Key West Connection (11 page)

“Yeah, okay. Thanks. And I want you to believe me—I'll never tell a soul. I swear to God. And that's a vow I never break.”

“I would have killed you if I didn't think I could trust you. Run me halfway back to Middle Sambo and drop me off, Pop. Then hide that money—not in your house.”

He looked back at the burning hulk of the shrimp boat. It was beginning to sink, hissing in its own golden reflection.

“
Darlin' Denise
—named her after my late wife. You don't have to worry, mister. That was all the home I had. By tomorrow afternoon, I'll be gone from these Keys. I was sick of 'em anyway.”

The next afternoon, a bright Saturday in August, Rigaberto Herrera stopped at the docks to see me. He was in uniform—which, for him, is a three-piece suit. I sat in one of the
Sniper
's big fighting chairs, a cold beer in my hand, working on one of the gold Penn International reels.

“Mind if I have a little talk with you, Dusky?”

“Not at all, Rigaberto. Come aboard.”

He stepped across onto the stern, swung his leg over the railing, onto the deck. He took a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the sweat from his face.

“Beer?”

He shook his head. “I'm on duty, Dusky. This is a business visit.”

“Fine. Have a seat.”

He sat in the plush fighting chair beside me. I told myself to be calm. I told myself how I should act, what I should say. I didn't want to be caught. I didn't want to be arrested. Not now. I needed time. A lot more time.

“Any leads on those bastards?”

Rigaberto wiped his face again. “Let's cut the act, Dusky. I've been working twenty-two hours a day since it happened, and I'm in no mood. I knew who they were; I had them spotted. Three of them. They left in a big powerboat after setting the bomb. They met a shrimp boat offshore. The
Darlin' Denise
.”

“Then why aren't you out there arresting them?”

He eyed me evenly. “Don't play me for a fool, Dusky. Remember who you're talking to. I thought we were friends.”

“This afternoon, apparently, you're Detective Herrera, and I'm Dusky MacMorgan, private citizen.”

“Why did you do it, Dusky? I had them! Goddammit, I had them in the palm of my hand!”

“Like you had Ellsworth?”

Rigaberto slapped the arm of the fighting chair, furious. He took a deep breath, sighed. “Is that an admission of guilt?”

“I don't know what in the hell you're talking about.”

He wiped his face again. He looked beat: flesh sagging beneath dark eyes; clothes that smelled sour. He had been working hard. I didn't doubt that. All day and all night long, probably. Refusing to entrust the case to anyone else, for fear of having it screwed up.

“Why don't you have something cold to drink? I'll get you some water.”

He shook his head wearily. “Hell, make it a beer. I've got comp time coming. I think I'll take it now.”

I got him the beer, stuck it in a Styrofoam hand cooler, and opened it with a church key. He took it gratefully.

“Jesus Christ, Dusky, I'll never figure out how you did what you did last night.”

“What? I was in Miami last night.”

“Oh, sure. That's what our investigation indicates. Had a man up there this morning. Big dinner at the Fontainebleau. Seen walking the lobby at sometime between two a.m. and three a.m. Used your credit card and signed for everything. Handwriting appears to match.”

“And why shouldn't it?”

“Because I know you, Dusky. I know that you despise Miami. I know that that's the last place you'd go.”

“Well, maybe your tastes change when you've seen your family blown to little pieces!”

Rigaberto downed half of his beer in one gulp. He looked at me wearily.

“Dusky, I loved that woman of yours. And I loved those kids. I mean that. And I mean this too: I don't blame you. But, dammit, you just can't keep on taking the law into your own hands.”

“Rigaberto, I still don't know what you're talking about. What's the connection?”

“Okay. I'll play the game with you. The three men who killed your wife were on the
Darlin' Denise
. Last night, off Middle Sambo Reef, the
Darlin' Denise
caught fire. One man burned to death. We found four other bodies—all died from wounds inflicted by a shark. The only person to escape was a senile old man who talks nonsense when we try to question him.”

I tried to look delighted. “They're dead? They're all dead? Good. And I hope the bastards suffered as they went down.”

“How did you do it, Dusky? I can surmise how you set the
Darlin' Denise
afire. But the sharks—what did you do? Chum for an hour or two before you blew up the boat? Christ, you wouldn't have had time.”

“Could that have been the cocaine boat I told you about?”

“Don't pull that innocent, blue-eyed-boy shit with me! You know it was the cocaine boat.”

“Then I would have also known that the federal boys were out there waiting for them. They were, weren't they? I mean, I told them.”

“They didn't believe you, or got lost, or, hell, I don't know, Dusky.” Rigaberto sighed another heavy sigh. “Maybe it was an accident. Or maybe
they
set the fire and chummed up the sharks. And maybe the earth is spinning off toward the sun. Christ, I'm too tired to even think anymore.”

“Probably a gang war between drug runners. That sort of thing goes on, you know.”

“Gang war my ass.” He sighed in surrender. And then: “Hey, get me another beer too, would you? I don't know why in the hell I didn't become a priest like my mother wanted me to be. . . . ”

 

Gang warfare between drug runners—that's what the press called it. Romantic stuff. Terror in the tropics. Headline fare. Senators and Congressmen called for an investigation into drug-related crimes, and governors promised immediate action. After a few weeks, it all died down, and no one really cared anymore. A few drug runners were killed by sharks—so what? Who needs 'em?

And after a week or so, after the reporters went home, and the politicians started focusing on more important matters—like how to get reelected—the big drug boats started to make their scheduled runs to the Bahamas and Mexico and South America, and people in high places started turning their heads once again, their hands outstretched for bribes, because there is, after all, big money in drugs. And supply the demand is the American way of life.

Like the drug runners, I too lay low for a while. I worked on the
Sniper
. I had her hauled, and spent a long dirty afternoon scraping her clean and repainting her with the very, very best antifouling paint. And while I painted her bottom, Hervey Yarbrough, who owns the boat ways up at Cow Key, painted her upper hull and flybridge.

“You want it what color, Dusky?”

“Blue-black, Hervey. A deep-water shade of blue-black.”

“Well, I'll do her, dern it—but ain't nobody gonna be able to spot this vessel o' yourn after dark. God he'p ya if'n ya break down out in the Stream some afternoon. They won't fin' ya till ya drift halfway ta England!”

Hervey muttered and grumbled and second guessed all afternoon. A good man, Hervey Yarbrough. Born of shipbuilder stock that had come to Key West in the early 1800s, he was an authentic Conch—which is what the old white islanders are called. Hervey's people lived in Key West during the era in which changing channel markers, so that the incoming ships would go a wreck on a reef, was common practice. They would lure the ships aground, go out and help save the ship and the ship's manifest, then claim a percentage of the cargo in the infamous Key West salvage courts. In those times, Key West and the Dry Tortugas were not favorite ports of call with the world's oceangoing captains.

They called the Conchs who practiced such piracy “wreckers” and “moonrakers,” and they were actually licensed by the courts. Licensed not to change channel markers, but to salvage cargo and go to the aid of reefed vessels. In 1835 there were twenty such licensed wreckers operating out of Key West. Hervey was a descendant of Captain S. Sanderson, master of the schooner
Orion
.

“But he weren't no moonraker, no sirree,” Hervey told me as we painted. “A good honest man, he was. Lotta them pirates in back times—”

“—and a lot now.”

“Dern if tha' ain't the truth! But our family weren't no moonrakers. Good honest wreckers, we was. An' those backtime wreckers worked for their money, by gum. Goin' out to the reefs to rescue men 'n' ships with one o' them blowin' blue northers. Day or night; didn't matter. Lost a few, saved a few. But by gum they worked for what th' courts give 'em. They was good brave seafarin' men.”

I needed the day of hard work and hot sun; a day around good people like Hervey and his wife and pretty teenage daughter. I had been a walking corpse for days. I saw, but could not see. I heard, but could not hear. Everything was in black and white; the faces of strangers passed on the streets were shrouded by a white corona, the film of death. The chatter of birds, the moan of south wind in Australian pines, the barking of stray dogs, all came to me as a dreamy echo; the remembrance of another life to someone trapped in a gauzy netherworld.

Coming back from Middle Sambo Reef that night had not been easy. I was no longer the hunter, I was the hunted. Too much death, too much horror, too many screams that would reverberate forever in my mind. I came close to the edge. Too close. Halfway back to Key West, I had pulled the Whaler back to idle, then switched the little fifty-horse engine off. Drifting, I had watched the dim blaze of lights which shrouded the string of Keys, trailing off to the northeast like a comet's tail.

Why should I go on? What more was there to do? They had killed four of me. I had killed six of them, and was responsible for the fiery death of another.

What was left?

I thought of Janet; thought of my two fine young sons. They had never had a chance. Never had a chance to see life; to learn to love the good and true things as I had.

And with their deaths, all of my appreciation of life had died with them.

Was there any purpose in an existence dedicated to mindless vengeance? To mindless killing?

No. Vietnam had proved that to me, and to too many others.

Why function in a mindless world with an insane mission?

Slowly, I had picked up the AK-47: wood forearm and metal butt plate cold in my hands. I slid a cartridge into the chamber and placed the barrel of the weapon against my forehead, the butt of the rifle angled solidly against the fiberglass deck.

I knew I could do it.

There was no fear, no trembling hands.

I placed my thumb against the trigger of the brutal automatic—and that's when I heard the familiar
poof
of a dolphin. Bottle-nosed dolphins: a family of them. They circled near the skiff, diving and rising like merry-go-round creatures. Side by side, up and down, up and down, in tight formation. A protective formation. One for all, and all for one. Perfect creatures in grand design.

And in some strange way, that was affirmation enough.

I had lost my family unit; lost them to the mindless ones.

I would not let them take me, too.

There would be other people, other families who needed help. There had always been the pirates, the soulless moonrakers of humanity; those who leached the money and the lives of the innocent. My death would serve only them. But my life—my life could make them sorry they were ever born.

So I sat and watched the dolphins. Clear night, moon setting in the west. Soft wind, open expanse of dark sea. They would kill me. In time, I would die by their hands. Because wherever they were, wherever they killed and robbed and bullied, I would be. Death on my mind and them in my sights. . . .

 

After another two days of hard work, and of draining the bulk of the money left in our bank account, the
Sniper
was ready to go.

I had had her tuned to perfection, and added a Si-Tex radar system. The antenna had been mounted forward of the fly-bridge, and the radar screen itself was bolted above the cabin controls. It produced a clear, twelve-inch image with a range up to forty-six miles. The existence of distant vessels came to me as little lime-green bleeps on the sweep of screen.

“Sure look pretty, don't she?” Hervey had said, admiring his own brushwork. “With that blue-black upper, the light-blue bottom paint and the gold waterline, she look pretty as a pitchure, huh?”

She did indeed look fine. In a burst of characteristic generosity, Hervey's wife had worked overtime to surprise me. With her considerable artistic talent, she had painted
“Sniper—Key West, Florida”
in small white script on the stern.