Stairway to the Bottom - a Mick Murphy Key West Mystery

by Michael Haskins

  “My God, maybe. And the meaning is much the same in Gaelic.”

  “The Old Testament. The wrath of God. The Gaelic God is from the New Testament.”

  “Yes, there is a difference,” he said. “But I can bring down what will seem like the wrath of God or shower you with blessings.”

  “But can you make the truth change to fit your need?”

  He looked puzzled and frowned for the first time. “What are you talking about?”

  “You want the diamonds and expect to beat the others to them with help from me,” I said. “The truth is I don’t know where Walsh has gone and I don’t wanna know. Probably most important, or it should be, he’s not the guy who conned all those diamonds from the governments. He’s a psycho from Boston and I’d bet my life on it that he’s never been out of the country.”

  “You are betting your life,” he said. “The French, the Russians, even the Brits wouldn’t hesitate to kill you to get what they want.”

  “And the Mossad?”

  “We kill our enemies,” he said with a snide grin. “We protect our friends, no matter where they are.”

  “I have to be one or the other?”

  “Unfortunately.”

  “Wolves travel in packs,” I said. “They have killing down to a science. And their prey can be three or four times larger than they are.”

  “I’m not alone. But you know that.” He said. “You’re playing with me.” He drummed his fingers on the table like a piano player. “I need to find the diamonds and to do that I need Walsh.”

  His face turned hard, all traces of the warmth his smile had brought were gone. “You need to tell me where he is.”

  “I’ve told you what I know and that’s nothing. I like knowing nothing about Walsh.”

  “Yes,” he said. “You’ve told me nothing.”

  “Because that’s what I know. I know you’re chasing the wrong guy, but that doesn’t mean anything to you.”

  “I need to find that out for myself,” he said.

  I laughed. “You’re all using the same playbook.”

  “Meaning what?”

  “Everyone has said the same thing to me, I need to find out for myself. That’s another way of calling me a liar.”

  “I don’t think that,” he said. “I have to make my own decisions. I need to know, not be told.”

  “I’ll tell you what advice Norm gave me before all this began,” I said. Bob and Burt watched the two entrances but no one approached. “He said I should make up a story, say Walsh was in Cuba or Rio. He told me none of you would believe the truth because you were incapable of telling the truth so you assumed everyone was.”

  “You took his advice?”

  “No,” I said. “I’ve told the truth. It seems Norm knew better and I should’ve listened.”

  He stood. Bob and Burt anxiously checked the entrances again.

  “Norm knows where to reach me, if you change your mind,” he said. “Let me give you some advice that maybe Norm hasn’t. Your time is running out. That’s not a threat from me but it is a deadly fact when dealing with Russian gangsters. They are not patient men and if they gave you time to consider their offer, twenty-four hours would be a luxury.” He walked out without saying good-bye.

  “I think you and Burt should follow us to the reef Thursday,” I said as we watched Michael Sev walk down the stairs into the bar.

  Chapter 58

  Tuesday night was uneventful. I talked Tita into staying home after her long day at the office. I wanted to barbecue but she decided to cook arroz con pollo for me, my favorite of all her meals. Her chicken and rice dish has pushed my buttons since she was a teenager.

  We talked more openly about Boston, her going there and my coming for the holidays. Paco, her brother, and his family would love to see me, she said. Paco and I had gone to college together. Her parents would probably come from Puerto Rico. It was beginning to sound like a family event and it scared me almost as much as the Russians.

  Tita left Wednesday morning, as if it was a regular workday, but expected to be done and back for lunch. She wanted to help me get the Fenian Bastard ready for the sail to the reef the following day.

  When you live on a sailboat, you can’t get up and go without first preparing for life on the water. That includes stowing the laptop’s printer, changing from a small kitchen to a galley—coffee pot, pots and pans, all have to be stowed or secured.

  It wasn’t hard work, but it would be time-consuming because I hadn’t been on a sail in a while and that meant I needed to double check everything below deck.

  Bob and Burt came by with Cuban cheese bread and café con leches. They would sail to the reef late that night and be waiting for us tomorrow. A sailboat wouldn’t be much help in a chase, but Bob would be the arms supplier, if needed, and with his large inflatable could maneuver the shallow waters that surround the reef perfectly and fast.

  Pauly stopped in and assured me he’d have two boats mingling with the dive boats and they were fast, so if needed they’d only be minutes away.

  Navy SEALs on the water, you could count on them to know what they were doing.

  It was late morning before Norm showed up. I told him what had been arranged.

  “I think it’s overkill,” he said. “Jim Ashe arranged for two Coast Guard patrol boats to be at the reef all day. They’ll be doing safety inspections of the commercial dive boats.”

  Two Coast Guard patrol boats with mounted machineguns would be a deterrent to most anyone.

  “Jim talked to the base commander and asked for help,” Norm said. “He’s one of your people.”

  “My people?” That comment went over my head.

  “Yeah, he’s from Massachusetts. Talks just like you.” He slapped my back and laughed. “’Yankees in King Arthur’s Court.’ Where’s Mark Twain when you need him?” He said, misquoting Twain.

  “Does he know it involves Walsh?”

  “He knows it involves people looking for Walsh,” Norm said. “Ashe told him Walsh might contact you at the reef.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “Hey, it’s gonna make for a nice day on the water and we won’t be looking over our shoulders all day.”

  “I meant to ask, what is it with you and Chris?” He didn’t answer. “You know what she drinks.”

  “I know what a lot of people drink, including you. What does that mean?”

  “Means we spent time together.”

  “I’ll see you tomorrow morning.” He walked out the door and never answered me.

  Chapter 59

  Thursday morning couldn’t have been nicer. Even though September is still summer in Key West, the doldrums of July and August were gone and the winds coming from the east had picked up. A five-knot breeze blew as we left Garrison Bight at seven in the morning. We moved along Fleming Key at three-to-four knots, mostly by engine power, but the out-going tide helped. Weather reports predicted ten-knot winds by late morning and that would allow us to sail back from the reef.

  Cotton ball-like clouds floated across the vibrant blue sky casting small, moving shadows on the aqua water. Charter boats sped past as they maneuvered over the shallow water. Were Pauly’s boats following us? Was anyone else? I kept the Fenian Bastard on a tight course because the keel drew six-feet and outside the manmade channel, the water was shallow.

  Tita and I made this trip many times before and the thought that this could be the last, troubled me. I focused on how beautiful she looked wearing a large T-shirt from Howard Livingston’s Mile Marker 24 Band and her bikini. Her hair shined a midnight black and she had it pulled into a tight ponytail. Chris wore shorts and a tank top, her red hair tossed in the light breeze.

  “Chris and I are going below to cut up some fruit,” Tita said. “Anyone hungry?”

  Norm and I said we were.

  “You couldn’t have handpicked a better day.” Norm stretched out.

  “I hope it continues.” I turned at the tip of Fleming Key and we
entered Key West Harbor.

  “Hell, hoss, you’ve got America’s best watching your ass today,” he drawled.

  “Enjoy yourself.”

  “Yeah, and a conga line of others,” I said

  “What?”

  “Your Israeli friend told me I had a conga line of people following me,” I said and then changed the subject. “Ready to set the sails?”

  “I want to!” Tita yelled from below. She poked her head out of the hatch. “Give me five minutes.” She was gone before I could answer.

  “They ain’t my friends, especially Sev,” Norm said as he got up to meet Tita.

  Chris sat next to me. We watched as Tita and Norm removed the sail covers and checked the lines for kinks.

  “She likes this,” Chris said.

  “I think so,” I said. “She’ll find out sailing is different up north. Water’s cold, to begin with, but down here you can chase the wind and end up at a reef anytime of the year and dive without a wetsuit.”

  “The water looks inviting,” she said. “Norm likes sailing too.”

  “He’s good at it, but I think he’d rather be on land.”

  She laughed. “He’d rather be sailing with you, believe me.”

  “He’s not a fan of the tropics, believe me,” I said.

  “You need to get past his gruffness,” Chris said. “If he couldn’t complain, he’d be miserable. You know that. He couldn’t wait to get here.” She looked at the harbor traffic and then turned back to me. “He’s worried about how you’ll deal with Tita going to Boston.”

  “Worried about me?”

  “Yeah,” she said. “I think you’re the only real friend he has.”

  I often thought Norm had a shortage of friends, by choice, but hearing it from Chris surprised me. “You’ve known him a long time, aren’t you his friend?”

  “It’s difficult to explain,” she said. “We like each other’s company. But we meet by accident, not by planning.”

  Chris stopped as Tita and Norm came back to the cockpit.

  “Raise the sails and cut the engine,” Norm said with a smile.

  “Who’s the captain here?” I kidded him and put the engine in neutral as he stowed the sail covers in a locker.

  Tita untied the mainsail sheets. “Maybe the main is all we need? Captain,” she added and we laughed.

  I pointed the bow into the wind as Tita and Norm began to pull the line without using a winch and the mainsail slid slowly up the mast, flapping in the wind. Norm pulled the sheets tight but let Tita give the line a last yank before she tied off to a cleat. The east wind picked up off our port side as we sailed out of the harbor but it was not enough to put the rail in the water, even at a close-hauled point of sail.

  Our destination was the Sand Key Lighthouse out on the reef. Tita and Chris went below and returned with a large tray of fruit. We picked at it as the Fenian Bastard moved with the engine off. It was quiet and you could hear the hull cut through the water and the sound of the water splashing against the boat.

  “I thought there’d be more boats on the water,” Chris said.

  “On the weekend you get the private boats,” I said. “The charter boats head out early and go past the reef.”

  “Or they go to the back country, for smaller fish and sharks,” Tita said. “Mick’s not a big fisherman.”

  “That surprises me, I would’ve thought otherwise,” Chris said.

  “He’s a motorboat sissy,” Norm said and grinned. “He gets seasick on anything but a sailboat.”

  “Ah yes, I recall your Cay Sal story.” Chris smiled at me. “Now I remember.”

  Two dolphins jumped in front of our bow, cutting across in front of us, and a few others surfaced and jumped off the starboard side.

  “Look at that!” Chris pointed forward. “And there!” She turned to the starboard side. “Dolphins?”

  I waited for Norm to answer. Tita waited, too.

  “Yes,” Norm said. “They’re supposed to be a sign of good sailing, bringing luck to the boat they play with.”

  “Motorboats make too much noise,” Tita said. “They’ll often swim alongside sailboats, jumping and showing off.”

  “Must be males trying to impress the females,” Chris said.

  Tita laughed her agreement.

  Tita took the wheel and let the mainsail out to a close reach. This changed our direction slightly, leveled the Fenian Bastard some and slowed us down. She was a true sailor, not in a hurry to get anywhere, enjoying the sail.

  Norm sat back and looked strange in shorts, a T-shirt, LA Dodgers ball cap and sandals. It reminded me of our sail from California and I forced myself not to think of the tragedy that led to that trip.

  Tita smiled at me. “You have questions for Chris and Norm, so get it over with, Mick,” she said. “Once we’re tied off to a buoy I don’t want Norm getting you aside, or you him, to talk where I can’t hear. Talk now, or let it go. I want to enjoy the reef.”

  Chapter 60

  The two people who mean something to me, Tita and Norm, seem to catch me by surprise with things they say or do. I should know better. Tita had become aware that the Dick Walsh fiasco concerned me more than I’d let on. Could Chris have been straight with her? I doubted it. And I know Norm wouldn’t have said anything. How much did she know?

  “That’s fair,” I said, stalling. “Don’t want to ruin a good day on the water.”

  The first sighting of the lighthouse was off the port bow. “You don’t have much time,” Tita said trimming the sail.

  I had concerns with the Cold War idiots and decided to air them, since Chris was involved and a captive audience. How honest would she be? Who would Norm support?

  “Do you know anyone who has seen the diamonds?” I asked. “Do you know anyone involved with the deal?”

  Chris shook her head.

  “How do you know the diamonds are real? Or the deal ever went down.”

  She looked at Norm and he was noncommittal. “For years the rumor mill at the Agency has speculated about what happened to the diamonds.”

  “Who was involved? And, more important, who’d pay a million or more to someone and not get the list,” I said. “That bothers me. Payments made, but no one got the document.”

  “Someone got the documents, it just wasn’t us,” Chris said.

  “Who?”

  “It has to be someone whose name was on it, since the list never surfaced.”

  “Any speculations at the rumor mill?”

  “Yeah.” She stifled a laugh. “Everyone but us!”

  “What about the CIA agents involved?”

  “The two agents that handled it are dead.”

  “Natural causes?”

  “Questionable causes,” she said. “Shirrel Rhoades died in a house explosion and Dick Wagner was a hit and run.”

  “Soon after this went down?”

  “Yes, and suspicious. But the Agency investigated and cleared both as accidents.”

  “Two guys hand off a million or more for a document they don’t get, they die right afterward and no one thinks that’s odd?” I kept being disappointed in the work ethic of our intelligence agencies.

  Chris looked at Norm. “He doesn’t understand?”

  Norm shook his head. “No.”

  “First of all, a million dollar payment is nothing,” she said. “We were paying that to sources all over Europe.”

  “South America, Central America too,” Norm said. He stuck his hand over the rail and into the water, testing it for something, maybe the temperature. “It’s not a lot of money.”

  “What if the agent you’re looking for was killed by whoever bought his documents?”

  “We’ll never know that, will we,” she said. “His body could’ve been discovered years ago, but since we don’t know who he is, or was, we wouldn’t know about it. Or he could be a government minister in Europe and we wouldn’t know.”

  “You have a good point there, but the diamonds have piqued
a few interests,” I said. “You ever read the ‘Maltese Falcon’?”

  “No,” Norm said.

  “I saw the movie on TV,” Chris said.

  “No one ever saw the real falcon, but they were chasing it around the world,” I said. “A great mystery by

  Dashiell Hammett.”

  “What does an old movie have to do with this?” Norm said, sitting up.

  “I don’t think anyone involved has ever seen the diamonds, just like no one ever saw the Maltese Falcon. They’re a rumor. I’m not convinced they’re real,” I said. “I can’t figure out why everyone’s looking for these diamonds. Diamonds they’ve only heard rumors about and there’s no proof they exist.”

  “It gives them something to do,” Norm said.

  “Greed,” Tita said. “All these things come down to greed.”

  “That’s kind of obvious,” I said. “Do we even know how many are searching?”

  “Four you’ve had dealings with,” Norm said.

  “And the South Africans are coming and so are the Germans,” Chris said. “That’s six.”

  “Six times what? Three CIA, right?”

  Chris nodded.

  “No back up?”

  “Him,” she pointed to Norm.

  “Three frogs and they said there were more.”

  “I told you they all lie,” Norm said.

  “Three Limeys, one Israeli for sure and six Russians,” I said. “The numbers are diluting the value of the diamonds.”

  “The Russians did that a few years back by flooding the diamond market,” Chris said.

  “So there are sixteen people we know of. Counting you,” I said to Chris. “On their own or with government support?”

  “We’re on our own,” she said. “But a few people at Langley know.”

  “I think it’s a dog and pony show,” I said. “Whether it started back at the end of the Cold War or just recently, it’s about something else.”

  “Tita is right, about us anyway, we want the money,” Chris admitted. “There’s nothing else.”

  “I don’t believe you.” I turned to Norm. “No one tells the truth you said.”

  “I did.”

  “You know what I think?” They looked at me. No one answered. “I think the heads of the different agencies got together and made up the whole scenario. They saw the Wall come down and had some kind of meeting, admitted life would change.”