“You’ll appreciate having these should the need arise,” he assured me.
“Well, I hope that there will be no need for such measures, but as you say, it’s better to be safe than sorry.”
I knew, after having experienced the people firing on us that day on the boat, that there would be a good chance that Tom and I would need guns if we met up with the same people in our search. When I asked about finances Bruce’s father explained that he had twenty thousand dollars for us that I would take with me that afternoon. He went on to suggest that if the need for more should arise that I could have it wired to me.
With Pat’s help I loaded our supplies onto the boat. Before leaving, Bruce’s father handed me a small briefcase and explained, that along with the money, it contained the paper work for the boat, as well as some recent pictures of his son. He also gave me a piece of paper with an address where we could pick up our passports the following afternoon.
With everything in order, I gave my farewell as I shook Bruce’s father’s hand then boarded the boat. As I fired up the engines, I was thankful that I had the chance beforehand to familiarize myself with the boat. Just a few minutes later we were headed north at a pretty good clip. In between the ‘No Wake’ zones, I demonstrated to Pat the boat’s abilities.
The ride back north took a few hours and the sun was on a quick decline as we made our way through the last series of canals that led to the house. The tide, although on its way out, was still high enough for us to navigate the narrow waterways with no problem.
I had decided to take the Intracoastal that day for the ride between Ft. Lauderdale and Ft. Pierce but as we headed towards our dock I couldn’t help but wonder how much quicker it would have been if we had taken to the open ocean. It was most likely a subconscious decision due to my apprehensions about dealing with the inlets. The Intracoastal Waterway, although more time consuming, affords a more protected route than the open ocean.
As we pulled up to the dock, Linda and Tom were there waiting to help us tie up the boat. With a turn of the key, the engines died returning the evening air to its natural state of silence.
“You guys!” Linda exclaimed. “You’re unreal!”
“Hey, wanna go for a ride?” I asked her.
“No, thanks,” she replied.
I wasn’t about to take the boat out at night but I had asked knowing that she would decline my offer. In some small way I thought that the offer would help console her. I knew that she was merely tolerating a situation that didn’t set well with her. I got off the boat quickly anyway to avoid the chance that she might be curious to see what such a boat looked like down below.
I could see in her eyes that that she had no interest in it at all. The boat represented something that was taking me away from her. She used to feel that way about my motorcycle but through the years had come to accept that as a part of my life.
“Hey did you get the car?” I asked Tom as we all made our way towards the house.
“Yeah,” he said. “I found your note on the table. I had Debbie drive me down there after we got up.”
“Hey, man. Those late nights gonna make you an old man,” I teased him.
“Yeah, well, you know I have a weakness for that sort of thing,” he replied.
“Did you tell her you’d send her a postcard?” I asked.
“Leave him alone,” Linda told me an attempt at defending Tom.
Ball busting was something that Tom and I had honed down to a fine art and he had equally mastered the ability of getting on my case when the opportunity presented itself. He just happened to make himself vulnerable to it more times than I did.
Pat stayed for dinner but, being a perceptive person, he could sense that Linda and I wanted some time alone. He mentioned having things to do and asked Tom for a ride back to his shop.
I walked out to the car with the two of them and thanked Pat for his help in bringing the boat to the house. I wasn’t sure about what would be happening in my life in the not too distant future and as we were standing there in the driveway a strange feeling came over me.
My mind was allowing my body to feel the anxiety of the situation and the reality that the danger ahead might jeopardize ever seeing my friend Pat again. With those thoughts, I reassured him as to the value of his friendship. Besides Tom, Pat was probably the closest friend I had. It was Pat and his wife who had introduced me to Linda. He assured me that he would take care of everything on this end and keep in touch with Linda.
“Okay,” I said. “And don’t forget the motorcycles. The works! Do up everything on both of them.”
“Hey, that’s what I do best,” he boasted.
After they pulled away I walked around to the back of the house and stared at the 38 foot silhouette from a distance. As I walked closer towards the dock the boat’s features became more pronounced. Even in the darkness, the power it projected was awesome.
I was suddenly feeling that strangeness again. Had I over stepped my bounds? I flashed back to Kevin falling off the back of the boat that day in the early morning hours and wondered to what danger I was now going to expose myself and my best friend. Surely, with the amount of money involved, these people that Bruce was connected with felt no remorse about the loss of human life.
I remembered these feelings I had felt overseas in Viet Nam. It was a matter of survival. In Nam it was a situation that I had little control over. I had survived because I had realized early what that would take. Nothing is a sure thing but I believed that better understanding the situation helped me to avoid losing my life on more than a few occasions.
The circumstances now were different but ignorance of a situation could end with the same tragic results. I sat there on the dock lost in thought and was unaware of Linda’s presence until she put her hands on my shoulders.
“Oh, I’m sorry, baby . . .”
“I know,” she said before I could finish my apology.
“Do you want to be alone?” she asked.
“Not really,” I said. “I was just going over a mental list of things we need for the trip.”
“I suppose you’ll be leaving tomorrow,” she said.
“No, we can’t leave till the following morning. We’re still waiting for our passports. They’ll be ready tomorrow afternoon.”
“Then we can spend the day together?” she asked.
“That sounds great. What would you like to do?”
“Why don’t we go to the beach?” she offered.
“What about Tom?” I asked.
“Suppose I call Judy and four of us can go?”
“Sounds great, but tonight, I want you to myself,” I told her.
The next day we spent at the beach. Judy couldn’t make it but it was just as well. The three of us had a great time remembering all the good ol’ days and those special times we had shared together through the years.
Looking back then, they were all good times. Even the bad times seemed to change perspective through the years. Through it all though, we were still together. Tom and Linda were like brother and sister and because of our closeness with each other we were always comfortable just being ourselves.
That afternoon I drove south for the last time before leaving for the islands. I found the address that Bruce’s father had given me and, sure enough, our passports were there. The place was one of Bruce’s dad’s offices and when the secretary handed me the passports I thought that the man must have known somebody that had some influence somewhere to process such documents so quickly.
That night it was impossible for me to get any sleep. As Linda lay there sleeping, I held her while I went over in my mind an approach to our future efforts. I was still going over various strategies as the morning sky began to lighten. Being careful not to waken Linda, I got up and headed toward the kitchen. Tom was already up and brewing coffee.
“You ready?” I asked Tom
“Let’s do it,” he replied.
“Okay, then all we need is the high tide and we
’re out of here.”
I had figured on waiting to leave until the water in the canal reached the stain marks on the dock supports which would indicate high tide. That way the transition in the inlet from the Waterway to ocean would be as smooth as possible. I wasn’t about to start off our voyage with the excitement that the inlet could offer at most any other time. That morning the three of us sat out by the dock waiting for the tide to do its thing.
“So I guess this is it?” Linda stated in a questioning tone.
“Pretty soon,” I said.
“Will you call me?” she asked.
“Sure,” I said. “But I don’t want you worrying about us. We’ll be okay. You know that Tom and I can handle ourselves.”
“Yeah, and the two of you are also pretty good about finding trouble, too,” she reminded me.
“Look, I’ve made it this far,” I offered in my defense.
As the water was rising, so was my anticipation. I was eager to get started and it seemed to be taking forever for the water to reach the high mark on the dock.
“Close enough,” I said. “By the time we reach the inlet it should be just about right.”
I fired up the engines and idled them to a low throaty roar. I held Linda tightly, not wanting to let go.
“Let’s go,” Tom said knowing that I needed his persuasion to end a regretful farewell.
“Okay, we’re out of here,” I said.
As I backed the boat away from the dock I could see the tears in Linda’s eyes. God, I felt bad about doing that to her again. I waved goodbye as I turned the boat around. After engaging the drive units into their forward gears, I throttled up and never looked back. The ride out to the ocean was uneventful as I had hoped it would be.
“Just a matter of timing,” I exclaimed to Tom as we passed the last part of the jetty that extended off from the beach.
Chapter 5
The waves were running from one to three feet and I was thankful that the sea was cooperating with us on our first time out alone with the Scarab. The night before, while in a state of insomnia, I had decided that our first port of call would be Bimini. I had been told by a few people that the island would be a good place for running into someone possibly knowing something that could help us with our search. Besides, I was already familiar with the proper information needed to feed the navigational computer to get us there.
The weather that day was near perfect and we were fortunate to have the sea’s cooperation. With the auto pilot doing its thing, we took turns topside standing watch while the other straightened our things below.
Thanks to the aid of advanced technology, we once again found our way to within eyesight of the island. This time though, it was on our own and helped to reassure that we could, in fact, operate the navigational system.
The island looked just as it had a few days earlier when we were at that same point with Bob and Lee. This time though we headed for its shores. Part of our navigation aid included complete, detailed charts of the waters around these islands.
Looking over the charts, I noticed a reef that extended along the shore within a few hundred yards of where we were. We needed to go up the shoreline, cut in around the reef, then head back down the shoreline into a small channel where we could see a number of boats tied up to docks. The sun was still high in the sky and with the various shadings of the water, the reef stood out like a sore thumb.
As we made our way into the channel, I noticed a couple of seaplanes tied off to a pier and beyond that a place where we could tie up. As we were tying our lines to the pier, we discussed the need to pay close attention to the boat. We decided that one of us would stay with the boat while the other checked things out.
“I’ll be back in about an hour,” I told Tom as I headed down the narrow road which seemed to be leading somewhere.
There wasn’t much life at this end of the island and I figured that whatever was happening had to be down the road. Most of the people I passed on the road were tourists and those who looked like they were most likely off the various boats that were anchored in the deep water off the channel or out beyond the reef.
I took notice of a small little building that wore an old weathered beer sign like a badge on its brightly colored side and walked toward it. From inside I could hear the familiar sounds that were indicative of a bar and decided I’d go in.
The small building was built right on the sand and in fact, the sand served the purpose of its floor. There were only a half dozen or so people inside and as I walked in, they all looked at me as though I were some new kid in town.
I surely didn’t look like a tourist and vagabond boat person was out of the question. Suddenly, I felt that I had successfully dressed the part. I wanted to be perceived as someone on an illegal mission and as they as stared at me there in the doorway, I believed that was what was on their minds.
“Hey, mon, what’ll it be?” the man behind the bar asked, breaking the silence.
“You got any Crown Royal?” I asked.
“Sure do,” he replied.
“Make it a beer and a shot of the Crown then.”
“You on vacation?” he asked as he sat the liquor down in front of me.
“No, not really,” I replied. I’m here looking for a friend.”
“A friend, we’re all lookin’ for friends,” he said.
“Yeah, well this is an old friend of mine who said he might be here.”
“Your friend got a name?” the bartender asked.
“Yeah, his name is Bruce Saxton.”
“Well, I couldn’t say, mon, but if your friend told you he was here, then I’m sure someone could be able to tell you of him.”
Throughout my conversation with the bartender, I sensed that the others in the bar, despite their own conversations with each other, had heard every word that was said between us. I finished my drink and headed back to the boat.
“How did it go?” Tom asked as I stepped from the pier onto the boat.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I think that some folks here might be a bit suspicious of us.”
“Wait till they see the boat,” Tom added.
“By the way, some guy stopped by here and wanted to see our passports, along with the papers for the boat.”
“Did you show him?” I asked.
“Yeah, no problem,” Tom explained. “I also made a money deal with the guy who owns the dock we’re tied up to.”
“Great,” I said. “I think we’ll just hang out here for a bit.”
Tom and I were both down below when I heard a loud rapping on the hull.
“What the fuck was that?” Tom asked.
“I don’t know but I’m gonna find out,” I said.
As I came topside I took notice to a guy standing on the pier next to the boat.
“Something I can do for you?” I asked him.
“I was wondering mate, might ya be goin’ towards Nassau from here?”
From his accent, I guessed him to be English and from his appearance someone off of one of the boats in the channel. I told him that we were returning to the mainland from the island in a couple of days.
“Ah, too bad,” he said. “I need to be getting to Nassau.”
“Why is that?” I asked.
“Well, ya see mate, I’m late for work,” he explained. “I’m an engineer on a ship there and I was due back there yesterday after me vacation time.”
“Yeah, well, don’t any of these seaplanes here fly to Nassau?” I asked him.
“But they cost money, mate,” he replied. “Nice boat ya got here. Is it yours?”
Just then Tom came up from below.
“This your partner?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I said. I was about to give the guy money enough for a one way ticket out of my face and on to Nassau when I thought that perhaps he could be of some help to us.
His name was Steve and after about an hour of conversation, he turned out to be a decent type of guy. He worked on an old 300 foot
sailing ship that was in the business of ferrying vacationing passengers through these islands.
Through the course of the conversation he told us that he had been sailing these islands, as well as through the Caribbean, for the past seven years. With his knowledge of the islands, I was thinking that perhaps he could be of some help to us with our attempts at locating the whereabouts of Bruce.
When Steve suggested going into town for some liquid refreshments, I decided that I would go along and get to better know this English character. Before leaving, I promised Tom that I would bring back a befitting meal for someone who got stuck twice in a row with the boat sitting chores.
The place Steve had in mind was a quaint little eating establishment that had its inside walls full of photographs reminiscing days gone by. Many of the pictures were of a famous American author who, for many years of his life, had frequented the island as a place of refuge or as a base from which to launch various fishing excursions. Most of the photographs boasted him with large fish that he had caught in the island waters.
As we entered I took notice to a few of the same people I had seen earlier that day in the floorless bar. Upon seeing Steve most of the patrons voiced out their greetings to him in a manner which led me to believe that he was well known to the people there on the island. I felt that being there with Steve helped my acceptance to his friends because, as he spoke with them, they gradually included me in their conversation.
Many beers later and after remembering a meal to-go for Tom, Steve and I headed back down the main road. We must have sounded like two drunken sailors to the tourists that passed us by as we made our way back towards the dock.
“So tell me, mate,” Steve said. “What really brings you to these islands? I mean with a big fancy boat like the one ya got there, surely there be more exotic places for ya to be than here.”
“Well, ya see,” I said, trying to mimic his heavy Liverpool accent. “I be lookin’ for this friend of mine who seems to have found his way into some trouble here in these islands.”
Adventures In A Pair-A-Dice Page 6
