John Grisham - The Racketeer

The steward returns with all four passports and wants to chat. I explain that I have just bought a place in Antigua, and we’re going down for a party. He eventually asks what I do for a living (in other words, Where is this money coming from?), and I tell him I’m a filmmaker. When he’s gone we toast my favorite actor-Nathan Cooley. Soon we’re in the Atlantic and the coast fades away.

Our cabin is large by boat standards, which isn’t very big at all. With four pieces of luggage and two scuba duffels we have trouble moving about. The bed, though, works fine. Vanessa and I have a quickie, then sleep for two hours.

Three days later we ease into Jolly Harbour, on the west end of Antigua. Sailing is serious business on the island and the bay is crowded with moored boats of all sizes. We ease past them, barely inching along, leaving almost no wake as we take in the views of the mountains on all sides. The big yachts are docked together at one of the piers, and our captain slowly maneuvers the Rumrunner into a slip between two other fine ships, one about our size and the other much larger. In this fleeting moment of living like the rich, we find it impossible not to compare the lengths of the yachts. We stare at the larger one and think, Who owns it? What does he do? Where is he from? And so on. Our crew scurries around to secure the boat, and after the engines die the captain collects passports again and steps onto the pier. He walks about a hundred feet to a small Customs building, goes inside, and does the paperwork.

A week earlier, when I was killing time and waiting on Vanessa to arrive on Antigua, I sniffed around the dock at Jolly Harbour until a yacht arrived. I watched the captain go to the Customs building, just as ours is doing now. And, more important, I noted that no one from Customs inspected the boat.

The captain returns; everything is in order. We have arrived on Antigua with the gold and with no suspicions. I explain to the steward that we want to move the scuba gear to my villa because it will be easier to use from there. And while we’re at it, we’ll take the luggage as well. We’ll probably use the yacht to dive around the islands, and for a long dinner or two, but for the first day or so we’ll stay at my place. The steward is fine with this, whatever we wish, and calls for taxis. While they are en route, we help the deckhands unload our bags and duffels onto the dock. It’s quite a pile, and no one would suspect we’re hiding $8 million in gold in luggage and scuba gear.

It takes three taxis to haul everything, and as we load up we wave good-bye to the steward and the captain. Twenty minutes later we arrive at the villa in Sugar Cove. When everything is inside, we exchange high fives and jump in the ocean.