Caribbean Rim

by Randy Wayne White

  Lydia, from where she stood, could see beyond the patio to their private pool below. A man was there, white slacks, white guayabera shirt, his bearing confident like he was there for a reason. “Is that your coin dealer?”

  Leonard got up. “Too early. He’s probably some tourist who wandered away from the resort. If you want, I’ll—” He started toward the door as the phone rang, their Bahamian BTC cell, prepaid a month in advance. “Get that, would you?”

  She did, and heard a kindly male voice say, “My name’s Tomlinson. Within sixty seconds you’ll not only trust me, you’ll thank me for—”

  That’s all she heard because two men wearing masks were waiting when Nickelby opened the door.

  * * *

  —

  Before the feds confiscated it, Benthic Exploration had owned an ocean-going research vessel, the Diamond Cutter. It was outfitted in Norway with twin Storvik four-ton cranes, an instruments bridge right out of Star Trek, and accommodations for sleeping twelve.

  A little cabin aft, portside, with a porthole view of the sea, had been Lydia’s home for a year. Sometimes, when the crew was off, it was just her and a maintenance guy or two anchored in a leeward cove where the water was clear and at least twenty feet deep since the vessel drew fifteen.

  Spearfishing had become her passion. Few things were more satisfying than sitting down to a meal of fresh snapper she’d stalked and filleted herself an hour earlier.

  When the men crashed into the kitchen and slammed Leonard to the floor, stalking fish was far from her mind. But when one yelled, “You got any guns? Better tell us now, lady!” that’s what she thought about—the little pneumatic speargun she’d bought in Nassau. They brandished only a machete and an old scarred baseball bat. Big men, heavy-handed and barefooted, their pants wet up to the crotch, meaning they’d come by boat.

  “Why would we?” she responded. “Just tell us what you want, you can have it—anything—but, for god’s sakes, take your damn hands off him.” Amazing how calmly the words came out despite the way she was shaking.

  “Anything? That might be good if you was prettier,” the man said. “Kick that damn phone toward me or I’ll beat his head in.” The phone was on the floor where she’d dropped it. Once he’d pocketed the thing, he turned his attention to Leonard. “So you the professor, huh? Mister, you better cooperate and stop your damn fighting. I ain’t that marshmallow Sandman.”

  So that’s why they were here.

  Lydia said, “Easy, let’s all calm down. Leo, goddamn it, do what he says. We’ve got money. Lots of it. Cash. You can have it all as long as you promise not to hurt us.”

  “Leo’s your name?” The men were smiling behind their masks. “Best listen to the lady, Leo. What we hear is, she’s a witch. From her looks, sure enough could be true, aye?” More laughter.

  They had Leonard facedown on the floor by then, arms behind his back. She cringed when he tried to kick free and one of the men responded by kicking him hard in the ribs. The whimpering sound he made was child-like. Heartbreaking. Two involuntary steps, she started to charge, then caught herself. “Do that again, I won’t tell you where it is.”

  “Say what?” The man with the bat scanned the room and saw the logbook lying open on the desk. He flipped through a few pages. “’Pears to me this here’s part of what we want. And even in a house this fancy, won’t be no problem finding the rest. That big plastic case where y’all folks keep your dive gear, what I might need is the key.” Then to his partner he said, “You got the tape? Find the damn tape while I see if the thing’s too big to float out. Sandman says it’s heavy.”

  “Our money’s not in the case,” Lydia said. “Look all you want, you won’t find it. But I’ll show you if you promise—” Leonard drowned her out with threats about his connections at the U.S. Embassy and the Bahamian police. Both men focused on him, but one turned long enough to say, “Yeah, all the money you got. And bring that key, while you’re at it.”

  At a robotic pace, Lydia’s raspberry high heels clip-clopped across the lacquered floor into the master suite. From the kitchen, the sound of a thud and another child-like whimper finalized her decision. Sliding doors opened to a porch that circled the house. She kicked off the shoes and ran barefooted while Leonard hollered more threats from inside.

  Beyond the railing was the sea and stars, a sizable boat anchored off the beach. No sign of the man dressed in white where tiki torches blazed by the pool. Piled near the outdoor shower was their snorkel gear. The pneumatic speargun was short, easy to maneuver. But it was difficult to load because of a high-pressure piston that powered the spear like a bullet.

  The shaft loader was heavy plastic. She braced it between her feet. The spear was stainless steel, the point sharp as a stiletto. The head was attached by wire to a hinged barb that prevented a fish—or anything else—from pulling free once it had pierced flesh.

  Click. A pneumatic metal sound confirmed the shaft was locked, powered, and ready. Safety off, she crept to the front of the house, where the door was still open. Light spilled out onto palm fronds. The shadow of a man dwarfed her own shadow as she approached, speargun up, shouldered like a rifle. She risked a quick look. One man was on his knees, facing inside. He was still battling to tape Leonard’s hands, the machete on the floor within reach of the doorway. The man with the bat was standing with his back to the others. She listened to him call toward the master suite, “What the hell’s taking you so long, witchy woman?”

  That’s when Lydia appeared in the opening close enough to shoot him in the spine, which is what she hollered. “I’ll shoot you in the goddamn spine if you turn around!” A nonsensical threat since it forced him to spin toward her. The other man turned, too, but not before she’d knelt and snatched the machete away, then lofted it overhead, ready to swing.

  “Goddamn, girl, give me that. Hey, easy now . . . What you got there?”

  “Speargun,” the man on his knees said softly. He was trying to scoot out of range but was blocked by Leonard, who was on his belly, trying to get to his feet.

  “Let him up. Get away from him,” she hollered.

  “Not ’til you give me my sword back, I won’t.”

  That’s what locals called machetes in the islands—swords—a holdover from pirate times.

  Lydia aimed the speargun, the man’s face only five feet away. Then lobbed the machete over the railing without looking to see where it landed. “Go find it if you want the damn thing and get out of here. Not you—” She aimed at the other man. “Not until you drop that damn bat.”

  “What if I don’t? One little spear against two of us.” Slowly, he began to move away from a spear that had a range of ten feet, max.

  “You idiots, don’t make me do this. I’m giving you a chance. Leave now, we won’t call the police.” She extended the gun at the man on his knees. “Tell him. Tell your buddy. Leave us in peace and—”

  Leonard ended that possibility when he lunged, snatched the baseball bat, and tried to roll out of the reach of a man twice his size. It was so unexpected, Lydia froze long enough for the other one to charge from his knees and knock her backward. She clung to the speargun while he pried at her hands, then hit her with something—his fist, no doubt—and it felt like an exploding light in her head.

  A hammering sound pierced the haze—pistons of a diesel engine that reminded her of being at sea except the cadence was random. Fleshy thuds were interspersed with yelps, wild profanities. Panicked bare feet thumped wood. More profanity, then Leonard’s face parted the haze. He was above her, wonderful to see in the starlight.

  “Lydia, babe . . . are you okay? Let me help you up.”

  She was on her feet, a little woozy but not too bad. It took a minute before she was lucid enough to piece together the chaos that had taken place. On the kitchen floor were splotches of red syrup—blood. Blood on Leonard’s face, his hands, and on
the bat he now offered her as a cane. “This might help. Can you walk? If that son of a bitch hurt you—”

  In the dark yard, a man was crawling, stumbling toward the beach. Another was almost to the water, his bulk visible amid a stand of coconut palms.

  “León,” she said, a name she’d never used before. Gave it a regal pronunciation that slipped from her lips as Lee-ON.

  It fit. He was pumped up enough to taunt their attackers. “There’s more where that came, buster! Insult my lady again, I’ll . . . I’ll . . . You’ll see. A witch, my ass.”

  The man dressed in white—where had he gone?

  Lydia’s gaze moved from the swimming pool area to the pools of blood in the kitchen, then to the thief outside, crawling to get away. “Oh dear god, Leo, he’s hurt really bad. How many times did you . . . ? With the bat, I mean.”

  “Fuck him, I didn’t have a choice. I hope he fucking dies.” Leonard cupped his head in his hands, the reality of what had happened settling in. “Oh damn, maybe I did.” He paced briefly, then from the railing hollered, “Hey buddy! Are you okay? If you need a doctor, I’m willing to help. No hard feelings, man. What do you say?”

  The thief got to his feet, maybe looked back or maybe didn’t—it was too dark to be sure—then stumbled toward the shadows, a glistening wedge of sea beyond.

  “Oh Christ, now what do we do? Call the police, I guess. Report them before they—”

  “No police,” Lydia said, grabbing his arm. “You were in the right. They would’ve robbed us, maybe killed us, too. We’ve got to make a decision. We can’t stay here.”

  “Yeah, could’ve killed us,” Leonard reasoned, pulling away. “Then we have nothing to worry about from the police. Where’s the goddamn phone?”

  Only then did she remember a call from someone named Tomlinson. Next, an image of the phone on the floor came into her head. The robber had stuck it in his pocket.

  “Thank god, that’s all they took,” she said.

  “What, the logbook?” Leonard hurried into the main room. “No, it’s still on the desk where I—”

  “The phone. You can stop looking for the phone. Besides, we’ve registered under fake names at every place we stayed. How do you think that will go over if you call the police? Leo, think about the logbook and the coins—Fitzpatrick has had more than three weeks to report the theft, so they’ll know about that, too.”

  Leonard wanted to inspect her forehead. He got her under the light, concerned, already close to an emotional meltdown. “You need an ice pack,” he said. Then, in the kitchen, he put his hands on the counter and appeared to sag. “Shit, shit, shit. What if one of them dies?”

  “If he dies, he dies,” she responded. “We didn’t ask them to break in with a baseball bat and a machete. The coin dealer you were supposed to meet, is he staying at the lodge or on a boat?” She was worried about the man in white. If he wasn’t behind the attempted robbery, he might misrepresent what he’d witnessed to the police if they showed up.

  There was a reason Lydia did not trust the guy.

  Leonard was wringing his hands, pacing. “Okay, okay, here’s what we do. I want you to fly back to Florida tomorrow. That’s right, as soon as there’s a flight. Yeah, that’s what we’ll do, then I’ll turn myself in. None of this was your idea. I’ll swear to it. Here”—he opened the fridge and packed a Ziploc with ice—“this will stop the swelling.”

  Lydia wanted to kiss the man. She did, had to get up on her tiptoes to do it. “That’s a lie, Leo. This was all my idea,” she said.

  It was an admission that required a longer talk, but not now. A tequila and triple sec calmed him while she used a mop to clean the floor. “We need to leave tonight, so let’s check out that boat you said’s for sale. It’s not even ten o’clock, and the music goes until midnight.” Again, she asked about the coin dealer.

  “What’s it matter? I ran into the guy while you were napping. He owns a big-ass yacht, so I figured he might be interested. I never said he was a coin dealer . . . How’s your head?”

  The ice had helped. “Did you approach him or was it the other way around?”

  “Yes . . . No . . . In fact, he came up to me and just sorta started talking. It didn’t seem odd at the time, but now . . . You don’t think—” A spark came into his eyes.

  “We’re on the run,” Lydia said. “And, as of tonight, not just from the police. If the boat’s not available, maybe rent a room at the resort and see what happens. No one will bother us with a lot of people around.”

  “I want to talk to that coin guy first. Pack your stuff. I mean it—no more discussion.”

  León had spoken.

  It was the same León who waited until they were at the bar with a couple of rum punches to reflect with a hint of surprise, “You were right. No one seems to know or care what happened, or why I waited this late to ask to see the dock master. But the weirdest part about tonight, Lydia? I’m serious—I don’t remember ever feeling more, you know, alive.”

  8

  In the morning, Ford swam a quarter mile along the beach and jogged back to find a stranger seated on a stump outside his rental cottage. Human males do a visual appraisal automatically because their olfactory powers are weak. Caucasian, tanned, with some burning. Mid-thirties, six-two, one-eighty, delicate hands. A tourist fly fisherman, clothes a techno flag of expensive miracle fibers. Money, privileged class. A possible threat, but not the bust-your-head type.

  This was not the ex-military cage fighter Tomlinson had warned him about. And nothing like the close call last night with Purcell.

  He slowed to a walk. “If you’re looking for bonefish, I saw a couple of schools on my run. Uhh . . . do you mind?”

  The stump blocked a sandy path to the outdoor shower. The man got up, saying, “Dr. Ford? I pictured you younger—but looks like you’re still in fairly good shape—considering. Want me to toss you a towel?”

  This subtle barb was the first red flag. And one flag was enough. “Tell you what, come back and knock, then introduce yourself. That’s how it’s supposed to work. Half an hour ought to do.”

  “I already knocked.”

  “Try again, maybe your luck will change.”

  “It already has. She wouldn’t answer, so I waited. That’s how it works in my world.”

  Ford looked at the man, then past him, seeing a screened porch where a swimsuit—panties, a bra, too—hung drying on a line. The cottage was tiny, one room. Its roof of tin dented by coconuts from palms that shaded this stretch of beach. Inside, a woman’s silhouette appeared near an open window, where she might be able to hear if they moved closer. Then it disappeared.

  “Let’s get out of the sun,” Ford said, and walked to a pair of chairs near a hammock. “Why not start by telling me why you’re acting like such an asshole?”

  The man decided a staredown was unwise. “I get impatient. So, sue me. I’ve always been this way. I’m doing you a favor if you’ll give me a chance.”

  “Impatient people can end up being patients.”

  It took a second. “Oh, I get it. Like in a hospital. A sense of humor. I didn’t expect bad jokes either.”

  * * *

  —

  The man was working on a book, he claimed, about a modern pirate who was jailed for contempt after refusing to reveal where he’d stashed millions in gold bars and coins. His first book, the man said, and it might require a pen name because Jamie Middlebrook was too bland, plus, in stores, you had to get on your knees to see the M shelf. “What do you think of Sebastian Bunch?”

  “One’s as believable as the other,” Ford replied. “What does this have to do with me?” He’d been warned about a journalist, too. But Middlebrook—whatever his name was—was more likely an Ivy League recruit hired by some federal agency. Over the years, he had dealt with enough to know. A plausible cover story, clothes too new, an ingratia
ting hard-on manner that suggested electronic intel and access to Black Hawk helicopters if necessary.

  “I’m getting to that,” Middlebrook said. He gave the cottage a look. “Why don’t you ask her to come out? Might save us all some time.”

  “Think of me as a filtering device,” Ford said. “It’s a term biologists use. And time is something you’re running low on. Start by explaining how you know my name and that I’d be gone long enough for you to case the place.”

  “I’m a thief, sure. That’s why I chose your palatial rental cabin to rob. Now who’s being an asshole?”

  “I’m in sort of a rush. They don’t teach social skills at Princeton or wherever it was you majored in—what?—political science, international law. Those used to be the favorites. I suppose it could be computers now.”

  The man’s face went blank. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Middlebrook,” Ford shrugged. “Isn’t that the name of a famous brokerage house or bank or something? New England, so I figured a family business.”

  “That explains it,” the man said but wasn’t convinced. “As I was saying, the guy I’m writing about started a company called Benthic Exploration. A really fascinating character. Then conned his investors out of a bundle—that’s who took him to court first, his investors. Jimmy Jones. Does the name ring a bell?”

  Ford, wearing just shorts, started to get up, a towel around his neck. “I’m going to shower and have breakfast. When you get to how this concerns me, wave.”

  “Dr. Leonard Nickelby. Does that name ring a bell?” The man smiled, pleased by the effect. “Finally, I have your attention.”