Key West Connection

by Randy Wayne White

  “What does that have to do with the knife?”

  “I brought the knife for you. I would rather die than to know there was no one to rescue me from this terrible place. I will not fight myself, captain. Not now. Not ever again.”

  Her face was still flushed from crying, and her dark eyes were resolute. She pulled herself against me, hugging me warmly. She was trembling. “You are a very attractive man, captain. The most attractive man I have seen in too, too long. Is it wrong of me to say that I want you?”

  “My God, Bimini, they’ll be coming before long.”

  She sighed. “I can see that your body wants me, too, but . . . ”

  I pulled her to me, kissed her, touched her breasts gently, then swung her around and sat her down on the bed.

  “Now listen, you crazy woman!”

  She smiled vampishly. “All right, all right! Maybe not now, but someday, sometime, I will have you!”

  I rubbed her head good-naturedly. “Maybe. Someday. If I live, goddammit. How many of them will there be? Do you know?”

  She reached over and pulled a long, loose-fitting blue cotton dress down over her head. “I’m not sure. The Senator has sent for many men to come. He wants to dismantle much of this place and load it onto boats. He suspects the American government is after him. He has connections in a South American country—I am not sure which one. He is an important man and knows many people. He plans to go there. They have promised him political sanctuary. He wants to take me with him.” In a burst of emotion, she clubbed herself on the thigh with a dark fist. “I would die first! I would rather die!”

  “His men, Bimini—who are they? Where do they come from?”

  She relaxed somewhat and settled back on the bed. “It is as if he has his own small army. Men from Cuba, Haiti, America—many men, black and white. He does things for them; he gets them out of jail or makes it possible for them to come to this country. And once they are in his debt, the Senator makes them work for him. You don’t know him, captain. He is a very big man, a very powerful man.”

  I tried to match the man she told me about with the voice I had heard that night when I put the little bug into the flower vase. A harsh, masculine voice. A bawdy laugh, rich with self-importance.

  “How does Ellsworth fit in, Bimini?”

  “Ellsworth! Oh, how I hate that man!” Her dark eyes were fierce. “He says things to me—vile things. And when the Senator is not looking, he touches me. Once I slapped him, and he put a knife to my neck. He made me get down on my knees. He enjoyed it. Oh, how that awful man enjoyed forcing me. He made me . . . made me . . . ”

  “I know what he made you do, Bimini. And the Senator didn’t mind?”

  “Had I told him, he would have killed Ellsworth—even though Ellsworth runs his drug operation. And then he would have killed me! The Senator, he is so jealous. Yes, he would have certainly killed us both.”

  “What about Lenze, Bimini? I heard his name mentioned when they thought I was asleep. How does he fit in?”

  She paused for a moment, reflecting. “He is the frail little man? Yes? I’m not sure what his position is.”

  “He supposedly works for the federal government as a special drug investigator.”

  She tossed her head back and laughed softly. “That little man? He is so frightened of the Senator that he actually jumps when the Senator speaks. If he is with the American government, then the Senator truly has nothing to worry about.”

  I checked my watch. Two twenty-five. It had to be very early morning. They would not take me out to sea and kill me in the daylight. I got up and went to the door, testing it.

  “It’s locked,” Bimini said. “They always lock me in when I am with you.”

  “Is there a guard outside?”

  “No. You go through that door into the air conditioner room. There’s a big generator, too. It supplies all the power to the island. From there, you walk up the stairs. There’s a button to push. You can push a book cabinet away then, and step into the Senator’s den.”

  I went to the desk with the radio equipment shelved on it. I found the VHF and switched to channel 22, the Coast Guard’s emergency frequency.

  “It’s not connected,” the woman said. “I tried it this morning when I was beginning to think that you would never wake up again. They must have disconnected it when they put you in here.”

  I went back to the bed and sat down. My head still hurt, and I was beginning to grow dizzy. She noticed.

  “Are you going to be all right? No, no, you’re still too ill. I shouldn’t have expected . . . ”

  She was on the verge of tears again. I took her soft hand in mine. “Bimini. You must take the knife. They’ll find it.” I forced a smile. “I’ll pick it up when I come back for you. I promise.”

  So what do you do when you wait for the footsteps of death to approach? I lay back on the bed, resting. I tried to put myself in their place. Why would they shoot an already comatose man? They wouldn’t—unless it was Ellsworth. If it was Ellsworth, he would cut me into little pieces and feed me to the fish. But if it was anyone else, they would probably just weight me down and drop me over.

  But where?

  If I was to escape from my bonds and surface, and if I was to make it to land, I would have to know.

  If. If. If!

  Perhaps I should take the knife. I might be strong enough to surprise one man, but there would certainly be more than one. It would take two big men to lift me, or three average-sized men.

  No, I would have to work the odds. I would have to play the deadly little game. It was my only chance. Besides, they would probably find the knife when they came for me. And then . . . then we would both die.

  To ease our nervousness, Bimini began to talk. She talked of her childhood, the little island where she had grown up.

  “I was born on a little point of land in the chain of Bahamas called French Wells. My family lived in a little shack there, near the fresh water, across the creek from Crooked Island Veldt, about two hundred and fifty miles south-southeast of Andros.”

  “I know the place.”

  “You do!”

  “I was at Albert Town once when I was in the Navy. On a liberty, a close friend of mine—he’s dead now—a close friend and I went up to Crooked Island for the day. I remember the little white houses in the sun there at Church Grove Landing. What were the people there? Seventh-day Adventists?”

  “Yes! The Grove! Wasn’t it pretty? That’s where I grew up.”

  Oh, it was pretty, all right. Lilliputian houses by the clear tropical sea. Little black children playing in the dirt with the ragged, omnipresent island chickens. White beaches and palm trees, and wonderful fishing. I studied Bimini’s lovely face. What was she? Twenty-three, twenty-four? I had been there about ten years before—that would have made her one of the pretty-eyed, shy-faced island girls. Just beginning to blossom; just beginning to feel her womanhood.

  “Perhaps we saw each other? Do you think?”

  “Perhaps.”

  “My father worked in the cascarilla-bark groves there. They make medicine and a distaff liqueur from it. I remember that he always smelled so nice. The smell of those islands—wasn’t it good? When Columbus came, he named them the fragrant islands. Did you know that, captain?”

  I shook my head. “No. I didn’t. But I remember the smell. It was a good smell. You still smell of the islands.”

  She smiled at me. “Do I? I am so glad to hear that. Living here, doing what I do, I feel so . . . so dirty. As if I couldn’t possibly smell nice.”

  I reached out and touched her young face. Bimini: such a pretty name, such a pretty woman. She understood the look in my eye.

  She grew serious: “Captain. We still have time. It would not be like with him. This would be a small loving thing, and we could make it last until . . . I will make you feel so good, captain. And I know, from the look of you, that you will make me feel better than I have ever felt.”

  She started to
slip the flimsy dress up over her head. I saw the momentary triangle of dark thighs before I took her arms.

  “Bimini, no. I told you no, and I mean no.”

  She sort of shook herself, pouting. “Why must you be so mean? There are so many men that I could have.” She snapped her fingers. “Like that! But you! Oh!”

  I hugged her, laughing. “Mean? Me? Your friends are coming down here in a few minutes to kill me, and you call me mean?”

  She drew away from me. “They are not my friends. Do not ever say that again—I hate them!”

  “I’m sorry, Bimini. So tell me, then—how did you get involved? How did you come to know the Senator?”

  She took a deep breath and sat back. I could tell the subject was distasteful to her. I sat and listened and said nothing.

  “When I was a little girl, I grew to hate that pretty little island. I was stupid, as are most children who hate their homelands, and I dreamed of someday escaping. Up on Landrail Point, at the small marina there, they had a wireless radio. When I could sneak away from our little shack, I would go there and listen. I could hear the voices and the music of Miami and Nassau and Havana coming to me, and I dreamed of going to those places.

  “Do you remember Landrail Point? Yes? Once a week, the mailboat came there. All the way from Nassau. To me it seemed as if it had come halfway around the world. I made friends with one of the men who ran the boat. He was a fat man, a fat black man, and he said that if I pleasured him, he would take me away. I pleasured him—but I never let him . . . take me.” There was a fierce, proud look on her dark face. “I never let any of them take me, ever! Not even the Senator! I knew how to make them feel good, to make them happy, to make it so they didn’t care. So he took me to Nassau. Oh, if I had only known what a dirty, nasty place that was! I trained as a nurse. I worked there. One year, two years. I sent most of the money to my mother—my father had died. To make more money I became a dancer in the Ahora Club. A very good dancer. Many rich men wanted me. But the Senator, he was so . . . so convincing. I left with him. I have been with him almost a year now. And I hate him. He has me trapped here; he lets me go nowhere alone. He is so jealous, so afraid that . . . that he won’t be the first!”

  “I’m surprised he didn’t force you.”

  “Hah! No man on earth could force me.”

  “Ellsworth forced you.”

  “He took nothing from me. But I should have let him kill me anyway. I know the Senator will kill me if I ever let him take me. That’s why I have been with him so long. He hates failure of any kind. And once he succeeds he will dispose of me the way a child rids himself of an old toy. That’s why I must escape soon. Before it’s too late. Before he takes me too far away from my old home.”

  I wanted to ask her more questions. I wanted to listen to that fine West Indies voice of hers. She was a strong woman. And she would be a fierce lover. And for some strange reason, she wanted me to be her first. I wondered why. I remembered Vietnam. It was not unusual for the nurses to fall in love and marry a wounded man they had cared for. Perhaps that was it. She had given me my life. And now she wanted to give me hers.

  I wanted to ask why, but I couldn’t force myself. What terrible instinct of intellect is it that always makes us want to investigate another’s motives for wanting to love us?

  So instead, I said nothing.

  I lay back and closed my eyes, patting her leg tenderly.

  And that’s when I heard them coming to take me away.

  I heard footsteps. And then the click of a deadbolt. And then the door open. And then a voice.

  It was the surly, well-modulated voice of Benjamin Ellsworth.

  And I knew that I was dead.

  XII

  “He hasn’t woken yet?”

  “No. I think he’s nearly dead. Poor man.”

  It was Bimini trying to cover for me. I flinched a little when she called me “poor man.” Too much sympathy wouldn’t go over well with Ellsworth.

  I heard the sound of a match striking, and smelled the monoxide odor of a cigarette.

  “He hasn’t spoken? Not even a word?”

  Bimini’s voice was even, professional, unconcerned. I admired her for it.

  “He cried out a few times. Let’s see, that was . . . yesterday. He mentioned some woman. Janet? Yes. Since then, nothing.”

  I heard Ellsworth walk toward me; heard the movement of other men behind him. I felt him lean over me: smelled the heat of him, his sour tobacco breath. I had some idea of what he might do. And he did it. A trick from Vietnam to see if a gook was really dead.

  I felt the radiant glow of the cigarette before it actually touched my eyelid. I forced myself to relax; forced my mind to go blank to pain. It hurt. God, how it hurt. And just when I could take no more, just when I was about to take a swing at that bibliophile face of his, Bimini screamed, “Stop that, you bastard! Stop it this minute!”

  I heard a short scuffle, shook off the urge to join in, and then:

  “You black bitch—if you ever touch me again, I’ll kill you!”

  And Bimini hissed at him, biting off each word: “You ain’t man enough to kill me!”

  There was a silence, as if Ellsworth was trying to regain some composure in front of his men. “Bimini, for your information, this big ugly bastard has already killed at least two, and perhaps more, of the Senator’s people. I was just checking—”

  “I don’t care who he’s killed. And you can kill him, for all I care. But I don’t like to see any living thing mistreated that way. He’s dead, can’t you see that? His heart’s still beating, but his brain died when you hit him with that club.”

  In the silence which followed I heard someone cough; the shuffle of feet. And then:

  “Okay, men. Load him onto that cot. Take him out to the powerboat. Sammy, you find something heavy. Some chains, some concrete blocks—it doesn’t matter. And Jones, get some stout rope. I’ll want you two to go with me.”

  So they carried me up the stairs, through the house, outside. I concentrated on being heavy, limp weight. I wanted them to think of me as something already dead; a big troublesome chunk of meat that they wanted to be rid of.

  The two men huffed and puffed as they struggled with me up the stairs and down the loose footing of the shell mound.

  “This son of a bitch am some kinda heavy, ain’t he, Sammy?”

  “Goddam, I guess! Those friggin’ shoulders mus’ weigh a hundred pounds by themselves! . . . Aw, shit!”

  The second one, Sammy, had lost his footing. I felt the stretcher collapse atop him, and I rolled out of it, down the mound, limp as a rag.

  I should have made my move then. Just two of them. I wasn’t tied. Ellsworth would probably be down at the docks, readying the boat. I should have. But I didn’t. I thought about it just a second too long. I wasted that precious second of surprise I needed to take them. What is the saying? He who hesitates . . .

  Well, I was lost. No doubt about it. Silently, I swore at myself. Poor man, old wounded killer, seven pounds overweight, and now a second too slow to save his own life.

  They were on me in no time.

  “Christ, Sammy, watch it, will ya? You like to give me a rupture, droppin’ him that way!”

  “Well, I didn’t mean to, I guaran-goddam-tee you that! I got a bad back as it is. Told the Senator that. Shouldn’t be makin’ me do this heavy shit.”

  They grumbled on as they carried me down to the boathouse, their feet clicking and echoing on the wooden dock in the silence of three a.m. They set me down finally, and I could hear the steady wash of water beneath me, and the cracking of pistol shrimp from within their tunicate hideaways on the pilings.

  “Okay, get the boat started.”

  It was Ellsworth.

  “You two get him loaded—no, wait a minute. Wrap this canvas around his head. I don’t want a trace of him on this boat. And Jones, check him for a weapon—just in case.”

  I felt big hands pat my legs, thighs, chest, and un
derarms—a thorough, professional job. I thanked God I hadn’t brought the knife. Bimini would have been dead within ten minutes: a soft brown body to join mine in the eternal dark of death and deep water. They dropped me into the boat like a big sack, wrapped my wounded head so that I would not stain the plastic bristle of boat carpet, then, to the roar of twin engines, jetted me toward my final destination.

  I kept a map in my mind as we went, sensitive to every shift of direction, every turn, every variation of impact of sea on bow.

  I felt us roar northwest, then turn south, probably picking up Big Spanish Channel. I hoped they would stop and get it over with. Why not drop me into the deep water of the pass?

  Divers, probably. They were afraid I would be found by the sport divers who hunt the holes and coral heads for Florida lobster. The divers flock to the Keys every August for the sport season.

  They were smart. Or Ellsworth was smart. And it was my bad luck. Had they dropped me there, and if I could get loose once underwater, then I knew I could make it back to land.

  But offshore? With my battered head and in my dubious physical condition?

  I doubted it.

  I heard the roar of a passing car, then the echo of our own engines, and I knew I was in trouble. We had just passed under the Bahia Honda bridge, heading for open sea.

  How fast were we going? I tried to calculate time and distance. At least forty-five and maybe sixty miles per hour. It was hard to tell. The sleek cruiser knifed through the roll of sea so cleanly that it was difficult to judge speed. But I was familiar with the area, and I knew that if we put more than ten minutes between us and the bridge, I was a goner. An offshore reef line edges the Florida Keys. It runs from five to seven miles out, most of the way up. Once you pass the reef line, the water depth drops off sharply: from twenty feet to more than a hundred feet. In the Navy, my deepest free dive was to 190 feet. A life-and-death plunge one golden dawn in the South China Sea. And 190 feet is not all that great when you consider the free-dive mark set by a fellow Navy diver in 1968: 240 feet—a new American record. I had had nothing wired to my legs back then. And I was in top condition. But at night? With a concussion? Well . . . if they took me over the reef line, I was just as good as dead.