The Deep Six

by Striker, Randy

  “Jason, I’m probably wrong. I hope I’m wrong. But I think we’d better find Wayne and have a talk with him.”

  But Wayne wasn’t on the island. Nor aboard the Sniper or Jason’s chartered steel-hulled salvage boat. I found Jennifer and asked her. She was in her tent reading the Bible. She seemed to have already recovered.

  “Dusky, I waited up for him. Almost all night. But he never came back.”

  “You’re sure?”

  She gave me an odd smile. “I think you know better than anyone how, ah, anxious I was to find him. I would have known.”

  I stood with the flap of her tent pushed back. “That was not a very pretty sight down there. Are you feeling better?”

  She held up the book she was reading. “I have to learn not to question Him. It was His work.”

  If it was His work, He had done one thorough job of it.

  I found Jason again. He was talking to a half-dozen or so of his group beneath the screened meeting tent. I felt that I was interrupting. He came outside when I motioned.

  “Jason, I’m going to take care of the body, then make a tour around the area in my boat and look for Wayne.”

  He nodded soberly, still in shock. I put my hands on his big shoulders and shook him gently. “Look, we’ll get this thing worked out. These kids look to you for strength. Don’t let them down, okay?”

  “You’re right, Dusky, you’re right. But the thought of Wayne doing that . . .”

  “Jason, all you have to do is get hold of the Coast Guard on VHF. Just tell them what we’ve found and tell them to send someone out. I’ll handle everything else.”

  He put one huge hand on mine. “I appreciate it, Dusky. I really do.” He looked into my eyes. “You’re a good man, MacMorgan. One of these days I hope we’ll work together. I hope you’ll come around to the Lord . . .”

  “Save it for later, Jason. We’ll talk about it.”

  I pulled the corpse of Buster Ronstadz by the feet up above the high-tide line. I hadn’t liked him. I doubted if his wife even did. But some young mother had suckled him and played with him and dreamed good dreams for his future. And no one deserved the sort of beating he had taken. The weight of death fills you with despair. It leaches a little of the breath from your lungs and returns it as a cold brain wind that whispers of your own mortality. But I had to put my thoughts of the cosmos aside when I held my nose and bent down to go through dead Buster’s pockets. Soggy cigarettes. A plastic lighter. And then something else: one strange crested silver coin caked with pine tar. It was like those I had found in Gifford Remus’s camp. And just what in the hell did it mean? Stain of the Marquesas; it had suddenly become one bloody place to be. But I didn’t have time to worry about it.

  Buster Ronstadz’s boat was an oil- and rust-stained scow called Li’l Hustler. It was an old sportfisherman whose time had come and gone. Using the radar, I vectored in on it. It floated grimy white on the blue-green shimmer of open sea. They flew a diver-down flag, and I circled it slowly from a distant perimeter. When I caught the eye of a man on the flybridge, I pointed at the water with a quizzical expression. He tried to wave me away, but I was insistent. Finally, he gave me the okay sign and waved me in.

  “You better have a good reason for being here, mister.” It was a chubby Italian guy with a nose that had suffered from too many long nights with the bottle. His T-shirt was gray with sweat.

  “Your buddy Ronstadz is dead.” I watched his face closely for change of expression.

  “You trying to be funny?”

  “Not hardly.”

  He shook his head and exhaled slowly. “And that bastard owes me a bunch of money, too.”

  Three more men came up onto the deck. They were a nasty-looking bunch. One of them carried a pistol behind his back, trying to hide it. I said, “I hate to bother you in your time of grief, but you wouldn’t have any idea who did it, would you? He was beaten to death.”

  “You a cop, or what?”

  “Just a concerned citizen.”

  “Then don’t get cute with me, buddy. That bastard ain’t worth cryin’ over. The last time we saw him, he was gettin’ in the skiff to go pay a visit on the spic treasure hunters over there.”

  “Why?”

  He sneered at me. “In the treasure-huntin’ business, mister, you got to keep an eye on the competition.”

  “We’ve already contacted the Coast Guard. If you want to claim the body, it’s—”

  “We ain’t claimin’ nothing, buddy. What we’re gonna do is haul anchor and head back into Key West and sell this piece of shit for whatever we can get for it.” He spit in the water at me. “Now why don’t you mosey on along and mind your own business, huh?”

  The guy with the pistol stepped forward, brandishing it awkwardly. Pimply-faced kid with a big revolver; some kind of cheap .357.

  “Couple of more things before the shooting starts.”

  He chuckled at my brazenness. “Yeah.”

  “Did you see a blond kid in a skiff go by here?”

  “No. Anything else, buddy?”

  “Yeah. Tell pizza-face there to load his weapon next time he wants to act tough.”

  I pegged full throttles and left the Li’l Hustler rolling in Sniper’s sudden wake. Childish showdown. But I was in no mood for the down-and-out media tough guys. They swagger around with .357s because that’s what that magnum-force guy always uses, and, man oh man, did you see him blow all those guys away? We’re all becoming ragtag collages of too many bad film dramas. Television sucks out our own personalities and replaces them with bits and pieces from prime time. Depending on the situation, we all fall into the hypnotic roles pounded into our heads five nights a week. I fear for the kids. They spend their creative years glued to the TV’s comforting glow, their eyes wide, absorbing it all. And when reality confronts them, their subconscious kicks in like a generator, and they become Archie or John Boy or Richie and the Fonz, or Barney Miller or sweet sweet Cissy with her pendulum tits. Or Dirty Harry.

  No, I wasn’t in the mood. Maybe it was guilt. If Wayne had done what I hoped he hadn’t, maybe it was because I had nudged him into the roll of the big bad SEAL with my war stories. Damn the stories. Damn the roles. I took the tin of Copenhagen from my shirt and took a comforting pinch. And damn the person who tried to get in my way.

  The Cuban shrimp boat was a green bleep on the radar screen as I headed offshore, toward Marquesas Rock. They had anchored up again. Quiet time. I circled them once and gave a couple of blasts on the horn. Finally a small Cuban man in a loose blue blouse stepped out, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. He smiled. Waved.

  “Hola, amigo!”

  I tried my bad Spanish. Had he seen a guy with hair muy blanco go by in a skiff?

  He shrugged and shook his head. No.

  “Hola, amigo!”

  Same smile. Same shake of the head. Another man came onto the deck. Tall, no-nonsense type. He wasn’t smiling. And he sure as hell wasn’t Cuban. He looked Arabic. He said something to the little man in rapid Spanish. I heard the words Vamos ahora! Time to leave. I had the magnetometer tethered behind on a short line. I switched on the little radio beeper and made another circle around the shrimp boat, smiling my best mixed-up smile. The name of the boat was Jose Martí. The beeper didn’t make a sound.

  Where in the hell could Wayne be? It didn’t make any sense. Maybe he had killed Ronstadz in a fight, gotten scared, and headed back to Key West to make a run for it. I hoped that wasn’t it. He was too smart a kid to ruin his life with one mistake.

  I had one last stop to make. The Cuban-American salvage barge, Libertad. It was a large low-freeboard hulk hard at work. They had twin underwater blowers on, running off the propellers, and the green water was turgid with silt when I arrived. They had divers down, so I approached well off their bow and sounded my horn to let them know I was coming.

  And they didn’t exactly welcome me with open arms.

  Two guys came running out, waving me away, as I tried to n
ose in close enough to be heard. They both wore sidearms. One guy pulled out what looked like a .45 Enforcer and surprised me by popping a few rounds into the water. The slugs didn’t miss the hull of Sniper by much.

  As I said, I was in no mood. I had had my fill of being put off and pushed around by the hardnoses, the self-appointed tough guys. He squeezed off one more round when I refused to back off, and that was that. I reached over and grabbed the brutal AK-47 assault automatic I had mounted in spring clips above the wheel, swung Sniper around with a thrust of starboard throttle, and outlined the bow of the barge with a thunderous burst of my own—and noticed, at the same time, that there was a seventeen-foot mako lashed to their port side. I recognized the skiff.

  It was one of two Jason Boone’s group had anchored off Fullmoon Cay.

  When the roar of the assault rifle silenced, the two guys on the bow put their sidearms away, looking a little meek. It’s the way I wanted them to look. Suddenly someone shut down the underwater blowers. And in the new quiet, a tall, welldressed Cuban came striding up. He didn’t look happy.

  “I want your name, and the name of your vessel! This incident will be reported to the Coast Guard!”

  “Your men opened up on me first.”

  “They thought they had seen a shark. They were mistaken.”

  “And I thought I saw the same shark.”

  He eyed me in reassessment. I could almost see the wheels turning. He was tall for a Cuban. Thin, but muscled beneath the expensive sports shirt. He wore a gold diver’s watch, and thin gold chains around his neck. Finally he said: “You’re not welcome here, gringo. We have a permit for this area. You’re trespassing. And I insist that you either give me your name, or leave immediately.”

  He had the stance of the insulted businessman. I had interrupted their work and upset his people. Shame on me. He was going to tell.

  “Okay, partner. Sure. My name’s MacMorgan. Dusky MacMorgan. And your name’s Emanuel Ortiz—no, don’t ask me how I know.” I leveled the assault rifle at his nose. “Now it’s your turn to talk. Emanuel is going to tell Dusky why he has that little mako tied up when it belongs to someone else. And Emanuel is going to talk real fast or he’s going to spend eternity saying grace through his asshole.”

  He didn’t scare easy, but it shook him. As I talked, I saw the other men arming themselves, moving. Jason was right. It was a well-organized group. Ortiz’s people moved as if they knew what they were doing. And they had the weapons. There’s a blunt, stark efficiency to the look of Russian armaments. And, aside from a few sidearms, they were all Russian.

  Ortiz knew his people were readying themselves. He thought the tide had turned. He almost smiled. “Perhaps, Mr. MacMorgan, you would like to tell me what business it is of yours.”

  “A friend of mine was in that boat. Now my friend has disappeared. And by the way, Ortiz—if one of your men so much as makes a loud noise, or a move I don’t understand, your head’s coming right off.”

  He cleared his throat nervously. “They’re better trained than that, Mr. MacMorgan. But about your friend—I’m afraid we don’t know a thing. We found the boat adrift early this morning. We thought it belonged to the man who was killed last night. We were holding it for the Coast Guard.”

  “And how do you know about that?”

  He pointed at my radio antenna. “You really should keep your VHF switched on, Mr. MacMorgan. A vessel named Superior contacted the authorities this morning. You learn all sorts of things on the VHF, Mr. MacMorgan.” He finished with an odd smile.

  Another standoff.

  Damn.

  “I don’t suppose you would let me come aboard—just in the event you somehow overlooked my friend?”

  “I wish I could, but we really don’t have the time. Another day, perhaps.”

  Mock answer to a mock question. But if Wayne didn’t show up, I’d have my day. And Emanuel Ortiz could bet on it.

  “I’ll send someone back to pick up the mako,” I said.

  “You do that, Mr. MacMorgan. But tell whoever comes to watch out for the sharks. They’re everywhere out here.”

  15

  It was nearing dusk when I saw Wayne Peters high-tailing it across the reef in the little mako toward my anchorage off the Marquesas. I’ll always remember because the explosion was the same blood-red hue of the sunset sky.

  Someone seemed to be chasing him. He kept looking back at his own wake and pointing. He held his head at an odd angle as if he was hurt. There was a dark line of something dripping down his face, and in the wind and the sunlight, his hair was a crimson mane.

  I was surprised to see him. And happy, too. I felt good that he was turning to me for help.

  But I was even more surprised at what happened when he got across the reef.

  After my little interlude with the Cuban-Americans, I had run back to Fullmoon Cay. Jason seemed to have recovered, but he was still worried about Wayne. They had called off work for the day. Everyone was too upset. I told him about my meetings, and he flared when I told him that his little mako was being held by the Libertad. He wanted to go after it right away, but he agreed, finally, that he should just wait for the Coast Guard boat that was being sent to pick up the body of Buster Ronstadz. Little did we know that the Coast Guard would have two bodies to pick up.

  I showed him the Spanish coin I had taken from Ronstadz’s body. He turned it this way and that, studying it. He even went into his tent and got a magnifying glass.

  “Very interesting,” he had said. “It’s a Spanish real. Struck in Mexico probably in the 1620s, I’d say. But the unusual thing is that it is in absolutely perfect condition.” He was enjoying himself. You could tell he loved his work. It took his mind off everything else, and for a few moments he was without worry, telling me about that coin.

  “You see, Dusky, gold doesn’t tarnish underwater. But silver does. In salt water, silver creates an electrolytic current which forms silver sulfide. There’s usually a black patina covering anything silver.”

  “So that means it wasn’t found underwater?”

  “Not necessarily. You see these little bits of gummy substance? Well, it wasn’t too unusual for the Spaniards to sneak back contraband along with their regular treasure manifest. And to get contraband coins past the queen’s customs people, they’d sometimes hide them in barrels of pitch.”

  “So it is pine tar?”

  “Probably. You look disappointed.”

  I told him about finding similar coins at Gifford Remus’s camp.

  “And you thought finding this coin on Ronstadz cleared up the mystery of the old man’s disappearance.” He thought for a moment. “Maybe Ronstadz did kill him. Or maybe the old man just drowned and Ronstadz stole them from his camp. But it’s just as likely that Ronstadz found it himself. As I said—it wasn’t all that unusual. Interesting, but not unique.”

  We had had a nice talk then. Jason had deep feelings, deep convictions, about almost everything. He seemed sincerely concerned about America, the economy, the bulging welfare rolls, and the race riots. We talked about the things all people talk about, and it was a pleasant, comfortable time. I could see why he had been so successful. He’s one of the rare ones with a charismatic personality and the physical presence to go along with it. He was Senate material. Or even presidential.

  So I had headed back to my own anchorage. I had work to do. I wanted to keep a real tight eye on the Cuban-Americans, and maybe even pay them a late-night visit. It would be a good evening for it. The radio was talking storm warnings in the Florida Straits, and the wind had swung around out of the north, gusting, chilled.

  It was going to storm, all right. I went to the little beach on the Marquesas to check around Gifford’s camp one more time and watch the storm take the island. There was nothing to find. Dead campfire.

  And that’s when I saw Wayne coming across the reef. I stood up and waved both arms back and forth. He spotted me. He seemed relieved. He had found sanctuary. I was the big tough S
EAL, the kindred spirit, the older friend who was going to help save him from . . . something. Even holding his head at the odd angle, hair bloodied in the storm wind, he smiled.

  And that’s when his world exploded.

  It was a single crimson blast. The storm blew the noise away from me, and it sounded oddly impotent. A bright-red whewfff backdropped by the leaden red of the squall sunset. I felt as if I was dreaming. One hell of a bad dream. The skiff didn’t lift from the water; it splintered in a ball of flame, going in every direction. In the slow-motion horror of the moment, that somehow bothered me. My mind had hooked on one instant explanation—he had hit one of the free-floating mines. But the boat wasn’t lifted from the water.

  Wayne was.

  He went tumbling over the water like some gruesome rag doll. The remains of the boat melted in flames behind him, casting strange colors across the leaden sea. It seemed as if I was in the little Whaler headed for him almost before he hit.

  He was an amazing young man. He was still alive, not about to give up without a fight. But he was ruined. I held him in my arms as he struggled against it.

  “Who, Wayne? Who?”

  “Cu . . . Cubans . . .”

  His blue eyes were crossed and his hair smoldered. He died with a half smile, trying to wink at me. . . .

  I told Jason first, of course. I had wrapped the body in the best canvas I had aboard and headed for Fullmoon Cay in a daze. I tried to get ahold of Norm Fizer through the marine operator on the way. No answer and try back please, sir.

  Right. Absolutely.

  But I was going to shake some people up first.

  Jason’s eyes changed when I told him. He looked like a troubled kid, sleepwalking.

  “It wasn’t an accident? I just can’t believe that someone . . . are you sure?”

  “Jason, I know explosives. It was some kind of bomb. Maybe radio-activated. Maybe just a stick of dynamite on the ignition with a bad wiring job so it went off later than planned. But I checked the wreckage. The explosion was in the boat, not under it.”