Smugglers 1: Nikki (4 page)

“So warned,” Captain Patrick said agreeably. “Can I make you and your friend a drink?”

“In one or two hours you can. We’ll be back down about 5 o’clock,” she replied.

“Come as you are or less,” he said.

“OK, see you then.” With a wave, she and Glenn headed for the dock, while the captain’s crew broke into laughter as only drunk people can do.

Back at Nikki’s office, Glenn asked, “Can I use your phone one minute?” He wanted to call Jim.

“Is everything okay?” Glenn asked Jim then paused while Jim talked, then he hung up.

He turned to Nikki who was working on the books. He pulled her away and started kissing her, blazing a trail down to the swell of her breasts. Next stop was the bedroom.

By the time they finished making love, it was 5:30. They headed back down the dock to the Pipefitter. No one was on deck so they knocked on the side of the boat until Patrick appeared. The rest of the crew came up top, all wearing t-shirts and shorts.

One of the girls asked, “Do you want sardines or chips or something? You can have anything on the table except the donuts.” Her statement sent her friends into fits of laughter and she threw the box of donuts away.

They settled around the table and started drinking vodka like it was water. After four or five drinks, they decided to go to dinner together, at a fish place, of course, where they had more drinks with the food. It was after two in the morning by the time they got back to the dock. Amid much laughter, they weaved their way to the Pipefitter for a night cap, but they were met by two sheriff’s deputies coming down the dock.

“How long have you been here?” one deputy asked.

“I’m the owner of the marina, and we’ve been here a long time.” Nikki replied.

“Have you seen anything unusual from the dock?” the second deputy asked.

“Just some nude people,” Nikki said, trying to keep a straight face, but failed when her new friends broke into another bout of laughter.

“What about the 42-foot scarab called Top Dog?” The deputies took turns asking questions.

“It’s been here four or five years. It goes out on weekends and they come back real drunk and nude. In fact, here he is,” Nikki said and pointed to Glenn. The laughter got louder and longer.

The deputies seemed okay with her answer. “Be careful now,” they said and headed toward the parking lot.

Nikki and Glenn joined Captain Patrick and his cohorts for a nightcap, after which they returned to Nikki’s apartment where they took up where they’d left off earlier in the afternoon. They made long sweet love and held each other until the morning light crept over the marina. They fell asleep satisfied, content and in love.

CHAPTER 5

Glenn woke first and turned on the TV to see if there was any news on the DEA boat. It was just more of the same, so he called Jim but decided not to tell him about the cops on the dock looking for the boat that got away.

“Jim, it’s me, are you okay?” Glenn asked.

“I couldn’t sleep all night,” Jim replied.

“Now be cool, Jim. The only one who can give you up is me or you, remember that. Only you can give yourself up,” he emphasized, “so calm down and keep quiet. Be cool, okay? I’ll talk to you in person in the next couple of days.” He hung up and headed for his place, where  he showered, and changed to go to his storage locker in town to see if anything was there that could put him in the business. If so, he would have to get rid of it.

Satisfied that nothing in his storage locker could implicate him in any sort of illegal activities, he went back to the dock and down to his boat. He caught sight of the “Major” on the dock, who was acting normal and on his way to his car.

Patrick, the captain of the Pipefitter, and one of the girls were walking over to his boat with drinks in their hands.

“Well, this looks sexy and very fast,” Patrick said.

“I don’t know about sexy, but it is fast,” Glenn replied.

“Let’s go out,” Patrick said.

“No! I need some hair of the dog,” Glenn said firmly.

“So what’ll it be?” Patrick asked.

“Whisky’s fine,” Glenn replied.

Patrick went to make him a drink, and when he came back with it, the five of them walked down to Nikki’s office and demanded she quit work for the day and have a drink on Patrick’s boat where they turned on some music and started to drink and dance. In about an hour or so, Patrick broke out some cocaine. Everyone did several lines, except Glenn.

“I just don’t anymore, that’s all. I did my share in the 80’s and 90’s. My nose will fall off,” Glenn said and they all laughed.

The ship to shore came to life with “Harbor Marina.”

“This is the fifty-footer the Sea Cactus. Do you read me?” a voice said.

“Come in Sea Cactus. This is Harbor Marina,” Nikki replied.

“Do you have a slip for my boat?”

“Yes, Come on in,” she said.

“Okay. What’s the slip number? We’ll be there in five minutes.”

All six of them went down to the designated slip. Even though they were drunk, they helped tie up the Sea Cactus and soon were invited aboard for more drinks.

After they were introduced to the two girls and two men on the Sea Cactus, they partying began. While they were drinking, two cops came on the dock and went to the Top Dog. They took several pictures from front and side. Nikki headed over to the boat.

“May I help you guys? I’m the dock owner,” Nikki said.

“No thanks,” they replied.

“Can I offer you two a beer or drink then?” she asked.

“No, thanks. We’re still on duty.”

Glenn watched the cops leave the dock. He sat there and looked at Nikki. He saw in her eyes that she knew the truth that he had something to do with the other night and the DEA. She knew.

They all kept drinking and went to dinner about 7 o’clock, then danced and got home about two in the morning. Glenn and Nikki made love again.

In the morning Glenn went to Nikki’s office for coffee. After several uncomfortable moments of silence, Nikki said, “How much trouble are you in?” Glenn did not respond to her question. So she asked him again, “Glenn, how much trouble are you in?”

“It’s nothing. Don’t worry about it or talk about it. I’ll take care of it,” he said.

“I think I love you, Glenn, and I can help. Let me help! Was the boat involved?” she asked again and getting no response, she continued, “if it was, let’s sell it or sink it tomorrow!”

“I said I’ll take care of it! It’s nothing, Nikki,” Glenn  exclaimed.

“What happened out there?” she asked.

“Nikki, I told you never to mention our deal again. This is part of our deal. Keep what you think to yourself and keep quiet,” he said, and with that Glenn set down his coffee and walked out to his Jeep and drove off.

Nikki stayed in her office for about an hour. She hadn’t expected those words to come from Glenn at this point. His eyes had been empty and cold as he had spoken them. She saw a different side of Glenn, different than she had seen in the last two or three years.

Finally, she went out to the dock to check on things and go to work. As she looked at the boats, she thought to herself, ‘Ask me no questions, and I’ll tell you no lies, or maybe I don’t want to know.’

Glenn got to Jim’s house and walked up to the door. There was Jim, drunk and stoned on coke. Glenn could tell he’d been up all night.

“Your eyes look like piss holes in a snow bank. For Christ's sake, calm down! Have you checked the house and all the accounts at the bank to make sure you haven’t left any clues besides being stoned out of your mind? Jim, I told you to be cool and that the only one you have to fear is me. So throw that shit away—now! Get some sleep and get your head out of your ass. I’ll see you in a couple of days.” Glenn left for town.

He went to the hardware store, the bank, and ran his other errands. He got back to the marina around four in the afternoon and went to see Nikki to tell her he was sorry for what he had said. While he was kissing her, a call came in. It was from the eight people on the two boats. They had started partying two or three hours ago and asked them to come down for a drink.

“I can’t. I must get some sleep. You go ahead, Nikki, but I’ve got to go to bed every three of four days.” With that Glenn gave Nikki a long kiss and went upstairs to his bed.

Glenn got up at around three in the morning, quietly got dressed, and went downstairs to his car. He didn’t take the Jeep that he usually drove, but his old blue four-door Ford that he only used for work. He went to Jim’s house and let himself in. There was cocaine in three or four rooms in the house and lots of beer bottles and butts everywhere. He walked quietly down the hall to where Jim was passed out. He reached behind his back to his belt and pulled out a Colt Woodsman 22 long-rifle pistol with a muffler on it, not a silencer, and shot Jim in the back of the head three times. He spent the next hour putting Jim’s tapes, his hard drive, and anything else that would tie him to Jim’s business in the trunk. He set up a delayed gas fire for the house and left.

When he got back to the dock, he put everything in a net dive bag. He stuffed in the gloves, Colt Woodsman, hard drive, and tapes and pulled it tight. Then he went down to his boat and dropped it in the water beside his boat where the water was only fifteen feet deep. It went straight to the bottom. It was now 4:30 in the morning, so he walked quietly to his apartment, lay down, and went to sleep.

CHAPTER 6

At around 8:00 the next morning Nikki came out on the dock to go to work. The only people up were Mark, the “Major” and Don, having coffee on Don’s fifty-seven footer, which had an aft cabin. They all said good morning to her. She acknowledged the greeting and told Mark to finish his coffee, stating she would see him around 9 o’clock.

She kept walking down the dock and inspected the tie down chains, the dock, and the boat ropes. Her ex-husband Bill used to get five hundred dollars to tie down a boat if a hurricane was on the way. The first time, only three people paid up. When the second one was ready to blow in, there were too many people to deal with. The first three survived the hurricane. If a boat was tied too tight in the water when the storm surge came and the water went up eight to ten feet and then down ten feet, it would tear the cleats out of the boat or sink it. The same went for house boats. This year three hurricanes had hit the mid Keys. Bill did know his shit,  and so did Mark. Together the two could secure the boats so that most would survive.

Nikki went up and had a cup of coffee with the boys. It was Cuban style, which meant thick as fifty weight oil and blacker than a well digger’s ass. It was so strong it came in shot glass size cups, and one sip got your heart pumping like you did a four-inch line of crank. About one cup was all Nikki could take or she’d stroke out.

Nikki saw the boys step out on the dock, Bert and Ernie or Frick and Frack as some boaters called them behind their backs. She waved to them, and they replied “good morning.” She left the boat, the three boys, and that black thick shit they were calling coffee.

She walked to the end of the dock just to look at the blue sky and ocean. Just then, Bruce, the captain of the sixty-one foot Tollycraft, started walking toward her. When he reached her, he said, “I found Auschultz dead in bed when I got on board this morning, so I called the Sheriff’s office. They’ll be here in thirty minutes.”

“Can I help you with anything?” she asked.

“No, I got it,” Bruce replied.

“Do you have a number for a relative?” she inquired.

“Yes. He gave me his sister’s phone number,” he said.

Nikki went down the dock to where the boys were still having coffee and gave them the news. Then she went to her office to pull Auschultz’s file.

The coroner and two cops showed up at the end of the dock. She went out to greet them and take them to the sixty-one foot Tollycraft where Auschultz was, then started back to her office. On the way there, she ran into Bobby, who lived in the four-plex, and gave him the news as well. She returned to her duplex, then went upstairs to Glenn’s and knocked on the door. He came to the door looking like he had been pulled through a knothole.

“I came to let you know Auschultz was found dead this morning.” she said.

“Can I be of any help?”

“No,” she replied.

“How about some coffee then?” he asked.

“No, thanks. My heart is still coming out of my chest from the Cuban stuff this morning,” she said.

Glenn poured himself some coffee in a foam cup, and they went down on the dock. By this time there were at least twenty or thirty people standing around.

‘God,’ Nikki thought to herself, ‘you would think they were all in the will.’ People had even come from across the bay. They walked down to see what was going on at the sixty-one footer. One cop was outside. Just then, down the dock came the renter of apartment two who was a cop in town. He just stopped to see what was going on. He was divorced, had no kids, drank a lot, and was powerless.

Around four hours later, the coroner wheeled Auschultz out.  Captain Bruce came out to tell Nikki that he had called Auschultz’s sister in New York, and that she would be here in the next two weeks. She told him to fire the cleaning lady and keep working on the boat. She ordered him to get the boat surveyed to establish value for sale.

Nikki and Glenn went to the Marina office, and Glenn turned on the TV for the local news. They were showing Jim’s house burned to the ground. The only thing left standing was the fireplace and the chimney. They had not found Jim yet. Glenn went to find Nikki in the kitchen.

“I’ll make us some breakfast. Bacon and eggs, okay?” she asked.

“I have a better idea. Let’s go downtown, and I’ll buy us breakfast.”

“Okay. Let’s go,” she agreed.

They got into the car and headed downtown. When they walked in the restaurant, they saw two cops having coffee. One of them said he heard about Auschultz, and he told Nikki he was sorry. A news bulletin flashed on the screen from the TV on the counter. They had just found Jim’s body, and they suspected foul play. Everyone turned their attention to the TV.

One of the diners asked, “Glenn, wasn’t that Jim guy a friend of yours?”

“Yea, I can’t believe he’s dead. God! I knew him a long time. He always drank and smoked too much. I still can’t believe he’s gone. He wasn’t even fifty years old,” Glenn replied.

Nikki and Glenn ate breakfast, made small talk about themselves and their neighbors, and then returned to the dock. At the end of the day they went down the dock and talked to people about the two deaths. After about two hours or so they went home, had a couple of drinks, made love, and went to sleep holding each other like they were helium balloons trying to get away.

Morning came at around 5 a.m. for Glenn. He went upstairs and turned on the TV. No news until six so he took a shower, got dressed for the day, and then sat down with his coffee to check the news again. They had found holes in Jim’s head, but that’s all they knew for now. When the broadcast turned to other local news, Glenn went down to Nikki’s place and got the coffeemaker set up for her. It was still early, so he didn’t turn it on. He went out onto the dock to look over his boat.

About an hour later he went to his storage locker and loaded the interior of his boat into the Jeep. It was all white Naugahyde and like new because it had not been in the boat for years. He put it in the back of the jeep, covered it up, and returned to the dock. He went in to see Nikki, kissed her good morning, and saw she had found the coffee he had made. They kissed several more times before he went up to his apartment to change, get his mask, suction cups, and boat wax.

Glenn went to his boat and started cleaning the sides and waxing the boat. He wanted people to get used to seeing him in the water next to his boat. He spent several hours in the water and talking to people on the dock to make sure they took notice of him in the water.

That night about 8 o’clock he carried the interior of the boat from his jeep to his boat, and then went back to Nikki’s office to have a couple of drinks, dinner and make love. After that, they went to sleep.

It was around 10 the next morning, when Glenn went to the boat and installed the seats and other items, then returned to his apartment to change. He got back in the water and started waxing again. At the end of the day, after seeing several people, he dove to the bottom, and retrieved the dive bag. He brought it up to the center engine and tied it to the prop. He got out, sat on his dock box, and had a beer with Patrick from the fifty-footer.

A lot of people saw and talked to him about waxing his boat. On Friday morning Glenn went to his boat and started the two outside engines and put the fishing poles in the bimini top. He guided his boat out to open water and when he got to the “Ditch,” he cut the loop around the center prop that held the dive bag which held the tapes, hard drive, muffler and guns. He watched it disappear into 6,000 feet of water. With that done, he took off for the open ocean. He stayed out about two hours then went in and parked.

At the same time half way down the dock, Nikki was talking to Mark and her ex, Bill. A few minutes later she went down and joined Glenn and said that Mark and Bill told her that while he was out, the two cops had come to the dock looking for him and his boat. “Oh, something about me and Jim, I suppose,” he said nonchalantly as they went into Nikki’s apartment.

Patrick called to see if they wanted to go to dinner and asked about the other boat that pulled in. They agreed to dinner, and Nikki told him the other boat pulled out this morning and would be back next week some time. Later that evening they went to dinner, drank, and danced until the wee hours.

When Glenn got up around 9:30 the next morning the two cops were talking to Mercedes. The town cop was there, too. Glenn took a deep breath and his coffee and went down to see what they wanted.

“You’re Glenn, and you were Jim’s best friend, right? How did he make a living? We checked his bank records and his house. He paid cash for the house fifteen years ago and had over two million in his checking and savings, not to mention other bank accounts and several deposit boxes,” the cop said.

“I don’t know what he did. He always cried poor mouth around me. I thought his mother left him the house,” Glenn said.

“How long have you been here, and where do you work?” the cop asked.

“I’ve been here about four or five years and grew up here in the Keys. My mother and dad were killed in a car wreck on Seven Mile Bridge coming back from Key West one Sunday. My parents left me a hundred grand and the house. When they died I got eight hundred a month for life from the trucker’s insurance company that killed my folks. I can give you copies if you want,” Glenn replied.

“When was the last time you were at Jim’s house or saw him?” he asked.

“We went fishing a week or so ago. We used to fish a lot. Mostly shark, catch and release; you know, you two live here.” replied Glenn.

“The last time you saw Jim was when you went fishing?” repeated the cop.

“That’s it,” said Glenn.

“Okay. We’ll get back to you if we need to,” and they left the dock.

Glenn thought to himself, ‘I think I’m okay.’

Nikki had been watching from inside. She came out on the dock and walked over to Glenn and Mercedes, greeting both of them.

“Glenn, what did they want?” asked Nikki.

“Just when was the last time I saw Jim, that’s all,” he said.

Glenn found it funny that the three of them were standing on the dock making small talk. He wondered if Nikki knew that Mercedes was screwing Bill, how long that had been going on, and if that had started before Cynthia. He wondered if they had ever had a threesome or thought about it. He told them he had to check his boat and walked off. He had to get out of there or he would break out laughing. All that came out of just the thought of the three of them talking on the dock.