Key West Connection

by Randy Wayne White

  “Beer?”

  He shook his head. “I’m on duty, Dusky. This is a business visit.”

  “Fine. Have a seat.”

  He sat in the plush fighting chair beside me. I told myself to be calm. I told myself how I should act, what I should say. I didn’t want to be caught. I didn’t want to be arrested. Not now. I needed time. A lot more time.

  “Any leads on those bastards?”

  Rigaberto wiped his face again. “Let’s cut the act, Dusky. I’ve been working twenty-two hours a day since it happened, and I’m in no mood. I knew who they were; I had them spotted. Three of them. They left in a big powerboat after setting the bomb. They met a shrimp boat offshore. The Darlin’ Denise.”

  “Then why aren’t you out there arresting them?”

  He eyed me evenly. “Don’t play me for a fool, Dusky. Remember who you’re talking to. I thought we were friends.”

  “This afternoon, apparently, you’re Detective Herrera, and I’m Dusky MacMorgan, private citizen.”

  “Why did you do it, Dusky? I had them! Goddammit, I had them in the palm of my hand!”

  “Like you had Ellsworth?”

  Rigaberto slapped the arm of the fighting chair, furious. He took a deep breath, sighed. “Is that an admission of guilt?”

  “I don’t know what in the hell you’re talking about.”

  He wiped his face again. He looked beat: flesh sagging beneath dark eyes; clothes that smelled sour. He had been working hard. I didn’t doubt that. All day and all night long, probably. Refusing to entrust the case to anyone else, for fear of having it screwed up.

  “Why don’t you have something cold to drink? I’ll get you some water.”

  He shook his head wearily. “Hell, make it a beer. I’ve got comp time coming. I think I’ll take it now.”

  I got him the beer, stuck it in a Styrofoam hand cooler, and opened it with a church key. He took it gratefully.

  “Jesus Christ, Dusky, I’ll never figure out how you did what you did last night.”

  “What? I was in Miami last night.”

  “Oh, sure. That’s what our investigation indicates. Had a man up there this morning. Big dinner at the Fontainebleau. Seen walking the lobby at sometime between two a.m. and three a.m. Used your credit card and signed for everything. Handwriting appears to match.”

  “And why shouldn’t it?”

  “Because I know you, Dusky. I know that you despise Miami. I know that that’s the last place you’d go.”

  “Well, maybe your tastes change when you’ve seen your family blown to little pieces!”

  Rigaberto downed half of his beer in one gulp. He looked at me wearily.

  “Dusky, I loved that woman of yours. And I loved those kids. I mean that. And I mean this too: I don’t blame you. But, dammit, you just can’t keep on taking the law into your own hands.”

  “Rigaberto, I still don’t know what you’re talking about. What’s the connection?”

  “Okay. I’ll play the game with you. The three men who killed your wife were on the Darlin’ Denise. Last night, off Middle Sambo Reef, the Darlin’ Denise caught fire. One man burned to death. We found four other bodies—all died from wounds inflicted by a shark. The only person to escape was a senile old man who talks nonsense when we try to question him.”

  I tried to look delighted. “They’re dead? They’re all dead? Good. And I hope the bastards suffered as they went down.”

  “How did you do it, Dusky? I can surmise how you set the Darlin’ Denise afire. But the sharks—what did you do? Chum for an hour or two before you blew up the boat? Christ, you wouldn’t have had time.”

  “Could that have been the cocaine boat I told you about?”

  “Don’t pull that innocent, blue-eyed-boy shit with me! You know it was the cocaine boat.”

  “Then I would have also known that the federal boys were out there waiting for them. They were, weren’t they? I mean, I told them.”

  “They didn’t believe you, or got lost, or, hell, I don’t know, Dusky.” Rigaberto sighed another heavy sigh. “Maybe it was an accident. Or maybe they set the fire and chummed up the sharks. And maybe the earth is spinning off toward the sun. Christ, I’m too tired to even think anymore.”

  “Probably a gang war between drug runners. That sort of thing goes on, you know.”

  “Gang war my ass.” He sighed in surrender. And then: “Hey, get me another beer too, would you? I don’t know why in the hell I didn’t become a priest like my mother wanted me to be. . . . ”

  Gang warfare between drug runners—that’s what the press called it. Romantic stuff. Terror in the tropics. Headline fare. Senators and Congressmen called for an investigation into drug-related crimes, and governors promised immediate action. After a few weeks, it all died down, and no one really cared anymore. A few drug runners were killed by sharks—so what? Who needs ’em?

  And after a week or so, after the reporters went home, and the politicians started focusing on more important matters—like how to get reelected—the big drug boats started to make their scheduled runs to the Bahamas and Mexico and South America, and people in high places started turning their heads once again, their hands outstretched for bribes, because there is, after all, big money in drugs. And supply the demand is the American way of life.

  Like the drug runners, I too lay low for a while. I worked on the Sniper. I had her hauled, and spent a long dirty afternoon scraping her clean and repainting her with the very, very best antifouling paint. And while I painted her bottom, Hervey Yarbrough, who owns the boat ways up at Cow Key, painted her upper hull and flybridge.

  “You want it what color, Dusky?”

  “Blue-black, Hervey. A deep-water shade of blue-black.”

  “Well, I’ll do her, dern it—but ain’t nobody gonna be able to spot this vessel o’ yourn after dark. God he’p ya if’n ya break down out in the Stream some afternoon. They won’t fin’ ya till ya drift halfway ta England!”

  Hervey muttered and grumbled and second guessed all afternoon. A good man, Hervey Yarbrough. Born of shipbuilder stock that had come to Key West in the early 1800s, he was an authentic Conch—which is what the old white islanders are called. Hervey’s people lived in Key West during the era in which changing channel markers, so that the incoming ships would go a wreck on a reef, was common practice. They would lure the ships aground, go out and help save the ship and the ship’s manifest, then claim a percentage of the cargo in the infamous Key West salvage courts. In those times, Key West and the Dry Tortugas were not favorite ports of call with the world’s oceangoing captains.

  They called the Conchs who practiced such piracy “wreckers” and “moonrakers,” and they were actually licensed by the courts. Licensed not to change channel markers, but to salvage cargo and go to the aid of reefed vessels. In 1835 there were twenty such licensed wreckers operating out of Key West. Hervey was a descendant of Captain S. Sanderson, master of the schooner Orion.

  “But he weren’t no moonraker, no sirree,” Hervey told me as we painted. “A good honest man, he was. Lotta them pirates in back times—”

  “—and a lot now.”

  “Dern if tha’ ain’t the truth! But our family weren’t no moonrakers. Good honest wreckers, we was. An’ those backtime wreckers worked for their money, by gum. Goin’ out to the reefs to rescue men ’n’ ships with one o’ them blowin’ blue northers. Day or night; didn’t matter. Lost a few, saved a few. But by gum they worked for what th’ courts give ’em. They was good brave seafarin’ men.”

  I needed the day of hard work and hot sun; a day around good people like Hervey and his wife and pretty teenage daughter. I had been a walking corpse for days. I saw, but could not see. I heard, but could not hear. Everything was in black and white; the faces of strangers passed on the streets were shrouded by a white corona, the film of death. The chatter of birds, the moan of south wind in Australian pines, the barking of stray dogs, all came to me as a dreamy echo; the remembrance of another life
to someone trapped in a gauzy netherworld.

  Coming back from Middle Sambo Reef that night had not been easy. I was no longer the hunter, I was the hunted. Too much death, too much horror, too many screams that would reverberate forever in my mind. I came close to the edge. Too close. Halfway back to Key West, I had pulled the Whaler back to idle, then switched the little fifty-horse engine off. Drifting, I had watched the dim blaze of lights which shrouded the string of Keys, trailing off to the northeast like a comet’s tail.

  Why should I go on? What more was there to do? They had killed four of me. I had killed six of them, and was responsible for the fiery death of another.

  What was left?

  I thought of Janet; thought of my two fine young sons. They had never had a chance. Never had a chance to see life; to learn to love the good and true things as I had.

  And with their deaths, all of my appreciation of life had died with them.

  Was there any purpose in an existence dedicated to mindless vengeance? To mindless killing?

  No. Vietnam had proved that to me, and to too many others.

  Why function in a mindless world with an insane mission?

  Slowly, I had picked up the AK-47: wood forearm and metal butt plate cold in my hands. I slid a cartridge into the chamber and placed the barrel of the weapon against my forehead, the butt of the rifle angled solidly against the fiberglass deck.

  I knew I could do it.

  There was no fear, no trembling hands.

  I placed my thumb against the trigger of the brutal automatic—and that’s when I heard the familiar poof of a dolphin. Bottle-nosed dolphins: a family of them. They circled near the skiff, diving and rising like merry-go-round creatures. Side by side, up and down, up and down, in tight formation. A protective formation. One for all, and all for one. Perfect creatures in grand design.

  And in some strange way, that was affirmation enough.

  I had lost my family unit; lost them to the mindless ones.

  I would not let them take me, too.

  There would be other people, other families who needed help. There had always been the pirates, the soulless moonrakers of humanity; those who leached the money and the lives of the innocent. My death would serve only them. But my life—my life could make them sorry they were ever born.

  So I sat and watched the dolphins. Clear night, moon setting in the west. Soft wind, open expanse of dark sea. They would kill me. In time, I would die by their hands. Because wherever they were, wherever they killed and robbed and bullied, I would be. Death on my mind and them in my sights. . . .

  After another two days of hard work, and of draining the bulk of the money left in our bank account, the Sniper was ready to go.

  I had had her tuned to perfection, and added a Si-Tex radar system. The antenna had been mounted forward of the fly-bridge, and the radar screen itself was bolted above the cabin controls. It produced a clear, twelve-inch image with a range up to forty-six miles. The existence of distant vessels came to me as little lime-green bleeps on the sweep of screen.

  “Sure look pretty, don’t she?” Hervey had said, admiring his own brushwork. “With that blue-black upper, the light-blue bottom paint and the gold waterline, she look pretty as a pitchure, huh?”

  She did indeed look fine. In a burst of characteristic generosity, Hervey’s wife had worked overtime to surprise me. With her considerable artistic talent, she had painted “Sniper—Key West, Florida” in small white script on the stern.

  “Hope you don’t mind, Cap’n MacMorgan, but I thought it would look nice,” she had said.

  And I smiled—smiled for the first time in more than a week.

  She added, “Janet, your kids—I sure was awful sorry to hear about them. They was so good. They say us Conchs is cliquish, but I liked that woman the moment I met her. We ain’t standoffish when it comes ta good people. And I just want you to know that if’n there’s anythin’ you need—ever—you got friends on this island. Like tha’ business off Middle Sambo th’ other night? Well, had you needed any help, my old man an’ a buncha other Conchs woulda slipped out there with ya. We take care of our own, we do. Always have, always will. I just wanted ya to know. . . . ”

  I didn’t ask her what she had heard, how she had found out. The few true islanders that are left have their own ways of knowing. Something about her concern, her affection for Janet, her way of telling me that they would help—no matter what—touched me. Really touched me. I winked, said nothing, and I managed to hold back the hot rush of tears until I was offshore, well away from Cow Key. . . .

  There was a guy waiting for me when I got back to the docks. I nosed the Sniper around, port engine forward, starboard engine in reverse, then backed her in, stopped my sternway with a forward thrust of power, then shut her down.

  “Are you Captain Henry MacMorgan?”

  “That’s right.” I looked up briefly as I made the lines fast and rigged the spring line. He was a big man in a neat business suit. Short black hair, angular face: the Clint Eastwood type, only burlier.

  He took a wallet from his jacket pocket, opened it, and held it up plainly for me to see. “My name’s Fizer, Captain MacMorgan. Norm Fizer. I’m with the federal government.”

  “Great. Enjoy the benefits. Buy more suits.”

  “I think we might have met before, Captain MacMorgan. Remember, Dusky?”

  I stood up and studied his face. And, finally, I did remember. Stormin’ Norman. Special Forces. CIA, maybe. One hush-hush mission and too many jungle nights in Cambodia, long, long ago. A good man that we all had entrusted with our lives. And he had come through—unusual for a government man in those times. And these times. And all times.

  “No,” I lied. “Can’t say as I do.”

  He smiled. “Guess I can’t remember, either. Mind if I come aboard and we talk about our poor memories?”

  We sat in the forward salon, me with Hatuey, him with ice water and a squeeze of lime.

  “I told that Lenze character everything I know about the murder of my friend, Norm, so if that’s why you’re here . . . ”

  He held up his hands. “Hold it, Dusky. Not so fast. Give me a chance to set a few things straight, first, and then we’ll talk. Okay?”

  “Sure.”

  He sipped at his lime and water. “Before you resigned from the Navy, you had a very high security clearance. That’s why we were together in that place neither of us can remember. A very high security clearance, and so, back then, I could have prefaced what I am now about to say with ‘Restricted Information’ and gone on with every assurance that you would not blab, and get me fired and force me into selling that crummy secondhand heap that my wife drives. Now I have to ask you for your word.” He chuckled. “How about it, Dusky? A few minutes of talk, all strictly confidential.”

  “You’re not here, right?”

  “Correct. I’m up in Atlanta this very moment—just as you were up in Miami one Friday night—”

  “Now hold it, Fizer!”

  He waved his hands at me, relaxed, self-assured. “I didn’t come here to entrap you, Dusky. Take it easy. We’re on the same side.”

  “And what side is that?”

  “Oh, the side of law, order, and justice for all, of course! But all sarcasm aside, Dusky, I . . . well . . . we need your help.”

  I set down the Hatuey bottle and looked him straight in the eye. Brown eyes. Serious, dark eyes deep-set within the fraternity-boy face. “Why should I help you? Your people didn’t exactly put a lock on one Benjamin Ellsworth. Where in the hell were your people when he was planning to put a bomb in my car? A car which just happened to be holding my wife and kids when it blew up!”

  He lowered his eyes. “I know, I know—that’s why I’m down here, Dusky. And I’m sorry, I truly am. We’ve got problems in the department. We’ve been having people go bad. People in high places. It’s money, Dusky. Big money. And the weak ones can’t resist it. Would you believe that I myself was offered a quarter million in
cash just to turn my head once? Just once.”

  “So what happened?”

  His eyes focused, his nostrils flared. This was the guy I had known in Cambodia. “That fellow is taking a nice little vacation in federal prison. And he spent the first two weeks in court hobbling around on crutches. Okay?”

  “You made your point, Norm.”

  “So how about it, Dusky? Come back into the fold.”

  “I don’t like wearing a suit.”

  “We have too many people who wear suits already. We want someone who knows boats, knows the water, and can take care of himself—and that’s you. You’ll still run your charter business. But every now and then I might drop you the word, and then you’d tell your friends that you’re leaving on a little vacation cruise. We’ll back you, we’ll finance you—but you take orders from us.”

  “And what if, on one of these little assignments, I get into trouble?”

  “It’ll be like the other place neither of us were—you have to fight your way out—or die trying. Because we’ll disavow all knowledge of your activities.”

  “And what about the local law?”

  “I’ll take care of that.”

  “And what if I say no?”

  “Then I’m afraid we’ll have to let Mr. Lenze—who is headed for a hard fall very soon, incidentally—continue his investigation into the murder of five drug runners, all of whom had records longer than both of our arms. By the way, the way you treated the old man impressed us. We made him give back the money, of course, but your sympathetic treatment—well, it helped us make the final decision.”

  “Give me a day to think it over, Norm.”

  “Fine, Dusky. But we need you. We need someone with local cover who can work fast and clean. Battles between mobsters have a way of exposing the soft underbelly of crime rings to federal three-piece-suit men like me. It wouldn’t be the first time we’ve used someone like you.”

  He finished his lime and water, stood up, and held out his hand. “By the way, I have a message for you—Colonel Westervelt says you should keep the little toys he gave you. He hopes you’ll be needing them soon.”