The burst was so close to his chest that the bullets whocked like three slaps. Albert slid down on his knees, his eyes wide, his mouth open. He looked like he was still trying to say, “Don’t!”
“You don’t need no mate,” the big Cuban said. “You one-armed son-of-a-bitch.” Then in Spanish, “Cut those lines with that fish knife.” And in English, “Come on. Let’s go.”
Then in Spanish, “Put a gun against his back!” and in English, “Come on. Let’s go. I’ll blow your head off.”
“We’ll go,” said Harry.
One of the Indian-looking Cubans was holding a pistol against the side his bad arm was on. The muzzle almost touched the hook.
As he swung her out, spinning the wheel with his good arm, he looked astern to watch the clearance past the piling, and saw Albert on his knees in the stern, his head slipped sidewise now, in a pool of it. On the dock was the Ford taxi, and the fat driver in his underdrawers, his trousers around his ankles, his hands above his head, his mouth open as wide as Albert’s. There was still no one coming down the street.
The pilings of the dock went past as she came out of the basin and then he was in the channel passing the lighthouse dock.
“Come on. Hook her up,” the big Cuban said. “Make some time.”
“Take that gun away,” Harry said. He was thinking, I could run her on Crawfish bar, but sure as hell that Cuban would plug me.
“Make her go,” said the big Cuban. Then, in Spanish, “Lie down flat, everybody. Keep the captain covered.” He lay down himself in the stern, pulling Albert flat down into the cockpit. The other three all lay flat in the cockpit now. Harry sat on the steering seat. He was looking ahead steering out the channel, past the opening into the sub-base now, with the notice board to yachts and the green blinker, cut away from the jetty, past the fort now, past the red blinker; he looked back. The big Cuban had a green box of shells out of his pocket and was filling clips. The gun lay by his side and he was filling clips without looking at them, filling by feel, looking back over the stern. The others were all looking astern except the one that was watching him. This one, one of the two Indian-looking ones, motioned with his pistol for him to look ahead. No boat had started after them yet. The engines were running smoothly and they were going with the tide. He noticed the heavy slant seawards of the buoy he passed, with the current swirling at its base.
There are two speedboats that could catch us, Harry was thinking. One, Ray’s, is running the mail from Matecumbe. Where is the other? I saw her a couple of days ago on Ed. Taylor’s ways, he checked. That was the one I thought of having Bee-lips hire. There’s two more, he remembered now. One the State Road Department has up along the keys. The other’s laid up in the Garrison Bight. How far are we now? He looked back to where the fort was well astern, the red-brick building of the old post office starting to show up above the Navy yard buildings and the yellow hotel building now dominating the short skyline of the town. There was the cove at the Fort, and the lighthouse showed above the houses that strung out toward the big winter hotel. Four miles anyway, he thought. There they come, he thought. Two white fishing boats were rounding the breakwater and heading out toward him. They can’t do ten, he thought. It’s pitiful.
The Cubans were chattering in Spanish.
“How fast you going, Cappie?” the big one said, looking back from the stern.
“About twelve,” Harry said. “What can those boats do?”
“Maybe ten.”
They were all watching them now, even the one who was supposed to keep him, Harry, covered. But what can I do? He thought. Nothing to do yet.
The two white boats got no larger.
“Look at that, Roberto,” said the nice-speaking one.
“Where?”
“Look!”
A long way back, so far you could hardly see it, a little spout rose in the water.
“They’re shooting at us,” the pleasant-speaking one said. “It’s silly.”
“For Christ’s sake,” the big-faced one said. “At three miles.”
“Four,” thought Harry. “All of four.”
Harry could see the tiny spouts rise on the calm surface but he could not hear the shots.
“Those Conchs are pitiful,” he thought. “They’re worse. They’re comical.”
“What government boat is there, Cappie?” asked the big-faced one looking away from the stern.
“Coast guard.”
“What can she make?”
“Maybe twelve.”
“Then we’re O.K. now.”
Harry did not answer.
“Aren’t we O.K. then?”
Harry said nothing. He was keeping the rising, widening spire of Sand Key on his left and the stake on little Sand Key shoals showed almost abeam to starboard. In ten more minutes they would be past the reef.
“What’s the matter with you? Can’t you talk?”
“What did you ask me?”
“Is there anything can catch us now?”
“Coast guard plane,” said Harry.
“We cut the telephone wire before we came in town,” the pleasant-speaking one said.
“You didn’t cut the wireless, did you?” Harry asked.
“You think the plane can get here?”
“You got a chance of her until dark,” Harry said.