Continental Drift

Bob argues a little longer, but he knows the man is right. “All right. Hollywood, then. Be midnight by then, we can drop them by the A-One-A bridge at Bal Harbour. The water’s calm there once you get around the point. Christ only knows how they’ll get down to Miami from there, though.”

“Not our problem, Bob.”

“Go down and talk to them,” Bob says to Tyrone. “Tell them what’s happening, you know? Maybe one of ’em’s got family or something can come out with a car. Who knows? At least let ’em know where they’re going to get dropped off. Draw a map or something for ’em.

Tyrone shrugs his shoulders and turns away. “Don’t make no never mind to dem, mon. Long’s dem in America.”

“Yeah, sure, but do it anyway.” Bob brings the boat around to port, facing her into the waves, and moves the throttle forward. The boat dips and slides down and hits the gully, yaws into the sea and starts to climb again. Tyrone motions for Claude to follow, and the two of them start down from the bridge. When the boat reaches the crest and hangs there for a second before beginning the descent again, Bob looks off to his starboard side and sees the beach like a taut, thin white ribbon and believes that he can hear the waves crashing not a half mile distant. Beyond the beach he can see the lights of houses between the sea and the road to Palm Beach, where here and there cars move slowly north and south — ordinary people going about their night’s ordinary business.

Again, the boat rolls a second and starts the drop, pitches across the smooth trough, yaws between waves and rises, and this time, when it reaches the crest of the wave, Bob looks out over the dripping bow and sees the lights of another boat. It’s less than two hundred yards off the portside and headed north, and it’s a large boat, twice the size of the Belinda Blue—that’s all Bob can see of her, before the boat disappears from sight, and Bob realizes that they have pitched again and are descending. He yells for Tyrone, who’s under the tarpaulin talking to the Haitians, and frantically waves him up to the bridge. “Boat!” he shouts. “Boat!”

Tyrone scrambles up the ladder to the bridge, and when the Belinda Blue crests again, Bob points out the lights of the stranger.

“Coast guard,” Tyrone says. “Cut de lights.”

Bob obeys at once. “Oh, Jesus H. Christ!” he says. “The fucking coast guard.” He can hear the twin diesels that power her and can see that, yes, it is a cutter, ninety or a hundred feet long, with the high conning tower and the fifty- and sixty-caliber machine guns bristling at the stern and bow. “I don’t think they spotted us,” Bob says. But then he realizes that the cutter is turning slowly to port. “Oh, fuck, here they come!”

Tyrone reaches out and cuts the throttle back.

“What the fuck you doing?”

“Bring ’er around, gwan get dem Haitians off,” Tyrone says.

“What? What’re you saying?” Bob grabs Tyrone’s shoulder and flips the man around to face him.

“Dem can get to shore from here, mon!” Tyrone shouts into the wind. “It not far!”

“Not in this sea, for Christ’s sake! We can’t do that! We can’t!”

“Got to Bob!” The Jamaican turns away and starts to leave.

“Wait, goddammit! I’m the fucking captain, you’re not!”

Tyrone looks at Bob with cold disgust. “We cut dem fuckin’ Haitians loose, den maybe we get home tonight. Captain.”

“Otherwise?”

Tyrone does not answer.

Bob shouts, “They’ve got us anyhow, the coast guard! We’re caught anyhow!”

“No, dem got to stop to pick up de Haitians. Wid dem gone, de boat fast enough to get us out of here first maybe!”

“Or else we end up in jail, and they go back to Haiti! Right? Right, Tyrone?”

Again, Tyrone says nothing.

Bob says, “All right. Go ahead.” Tyrone leaps away and down the ladder.

Bob looks over the rail to the deck below, where the Jamaican frantically, roughly, yanks the Haitians out from under the tarpaulin. He’s shouting at them in Creole and Jamaican patois, making it very clear that they must jump into the water, and they must do it now. Every few seconds he points out to where they spotted the coast guard cutter, though Bob can no longer see her, for they’re down in the trough between waves again, and Tyrone pulls at their arms, shoving the Haitians toward the starboard rail, but they shake their heads no, and a few start to cry and wail, no, no, they will not go. They cling to one another and to the chocks and cleats and gunwales and look wild-eyed about them, at the towering sea, at Bob up on the bridge, at Tyrone jumping angrily about, at each other, and they weep and beg, No, no, please don’t make us leave the boat for the terrible sea.