Leaving Club Apex, I drove with exaggerated caution until we’d turned off of Alton road and merged into the early morning traffic streaming over the causeway towards Miami. None of us had anything illegal in our possession, but none of the people leaving the club at six in the morning looked as if they’d spent all night at a Christian prayer meeting. There were carloads of young people with tattoos, funky hair, and a somewhat outlandish sense of fashion all leaving the area at the same time. I just wanted to avoid a traffic stop, and any questions about what brought us out to the Beach so early in the day.
“Hey, anybody up for coffee and a Cuban breakfast at Elizondo’s?”, I asked as we exited South Dixie onto Bird Avenue. Hearing a chorus of “yeas”, I pulled up and parked on the street in front of an unassuming storefront. We all piled out of the car and ordered cortaditas, torrejas, con tocino y huevos at the window on the sidewalk. If there is a reason why Cubans talk so fast it would have to be cortaditas, Cuban coffee sold everywhere in Miami is Café Bustelo brewed as espresso and mixed with cream and lots of sugar. It is sold in Styrofoam cups, with several little tiny pill cups to accompany it, and drunk as “shots”. Only in Miami can you buy an espresso any time of day or night. Each cup has several hundred times the caffeine of a regular cup of coffee. Cubans drink this stuff all day long! I loved it and drank it daily, usually with torrejas, which is Cuban toast; sweet bread sliced lengthwise, toasted in a press, and slathered with butter. A typical breakfast in one of the many Cuban storefront eateries could be had for well under $5.00.
After breakfast, we headed back to the marina. Birgit and I said goodbye to Lorna and Suzy on the docks after promising to catch up with them later in the day. Once below in our double bunk back on board Vamp in the cool of the air conditioning, not even two cups apiece of Café Cubana was enough to keep us awake. We slept entwined in each other’s arms and dead to the world until well after the sun had set. I was alone in the bunk when I finally woke up hearing voices up in the cockpit. I threw on some clothes to find Birgit, Lorna, Suzy, and AJ sharing a pitcher of Mojitos and cashew nuts.
“Hi guys. What’s up? Good to see ya, AJ. Where’s Clark?”
AJ replied, “He’s off for a week doing his generator thing down south on Little Inagua. I thought I’d drop by and say hello. We were all just talking about calling out for pizza.” I replied, “Sounds great to me. Is sausage and pepperoni ok with everyone? I’ll call in the order.”
I went below to use the cell phone plugged into it’s charger on the chart table. Just as I was about to pick up the handset to dial the Greek pizza place on 27th for a delivery, the phone rang. I hit the talk button and said “Hello?”
“Jimmy, mi hermano, this is Felipe. I was wondering if perhaps we could meet for lunch tomorrow. Would the Versailles on Calle Ocho at 2:30 be convenient for you?”
A bit nonplussed, I hesitated for just a moment before saying, “Sure, I’ll see you there.” I hung up and sat down at the chart table wondering just how Felipe had managed to get our phone number. Cellular telephones were still an expensive novelty. Ours was an eight pound monster made by Motorola the size of a small briefcase. It drew stares from passersby on the street on the infrequent occasions when I toted it around by its shoulder strap. Most of the time it just sat plugged into the charger on the chart table. The only people who had our phone number were Birgit’s folks in Germany and my parents in New England. No directory of cell phone subscribers was published, so just how had the Cuban managed to obtain it?
The next morning at breakfast, I discovered that the four women had planned a trip to the Dadeland shopping mall. AJ had ended up spending the night in our forward cabin so she could join them. I filled Birgit in on my plans to meet with Felipe later in the day and puttered around the docks in the marina until early afternoon.
Little Havana, or La Pequeña Habana, is a neighborhood in Miami which was largely populated by Cuban immigrants beginning in the sixties. It is also commonly referred to as by locals as Calle Ocho, or Southwest Eighth street, encompassing the sprawling area of city blocks surrounding this thoroughfare. Eighth street is lined with cigar shops, Cuban restaurants, fruit stands, and sidewalk cafes with Cuban men sitting at outdoor tables playing dominos and chattering away in machine gun Spanish. You can enjoy visiting the neighborhood without knowing the language, but it sure does help. Each year in March, the street is transformed into a fairground for a weekend celebration featuring ethnic food and sound stages are erected at each intersection offering live music.
The Versailles restaurant on 8th. was originally conceived as a bastion of French cuisine, but quickly morphed into a celebration of all things Cuban in 1971. The menu is extensive and confusing if you don’t speak the language. The waitstaff will be no help at all unless you at least make an effort, but the food is usually excellent and very inexpensive. I always ordered the palomilla steak when we ate there.
I found a place to park on the street at two-fifteen and presented myself to the hostess. Glancing up at me, she said, “Por favor, de esta manera.” With a mental shrug I followed her through the busy restaurant to a small private dining room. Felipe was there waiting for me. He greeted me with, “Hello, my friend. I’ve ordered you a ceviche and the palomilla steak with fried plaintains. I hope that’s ok with you? How about a mojito to start?”
This fellow knew way too much about me. I was beginning to get a uncomfortable feeling about just what he knew, and how. Seeing the look on my face, he added, “Do not be alarmed, Jimmy. It is often necessary for me to know something about any of the people I deal with, that’s all. Let me tell you about myself and Diego. Perhaps it will ease your mind a little.”
“My brother and I were born in Cuba and joined Fidel in the mountains when were young men. After La Revolución, I became an officer in the new Customs service, and Diego ended up as a lieutenant in the Cuban navy. In April of 1961 following what you Americans refer to as the Bay of Pigs, and what Cubans call La Bahia de Cochinos at Playa Girón the two of us had become disillusioned with Fidel’s workers paradise. Our positions as trusted men allowed us to eventually stockpile confiscated drugs in a secret location and eventually slip them out of Cuba one stormy night under the radar. We stored it all in a warehouse on one of the remote Bahamian cays, paid off the local authorities, and continued on to Miami to seek asylum here. Our information about Fidel’s government won us status as U.S. citizens. We are now respected local businessmen who want nothing more than to wind up this business of smuggling illegal drugs without trouble. The Columbians entering this business now are animals with no regard for human life.”
After we finished our meal with flan con Kahlua, he continued, “Now you know more about us, let me get to the point. We are getting out of that part of our business, but we need one last delivery to be made. We possess a large quantity of cocaine. Demand for it is soaring in New York and New England. I have a friend with a seventy foot motor yacht sitting at the Miami Beach Marina. The coca will be hidden away on board. You don’t need to know where. When you get to New York City arrangements will have been made for dock space for two nights at the 79th Street Boat Basin. Simply go out to dinner on me for those two evenings, and leave the yacht secured with the alarm set. Depart on the third morning to deliver the vessel up the Hudson, the Erie Barge Canal and across Lake Ontario to Toronto. Your passports are both current and no one will ever suspect a million dollar yacht of carrying illegal drugs. The yacht’s owner will give you an Amex card for expenses and pay you and Birgit two hundred and fifty dollars a day on delivery in Canada, plus two first class tickets back to Miami. I personally will transfer one hundred thousand dollars to any bank you choose if you will do me this favor. However, I would like an answer today?”
Greed won out over caution, and I said yes. After passing me the name of the yacht, the owner’s slip number, together with his name and contact info, plus the code to disarm the alarm, we agreed that Birgit and I would depart within two weeks and would notify him at least 48 hours before arriving in New York.
I left Little Havana to drive back to the Grove well fed, and more than a little nervous about hearing Birgit’s reaction to this new development.
In retrospect I suppose that I should
not have been surprised at Birgit’s reaction when I told
her about the proposal Felipe had put to me that
afternoon. I’d told her all about it as soon as the girls
had returned from their shopping trip. AJ went home to get
ready for her shift in Perrine fending off rowdy patrons
at the strip club and collecting bills in her G-string.
Lorna and Suzy departed for work at the hospital. Birgit?
Birgit said, “Lets go check out this yacht.”
In the car driving over to Alton Road
and the marina, I said, “I’ve been thinking about this all
afternoon. I’m a little more comfortable with the two
brothers than I was this morning, but at the same time, if
we go through with this, I’m going to find out where
they’ve stashed the cocaine despite what Felipe has said.
I want to know exactly where they’ve hidden it. Between
you and I, it should not take too long to figure out
where, and if we’re transporting this stuff from Miami to
New York I want it concealed where it will be impossible
to find without tearing the boat apart.”
As we turned into the parking lot for
the marina, Birgit replied, “That makes a lot of sense to
me. What’s the name of this boat?”
“It’s a seventy foot Kong and Halvorsen
trawler called La Forza. It should be in one of the
outermost slips, and is probably close to being the
largest yacht in the marina.”
The Miami Beach Marina was in no way a
working boatyard. It was a place for Miami residents to
dock their yachts in sheltered waters, and the only
services they offered were dockside hookups for utilities
like electrical power, phone lines, and cable TV. There
was block ice available, and most local restaurants would
deliver meals right to your boat.
I was very familiar with the marina
layout. One of the many sidelines I had was scrubbing
barnacles and the other accumulated junk that quickly
fouls the bottoms of any boat kept in tropical waters,
even if the bottom has been painted with an anti-fouling
compound. Hauling a large yacht out of the water means a
trip up the river to one of the boatyards with a
TravelLift big enough to do the job, power washing the
hull, and applying a fresh coat of paint. It gets very
expensive! I had an old regulator for a scuba tank
rigged with a thirty foot hose ending in a mouthpiece.
With the reg hooked to a scuba tank sitting on the deck
of any boat, I could use the long air hose and a dive mask
to easily scrub clean the bottom of any boat without the
encumbrance of a scuba tank strapped to my back. All I
needed was a helper up on deck to move the tank whenever I
reached the limits of the 30’ hose. I could usually get a
forty foot boat’s bottom clean on one tank of air. My
average bill was under one hundred and fifty dollars, and
just a fraction of the cost of a trip to a boatyard. For
me, it was easy money!
We locked the car and walked down the
piers. La Forza was easy to spot. It was a gleaming white
behemoth in one of the deep water slips. From the look of
her, the owner was paying one of the yacht maintenance
firms to keep her looking pristine.
La Forza was a very large trawler type
vessel, seventy feet long with a twenty-eight foot beam.
She was high-sided, and her bridge was located a whopping
thirty feet above the waterline. From our perspective on
the dock, I was confident we’d discover that she’d have
all the modern conveniences in spades. What I really
needed to find out was how well the boat’s machinery was
maintained, and if it matched the care that had been
lavished on the exterior.
“Ok, sweeetie, Let’s go check her out.”,
I said, handing Birgit the keys and unlatching the gate
set into the railing. Directly opposite the gate was a
keypad recessed into the door leading to the main salon. I
entered the alarm code and Birgit unlocked the door.
Inside we found a typical living room, or salon, usually
found on larger yachts. It was almost thirty-five feet in
length and the full width of the vessel with big wrap
around windows on all four sides. The deck, or floor,
sported a thick maroon Berber carpet with butter soft
leather armchairs and couches grouped facing a flat screen
TV centered aft. The portside wall had dark mahogany
cupboards running the full length of the salon up to the
bottom of the windows, broken up only by the door. To
starboard was a wet bar aft, and more storage lockers
forward. There was a dual companionway facing the bow, one
leading up to the upper deck and the fly bridge, the other
down to the galley, crew’s quarters, and accommodations
for the owner and guests. Presumably I’d find access
somewhere down below to the engine room.
“Hey B. Go ahead and explore a little.
I’m going to check out the power plant and see what we’re
dealing with.”
“Ok, Jimmy, I’ll meet you up on the
bridge in a bit. If we’re spending several weeks on this
boat, I want to take a look at the galley and the
staterooms.”
I found the engine room door clearly
marked with a small brass plate on a corridor leading aft
that was lined with portraits of what had to be the
owner’s family. At first glance, the engine room was clean
and well maintained. Propulsion was supplied by two 450
Cummins diesels, and there was a high capacity Onan
generator to meet power requirements underway. However,
when I checked the lube oil in the engines and generator,
it was obvious that the maintenance schedule did not
include the mechanicals. I also found a couple of suspect
hoses and three tripped breakers. It was obvious that this
yacht was one of the many “pleasure palaces” that sat on
the Miami docks, and was used only for cocktail cruises up
and down the Intercoastal Waterway. We’d be cruising along
the coastline a few miles offshore, ducking into the
Intercoastal only when the weather forced us to. La Forza
was going to need some TLC before we could depart. Leaving
the engine room, I went all the way aft and found the
owner’s quarters. Typically, there was a king sized bed,
large closets, lots of electronic gadgets, and potted
plants unsecured in vases on tables. Trying to sleep there
underway offshore would be next to impossible, but the
layout did not surprise me at all. Most wealthy owners
prefer to have paid crews deliver their yachts so they can
avoid the discomforts of life at sea.
I found Birgit up on the bridge. She
greeted me with, “Hey, big fella. What did you find? The
galley looks fine, and there’s a big freezer full of food.
Up here, it seems like the people that own this must have
big bucks. All the nav gear is state of the art, but the
radar doesn’t seem to be working and the electronic charts
won’t boot up.”
“Let’s try them again. I reset a few
breakers below.” Turning on the radar got us a green light
on the display with a “please stand by” message and a
series of whirs and clicks announced that the processor
for the electronic chart system was spooling up. “That
seems to have fixed those problems. I’m going to have to
call Felipe and tell him we’re going to need a week or so,
and a way to pay for the repairs we’ll need to have done
before we can take this boat north.”
“Birgit offered, “If we’re going to be
here working to get the yacht safe to move, get him to
start the per diem for us as of tomorrow morning. There’s
no reason for us to work for free, right? What do you
think of moving in here tomorrow? We could ask AJ if she
wants to stay on board Vamp and keep an eye on things
until we fly back from Toronto.”
“Sweetheart, that’s just one of the
many reasons that I love you. Brilliant thinking!” I’d
spied a cell phone charging on the chart table earlier. It
was showing five bars, so I picked it up and dialed the
number Felipe had given me earlier. An elderly sounding
woman answered in heavily accented Spanish. I said,
“Felipe, por favor.” and listened to silence. I could
hear the woman shouting in the background and then Felipe
was on the line. “¿Quién?” I replied, “Good evening,
Felipe. Jimmy here. My wife and I are on board La Forza.
It’s a lovely yacht, but it’s going to need some work done
before we can take her anywhere. How do you want to do
this?”
“I must confess that that is not a
surprise to me. The yacht’s owner has not used it in over
six months. Business has kept him in Canada. Under the
paper charts in the nav station you should find an AMEX
card and a Visa card in the name of one of his businesses.
Use either one to accomplish what needs to be done. Both
cards have very high limits, and I’ll arrange that no one
will question your use of them. Just keep all the receipts
and turn them over when you arrive in Toronto.”
He ended the call without another word.
I turned to Birgit and said, “As log as we’re here, let’s
see if the engines start.” I turned the key, waited for
the glow plugs to do their thing, and hit the start
buttons of first the starboard, and then the port engine.
Both rumbled into life with nominal protests, but after a
minute or two we could see a sheen of oil spreading on the
water around the exhaust pipe for the starboard engine.
“Shit! I bet the former captain never told the owner that
the starboard engine needed a valve job when he was let
go. There’s nothing more we can do tonight. Let’s call it
a day and get started in the morning.”
