The Catalina Cabal

by Bill Thesken

  “Prepare to be boarded!” Came the voice from the bullhorn. Two of the crew held automatic weapons at the ready, and a third was on the twenty caliber machine gun mounted on a turret at the bow. The officer doing all the shouting recognized them from Avalon, and saw the poles in the holders. “Hey what the heck are you guys doing way out here, fishing?”

  “Coming back,” said Don.

  “Catch anything?”

  “Yep,” said Kyle and reached into the icebox at the rear of the boat, and deep in the ice were three large mackerel that they’d picked up from a local fisherman just that morning in case something like this happened. Kyle reached in and grabbed one by the tail and held it up with two hands.

  “Nice,” said the Coastie. “Looks like about a ten pounder.”

  “Hey, what’s up?” said Jack. He was still in Army mode and not afraid to ask a question while under fire. “Why would you want to board us? We’re Americans.”

  “We saw you on radar coming from the lane, and a cargo vessel just left the area. For all we knew, you could have been a smuggler.”

  They all laughed, including the crew on the coast guard ship.

  “We heard that’s where the fish were running.”

  The officer nodded his head, and rubbed his chin with indecision.

  “Just be careful, it’s not advisable to go fishing in that area, especially on a moonless night. You guys should know better. Those cargo ships will run you down.”

  Then he waved them off and they went back on patrol, the large cutter rumbling out of sight into the black night.

  “They saw us on radar,” said Jack. “We can’t let that happen again.”

  They found the catamaran at an auction in San Diego, bought it with the money they’d made from the three runs with the rented boat.

  They dry docked it, retrofitted it with a carbon fiber Kevlar mast and laid Kevlar matting on the hull and every metal piece on the boat, then tested it out with a buddy of Jack’s who had a big fishing boat with a radar bank on the flybridge. The radar signature was clear, a big fat zero and they were back in business.

  Kyle loved the Black Cat. In a way it had become his boat over the years and he took care of it like a baby, he paid his dues taking charge of all the maintenance, and he’d paid the other’s their fair share of the money they put into it. Another year or two, and they’d be done with the smuggling business, and he’d take the cat around the world and visit any port that he wanted.

  He hummed a little tune as he climbed to the top of the mast.

  19.

  The sun was well behind the island, setting towards the west. The shadows on the harbor were getting deeper and darker. I walked towards the center of town to find a restaurant for dinner.

  There was no shortage of bars and restaurants, and shops with knick-knacks and snacks. I meandered along the boardwalk with all the other tourists.

  It was mixture of smells and sounds, hot pretzels and salt water taffy and grilled meats mixed with the scent of sand seaweed and ocean, marimba music to the left, jazz to the right and up ahead somewhere in the distance a drummer in a rock band was deep in a solo. A departing ship gave a blast of its foghorn as it headed out to sea.

  Lights along the avenues were warming up with a soft glow, a slight mist was forming along the coast as the temperature dropped.

  The Coast Guard cutter was tied up at the end of the long green pier. Men were moving about on the deck tying and lashing and coiling ropes. I could see Lieutenant Myles Johnson standing tall in his starched khakis, giving orders.

  I decided to take a walk over and say hello, and headed down the pier.

  “Permission to come aboard.”

  He turned and recognized me.

  “I’ll come down,” he shouted. He walked down the gangplank and shook my hand.

  “How are you doing Badger?”

  “Nice boat.”

  “It’s okay in a pinch, I guess. Good enough for government work.”

  I knew for a fact that this boat could do forty-five knots on a rough sea.

  “I wouldn’t want to have to outrun you.”

  “You’d be surprised how many try.”

  “Anyone succeed?”

  He shook his head. “Not exactly. But there were these guys a couple of months ago. Drug smugglers from Mexico, three in the morning, no moon, got to within twenty miles of Long Beach, running a cigarette boat all juiced up. This boat was all rail and engine if you know what I mean, built to go straight and fast. We were too far away and couldn’t make enough headway to catch them before they were gonna get to the coast, so we called in our helicopter and they convinced them to stop.”

  “Convinced them?”

  He smiled. “A couple of twenty-caliber machine gun rounds over the bow is a great negotiating tool. So how is your fiancé Amber doing? I remember she was a little shook up with the body and all.”

  “Thanks for asking, she’s okay. Back at work delivering babies at the hospital. I took her home and decided to come back over.”

  “Work or pleasure?”

  “Neither.”

  “What else is there?”

  “Something in-between. A need to know. I wanted to find out if anyone claimed the body, and they wouldn’t tell me over the phone so I took a ride over. I feel somehow responsible to see that she’s taken care of.”

  “I wouldn’t know the answer to that. Once we turned her over to the LAPD here on Avalon, it’s their case. We move onto other things.”

  “I went to the morgue. She’s still here.”

  He shook his head. “That’s a shame.”

  “You told me something like this happened before.”

  “Sure, a couple of years ago, at the beginning of my tour here on Catalina.”

  “So you wouldn’t know if anyone ever claimed the body.”

  “Nope.”

  “Did they have a bag of money, and a California driver’s license?”

  He nodded.

  “Do you remember the address on the ID?”

  “That was two years ago.”

  “Bayshore drive?”

  His mood changed quickly, I could see it in his eyes.

  “I went there to check on Mei Ling,” I said. “She never lived there. The ID was a fake. I’m wondering if the two incidents are related.”

  “Sounds to me like you’re conducting an investigation.”

  “Just a concerned citizen.”

  “Does the Avalon police department know your concerns?”

  “I just came from there. I talked to the deputy Chief, Don Wilson, he took a close look while I was there and confirmed that the driver’s license is forged. They’re sending the wad of money to the mainland for testing to see if it’s fake too.”

  I didn’t tell him that I had to prod Don into taking a closer look at the driver’s license.

  “What are your plans now?”

  “I don’t know, I’m here so I might as well hang out for a while, get a feel for the place. I’ve met some interesting people.”

  “There’s a lot of characters here. Did you sail over?”

  “The Sugar? No, I left her in Dana Point, and brought over the Spice. She’s right over there, third row, fifth over.”

  He followed my pointed finger and whistled.

  “Very nice. So you have a power boat and a sailboat? Impressive.”

  I nodded. “Got to cover the bases.”

  He smiled and reached out to shake my hand again. “Well, nice talking with you Badger, I have to get back up on deck, we’re going out on patrol pretty soon.”

  I wasn’t finished with him.

  “That body you found, two years ago. The one you told me about. Did you bring it here to Avalon, and turn it over to the police?”

  He nodded and bit his lower lip.

  “And they probably never told you if it was ever claimed by anyone.”

  He shook his head. “No, but I’ll bet there’s a way to find out. You gonna do some mor
e digging?”

  “Someone has to.”

  “You know Badger, I always say it’s best to let the pros do what they’re trained to do. Let the authorities handle it.”

  “They’re not doing such a great job.”

  “Give them some time, it’s only been two days.”

  “Maybe I’m impatient.”

  “Well don’t be. There’s systems and procedures, and laws that have to be followed. I don’t want you to get into trouble, get in over your head. Digging around for answers is fine most of the time unless there’s a crime involved, which in this case there very well might be. I just don’t want you digging so deep that you dig own grave.”

  “Thanks for the warning, but I can handle myself.”

  “I’ll bet you can. And it’s not a warning. It’s just some friendly advice.”

  “So if it’s friendly advice, then why do you say digging for answers might be digging my grave?”

  “Because I’d almost forgotten something.”

  “What.”

  “The people who found the body two years ago. The old couple from Newport.”

  “Yeah?”

  “They disappeared about a week later. Fell off their boat mid channel. We found it floating, abandoned with the throttle on full and the gas tank empty. It was a windy day and the whitecaps were running high. We figured they hit a rogue wave and got knocked off, and the boat just kept on going without them, round and round in circles till it ran out of gas.”

  I shook my head in remorse. “They should have been wearing their safety lines.”

  “One guy falling off his boat without a safety line and having it motor off without him is fairly common. Happens more often than you’d believe. Two people at the same time is, well, a little suspicious.”

  “You think someone pushed them off?”

  “I’m saying we never found any evidence of a struggle, and that it’s an unsolved mystery. The only link we have so far is the two bodies, the location where they were found, and the similar type of life jacket.”

  I studied his face for a moment and couldn’t see the slightest hint of a lie.

  “Thanks again for the advice. One more thing though. Where’s a good place to have dinner?”

  He pointed down the avenue. “The Bent Whistle.”

  20.

  I was lounging on the couch next to the railing on the Spice, taking in the scene.

  The food at the Bent Whistle was good. Their specialty was buffalo steak, but I went with the fresh halibut steak and potatoes.

  The water in the harbor was calm and serene with the lights from shore playing on the surface, and yet small waves slapped against the hull and the Spice gently rocked from a wake as another transfer ferry went by, taking a transient sailor from the shore back to their ship for the evening. Ten-thirty at night and the town was winding down, the restaurants and bars were still bustling, but more and more of the overnight boaters were returning to their cabins to be gently rocked to sleep.

  My cell phone lit up and rang, it was Amber.

  “Hey sweetie,” I said. “How are you doing?”

  “Just got off my shift, my feet are tired, but otherwise I just miss you. Where are you?”

  “Sitting on the deck of the Spice in Avalon Bay, watching the harbor lights, wishing you were here with me.”

  “Stop it Badger.”

  “Sorry, I was just being honest. How was your shift? I hope it was completely and utterly boring.”

  “Well it was long and not exactly boring. They put me in the maternity ward and we delivered six babies over ten hours. It was like a production line. Four girls and two boys.”

  I whistled. “Now that’s the kind of odds us guys like, two girls for every boy.”

  “Three normal births, two cesareans, and one elevator.”

  My face went slack. “A what? I know what a cesarean is, but what the heck is an elevator birth, the kind where you press the belly button and the baby just drops out?”

  She giggled. “You know that elevator they’ve been having trouble with?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well a woman that was in labor got rushed to the hospital by her husband and they were in such a rush, they didn’t see the out of order sign. They got into the bad elevator to go up to the maternity ward, and got stuck between floors. We couldn’t get her out in time. There was a four-foot space on the top and a three-foot space on the bottom, but she was too big and in too much pain to squeeze out.”

  “Holy cow.”

  “Yeah, holy cow is right, it was crazy. So the maintenance guys forced open the doors, put a ladder up to the opening and Doctor Johnson, Marlene, and I squeezed into the little elevator with blankets and forceps and help this poor woman give birth to a healthy baby boy. Both floors were cheering when they heard the baby cry out.”

  “That’s a good story for the family to tell over the years.”

  “Yes, but it’s a black eye for the hospital. She was in labor for three hours in a stuck elevator, and two news crews showed up to cover the story.”

  “Ouch. But look on the bright side, it could have been worse, what if an old guy was having a heart attack, got stuck and died.”

  There was silence as she digested what I said.

  “You always have a way of looking at the other side of things, don’t you?”

  It was true, I always looked on the bad side, it was my nature, thinking about what terrible things could happen and making contingency plans to prevent disaster. It was a constant, continual way of thinking. Sort of like background noise and barely noticeable until someone pointed it out to you. Like if you’re sitting in a park enjoying the view, watching the clouds go by and someone sitting next to you would say:

  “Do you hear those bees in the tree over there?”

  And you would shake your head no, and then listen very carefully to the distant tiny sound and say, “Why yes I do hear them now, I never even noticed…”

  Even right now, sitting on my yacht in the middle of a nice gentle harbor, while watching the transfer ferry go by I studied the people on board, looked for trouble, or a weapon, the barrel of a gun pointed my way, someone getting ready to toss a grenade, in the back of my mind thinking what I would do if someone unloaded a clip at me, how I would dive onto the deck or over the side to escape.

  It wasn’t post-traumatic stress disorder and I wasn’t paranoid. I was an ex-combat trained Marine soldier, had seen some action in the field and some things never really wore off.

  I shrugged my shoulders. It was part of my DNA now and there was no sense fighting it. I enjoyed being on the lookout, and wasn’t going to let anyone get the jump on me, or anyone I was protecting.

  “So when are you coming home?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. I’ve got a few more things to check out tomorrow, and then I’ll probably head back to Dana Point tomorrow night or the next morning.”

  I didn’t tell her about visiting the morgue and finding out the body was still there and unclaimed, and just left it at that. I wanted to check out a few more things, that’s all. I didn’t want her worrying about me.

  “You’re just looking around?”

  “Yeah, no big deal, just poking around, seeing what’s happening around town. Maybe we’ll buy a place, and move here someday.”

  “Did anyone claim that girl’s body yet?”

  Busted.

  “Not yet.”

  “That’s strange.”

  “It’s not normal. But remember what Lieutenant Myles Johnson said. It happened a few years ago.”

  “I wish you would just let the authorities take care of it.”

  “I am. I’m not getting in their way, in fact I think I helped them today.”

  “How?”

  “I had a short meeting with the Deputy Police Chief and helped him with some loose ends. I’ll probably meet with him again tomorrow, and then I’ll be coming home.”

  I didn’t mention the people who found the guy
two years ago disappearing off their boat mid-channel.

  “Well,” she said. “Just be careful.”

  I laughed. “Me, careful? Naw…”

  “Badger I’ll punch you.”

  “I’m joking Amber, I won’t get into any trouble, scout’s honor, don’t worry.” Famous last words. Don’t worry. I regretted saying them and knocked my knuckles on my head, and then on the wooden railing for good measure. I could hear her sighing over the line, knowing what I’d just done.

  “Call me tomorrow morning,” she said. “I’m going to bed now.” And she hung up.

  I fiddled with my pencil and the drawing on the yellow legal pad on my lap. It was a map of sorts, boxes with the names of the characters on the island, and the mainland, and in China, linked together by lines. Somehow it was all connected, and I studied the links and wondered how.

  Jack was a suspect, and Don, but who else? And how did they smuggle the people? What boat did they use?

  The silence was broken by three instant and simultaneous events, a high piercing whistle, a cracking sound, and splinters from the railing hitting me in the cheek. I rolled off the couch flat on the deck and stayed down and still, with my heart beating fast. I’ve heard that whistling sound before, in combat. The whistling sound was a bullet cracking into the railing and sending splinters flying my way.

  Someone just took a shot at me.

  And missed.

  I needed answers, quick. Keeping my head down, I reached over the railing with the pencil and with my finger found the hole from the bullet and put the pencil straight into it, then reached up to the console and grabbed the binoculars and set them to infrared, pulled my black cap over my head, set the binoculars on the edge of the rail and trained them along the line where the pencil was pointing. The bullet’s trajectory line. The boat was turning a bit in the wind but not very fast. I had my general target area.

  A dark knoll, high above the harbor a mile from the city where a road ran along the cliff. I knew the place. Chimes Tower Road, and the scenic lookout by the Zane house. The road was empty, and yet a vehicle was parked to the side. Someone jumped into it and drove away, down the hill along the winding road towards Avalon.