Stairway to the Bottom - a Mick Murphy Key West Mystery

by Michael Haskins

  “Who is Whitey Bulger and what does he have to do with the diamonds?” Moe asked.

  I gave them a quick run-down on Bulger and his recent capture.

  “Now it’s your turn,” I said with a grin. “Who would want him dead?”

  Chapter 51

  Moe looked at Curly. Larry looked at Curly. I looked at Norm, who shook his head and smiled, and then I looked at Curly. For whatever reason, he didn’t want to appear to be in charge.

  “Curly, it seems you’ve been selected. Do you have the answer?” I kept eye contact with him.

  I could tell he wished he had a drink, the flesh covering his cue-ball head had that rosy color of a gin drinker. He wanted something in his hands to play with, a drink would’ve been good, anything to stall for a moment, to give his mind that extra second or two to qualify the situation, but he didn’t have anything and the only glass available was mine. His nervous facial expressions were comical while his dead brown eyes gave away nothing. Imagine a cue ball with eyes and making faces. It was hard not to laugh at him, at all of them, but the subject was deadly serious.

  “The two women, Natasha and Olga, worked freelance,” he said breaking the uneasy silence. His voice was much higher than I expected, and his Cockney accent was pronounced, as his comical expression turned serious. “Sometimes they worked for us, off the books. I can only assume they worked for others, but I cannot prove it. They were very good at what they did. Mostly their work looked like accidents, if the body was found, but often the target disappeared.”

  “Used them in Ireland, did you?”

  “Fuck you,” he said with a wide grin. It came out fook, like the Irish pronunciation.

  “So, what brought them out of retirement?” I wanted to shoot him but I thought it better to move on.

  “I am not sure, possibly for the same reason we did,” he said, measuring his words, not wanting to give away too much. “Or maybe the man who paid for the documents made them an offer. ‘E would not want that information made available, not after all these years.”

  “Any idea who that is?”

  He chuckled like a schoolgirl and his face took on a monstrous appearance. “Someone important, if ‘e’s still around today and knows what is ‘appening. Could be German, could be American.” He grinned as he said it.

  “Could be an English bastard.”

  “Could be anyone.”

  “Could be there are no documents,” I said, mimicking his tone. “Maybe it was a con and all the guy wanted were the diamonds. Y’all got scammed,” I said wasting my southern drawl and grin on him. “Did you come out of retirement to bring justice to an old case? And the diamonds will be returned to the correct governments, right?”

  “We are not fools, Murphy, so don’t talk down to us.” He slapped his open palm on the table. “You and our friend ‘ere want them, too.” He pointed to Norm but kept his stare on me. “We want them, so does your CIA and the Russians. Nobody wants to return them. The Russians will kill you, kill Norm, kill whoever ‘as the diamonds.”

  “And you won’t?”

  “We’ll deal with you.” He lied without changing his creepy expression. “You tell us where ‘e is and we’ll give you twenty percent of what ‘e has left.”

  Norm laughed. When I turned to him, he raised his hands and shook his head. He wasn’t going to comment, he was only an observer. I was on my own.

  “Twenty percent of its worth today?” I said as if I was interested. He knew I wasn’t because I would have asked for a bigger percentage if I was. We all knew I wouldn’t help them. We were playing a game, possibly a deadly game.

  “Of what we get off ‘im,” he said.

  “Are you going to kill him?”

  “None of your business.”

  “See, you’re wrong there, I wish someone would kill him,” I said and leaned back, holding my glass. “You can go to Cuba and search for him and throw a party for the CIA and the French while you’re there.”

  “You told them ‘e was in Cuba?”

  “No, I told them what I told you, if it was me, I’d be in Cuba.” I sipped my drink. “But I might be having second thoughts on that.”

  “And what would they be?”

  “I was thinking.” I stared at Norm. “Cuba’s too close to the States. Since he thought out this whole thing, I think he’d have set up something to distance himself, like Rio, where extradition is difficult and if he married a Brazilian, extradition would be almost impossible. I’d be sitting on Copacabana counting Bulger’s money, if it was me.”

  Curly turned to Norm. “Would you tell us if ‘e was full of shit?”

  “First I’ve heard of Brazil,” he said. “But he’s got a point. A lot of the American criminals living in Cuba are concerned the government might topple and then their safety would be gone.”

  “It sounds like he’s eating our Yorkshire pudding, while we are in the kitchen,”

  Moe said, referring to the fluffy pastry popular in England.

  “I ain’t sure what that means,” Norm said.

  “I do,” I said. “Look it, he ain’t here and wherever he is, he’s sitting back laughing at you and counting his money, or maybe just staring at a bank book, but he’s making fools of you.” I stopped, laughed to myself. “You’re the ones making fools of yourselves. Walsh is not the man you want. I’ve met him. He’s street smart, but no master of disguises and languages. He’s a killer.”

  “Maybe ‘e is so good at disguises, ‘e’s fooled you,”

  Curly said.

  “It’s more likely you are the fools.”

  Norm made a growling sound as he waved Susan over. “Give me whatever Mick’s drinking,” he said.

  “Exactly, Susan,” I said. “Anyone else?”

  No one spoke until Susan returned with Norm’s drink. He tasted it and shook his head at me. I didn’t know if it meant there was gin in it or not.

  “You’ve got everything I know, which is nothing,” I said and leaned forward. “You also know what I think and, right now, that’s more than the others have if you consider Brazil. You can stick around and track me, or you can follow my suspicions.”

  “We ‘ave contacts in Cuba and Brazil.”

  “I’m sure.”

  “We can ‘ave them check for your Walsh, while we keep an eye on you,” Curly said and stood. The others followed. “We don’t trust you.”

  “We don’t like you,” Moe said.

  Larry hadn’t said a word. He slouched at the table, and was still slouched over when he stood. Maybe his voice was the only distinctive thing about him but I would never get to hear it.

  “Feeling’s mutual,” I said as the three left. “They going to stop at the Red Garter?”

  “If it was open,” Norm said. “Did you accomplish anything?”

  “I think so.”

  “Yeah, you’re the Rodney Dangerfield of Key West,” he said. “No gin in here.”

  “You knew that.”

  “Yeah.” He moved to the seat next to me. “At the bar, there are two men with military haircuts, see them?”

  I looked toward the covered bar and saw the two men. “I know them.”

  “I figure that. They’re Pauly’s, right? They followed the big guy at the other end of the bar. You know him too?

  “Nope. You think he’s Russian?”

  “If he ain’t, he’s working for them.” Norm finished his drink. “The Russians are going to make things dicey, Mick.”

  “Tell me something I don’t know.”

  “There’s one thing you’re not thinking about.”

  “What?”

  “Who grabbed you?” He played with the ice in his empty glass. “I hate to admit it, but maybe you were right in thinking the marshals. That might explain why they’re still here and not out hunting this guy down.”

  “Thanks for coming around.”

  Norm stood up to leave. “I’ve gotta run. What do the marshals think you know?

  Whatever it is,
it’s keeping them here. Try to focus on that. If the Russians just wanted you dead, they’d have killed you at Schooner. So they think you know something too. Be careful tonight, especially if you’re out with Tita. Pauly’s guys may not be enough.”

  Chapter 52

  Norm left with a warning about the Russians. He wasn’t trying to contact them for a sit-down. “They know how to reach you, if they want to talk,” he said and looked toward the bar on his way out. Was he looking at the Russian sitting there or Pauly’s two men?

  I was surprised when Norm admitted the marshals might be involved in my abduction, though he still had doubts. My surprise quickly turned to concern because it made the marshals more dangerous since it meant they were willing to work outside the rules—bending them to the breaking point and then pulling back, hopefully in time. Maybe not a threat like the Russians, but a threat just the same. By the process of elimination, the marshals kept coming to the top of my list.

  I took hits from two sides. One wanted Walsh because he was Doyle Mulligan, the other wanted him because they thought he was a Cold War spy and they both believed I held the answer to where he was. Greed drove both inquiries—Whitey Bulger’s millions and diamonds. All this because of a missed phone call and Amanda’s fluff piece on a Key West character that was picked up by the news services because it was a slow news day. That day the press couldn’t find any Republicans hanging out in airport restrooms or Democrats fathering children out of wedlock. No, but they found a crazed killer escaping to nowhere on a Jet Ski and turned him into a mythological Key West character. So much for the rumor that people don’t read newspapers.

  “If you’re driving I can’t serve you another,” Susan said, breaking into my morbid daydream.

  “I’m walking, make the next one a double,” I said and we both laughed.

  “Same?”

  “Please. I’ve gotta keep a clear head today.”

  “Just so today doesn’t turn into tomorrow.”

  “It always does.”

  “I’ll be out of a job if people follow your example,” she said with a chuckle and walked away.

  “This seat taken cowboy?”

  Pauly materialized out of nowhere. That or I wasn’t paying attention.

  “Saving the seat for Cote de Pablo,” I said.

  “I would’ve saved it for Angie Harmon.” Pauly sat down. We have an ongoing debate about the actresses. Some have phantom football leagues, Pauly and I have phantom affairs with television stars. “I saw Norm leaving.”

  “Met with the Limeys. Norm thinks I’m Key West’s Rodney Dangerfield.”

  Pauly grinned. Susan brought my drink, took Pauly’s order, and nodded her approval when he asked for a beer.

  “You could do worse,” he said. “Did you ever see Dangerfield in Back to School?”

  “A long time ago.”

  “Did you appreciate his reading of “Do not go gentle into that good night?”

  “Kind of.”

  “He showed his serious side for that, something he didn’t often let people see. But I get the feeling Norm was talking about the clown side,” Pauly said accepting his beer. “I noticed his performance because that’s my favorite poem. The only one I can recite. Believe that?”

  “No,” I said. “I wouldn’t have thought of you as a reader of Dylan Thomas.”

  “Lot of things about me you wouldn’t have thought of,” he said. “You okay?”

  “Hell, I don’t know, you tell me. Am I?”

  Even in the shade of an old banyan tree, it was hot, I was sweating, and my shirt stuck to me. I felt uncomfortable and wasn’t sure if it was because of the weather or the improbable situation facing me.

  “The guys at the bar are following the large Russian,” he said without taking his stare from me. “He’s following you. Two other Russians are following him, but they’re keeping back. I’ve got two men on them. The only thing I can think of is they’re waiting for you do to something and then they’re gonna grab you…or whatever.”

  “It’s the whatever that scares me.”

  “It should,” he said. “But you’ve got four good men backing you up. Did Norm have anything constructive to say?”

  “Yeah, he said if the Russians wanted me dead they would’ve shot up Schooner that day and not tried to take me for a boat ride.”

  “Can’t argue with that.”

  “That’s comforting.” I rattled the ice in my glass. “I’m concerned something will come down when I’m with Tita.”

  “Get out of Dodge.”

  “Can’t.”

  “I had lunch with Nathan the other day.” He lit a cigarette. “He’s taking most of her cases. She trying to sell the house?”

  “No. For a while she’s keeping it.”

  Pauly smoked. He looked around and checked the menu on the table, stalling. “You want me to put more men on you?”

  “You know how stupid all this is?” I said instead of answering him. “I don’t think there’s a fucking brain between the whole bunch of ‘em.” The anger that came with the words scared me.

  “The Russian mob brings out the best in people, don’t they?” He stubbed out the cigarette.

  “I thought I left all this shit behind me in California,”

  I said. “Pauly, if I thought getting out of Dodge would solve my problems, I’d be gone. I really would.”

  “You’re lying to yourself, Mick,” he said. “You and me, we’re a lot alike. I guess Norm’s in our club too.”

  “Pauly, the three of us couldn’t be more different.” I wondered how a drug smuggler and I could be alike. Add Norm to the mix and it was almost laughable.

  “You’re a junkie, Mick.” He held up his hand to stop me before I began to differ with him. “Your drug ain’t coke, or grass. What gets you high is danger, the excitement. It’s an adrenaline rush. All those stories you did in Central America, firefights between the insurgents and government forces, it gave you a hard on like nothing else can. When it ended you couldn’t take assignments covering court trials; too tame, you were hooked, you needed that rush just like a junkie needs the next fix.” He finished his beer and lit another cigarette. “Nothing you might call exciting in a courtroom, not when compared to being in the middle of a firefight; it’s danger, life-and-death right there, facing you. It’s the ultimate thrill ride, not knowing if you’re gonna buy it. Come on, I know firsthand there’s no rush like outrunning the authorities on the water. They’re shooting, I’m ducking, maybe shooting back. I’ve done things that should’ve blown up in my face and got away with them. It’s better than a coke high. But coke is readily available, so how do you find that high again?” After a long last drag, he stubbed out the cigarette.

  “I don’t miss that shit, Pauly. I’m slowing down and don’t know if I can dodge bullets as well as I used to.”

  “If Tita wasn’t in the middle of this, you’d be enjoying the hell out of yourself and trying to figure a way to get at the Russian, the marshals, everyone. You’d use Norm, hell, you’d use me too and I’d gladly help. It’s who we are, Mick. We’ve spent too much time on the edge to step back and not want one more peek into the abyss.” He lit another cigarette and inhaled deeply.

  “A poet and philosopher, who would’ve thunk it?”

  “A realist, Mick. I’m a realist. I know a lot of people, all kinds of people, but I can count my friends, people I can depend on, on one hand. You’re one of those and if you’re gonna take a peek at the abyss; I’ll help keep you from falling in.”

  Chapter 53

  Pauly lit another cigarette. We had good views of the saloon, open sight of the bars, the entrances, staff and customers milling around. For Pauly and Norm, who were always aware of their surroundings, this was priority seating. Customers came and went. Pauly crushed out his half-smoked cigarette.

  He stared at me. “Let’s see what they want, before we do anything.”

  I looked toward the entrance and saw a man walking toward us with fou
r bulky guys following him. Their tourist clothing did little to help them blend in. My anxiety level shot up. Pauly’s men went to where the large Russian sat and stood on either side of him. The man put his hands on the bar.

  “Russians?” I asked but knew the answer.

  “You think?”

  I looked past the men and the entrance was empty. “I don’t see your guys.”

  “They’re out there,” Pauly said. “Relax. They wanted to kill us the shooting would be over. Smile, we’re having a good time.” He waved to Susan, circled his hand in the air ordering us another round.

  The man stopped a step or two from our table. The four men stopped. He stood about five-ten, was physically fit for someone that looked in his sixties. His styled haircut indicated expensive but his clean-shaven face couldn’t hide the heavy five-o’clock shadow. He wore designer jeans, pricey boat shoes and a Jimmy Buffett tropical shirt. Brown eyes stared coldly as he grinned and nodded when he saw he had out attention.

  “Mick Murphy?” he said with traces of an accent.

  “Yes.” I stayed sitting

  “I am Alexei and owe you an apology.”

  “Sit with us, Alexei,” Pauly said and moved a chair away from the table. I counted on his knowing what he was doing.

  “Thank you.” He sat as Susan brought our drinks.

  “Would you like something?” Pauly said.

  “A double vodka. Do you have Russian vodka?”

  “The bottle’s label says it’s from Russia,” Susan said.

  “That will be fine, thank you.”

  Susan left.

  “What’s the apology for?” I sat back and tried not to look nervous. Pauly was as an iceberg. He appeared to give Alexei his full attention but I knew he kept watch on the four men only feet away.

  “The other day at Schooner Wharf,” Alexei said and took his drink from Susan. “I am afraid the men that went there had a bad habit of forgetting they were not back home. They were supposed to ask you to come to a meeting, not threaten you. For this, I apologize.”