The Bahamian police soon clued in to the fact that we were running rum through the island, and they wanted a cut. Gladly. By the caseload. We gave them all they and their families could drink. We wanted to keep them as happy with us as possible, and they were. They never bothered us. Didn’t check our boats. Didn’t wake me up in the middle of the night. In fact, they ran interference for us when the larger U.S. agencies came knocking.

Given my special set of skills, Colin leaned on me more and more. On the surface, Colin and I ran a successful business. Beneath the surface, we sold and delivered a lot of cocaine to very wealthy people, who paid us a lot of money to keep their identities and habits hidden. Which we did. Business grew. When I hadn’t seen Hack in a week, he came knocking and found me asleep. I’d been out all night and returned only about an hour before he shook me.

He held a cup of coffee next to my nose and said, “Come on. Your porch is calling you.”

I sat and he jumped right in. “I was once crazy like you.” An exhale and a smile. “I ran rum before it was legal. I told you once I’d never been off this island.” He shook his head. “That’s a lie. I been over a good part of this hemisphere and bought and sold more rum than most companies.” He lit a second cigarette with the dying embers of the first. “I don’t fault you for what you’re doing. If people want to blow that white stuff into their lungs, so be it, but let me offer you one bit of advice.” He turned to me. “I have love one woman in this world.” Hack often dropped the “d” on his past-tense verbs. “Love her with all of me. One night pirates wanted our boat. A lot of rum. I tell them they no can have it.” He sucked through his teeth. “So because they could not take my boat, they took her. Shot her.” He pointed at his stomach. “Painful. I buried her at sea.” A long pause. “It’s been over forty years and the hurt hasn’t gotten any better.” A nod. “So, you do what you want. You’ve a right to that, but just know that the business you’re in does not have a happy ending. No one…” He waved a finger in the air. “And I mean no one, no matter how smart, ever stays in and escapes what they got coming.”

I nodded. I knew I was pressing my luck. But while getting in was one thing, getting out was another.

At the age of thirty-five, I checked my offshore balance and found I was sitting on an excess of $2 million. And while it wasn’t “about the money,” it sure beat working for Marshall. Later that week, I woke early and en route to the bathroom tripped over a bag holding several hundred thousand in cash. That had me a bit stumped. Where could I put that much money where no one would ever think to look for it? Not knowing, I asked Hack and he showed me with a smile. “Same place I hid mine when I was your age.”

Colin and I ran a tight operation. We didn’t run volume. We ran quality. And using some well-placed and well-paid law enforcement contacts, we ran it only to folks Colin vetted. We charged a premium, but what we offered in return was a product seldom equaled with the added bonus of complete anonymity and the promise that the buyer—who was usually extremely wealthy—didn’t get noticed on some ransom checklist or written up in the paper after he was busted by some high-tech narcotics unit. Our job was made all the easier in that most of our clients were public figures. We knew who they were because we either saw them on TV, bought their albums, read about them in the paper, or listened to them make public speeches. This made us very profitable, successful, and busy.

One of the perks of running drugs from Miami to Central America was how much time it afforded me in Costa Rica, Honduras, Guatemala, and Nicaragua. I’d take one of my boats south out of Bimini, set a course around Cuba for a destination given me by Colin, dock the boat, and either make the drop at the dock or, if the customer preferred, travel inland. I traveled light, alone, and saw some beautiful country.

Another year passed. Then another. And another.

To justify my life, I began having conversations with myself. Long, drawn-out arguments where, eventually, one side told the other side to “shut up.” I didn’t realize it, but my inner turmoil was ramping up and whatever peace I’d found on Bimini was leaking out. I figured people could string themselves out all they wanted and it had little to do with me. If you drive a car that burns gas, don’t blame the petrol company for the pollution you make. I’m not saying this was right, I’m just saying it’s how I thought.

There were three bright places in my heart. Hack, Maria—who was budding into puberty and a beauty that surpassed that of even her mother—and Zaul, who continued to push the envelope. Where Maria was her parents’ joy, Zaul kept them up nights. First, he’d started with one earring, which his mother thought was cute. He followed it with another and then a third. Body piercings appeared soon thereafter. Soon he delved into tattoos. And like earrings, one was followed by two and three and so on. At last count, he had eight and was making plans for two more.

Zaul routinely reeked of marijuana and alcohol, and for every one night he spent at home, he spent four or five elsewhere. He skipped the last quarter of his sophomore year in high school, resigning himself to spending his days practicing his rhymes and lifting weights. He spent his nights hopping from underground rap scene to strip bar. I know because I followed him. Given Spanish genetics, a five o’clock shadow at 9:00 a.m., and what I guessed were healthy amounts of growth hormone, he looked twenty-five. He denied it when I asked, but the sight of his biceps suggested he was shooting steroids. I told him it would wreak havoc on his kidneys, and while it might swell his arms and make his shirts tight, it would shrink him in other areas. He laughed and said, “Wives’ tale.” I knew better. He was huge.

One morning, I searched his car while he was passed out in his room. Given the new tattoo of a Glock pistol on his chest, I was looking for anything resembling a firearm beneath his seat. I didn’t find one, but I did find a spent shell casing for a .40 caliber. I tucked it in my pocket and made an honest attempt to spend more time with Zaul. While his exterior had become angry and prone to showy bouts of violence, I knew better. Zaul was a tenderhearted kid trying real hard to show everyone, starting with his dad, that he was cool and worthy of their admiration and respect. He had grown up in a world where everybody around him was “somebody” and yet he—in his mind—was a “nobody.” Little more than Colin’s son. With zits and an occasional stutter. Problem was, Zaul—the kid who once asked me to teach him how to finish a Rubik’s Cube, bait a hook, and steer a boat—was getting his affirmation in all the wrong places and from people who were just as lost and insecure as he.

Colin and Marguerite had a problem, and it wasn’t just the cocaine or cash buried in their underground bunker. Zaul had everything. And he had nothing. He presented to the world that his life was bubbling over. In truth, he was desert dry. North Africa wrapped in skin.

Zaul was the most popular guy in school. Wild parties, famous movie stars, singers, rappers, fashion designers. His dad’s driveway was always filled with guests’ Lamborghinis or Ferraris or the latest Porsches. Zaul’s house was every kid’s dream. Problem was that all that glitter and gold was merely a mask for the shells that owned it.

I was the exception and the only person in his life who saw beyond his facade and loved him anyway. While his parents were ready to ship him off, I saw a kid who was a lot like me and on whom I’d had great influence.

I never talked about my “work” with Zaul, but he wasn’t stupid. While the rap lifestyle faded, the angry, tattooed surfer, who drove expensive cars and wielded power because of the money he had, grew more and more attracted to the life I led. He saw the boats I drove, the fact that I seldom wore anything more dressed up than flip-flops, that I always carried cash and that I went where I pleased. That I punched no time clock. That while I worked with and for his dad, I answered to no one, and if I had an office, it existed on the water.