The boat rocked wildly. Tyler looked off to the east and saw dark clouds gathering. He thought they looked ominous. It was definitely time to head back to shore. Then he looked toward the shore. He was farther out than he had intended. His stomach rumbled. He’d forgotten to take the Dramamine. Shit. If he was lucky, he’d keep the contents of his stomach intact at least until he managed to dock this piss-poor excuse of a boat.
The two unauthorized agents were watching him while he watched them, and he knew in his gut they couldn’t place him. He also knew by now that they’d placed a call to Jellard to check out the Sooner or Later. At best he had a few hours until his cover was blown. A few more hours after that, he would have to go deep, as agents were fond of saying when they wanted to disappear and still work a case anonymously. He closed the book he’d confiscated from the marina’s lending library, which consisted of tattered dogeared books people had left behind. He pulled up his unbaited line and tossed it on the floor of the boat. He turned the key in the ignition. He was about to open the throttle when his cell phone chirped to life. He flinched when he saw the Caller ID. UNKNOWN CALLER. UNKNOWN NUMBER. Should he answer it or shouldn’t he? Tyler glanced up at the black clouds, which were rolling in at a speed that unnerved him. He felt the chop of the water as it slapped against the Sooner or Later. Before he could think twice, he clicked on and identified himself. “Tyler,” he said briskly.
“Special Agent Tyler, you’d better turn that boat around and head back to shore. A storm is rolling in, and it won’t be pretty. By the way, didn’t your daddy tell you fishing is an art. The first rule is you need bait. There’s no bait on your hook. Those people on the beach know you don’t have a bucket of bait on board.” The voice clucked his tongue in disapproval. “Dead giveaway, Special Agent Tyler.”
Tyler felt his stomach start to grind as his gaze raked the open water. There were no boats other than the two Coast Guard cruisers moving up and down the waterway. No one was on the beach. Where the hell was this guy? “I thought we were clear when you called the last time. Piss off, buddy. You want to blackmail me, go for it.” Brave words from a coward. He let his gaze rake the water again. Where the hell was the jerk hiding? Was it possible he was holed up in that mausoleum at the tip of the island? He directed his gaze to the monstrosity but saw nothing out of the ordinary.
“Okay, so I came on a little strong. I’m not going to yank your chain, Special Agent Tyler. I have information, and I want to sell it. I help you, you help me. Let’s talk. With the info I have, you could very well be the next head of the DEA, administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration.”
The dark clouds were moving almost at the speed of light. He had to get to shore. If he let the throttle out, he wouldn’t be able to hear on the cell phone. He was surprised he even had reception out here. “Bullshit. If you can see me, then you know I need to get back to shore. I’m hanging up now. I wouldn’t make promises like that either,” Tyler added. Where in the hell have I heard this voice?
Ten minutes later, Tyler did some fancy maneuvering and backed the Sooner or Later into her slip. The same skanky kid reached for the mooring line as he leapt up to the dock. He tipped him ten dollars. Tyler looked around like he didn’t have a care in the world as he made his way to the rental car he’d parked in the lot. He used up another fifteen minutes driving to the bed-and-breakfast where he was staying. Just as he pulled into the small parking lot, rain poured from the sky. His cell phone chirped again.
Though only late in the afternoon, it was darker than night. Thunder and lightning ripped across the sky. A little Florida shower? He wasn’t sure. It might turn out to be a killer storm for all he knew, or it could just be a typical late-afternoon heat shower of the kind Florida was famous for. All he knew for certain was that he was safe and sound and his goddamn cell phone was ringing and the caller was unknown.
Tyler settled himself on one of the white-wicker chairs on the porch and clicked on the phone as the rain continued to come down in torrents. Overhead, the paddle fans fought with the whipping wind. The beautiful graceful ferns hanging from the beams whirled faster than a whirlybird. “What is it you want?” he said into the cell phone, not bothering to identify himself.
“You look nice and comfy on the porch. I always like to watch a wicked storm myself. But to answer your question, I want money. But I don’t want it for nothing. I want to trade what I have for money, but then I already told you that. You know, buying and selling, and you wound my pride when you refer to it as blackmail. I see it as a win for both of us.”
Tyler’s mind was racing a mile a minute. He sure as hell needed a win, right now. He decided to play along to see what he could get. “I need to see something. You have to be aware that, right now, given my current position, I have no access to the kind of money you’re talking about. That means the money you’re wanting for selling me information has to come from my own personal funds, and like I said, I’m not buying a pig in a poke. This, Mr. Unknown Caller, is where you either put up or shut up. What’s it going to be?” That sounded pretty good, Tyler thought smugly.
The unknown voice cackled with laughter. “Can’t say as how I blame you. How about this . . . the house, that big ugly thing at the tip of Mango Key, is being renovated or, at the very least, cleaned up. Company is coming shortly. Actually, the guests are about seven months late according to my intel, but with things being what they are, I think you will understand once you know what’s going on. By the way, those clowns on the beach have no clue. People have been going in and out of that fortress for weeks now.”
Tyler chewed on his lower lip. How does this guy know this shit? “And you know this . . . how?”
“I’m one of those people who watch and listen. Can’t make any money watching and listening unless I have a buyer interested in buying the information I’ve stored in my brain.”
“That’s not enough incentive,” Tyler snapped. “What’s going down?”
The unknown voice cackled again. “Now, you see, that’s what you’re going to be buying from me. Do we deal or not? Oh, one more thing, I was just funnin’ with you when I said I was going to spill your secret. I know you’re not gay even if you have friends who are. That was just to get a rise out of you to prove to you that I know everything there is to know about you. I know things about you, Agent Tyler, things you yourself don’t even know.”
A zigzag of lightning lit up the sky, and moments later Tyler literally jumped out of his chair when a boom of thunder erupted overhead. He moved then, slamming himself against the wall of the porch and sucking in his breath. Hail the size of a nickel pelted the steps leading to the porch. One by one, the ferns hanging from the rafters shot outward like rockets, propelled by the wind rushing through the right and left sides of the porch. The paddle fans sparked, telling him the power was out. A transformer probably blew out at the corner, he told himself. For a few seconds, he thought it was the end of the world. His heart, beating trip-hammer fast, finally slowed. He inched his way to the door and went inside. He called out, but no one responded.
Ten minutes later, he could see that the sky was starting to turn lighter, but the rain continued to river down on the guesthouse. He thanked God he’d had the good sense to head to shore when he did. He looked down at the phone in his hand, knowing the connection was dead. He wasn’t sure how he felt about that at the moment.
Feeling his way along the dim hallway, Tyler inched his way to the stairway that would take him to his room on the second floor. It wasn’t that he was frightened, but discretion, as everyone knew, was the better part of valor. Besides, he was thirsty, his throat and tongue bone dry.
Safe in his room, with the door locked behind him, Tyler opened the minifridge and pulled out a bottle of Evian water. In two gulps he finished the bottle. Then he reached for a frosty bottle of cola. This he sipped as he reclined in the deep, comfortable chair by the window. He sighed mightily as, the rain still slashing at the windows with tropical force, he
started to consider his immediate options. He sighed again and, within seconds, drifted into sleep, the relentless heat and sun of the day taking their inevitable toll.
Back on the beach at Mango Key, Agents Rush and Martin stared out at the storm as they huddled together inside the metal hut. “This is worse than that hurricane I went through last year. I wonder where that bastard Tyler is.” Kate said.
“He’s probably back in California, dining with his flavor of the month under some cactus plant with a fan circulating hot, dry air all over him. I was really looking forward to that weenie roast. Wonder what the Kelly brothers are doing.”
“The same thing we’re doing, only they’re probably guzzling beer. Those winds are pretty ferocious, and I haven’t seen hail like that in years.”
“You know, Kate, this would be the perfect night for something to happen at that house on the tip of the Key. A boat or boats could be docking as we speak. I haven’t seen any lights on the Coast Guard boats, so I assume they aren’t out there in open water. Drug runners and smugglers live for this kind of weather, as we both know.”
Kate pondered Sandy’s words. She did have a point. “When this storm clears up, and it will eventually, what do you say to a little B and E down there. There won’t be a moon tonight, so if we’re careful, we just might be able to penetrate the building.”
“Great idea. We should have done that when we first got here. Can’t imagine why Jelly wants us to wait it out. Since we aren’t on the payroll, we really don’t have to follow his orders. And since there’s no official law enforcement on this Key, I think we might just pull it off. If something goes awry, we just say we were operating independently and not involve the DEA. The burden of proof will be on them, whoever them turns out to be, to prove we’re official DEA, which we both know we aren’t at this particular moment in time. What’s the worst thing Jelly can do to us? Fire us? When you’re in the field, you take every opportunity that presents itself. I’m okay with trying to scale that outer wall.”
“Then we’ll do it,” Kate said forcefully.
Farther down the beach, the Kelly brothers were also watching the storm from their nest in the oversize stilt house.
Pete’s voice was jittery when he said, “Do you get storms like this very often?”
“No, not like this. I haven’t seen a storm that produced hail like this one is doing since I’ve been here. It should cool things off a few degrees,” Tick said, as though he were explaining what he was going to prepare for dinner.
“Is this the beginning of a hurricane?” Pete asked, his voice still jittery.
Tick laughed. “Hardly. It’s just a bad storm because of the unusual heat. It will be over soon. Scaredy-cat,” he teased. “You always were afraid of storms when we were kids.”
“Yeah, yeah. Do you think it had anything to do with our house being struck by lightning? As I recall, you were over at Bobby Mitchell’s house when it happened and didn’t go through that am-I-going-to-die-or-not thing.”
“Yeah, that’s probably it. Still, don’t you think you should have outgrown all of that?” Tick continued to needle his twin.
“Well, yeah, but we’re sitting in a goddamn stilt house, and everyone with a brain knows lightning strikes the highest object. This house is pretty damn high.”
Tick just laughed. “Listen, I have an idea. Since this damn storm prevented us from screwing with that guy on the Sooner or Later, what say you that around midnight, if the storm is over, we head down to that thing at the end of the Key. No moon. No boats on the water. We can go in underwater. We have all the equipment.”
“Won’t the Coast Guard be running their boats? I would think a black night like this would be perfect for drug runners.”
“You’re right, it is a perfect night for all things illegal. But we’ll be underwater. I think it’s safe to say the weenie roast is off. Unless those women plan on cooking the wieners with a butane lighter. No dry wood anywhere once this rain lets up. Two more hours, and it should let up. And then a steady drizzle until morning. What’s your hip telling you?”
Pete forced a laugh. “The same thing. I was really looking forward to a little social time.”
Tick almost laughed. Almost because laughter didn’t come easy these days. He’d almost said he, too, was looking forward to the weenie roast. Almost because it just wasn’t in him ever to give his brother the edge. On anything, and that included attending weenie roasts.
The brothers shifted their conversation to other topics: speedboats, the high cost of fuel, the war in Afghanistan, the price of mangoes, and the nightlife in Miami compared to the nightlife in Key West. “No comparison,” Tick said with authority.
When they’d exhausted all available mundane subjects, Pete brought up the building at the end of the Key. “What’s your opinion, Tick? What’s the cop in you saying?”
“I don’t think it’s drugs even though this is the perfect spot for it. You asked for gut, and that’s my gut talking. Hell, this is a smuggler’s paradise. It could be anything, and like I said, Cuba is just a few miles away by water.
“About a month ago, the Coast Guard picked up two cigarette boats in the middle of the night. It was like the Fourth of July out on the water. Strobe lights, bullhorns, whistles, gunshots. Woke me up. Smugglers bringing in illegals. Didn’t make it to US soil. Saw on the Net the next day that there were over two hundred minors on board. The Coast Guard catches one batch, and two more are in the wings waiting to take their place. It’s like Plans A, B, and C. It’s almost like they know the first batch is going to get caught, so they bide their time, then bring in the stringers, who magically make it through. I’m thinking that’s what is about to go down. You’d be surprised at how many women are smugglers. This Key is the most logical place for it to happen since, in my opinion, there is no real law enforcement here other than the Coast Guard.”
Pete digested all the information his brother had just imparted. He leaned back and closed his eyes as he thought about what the coming hours would involve and what his own role would be. Watching Tick’s back, no doubt, the way Tick had watched out for him when they were growing up. He admitted to a small thrill of excitement.
A long time later, Tick spoke out of the blue. “So, Pete, which one of the women did you set your eyes on?”
Pete bolted upright, his eyes popping wide. Those words were the last thing he had ever expected to hear from his brother’s lips. He decided to play it cool and be noncommittal. He shrugged. He wondered if that would be the end of it. It wasn’t.
“So you’re saying neither one rang any bells. That’s pretty hard to believe, bro.”
Still playing it cool, Pete said, “Why’s that?”
“Well, you always liked the ladies even back in our sandbox days. I remember you putting the moves on Patty Baker when we had our sixth birthday party. She smacked you as I recall.” Tick guffawed at his own words.
“Yeah, I do remember that, and I also remember you told her I wanted to kiss her. One of these days, I’m gonna make you pay for that. I’m off women, too much trouble.”
“Ha! Come on, which one?”
Pete heard something different in his brother’s tone. He could tell he really wanted to know. “The dark-haired one seemed nice. What did you think?”
“I thought she might fit your criteria. You need to get over what’s her name.”
Pete bristled. “Her name was Serafina.”
“Whatever. You know what, I think I’m going to take a nap since we’re going to be out and about later this evening. I like to fall asleep with the rain hitting the roof. You used to like it, too, if I remember correctly.”
“Sounds like a good idea. So, should we set the alarm, or does that internal clock of yours still work like magic?”
“It works. We’ll get up around eleven and head on out after that. It’ll be well after midnight by the time we get all our gear together and swim down and around the tip. Sleep tight, bro.”
“Ye
ah, you, too. Where’s Bird?”
“In the shower, where else? He doesn’t like storms, and he’s scared to death of thunder. I don’t know why I think this, but I think he equates thunder with gunshots. You know how he’s always saying ‘bang, bang’? In a way it makes sense. The dark-haired one, eh? Her name was Sandy in case you forgot.” Tick laughed like a lunatic as he made his way into the house.
Chapter 11
Are you sure you want to do this now, in this weather?” Sandy asked Kate, while the two of them dressed for their evening adventure—dark shorts and T-shirts.
“Of course I’m sure. I don’t know why I’ve waited this long to investigate that monstrous place. It’s not like Jelly is here looking over my shoulder. Besides, these storms never last long. The worst of it will be over by midnight.”
“True, but what do we tell our neighbors if we just happen to bump into them at that ungodly hour?”
Kate tied her hair up in a ponytail. “I doubt they’ll be out traipsing around the beach at midnight. If we’re lucky, they drank too much and are both snoozing away, dreaming about hot chicks in teeny bikinis. And if we do happen to ‘bump’ into them, we simply tell them the truth. We’re working. Remember, Jellard told the elder or whatever the heck they call him that we were agents. Jelly was pretty sure the elder would report that to the cop ASAP. I don’t think we have anything to worry about where he’s concerned.”
“Yeah, but Jellard said the cop was an ex-drunk, too. He didn’t look like a drunk to me. But then again, what does a drunk, ex or not, really look like? What about that crazy bird?”
Southern Comfort Page 12
