands gripped tightly around the side of the boat as he stared out into the blackness of the ocean. When he had spent all those hours studying the maps of the Caribbean, he had convinced himself that going to Jamaica wouldn’t be that difficult. He knew how to read a compass and the boat was seaworthy, though small, so he tried to convince himself things would be okay. Now, he wasn’t so sure.
Next to him was a forty seven foot boat named The Magnificent. It had just docked and a twenty something woman in a bikini was stowing things. He was getting interested when a tall, muscled man appeared and wrapped his arms around her. He was wearing a Rolex and a gold chain around his neck. He spoke in a New York accent.
Jerry nodded at him. “Nice boat.”
The man responded with a grunt, but the woman smiled as though saying, later. The man caught the look. “You like my girlfriend, Slim?” he said. “You’d like a little action from her? How about if I break you in two and feed you to the fish.”
“We probably got off on the wrong foot,” Jerry said, regretting he had left the 9mm at the motel. “Tell you what, why don’t we forget this. It’s too nice a day for trouble.”
The man laughed. “That’s what I thought.”
Jerry stared at him a moment, making up his mind, then he glanced at his watch and began walking toward the nearby restaurant where he was supposed to meet one of the men going with him on the trip. He hurried because time had gotten away from him and he disliked being late.
They sat at one of the tables facing the water, on the side where the blonde waitress with the big tits was working. Jerry ordered a burger and beer, Larry Jones ordered a ham sandwich and a gin and tonic.
Every now and then Jones would say something clever to the waitress but she didn’t pay any attention to him. It reminded Jerry of when they were running the honkytonks looking for the easy score—maybe five or six years ago. Jones always tried pick up the waitresses.
Jerry said, “You still at it, even though you’re married. Or are you just looking and not buying?”
“You got to keep certain skills sharp,” Jones said. “Who knows what my old lady might decide to do next year? Hell, maybe next week. You know how women are. You telling me even though you got Bonnie waiting for you, you wouldn’t grab a piece of that if she wagged it in your face?”
“I was talking about you, not me.” He took a drink and looked over at her. He was about 180, six one, with brown hair and steely brown eyes. “I’m not here for kitty.”
Jones took a bite of the sandwich. “Maybe that’s the only damn reason we should be here,” he said. “That’s a big ocean and we got a small boat.”
“The ocean’s not any bigger than it was when we left Tennessee and unless something’s happened the boat’s the same size, too.”
“It looks different here,” Jones said, “especially now that there’s only three of us.”
“Three’s enough.” The fourth man had to leave because his wife was in a car accident, or at least that was his excuse. But he had bought the boat so Jerry cut him some slack. He stared at Jones. “You thinking of backing out?”
“Maybe I could go as far as the Bahamas and wait to help the refueling when you get back from Jamaica.”
“What good does that do? The hard part is from the Bahamas. If you weren’t going to go, you needed to make that decision in Tennessee, not when we’re standing at the edge of the water.” He could tell Jones didn’t like hearing that.
“You’re saying I don’t have a choice?”
“Everybody has a choice. When I got into that stupid gun battle at the grocery store, I had a choice. When I went to prison for shooting into the back of that car, I had a choice. But I suffered the consequences for them. I’m not saying they were wrong, just that there was a cost.”
“Now you got my confused. You saying I do have a choice or I don’t?”
“See, that’s your problem, Larry. You have to have it spelled out for you in black and white. You don’t understand the nuances of conversation.”
“What’s that mean?”
“It means that if you bail out on me I’ll never look at you the same way,” Jerry said.
“Well, why the hell didn’t you just say so in the first place?” Jones was wearing a T-shirt with a picture of a fisherman on it, bluejeans and tennis shoes. He was mid-thirties, about Jerry’s age, with red hair. “You telling me you’re not scared?”
It stopped Jerry for a moment. “I’m telling you I’m going to do what I said I was going to do,” he said. “I expect you to do the same.”
