Hostile Waters

by William Nikkel

  “Which means what?”

  “It means that if they are responsible for whatever happened to your father, they managed to operate under the radar.”

  “You mean, hid the money? Amanda would certainly know how to do that.”

  “If that’s what they’re doing.”

  “There has to be something to indicate they are involved. What else do we know about them?”

  Cherise admired her friend’s persistence. “They have a sister named Jessica Finch. Husband deceased. Jessica is a travel agent at Dream World Travel, a company owned by their mother Veronica Kelly.”

  “I saw an ad for that agency in a travel magazine. Dad booked his trip through them.”

  “That’s extremely interesting. I never have put much stock in coincidences. They happen, I suppose. But this is way too fortuitous not to have some connection to your dad’s disappearance.”

  “A setup from the beginning?”

  “We’ll find that out when we get to Palm Beach.”

  CHAPTER 25

  The sun set in all its magnificence. Jack let go of the events of the day and sipped his beer on the upper deck of Adeona.

  “Nice evening,” Robert said.

  “A great steak, a cold beer, and a perfect sunset.” Jack sighed with contentment. “Doesn’t get any better.”

  “So what’s the plan?”

  “At the moment, I don’t have one. Cherise said she and her friend Lindsey might be meeting us here. If that happens, I suppose whatever we do will depend on what she has to say.”

  “So it’s kickback time until then. I could get used to this.”

  “You own a house overlooking Kaneohe Bay. You’re already used to it.”

  “But this is like a vacation.”

  “Then we’ll make the best of it. How about going below and getting us another beer?”

  “If it’ll keep you happy.”

  “Just don’t break anything while you’re down there.”

  Robert chuckled. “O ye of little faith.”

  Jack listened to his friend thump and bump around below. A light came on and the noise stopped. He smiled to himself and propped his feet up on the railing and watched the last of the color fade in the western sky. He felt good having his own boat under him again.

  “You need to see this,” Robert called out. “You’re not going to believe it.”

  Jack couldn’t imagine what Robert referred to. He ducked through the top hatch and followed the steps into the salon. Robert stood, pointing to a wood panel on the forward bulkhead.

  “What the hell? I haven’t owned the boat twenty-four hours and you’re already breaking stuff.”

  “I bumped into it in the dark, but it’s not broken. Take a closer look.”

  Robert beamed with curiosity. An expression Jack had seen many times. He stooped to study the damaged panel. “What the hell?”

  Robert stooped next to him. “See what I mean?”

  “Looks like a secret compartment . . . some kind of hidey-hole.” Jack slid the panel to the side, revealing a compartment roughly eighteen inches wide, twenty-four inches tall, and twelve inches deep. He reached inside and removed a watertight plastic container the size of a Clive Cussler novel and what looked like a bound journal or ship’s logbook.

  “Interesting,” Robert said. “I’m guessing Ms. Faggini didn’t know about her husband’s hiding spot.”

  Jack set the box on the deck in front of him and leafed through the pages of the log. “This looks to me like a personal journal more than it does a ship’s logbook. The entries are written in Italian. But most of the pages are blank.”

  “I know how good your Italian is,” Robert said. “Better let me have a look.”

  Jack handed him the journal. “Let’s take everything topside.”

  Under the stars and utilizing the light mounted above the flybridge helm, Robert perused the entries in the journal while Jack opened the watertight container.

  “You’re not going to believe this.” He carefully lifted a novel from the box, drawing Robert’s attention away from his reading.

  “Looks old,” Robert said.

  “You have no idea.” Jack turned the front cover toward Robert so he could see the title.

  Robert rocked forward, nearly falling out of his chair. “No way.”

  Jack opened the cover and scanned the page. “It’s a first edition and it’s signed by Ernest Hemingway: ‘To Miguel. My inspiration for Manolin.’ ”

  “You’re kidding?”

  Jack closed the novella and ran his fingers over the cover. “I’ve seen copies of The Old Man and the Sea in nowhere near as fine a condition as this go for ten thousand dollars. I’m guessing this would go for a lot more.”

  Robert reached out. “Let me hold it.”

  Jack handed the novella to him as though the pages could fall apart in his hands.

  Robert carefully opened the cover. “This inscription that Hemingway wrote credits Miguel, whoever he is, with being the inspiration for Manolin, the boy in the story. Hemingway claimed the old man, Santiago, was based on nobody in particular. Apparently that is not true for the boy.”

  “There’s a letter addressed to Antonio Faggini inside the box, as well.” He removed it from its envelope. “Maybe it sheds some light on what this is all about.”

  “It’s probably in Italian,” Robert said.

  “Sure looks like it.” Jack returned the letter to its envelope and handed it to Robert in exchange for the novella. “There’s a photograph in here, too.”

  “Miguel?”

  “That’d be my guess.” Jack removed the photograph and returned the book to the box. “It’s a boy of about twelve or thirteen. He’s standing with Hemingway and another man. There’s a marlin strung up between them.”

  Robert scanned the letter. “You’ll want to hear this.”

  CHAPTER 26

  Jack waited. Robert was taking his time. Perhaps he wasn’t as versed in Italian as he claimed.

  “All right already. I’m going gray waiting.”

  “Give me another second or two. From the name at the bottom of the letter, Miguel Garcia wrote it. But judging from the quality of the writing, he wasn’t an educated man.”

  “But does he mention the book?”

  “That, and quite a bit more. He starts by saying he knew Ernest Hemingway and he knew his sons. And he knew Gregorio Fuentes. Miguel says he’s the young boy named Manolin in The Old Man and the Sea. That he carried their stout rods and reels down to Pilar, and caught the sardines and mackerel they fished with.”

  Jack pictured the boy fishing from the rocks along the beach—using a hand-line to catch the bait. Pictured him carrying the heavy rods and reels down to the boat. And he pictured the boy, Manolin, from the story.

  He nodded. “Hence the inscription Hemingway wrote in the book.”

  “Exactly,” Robert agreed. He traced the page with his finger as he read. “Miguel goes on to say that in 1951, when Hemingway started writing The Old Man and the Sea, he was eleven years old. And that he was six when Gregorio found him living on the beach and invited him into his home. He says that on his thirteenth birthday, Hemingway gave him this first edition copy of The Old Man and the Sea and told him, ‘There is no friend as loyal as a book.’ ”

  Robert laid that page aside, taking care not to tear or crumple the paper.

  Jack said, “No truer words were ever spoken. You being the exception, of course.”

  “But of course.” Robert grinned. “There’s more. Do you want to hear it?”

  “Are you kidding? Keep reading.”

  Robert scanned the page. “Okay. Now we know how Antonio ended up with the book. Miguel writes that Antonio is his wife’s brother’s only son. Miguel explains his health is failing. He has no children of his own, and there is no family left. And though they have never met, he’s passing this treasure to Antonio.”

  Jack peered down at the cover of the novella. “But how did the book win
d up on the boat?”

  “There’s more,” Robert said. “But I think the journal entries might answer that question. In the letter, Miguel says people have claimed that Ernest Hemingway based The Old Man and the Sea on his longtime friend and captain of his boat Pilar, Gregorio Fuentes. And even though Hemingway claimed the old man, Santiago, was based on no one in particular, Miguel claims he knows different. He says that for nearly thirty years, Gregorio Fuentes served as captain, cook, and friend to Hemingway. That Gregorio, alone, spent more time with Hemingway than any other man. And since Hemingway, upon his death in 1961, left Pilar and all his fishing tackle to Gregorio, there is no greater proof of the strong bond between them.”

  Jack leaned back in his chair, Red Stripe in hand. “So Miguel disputes Hemingway’s claim.”

  “Appears so.” Robert stared at the final page, clearly drawn in by what had been written there. “You’ll love this. It says here that not long after Gregorio took possession of Pilar, the boat was requisitioned by Castro and eventually put on display outside the Hemingway Museum—Hemingway’s former home in Havana. And during the days that followed, Rafael Fuentes, Gregorio’s grandson, showed Miguel a leather-bound sheaf of papers Gregorio discovered on Pilar before the boat was put on display. Those papers, he claims, were Hemingway’s handwritten manuscript notes for The Old Man and the Sea.”

  “What?” Jack almost choked on the swig of beer he’d just taken.

  “That’s what he claims,” Robert pointed at the page. “Right here. And he finishes the letter saying, to hold the leather-bound folder in his hands and read Hemingway’s handwritten words had such power, he found it difficult to return the pages to Rafael who swore him to secrecy out of fear Castro would seize Hemingway’s story notes. A secret he has kept until now. He concludes with a quote from Hemingway: ‘The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them.’ ”

  Robert refolded the letter, inserted it in its envelope, and laid it in the box.

  Jack watched, his mind whirling as his brain replayed everything Miguel had written. “Can you imagine getting your hands on those manuscript notes? They’d be worth a small fortune.”

  Robert picked up the journal and opened it. He slowly turned the pages. And after a moment, he said, “Apparently Antonio had the same idea.” He read the entries aloud.

  “September 6, 2017:

  After three weeks at sea crossing the Atlantic, Violetta and I arrived in the safety of Havana Harbor ahead of the threat of Hurricane Irma. As we entered the harbor under the watchful eyes of the 16th-century stone fortresses—Castillo de San Salvador de la Punta and Castillo De Los Tres Reyes Del Morro—I felt their rusted cannon bear down on the Adeona as though the big guns would fire upon us at any moment. I have yet to tell Violetta my real reason for our visit to Cuba. She believes we are here for the shopping. As much as I want to tell her about Miguel, and share the letter I received from him, I feel bound by the vow of secrecy he entrusted to me.

  “September 7, 2017:

  We spent last night ashore in Havana. Violetta’s mood has improved. Today we visit the Hemingway Museum to see the famous writer’s home, and to walk the grounds where Miguel played as a young boy. The handwritten notes mentioned in Miguel’s letter are not at the museum but I hope to visit Cojimar, the coastal town ten kilometers east of Havana, where Gregorio Fuentes lived his entire life. It’s also where Hemingway kept his yacht. And if I locate Rafael Fuentes, Gregorio Fuentes’ grandson, and talk to him, maybe I can hold those story notes the way Miguel did and feel the power of Hemingway’s handwritten words.

  “September 8, 2017:

  This morning, Violetta and I travel to Key West. If we leave Cuba now, we will arrive ahead of Hurricane Irma, which has destroyed Puerto Rico and is sure to hit Cuba. I know I am taking a chance leaving with the storm so close upon us, but I am anxious to find out if what I have learned from Gregorio Fuentes’ grandson is true. Rafael was hesitant to give me specifics, even when I showed him the letter from Miguel. And though he did not doubt its authenticity and my vow to secrecy, he would only tell me the manuscript notes are in Key West where he took them to keep the papers out of Castro’s hands. My quest has now turned into an obsession to locate them.

  “September 9, 2017:

  We arrived in Key West ahead of Irma. But the storm is due to hit the Keys some time during the night. My objective now is to ride out the storm in one of the shelters and hope the town is not destroyed. I must find those documents.”

  Robert closed the journal and sighed. “Those are the last entries Antonio made before he died.”

  And now we have the rest of the story.

  Jack leaned back in his chair and stared at the town lights. “So Hemingway’s story notes are hidden here, someplace.”

  “According to Rafael Fuentes they are. Only Antonio didn’t know that for sure and neither do we.”

  “Still, Antonio came here in search of them.”

  “You have that glint in your eyes. If you’re thinking of turning this into one of your Jack Ferrell treasure hunts, sorry. Looks like a dead end to me.”

  “Not a dead end,” Jack said. “A place to start.”

  CHAPTER 27

  Jet Blue touched down in West Palm Beach at 10:23 AM. A half hour later—and a quick stop at baggage claim—Cherise stood next to Lindsey in the moist air at the curb waiting for the hotel shuttle that would take them to The Breakers Luxury Palm Beach Resort. The weather felt more like the Hawaiian Islands and less like New York City. A cloudless blue sky overhead. A storm brewing on the eastern horizon.

  Lindsey exhaled a deep, audible breath. “Why do I feel strange now that we’re here?”

  “New York wasn’t reality. This is.”

  “This kind of work doesn’t scare you?”

  “I’m used to it, I guess.”

  “So not even a little?”

  “Okay. Just enough to keep me from getting overanxious and careless. Not to mention, dead.” Cherise pointed at an on-coming passenger van. “Our ride is here. You’ll relax once we get checked into the hotel.”

  Lindsey took hold of her luggage. “I hope so.”

  The Breakers turned out to be every bit the luxury resort Susan said it was. Cherise made a mental note to send her a nice bottle of Santa Teresa rum along with a thank-you note.

  She also needed to calm Lindsey’s nerves. “This place is unbelievably fantastic.”

  Lindsey glanced around as though taking in the hotel’s magnificence in a single sweep of her head. “Makes me feel like I’m on vacation.”

  “If it were only so.”

  “Doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy the stay while we’re here.”

  Cherise agreed. “No it doesn’t. And who knows, one of these days we might have an opportunity to return under different circumstances.”

  “I’d love that.”

  Cherise saw genuineness in her friend’s smile. And in her eyes, the nervous uncertainty of a quest with no guarantees. Merely a series of blind corners with no way to see what’s coming, only what’s been.

  “It’s early,” she said. “Let’s see if we can check in?”

  The dark-haired man at the registration desk greeted them. David, according to his brass nameplate, wore a wide smile.

  “We have a reservation.” Cherise gave David her identification and watched him tap the information into his computer.

  Again, with his too-friendly smile. “We have you in adjoining ocean view rooms. Numbers 426 and 427. A nice location away from the elevators. Unfortunately, it will be a while before they’re ready. If you excuse me a moment, I’ll check with housekeeping and see if they can give me an idea when your rooms will be available.”

  “Thank you.” Cherise turned to Lindsey. “We can always have lunch while we’re waiting.”

  “Just so it’s not too long. I’d really like to freshen up after the flight.”

  Cherise winked. “I have a feeling we’ve been moved to the top of the
list.”

  Her phone chimed. She read the text, smiled, and sent a reply.

  “You’re smiling, so let me guess. Jack?”

  “Checking up on us.”

  “He’s worried?”

  “Just curious if we made it here.”

  David reappeared from a back office. “The guests in those rooms have only just now checked out. I asked that the rooms be cleaned right away. But I’m afraid it’ll be another hour before they’re ready. Perhaps you would like to have lunch in the Beach Club Restaurant while you’re waiting? I can call you and have your luggage sent up when the rooms are all set.”

  “Thank you. Now if you point us toward the restaurant, we’ll take you up on your lunch suggestion.”

  The heavy, moist air had a salty smell. Overhead, the sun had grown hotter as the time neared mid-day. They had their choice of a table inside the airy, beach-chic dining room, or on the patio to take in the view of the pools and the oceanfront. In spite of the heat, they opted to sit on the patio deck at one of the many tables shaded by umbrellas. Their waiter handed them each a menu and left them alone to decide.

  Lindsey picked up her menu, gave it a glance, lowered it, and looked around. “You’re spending a lot of money helping me out. I know we’re friends, but . . . What I’m trying to say is people pay you for what you do, right?”

  “A percentage, usually. It varies from job to job, depending on the degree of danger involved and the estimated value of the recovery. But that doesn’t apply in this case.”

  “You’re saying that because you think you owe me?”

  “Maybe that’s part of it.”

  “You can’t keep feeling guilty about what happened to me. We agreed . . .”

  Cherise remembered their conversations. The promises. Good intentions, but she doubted she’d ever be free of the guilt for what happened that day.

  She gave herself a moment, then said, “Since you insist, I’ll put it to you straight. I’ll front the expenses, which could be considerable. What we’re doing can easily come crashing in on us or even get somebody hurt. But if we’re fortunate to recover the three idols your father bought, we split the value right down the middle. Half for you and half for me. Agreed?”