Dealer
By
Eric T. Stiller
On the third day, Bernie kicked over the last jug of water. In a frenzy to escape the sweltering heat, he clamored over the stern, delirium driving his desperation across an endless sea of slow, syrupy swells to a frosty mirage on the horizon. Augie and Ruck lunged to wrestle him back into the lifeboat as two gray dorsal fins sliced the surface inches below his chin.
“What? Are you nuts?” yelled Ruck.
“We’re gonna die out here,” moaned Bernie, tucking into a fetal position in the bilge water sloshing around the hull of the tiny dingy.
“If you wanna be fish food, have at it,” said Augie. “Just swim away from the boat, so the sharks don’t come lookin’ for more.”
“You said we’d be rich not dead!”
“If you guys had checked the sump, we’d be sippin’ Sunrises in Key West by now,” snapped Augie, pulling a grungy green Jets tee-shirt over his head, scant protection against a blazing tropical sun oozing into the horizon, as he curled his lanky frame into a shadow in the shallow curve of the bow.
“I checked it,” said Ruck. “No way to know we'd get hammered by that storm. We got swamped by twenty-foot waves and even two of them couldn’t keep up.”
“So, we lost the boat and a half a ton of primo weed,” whimpered Bernie. “Even if we survive, how will we pay everyone back? They’re gonna kill us.”
“We’ll do it again, only this time we’ll use boats we can trust,” said Augie. “Three days stranded is long enough to realize that we’ve gotta get organized. We’ll succeed because there’s too much demand and too much money. We just need to learn the rules of the game.”
The blast of a horn interrupted his ramblings as a Cuban gunboat approached out of a scalding sunset. A sailor, manning a machine gun mounted on the foredeck, eyed the three desperately sunburned young men in the tiny skiff with a smirk, “Gringos!”
An officer stepped out of the bridge and yelled, with the barest hint of sarcasm, “Hola! Are you in distress?”
The boys sat up, hands above their heads. Augie called out, “Our boat went down in that storm three days ago. We sure could use some food, water, and a lift to dry land.”
“You realize that you are violating the sovereign territory of the Republic of Cuba and you will be detained by the authorities as spies or illegal aliens, at the very least. If convicted, the minimum penalty is three years hard labor. The tension between our countries might make diplomatic arrangements difficult and expensive.”
Bernie yelled, “So, you’re suggesting we can float around out here without food or water until we die or surrender to you?”
“Si, Senor.”
Ruck quipped, “I’m votin’ for terra firma, myself.”
“Permission to board?” shouted Augie.
~
La Cabana, a heavily fortified 18th-century bastion perched on a rocky outcrop guarding the harbor entrance, served as a military prison during the Batista regime, a dungeon where prisoners disappeared without a trace. After the rebellion, Che Guevara administered ruthless trials and executions for the remnants of the defeated establishment with brutal efficiency, but most patrons of the government fled long before the revolutionaries stormed Havana. Currently, the crumbling garrison housed enemies of the state and criminal detainees, separated from the general criminal population in the city jail for political expediency.
A squad of guards in tattered uniforms removed the handcuffs and shoved the boys into a dank overcrowded cell in the bowels of the complex. Rats scurried and roaches flitted around a light bulb in the ceiling above a hole in the floor that served as a toilet, flushed by a stream of gray water dripping from a broken faucet.
Undeterred by the new arrivals, a small crowd huddled at the back of the cell for a boisterous game of dice, while most sat on the six cots lined up against the walls or leaned passively, staring at the Yankees. Two stout thugs started towards the new meat, grinning like starving mongrels stalking easy prey.
Bernie backed against the wall of rusted iron bars, “Fuck, this doesn’t look like a Tupperware party to me.”
Augie brushed Ruck out of harm’s way and, without warning, punched the first hulking boar squarely on the nose with a straight right, toppling the giant in a heap. He spun to batter the smaller goon with four quick shots. He scanned the pack of potential muggers, motionless with mouths agape, but no one made a sound or moved to tend to the two fools on the floor for a long moment…before the tiny cell erupted into chaos and they morphed into a raging mob, closing on the boys in slow motion.
Keys rattled at the door and a guard burst in, discharging a pistol into the ceiling. He surveyed the moaning bodies on the floor and motioned for the boys to exit the cell.
Thirty minutes later, they were admitted to the Commandant’s office, a sparsely furnished room with piles of paper stacked on every surface. The guard saluted and closed the door as the warden stood and pointed to a wooden bench with a riding crop, “Sit!”
The boys sat obediently, as each had so many times in the Monsignor’s office at Sebastian Academy.
The sweaty man, clothed in a rumpled uniform and worn boots, strode back and forth beneath a ceiling fan that barely moved the sultry blue haze of a stale cigar, thumping the crop against his boot. Finally, he stopped, tapping several times, and said in mildly accented English, “If these walls could speak, they would tell tales of torture and horrific deaths wrought at the hands of desperate despots, defending a fleeting moment of power. Today, we house enemies of the State and the most dangerous criminals in absolute security. You three arrive and cause chaos in the first five minutes of your incarceration, and you haven’t even been charged yet!”
“We didn’t start it,” said Ruck.
“Silence!” yelled the officer. “It would be easy enough to make you disappear, as if you’d never been found floating around in the Gulf, and I’m sure, your cellmates would relish a rematch.”
Augie stood, “These guys didn’t have anything to do with it. I took them out.”
“I might have suspected. Sit!” He returned to his desk, “I fought alongside Fidel and Che but now, I have become an administrator, merely a cog in the revolutionary machine. Even in this insignificant role, I realize that we must be seen in the foreign press as benevolent if we are to expand the fight for the freedom of our brothers and sisters throughout the region. Public sympathy is a powerful weapon.”
“What does that have to do with us?” asked Bernie.
“Arrangements have been made for the Red Cross to evacuate you to the Swiss Embassy, where you will await the court’s decision. I can not predict the outcome, but I would hope that the authorities see the practical benefits of your repatriation rather than internment where you would surely die.” He leaned on the edge of the desk with the slightest smile, “Besides, there is no honor in the senseless deaths of the three stupid young Americans. That is counter-revolutionary!”
“What you’re really saying is that you don’t want the responsibility if we happen to die on your watch,” smirked Ruck.
“You do have a point, young man.” He waved his hand around the stacks of paper, “I have more important things to worry about than filling endless forms with fiction.”
~
Bernie slumped into a chaise in a tepid breeze wafting through open French doors and turned to Augie, who was flipping through an aged National Geographic, “Not that I’m complaining, this sure beats the hell outta that rat-infested hellhole, but that General guy didn’t spring us out of the goodness of his heart.”
Augie held up a double-page spread of topless African natives and smiled, “Someday, we’re gonna have to go on safari!” He tossed the magazine on the table, “Think about it. They have nothing to gain by holding us. We’re a bureaucrat’s nightmare, and they sure don’t want the parents of damaged American youngsters spouting off to the press. Besides, they’ve got crucial things to worry about, like whether an armada of Yankees will appear on the horizon or how they’ll feed their people. As far as they’re concerned, we’re a bunch of spoiled kids who were lucky to survive our own ignorance.”
“Yeah, but there’s more to it than that,” added Ruck.
“I’m guessin’ the Red Cross got in touch with our parents and the old man is making sure that we’re well cared for with a generous donation…and you can bet he’s pissed.”
“Makes sense,” said Bernie. “He’s got connections in all the right places.”
Augie smirked, “Asshole owns the right people.”
“I’m thinkin’ we should have taken up boxing or judo or something, back in junior high, when you did.”
“I’m thinkin’ you’re right,” replied Augie.
“So, when are we getting out of here?” asked Ruck, who looked tropical with his dark hair slicked back, a white linen shirt opened two buttons down from the collar, loose beige pants, and sandals.
“Relax. The wheels are turning, and we’re just along for the ride. In the meantime, we’re safe and well fed until things get worked out.” He handed out long, fragrant cigars. “We might not have dope, but these are pretty sweet.”
The boys puffed, “Speaking of sweet, did you check out our ‘minder’? She can’t be any older than we are.”
“Yeah, and she’s built too, even under that baggy uniform,” laughed Bernie. “The first one to get her in the sack wins the title of ‘The Man’!”
Augie grinned, “You guys already lost.”
~
Diffused by a fog of blue smoke, the warm cast of a green glass desk lamp framed the orange glow of a cigar clamped in his father’s mouth. “You okay?”
Reluctantly, Augie stepped into the darkened study, “Yeah.”
“Sit.”
His butt barely touched the chair, when his father leaned his massive girth across the imposing desk, screaming, “Augustus Constantine, what the fuck did you think you were doing? You punks cost me a bundle and more than a few favors.”
“Trying to make a buck.”
“How does a screw-up, with a lifetime on the sea, get caught in a squall, sink a yacht in Cuban waters, and paddle around in a lifeboat without supplies for three days?”
“Profit potential. It’s simple math. We bought the boat for twenty grand and the pot load for twenty-five. We should have spent more on a better boat but the storm that got us was a killer, so I’m not sure it would’ve made any difference. If we’d completed the trip, we would have cleared two hundred grand, after expenses.”
Julius sat back, “That’s a lot of money.” He took a deep drag on his stogie, “Where’d you get the dough?”
“A bunch of people pitched in.”
“And they’ll be wanting repayment, at the very least, if not a piece of your ass.”
“I’ll find a way to pay everyone back with interest,” snapped Augie.
“Damned right, because no LaGuerre ever welched on a debt, and you won’t be the first!” He rocked back, puffing on the cigar, “You’ve putzed around the factory and you’ve had offers for some pretty good jobs, so why are you doing this?”
The son rested his elbows on the edge of the desk, “First, because every job I’ve ever had taught me how not to run a business. Everyone I worked for survived despite their own stupidity and a complete lack of imagination. Everything was done the way it had always been done, so there was no potential to make more than a salary, unless I figured out how to buy the company and fire the entire management staff. Second, this is a brand new market, and supply is spotty at best. No one has organized a system to import and distribute the product efficiently. The demand is phenomenal, and the profits are unbelievable.”
“What about these other drugs…the hallucinogens and junk?”
“I don’t mess with them; they’re bad karma. Grass is different. It’s a natural plant that grows from the earth and has been used as a sacrament worldwide for thousands of years. And I’m pretty sure that no one ever died from smoking a joint. The only people with a problem are the cops and the politicians, and even that was conjured up by the government to control the Mexicans and the Blacks back in the Thirties.”
Julius stared at his son, no longer a gangly kid, but rather, a tall handsome graduate who still bore that mischievous glint in his intense dark eyes. No doubt anxious to begin his own quest to conquer the world, yet too naïve to comprehend the toll that ambition drains from the soul. “So, you’re trying to imitate the old man, eh?”
“No, I’m trying to create my own capital to do what I want, instead of depending on you.”
“You want for nothing! Nothing!”
“True…but it’s yours and, like it or else, there are always strings attached. I want to earn my own.”
“My son, the drug dealer!”
“Hey, I know you’re involved in a lot of deals that can’t possibly qualify as kosher, so don’t give me that crap! I count fifty-eight different checkbooks in the office and those are only the ones that aren’t locked up.”
“I came up from the streets and I’ve busted my ass for forty years to provide for my family!”
“And so will I!” screamed Augie. “And by ‘family,’ are we talking Mom and the kids or Carlito and Uncle Vinnie and all the rest of the clan?”
The old man leaned forward, his eyes blazing, “I wanted a better life for my children, including you.”
“The old ways are changing. Look around, all these long-haired kids are smokin’ dope, and they’re perfectly willing to pay for it.”
“In the old days, a few of the smaller families handled the drugs, but it was considered a dirty business. It was not a trade to be respected.”
“But prostitution and gambling and jamming every union in the city was any different?”
Julius’ eyes glared through a swirl of blue smoke, “You’re a grown man and I can’t direct your life, in spite of my misgivings, but I’ll make two demands. Do not disgrace the family name and keep your little brother out of this,”
Augie stood, “I’ll be discreet.”
The old man rested his heels on the desk and leaned back, “Damned right! You and your little buddies owe me fifty grand for the ransom, and I expect to be paid.”
“Fine, I’ll have you paid off in ninety days.”
“If you don’t, I’ll take it out of your ass with interest!” laughed the old man, groaning, as he hauled himself out of the chair to lean on the desk. “The Lollipop is in Charlotte Amalie and needs to be service before winter sets in. Cappy’s got a dry dock for us in two weeks. You supply the crew.”
Incredulous, Augie just stared, “But…?”
“If you sink my boat, make sure you drown because I won’t be bailing your butt out of jail. I’ll be lookin’ to grind you into chum.”