Smugglers 1: Nikki

by Gerald McCallum

  “No, no, not the three of us,” said Jerry. They went to dinner around 8:00 and saw Bill and Cynthia having dinner across the room. Nikki gave them a quick nod of the head and sat down with Jerry and Loretta. About two or three hours later Bill and Cynthia left. As they walked by they stopped, and Bill said, “I have these to remind me of Glenn.” He pointed at his new teeth. “I only wish I would have had the pleasure and time to kill him” Then he walked off with Cynthia. Over his shoulder he said to Nikki, “I saw what you did.”

  After two or three moments of uncomfortable silence at the table, they continued eating and drinking, then they went to Nikki’s for a nightcap about midnight. Jerry set the CD player up, and Loretta and Nikki went into the kitchen to make some vodka for all.

  In the kitchen while making drinks, there was a lot of kitchen-kidding going on between Nikki and Loretta. They came out with the drinks and started to dance fast to the music Jerry put on. They gyrated, twisted, and bumped, then kissed. Jerry joined in and started to dance with them. They danced and drank until they were spent; sitting and drinking with the music much, much lower. Then they went home, and Nikki went to bed.

  CHAPTER 11

  Nikki got up about 9:00 a.m. and went to work on the dock. That night she rented the other apartment to a couple for the first again. Jay and Sally gave her a five hundred dollar deposit. He worked for the phone company, and she was looking for work in the Keys. The next morning Nikki was awakened by a knock on the door. When she opened it, she found Bill on the other side.

  “Nikki,” he said, pushing his way inside, “I know you have the money from Glenn, and maybe you killed him to keep it. I want five million dollars of the 20 million. Now! Today! Now!”

  “Have you lost your mind? I don’t have any money, and I don’t believe that Glenn was in the dope running business with Jim. All he had was his income from the accident on Seven Mile Bridge!”

  “Don’t give me that shit! He didn’t come back here from the Bahamas for old pussy. You hid his money for him, and when he got here you didn’t want to give it back. You got used to it and wanted to keep it all for yourself. You and Glenn got in one hell of a fight over it, and by some weird outcome, you won and he’s dead and you now have all twenty million dollars to yourself. Nikki, all I want is five million. You keep fifteen and I will leave for good,” exclaimed Bill.

  “Have you lost your stinking mind? I’ve told you, I have no money, and he never, that’s never gave me any!” she shouted.

  “I’ll give you three days to come up with the money, then I’m going to the cops,” he threatened.

  “Three days or until hell freezes over! I have no money, and the cops have already been here, and that’s it! Get out, Bill. Get out now!” she shouted even louder.

  “Screw you! Three days and don’t forget I saw what you did.” Bill left, slamming the door.

  Nikki just sat there and thought about Bill and what he said about leaving for good if he got five million dollars. She decided to stick to her story with everybody, the cops, Bill and all the people on the dock.

  After coffee she returned to work. From time to time during the day she thought about her conversation with Bill. Why did he keep saying, “I saw what you did.” He didn’t see Glenn come in or hear or see the fight or anything. So what did he mean? That night she stayed home and cooked and drank alone. By morning she had decided that she would stick to her story with Bill and let the chips fall where they may. She saw Bill on the dock that afternoon, and all he said was “two days left.” That night she went out with Jerry and Loretta again for dinner. When they got back, they had night caps on the Sea Cactus, and then she went home to bed.

  The next day Nikki was working on the dock when she saw Bill. He was sitting on the back of Cynthia’s boat. He held up one finger to signal to her that she had one day left. Nikki held up one finger to Bill, but a different one!

  The final day came and went, and Nikki stayed in to watch the local news to see about a hurricane in the Atlantic. It was on track to go over Cuba and into the Gulf, but the bottom Keys would get the shit kicked out of it with eighty mph winds and a possible storm surge of six to eight feet. That meant she had to get Mark and a day helper to tie down and spider web all the houseboats and boats. She would take down all the bimini tops and stow the deck furniture as well.

  In the morning Bill went to talk to Nikki. “Have you got my five million dollars?”

  “Bill, there is no money. So go to the cops or whatever, but get the hell out of my face. There’s a hurricane coming, and I’ve got a ton of shit to do. So do what you want, there is no money!” she said.

  “Okay, Nikki. Have it your way,” and he walked off.

  Nikki went back to work. She knocked on every door and talked to all the residents and left a note instructing them to tie down or leave because the hurricane was coming. Some people chose to leave for the Mangroves a day or two before the storm and cross tie up there in a small canal. She spent the next three days tying up boats, house boats and docks. They would be on the southeast side of the storm, so evacuation from the Keys was mandatory.

  If Bill went to the cops they hadn’t shown up yet. Nikki knew they wouldn’t. They would have their hands full with the storm coming, and Bill had no evidence. All he had was talk.

  Mark and a few of the dockers worked and a few boats left for the Mangroves to tie up to wait it out there. The Sea Cactus and the forty-five foot Pacemaker left, but the rest stayed and got ready.

  Nikki was done for the day and went to her apartment. She made a drink and turned on the TV to watch the news about the storm. It was just rounding Key West and would be there the next night. Winds on the bad side were clocked at one hundred mph. Not good, she thought to herself. It was not going to be a direct hit but the storm surge was going to be 8 feet at her marina. She poured another drink and made some dinner, then settled down to watch TV.

  Morning came like a fire cracker. Her eyes snapped open, and she bound out of bed and got dressed while the coffee was brewing. Out on the dock everyone was working on their boats. The sea water was real low. This was a sign that the storm was going to be bad. Nikki walked the half empty dock one last time. Everything was spider webbed as best they could. Even Bill helped when he got done with the 100 footer, and of course old Cynthia just sat on her yacht and got drunk on martinis as usual.

  Night came and Nikki went home, had something to eat and drink and looked at the news about the storm. The storm would be here about 2:00 a.m. Nikki decided to get an underwater light, mask and fins and make sure the money was okay. She looked up and down the dock, then slipped into the water and dove under the dock to the money bags. What she saw made her air come out. The line that held the bags full of money had been cut and the two bags were gone! She dove down about five or six times with the light in the dark looking for the two bags filled with five million dollars in cash. They weren’t there! They had been taken! The rope had been cut.

  Lots of fish came, small and big because fish are photo aggressive. They come to light like a moth to a flame. That’s okay unless it’s a big shark or thousand pound grouper. Then it was scary. She got out of the water carefully and went back to her apartment. She sat down and took off her shit, all the time thinking that Bill was the culprit. That’s why he had been quiet the last two days and what he meant by “I saw what you did.” Bill had her four million dollars!

  At around one in the morning, the wind picked up significantly. Nikki guessed around seventy-five mph or so. “I’ll go down and confront him for half of the money,” she grumbled to herself. She got Dave’s 380 Auto, just in case. By 1:30, the wind had eased a bit, and it was raining, so she went down to Bill’s boat. When she got on board she didn’t take notice of the lean of the boat.

  She went to the hatch which led downstairs and opened the door very quietly. When she was half way down the stairs, she saw a muzzle flash coming from downstairs. The bullet went through her hair and out the door behind her
. The shock made her fall on the stairs to one knee. There was another flash, and the second bullet went over her head and through the door behind her. If she hadn’t slipped, she would have been hit in the face. She fired four times in the direction of the muzzle flash, and then it was dead silent except for her heart hammering in her chest. It was dark with no electricity, and silent except for the wind and rain. She just sat there for the longest time and listened to her heart. Finally she got up and carefully walked to that end of the boat. She found Bill in the hall. He was crumpled over with three holes in him from head to chest. He was dead.

  Nikki walked to the stateroom. Cynthia was passed out on the bed and hadn’t heard a thing. ‘God, she must be deaf not to hear six shots!’ thought Nikki. She picked Cynthia up in a dead man carry and was careful not to step in Bill’s blood. She put her at the bottom of the steps, then took the 380 and rubbed it in both of Cynthia’s hands before putting it in her left hand and fired it once in Bill’s direction to get the powder on her hand. She knew that Cynthia was left handed, so she threw the empty cartridges more to that side and behind her.

  The wind was picking up again, and now it was raining even harder. She spent the next two hours looking for the money in the engine room to no avail. She would dive beneath the boat and look after the cops and storm went by. The boat was going nowhere for a month or so. Nikki went back to her office, had a drink and went to bed but couldn’t sleep. She got up around 5:00 a.m., made coffee, showered, and dressed. The storm winds were beginning to die down; it was almost over. The other side of the storm hit around 2:30 that afternoon.

  The boats that were left at the dock were scratched and the top parts were torn up, but the bimini tops were all tied up, so they survived. She ran into Mark and five others on the dock. The storm was over, so she started untying all the boats and moved them back in place. Everybody was working.

  CHAPTER 12

  A blood curdling scream came from the Broward early in the morning. Mark and Nikki and two others ran to see what was going on. When they got to Cynthia’s boat, she appeared at the door in her night gown which was covered in blood.

  The only thing she was missing was the 380 in her hand, Nikki thought. She followed the others aboard the boat and found Bill all crumpled up in the hallway with a 38 ultra-light still in his hand. There was blood everywhere. Cynthia never, that’s never, quit screaming and running around. The 380 was at the bottom of the steps covered in blood, too. Rigor mortis had set into Bill.

  Cynthia told everyone on the dock she woke up at the foot of the stairs with the gun in her hand. She didn’t know what happened or how Bill got shot. Nikki called the cops and asked them to come as soon as possible. She had a murder on her dock.

  The boats started coming back from the cuts and the Cypress trees. Half of the people started tying up the boats and talking about Bill and Cynthia and the murder. Nikki met the cops on the dock and took them to the 100 footer. Cynthia was sitting on Don’s boat crying and drinking coffee. The two cops went aboard Cynthia’s boat.

  Within twenty minutes there were two other cops on board and one plain clothes detective. They were on the boat for about four hours and spent time talking to Cynthia for hours. At the end they called the coroner and had Bill’s body taken to the morgue; Cynthia was cuffed.

  Nikki went to Cynthia and asked “Do you want some clothes? And I’ll clean up the boat while you’re gone.” Nikki said this to Cynthia while she had a cop on each side of her so she would have a witness and a reason to be on the boat. She had to look for the money.

  The next day two cops saw Nikki and asked her about Bill’s shooting. She said she didn’t see or hear anything because of the hurricane. After thirty minutes they were done asking questions, and Nikki asked if she could clean up the boat.

  They told her “Not yet. Call at the end of the week.” She went down the dock to make sure everything was all right. All the boats had hundreds if not thousands of scratches on their sides from the hurricane’s wind blowing junk in the water up against them. On Friday Nikki called the Sheriff’s office and asked him if she could clean up the blood and stuff on Bill’s boat. He told her they would get back to her after he talked to the detectives. He never called, so Nikki contacted him again on Monday. He said he forgot to call her, that Cynthia could not remember anything and that she was lawyered up so he could not talk to her without her attorney being with her. Anyhow, he thought they were done taking pictures and running lines from the steps to where Bill’s body was found.

  Nikki went on the boat just to look around and think. Where would Bill put two bags of money? Where would Bill put two bags of money that Cynthia wouldn’t find? The engine room, under the boat or dock or under the floor boards of the boat? She would start tomorrow by first taking the carpet out of the boat and go from there. She told Mark she’d be throwing the carpet full of blood on the dock and would he see that it went to the dumpster come morning. She had a plan to search the boat from stem to stern.

  In the morning she had her coffee with Don and Mark. At around 9:00, she went to the 100 footer with her tools and started cutting carpet and padding. She made a sketch of the boat and marked down where the carpet was last. Bill would use those spots over tacked down places. When she finished stripping the boat she went to the engine room. With a head flashlight and a four-inch hand-held, she looked in every nook and cranny in the engine room. She even took up the checker plate on the floor, and she finished the day knowing it was not in the engine room that was marked out. The day was over so she quit and went home.

  It was 2:00 in the morning when she was awakened by a thought that both of the engines were backwards because they were v-drives. Maybe Bill put the bags at the transmission. She’d need a screw gun to get at them from the guest room and would have to take a piece out of the bulkhead to see the v-drives. The bags weren’t there either so she went back home again and lay back down. Tomorrow she would start on the main salon and work her way back. She would look at every screw to see if the paint was messed up on any of them.

  Loretta and Jerry on the Sea Cactus got back from up north that morning, so she went down to help them tie up and tell them about Cynthia and Bill. They had been gone over a week. They said they went to the Hard Rock Café in Miami to get out of the path of the hurricane. They had taken the Outside all the way up, and the sea was like glass.

  Nikki was back on the 100 footer. She started searching in the master stateroom and worked her way forward. When she got to where Bill had been found, the wood floor had a stain from his blood that had soaked through the carpet, padding and all, even through to the wood. She looked at the stain for the longest time, and tears formed in her eyes thinking about Bill and the good times they had had. People never remember the bad, just the good times. Then she wiped her face and went back to work and she thought, ‘Screw him! He left me. I didn’t leave him. He moved in with that bitter old bitch for money, so why should I care?’

  Nikki kept working; she went through the boat with a fine tooth comb. The day came to an end and she found nothing but lots of jewelry and shoes. The boat was clean from stem to stern and from top to bottom. She was tired and done for the day. Tomorrow she would get her tank and dive the boat and dock. She went home and made dinner. She had a full day ahead of her.

  Nikki got up around seven, made coffee and had breakfast. Then she took a shower, got into her wet suit, and readied her dive tank. She went to the boat and talked to three or four people on the dock. When asked why she was wearing a wet suit, she told them that she had to check the boat to make sure it was sea worthy and did not have barnacles all over the running gear. She got ready and went into the water, going under the boat by the shafts and props. No bags, but plenty of barnacles. The boat needed scraping. Then she went under the dock and down to the thousand pound cement anchors that held the floating dock in place.

  When she was looking the block over something nudged her back and she spun around and against her face was a
basketball size face with six inch whiskers. She let out a scream and all her air came out. That scared the two thousand pound Manatee away; it was startled by her scream. Manatees are very friendly and docile creatures that only eat grass and not people. After her heart settled back to a normal beat, she checked the rest of the anchors and hold down chains. No bags. Then she went to search the docks. Nothing there. No bags under the boat, anchors or docks.

  She got out of the water. She had thought she would find the money in a few days. Nikki carried everything to her apartment with Mark’s help. When she got there she made a drink for herself and took a shower then came out and sat at her desk, sipping her drink and wondering where he had hidden the money?

  A thought occurred to her; maybe he had opened a safe deposit box in a bank and put it there? Then it’s gone forever! He’s dead! Oh, shit, he’s dead! She’d have no chance of getting it back.

  Another idea occurred to her, so she met with the Chief of Police for breakfast. Nikki would find out if they found a box under Bill’s name and if they found the money. “Chief, I may have a problem. Dave took some pictures of me and Bill in the nude three or four years ago on the sand bar at Holiday Isle. Bill had them, so if you find out that Bill has a safe deposit box at some bank let me know, or get those pictures for me if you can.”

  If she discovered he had a safe deposit box, she would sic her attorney on the money Bill lied about on his net worth statement for the divorce.