Matt Royal Mystery - 03 - Blood Island (12 page)

Cracker showed up about four and sat sipping a beer while I told
him where I was going and why.

"Didn't you tell me a while back that you still had contacts down
there from your old days?" I asked.

"Sure do," said Cracker. "I was a stand-up guy, and they appreciate
that sort of thing."

"What do you mean?" Logan asked.

"I took a run from Key West to Los Angeles for them. They were
going to pay me fifty large to take a load of coke in the side panels of
a rental car. I got busted the first time out by some highway cop in New
Mexico."

"What happened?" I asked, not sure I wanted the whole truth.

"They got me in a roadblock looking for illegals. I had my green
card and my passport, so that was fine. They were looking for Mexicans
anyway."

"How did they find the drugs?" I asked.

"My friend Paco was asleep in the backseat. He's Cuban, but was
born in this country, so he didn't have a green card or any other form of ID
except a driver's license. They thought he was a Mexican. While they tried
to sort that all out, I went over to the side of the road to pee. When I came
back the coppers were taking the car apart."

"Why?" I asked, my lawyer brain thinking about all the defenses to
a search, such as lack of probable cause.

"While I was taking a piss," said Cracker, "one of the cops asked Paco
if they could search the car. Paco didn't know about the drugs. He was just along to keep me company, and he told them to go ahead. Next thing
I know, I'm in the Las Cruces jail with a high bond."

"How long did you get?" I asked.

"I was there for about three months, and when we went to an evidentiary hearing one of the cops testified that he'd asked Paco for permission to search the car, not me. My lawyer argued that since I was the
one who rented the car from Avis, I was the only one who could legally give
permission for the search. The judge agreed and cut me loose."

"You got lucky," I said. "Did you make any more runs?"

"No, but the big guy in Key West gave me the fifty K anyway and told
me he appreciated my not ratting them out. Said if I ever needed anything
to give him a call."

"If I need a guide for the Key West underworld, will he help me? As
a friend of yours?"

"I'll call him and find out."

Cracker finished his beer and left just as Bill Lester was coming in my
front door.

"We found where the shot came from," he said. He dropped onto
the sofa and rested his feet on my coffee table. "An empty condo in the
building just across the courtyard from Logan's was broken into this morning. The balcony would have given the shooter a straight line to Logan's
place."

"Any evidence as to who the shooter was?" I asked.

"No. The place was clean. No cartridge shells, no prints. There were
some footprints in the carpet, but they were too faint even to get an impression. We assumed they were from the shooter, since the carpet was
vacuumed yesterday by the maid service."

"You're sure that's where the shot came from?" Logan asked.

"About as sure as we can be. The CSI team confirmed the angle of
the shot, and that was the only condo in the building that wasn't either
occupied or locked up tight."

"You think he was after me?" asked Logan.

"I don't think there's any doubt about that," said the chief. "The
Polish guy was your size and had a hairline similar to yours. From that
distance, anybody would have assumed it was you."

I couldn't sit around Longboat Key and wait for somebody to finally
get lucky and kill me. Plus, I had to find Peggy. Laura's disappearance had
spooked me more than I'd let on to her husband. She was dedicated to
Jeff and their children, and as concerned as she was about Peggy, Laura
would never have left Jeff and Gwen at such a critical time.

Apprehension was settling over me, slipping ominously into the
crevices of my brain, whispering softly of impending loss. Fear, my old
nemesis from the war, was lurking on the edge of my consciousness, its
stench percolating into my soul. Laura was my heart, and the thought of
losing her was almost paralyzing. That's the way fear works. It sneaks in
and builds in intensity until it takes over, and at that moment it wins. It
had never beaten me, although it had tried mightily, and on occasion it
had been a close thing. If it beat me now, Laura was lost, and I couldn't live
with that.

I shook myself out of my macabre reverie. "I'm going to Key West,"
I said.

Bill shrugged. "Can't hurt, I suppose. By the way, the Atlanta cops
aren't taking Laura's disappearance too seriously. They think she just took
off. They're going through the motions, though. Maybe something will
turn up."

"Tell me about Sims," I said.

"Good guy. I've known him for years and worked with him from time
to time. He's a good detective. I'm glad to have him working with me on
this one."

After Bill left, I called Sims. I told him about Laura's disappearance
and the phone call from Key West. I told him I was going down there. I
asked for the name of the detective friend of his in Key West.

"His name's Paul Galls. I'll call him and tell him you're coming,"
Sims said, and gave me a phone number.

Early the next morning Logan drove me to the Tampa Airport, where I
caught a commuter jet to Miami. A taxi took me to the Miami Arena. I
walked the three blocks to the Greyhound station on Northwest 1st
Avenue, bought a ticket, and sat down to wait for the bus to Key West.

I was flying under the radar. I didn't know what kind of surveillance
anyone had on Logan and me, but I didn't want them to know I was on my
way to Key West.

Logan was staying with his friend Dave on the mainland. He'd stay
out of sight and be in touch with me by cell phone. He'd be okay, I thought,
if he didn't get careless.

When you travel by airplane, you have to show identification. Not
when you go by bus. I also thought that if anyone saw me arrive at Key
West Airport, I would have company sooner than I wanted.

The bus was another matter. I didn't need an ID to board one, and
if anybody was looking for me, they wouldn't expect a preppy lawyer to
travel by Greyhound.

I had a.38-caliber snub-nosed pistol in my backpack. I'd checked it
through in Tampa so as not to upset the security people and get myself
arrested. Bus drivers didn't make you go through a metal detector before
you boarded. I'd have the gun with me.

I had a Florida State ID card identifying me as Ben Joyce, a friend
who lived on Anna Maria Island. He'd lost his driver's license as the result
of a DUI conviction, and had gotten the card for identification. He'd gotten his license back after a year, and he didn't need the ID card anymore.

Ben and I didn't look that much alike, but we had the same coloring
and hairline. It was good enough to fool anybody who didn't look too closely. I also had a credit card in Ben's name. I'd promised I would repay
him for any charges.

I bought the bus ticket with the credit card. If anyone was curious, or
anything showed up on somebody's computer, it would show that Ben
had bought a one-way ticket to Key West, and paid for it with his credit
card. That would dovetail with any use I had to make of the card while in
the Keys. I was probably being too cautious, but, as the old saying goes,
even paranoiacs have enemies.

I kept the credit card, ID, and two thousand dollars in twenties and
hundreds in a money belt under my shirt. I'd get by on cash in Key West,
but I had the credit card if I got into a pinch. My backpack also held
toiletries and a couple of changes of clothes.

My bus was called, and I grabbed a seat toward the rear. There were
only a few other passengers, and we started the five-hour trek south. We
picked up several people at Homestead, mostly Hispanics who daily commuted to work in the Keys. At Florida City, the last stop on the mainland,
more passengers crowded onto the bus. There were not enough seats and
some stood in the aisle.

The Keys had become the playground of the wealthy. The people
who cleaned the hotels and mansions and worked on the roads could no
longer afford to live there. They'd found affordable housing in Florida
City and Homestead, and would make the daily trip by Greyhound to their
jobs in the Keys. Now, even those mainland towns were in danger of being
overrun by the middle class who had been displaced from the Keys. Soon,
there would be no place for the workers to live. There were no solutions
in the works. One day the rich people would wake up and figure out that
they either had to do the work themselves or move back to wherever they
came from. Most would leave, and maybe the Keys would get back to what
they used to be; funky islands peopled by oddballs who appreciated the
paradise they'd been bequeathed.

U.S. 1 is known as the Overseas Highway as it makes its way from
island to island. It was built over the bed of the railroad that was washed
away in the great hurricane of 1935. Some of the ancient bridges still
supported the road, but much of it was now bottomed on new structures
spanning the water between the keys.

I watched the ever-changing colors in the seas surrounding us. It
went from turquoise over sand bottoms to brown coral heads to blue in the
deeper holes. It was magnificent, but like much of the world's greatest
scenery, it finally becomes boring. Perhaps we can only drink in so much
beauty before it all pales into mediocrity. The human condition. Even great
beauty finally bores us.

A few of the domestic workers got off at each stop, and by the time
we arrived in Marathon, about halfway to Key West, the bus was virtually
empty. We took a rest break, and I went inside the tiny terminal to use the
bathroom. When I came out, there was a large group of senior citizens
milling about in the parking lot, waiting to board the bus.

I retook my seat, and the driver told the new passengers to board. A
wizened old gentleman sat next to me, stuck out his hand, and said, "I'm
Austin Dwyer."

I took his hand. "Ben Joyce," I said.

"Headed for Key West?"

"Yes."

"Vacation?"

"Looking for work."

"I'm on vacation," said Dwyer. "A whole bunch of us from Connecticut are seeing Florida. Our tour bus broke down, and they put us on
this one to Key West. We'll have another bus waiting for us down there."

"Hope it works out," I said, thinking that I had to end this conversation.

"Where're you staying down there?

"Don't know. I'll get a room somewhere."

"What kind of work do you do?"

"I work the fishing boats."

"Well, good luck," he said and turned to talk to the lady sitting across
the aisle from him.

I lay my head on a pillow against the window and pretended to sleep.

Key West is a big coral rock that hosts a small city. The place is a state of
mind as much as a geographical location, and it's undergoing drastic
change. The old stores along Duval Street have given way to T-shirt shops
that are now being replaced by major chain stores usually found in shopping malls. The town is schizoid, the residents resenting the tourists, but
unable to survive without them. Stasis is never attained, balance never
found. Change is constant, turmoil a part of daily life.

Cruise ships dock daily, disgorging midwestern tourists in guyabara
shirts and Bermuda shorts. They fill the bars, especially the ones made
famous by Ernest Hemingway, and leave before dark to take their ship to
the next island destination. Then the locals and the tourists who fill the
hotels and bed and breakfast establishments come out to take their places
at the bars. Key West never sleeps.

It's a small island, about a mile wide and four miles or so long. It
covers a little over eight thousand acres and houses twenty-five thousand
locals, who like to call themselves Conchs.

Its history is full of robber barons, pirates, thieves, wreckers, sailors,
and whores. Bad people doing bad things made fortunes in every decade.
In the eighties it was the drug runners based here at the end of the country, and many of the bad guys who were lured here stayed.