The Catalina Cabal

by Bill Thesken

  “The ID looks completely legit, but there’s no watermark,” he said. “How did you know?”

  “Just a hunch.”

  He carefully put the ID back in the double bags, then into the blue zippered bag.

  We were all three looking at the bagged wad of money still sitting on the desk.

  I said out loud what we were all thinking. “I wonder if the money is legit, or counterfeit?”

  “It’ll take more than a black light to determine that,” said Don. “We’ll send this over to our forensics department on the mainland to look it over, see what they can find out.” Then he placed the money back in the blue bag and handed it to Darnell. “Send this with an armed guard on the next helicopter to Los Angeles.” She nodded and left the room.

  “Anything else?”

  “The officer on the Coast Guard ship that rode with me after finding Mei Ling, told me that the same sort of thing happened a couple of years ago.”

  “I’d have to dig in the files. Doesn’t ring a bell.”

  “A body doesn’t ring a bell?”

  “Maybe it wasn’t found in our jurisdiction. Maybe they found a body and took it straight to Long Beach since it was closer, or they were on another mission in that area. I know it doesn’t look like it, and we don’t try to advertise it, but we’re a pretty busy island. We average ten incidents a day, over three thousand per year, all types of crimes and what I like to call ‘events’, where people do stupid things and get themselves killed. Boating, scuba, hiking, fishing accidents. People leave the comfort of their homes and steady lives, come over to Catalina and do things that are out of their ability and pay the price. They get drunk, roll golf carts, crash boats, get lost in caves underwater, you name it, we have it.”

  He was lying. I could see it in his eyes.

  “So what happens now,” I asked. “It’s been three days since I found her.”

  He nodded. “Official policy kicks in. If an un-identified body isn’t claimed within seven days, the body is cremated and the ashes sent to the public cemetery.”

  “Mind if I stop back in once in a while to check in?”

  He hesitated a split second then smiled to cover it. “Sure, come in anytime, you’re always welcome.”

  17.

  Corbin finished the last of his reps for the day, full squats with a one hundred pound free weight barbell in each hand, set tight against each of his shoulders as he squatted deep. As he reached a full standing position he brought the weights over his head and rotated them in a circle, wincing in pain as his arms and legs reached the threshold of exhaustion. He threw the barbells on the padded floor in front of his feet and they bounced with a clang towards the wall.

  He took deep breaths and calmed his heart-rate. The large veins in his chest and legs were thumping.

  His daily two-hour workout was complete. He settled his massive frame into a simple wooden chair near the front door and looked towards the harbor. The morning sun was glinting off the water and he could just about make out the mast of the Black Cat rising above the pile of boats. Kyle would be on board making sure it was sea-worthy for their trip to the shipping lane and a package pick-up. Damned if he was going to let a filthy Chinaman make him drop another package. I’ll break them in half before I’ll let another one get away, he thought.

  Sweat streamed down his face, arms and legs. He shut and locked the door so he could go take a shower. He patted the barrel of the double-barreled shotgun propped next to the doorframe, and for good measure picked it up and checked the cartridge. It was loaded. He popped both cartridges out and back in with a snap. There was a shotgun at every doorframe in the house, and one under his bed. You could never be too careful.

  He passed a mirror in the hall as he was heading to the bathroom and flexed his forearm. His jet black hair slicked back, face chiseled and square, six foot four, two hundred fifty pounds of tanned muscle, halfblooded Italian, halfblooded Spanish, full blooded home-wrecker.

  The way he figured, it wasn’t his fault if a husband couldn’t control his wife. Half the time he never even knew the gal was married till afterwards. Women came in droves to Catalina to let their hair down and get wild. As soon as they saw him sitting at the bar they’d take off their rings, and hence the old saying, no rings, no strings.

  He wasn’t a cop after all. He couldn’t run a background check on every woman who came onto him, so how was he supposed to know who was married and who wasn’t if they wouldn’t wear their ring for crying out loud?

  Except for Don’s wife, Amanda. She was most definitely married, in fact he’d been one of the grooms in the wedding party. And even then it wasn’t his fault. She came onto him so strong that he had to finish the deal or someone else would have. After all, what are friends for?

  She was in Vegas two years ago with her girlfriends from Long Beach High School on the very same weekend that he decided to fly into the desert city to get in some gambling and woman action. Ten ex-cheerleaders in sin city for a bachelorette party that was bound to spiral out of control. She was a little bit tipsy when she spotted him at the poker table and went right over and sat in his lap and started kissing his neck with her soft lips.

  That night might have been the beginning of the end for her marriage, or she may have been up to the same stuff all along. She was one of the hottest women he’d ever seen even to this day, and friend or no friend he folded his cards with one hand, grabbed her with the other, took her up to his hotel room, and bedded her for the entire night and half the morning, until he got tired of her and threw her out the door.

  Unfortunately, that seemed to turn her on even more and now she was pounding on his door all the time. She liked being turned down and thrown out and ignored, that type of behavior drove her crazy.

  And it happened all the time. All types of women, engaged, with a boyfriend, married or not, throwing themselves at him. Hence the shotguns by the doors and under the bed.

  He wiped the sweat off his chest, threw the towel on the ground and opened the cupboard by the hallway for a fresh one. What the hell, he muttered, “I thought there was one left…”

  “Looking for something?” Came a small soft voice from the bedroom. He nearly jumped out of his skin. He glanced quickly around the corner with wide eyes, thinking he should grab his shotgun first, and there he saw his missing white fresh towel and nothing else wrapped around Amanda’s tan glistening skin, as she lay on the bed, cradling her head with a cupped hand and looking at him with those eyes.

  “How’d you get in here?”

  “The side door. You left it unlocked.”

  Damn, he thought she sure looked good and at this point in time with the testosterone packed blood rushing through his body he was in no mood to argue about her breaking and entering his house.

  She took off her earrings and laid them on the end table next to the bed.

  “Do you want me to leave?” She asked.

  He shook his head and moved towards the bed.

  “Not yet.”

  18.

  Kyle finished screwing the brand new stainless steel cleat into the rail of the deck of the Black Cat and checked his work.

  “Solid,” he pronounced after wrapping a rope through around the toggles, standing upright and tugging on it until he was red in the face. The old cleat had a hairline crack running down the middle of it and probably would have held for a few more months, but there was no sense gambling with it. Fifty bucks for the new cleat versus being out of business.

  “Now for the fun part.” He looked straight up at the top of the mast, the runner cleat at the apex needed replacing, eighty-five feet off the deck. Like climbing an eight-story building the width of a coffee can. When you got to the top it seemed like you were at the tip of an eighty-five foot pencil. “No problem,” he muttered, and set up his one man climbing device: a modified mountain climbing rig with foot straps, carabiners, and belay device.

  The whole boat was constructed of carbon fiber, including the mast
which alone cost nearly a hundred thousand dollars. But it didn’t stop there. Carbon fiber composites give off a radar signature, although much fainter than aluminum. The carbon fiber hull and mast of the Black Cat were also coated with a sandwich layer of Kevlar, which did not give off a radar signature. The stainless steel cable rigging that held the mast in place front back and sides were also wrapped with black Kevlar tape. During their very first semi-annual Coast Guard inspection, the new inspector asked Kyle about the Kevlar wrapping.

  Bob was a nice enough guy on his last tour with the Guard before he retired. He wasn’t out to make a name for himself, just trying to dot the i’s and cross the t’s before he sailed off to retired land, cashing government paychecks for the rest of his life.

  “What’s with the wrapping on the mast rigging?”

  “I don’t know,” Kyle said with a shrug of his shoulders. “I heard it extends the life of the cable when you’re on the ocean. Plus it looks cool, being black makes our boat look more badass, and the tourists love it.”

  That part was true, the tourists that came over on the ferry did love the all-black catamaran, with the black skull and crossbones flag on top of the mast. The trip around the corner of the island to Pirate Cove was a highlight, especially for the kids who got to wear pirate hats, shoot the water cannons on the deck, and pretend they were heading out to battle other pirate ships and find buried treasure on the beach.

  “Why are you using Kevlar anyways? If I didn’t know better I’d think you were trying to avoid radar detection.” Bob laughed.

  Kyle shook his head with an impatient frown. “What? Are you kidding? Why the hell would we want to do that? Man you guys are paranoid. It’s a pretend pirate boat Bob, not a real one. We give pirate boat rides to kids and families from the mainland. Here, try on this hat, you get a free one with every ride, plus it’s great advertising.” Kyle reached into an iron black treasure chest on the deck and took out a brand new black pirate hat with a skull and cross bones on the front and handed it to Bob. Under the skull and crossbones was the name of their boat, ‘The Black Cat’.

  Bob also frowned. “Thanks, I’ll give it to one of my kids. Now what about that wrapping?”

  “From what I heard Kevlar is stronger than steel. I’m just doing what I’m told Bob.”

  Blaming his partners. It was always best to deflect blame from yourself to some nameless, faceless third party. “The investors said it’s good for the rigging, so I’m wrapping it.”

  “Well, they don’t know what the hell they’re talking about, so you’re going to have to unwrap it for every inspection so we can check the cables for wear and tear. If that rigging gets corroded undetected and snaps under stress, we’re all gonna go in front of the firing squad. ”

  So twice a year Kyle unwrapped, and then re-wrapped the cables from top to bottom, it took about ten hours each time and was a real pain in the rear, climbing up and down the mast and hanging on the rigging. But it was worth it, and had made them millions.

  Their boat was completely undetectable by radar and had gone un-noticed at night sailing into the shipping lane to pick up immigrants for four years now without a hitch. Four years, twice a month and nearly a hundred runs to the lane. Two hundred grand per run. Twenty million in cash, five million per man.

  Kyle liked to think about money as he worked, add it up and multiply it, and when he looked at it that way, it wasn’t such a pain un-wrapping and re-wrapping after all. And he even started humming a little tune as he hoisted himself up the mast.

  Five million in cash, and he’d saved all of it. A million and a half in the bank, and the rest vacuum sealed in stainless steel canisters and buried in deep holes all around his property, at the house his Mom left him, God bless her heart.

  The hell with investing and taking a chance on losing in a stock market crash, or letting a bank hold onto it. When he retired, if he wanted some extra cash, he’d just go in the back yard, dig up a few thousand, and cut the red tape.

  He vaguely knew what the other guys did with their portion, but in the end it didn’t really matter. In the very beginning they made a pact, do what you want with your share, but be smart, don’t wave it around or get in trouble with the IRS. Hide the proceeds, wash it any way you could, just don’t drag the other guys into trouble.

  Jack bought a little house in Avalon that he converted into a real clubhouse with a pool table, and cinema center. He also bought a house in Long Beach where he spent most of his time, with his motorcycle buddies.

  Corbin inherited his Dad’s house on the hill overlooking the harbor, drinking and womanizing and gambling away just about every penny he made.

  Don married the girl of his dreams, the super-hot Amanda who spent every dime that he made and was turning his hair prematurely grey with her antics. Rumors swirled around that girl, and Kyle actually felt a little sorry for Don.

  Kyle had no drama, or problems and led a fairly stable life. His job was taking care of the boat, making sure it was in top shape for their trips out to the lane, and running it like a legitimate business, which in fact it was, part-time.

  He took on the burden of endless maintenance, supplies, equipment, licensing, dock fees, insurance, employees, and as a bonus got to keep all the proceeds.

  They ran a two-hour expedition to Pirate Cove twice a day, every day. They supplied the food, beer, snorkel gear, and hats, and packed them in twenty at a time for fifty bucks a head, two grand in gross receipts per day. He had five crewmen and women rotating in and out and he personally captained every trip. After all expenses, he netted a little over a grand per day, which came out to around four hundred grand extra per year. Add that to the smuggling money and he was netting close to a million every year.

  It seemed like yesterday, but it was ten years ago that Jack got out of the Army and came home. His last stint was an assistant Army liaison at the US Embassy in Beijing. It was there that he met some interesting people who were starting a new business and needing partners in America.

  Jack gathered his three friends at their ramshackle clubhouse on the outskirts Avalon. At the time their clubhouse consisted of a couple of sheets of discarded construction plywood and two-by-fours, with a mud floor and rocks to sit on that they’d made when they were in grade school, secretly tucked into a patch of scrub brush beneath Wrigley Road looking out over the harbor. Jack pulled out a twelve-pack of beer, handed one to each of them and made a proposal.

  It started like this:

  “How would you all like to be filthy rich?”

  It wasn’t a tough sell, since they were all dirt poor at the time, just scraping by with odd jobs. Corbin selling jewelry to the tourists by the pier, Don working security at a nearby hotel and trying to get on the police force, Kyle renting snorkel gear at a little corner store. And Jack, newly retired from the Army but without enough years for a pension.

  Jack laid out the plan that he’d ironed out with his friends from China.

  “The cargo ships are going to slow down just enough to drop off a small lifeboat with ten immigrants a few miles north of Catalina. We rendezvous with a separate vessel and the immigrants board our boat. We scuttle the lifeboat to get rid of the evidence, and we take them to Catalina and put them on the ferry the next day. We get ten grand per person, that’s a hundred grand per trip.”

  Don was the first one to agree, before Jack even finished with his pitch. As soon as he heard the words ‘hundred grand’ he was on the team. “I’m in,” he said.

  He was pioneering a girl he met from Long Beach, a real hot tomato, fresh out of high school, and was spending every dime he had to wine and dine and impress the girl, but his little piddly security pay it wasn’t enough to keep her full attention, and there were other suitors trying to wedge their way in. He was in danger of losing her at any minute.

  “You know it’s against the law to smuggle people, right?” Asked Jack. “Aren’t you trying to get on the police force?”

  “I don’t care,” said D
on. He was desperate.

  “I just want to make sure you know what you’re getting into. We’re all friends and if you feel like it’s going to get in the way of your new career, then just walk right out of here, and don’t bother with us, and we won’t bother with you.”

  “I’m in I tell you, and don’t try to talk me out of it.” His face was grim. “By next month I’ll be on the force. I’ll have a guaranteed job here on Catalina, and I’ll be on the inside.”

  With a little bit of money that Jack had saved, and some seed money from the Triad, they rented a small fishing boat and did a trial run to the lane. They picked up a handful of sad and seasick Chinese on a moonless night in the middle of the summer. Brought them back to Avalon, scrubbed them, clothed them and sent them on their way on the ferry to Long Beach the next morning. It netted them a hundred thousand dollars, twenty five grand each, and they were on their way.

  Two more runs in the rented boat and a close call with the Coast Guard told them they needed to make some quick adjustments.

  Coming back from the lane two hours after midnight with ten seasick and scared Chinese stashed in the cramped front hull, they were overtaken by the cutter and hailed by the officer on deck as the boat pulled alongside. The officer shined the searchlight into their little vessel.

  There is no Fourth Amendment when it comes to a boat on the waterways of the United States, and the Coast Guard can board and search any vessel at any time of day or night, whether docked or moored, in rivers or lakes or along the coast, under way or not. No search warrant required.