Stairway to the Bottom - a Mick Murphy Key West Mystery

by Michael Haskins

  “They didn’t say a word to me. One minute I was waiting on a cigar and the next I was off my feet and heading to the dock.” It sounded too much like an apology, as I said it.

  “Your friends came to your aid quickly. It is good to have such friends,” he said. “I would like to have been there to see it. Viktor and Yakov are no longer here.”

  “I accept your apology.” I wondered if by here he meant this world or Key West, but thought best not to ask. “Thank you.”

  “You know why the others seek you out,” he said and sipped his drink, getting down to the real business. “We all want the same thing, to find this Dick Walsh.”

  “Because you think he’s the agent that got away with your diamonds.”

  “Exactly.” He showed no surprise at my knowing. “The Soviet Union is no longer, so the diamonds belong to the person who finds them and, with your help, I am planning to be that person.”

  “My turn to apologize,” I said.

  “For what?” He took another sip of his drink and frowned.

  “You’re not going to like what I know, or to be honest with you, what I don’t know.”

  His frown grew. He didn’t like his vodka or my answer.

  “Go on.” The rudeness of his words surprised me.

  “First, I don’t believe Walsh is the Cold War agent you’re looking for and before you say it, let me, you want to make that decision for yourself.”

  “Yes.” He didn’t waste words. “You believe the Whitey Bulger nonsense.”

  “Yes. Walsh told me all about it.”

  “And what convinced you?”

  “At the time I didn’t know about the diamonds, so there was no convincing necessary. He spent a long time talking about his past in Boston. He ended by telling me about Natasha and how she’d mixed him up with someone else.”

  “If Olga finds him…” He shook his head and grinned as he mentioned the dead woman’s partner, not sharing with us. “You believed him?”

  “Yes,” I said. “If I knew where he was I’d tell you, I’d tell everyone, including the marshals. I’ve not heard from him since and that’s fine with me.”

  “I would like to believe you…”

  “Yeah, I know, I’ve heard it all. Okay, here’s what I think. If it were me, I’d be gone, long gone. My opinion is, he’s in either Cuba or Brazil. Brazil’s a big country, but, again, if it were me I’d be on the beach, Copacabana in Rio. That’s what I told the others, so now you know what they know.”

  “I wish I could believe you.” He grinned like the Cheshire cat, reminding me of the attitude of the men who used the Taser to make sure I’d told them the truth.

  “Why would I lie?”

  “Diamonds.” He stared at me with dead eyes. “They would tempt anyone.”

  “If I believed Walsh had them, maybe,” I said. “But I don’t. He’s not smart enough to fool everyone and his background with Bulger is well documented.”

  “I am sure.” He looked toward the bar. “Creating a history for someone is easy. Easier today than it was in the past.”

  Why did I bother? They all believed what they wanted to. They wanted, or maybe needed the search for the diamonds. Chase a ghost whisper or stay blanketed in the emptiness of retirement. Norm could be right, the search made the excitement, finding the diamonds would be anticlimactic. The search for the elusive Maltese Falcon came to mind. Maybe this was more about the search than money for them.

  “The computer age,” I said. “It makes locating people easy with the Internet.”

  “And it is easy to manipulate the Internet.” I saw a trace of another smile forming on his lips. “Today, people believe what they read on the Internet without questioning. Especially the young, those that know no better. As a journalist, you must understand. No more searches through musty files in a cramped office to find out who owns this or that. No need to read through old newspapers to find forgotten facts from stories.”

  “College degrees off the Internet,” I said. I had a feeling Alexei and I shared the experiences of searching musty old files in cramped offices.

  “Whole histories,” he said. “So you understand why I find it hard to believe Walsh’s story and why I doubt you.”

  “Alexei.” Pauly put a chill to the name. “We can’t be responsible for what you believe or doubt. This is a small island and knowing where anyone is at a particular time isn’t a problem. Mick’s problem is having so many following him and being so obvious about it.”

  Alexei turned toward his four men. “Yes, we do stand out, even in a crowd.” He turned toward the bar and signaled the Russian.

  The man stood and looked toward the two Americans. Pauly nodded and his two men returned to their seats.

  Alexei spoke to the man in Russian. He didn’t answer. He nodded and left. With a short nod of his head, Alexei’s four men standing by the entrance walked away.

  “Is that better?”

  “They will be around when Mick leaves?” Pauly lit a new cigarette.

  “Yes.” Alexei stood, leaving his drink almost untouched. “Until we find Walsh or,” he dropped a business card on the table, “you call and want to lead me to the diamonds. Leave a message and I will return the call.”

  “Alexei, I am not looking for the diamonds,” I said.

  His face broadened with the cat smile again. It might have been something he practiced in front of a mirror it came so naturally. It was a warning, not a comforting sign. “Of course you are. You and Norm want them.” He pointed to Pauly. “Maybe he does too, but it doesn’t matter who finds them. They are mine.” He pranced away, satisfied we understood his message.

  “Did you ever read the Maltese Falcon?” I watched as Alexei walked through the bar’s exit.

  “I’ve seen the movie a dozen times,” Pauly said. “Why?”

  “The diamonds,” I said and turned to him. “It’s their Maltese Falcon. They’re all looking for something that might not exist but they keep searching.”

  “Could be.” Pauly lit a new cigarette.

  Chapter 54

  Pauly’s gaze swept over the grounds; stopping nowhere for more than a second, but that was all he needed before he sat back, satisfied with what he saw. A brief nod of his head brought the two men at the bar toward our table. Before they got there, Pauly pointed to the entrances and the men separated and moved.

  “Cold,” Pauly said, exhaling smoke. He wasn’t talking about the weather.

  “Scary. Are Viktor and Yakov still alive?”

  Pauly grinned. “Well, we know they’re no longer here.”

  “I’ve got a feeling Alexei isn’t big on second chances.”

  “He’s a predator.” Pauly stumped out his cigarette. “He can’t survive with a weak link in the group. Think of the cheetah chasing the gazelle. It kills the slower, weaker gazelle, it doesn’t chase the head of the pack. The fastest survive. “

  “Law of the jungle.”

  “The concrete jungle. The difference between Alexei and the cheetah is the cat’s a beautiful animal and it kills to eat.”

  “What’s next?” I reached into my shirt pocket for a non-existing cigar.

  “The good news is they’re not out to kill you,” he said.

  “The bad news.”

  “They’re short on patience.”

  “I’ve met the Limeys, the Frogs, our spooks and they were laughable.” I wished I had something other than tonic water to drink. A cigar would’ve been good. “But these guys…this one guy, he concerns me.”

  “I knew people like him in my other life.” Pauly drained his glass. “You don’t wanna deal with them.”

  “Too late.”

  “Yeah, it is.”

  “What do I do next?”

  “Kill him, because as soon as you serve no purpose, that’s what the son of a bitch plans to do to you.”

  “I was afraid of that.”

  “Right now he needs you alive, or thinks he does. He knows we’ve made him and that
your ass is covered six ways to Sunday, so he won’t make the same mistake he did at Schooner.” Pauly signaled Susan and she brought us drinks. I wanted a Jameson but got tonic water. “He’ll look for a weakness in you…”

  “Tita!” I said.

  “Be my guess. If he’s tailed you, he knows about her.”

  “Shit. I’ve gotta find Norm.”

  My cell phone chirped. Tita’s name showed on the screen. I raised my hand to keep Pauly from talking.

  “Hi Tita,” I said.

  “I’m running a little behind,” she said in a happy voice. “Maybe I should meet you downtown.”

  “Everything okay?”

  “Better than okay,” she said. “Nathan and Bob T have taken on all my clients, so we celebrated with a late lunch and are finishing up with the paperwork at my office.”

  “That’s great, it leaves us more time together.” I wanted to have a happy voice too, but it didn’t come off. “When will you be done?”

  “Before seven.” I heard Nathan in the background. “Nathan said at the latest, seven.”

  I look at my wristwatch. It was a little past five. Where had the afternoon gone? “Yeah, around seven at the Hog.”

  “I’ll be hungry too.” She laughed like a schoolgirl at the end of day. “Think of some place for dinner. My treat.” She sent me a phone kiss and hung up.

  “Take your people off me and put them on her…like now,” I said to Pauly as I dialed Norm’s number. “Meet me at the Hog, as soon as you can,” I said when he answered.

  “Give me thirty minutes. You okay?”

  “I’ve had better days. I met Alexei.”

  “Consider it a good day, you’re alive. Thirty minutes.” He hung up.

  “You don’t want Tita to know,” Pauly said and it wasn’t a question.

  “No.”

  “I can put a four-man surveillance team on her,” he said and dialed his cell phone. “She still at the office?”

  “Yeah, with Nathan and Bob T.”

  “Get Gonzales, Padilla, and Fahey.” He spoke into the phone. “You remember Murphy’s friend, Tita Toledo? Yeah, the cute one…keep her safe but don’t let her make you…she’s at the office on upper Duval…two men with her, right now…she should be going to the Hog’s Breath from there…” Pauly turned to me. “She driving?”

  “She has a scooter.”

  “She’s probably on a scooter…don’t lose her…check in every hour, unless something goes down…no, they’ll want her alive…a kidnapping…yes…prevent it.” He turned to me after closing his cell. “Linder is a good man.”

  “Jim?”

  “Know him?”

  “From here and there.”

  “Okay, now about you.”

  “Don’t worry about me, take care of Tita.”

  “She’s taken care of,” Pauly said. “You got the Glock, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You got a backup?”

  “No.”

  “I would. You know the Sig Sauer P250?”

  “No.”

  “It’s got the trigger safety like the Glock. Very versatile. I was thinking, keep the Glock on the Fenian Bastard as backup and I’ll give you two Sig nine mils and some magazines,” he said. “If you need the gun, you don’t wanna be messing with different magazines.”

  “You think it’s coming to that?”

  “It’s not if, it’s when.”

  “I need to carry two?”

  “One ain’t gonna be enough and two might buy you an extra few minutes,” he said. “You meeting Norm in a little while, get his opinion. I bet he knows Alexei.”

  “On the phone, he seemed to.”

  “You wait at the Hog for me,” he said and stood. “I’ve got your back, but the Russians know it too, so be prepared for just about anything when the time comes.”

  Chapter 55

  Scotty Emerick fooled with the stage’s sound mixer, making sure it worked properly with his guitar. The self-proclaimed redneck beach bum from Vero Beach had turned into a successful songwriter and lived in Nashville now.

  Scotty drew big audiences during the Key West Singer-Songwriter Festival because of the list of hit songs he had written, and came back to Key West often enough to be considered a part-time resident. Sometimes he came for pleasure and sometimes for work; more often than not, he accomplished both.

  I introduced him to Tita two years ago at the songwriters’ party at the Mango Tree Inn and we usually got together whenever he was here. He would do his acoustic set until ten tonight and I knew Tita would want to come by after dinner. Before the night ended, local and other Nashville singer-songwriters on the island would join him on stage. They turned the Smokin’ Tuna into a showcase of Nashville talent.

  Susan gave me the bill and I paid it.

  “Don’t let tomorrow bite you on the ass,” she said walking away.

  I looked around and realized that Pauly’s men had not returned. Maybe I was on my own and, if that was the case, had no one to blame but myself. I was concerned with tonight turning into a bite-my-ass situation, tomorrow had to wait its turn.

  At five-thirty I left, waving to Scotty and mouthing I’d be back. Charles Street took me to Duval. The sun was bright and tourists wandered the streets. The Tree Bar had customers packed in two deep and some wandered into Angelina’s Pizza. People outside Sloppy Joe’s, across the street, held onto their drinks on the sidewalk. Loud music blared from Irish Kevins and the Lazy Gecko had customers three deep at the bar. There was no shortage of partygoers, even on a late Monday afternoon. The good times of Key West went on.

  So many people milling about made it hard for me to pick out the Russians or Pauly’s men. Maybe it was an impossible task. I knew they were there, somewhere in the shadows, watching. I felt their eyes on my back. For a couple of days I laughed at the ridiculous agents from the CIA—come on, Jimmy Piersall and Ted Williams; how do you take dead baseball legends seriously? Then there were the Frogs; damn, Frenchy was a character out of Casa Blanca. He chowed down on the hamburger, fries and a Budweiser while the other two—clichés of French snobbery—refused to eat their food, smelling it and pushing it away. How could I not be amused?

  Of course, the Limeys were what I’d expected. Old school agents that figured a dead Catholic was one less IRA gunman they had to deal with. They were living defenders of Ian Paisley—a preacher who spewed such crap from the pulpit before he joined the peace movement. Now some Loyalists hated Paisley more than the United Ireland clan did. They didn’t scare me.

  The Russians went by rules no one has figured out. They were cold, heartless and ruthlessly determined. Alexei scared me. Scared me because Tita was most vulnerable and they wouldn’t hesitate to use her to get to me. They, like the others, wanted something I didn’t have but refused to believe me. The others would wait, bide their time while replaying their Cold War spy games.

  Alexei wasn’t playing a game. I had no doubt he had kept involved with criminal enterprises taken over by out-of-work KGB agents after the Soviet Union broke apart, and he prospered. He could only do that by being ruthless and deadly. He brought those traits with him to Key West.

  Would any of them go away if I told them Dick

  Walsh was in Cuba or Brazil and that he had their diamonds? Name a beach city and let them go search. Would it buy me the ten or so days Tita had remaining in Key West? Or would they continue to watch me while others checked out my story.

  I bought a cigar at the shop on Front Street and entered into the Hog’s Breath through the T-shirt shop. I stood in the shadow of the indoor bar and looked out toward the patio, as the inside restaurant filled with couples wanting an early dinner. Patio table seating was full and there were only a few open stools at the bar. Joel Nelson entertained on stage, he had finished a song, and the crowd applauded.

  “They’re not out there,” came from behind me.

  I turned quickly and the two men Pauly had following me stood there. I smiled out of embarr
assment. “Where are they?” I knew we were talking about the Russians.

  “Rob Murdock.” He extended his hand and we shook. He had silver-blond hair cut military close and was a thin six-foot. “They met two SUVs and drove away.”

  “All of them?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “Alexei and his four, the one at the bar, that makes six. He has to have at least one more we haven’t spotted.”

  “But probably two. Wayne Bruehl,” the other one introduced himself. “They had to have both exits covered…to be safe.” Wayne had a few inches on Rob and a thicker frame. His salt and pepper hair suggested he might have a few years on Rob too.

  “So they’re here.”

  “Or outside. Inside they can cover all three exits,” Rob said. “We’ll spot ‘em.”

  “How come you’re not watching Tita?”

  “Pauly’s got others doing that,” Wayne said. “You go about whatever you had planned. We’ve got your back.”

  “When Tita gets here, there’ll be eight of us, a small army.” Rob grinned. “You’re gonna be okay.”

  My being okay didn’t concern me. Tita’s wellbeing did. I walked into the crowded patio and took an empty barstool away from the stage. Stephaney held a bottle of Jameson for me to see and I nodded. She poured the Irish whiskey into a plastic cup filled with ice.

  “You alone?” She slid the cup in front of me.

  “Waiting.” I took a sip of the drink and let it warm my mouth before I swallowed.

  “Good luck getting more seats.” She walked away to serve another customer.

  I scanned the patio crowd as Joel sang. Across the stage, I could see him as he strummed his guitar. Three female bartenders, Stephaney, Kris and Niki, hurried about servicing the customers and waitresses. I couldn’t see Murdock or Bruehl, but I wasn’t supposed to. I wondered what a Russian looked like. They weren’t all six-foot giants, so was I looking for one or two guys of regular height. Were they even together? Should I be looking for a woman?

  “The sun’s still out.” Norm’s voice came from behind me as he commented on my not drinking beer since the sun was still out.