Cooper translated: the ABCs were Aruba, Bonaire, and Curaçao, down at the base of the Antilles chain.

“You start in Caracas?” Cooper said.

“Yeah. Near to it, anyway. La Guaira.”

“That where you picked up the load too?”

Keeler studied him again before answering.

“Yeah,” he said. “That’s where I caught it. I don’t mind telling you guys. Told ‘Cap’n’ what’s-his-name too-Rudy, or whatever-in the spirit of cooperation. Because I want to get out of here, ya know? But I’ve been meaning to ask: is anybody going to give me a phone call around here? I need to call my attorney, all right? Nobody has given me my call.”

Cooper shook his head, trying to avoid smiling as he spoke.

“That’s in the good ol’ U.S. of A. where you get your call. They don’t give ’em out ’round here. Pay phones are for shit anyway-you’re trying to call a lawyer in the U.S., you can forget it. Never make it through. But,” he said, “in the spirit of cooperation, I’ll see what I can do.”

Keeler doffed one of his involuntary nods and said, “Whatever. Look, I take some money on the side. Ship a few things people need shipped on my transport runs. People know I do it, so word gets around, you know? So I’ll get a call, maybe a visit-like this time, guy coming down the dock in the marina before I leave. You know? So anyway, if I can, I take a few boxes along for the ride. Make a few extra bucks for my trouble. I’m strict on my rules: no drugs, no firearms. I know my way around with the Coast Guard task force teams, you know, how to steer clear. They don’t give a shit about anything but drugs and guns.”

“Usually,” Cooper said. “Usually you know how to steer clear.”

“Fuck me. I knew it was a mistake the minute I did it. This time, the guy on the dock I told you about was offering thirty grand up front plus twenty more on delivery. Eight crates, he says. Eight crates and two guys who come along with the crates.”

“Fifty grand? Sounds like a little more than the going rate.”

“It is. All the more reason to pass on a bullshit deal I never should have taken. Truth is, I figured the two guys who came along for the ride were part of the cargo. Maybe even the whole thing. I was wrong.”

“What do you mean?”

“Guy shows me the letter they had from the State Department, looked legit, which he said would satisfy any customs officer, allow these guys safe passage. Said they’d pass any inspection. I figured at the time that the extra money was for the stowaways, you know? That the shipper, he was making something up about what he was shipping, the part that these guys had to come along with, when the deal was, they had something up their sleeve with these two guys and they needed to bring ’em into the U.S. aboard my ride.”

“Like they were terrorists maybe, then.”

“Well, yeah, but-” Keeler stopped and kind of froze, looking as though this was the first time he’d actually considered the scenario: Po Keeler the stooge, Cooper thought, delivering al-Qaeda operatives into the belly of the beast for a few grand cash money. “No, look,” Keeler said, “that wasn’t what it was. What it was wasn’t much better, though, was it? Not for me. Fuck me-how did I know these assholes had guns in their suitcases? These punks were like those mariachis in that fucking Antonio Banderas movie.”

“Must have missed that one,” Cooper said.

Keeler shrugged.

“Quit bullshitting me, Keeler. Where’d you get the crap in the crates?”

Keeler made a noise that sounded like a cross between a laugh and a cough. Cooper supposed he intended it as a grunt.

“All that gold and shit?” he said. “Man, I told you already. And I didn’t know anything about what was in the crates until that buddy of yours showed me the pictures he’d taken.”

“Buddy?”

“Whatever. Look, I don’t ask any questions. Except two. Like an airline ticket agent, you know? Same two questions all the time. Only mine are, ‘Any drugs?’ ‘Any guns?’ Otherwise, I go as low as half up front, rest on delivery, cash only, negotiable rates. Got a friend in Mustique with a dog comes and sniffs out any drugs-guns too. That dog smells anything, I dump the load in the deep blue sea. Otherwise I stay out of it.”

“Who was supposed to make the pickup in Naples?”

“Deal was, somebody will come down to the boat. Whoever it is shows up, he gives me the twenty grand, he gets the crates. Pretty standard deal. No names, no numbers.”

“So anybody who shows up at your destination with the right amount of cash can take possession of the goods?”

Keeler shrugged. “Their rules, their problem. Not mine. Anyway, I don’t want to know any more than that. Know what I mean?”

“Who made the deal with you in Venezuela? The guy who came down the dock.”

Keeler didn’t say anything for a second or two. Instead, he looked Cooper in the eye. Maybe, Cooper thought, Keeler was acknowledging that Cooper had found his way to the one piece of information he actually had to offer. Keeler was obviously a schemer-kind of guy who could always work his way out of a scrape-and Cooper had the feeling Keeler was sizing him up. Calculating how Cooper might be of use in getting him out of this bind, now that Keeler was about to give up the only worthwhile piece of information he had to give.

“The guy in Venezuela is somebody I’ve talked to a couple times,” Keeler said. “He made a few of my deals. Makes ’em for another guy-his boss. Bastard isn’t making any more of my deals, though. Motherfucker. But let me ask you something.”

Cooper waited.

“That card you flashed me. Your wallet. Said you were FBI.”

“Yup,” Cooper said.

“But you aren’t. FBI, I mean.”

“Nope.”

Cooper watched the schemer at work.

“You aren’t part of the local constabulary-that part’s easy. Still,” Keeler said, “he is a buddy of yours. Isn’t he? The police chief, or minister or whatever. Cap’n Rudy.”

“Everybody pretty much knows everybody else ’round here, Po,” Cooper said. “And it’s Roy.”

“Okay-buddy, acquaintance, whatever, I don’t give a fuck. Here’s where I do give a fuck: you have any idea whether that bastard’s planning on turning me over? Extraditing me. Giving me up to the Coast Guard, or whoever.”

Cooper said, “If you’re asking whether I’ve got some inside scoop on the chief minister’s intentions, the answer is no. If he has any intentions at all.”

“It’s better for me if he doesn’t,” Keeler said. “See, here’s how it works. Local country holds me, right? Then down the road, sets me free. Far as the Coast Guard, the rest of the U.S. law enforcement organizations are concerned, I never even hit the radar. Nobody files shit, so they forget about me, and I’m all set.” He nodded. “Your buddy extradites me, though, and I get brought up on charges. Maybe some bullshit terrorist charge, way you mentioned it could seem like. Besides anything else, you know what that means for me? Means nobody’s insurance pays out. Not mine; not the guy owns the boat. Not a red cent. Means I’m out of business.”

Cooper watched him.

“So anyhow,” Keeler said, “I’m thinking I might have a friend or two, might be able to help your buddy out. Maybe even the guy owns the Trinity. Give your buddy a few things he’s looking to get. Maybe slip a few zeroes into his numbered account in, what, the Caymans, maybe?”

“You met him,” Cooper said, “right?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“He strike you as the kind of guy be opposed to a proposition like that?”

“No.”

“There you go.”

Keeler looked at him, Cooper thinking the man was probably trying to decide precisely what he had meant by There you go.

“On the other hand,” Cooper said, “the good chief minister tends to listen when I offer advice. And if I don’t hear in the next thirty seconds or so who it was came down that dock in La Guaira, my next stop will be the civic center, where I’ll drop by Roy’s office and recommend he extradite you ASAP.”