Carl Hiassen - Basket Case

"Dusk is when they bite the best!" I say, which is what my mother always told me.

"There's thunder boomers out to the west. We sure as hell need the rain," Tucker says, "but you better keep an eye out. The lightning gets hairy, this time a year."

"Thanks, I'll be careful. How much?"

"Fifty bucks, plus the deposit." He snatches my credit card. "You need some shiners?"

I ask him to scoop me a dozen. "Did anybody else head out of here this afternoon? I was supposed to meet a couple of friends who were driving over from the west coast."

"Naw, you're it," says Tucker. "Maybe they put in at Moore Haven instead."

"Maybe so."

So far I haven't spotted anyone at the marina who is behaving like a lookout, but I'll take no chances. I stow Jimmy Stoma's hard drive, the compact discs and the Lady Colt in the waterproof tote before loading it with the rest of the gear on the johnboat. The engine is a Merc 25, which barks to life after a few yanks on the cord. With one hand on the tiller, I putter innocently from the docks, heading out toward the big water. If someone is watching, he will report to Cleo's bodyguard that I am en route to the rendezvous, and that I'm alone.

Juan is waiting at a pre-arranged location a half mile away, by a drainage culvert below the levee. He slips into the bow and conceals himself beneath the yellow tarp. Without a breeze the August heat is strangling; the lake steams like a vast tub of gumbo. It's not so bad after I goose the throttle and the boat planes off, creating its own breeze. Soon no other fishermen are in sight. Juan partially emerges from under the tarpaulin and intently begins working the keypad of the GPS, talking to satellites high in space. Flawlessly they divulge our latitude, longitude, ground speed and direction, as well as our lengthening distance from the marina. The only drawback of this astounding technology is that it enables virtually any knucklehead to blunder into the deepest wilderness, with little or no chance of getting lost. So much for natural selection.

Jerry's directions have put us on a course of almost due north, with deviations around flats and grass islets. Using the satellite readouts, I am to fix my speed at precisely twenty-two miles an hour. After passing Observation Island, I'm supposed to run for forty-five minutes, then shut the engine down and wait. Only one-eyed Jerry and the amazing GPS will know where we are.

Young Tucker was correct about the weather. A colossal thunderhead blooms over the lake's western shore, cooling the air but robbing us of a sunset. Later the wind kicks up and a fresh chop spanks rhythmically against the aluminum hull. Juan's gaze is locked apprehensively on the purple-rimmed clouds spilling our way. I'm trying to push Emma out of my mind, trying not to imagine her on a boat out here with Cleo's brutish bodyguard.

The first misting rush of rain is cold on the skin, and I envision Emma soaked and shivering and afraid. A spear of lightning flickers and I'm counting one thousand, two thousand and so on, until the thunder breaks. This, too, I learned from my mother. Four beats, four miles—that's the distance to the face of the storm.

My mother has a reckless lack of respect for weather. If the fish are biting, she refuses to budge. I recall one scary morning, hauling in lane snappers on a patch reef off Duck Key, when a squall rumbled across from the Gulf. The rain arrived in sheets and the waves started pitching the boat, and I begged my mother to let me free the anchor so we could make a run for shore. She told me to quit griping and start bailing. "Be quiet about it, too," she said. "Don't you spook my fish."

What a character. I think of her whenever I'm out on the water; those summer trips together. If she were here now, instead of golfing with Dave in Naples, she'd probably tell me to stop the boat so she could cast a bait into the lily pads. To hell with the storm, Jack.

And actually I'd be delighted to stop the damn boat if I wasn't worried that it would put us off schedule. Jerry is holding Emma somewhere out here, and he's waiting for me. But Sweet Holy Jesus, lightning is starting to crash around us and the air smells burnt, hissing between thunderclaps. Juan has withdrawn, turtle-style, beneath the plastic tarpaulin. Now and then a hand snakes out to signal for a slight adjustment of course. The raindrops feel like needles on my cheeks—it's impossible to see more than forty feet beyond the bow.

But I can't slow down. Every so often I swerve sharply to avoid a snake or a big gator. The lake is so low, the critters have moved out to the middle. That fucking Jerry, he's going to get an earful if I make it through this storm alive.

A bolt strikes so close to the boat that Juan lets out a yell. Instinctively I slide to my knees, hunkering between the bench seats while keeping a grip on the tiller. Now we're running blind, and it's only moments before we plow into something—either a log or an alligator. The boat jolts and the lower unit kicks out of the water, the propeller spitting duckweed and muck. I twist back on the throttle to kill the motor.

Rocking in the sudden silence, Juan peers doubtfully at me from beneath the tarp. Tiny rain bubbles sparkle in his eyelashes.

"Iceberg," I say.

"You gotta take it easy, Jack. I'm not kidding."

A ding in the skeg is the only visible damage to the engine, which re-starts on the first pull. There's about three inches of rainwater in the boat, so Juan dumps the shiners and employs the bait bucket as a bailer. Meanwhile I check the tote bag to make sure that Jimmy's music and Carla's gun are still dry. Then, working quickly, I attach the wires of the portable spotlight to the posts of the twelve-volt battery mounted in the stern.

Juan reports that the GPS still works splendidly and that the mishap has cost us only seven minutes, which can be made up with extra speed. Darkness is rolling in but the worst of the weather has passed. We take a northbound heading and set off again in a muggy drizzle. The time is five past eight. As the storm leaves the lake, clouds high to the east pulse with bright jagged veins of orange and blue. The bursts are so regular I can steer by the light. Thirty-one minutes later, Juan's hand shoots from under the tarp and makes a slashing motion.

We're there.

No sooner do I turn off the engine than the mosquitoes find us. They are famished and unbashful. "That's what we forgot—the damn bug juice," the lump in the tarpaulin mutters.

Five minutes pass. Then five more. I begin to sweep the spotlight back and forth through the blackness. Insects scatter and minnows skip away from the stabbing glare. I count six different pairs of gator eyes, glowing like hot rubies in the marsh grass.

"Where the hell are they?"

"Relax," says the voice under the tarp.

"I bet we got lost in that storm."

"The hell we did," says Juan.

"Then I bet they got lost."

So I switch off the spotlight and wait. It doesn't take long to become frantic about Emma. Jerry's had another brainstorm, I'm sure. He's not clever enough to let the meeting pass without trying something outlandish. This is a problem with many criminals; this is why we need jails.

In anticipation of trouble, Juan and I have talked through possible scenarios, devising a fitting response for each. Yet now, drifting in a darkness without horizons, all our slick ideas seem puny or improbable. There's no way to know what Jerry will do, but I doubt he intends to behave. Every time he stares in the mirror he's reminded of what I did, and it is impossible to believe he won't try to settle up.

"I hear something," Juan says.

"Me, too."

It sounds like a small plane, flying low to dodge the weather.

"Try the spotlight, Jack. Maybe they're looking for you."