Chapter 50 - MAKING A DEAL

The whaler with Liz and Caldwell aboard had just come alongside SUZY-Q when the squall struck. Sumner pulled Liz over the starboard rail, and they hugged and kissed and laughed with tears in their eyes, oblivious to the deluge pouring on them.

"But Jesse..." Liz began.

"..is OK," Sumner reassured her. "He and Mary are with Sidearm. We just got word on the CB."

Liz sobbed and cried, holding him tight, "O thank god."

Caldwell climbed aboard, secured the Whaler's bow line, and joined Sonny, Jumbo, Janet, and Chinetti under SUZY's forward deck shelter. Liz and Sumner noticed they were standing out in the rain, and hurried under the shelter, too, laughing.

Everyone was crowded together under the deckhouse top, with Chinetti jammed up against the control console on the port side. He was still pretty green, but his eyes were alert. Since they'd spotted the whaler, nobody'd paid him any mind, and Sumner had stuck the revolver into his belt as soon as he'd seen Liz. Sonny'd turned SUZY into the wind, and was jogging about in the mouth of the side door, letting her drift slowly toward the Hole. Now he looked over at the mobster.

"Looks like all you got to trade is one winkle-picker, Rizzo." Everyone fell silent, realizing it wasn't over yet. Chinetti remained silent.

"Here's what I think," Sonny went on. "I think you're gonna get the goods, but you still got no way to get it outa heyah." He paused, and Rizzo nodded slightly.

"Right," Sonny went on. "So mebbe we can still make a deal."

Liz stiffened in Sumner's arms. "He's still going to play with these mobsters," she thought. "God damn these men."

"Whatcha got to offah?" Chinetti asked coldly. They had to shout over the deluge.

"We do like we planned," Sonny replied. "We load the merchandise onto Sidearm's rig when it's clear, and he delivers to you, wherever."

"Whadda you get?" Rizzo asked.

Erratic winds were now batting SUZY around. She was relatively sheltered in the entrance to Bunker's Hole, but williwaws were downdrafting over the islands, and Sonny had to throttle up to hold her in the channel. The windscreen was solid water. His attention shifted between steering and looking at the mobster.

"A finder's fee. And transportation costs," Sonny proposed.

"How much?" Rizzo demanded.

Janet was watching the byplay with astonishment. Was this really a drug deal she was a party to? She glanced a Liz, whose eyes were narrowed with fury, and who was clenching her fists tight. Then she turned in Jumbo's arms to look him in the face. He winked. What was she to think? These fishermen were such damned outlaws. Jumbo's hand slid down her back, making her tingle. "Lord help me," she thought as blood rose to her face.

"Must be a couple million in the barrel, at least," Sonny observed. "Four hunnerd thousand don't sound unreasonable."

Chinetti was silent. "It doesn't belong to me," Rizzo finally shouted back.

"But you're the deliveryman," Sonny countered. "And you hadda be payin the sailors somethin," he glanced over at Caldwell.

"Assholes were payin an old debt," Chinetti said.

"50K to me," Caldwell reported.

Rizzo turned a cold eye on Caldwell. "That what they toleja?" Caldwell nodded.

"Like to see ya collect it," Rizzo snorted. Caldwell felt a chill of doubt. Had Walker and Cyr been playing him for a fool?

"So the price has gone up," Sonny said.

"Or we shoot alla yuh," Rizzo threatened.

"Naw," Sonny said. "Too many of us. And too many loose ends. Too many people know."

"Maybe they can't prove nothin," Rizzo responded. They all were silent for a moment. "75 thou," Chinetti bargained.

"Make it a hunnerd and a quatah. 25 a piece for the four of us and the same for Sidearm. And we all shuddup," Sonny counteroffered.

Chinetti's eyes traveled round, stopping to rest on Liz's. "Nobody talks?" he asked coldly, staring at her.

Sumner held Liz tighter, just noticing how rigid she'd become."They'd have killed me and my little boy for your goddamed dope," Liz said bitterly.

Sumner tried to hold her tighter, but she shook him off. "No," she said to Sumner. "Don't you try and hush me." She turned to face him, "You got us into this."

"Shouldn't you get paid for what happened?" Sonny interjected.

"Blood money," she spat at Sonny.

Sonny shrugged. "Or risk money," he said. "Same as when Sum goes offshore. Why should we let 'em have it fa nothin?"

"You bastards," Liz declared, pushing Sumner's arms away in disgust. "We're supposed to sit by and keep our mouths shut while you play macho games."

"This ain't a game, lady," Rizzo said with slow menace.

Sumner stepped closer to Liz, putting his arms back around her. "We won't say anything," he promised. Liz struggled angrily in his grip, then sagged, shaking her head. Whether in agreement or disgust he couldn't tell.

"Not if I paid ya, you couldn't," Chinetti agreed, concealing whatever thoughts he was harboring. "Hunnerd thou," he said to Sonny.

"That OK with everyone?" Sonny asked. Nobody responded. "OK, Mr. Chinetti, we got us a deal."

The rain was easing up considerably, but the wind was blowing harder, and the fog was starting to dissolve. Colder, dryer air was beginning to move in off the mainland. SUZY-Q was now well into the Hole, but there was still enough floating mist to obscure BALI's old anchorage.

"Let's put the women in the whaler with this yachtsman, just in case," Sonny proposed.

"So the men can go do the dirty work?" Liz asked sarcastically.

"So you don't get hurt, and so his gunmen can't shut us all up, like Chinetti heyah said," Sonny answered calmly. Liz just shook her head with her mouth clenched.

"Summy?" Sonny asked, looking at his crewman.

"Liz makes up her own mind," Sumner said, announcing a fact of life.

"You could come, too," Liz said quietly to Sumner.

"Mebbe a good idea," Sonny said, resolving Sumner's conundrum. "Gonna be rough out theyah for a spell, and Sum's used ta runnin a whaler cross the passage. Bettah you be ashowah, just in case."

"OK," Sumner said, pulling the revolver out of his belt and handing it to Jumbo.

"I'd like to stay aboard," Caldwell said suddenly.

Sonny was surprised. "They's nothin innit for ya," he observed.

"Except to see it through," Caldwell said, realizing his own motives as he spoke. He knew what a sorry performance he'd given up til now, and he really didn't want to be alone with Sumner and Liz, after the trouble he'd caused them. Maybe this wouldn't prove anything to anyone, but he had to start redeeming his self-respect somewhere. Maybe facing these gunmen was a place to begin.

"OK," Sonny said. "Whaddabout you, dahlin?' he asked Janet playfully. "You willin to let the menfolk be heroes?"

Janet was still at sixes and sevens. This thing with Jumbo had knocked out her underpinnings, then to be swept up in this drug deal... at the moment all she really wanted was to be with Jumbo, no matter how un-feminist, or foolhardy, that might be. Janet knew she'd have to face her modern demons soon enough, but...

"I'd like to stay with Jumbo," Janet said firmly.

"Well, well, well," Sonny remarked. "I'll be damned." Jumbo grinned.

Sumner untied the whaler's bowline, and pulled the smaller boat alongside. Liz climbed over the rail and into it, then held onto SUZY-Q as Sum joined her. The rain had almost stopped, and the tumult of thunder was fading in the distance. Bright sunlight glared on the water as the fog dissipated. Islands resolved around them. Sumner started the outboard, and they shoved off, aiming back out the side door.

"Listen-up on thirteen," Sonny shouted to Sumner.

"Yeh. Keep your heads up," Sumner replied. He ran up the revs until the whaler was planing, then pulled the self-bailing plug to drain the rainwater in the bilge.

SUZY throttled up behind them, headed the other way.