The Deep Six

by Striker, Randy

  “Look,” I said, “I know what you want. The chain. It’s in my pocket.”

  “Get it,” he said. Harsh voice, thick Southern accent.

  I wiped the hot slick of blood from my face, took the chain from my pocket, and, without hesitating, tossed it overboard into the water.

  I expected his head to turn when I threw it. I expected to kick the gun from his hand as his eyes followed the arcing gold fortune into the water. But his head didn’t turn, his eyes never flinched.

  He was good.

  Too good.

  And I knew I was a goner.

  “Stupid bastard,” he said. “Silly stupid bastard.”

  I heard the hammer click as he pulled it back. He leveled the gun at my nose. And then:

  “Hold it! Police!”

  It was a woman’s voice, and it shocked me as much as it did him. The guy who’d had the knife was already on his feet, running. Ski mask hesitated, turned the gun on me again, then followed behind, jumping from the transom to the pier, escaping into the darkness of the parking lot. I hoped he would live to regret his decision.

  It was Fayette Kunkle, the pretty woman with the odd name. Her eyes widened, horrified, and I realized what I must have looked like.

  “Hey, I’m fine—really.”

  “Oh my God, Dusky, oh my God, what did they do to you?”

  Her hands trembled as she hurried to pull blue makeup tissue from her purse. She was crying, scared out of her wits. “I’ve got to get you to the hospital; we’ve got to call the police.”

  I pulled her hands from my face. “We’re going to do no such thing.”

  “But Dusky, your face . . . all this blood . . .” She stopped then as some awful suspicion came over her. “Wait a minute. No police . . . you aren’t . . . aren’t a criminal or something, are you?”

  I took the few clean tissues she had and wiped her tears away, laughing. “No, lady, I’m no crook. You watch too many movies.”

  “You’d better be thankful I do. When I saw what was happening to you I almost screamed. Instead I did what the woman cops do on TV.”

  “You’re right,” I said. “I’m thankful. Damn thankful.”

  She followed me down into the little head behind the booth on the port side. I switched on the light and studied my face. I was a mess, all right. I looked like one of those bloodied animals on the covers of the pro wrestling magazines. It was a long slice, from cheek to the corner of my right eye. Close. All too close. It wouldn’t need stitches, but it would add another scar to my collection. I poured alcohol onto a washcloth, flinching at the shock of it. “I want you to do something for me, Fayette.”

  “Anything, Dusky. But shouldn’t we call the police? They could find out who those two men were and why they were—”

  “I know why, and I know who. It was one nasty bastard by the name of Buster Ronstadz, and if you get me my mask and underwater flashlight out of that locker over there, I’ll show you exactly what they were after.”

  She sighed. I could see her face plainly in the harsh mirror light. Soft brown eyes, pale glint of long blond hair, perfect skin beneath sunburn. “I’ll get your things for you on two conditions.”

  “And they are?”

  “First of all, you have to promise to let me bandage that cut. I know first aid, and that has to be taken care of properly.”

  “And the second?”

  She averted her gaze, took up the washcloth and began dabbing at my face. Very businesslike. “Secondly,” she said, “I don’t . . . well, dammit, I don’t want you to make me leave tonight.”

  “No.”

  “Please, Dusky. I don’t know what your problem is, but something has hurt you and . . . we don’t have to sleep together, we could just talk, and . . .”

  She took a step back, surprised. “Look at me, will you! I’ve known you two hours and I’m already begging to spend the night with you!”

  I reached out and touched her soft hair. “We’ll talk it over,” I said. “Later.”

  “Okay, Dusky. Later . . .”

  The Key Wester Inn is one of the island’s better motels. It’s located on the south side, away from the fast-food traps, setting back in on its own little estate where Roosevelt Boulevard sweeps along the sea. Jason Boone had his people out on the early-morning lawn, eighteen of them sitting in a tight circle beneath a banyan tree. At first I thought it was just a group meeting. I leaned my old Schwinn bicycle against the curb and went ambling up, full of good cheer, face gauzed and taped and all. And when I got closer and realized it was no group strategy meeting at all, I felt like a complete fool. They were praying. I’d come up like a stray dog on a private Sunday-morning church service.

  “And God, we ask that You aid us in our work and help us in our humble attempt to bring the lost back into Your guiding light . . .”

  It was my young friend Wayne Peters who was leading the prayer. I was surprised. Back on my boat, he hadn’t seemed the type. Like most of the other young men and women, he wore a white T-shirt and jeans. His shoulders stretched out into the sleeves of the T-shirt, and his big farm-boy biceps protruded. He looked up as he prayed, noticed me, and gave me a big funny wink.

  “And protect us in our upcoming days at sea, and help those of us who must stay behind know that they also serve because there just isn’t enough room . . .”

  That got a giggle or two. Praying or not, the kid had a sense of humor.

  As I watched, entertaining thoughts of trying to sneak away unseen, I felt someone come up beside me. It was Jason. He smiled, offered his hand, and mouthed the words, “Follow me.”

  We went down the little walkway beneath cool trees and the scent of jasmine, out into the big patio pool area. It was a large saltwater pool, coral-green, and enclosed by little shops, a bar, and a glassed-in restaurant. We took seats at one of the umbrellaed poolside tables. A waitress with an Australian accent was there immediately, and we both ordered coffee.

  “Good to see you, Dusky. I’m sorry you didn’t get here earlier. You could have participated in our service.”

  “It was nice of you to send Wayne to invite me. He seems like a good kid.”

  Jason nodded, his big Viking head bobbing up and down. “They all are. Great kids. I love every one of them.” He looked at me and smiled. “Should I ask about that bandage on your face?”

  “It’s a long story, and I expect we’ll have plenty of time to talk out on the Marquesas. But first of all, were you serious when you offered to tell me some of the finer points of treasure hunting?”

  “Certainly.” The coffee came and we spent some comfortable moments doctoring it. Good coffee. “Dusky,” he said, “I have two great loves in my life. My religion, and my work. As an archaeologist, I have this great horror of treasure hunters getting to the big wrecks before they can be properly charted and studied. So, in our short time here, I’ve made an attempt to work with the treasure hunters.”

  “Any luck?”

  He grinned. “I’m afraid the treasure hunter is not a breed to be reasoned with. There are two other groups working in the Marquesas area—of course, you rarely ever see them or their boats, because there is so much water out there. But the most efficient of the two seems to be a group of Cuban-Americans. They’re doing everything right: theodolite operators—kind of surveyors, really—stationed on towers to keep their magnetometer boat on course, the best equipment, and, it seemed to me, a very disciplined crew.”

  “And how did they seem when you approached them?”

  “Cold at best. Their leader is a fellow named Emanuel Ortiz. Very aloof, very military-like. He didn’t have time to discuss it.”

  “And the other group?”

  “Poorly equipped and poorly managed. I’m surprised one of them hasn’t been killed by now.”

  I thought it over. Should I lay a partial hand on the table? I decided to give it a shot. Some people you have to trust. “One of them almost was—last night. That’s why I’m sipping coffee from the left
side of my mouth this morning.”

  “But why you?”

  So I told him the story. Most of the story, anyway. Gifford Remus, the gold chain, and the fight. I pulled the chain from my pocket and laid it on the table. I watched his face closely, I watched for greed and saw none—only delight.

  “Dusky, this is beautiful . . . magnificent.” He studied it anxiously. “Look at the workmanship in this—each link spiraled by hand. And you know, this wasn’t just any piece of jewelry owned by a rich nobleman. Each link has a specific weight; forty-two links equaled one escudo. It’s wonderful.”

  “I’ll let you study it a little closer when . . . we’re finished out there. But now it’s a pretty dangerous trinket to have. I think Gifford Remus was murdered because of it.”

  Jason nodded. “Your friend Detective Herrera feels the same way.”

  “He told you that?”

  “Not in so many words. In his own way, he was warning me to be careful. He didn’t have to. I knew as much after I made an attempt to talk to your late-night visitor . . . Ronstadz?”

  “Yeah. Buster Ronstadz.”

  “He wouldn’t even let my skiff land. He came out with a gun and threatened to shoot me if he ever caught me or any of my group in his ‘area’ again. He meant it, too. I know the look. He’s big and he’s brutal.” He cleared his throat, suddenly nervous. “Dusky, I want to be honest with you. I didn’t invite you out here just to give you information and see if you would cooperate with us. I’m afraid I know that you’re more than just another treasure hunter—”

  “What?”

  “Your reputation precedes you, I’m afraid. I fought in the same war you did, and your exploits in the early days of Nam had become almost legendary by the time I got there. What did they call you—SEAL of Sherwood? Something like that because of what you could do with the Cobra crossbow?”

  “That was a long time ago, Jason.”

  “After you left me at the Sheriff’s Department and I finally realized who you were, I knew that you would know something about me that I can hardly even admit to myself.”

  “That you didn’t have to kill that Abbey character, but you did anyway?”

  I watched the words sting him. He wiped his face with a big copper-colored hand. “I was a Green Beret, Dusky. I was taught how to disarm a man, and I was also taught how to kill a man. When he came at me with that knife it was like I was back in the jungle again, and . . .”

  “I know how it is, Jason. And believe me when I say this: you have nothing to feel guilty about, because it wasn’t you who did the killing. It was the guy you wanted to leave back in Nam. But you can’t ever truly leave him; nor can I, nor any of the rest of us. He’ll always be there, deep inside.”

  He looked up and tried a weak smile. “Then you did know?”

  “Not really. At first I thought you were some YMCA karate boob. Did you say something to Wayne about . . . me?”

  “I’m afraid I did. The kids seem so fascinated by that sort of thing.” His eyes grew glassy, haunted, hollow. “But they don’t know the horror of it, do they? They don’t know the awful, awful horror. And I wish to God I didn’t.”

  As we stood to go to Jason’s room to go over charts and the finer points of treasure hunting, his group came running by, dressed in swimsuits. I had never seen so many good-looking kids in my life. They looked like a Swedish gymnastics team at play.

  “If the world was made up all of smart, dedicated, God-loving kids like that, there would have been no Vietnam,” Jason said. He still had the haunted look that I knew so well. “Wouldn’t it be nice if we never had to worry about war again . . .”

  12

  Funny the things you think about when you are alone at sea. At sunset on a Sunday I powered out of Garrison Bight, steering from the flybridge of Sniper, headed for the Marquesas. I moved past the soft feathered rows of Australian pines and coconut palms leaning in windward strands, past the old submarine base at Truman Annex, past the squat dun hulk of Fort Zachary Taylor, and picked up the first black-and-white nun buoy marking Southwest Channel. It rocked and weaved in the turquoise wake of my twin 453 GMC diesels. Key West dropped behind: white beach glowing like gold in the tawny sunset light, the radio beacon, and, finally, the red-and-white-checkered water tower, which is the first thing you raise when approaching that old pirate island. It felt good to be at sea again. Alone. Lee Johnson and I had had a nice trip; a sweet sort of healing time for both of us. But when we had finally parted, when she had finally stepped off Sniper and waved goodbye, I had felt my sadness tempered with relief. It was the same sort of relief I had felt back when I was young and dating. The first thing I wanted to do after dropping the girl off was stop in some shadowed darkness a block away to fart, urinate, and take a dip of snuff. To revel in my independence, to relax in the comfort of my own company. I thought about these things as I steered from the flybridge. Funny things, strange things. The sun boiled above the far sea, then was absorbed by it: orange and silver and hues of red coating my westerly course for the Marquesas. The wind had swung around out of the north. Not wind really; a cool night breeze. But on the water of the Florida Straits, it doesn’t pay to take chances. So I ran the Southwest Channel course, in the thin lee.

  I had felt the same sort of relief, too, that morning after saying my goodbyes to Fayette Kunkle.

  Some woman.

  Some lover.

  I felt something low in my stomach stir as I remembered how it had been.

  The Sniper’s cabin is close quarters indeed for a healthy woman and a big healthy man. She had made coffee. We talked. It was warm in the cabin, so she took off the loose shirt she wore, covered only by the burnt-orange swimsuit. She had done a professional job of bandaging my knife wound. I had sat meekly in the booth while she bent over me. I watched a bead of sweat roll down her chest and disappear into the ample cleavage of swimsuit. In the outline of thin material, I could see what her breasts would look like: round, heavy; sharp upward thrust of coned nipples.

  “Dusky, you’re trembling! Maybe I should get you to a hospital . . .”

  “I don’t think the doctors have a cure for the reason I’m shaking.”

  I had watched her step back and pretend not to realize what I was saying. But she knew. She was trembling herself.

  “I think you’d better leave, Fayette . . .”

  “No!”

  “Fayette, I think it would be best.”

  She had come over to me clicking her tongue like an old maid.

  “Look at what a mess your shirt is. It’s ruined. Stand up and let me take it off.”

  So I had stood up dutifully and watched her face for the change of expression when she saw the shark scar. It’s startling, to say the least. It’s a wide full moon of raked, scarred flesh that circles across my side and disappears into my pants. She was shocked, speechless, embarrassed—and then I realized why.

  “Fayette, this is not why I want you to leave. The shark cut me—but he didn’t . . . ah . . . take anything.”

  “Oh God,” she said, half laughing, half crying. “For a moment I felt like such an idiot. I thought . . . the direction that awful scar goes . . .”

  I had pulled her close to me. “I know what you thought, but I really do think you ought to—”

  She shushed me with a kiss. And another. And still another: openmouthed, soft lips. “You’re hurt. I’ll give the orders—just one self-righteous pain in the ass to another. There’s a tie string on the back of this swimsuit . . .”

  “I noticed . . .”

  “Pull it . . .”

  Fayette Kunkle was one of the fiery ones. Her cool demeanor fell away with our clothes. She was so thin the frame of ribs moved enticingly toward the full round veeing of hips and body hair, and her breasts were as I had imagined. Once the guard was down, there was no shyness in this one; nothing she would not do to please me; nothing I could not do to please her. In the feverish sweat of joining and touching, in the tangled maneuvers of lov
e and the slow rock of the boat, we met as one again and again, then went beyond in the coupling which is the most tangible link of all humanity and all times.

  “You really have to leave this morning?”

  “Yes.”

  “Strange. So strange. I would never have thought that after only a few hours with another person, I could . . .”

  “Your physician friend is a lucky man.”

  “Yes, in a way—because now I have discovered something very important about myself . . .”

  The mind takes odd paths when you are alone at sea. I stood on the flybridge smiling, remembering, going over certain kind moments again and again. The dusk sea breeze was soft on the right side of my face, a bit of loose tape and gauze fluttering in the light wind. I went below and pulled my Marquesas chart out of the rack. I would be there in little more than an hour. I got the straightedge, found a good safe course, then adjusted the dial of the little Benmar autopilot and engaged it. The soft hydraulic whir of electronics took control of Sniper while I worked. I had had the running lights on: red and green haze of port and starboard bow lights and the soft white glow of stern light beneath the softer light of moon and stars over the black sea. I flicked on the Si-Tex radar system, hearing the rhythmic hum of the whirling antenna mounted above and forward. I watched for lime-green bleeps on the twelve-inch screen. None. Good clear sea, safe water. I punched off the running lights, cruising in darkness. The Sniper was built for darkness. And so was I.

  At night, alone, you fiddle with things. You fart around and tinker, studying charts, and relax in the comfortable lift and heave of seas. I put coffee on to boil, and it filled the cabin with its good smell. Waiting, I got a cold beer and drank it slowly, enjoying it. I switched on the cabin light and sat in the booth with my chart—checking, occasionally, the sweep of radar screen, and standing to scan the darkness with my own eyes. Just in case. I got out Norm Fizer’s folders, and matched the Loran coordinates of my search area with those on my chart. My area began a few degrees off the intersecting of the 43780 and 13876 lines, and went on to include about three square miles of water. One hell of a lot of sea. With the straightedge I squared the area with a pencil and realized that it wasn’t the safest water around—it included most of the old bombing and strafing area. At the bottom of the folder was a scribbled note from Stormin’ Norman: “Only permit available—be careful, you old fool!”