The Boat

by Jim Markson

  XXV

  The sandy gravel parking lot of Obduro Marina was almost empty when Mike pulled in. The young girl Erin had hired to run the store was locking the front door. He was embarrassed that he couldn’t remember her name, while somehow remembering that she was Salvadoran.

  Mike approached slowly as old reflexes kicked in. His eyes scanned in every direction other than the girl who was approaching him. It was happy hour on Friday, and the quiet was overwhelming. There was no music, no lights, nobody. The place was deserted.

  The girl approached distraught “Mr. Mike, I’m sorry, but I didn’t know what to do. I called Mr. Rusty, and he said to cancel the band and lock the store. I am very sorry.” Was she crying?

  “What happened, where is Erin?”

  “I don’t know. She is not here. She has not been here all day.” The girl looked at him, big brown eyes full of water and apprehension; she buried her face into his chest and began to shudder as she tried to suppress her crying.

  “Maria,” the name came to Mike without thinking, “what happened?”

  “Two men came. I don’t know them, Ms. Erin wasn’t here. I think …” She sobbed. “I think they killed the dog.”

  Mike held her away, holding her shoulders, looking at her eyes. “Maria, what did you see?”

  She could only cry but nodded in the direction of the boat ramp, where Mike saw a pile of tan fur. He let go of her shoulders and walked over slowly, suppressing his own feelings, trying to put on the mask he assumed whenever he walked onto a crime scene.

  He knelt next to Jeep the dog, flies buzzing around a mortal wound that had caved in one side of his head. Maria moaned with grief. “I found him in the water after the men left. He was floating in the water. I pulled him out, but he was dead.”

  “It’s okay, Maria. I will take care of him; everything will be all right.” He stood and gave her a hug. He held her face and looked into her eyes and, with a calm confidence owned only by the insane and doomed, reassured her, “It’s going to be all right. I’ll take care of Jeep. I’ll take care of everything. You come back tomorrow, and it’ll be fine, you’ll see. But please don’t talk about it with anyone else; it might hurt Ms. Erin’s business.”

  “Gracias … gracias, Senor Mike, lo siento … mucho, gracias…” she said, still quivering, and then turned and walked away.

  Hard coral rock lies six inches below the sandy surface throughout the Florida Keys, and gravesites are not dug by one man. Behind Erin’s house, Mike dug as deep a hole as he could, placed Jeep the dog in the hole, and covered him with sand and then many, many rocks and stones. In an eerie silence, with only the mangrove swamps watching, he cried woefully.

  XXVI

  Mike sat on the gravel next to the pile of stones and stared at the little boat his older brother had built and never sailed. He thought of John and remembered how they had lowered his body into a hole, just as he had done with Jeep the dog. Good souls now forever gone. And the graves were getting shallower.

  He had no plan as he got into the car and headed south. Something inside had changed. He no longer felt the sense of loss or grief. In fact, he felt nothing. And he thought of nothing. The game clock had stopped and, if he had thought of it, he would have had no idea how long it had taken him to drive back down to the parking lot of the Holiday Isle Marina. He cruised through the parking lot and continued past the Lincoln Navigator without a second glance, parking the jeep at the far end of the lot. He sat for a minute, not thinking, not reflecting, not waiting, not planning … maybe wishing he was someplace else. He opened the glove box and pulled out his service weapon, a Glock model 17 held in a holster specifically designed to be tucked inside the belt for concealment. He checked the magazine for a full load of over a dozen 9-mm rounds. He got out of the jeep and tucked the gun inside the back right side of his belt.

  He walked around the north side of the resort and entered the famous Tiki Bar area in the back of the property. The weekend debauchery was just beginning, and both the locals and the tourists seemed in a hurry to get a load on. It was one of the largest resorts in the Central Keys, and a wet T-shirt contest was about to start at one of the three outside bars. He took a weary seat at the far corner of the most remote bar and ordered a Budweiser as he scanned the crowd, not knowing what he was looking for.

  He sat nursing his beer for forty-five minutes, watching the alcohol sweep away the worries and inhibitions of the revelers, providing a temporary relief that he knew all too well. Drinking had lost its joy for Mike since John’s death; it was a dark and cold place to which he fled in weakness. But these were happy drinkers, engaged in loud and expressive social intercourse, looking to make new friends and memories. Watching them was tiresome, and the growing crowd made him nervous. While he didn’t know what he was looking for, he knew it wasn’t here. He decided to look around some of the several guest buildings.

  Without a plan, his instincts drove him to the outer edges, the shadows of the stairwell rather than the confines of the elevator, avoiding eye contact while still slowly flowing as if he had somewhere to go. After surveying three of the seven buildings, he decided to check the parking lot and see if the Navigator was even still there.

  He saw them as soon as he walked out of the building facing the front parking lot. Closing the tailgate of the Navigator, the two men were each carrying a small suitcase. He stopped short, before leaving the shadow of the building, and let the images soak in. As was his custom, he gave them nicknames and guessed that “Skipper” was a little over six feet, big belly, probably 240 pounds. Full head of black curly hair, dress slacks and tucked-in shirt, he was no local. “Gilligan” was probably five foot ten, 170 pounds, lighter skin, with a ball cap and a goatee. Both were wearing leather shoes. Skipper had a slight limp and, while not staggering, their gate implied they had been imbibing.

  Mike followed from the shadows. The two were talking and occasionally laughing, completely relaxed and oblivious to their environs. Skipper switched his bag from one hand to the other as they walked down the front sidewalk, past one building and then another, absorbed in their banter. As they approached building seven, the southernmost, it suddenly dawned on Mike that they might be leading him into a trap, and he quickly made a scan to see if anyone was following him as he stalked Skipper and Gilligan. The music echoed from the party on the backside of the buildings, but there was no one else in front of the building.

  They walked through the first-floor open-air foyer of the building and, as they passed the stairs, Mike began to pick up his pace, entering the foyer just in time to see them turn to the left. He made a left turn, exiting the foyer, and saw that the two were already entering the second room to the left of the foyer. There were lights facing out toward the party area, but Mike had gone blind to everything but his prey.

  He entered the hotel room just as Gilligan was letting the door swing shut. Sweeping in, one foot up on the bed, he came down and forward onto Gilligan’s shoulders with every ounce of strength he had, driving the man onto his knees and into the back of Skipper’s legs. Skipper turned around to see what the hell was going on and quickly focused on the gun that was pointing at his head.

  “On your knees, looking away from me,” Mike said. Skipper complied.

  “Yo, take it easy, jefe, no need to fight … money and credit cards all in the billfold, right rear pocket, just relax with the gatt, man,” Skipper said with a Spanish accent. Gilligan was coming out of his daze and, on his hands and knees, turned to see what had hit him.

  “I don’t want your fucking money. You two kill the dog?”

  “Dog?? What fucking dog? What the fuck you hit me like that for?” Gilligan said. A street punk who wanted to be Black or Hispanic, or anything cooler than what he was.

  “No, jefe, we ditint kill Dog; we ditint kill nobody. We don’t even know which “Dog” you talkin’ about, but we ditint kill nobody.” The Spanish accent sounded like it was Jersey Cuban.

  “Tell me why you killed
the dog.”

  “Fuck you, asshole, we didn’t kill no one,” Gilligan said, starting to rise up. “You got the wrong guys, and you better—”

  Taking his finger off the trigger, Mike brought the butt of the gun down hard against the back of Gilligan’s head. One step forward, past the slumped body of Gilligan, Mike delivered a forceful kick right between Skipper’s legs, sending the big man all the way down to the carpet on his side, grabbing his crotch.

  XXVII

  Mike casually pulled out their billfolds, returned to the hotel room door, threw the deadbolt and slid the chain into its hasp. He sat down in the chair with his back to the window and stared down in surprise at the shining silver badges of Detectives Florencio and Thompson of the Fort Lauderdale Police Department. He pulled out an American Express platinum card from each wallet, comparing them and confirming they were identical. He glanced over an alias driver’s license contained in each wallet, high quality, like those issued for undercover work.

  He immediately got back up and frisked Gilligan, who was starting to moan, and took the small Glock 26 subcompact out of his ankle holster. He moved up to Skipper and pulled a larger gun out of the holster inside the back of his pants. Bigger man, bigger gun … and too big to be doing all that bending over and drawing from the ankle shit. Mike put the guns in his own pants pockets and sat back down, further inspecting the credentials. He stared silently at the two, knowing he was missing something—that he knew something he had not yet put together.

  Gilligan regained consciousness and was holding the large lump on the back of his head. The moaning from his partner had diminished, but he was still holding his crotch with both hands.

  “You okay, Flo?” Gilligan asked.

  “I’ll make it … he kicked me in the fucking balls … motherfucker,” he said, looking at Mike.

  Mike just stared at them, letting the silence have its effect. “So, Detectives, care to tell me what brings you to the lovely Holiday Isle? Honeymoon, maybe?”

  “You loco, papi? Now you know we’re cops, you know how much trouble you’re in. What you hanging around for? You gonna take our stuff, go ahead, we’ll come find you. You want to shoot us, go ahead, but maybe shoot yourself too, cause there only one road in and one road out—nowhere to hide down here you shoot two cops.”

  “Like I said …” Mike continued, ignoring the challenge, “what brings you to this part of the woods?” now slowing down his speech, adding some fake southern drawl.

  “Enough with the stupid questions, pato, you gonna do something, do it!” Agitated, trying to shake something loose, trying to assess his opponent, but still not rising off the floor or making any moves.

  “Wait up, Flo,” Gilligan says. “I remember this guy … you’re the guy—you’re the guy looking for an open bar this morning.”

  “That’s right, Detective. Which brings us back once more to my initial question: what are you doing down here, and why the fuck were you following me this morning?”

  “Ah, shit, dog, that’s what this is all about?” says Gilligan. “You didn’t have to rough us up like that, bro; you coulda just asked. This is classified, but, since you holding a gun an’ everything, guess I can tell you. We’re working a narcotics investigation. Saw you leaving the business of our suspect, and thought we’d see what you were up to, man. You just getting an early buzz on baby … no harm, no foul. Why don’t you just give us back our shit, and we’ll just forget about everything, cool?”

  “Why don’t you tell me about your investigation?”

  “Really, bro? Like I said, we thought you might be involved, but we past that. You don’t wanna know ’bout our investigation; it’ll just cause problems for you.” Gilligan talking all sweet and syrupy, Skipper starting to feel a little better, sitting up but not saying anything, letting his partner do the talking.

  Mike held the gun up in front of his face, appearing to inspect it, then looking back at Gilligan.

  “Okay, man, you wanna know, you can know. There’s a bitch owns the marina we seen you leavin’ this morning. She been picking up bales dropped off in the water at night by planes coming in from the Islands. We just about got the case wrapped up too—planning on arresting her today or tomorrow. You happy? Now you know our case, you can go call the Inquirer. Or maybe we gonna think again ’bout chargin’ you with something.”

  Mike looks up at the ceiling, like he’s trying to figure things out, taking his time, just like Colombo used to do.

  “She’s bringing in dope… down here in the Keys … how’s that involve Fort Lauderdale PD?”

  Gilligan pauses. Just a second, but they both know it. Now acting upset “Fuck bro, this is complicated shit; it’s a three volume case, you want the whole story, let’s go up north, and I’ll get you the case files. That be okay? What the fuck is it to you anyway?”

  “And I gotta wonder why you’re driving a rented Lincoln Navigator, not your service vehicle … this being work and all…”

  XXVIII

  The light of recognition goes off in their eyes at the same time. “You’re a cop?” says Skipper, the first coherent words spoken since he was kicked in the nuts.

  “This is how it generally works in these situations, Detectives: the guy with the gun gets to ask the questions, and guys without the guns have to answer them.”

  “Give us back our shit right now mother-fucker, or your job and pension are gone, and you gonna land up butt-raped twice a day in Raiford.” More than anger… outrage, humiliation, disgust, all at once. But still not enough to forget who’s holding the guns.

  Gilligan takes a different approach. “That bitch … she got you to comin’ after us, bro? That what she think she gonna do? You think you gonna scare us off? Fuck you and fuck her; we ain’t leaving till we get what we came for.”

  “And what exactly is that, Detective Thompson? What did you come for?”

  The silence hangs for a few seconds before Skipper tries to cover up. “Yeah, papi, you a thinkin’ man, maybe she serve up some shit and tell you it’s flan, right? We know her. She used to be a confidential informant for us, but she likes the drugs too much, and she lies too much, and now we found out ’bout this pick-up business she runnin’, we gotta bring her in ourselves. You a cop, jefe, you know how it is with snitches. Gotta finish the job is all.”

  “Of course I understand; you wouldn’t mind if I called your office and confirmed your investigation with your supervisor—what’s his name?”

  More silence. Making up a cover story on the fly is difficult, especially if you’re used to being the one holding the badge and asking the questions. Too hard for Gilligan.

  “Fuck this—what she paying you, dawg? We can double it. She probably ain’t gonna pay you anyway.”

  “How much does she owe you?”

  “Mo’ than she can afford, dawg. On the real, whatever she paying you, we double it.”

  “How’d she get it outta you?”

  “Damn, dog, you ask a lotta questions. What she tell you? Even though I know it wasn’t the truth.”

  “So I take it you don’t want me to call your supervisors?”

  “She took something of ours …” Skipper pipes up, trying to cover again for his quick-lipped partner. “… well, not really ours … something we were watching for somebody. Like a security detail, you know, papi? Make us look real bad. We jus’ gotta get it back is all, nothing wrong with that, right? We gonna get a little finder’s fee, you know, like Randy say, we can cut you in on that action.”

  “What’d she take?”

  “You and these fuckin’ questions, bro! She hired you, what’d she tell you we looking for?”

  “A boat.”

  “Yeah, bitch told the truth about that! A very big boat. Bitch stoled a boat from the po’lice; we can’t tolerate that, you know how it is.”

  “She said you tried to rape her.”

  “You can’t rape a bitch that’s givin’ it away, man! She a dope-sucking snitch that fucked with t
he wrong guys. We gonna get back what she stole; you want in on the action or not?”

  “She ain’t got the boat.”

  “Yeah, we know that too. But she got that marina, and it’s doing some fine business now. Be worth more than that fucking boat to our friend, he needs a business like that. She’s all set to sign it over Monday morning. You don’t need do nothing, man, just take your cut an’ walk away. She learn her lesson ’bout fucking with the po’lice and everybody walk away happy-happy, bro.”

  “Your friend, he the guy gave you the platinum credit cards?”

  The two of them looking at each other, no idea what to say. “Yeah, papi, you figured it out, you a smart cop. He a bad man though … you thinkin’ ’bout cutting us out? He won’t talk to you, jefe.”

  “He know about the girl?”

  No hesitation this time. “Jefe, like I say, he a bad man. He knew about the girl, he’d come and get what’s his on his own, no need for me and Randy. Just us three now, papi, like the Three Musketeers.”

  “Car and hotel on his credit card?”

  “Yeah, jefe, but why you thinkin’ on it so hard? It’s easy papi; you don’t need to do nothing but let it happen. We give you a full third, we ain’t even gotta know your name or nothin’. All done Monday morning and go our different ways. Like Randy say, it’s a lot more than whatever she say she gonna pay you … and we ain’t gonna back off anyways. Not like you no boyscout yourself papi, takin’ money from her. Our money just bigger.”

  Tipping back in chair, feigning a smile “I think we can find a solution here, gentlemen. But I don’t trust you, and I’m not comfortable with the way you do things. You’re not going to like this, but we’re going back to the girl’s place. Where are your handcuffs?”