Tampa Star (Blackfox Chronicles Book 1) (13 page)

“Come on, Jimmy, stop jerking me off, I haven’t got time for this bullshit.”

Jimmy nodded, “sorry counselor, I guess I am so in the habit of lying in here that it just got away from me. I get a post card from Char every couple of months, normally it’s from a state park or camp ground in Florida, usually up north, but once I got one from him from that state park in the keys, John
Pennekamp.  That one had a nice picture on it of the coral reefs, I still have it. The last one I got from him was from Ginnie Springs. He always signs the postcards with the names of different folks, but I always figure it’s him.  No one else feels the need to stay in touch with an old convict.” Jimmy’s voice trailed off as he said the last sentence.   

Thompson had been Jimmy’s lawyer for the entirety of his legal career—he got Jimmy as a client as a gift from his pappy when he passed the bar. He knew Jimmy well eno
ugh to know when he was lying. The reason Jimmy was in Angola had little to do with the alleged theft of a short ton of gold that occurred thirty years ago.  No charges had ever been filed in that case, because the only people who really knew what happened were the original conspirators and they were either dead or not talkative.

“If Char knew where the gold was, why would he feel the need to tell you where he is at regular intervals?” thought Gus. He figured he had nothing to lose by directly addressing the elephant in the room.

“Where is the gold hidden, Jimmy?” Thompson finally asked.

“No idea,” he replied, without making eye contact.  

“This is getting tedious,” said Thompson.

Jimmy asked for a cigarette and although Angola was smoke free, a certain amount of latitude was allowed in the meeting room, probably due to the large percentage of lawyers who still smoked. Thompson shook out a Marlboro Red cigarette, from a pack in his briefcase, placed it in the convict’s mouth and lit it with a Zippo embossed with the Eagle, Globe and Anchor of the Marine Corps.

Jimmy took a deep drag on his cigarette and bent toward where his wrist was hand cuffed to the interview chair to take it from his mouth.

“Help me get out of here, and I will cut you in for a share,” he said finally. 

* * *

Michael spent an uneventful night in the local motel—most chains required a credit card and he wanted to stay off the grid as much as possible. His caution might be premature, but he figured it was something that all good Marines learn at one time or another
—it was better to exhibit a little caution than to live with a lifetime of regrets.

The motel was as nondescript as could be hoped for—
twenty rooms in a one story brick building with an office at one end and a swimming pool in front. It was about fifteen miles from the prison, near the town of Coldwater. From the look and actions of some of the residents, it appeared to Michael that families of prisoners locked up inside Angola were the motel’s primary customers.

The clerk barely made eye contact and didn’t ask for a credit card—just cash up; forty seven dollars, tax included.  He retreated to his room and grabbed a nap, woke up hungry and drove into town to see what Coldwater had to offer.

He found a Popeye’s Fried Chicken, bought a four piece meal, stopped at a local convenience store and purchased a six pack of Abita beer—he was good for the evening.  

The following morning, he slept in and had a cold piece of chicken and a biscuit for breakfast. Around noon, Michael headed over to Bubba’s to meet with Thompson. Michael entered through the double screen doors and found him at his usual table in the back corner.

“He says he doesn’t know anything about the robbery, but that’s no surprise, Jimmy’s a fucking liar, most criminals are,” said Thompson.  The waitress brought over a couple of heavily frosted bottles of Abita Ambers and a couple of menus.

“Just the beer, Janie, I got to get back to
Nor leans,” he said with a drawl as he handed her a twenty.” She nodded in acknowledgement, handed over the bottles and retreated with menus in hand.  

Thompson took a swig of his beer and began to outline his conversation with Jimmy.
“Jimmy admitted that he had become somewhat unpopular with a certain element inside Angola, but he claims that it was due to a debt that someone didn’t want to pay back, he didn’t go into too many details.”

“Did he say anything about whether he knows where my dad is hiding,” asked Michael?

“He did say that he gets postcards he thinks are from your dad every couple of months. They’re signed with different names, but usually from a state park.  He thinks that Char is just letting him know where he can be found in case Jimmy gets out.” 

Michael nodded
and took a swig from the beer. He remembered first drinking Abita while on a three day pass that he and his buddies spent on Bourbon Street and Jackson Square.  The beer was almost painfully cold.

“She keeps the beer for me at the bottom of the cooler as she knows I like it cold and I’m a good tipper.”  Michael nodded and waited for Thompson to get back to the subject at hand. “The last postcard he got was from
Ginnie Springs about a month ago.”  Michael knew the springs— his dad had taken him diving there when he was a kid.  It was north of Tampa, near Gainesville.

They finished their beers and headed for the door.  He shook Thompson’s hand and thanked him for the information.

“One other thing, Michael, these guys that are after your dad and Jimmy, they are some mob connected guys and they want to lay their hands on that gold. They don’t care too much if there has to be any collateral damage. I suggest you watch your six” he added as an afterthought.  Michael nodded, opened the white painted wood frame screen door that was probably twice his age and said something that Gus strained to hear.

“I always do,” he said as he walked into the dirt parking lot towards his car.       

Gus drove straight to the French Quarter and parked in the lot adjacent to Jackson Square.  He was a few minutes late, but knew that the Chief would be waiting for him.  Red Sawyer was once a Chief Warrant Officer in the Marines and a pilot in Gus’ old outfit.  He had fallen on hard times since he retired, the death of his wife of thirty years, a short lived rebound marriage to a stripper from the Quarter and a messy divorce that left him fighting to hold on to his pension.

“How are you, ole son?” he said as he hugged the grizzled old man seated at the bar of Remoulade, a casual bistro attached to the landmark Arnaud’s Restaurant.

“Get him another one Sug, and I’ll have a Marker’s Mark on the rocks.”

“Better, now, I thought I was going to have to get a payday loan to cover the bar tab,” replied Sawyer.

During the taking of Fallujah, Red  had won the Navy Cross for rescuing a downed gunship crew by having them strap themselves to the rocket pods of his own Whiskey Cobra gunship and spiriting them off to safety while under fire.  “Thanks for meeting with me, Red. Tell me something, you still current on your helicopter pilot’s license?”

It was a short one hour flight back from New Orleans—Michael arrived back in Tampa around four p.m. and decided to head north. Per Sally’s orders, Handley had called in sick to work, to no one’s surprise.  His fellow deputy sheriffs neither liked nor trusted the greying old style cop. A cop’s arrival as back-up was meant to de-escalate a bad situation to keep it from getting worse, but Handley’s arrival normally signaled the opposite. He was a dinosaur in tan and black leather whose arrival on scene would most likely combust a smoldering situation and his fellow cops welcomed his absence.

Sally had arranged for him to pick up some additional muscle and he wanted to insulate Handley from any potential foul play. Time was when he would expect to be picking up some Mustache Pete rather than the young guy that would climb into his car outside the mixed martial arts gym in downtown Tampa.  The kid looked to be about
twenty-five and had the face and expression that said don’t fuck with me, but Handley knew there was tough and fake tough and he had seen a lot more of the latter.

The tracking device Handley had installed on Michael’s pickup truck was GPS enabled and allowed Handley to track it on the web. He had an air card for his laptop and could even track the vehicle from his Blackberry, but the small screen made that a pain and he only did that if there was no choice. He had the kid drive, while he booted up his laptop and surfed to the webpage. 

The tracking icon was superimposed on a location to the south of the town of High Springs, on route 27. He directed the kid to head for Interstate 75, shut down the computer and told the kid to wake him when they got to Gainesville.

The kid’s name was Vito
Viticoltore; “Call me double V if you want.” After the deed was done, Handley planned to pay him off and drop him back in Tampa―as he didn’t want any additional loose ends.

***

Michael had arrived at Ginnie Springs late that night and took a room at a ramshackle motel, the High Spring Inn, as he needed some rest before dealing with his dad. Although the hotel was old, it was clean and the bed felt firm. 

Handley and the kid arrived outside the hotel at 2 a.m. and located Michael’s vehicle parked outside room number 5.  Sally had told him not to do anything until he was sure that Michael had located his old man, then and only then they would break enough bones until the old man gave up the information they sought: the place where the 1800 gold coins were hidden.  Handley had some of his favorite cop tools with him; a spring loaded striking baton, a leather sap with a quarter pound ball in the tip, a stun gun and his throwaway, a .38 caliber Tarsus five shot revolver he took off a meth head he was transporting to the hospital. 

Handley figured he would just break the bones in the son’s hand until the old man coughed up the information. He would then take them back to the location they named and have them uncover the gold.

Michael slept well. He had a few beers to help him drift off, but that caused him to wake up early to take a leak. It was a few minutes past six and he was used to being up early away. The clerk who checked him in mentioned a free continental breakfast and he threw on a pair of sweat pants and his sneakers and set off with that goal in mind, returning a short time later with a cup of coffee and two Sara Lee Danishes. 

He was going back to the room when the noticed the reflection from the windshield of his pickup; the truck being parked at such an angle that it reflected the image of a tattooed hood wearing jeans, a “wife beater” and a knit cap taking a leak by the side of the motel. Michael slipped back in his room before the hood turned around, quickly went to the window and spread the blinds.

Michael woofed down the Danishes and slurped the coffee, then exited the room and circled around the back of the motel. Sure enough, there was a black Chrysler New Yorker parked on the side of the motel, positioned so that they could observe his pickup; there were two occupants in the vehicle; the hood and someone else; given the angle of his vantage point, he

was unable to recognize the other occupant, although he did look familiar.   How the fuck did they find him? Then it hit him. There was nothing he could do now. Check out time was noon, he figured he could do what he needed before then, return and then deal with the two hoods. Ginnie Springs was less than a mile away. Michael slipped out the door and sidled down the outside of the motel until he reached the office, quickly crossed in front of the glass window of the lobby and began running along the road towards the resort.  

Michael ran along U.S. route 27  and sprinted across state route 47 while dodging a pickup full of migrate laborers more intent on getting to work than avoiding jaywalkers.
Ginnie Springs was still a half mile away, but he was well conditioned enough to sprint the entire way.  He turned left onto the driveway next to the sign for the resort and slowed down into a trot Marines called the Recon Shuffle, so named because heavily laden troops employed it to move faster than a walk over long distances, but Michael just didn’t want to attract any undue attention. 

He paid the admission and moved at a fast walk to the campground searching for Char’s 1972 Airstream Globetrotter, figuring it should be pretty easy to spot.   After searching the entire campground, one thing Michael knew for sure was his dad’s trailer was not here. In frustration, he asked a park employee if he knew a guy in his mid-sixties named Char, and the kid looked at him as if he had two heads.

It was then, while wasting his time futilely asking a teenager for useful information, when he heard the unmistakable booming laugh of his father emanating from the direction of the big spring.  He left the teen in mid insolent expression and ran over to the water’s edge to find his father atop a wooded dive platform a few feet from the water instructing a scuba class of five twenty-something females in rudimentary buoyancy control; his old man never changed, he had each of the woman lowering themselves to the bottom of the spring by purging air from the vest and then inflating the vest to slowly rise to the surface.   It might have looked funny, but buoyancy control was key to becoming a successful scuba diver—rocketing to the surface in an uncontrolled assent could cause an air embolism leading to near certain death.

He saw Michael, smiled and signaled him to descend to the dive platform.  The old man hugged him, whispered in his ear to call him Ben and then announced a
fifteen minute break to the class. 

“Ladies, allow me to introduce you to my son, Michael” he said as he whispered “Stewardesses” in Michael’s ear. 

“Hi Michael,” they said in near unison.

He replied back, but grabbed his father by the arm and whispered; “Dad, we have to get out of here” while giving his father a look that conveyed a deep level of urgency. Char nodded knowingly and announced to the class that due to the unexpected arrival of his son, he would be concluding early today. His old man looked good, thought Michael— He was sun tanned, but not overly so, unlike the senior citizen who spend their days tanning their skin to a deep but wrinkled shade of brown. Char had the light tan of someone who spent a lot of time working outside without looking like a candidate for a melanoma clinic.

“Got a car?”  Asked Michael.

“Yeah, the old Bronco over there,” he said, indicating a vehicle that had seen its best years while Carter was President. “She may not be pretty, but she runs well,” he said in response to his son’s skeptical look. 

“Let’s go,” said Michael, “I’ll bring you up to speed on the way.” He retreated up the stairs towards the Bronco, his father following after a time—he could hear his father offering placating remarks to the women, probably rescheduling the rest of the class.

“Man, you haven’t changed a bit” said Michael, with a shake of his head.

“What?  We could have both been set up, probably with more than one of them; they’re stewardess! They hump like rabbits.”  Said Char with a grin as he turned the ignition key and the motor roared to life. “See, she purrs like a kitty!”

“Listen, dad, I don’t know how to tell you this, but you are in some serious shit and apparently, I have been dragged into it.” 

“Okay, kid, bring me up to speed.” If Char was surprised, he didn’t show it—he spun the Bronco around in a flurry of flying dirt and gravel and powered it out the gate toward the main road.

They parked the Bronco at a derelict gas station about
one hundred feet from the rear of the hotel, Char  rummaged through the glove box, pulled out a small pair of rubberized binoculars and handed them to Michael.  “Take a look; tell me if you still see the car.” 

Michael took the binoculars, gave the motel a cursory search and did not see the hoodlum’s car.    “Nope, the vehicle’s gone.”

“Okay, I’ll pull around, we’ll get your stuff, take this vehicle back to my trailer and head south” said Char. 

Michael directed him to a spot at the far end of the lot, jumped out of the truck and ran to his room while rummaging in his pocket for the room key.  Once inside, he instantly knew he had fucked up as on the bed sat the cop from Madeira Beach.

Handley had slipped the door lock with a credit card as Michael had failed to lock the dead bolt. The cop smiled a
Chesire Cat grin as the hood stepped from behind the door striking Michael just above the ear with a spring loaded Black Jack—his world erupted in pain as he momentarily lost consciousness and fell to the floor.  Hitting the edge of the bed brought Michael back to his senses, although he felt very dizzy.

“Watch it, kid, he heard the cop say, you’ll kill him with that thing if you
ain’t careful.  Get some water.”  A few seconds later, he felt someone splash into his face and he fully regained his sensibilities.

The hood roughly pulled Michael off the floor and pushed into one of the faux wood chairs that came with his deluxe room.  He stared at Michael with a quizzical look on his face as if studying something he did not quite understand.

“I’m an Ultimate Fighter, Jarhead, and I’m going to give you a righteous beat down,” he said as he punched Michael in the side of his face with a sharp right.

Handley stepped behind Michael and handcuffed him behind the backrest so tightly that he had to sit up completely straight and stretch his arms to keep the cuffs from cutting off the circulation to his hands.  Michael squeezed his biceps against the frame and felt the structure give a little. Oops, they fucked up, he thought. 

“See, I told you dude, these Marines ain’t so tough,” said the hood. “At least without a gun,” he added as an afterthought.

Handley slapped him hard across the face. 
“Wakie, wakie.”

Oh, Christ, a Quinton Tarantino fan
, thought Michael. “Eggs and Bakie” he replied somewhat dryly. “Well, Vito, I guess you didn’t make him an instant retard,” remarked Handley, “but we’ll work on that.  So, kid, where is your old man?” 

“Go, fuck yourself!”  The hood brought the Black Jack down in an arc that hit him across the ear, causing
Michael to see stars and feel a throbbing pain vibrate across the top of his skull.  This was going to be a long day, he thought. The hood struck him again on the other ear and laughed. 

Let’s see if we can break the Jarhead’s jar,” he said mockingly. 

Michael momentarily faded from consciousness, causing Handley to throw more lukewarm water on his face.

“I’m going to ask you again, kid, and if you don’t answer me, I am going to do some damage you won’t walk away from.
”

Shit, Christopher
Walken’s character from True Romance; if this guy ever had an original thought it would die of loneliness
.  

Michael felt the blade of a knife against his ear and figured that Handley was going to recreate the scene where the cop gets his ear cut off in Reservoir Dogs.  In the interest of retaining his facial features, he decided to stall.

“Okay let’s not do anything harsh. I’ll tell you where my father is.” 

Char had waited for the five minutes or so that it should have taken his son to collect his gear and sensed that something had gone wrong.  He pulled closer to the room and although the curtains were drawn, light from inside cast multiple shadows indicating there was more than one person in the room.

He retreated to the Bronco, reached under the seat and brought out his Colt .45 automatic, silently exited the vehicle and approached the far side of the window. He figured he had about half a heartbeat until someone spotted him with the hand cannon, so he better do something quickly. 

He looked at the door, placed the .45 into the small of his back, circled around to the back of the Bronco, dropped the tailgate and retrieved an empty
eighty cubic inch steel scuba tank he still used to dive and approached the door. With his right hand he grabbed the valve stem, while cradling the cylinder under his forearm, he swung the tank backwards until it was shoulder level and then let gravity power the base into the door knob.  The impact made a loud crack, the door splintered and flew open. 

Char immediately recognized Handley standing at the foot of the bed and flung the scuba tank at his head.  The cop threw up a forearm to try and block the flying steel cylinder, but it struck hard, causing him to stagger backwards and fall to the floor.

Michael heard the door splitter and flung himself against the young hoodlum, pinning him against the wall as he felt the faux wood chair fall apart under the increased torque caused by his motions. Char pulled the pistol from his belt, entered the room and pointed the barrel directly at the prostrate Handley, who seemed shocked by the sudden turn of events.

“Hello Guy, long time, no see,” said Char with measured venom in his voice. “I heard you were looking for me! Well, here I am!”

Meanwhile, Michael was repeatedly driving his knees into the hood’s kidneys, while keeping him pinned against the wall.

“Hey, easy, I didn’t mean any harm—I was just doing this for some money,” cried the hood. 

“Fuck you, you piece of shit, said Michael, still smarting from the beating. I will rip your fucking balls off.”

“Easy Michael, we don’t have time for this,” said Char. “Unlock him,” he ordered Handley.

Handley dropped to a knee and reached for his ankle, but Char anticipated the move and brought the pistol crashing down on the top of his head just as Handley reached for the .38 caliber Tarsus he had secreted in an ankle holster. A trickle of blood immediately began to seep from the gash that the pistol grip had cut into Handley’s head. “You’ve gotten a lot slower old son,” quipped Char, “Now give me the handcuff key or I’ll give you another one.”

Handley moaned loudly, reached into his pocket and gave the key ring a weak toss. It landed at Char’s feet.
He unlocked the handcuffs and Michael exploded against the hood, letting loose with a flurry of punches that reduced the gangster to a crumpled pile of petulant sobbing. Michael started kicking the squatting man, aiming for the face or kidneys, and Char was pretty sure, he was meaning to kill the man.

“That’s enough
son!” Michael stopped the attacked, looked down at the pathetic figure—“Ultimate fighter, my ass,” said Michael dismissively.

Char wrapped a towel around the deputy’s head and secured it with
duct tape he kept in his pick-up. They left the two handcuffed together laying on the bed. Given the scene they had created, Char anticipated the arrival of the local police.  Handley would probably try and badge his way out of the jam, so he left the loaded .38 in the hood’s front pocket. 

“What now?” asked Michael as they left the motel
room. 

“Well, now that those two douchebags are out of action, momentarily, how about I cook you breakfast and you can bring me up to speed on what you have been doing for the last ten years?”

“I have to do something first,” he said as he crawled under the rear of his pickup and returned a short time later with a black rubberized box the size of a wallet.

“Tracking device,” he told Char. “Give me a minute and I will follow you over there.”

Char wasn’t sure what Michael was going to do, but caught on immediately after watching him stealthily approach an eighteen wheeler idling at the far end of the parking lot.  He nonchalantly slipped behind the cab and attached the tracking device.
Hope he is going to Alaska
, thought Michael.

They drove back to the camping area at
Ginnie Springs.  Char had traded his old Air Stream in for a white and blue Crossroads.  The Airstream was a classic explained Char, but he was well known for having it and so he got something with a lower profile that would allow him to be more incognito. The name plate that hung next to the entranceway said Ben Johnson.

“You think it’s safe to remain here?” asked Michael.

“At least for the time being, they will have to treat that head wound and I think we took most of the fight out of them, at least for today. I think they will skulk back to Sally Boots and report that they found me.”  

Michael was surprised at the neat and well-appointed interior of the trailer. Char was soon at work making bacon and eggs with hash browns.  He poured coffee for both of them and started to detail exactly what he had been doing since last they met.  They ate outside, sitting under the canopy on an old green painted wood picnic bench that came with the site.  

“Everyone thinks I was the one who hid the gold, but I was unconscious. Handley killed Tommy just before the wave hit us and he was thrown overbroad, so it had to be Jimmy that hid the gold. I always keep Jimmy updated on where I’m living just in case he ever gets out.  I tried talking to him in person, but he wouldn’t say anything while he is still locked away. Other than that, I have been keeping my head down mostly. The guy who planned the job, Sally Boots, is slowly going senile, but still had his greed muscle intact. He believes I know where the gold is and from time to time I’ve had to dodge Handley and some of Sally’s other Rentathugs—like that idiot you just beat,” said Char.