nothing.
what's our deal?
how lucky's miss universe gotta be?
have faith.
no shit?
approaches a bar and female bartender.
gin and tonic. plymouth or boodles.
lemon doesn't go in gin and tonics, darlin'. where ya' from?
you in miami workin' on your complexion?
doing?
really? i did refugee relocation in somalia. but they transferred me out after i was wounded.
the honey trap. and there's the honey.
twenty on my man.
yeah?
yeah.
on the phone.
who is this?
alonzo? what are you talking about? where are you?
i don't understand.
alonzo, what's goin' on?!
where are you?
alonzo!
alonzo.
something's wrong.
this is detective crockett. miami- dade p.d. patch me through to your special agent in charge, james fujima? it's an emergency.
i said, "emergency." if he's not reachable, who's running the weekend? the asac?
listen carefully.
hello?
detective crockett.
4-4-7 charlie 12-92.
a c.i. we cut loose to your joint interagency task force. name of alonzo stevens. now, he's your informant. stevens, called us. i haven't spoken to him for six months. i do not know what case you have him on. i do not know what he is talking about. but whatever he is doing for you, it sounds like it is going bad. right now.
how do i know? i got the call from alonzo on an open line. that is the hand we have been dealt at this moment, at eleven-forty-seven o'clock friday night. okay? i am trying to alert you, here. you know whether or not. you have a thing goin' down. i do not. but we know this guy. i think you know this guy. normally, he is cool. tonight he is distraught. that is atypical. that engenders foreboding. do you understand the meaning of the word "foreboding"? as in badness is happening to your deal right fucking now?
"buy and walk"? "buy and bust"? "reverse undercover"? what?
and the deal goes down at another place at another time.
so there's no industrial- strength hrt weapons team out there tonight?
omgs, mongols, nazi low-riders, prison gangs?
he is saying they had him from the gate. he is saying to my partner and i and to his family "goodbye." what does that tell you?
how'd they get onto you?
they been known to do that.
white gangs? it doesn't track.
how?
so what do you want?
recruit us to do what?
how do we do that? make a buy? that went well.
from whom?
never heard of him.
transpo? how they bringing the loads in?
it says, "we do not fear you." it says, "fuck off and die." it says, "we get down for recreation"
we could try to run loads into these guys. run a few loads for montoya into south florida. into this group.
he is fine. and we know the jokes. when it gets vengeful, things get messy. when they get messy the wrong people die.  everybody gets it.
three wakes off the back of those boats. who runs three sterling engines off a deep-v hull?
tosses two willie peters into the boats. tubbs fires the m-40 at a third boat, which explodes flame, followed by.
hey, sailor.  yeah, i'm good. got a hole in the calendar. looking to charge up the cash flow. yeah, later.
we're from nicholas to meet jos.
sonny burnett. this is my partner, rico.
dos caf.
what?
my mommy and daddy know me.
that way we do not waste avgas or our motherfucking time.
or dea? the feeb?
"no, viejo. that was jos yero, splattered all over his motherfucking wall."
and specialize in very fast go-fast boats for coastal runs.
the people on shore who handle a load we run are our people, not your people. no tweakers, dopers, first- timers we don't know. they didn't do time with us, they ain't doing crime with us.
money thing is done in advance in places where there are no guns. because when money and guns get together, there is violence.
i am not john wayne. there is no "s" on his chest. we get down if the play calls for it. but we are into business and making money.
then it don't work.
red light, green light, jos?
and?
nothing.
hi, gina. this is from frick and frack. trudy?
satellite. new encryption. supposedly sharper than the g.  how good's our background?
how will it stand up?
port-au-prince.
what do we got?
"traps" the room to reveal if it had been searched while they were gone. he aligns the suitcase perfectly parallel on the bench. a matchstick goes against the closed closet door. a ballpoint pen is leaned against the telephone.
loads a .45 "race" gun with rounded sights and a magna-ported barrel, cross-drawn, and a blunt .45 para-ordnance in the small of his back. they're ready.
who knows.
really? so, what is this, a party?
glad we came. this place is a lot of fun if you're doctors without borders. so?
i thought we had to meet the man.
when?
has seen something else. he indicates the pager on his waist.
eyes his pager; tubbs his cell phone: no signal in an urban area? blocking signal traffic is something the cia does over baghdad. it's not supposed to be happening in haiti on a dope deal.
gestures to tubbs to look up. they see.
in the town square, now, too. but isabella stayed inside montoya's suburban. now, she lowers her window.
holds that look.
sound deadens. his attention is on the woman in the mirror. until it's broken by tubbs' attention to his cell phone.
we set.
you worried about the tree line, us customs awacs, or something else on your mind?
gina in the miami pad. you gonna give me phony denials?
no.
transglobal airlines flight zero- zero-zero. is in the air.
neptune gonna show?
usually his thing is street dealers. torture their families until they cough up the stash. this?
here's another incognito genius.
"extras" tried to relieve us of your weight.  and by the by, you know of a player in overtown who goes by the name of "things aquatic"?
he tried to"do business". with you. around ten. his place. be there.
look familiar?
yeah.
how 'bout this? how'd neptune know where to hit us? huh? whose op sec's got a leak? yours?
he didn't. interrogation's not in our skill set. so c'mon, what suspicions have you master-minded off these associations?
okay.
nothing.
nothing. as in "free, gratis."
a fine. business. relationship.
there is one thing you can do for me in recognition of the death- defying risks we took to recover your product.
let me buy you a drink.
i'm a fiend for mojitas.
it goes very fast.
i know what i'm doing.
so where's the best place for mojitas?
where's that?
the keys?
havana? cubans don't like us or my business.
waves her over to join him behind the wheel. he holds out his left hand to steady her. he brings her to him. both lean against his high upholstered chair. he holds her to his side. indicates the wheel.
light touch. everything comes to you through the wheel.
stays on the throttle, throttling back when the props are out of the water so you don't redline the engine and forward when reentering. the swells are now four feet. they launch off each, get airborne, cut into the next.
you do business in cuba with your husband?
were you born in havana?
where's she now?
your father?
how's he not your husband?
can't help it. he looks right at her. she lifts her face to the spray. some clouds part and light strikes her.
his left arm around her shoulder, his right on the wheel. she rocks back against his body. they rip across the seas.
mojitas?
i dance.
hears voices from the interior.
no.
okay. macon, georgia is where i was born. wound up in a juvenile facility. i was 14. then the military. then prison. because i was dumb and angry. then i read. then i got smart. then i discovered what i know, now. it's all business.
died in childbirth, having me.
you know how improbable this is?
'cause we have no future. are of today and not tomorrow.
and therafore there is no consequence?
let's talk deliveries.
like "three thousand a ki?" that's nice. and i can supply the transportation into south florida and the gulf, more reliable and on-time than fedex. but, three per ki was ok for openers.
cost less. that's the point.
what do you mean?
better than that. we become partners. only in this territory and only on loads we run. and you don't pay us three thousand a ki. you pay us zero. why we get is thirty percent of the load. product or cash. "and why," you're thinking, "would i be crazy enough to out in these gringos like that? is he chipping? crazy for my love? too many mojitas?" and the answer is, "of course" but also "no. it is because sonny can deliver what no one else can."
zero risk.
'cause we guarantee every load. anywhere, for any reason, it comes up short, we make good. your operations will, from now on, run risk-free.
then i would say to you, this has been fun.
i need thirty. calculate in, also, the cash you don't have to front.
twenty-eight-point-five.
i would say you're.  . four percentage points away from a deal.
we'll do it at twenty-two.
rain and wind rip across his face. he left isabella in havana.
on my way back.
hit a couple of jazz clubs. fell back to her place.
verdado.
it's in the suburbs outside havana.
no. havana, louisiana. don't we have a meet?
no.
we're makin' moves on each other.
who's the "we"? there's you and there's us. and all we got from you was bad intel. "low-level producer." yeah, right.
montoya. we went to meet the village priest. it turns into alice in the fucking vatican and here's the pope. of the north valle colombia dope trade.
yeah. cia-level stuff.
mega-tonnage and mega-cash flow.
haiti and puerto rico. money through dubai and geneva maybe.
and we can illuminate part of it from the inside out.
keys to the boat. go do this motherfucker yourself.
hey, fuck him.
we're the ones doing the death- defying shit? and he wants us to give that up? for what? a chump-change bust so he can get his picture in the miami herald to impress the slug farm in dc.
i'm my own man. and anytime you want to see how much man i am?
as in?
you think i am in so deep i forgot?
do you believe. i have forgotten i am a cop?
no, i do not.
emerges from behind an suv. he came to meet her plane.
hola, chica.
now how we do it, blood. it risks signal interception and other bad things like people who don't need to know where we're at knowing.
packaging?
if you see a few new faces, don't get jumpy.
and the chopsticks and fortune cookies?
they're all the same. "financial security is around the corner." "your friends love you."
do you have assets somewhere else? bank accounts?
to fall back on. you know, a fail-safe. insurance.
everybody needs it. ask prudential. or allstate.
something like that. the odds catch up with you. the odds are like gravity. you can't negotiate with them. so. at some point, you should cash out, take your money and run.
sure. as far away and as fast as you can.
whenever. maybe later, maybe sooner.
of course.
zanzibar. the comoros islands. somewhere in the indian ocean. there's twelve-hundred islands there.
this is the talk of a man. if he were your husband. he would never put you at risk. he would never put you within a thousand miles of anything that could hurt you.
a few more moments, still in this business. then i'd find you.
in the morning.
go ahead.
switek?
what's your take?
call the us coast guard: "come and arrest our ass." and switek resumes romancing miss ukraine.
then you should.
yeah?
you got something to say, jos, let's hear it.
what friend?
proof of life. how do i know mrs. rico's alive?
yero doesn't know she's here!
yero, by himself?
dump the rest. let's get the boats up that river.
jos yero changed-up the drop plan on us. he's grabbed gina.
they'll have surveillance on us. we'll know only at the last moment.
it's a rip and a hit.
you can't.
supposedly it's coming.
just came in. she's still alive.
it's gonna be an l-shaped ambush. they're not gonna open up until they got the party favors, 'cause all they'd get is a lot of police scrambling to a gunfight. they will wait till they got the goods before they do the deed.
sees isabella, moves.
isabella!!
goes to isabella, pulls her into the shadows away from dockside, keeping her low, seemingly away from the police. ok, how will they get out of here?
touch the windshield with your hands. let 'em see your hands are empty. steady.
yeah. hey, robert.
yeah. going to miami general. check out gina. everybody's okay. everybody's fine.
isabella?
no.
no part of it wasn't real.
it still is. i'm so in this, i don't know which way is up.  all i know is i won't let anything bad happen to you. just like i said. and i know we can't ever see each other again. and we never will.
luck ran out. this was too good to last.