Tampa Star (Blackfox Chronicles Book 1) (9 page)

Simon Block had a yacht boarding ladder custom made by his shipyard installed on the
Star of Tampa
immediately after her refurbishment was completed.  The ladder was a series of five connected eight foot sections of aluminum attached to a special davit that when lowered would assemble into a ladder of skid resistant covered steps and a handrail descending to near the waterline at a 45° angle.  This would allow passengers to embark and disembark in relative comfort.  Block had envisioned cruising to ports in Mexico and allowing on shore visits to places that had limited docking facilities while also allowing well-heeled guests who might be interested in trying their luck in the Star Casino to board from their yachts.

When Block realized the casino’s maiden voyage would take place at the end of October, he decided to make it a costume party. The Nuevo riche of Tampa would love such an ostentatious event.  He had the casino decorated with a seeming cornucopia of plastic ghouls, goblins, witches and skeletons.  Each table was covered with an orange linen table cloth and a small witch’s caldron filled with milk chocolate silver dollars sat at its center.  Guests were encouraged to be in costume as he offered a five hundred dollar prize for the most realistically attired monster.

The costume requirement had served as a source of inspiration to Sally, “Yuz dress up like a freaking mummy or something and no one will know who you are!” 

***

The specific monster costumes they wore had been Tommy’s idea as he had seen Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein while in Angola Penitentiary.  Although two stewards sat at the top of the gangplank, neither made a move to stop Frankenstein and the Wolfman as they nimbly carried a coffin shaped plywood box on board.  No one dared to question them as a very realistically costumed Dracula followed closely behind, daring anyone to “look into my eyes.”

They had waited until dinner was finished for the very pragmatic reasons as they were not sure when they would next

be afforded the opportunity to eat again.  The Hatteras,
Bull Market
, sat idling about 100 yards off the Starboard side as Tommy waited for the sea ladder to be lowered.

The Star had been remarkably easy to follow. Tommy simply parked the boat just outside the Tampa Straits and waited for the biggest thing around to come sailing through the passage. 

The Hatteras had a rudimentary radar system, but Tommy preferred to trust his calibrated eyeball over a bunch of vacuum tubes switches and dials.  

After dessert was finished Dracula, Frankenstein and Wolf Man silently got up from their seats, removed weapons from the fake casket, and Char fired five rounds of automatic fire into the floorboards—not wanting to risk someone being felled by a ricochet off one of the steel bulkheads overhead.  The rounds impacted close enough to get the diner’s attention, while insuring no collateral damage, unless that should prove necessary. 

“Ladies and gentlemen, this is a robbery,” said Dracula.  “Anyone moves, and I will kill you, and anyone with you.  Are we clear?” he asked.  There was a low murmur from the seated patrons, who were too frightened to offer much more.  Char fired another burst into the floor, reached into his pocket and expertly reloaded the weapon. “I said, are we clear?”  This time the response from the crowd was loud and unmistakable.  The victims properly cowed, Dracula nodded to the other two monsters and they departed the casino, leaving Char to control the crowd.

Dracula now commanded everyone’s attention as he held a fully automatic AR-15 with a banana clip that held
thirty .223 caliber rounds. It wasn’t so much the size of the rounds that killed you—it was the fact that they were traveling at a very high velocity and had a tendency to tumble when they entered soft tissue and fragment when they hit something harder, like bone.  The “Mattie-Mattel” had a bad reputation for jamming, but that was just because it was made of lighter material than its predecessor, the venerable M-14.  With proper cleaning, the AR-15 operated just as effectively as the older rifle.

Frankenstein’s Monster held a shotgun to the chest of two stewards and ordered them to lower the ladder.  The Wolf-Man had just seized the bridge and Dracula was on crowd control in the Star Casino.   

***

Simon Block was dressed in an elegant black tuxedo but sans costume aside from a black eye mask.  He sat seething with anger and disgust
—he had anticipated that at some point security might be an issue, but not on the night of the Star’s maiden voyage.

Block was not totally unprepared— a Webley Revolver, the standard issue service pistol for the armed forces of Australia, sat in the valise by his feet. The Webley fired the large .455 Webley cartridge, making it one of the most powerful top-break revolvers eve
r produced.  Still, he was out-gunned by the wanker in the Dracula costume; Char, something—the Commodore’s lackey.  Block figured this was some stupid attempt to pay him back for absconding with his girlfriend.

Well, as evidenced by the count’s tuxedo, you can dress the man up, but you apparently can’t take him out.  Block smiled because taking him out was exactly what he intended to do—Regardless of what happens, Block would make sure the bastard got one or two .455 rounds in the chest.  He was pretty sure this vampire could be killed that way. 

He reached down with his right hand and began slowly sliding the zipper of his valise open while he watched Dracula, whose attention was distracted by several diners seemingly overcome by hysterics. 

An elderly man got to his feet and began slowly approaching Char, “Why are you doing this?
he cried, You are scaring my wife half to death!”

“Sit down and shut up old man or this dinner will be your last,” answered Char as he leveled the rifle’s barrel at the man’s chest.  Three dealers quietly surveyed the group of diners.  One of them silently pulled a semi-automatic weapon from under his coat and brought it to his side.  No one noticed his actions as all eyes were on the man with the automatic weapon in the front of the room. 

Block decided the time to act was now, before Frankenstein and the Wolfman returned.  He grabbed the butt of the pistol from the bag, rose and leveled the revolver at Char, momentarily startling him.  Char tried to turn the barrel of his rifle toward the sudden threat. 
You are too late
, thought Block in momentary triumph as he pulled the trigger.

Two loud explosions followed, and Char instinctively braced for the impact of the round; unfortunately, not an experience that
was unknown to him. He felt something pass by his knee and imbed itself in the blue carpeting behind him.

A small red stain appeared on Block’s white shirt as he struggled to re-aim his pistol.  Finding it too heavy, Simon Block dropped his right arm, tried to sit down, but fell back against his chair
—tumbling over onto the floor. One of the dealers approached the dying man holding a Colt .45 in his right hand— the weapon still smoking.  The dealer wordlessly removed the Webley from the floor with his left hand, and joined Char at the front of the room.

“Anyone else
want to be a hero?” he asked in a thick Italian accent.

“You
okay?” he asked Char.

“Yeah, you hit him before he pulled the trigger and the round went into the floor.” 

The three dealers looked almost identical; short; about five foot, five or six inches, olive skin, thin, dark hair; not just Italian, but more likely Sicilian. Jimmy had called them “Zips.”  

“All you high rollers take your wallets, watches, rings and anything else of value and place it on the table in front of you, the man ordered. Once you do that, drop to the floor fac
e down. If you remain seated, I’m gonna shoot you.”

Char was momentarily stunned by the demand, the man looked at his expression and said; “this is our end, my friend, Sally said not to touch the gold, but the rest is ours.”

The diners rapidly began to comply with the dealer’s demand—Simon Block’s corpse perhaps serving as grisly motivation.  One of the other dealers began removing the items piled in front of the assembled victims and stuffing them into a bag, while another began emptying the cash draws at the tables. 

Carla heard herself scream. She had gone to the bathroom and had just wandered back into the casino and saw Block’s lifeless body strewn in front of her.  She ran to the body, dropped to her knees and cradled his head.

“You murderous bastard!”  She screamed.
Just like a women to think that the chivalry afforded her by the civility of man would extend to a situation devoid of that same civility
, thought Char. 

Carla suddenly jumped to her feet and sprinted towards him, her fists balled and ready for a fight. Char was startled and momentarily frozen in indecision. She rapidly closed the distance

between
them and just when it appeared that she would slam the full force and fury of her body into Char’s automatic weapon, one of the Zips intersected her line of approach and deftly struck her across the forehead with a large semi- automatic pistol.

Carla collapsed to the floor unconscious. “Shut the fuck up!” shouted the Zip, but Carla heard nothing as she was likely dead.

Char felt uncontrolled rage—he ran up to the man and struck him in the gut with the butt of the AR-15, doubling the Zip over, then applying a potentially killing blow—a butt stroke across the head.  The occupants of the room all heard an audible crack as Char struck and the man slid to the floor unconscious.

“Leave him!” Char ordered.
He looked at Carla’s unconscious body draped over Block’s lifeless one and felt a flood of mixed emotions.  At one time, he was sure he loved her, but he thought of her betrayal of him for nothing more than the security of an old man’s money and he was quickly overcome with contempt.
She wanted to be with Block; so be it
!

Ligio returned. “The boat is tied up, let’s move!”  Char approached the Million Dollar Bandit and fired several short bursts into the glass from his automatic weapon. It shattered, but otherwise remained intact. He fired again and the glass broke, revealing a fist size hole. Ligio vanished and returned a minute later wielding a fire axe.  He grabbed a chair, placed it next to the slot machine, mounted it and began swinging the pointed end at the case until he cleared the ballistic glass from one side, while dozens of liberated gold coins spilled to the floor. 

Handley, wearing a simple nylon stocking to disguise his features carried a bundle of rubberized waterproof bags commonly used on boats for storage and began filling them with the now liberated gold double eagles. Once two bags were full, he carried them out through the passageway, past where the two stewards sat handcuffed back to back and carefully descended the steep ladder to the yacht bobbing in suddenly tumultuous seas. 

By the time he had retuned, Ligio had filled another two bags and Handley was forced to make a return trip, huffing mightily as he went. Once on board the boat, he placed the bags in the corner of the main salon and went forward to check with Tommy.

“How’s it going, kid?” He asked Tommy. 

“Not, so good, the waves are kicking up and it’s getting harder to stay tied up here, a big enough
wave comes in and this boat could get swept under the ship.”

“That would suck for you kid,
” said Handley facetiously.

“It would suck for us all, Handley, you, me, the gold. Now, stop fucking around, and clear the ship. The way the sea is starting to roll, I think we have some serious weather coming in.” Handley departed without another word. He returned to the casino in time to see Char clearing out the casino’s bank.

Wolfman appeared in the casino a few minutes afterward.  He visibly nodded at Char.  According to the plan, Jimmy had destroyed the ship’s radio with a fire axe and locked the bridge crew into the small confines of the radio room as the ship continued to idle.

It was time to go. 

Char fired a burst into the floorboards and screamed; “Anyone who moves off the floor within the next twenty minutes gets a bullet in the chest, got me?” They had executed the robbery in just over ten minutes. Char, Handley, Jimmy, Ligio, and the two Zips rapidly retreated from the casino out into the night air and down the stairway to the yacht. Char undid the rope to the ladder and Tommy reversed the engine to slowly power away from the visibly rolling ship.

“Thank God, you guys are back, I think we have a storm blowing in. The radio has been issuing severe storm warnings,” Tommy excitedly exclaimed. 

“Right, get us out of here,” ordered Char.

In the salon, Guy Handley brought out a bottle of
Macallan 15 Year Old Fine Oak Single Malt Scotch from the bar and passed out glasses. Ligio, Guy, Jimmy and Char drank a shot, but the Zips abstained. Tommy pointed the Hatteras south towards Mullet Key, the home of Fort Desoto State Park.

Fort Desoto was a collection of Spanish American War vintage bunkers built on Mullet and Egmont Keys, two islands that sat in the mouth of Tampa Bay.  It was a good spot for a fort in those years as capturing or blockading an enemy’s ports was an effective strategy to winning a war. The barracks, chow halls and administration buildings of the original fort were long gone, all that remained were the original concrete and seashell fortifications of the original bunkers and one of the original twelve inch M1890-MI mortars that had defended the bay.  Fortifications and methods of fighting advanced quickly making the need for such a fort obsolete. In 1963, Fort Desoto was officially dedicated as a state park.

Sally Boots sat smoking an Arturo Fuentes 858 in his
red 72 Cadillac El Dorado. It was a cheap fifty cent cigar, but he enjoyed it. It tasted good enough for the price and you could finish it in a half an hour. He had the forethought to have a marine radio installed and anxiously waited for word from the yacht. He kept on hearing foul weather broadcasts from the National Weather Service band and that began to cause him some concern.

Finally, he heard Tommy transmit a fictitious heading from the fishing boat “
Gabagool” and Sally relaxed. Had he heard “Oobatz”, they would have been in trouble. “Gabagool” meant that they were in route to Mullet Key; the plan was to tie up at the new pier, off load the gold and leave. Sally told them he would have them on a private charter to Brazil once the money changed hands.  He offered a two for one exchange— half the value of the load for clean currency and that seemed more than generous until you considered that he had no intention of paying it. The wind began to pick up and it started raining.   He pulled up to the pier and waited for signs of the boat to appear.

Char went up to the wheel house and found Jimmy and Tommy smoking and drinking coffee.

“I think we’re in trouble; the Zips are sitting there looking like they are preparing for battle. One of them reloaded his pistol and now they are just sitting there watching Ligio and Handley polish off the bottle of whiskey.” Jimmy nodded. He knew exactly what Char was talking about.  Sally was a greedy fucker and a master manipulator who always played both sides against the middle.  He would never allow them to keep their fair share.  This much Jimmy knew as well as he knew his own name.

“I think the Zips that Sally hired to give us a hand are also planning on taking us out.”

“Yeah, that sounds like the Sally I know; when the man eats, he eats alone,” said Jimmy.

“O
kay Char, so what do we do about it?” Tommy asked.

“I say we let those that are drinking get a little more liquored up and then we take them all out before we land. Hell, there is no reason we have to land at all.”

Char went back below and checked on the progress of the bottle. Handley and Ligio held glasses three quarters full with whiskey.  The gold sat in the corner untouched as Sally had instructed.  It dawned on Char that Sally had probably not shared his plans with Handley and Ligio otherwise, they would not be drunk. For all they knew, the hard part of the work was over. They were relaxing.

The two faux dealers sat at the mahogany covered bar, their two Colt .45s on the countertop close to their right hands, counting money and dividing up spoils from the heist. They spoke to each other in low tones, suspiciously eying the room as they rummaged through the assortment of cash and jewelry stolen in the heist.

Sally had instructed them to wait until they were tied up at the dock and to dispatch the three amigos, with a bullet to the head.

Char went to the coffee urn and drew a cup of coffee. The Zips’ demeanor seemed to confirm his worst fear— they seemed like troops anxiously awaiting a firefight, whereas Ligio and Handley seemed like two guys tying one on after a hard day at the office.  He returned to the wheelhouse, handed Tommy the cup and nodded at Jimmy.

“I would say that those guys are definitely up to something.” 

They sat silently for a long time, Char with the AR-15 in his hands stood watching the doorway to the Salon.

“Okay, so when do we make a move?” asked Char.   

“I would wait until we get closer to the islands, said Tommy. The outflow from the straits hitting the open ocean normally causes a lot of waves and it should keep those guys off balance. Stay here for a while; I will let you know just before we start hitting rough
water.” Char and Jimmy nodded silently. The wheelhouse remained quiet and the mood grew unbearably tense. 

Ten minutes later, Tommy nodded and whispered, “The tide is going out, and we should be hitting some good size waves in a minute or two.”

Jimmy crossed himself with the top of the slide on his Browning Hi-Power.  Char held the assault weapon tightly in his hands. They felt the boat rise and fall dramatically and impact on the surface at least three feet below.

Initially thrown into a state of confusion, the Zips held on to the side of the countertop and looked at each other with perplexed stares. A second later, Char and Jimmy exited the wheel house and burst into the salon. Char opened fire on automatic at the two while Jimmy leveled his .45 at
Ligio’s chest and fired. 

One of the dealers fell to the floor while the other frantically reached for his weapon.  He leveled it and fired blindly, striking Jimmy in the shoulder and was immediately cut down by another burst from Char.  Handley ran out the back of the salon onto the stern of the boat. 

Char nudged the dealers with the barrel of his weapon—they were both dead, as was Ligio, who had a fist size hole in his back from the exit wound. Jimmy sat down heavily on one of the couches and listened to the sounds on the deck. Handley was moving to the wheelhouse.  Jimmy listened intently and then suddenly fired out the side window.

Handley ran into the wheelhouse and pointed his pistol, a cop’s .38 Special, at Tommy. Char slowly began to creep up the stairway to the bridge until he could see the wheelhouse.   He could not see Handley, however, but knew that he must be there. 

“What the fuck, Handley?”  Tommy asked, trying to get him to reply so Char would know where he was, but Handley remained silent.  Char slowly continued to inch his way up the stairs until he could see Tommy directly in front of him. Handley was either directly to Tommy’s left or to the left rear of the cabin, which would afford him some protection, regardless of  whether Char approached from outside or up the stairs. 

Char retreated into the salon and found Jimmy sprawled on the couch, a kitchen towel pressed to his shoulder in order to staunch the flow of blood seeping from the wound.  He looked pale and was covered with a cold sweat.  Char needed a diversion and hoped
Jimmy was up to the task. If not, Handley could hold them off until they docked and then he would have back up.         

Handley stood toward the back of the cabin in the very corner, covering either avenue of approach
—the stairs from the salon or the sliding doors from outside. He saw the barrel of the AR-15 clear the bulkhead indicating that someone was on the stairs and he pounced, firing madly.   Jimmy had crawled up the stairs with the rifle pointed in front of him. Handley’s initial shots had passed over Jimmy’s head. Handley aimed at the top of his head and fired just as there was a bright hot flash of light and heat erupted on the right side of his face and something with the force of a giant wave enveloped him.