by Matt Day
“Some guys started hassling a friend of mine and I took exception to it. I intervened, one of them pulled a switchblade, punches were thrown, and the cops were called.”
Charlie nodded, “So a typical bar fight?” Not missing the reference to a switchblade at all. That was the same weapon that had stabbed Jimmy. What were the odds?
“Not hardly,” Tommy huffed out before he could stop himself.
“Oh really? What made it different?” Charlie waited for his answer.
“My friend was a little drunk at the time and not thinking straight. He started to make a really big mistake, and I stopped him. He’s young and stupid; you know how it is with these young kids? They think they’re all grown up, and can handle adult situations, but not really. Most of the time, they fail miserably at being an adult. It’s only after several tries that they even come close to getting it correct.”
“Does this friend have a name?” Charlie asked, taking another sip of his coffee and waving at Marsha as she hurried in through the kitchen door.
“Jimmy. The kid’s name is Jimmy.”
Charlie set his cup down carefully, not wanting to believe that things were so intricately intertwined. Who would believe that these men were all connected somehow?
Tommy looked up when Charlie didn’t ask any further questions. He watched as Charlie seemed to choose his words very carefully before asking, “Does this kid happen to be Jimmy Spencer?”
Tommy was shocked, “Yeah. How did you know that?”
Charlie nodded, starting to understand why Jimmy was so scared, “Did Jimmy happen to work on the ‘Big Mama’?”
“Yeah, Captain hired him about two weeks ago. The kid was clumsy as all get out, and a little on the lazy side according to Captain, but I think he just liked to daydream too much. More than once I caught him staring over the side of the ship watching dolphins, or staring out towards the horizon, when he should have been mending nets.”
Charlie sat back in the seat, steepling his hands on the table before asking, “When’s the last time you saw Jimmy?”
“Monday night, just before the fight broke out. He was really drunk, and started running his mouth off. I wanted to take him home, but these Cuban guys started egging him on and he wouldn’t shut up.”
“What was he talking about that was so secretive?” Charlie was starting to get a better picture of what and from whom Jimmy might have been hiding these last few days. He’d obviously attracted the attention of the Cubans, but why?
Tommy swallowed, obviously lying through his teeth, “Nothing much. Just ship’s business and personal stuff the crewmembers wouldn’t want getting around town.”
Charlie pretended to understand and nodded his head, “Was Jimmy into drugs at all?”
“Drugs? That kid? No way! I mean, I doubt the kid’s even smoked a cigarette.” Tommy scoffed at the idea of Jimmy doing any type of illegal drug. This guy evidently hadn’t met Jimmy or he wouldn’t have asked such a stupid question.
“Why all of these questions about Jimmy?” Tommy queried.
“Tommy, you remember that I’m a private investigator, right?”
“Yeah, Bob said something about that, so what?”
“Jimmy’s parents contacted me Tuesday morning about helping them find their son. They think they heard him come home really late Monday night, but he was gone the next morning.”
Tommy was stunned; Jimmy had run? Where would he have run to? “So, you’ve been looking for him the last three days?”
Charlie nodded, waiting to see how he would react when he heard about the altercation with the Batistos the night before and Jimmy’s injury. “You said some Cuban guys were bothering him at the bar?”
“Yeah. Jimmy started talking nonsense, and they bought it.”
“What sort of nonsense?” Charlie pressed.
“It doesn’t matter. Any clues to where Jimmy’s gone?”
Charlie nodded, “Yeah. I know right where he is.”
Tommy waited, but when Charlie didn’t offer an answer, he lost his patience, “Well! Are you going to tell me where the kid is or not?”
“The hospital. He was stabbed last night down on the beach, by one of the Batistos that keep showing up.”
Tommy stood to his feet, “They stabbed him! Is he going to be alright? Gosh, I need to go see him. He’s probably scared to death.”
“Sit down and take a deep breath. I went and saw him this afternoon and he isn’t inclined to say much right now. In fact, he seems scared to me. Now, I’m wondering what he has to be scared of. According to the witnesses who reported the fight to the cops, he was with a group of young men and the Batistos started harassing them after the races ended. A fight ensued, and several of them were injured. The Batistos were gone by the time the cops arrived, but according to witnesses, they should be sporting some obvious bruises as they took a few good hits.”
“I can’t believe they stabbed Jimmy!”
“You say that as if stabbing your friend was their intention.”
Tommy nodded his head, “Unfortunately, I think it probably was. What a mess!”
Charlie eyed Tommy for a moment before asking, “What aren’t you telling me? Was Jimmy dealing drugs for the mafia? Are you somehow mixed up in this and Jimmy saw something he shouldn’t have? And does any of this have to do with what happened to your crewmates?”
Tommy closed up like a clam. “Look, man, I know you’re just trying to help, but take my advice. Leave this alone. Those guys will give up eventually and everything will go back to normal. Just quit asking questions and leave things alone.”
Charlie laughed at the audacity of the man sitting in front of him, “You actually expect me to just let the deaths of three people go unanswered? Not going to happen. Ever!”
“I will find out what happened to Captain Maclean and the others, and if I find out you, or Jimmy had anything to do with causing their deaths, I won’t stop until they lock you up and throw away the key!”
Charlie stood up from the booth, tossing a few dollars on the table and heading out the front door. He’d grown tired of listening to half-truths. Tommy knew more than he was saying, but until he was ready to spill his guts, Charlie would just keep chipping away at the pieces of information he already had. There was a connection between the crewmembers of the “Big Mama” and the Batistos. He didn’t know what it was, but it was there. Maybe he’d pay a little visit to Mac’s Place come the first part of the week and see if they could shed some light on what happened there Monday evening.
Chapter 28
Tommy sat there in the café, nursing his cup of coffee until it had grown cold, gratefully accepting the new cup when the waitress brought it over. “You look like you just lost your best friend.”
Tommy looked up at the waitress, “I kind of did.”
Marsha gave him a sympathetic look, “You must have known Pat Maclean. So sad what happened to him and those Parker boys. Such a tragedy.”
“I worked on the ‘Big Mama’ but wasn’t working the day everything went down out there.”
“Don’t blame yourself, from what I hear; there wasn’t much anyone could have done. So, do you think you’ll go fishing again?”
Tommy shook his head. Right now, he didn’t want to even think about stepping foot on a boat. Maybe that would change with time, but right now, he was a landlubber and planned to stay that way until things changed.
Right now he had bigger problems. The men from the bar didn’t seem inclined to let Jimmy’s drunken ramblings lie. He had no idea as to what his next step should be. He sat in the café for another thirty minutes, trying to come up with options, but there just weren’t that many. He was outnumbered.
Charlie seemed to think those men were connected somehow to the mafia or Batista. With his prior record, no one was likely to believe that he’d had nothing to do with the Cubans, drugs, or the deaths of his crewmates. No one except Charlie Flanigan maybe.
Tommy decided to go talk to Jimmy.
Maybe then he’d have a better idea of what to do or where to go next.
*****
Monday, August 25, 1955, Aboard the “Big Mama”…
Several minutes after Tommy volunteered to make the dive, he was ready to go, his wetsuit had short sleeves, and short pants. He carried his oxygen tanks and regulator vest to the dive deck at the stern of the boat, sitting down on the edge to don his flippers. After buckling the dive vest around his trim middle, he checked to ensure adequate oxygen was flowing through the regulator and then pulled his facemask into place.
Giving a thumbs up to the Captain and other crewmembers, he tucked his knees as he rolled his head forward, entering the water with barely a splash. He surfaced a moment later, cleared his mask, and then waved as he swam off a little ways.
After swimming on the surface for a few moments, he then tucked his body, propelling himself down through the water towards what lay on the sandy bottom. As he submerged beneath the surface of the ocean, he was once again amazed at the quietness all around him. Diving had always had a calming effect for him, and he watched the small schools of fish dart around him, along with several barracuda that appeared to hang in suspended animation above him, always watching, but never seeming to move.
As he neared the ocean floor, his eyes took in what had suddenly been unearthed by the storm and was now visible from the ocean’s surface.
He cautiously swam around the area, taking notice of a variety of things as he did so. The storm had uncovered only glimpses of what still lay mostly buried beneath the sand. Tommy noticed the heavily corroded metal fragments, the decaying wood, and the various small clues that lay scattered around the sandy bottom.
Corrosion, coral, and barnacles covered most of the exposed surfaces, indicating a significant amount of time had passed. There were obvious signs of damage, most likely from the same source that had caused the demise of the sight before him.
He continued to look for clues, anything that could be useful to Captain Maclean and the others, himself included. He was just about to give up and start the long gradual climb to the surface, when several things caught his eye at once.
He thought he saw the glint of shiny metal at the same time he noticed the large hammerhead shark making its way towards him. Tommy tried to control his breathing as he carefully collected the closest shards from the sand, all while keeping his eyes on the lurking predator swimming directly above him.
Pushing his finds into the bag at his waist, he pulled the fishing spear from its sheath, holding it in his right hand and praying that the shark would become disinterested or, at the very least, leave him alone long enough for him to surface and get back to the boat. Tommy had years of diving experience, and wasn’t afraid of most sharks. The Great White and the hammerhead were two exceptions to this rule and in his opinion, not to be trusted; they definitely didn’t make good swimming companions.
He gave the large predator plenty of room, slowly letting air into the regulator vest he wore. Keeping an eye on the shark, he briefly looked up and realized that it was going to take him every bit of fifteen minutes to reach the surface. That was, unless he wanted to spend the rest of the day and the next few after that in the barometric chamber at the local hospital. Thankfully he hadn’t drifted too far away from the fishing boat, as he could still see the bottom of the boat riding atop the surface.
The shark swam closer still, its attention focused on the lone diver. Tommy could feel himself sweating inside the wetsuit, and his breathing had become fast and erratic. Using his years of expertise, and his Navy training, he slowed down his breathing – one deep breath at a time.
The pounding of his own heartbeat and the sound of air filling his lungs and then being expelled consumed his senses. Looking up, he saw that he was already more than halfway to the surface. Glancing around once more, he gave a small sigh of relief as he watched the large shark turn its attention towards a large grouper slowly swimming along the bottom of the sandbar.
When the shark viciously attacked the fish, Tommy gasped inside his mask, forgetting to breathe momentarily in his panic. The shark was otherwise occupied right now, but how long would that last? Was he the next item on the lunch menu today?
Gaining the surface of the ocean, he spied the fishing boat some twenty yards in the distance and quickly made for it, swimming with powerful strokes of both his arms and his fins. He didn’t waste time looking down or behind himself to see if the large shark had finished the first course of its meal.
He wanted the safety of the diving deck beneath his feet, and then he would have time to contemplate all that had happened in the last fifteen minutes!
The crew saw Tommy surface and then make as if the hounds of hell were after him towards the boat. When he was three feet away from the dive deck, Jimmy sent up a shout of horror, “Shark!! Get him on the boat! Shark!!”
Jacob was closest and stepped down to the dive platform, grabbing Tommy by the dive vest and hauling him up and onto the metal grate only seconds before the large shark made a surface sweep past the vessel.
Ripping off his facemask, Tommy gasped for air, his pulse beating so fast he was almost afraid he would suffer a heart attack right then and there. Jacob pulled his dive vest and oxygen tanks free, handing them up to a waiting Joseph before helping Tommy stand and climb the three-step ladder back onto the boat’s deck.
Tommy’s face was a pasty white color, his eyes were huge in his stoic face, and he gave the appearance of one who had just realized how fragile their human life was. The other crewmembers looked on as he stared each one of them in the face, not speaking, not communicating with anything other than his eyes. Terror! Relief! Thankful to be alive!
“I guess we don’t have to ask what you found down there,” Captain Maclean offered in an attempt to lighten the atmosphere. Fishermen, young and old alike, came face-to-face with their mortality often – sometimes on a daily basis, but becoming a meal for one of the ocean’s most feared predators could turn even the strongest, meanest sailor into a pile of emotion and fear.
Tommy shook himself, pushing the wetsuit down so that only the bottom half remained on his person. Turning, he extended his hand to Jacob, shaking it heartily, “Thanks man. I owe you one.”
“Don’t mention it. So, was that shark the only thing you discovered down there?”
Chapter 29
Sunday, August 31, 1955, St. Peter’s Catholic Church…
Sunday morning Charlie headed off to church, looking forward to seeing Carmelita, and having a positively brilliant idea on the drive over. It had been a while since he had taken his boat out, and Carmelita had the day off, so if she wasn’t too busy, he was hoping to convince her to go sailing.
He had woken up feeling somewhat rested this morning, smiling as he looked at the clear blue sky. He had taken a slight detour on his way to church, going across the bridge, and driving over to the peninsula to get a view of the Atlantic Ocean beyond. The water looked so inviting; the idea to take a day off seemed better and better as the morning progressed.
Jimmy Spencer had been found and was recovering in the hospital; where he would remain for the next several days, giving Charlie plenty of time to figure out what might be scaring him so badly.
Tommy Collins had been put on notice, and the ball was now in his court. Charlie had made sure the man knew how to contact him, should some vital piece of information suddenly come to mind.
The stock car races would be finishing up today, and that would mean most of the spectators and tourists would be heading back to their homes by late afternoon. Daytona Beach should be relatively quiet by the time he returned from a day of sailing – a perfect way to end a Sunday in his opinion.
He mentioned his plans to his brother as soon as he arrived, and Stephen and his wife were definitely on board with sailing the afternoon away. Charlie kept his eye out for Carmelita to arrive, smiling when she slipped in the back door with her daughter just as the priest was beginning the morning prayer.
>
He wondered where Mateo was, but then the service started and he was forced to direct his attention forward. Father Michael had beamed at him as he walked through the doors of the cathedral moments earlier, and he really didn’t want to see the man scowling at him again anytime soon.
As soon as the service ended, he scooted out of the pew, arranging to meet up with Stephen and his wife at the marina around 2 o’clock. Charlie figured that would give him enough time to convince Carmelita to go along, and get some things together.
“Hi,” he said, coming up behind her.
Carmen giggled when her mother jumped slightly, not having seen Charlie sneak up behind her. Turning around, she frowned at him, “Hi. Didn’t your mother ever teach you it’s not polite to sneak up on people?”
Charlie laughed and shook his head, “Guess I wasn’t paying attention the day she taught that. Anyway, how did you enjoy the service?”
“It was truly a blessing to me, and you?”
Charlie grinned at her, “I like it better now that it’s over. So, where’s Mateo?” Charlie looked around, not having seen the young man sneak in late.
Carmelita frowned before answering, “I wish I knew. He didn’t come home last night. He called to say he was spending the night at a friend’s house and would be home in time for church, but he never showed up.”
Charlie let his grin fade away, “Do you think there’s any reason to worry? Did you call the friend’s house?”
“I don’t know which friend he was staying with. He mentioned several names, but frankly, it was late, and yesterday was a horribly busy day at the hospital. I’m hoping he’s home when I get there.”
“I’m sure he will be. He probably just overslept. He is a teenager and they’re known to do that from time to time.”
“Yes. Maybe you’re right. So…”
“So…,” Charlie said at the same time, grinning and offering to let her speak first. “Go ahead.”
