Tampa Star (Blackfox Chronicles Book 1)

by T. S. O'Neil

  The local news was on the forty inch flat screen that sat on the white dresser; some woman had discovered a five foot alligator on her porch and the story covered Animal Control’s removal of the beast. Michael would just have shot it and skinned it then taken it to a local shoemaker and had a nice pair of boots made.

  There was a knock at the door and he figured Aimee got halfway home and decided on going another round, such was the libido of your average twenty one year old. Michael opened the door wide fully expecting to see his little Hooters Hottie, but instead was surprised to see a tall, lanky grey haired sheriff’s deputy standing on the threshold.

  His face had the leathery appearance of a Florida fisherman and he looked to be in decent physical shape for a man that appeared old enough to be collecting a social security check. He sported a crew cut, but had long sideburns, perhaps meant to partially disguise a jagged six inch long scar that ran diagonally under his cheek bone on the right side of his face.

  “Are you Michael Blackfox? He asked. Michael nodded, the officer stepped into the room, causing Michael to retreat a few steps. “Got some ID?” He wordlessly handed the cop his Common Access Card. The cop examined both sides, scrutinized the photo and then looked at Michael as if comparing the two. “Marines, huh?”

  “Yeah, Marine Recon—what is this all about?”

  “I’ll ask the questions,” said the cop. Michael nodded.

  “You armed?”

  “Well, I would like to think my charm is certainly disarming,” quipped Michael.

  “Funny!” Replied the cop. “We have lots of funny guys in the Pinellas County jail, I’ll bet I could have you there in time for a dinner of green baloney sandwiches and Kool-Aid; how does that sound funny guy?”

  “No, I’m not armed,” he lied.

  “Good,” said the cop. He smiled at Michael and then walked over to the TV and shut it off.

  “Sit down,” he ordered. Michael pulled a chair out from the circular faux wood table in front of the window and sat down. The cop sat down on the dresser next to the TV and smiled at Michael. “I am looking for your dad” he said, attempting to project some warmth.

  “I am an old friend of his and when I heard you were in town, I thought I would come by and say hello.”

  Funny way to say hello, Michael thought, but he just nodded and explained that he too was looking for his father, had not seen him in years and was frankly a little worried about his welfare. The deputy seemed to take him at his word, handed him a business card with the logo of the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Department in one corner and asked him to call him should he find Char.

  “He’s not in any trouble, is he?”

  “No, I just haven’t seen him in quite a while and think he may have some information about an unsolved crime that happened some years ago about the time of the hurricane in 74. I can’t really get into the details, but I’m fairly certain your old man can help us out. Just don’t say a word to him, I want it to be a surprise,” he smiled unconvincingly.

  Michael closed the door behind the man, waited until he was out of earshot and locked the deadbolt, then attached the security chain. Friend my ass. Michael decided he was leaving, but not sure where he should go. He opened his Sony laptop and decided to go to Google maps to search for a more benign area

  as a base of operations. On a whim, he typed in “hurricane” and “Pinellas County” and was presented with over one hundred thousand hits for Hurricane Gamila, the Halloween Hurricane of 1974.

  It seems that the thirty-year anniversary was pending and the website was detailing information about the storm. The article detailed the sinking of a casino ship, the Star of Tampa, allegedly carrying over one million in gold coins and the loss of over 100 people on board as well as several deaths along the shore from tidal surge. Several people were reported missing, including one Charles Blackfox and Thomas Finnegan, both employees of a local yacht brokerage, Olsen’s Boatyard. Michael googled it, and found it was still in business. He wrote down the address and began packing his suitcase.

  Commodore Olsen had died in 1993 at the ripe old age of ninety four. He passed ownership to his son, Mark about twenty years prior to his death. Mark was a beefy balding man who wore a blue Nike golf shirt with Olsen’s Yacht Brokerage embroidered crest sewn over the right breast.

  Michael sat in a dark leather club chair in front of the Commodore’s ancient mahogany desk and waited for Mark to finish a phone call. He hung up the phone and looked at Michael.

  “Sure, I was just a kid, but I remember your dad. He used to take me fishing with him and Tommy. As far as I know both of those guys died during the storm in 1974 when they took one of our customer’s boats out, without my old man’s permission. My old man took a lot of heat for that from the customer and had to do a lot of repair work on the cuff to keep from getting sued.”

  “Sorry about that Mr. Olsen, but I am evidence my dad lived through the storm as I was born in 1984.”

  “Well, let me rephrase that then; neither one of those guys ever showed their face around here after that. And it’s a good thing they didn’t because my old man was mad enough about what happened to that Hatteras they took that he probably would have shot them himself.”

  The guy was displaying a mercurial temperament and Michael figured that there would be better sources of information now that he knew what he was looking for. He left the boatyard and headed for a public library in Tampa, wanting to put some distance between him and the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Department.

  Michael looked up all references to the hurricane and the Star of Tampa in the archives of the Tampa Bay times and several other papers. All the newspaper articles detailed a history of the ship, the owner, Simon Block and one mentioned that the ship was rumored to

  be carrying a surprise jackpot of one million dollars in gold, but that had never been proven. The ship was thought to have sunk in very deep water as it has never been located.

  One of the articles speculated that perhaps the wreck had never been found because it had sunk in the DeSoto Canyon, the second deepest ravine in the Gulf—surpassed in depth by only the Sigsbee Deep, a 300 mile long trough that is known as the Grand Canyon of the Gulf. The actual maximum depth of the DeSoto Canyon was unknown, but was estimated to range between 12,300 and 14,383 feet.

  There were fewer details of his father and the other man, Finnegan. The boat they occupied, the Bull Market, was recovered beached with heavy damage on shore at Fort DeSoto, a local historical site. There was no sign of either man at the site and it was assumed that they both drowned. Michael continued searching for them and found a later issue of the paper talked about two badly decomposed bodies that were recovered on the shore near Sarasota in early December. Originally, they were thought to be victims of the hurricane, but it was later determined that some of the decomposition was actually numerous bullet holes that littered the torsos of both bodies.

  He typed in words Finnegan and hurricane hoping to learn more about the man who accompanied his father and an article on Tommy Finnegan turned up. He was found walking along the causeway to St. Pete Beach during the morning of the hurricane. The article was notable for two reasons; one, he was found to have suffered a gunshot wound to the shoulder and two, he was discovered to be an escaped bank robber from the state of Louisiana with the real name of James O’Brien who had been on the lam for several years. The article speculated that he would be extradited back to where he committed his crimes.

  Michael hadn’t seen his old man in years, but he doubted that he had changed. He was always looking for the next big thing—something that was a short-cut to riches. He remembered his dad gambling on horses, football and Jai alai, just about anything with odds and a point spread. Therefore, there never was enough to properly provide for his family. One day he just gave up and left.

  “So Char, was this your next big thing?” he asked aloud.

  Chapter 18 - OG

  Sally Boots was an old gangster. But, he still h
ad his health, thank God. He sold out of the club back in 2003 to a guy who wanted to build a venue to rival the top clubs, like the Mons Venus. The interesting thing about Sally’s club was it had great potential to expand, although he chose to run it like little more than a “Jack Shack.”

  Sally owned a lot of over one half acre, but his club took up only 2000 square feet. He didn’t care; at the time, the club provided pussy for him and his friends—he pimped out the girls he didn’t like and kept the best for himself. But, the thought of a lucrative deal with a deep pockets investor who specialized in the development of high dollar clubs was too good of an offer to pass up.

  With the proceeds from the sale of his club Sally purchased his house on Westshore outright and had enough left over to buy a boat, a barely used Hatteras 80 that sat moored to the dock to the rear of his expansive back lawn.

  The yacht had been heavily discounted by the seller—a yacht broker, who had a cocaine, gambling and pussy problem—a triple threat. Sally had supplied all his addictions, until he started losing big and the boat was surrendered to alleviate the debt.

  He sat in his kitchen contemplating making a sandwich of hot Italian sausage and peppers on hard roll—It usually gave him terrible heartburn, but he’d be dammed if that would keep him from indulging in one of the few pleasures he had left. He had the sausage and pickled peppers shipped via UPS from his favorite deli in North Providence, as Tampa lacked a properly hot Italian sausage. If he had his druthers and a few more years, he might open a proper Italian grocery and teach these gators how to eat.

  ***

  Handley logged on to the secure website and the tracking device showed the location of Michael’s vehicle in the long term parking lot at Tampa International Airport. He had placed the device under the rear bumper of Michael’s pick-up, which he identified with the kind assistance of the Manager at Hooters.

  Handley called to one of his contacts at the Transportation Security Administration office at Tampa International Airport and eventually got what he was looking for. He called Sally Boots to discuss his next course of action.

  “He’s in New Orleans, probably looking to visit Jimmy in Angola.”

  Sally didn’t like talking on the telephone, his cautious nature being developed by decades of watching a parade of wise guys being confronted with incriminating evidence gathered from wire taps.

  “Meet me at Carmine’s,” he ordered. Sally figured he would postpone his date with heartburn for a more palatable lunch at his favorite restaurant.

  He and Handley had discussed the scenario many times over the years. Given the time he was picked up, it was doubtful that Jimmy knew where the gold was hidden as it was logical to assume that he would have tried to negotiate a deal and eighty five years of incarceration in Angola was pretty solid evidence that he hadn’t struck one. It was doubtful he would ever see the light of day otherwise, so if Jimmy knew the location of the gold, it seemed logical that he would trade it for his freedom.

  Sally knew some guys inside, a couple of Wise Guys that had gotten into trouble running drugs into New Orleans, and they were willing to soften Jimmy up in order to find out where his buddy, Char, might be hiding, but just as they were ready to move on him, Jimmy got himself thrown in segregation and the plan was put on hold. Still, perhaps Char’s kid could learn something while there and he should at least have a little talk with the lad.

  Sally Boots was an old gangster—he had just turned eighty five this past March. But, he still had his health, thank God. Sure, his prostate seemed to be the size of a bowling ball, but he could still get a hard-on and was regularly had his nob copped whenever a dancer from his old club needed a few bucks—which was pretty much always. His wife had left him when he decided he never wanted to return to Providence.

  He still drove his Cadillac El Dorado to the Italian Club in Ybor City regularly to play dominos, eat a good lunch of Italian pasta or chicken masala at Carmine’s on the veranda and then finish up with a nice grappa, a cigar and perhaps a nap back at the club.

  They sat on the second floor veranda away from the business lunch crowd. Guy Handley ordered mussels in garlic clam sauce and a bottle of Peroni Crystal beer.

  “What did I tell you about talking on the phone?” Sally asked between mouthfuls of Fettuccini Alfredo.

  “The kid is looking for his old man, just like us,” replied Handley. It was his day off and Handley was enjoying the sun on his face during an unseasonable cool October.

  “Think he knows about the gold?”

  “Not sure. I put a tracking device on his vehicle and he headed across the bridge and stopped at the public library.”

  “Tracking device? Who the fuck are you? James Bond?”

  “It’s nothing, the narcs use them all the time, it’s a magnetic cellular signal generator that sends a cell signal to different towers and you log into a website to see where the guy is going or has been.”

  “Fucking brilliant” commented Sally as he washed down the masala with a swig of Chianti.

  Once Sally glommed on to something, he stayed there and after all these years, he stayed glommed on to the 28,000 odd gold coins in the load they stole from the Star. At today’s prices, the shipment was worth about 40 million dollars and that was a lot of hay.

  The night of the job as he waited for the ship to arrive, meteorological forces were at work that he had little inkling of. The Star of Tampa was probably hit by a rogue wave caused by the hurricane, he learned later. The remnants of that same wave hit the Bull Market just as she was approaching the dock. Sally walked down the dock to meet the boat assuming that the Zips he had hired had dispatched the three musketeers; the two Micks and Char. Ligio or Handley would be at the helm. After that, he figured he would do the Zips and Handley. Since Ligio was a relative, he would be spared.

  He would never forget as he walked down the dock, he could see a wall of what he originally took to be sky rapidly rolling in toward shore. A moment later, he realized in horror that it was actually a huge wall of water, headed directly for him.

  The wave made a thunderous noise that reverberated from his immediate front, so strong that it rattled the fat on his ample belly. He reached the end of the dock and watched the approaching boat perhaps 300 yards away, suddenly rise up and ride the surf towards the dock.

  Sally turned to run, but it was too late. He was nothing if not a survivor, so he turned and dove into the wall of water just as it was set to wash over him and he was swept away into darkness. He awoke some time later, in a mangrove swamp across the road, about a half mile away from the dock. Other than some cuts and bruises, he was unscathed and felt glad to be alive.

  He immediately returned to the vicinity of the beached yacht, but the area was crawling with park vehicles, local sheriff cars, even a Coast Guard boat sat off shore. He ran doubled over to the parking lot, got into his Cadillac, and quickly drove away, half expecting to hear sirens in the background, but he slipped out of the park unmolested.

  There was no report of any gold recovered from the boat, Jimmy was caught crossing the causeway to St. Pete Beach the following morning, but Tommy and Char had disappeared, as had the gold.

  Sally sent Jimmy comfort packages in Angola, and went to see him once, but if the kid knew anything, he wasn’t talking, at least to Sally. Ligio was dead and so were the Zips. Ligio’s body had never been found and that pained Sally a little bit.

  Handley was the only ally Sally had from the robbery. He kept him around and through connections got him a job with the Pinellas County Sheriff’s department—figuring that eventually Char would turn up around his old haunts. If he did, Handley was in a good position to birddog him. Sally also had other ears and eyes, most notably with the Ranger’s Office at Fort Desoto. If they stashed 2000 pounds of gold somewhere, it was probably somewhere in the park. He once hired three guys with metal detectors to crisscross every square inch of the park. Aside from some old shell casings from the turn of the last century, they found very li
ttle.

  Handley remembered little after the wave struck. He held a gun to Tommy’s back and remembered pulling the trigger just as something struck him on the side of his face and then the surreal feeling of the whole boat rising up so fast that he felt his body hit the roof of the cabin and then fall to the floor. He remembered waking up sometime later in the cabin of the boat, in a great amount of pain—it turned out he broke three ribs in the fall. The gold was gone and so were all the others.

  Chapter 19 - Angola

  Angola got its start as a slave Plantation sometime in the 1800s and was converted to a prison farm at the end of the Civil War. The majority of the inmates have a life sentence. Ninety five percent of the prisoners at the Louisiana State prison at Angola will never leave there, at least alive. After a prisoner dies, whether by the hand of the state or through other causes, few of them natural, the state considers his debt to society as being paid in full. Just over 5000 prisoners are incarcerated there.

  Michael looked up the firm on the Internet and reviewed the biographies of all the attorneys and was surprised when he recognized one of the photographs. He vaguely remembered Gus telling him if he ever got busted on Bourbon Street to give him a call, but had no idea that he worked for one of the more prestigious firms in New Orleans.

  He grabbed an early morning flight out of Tampa International bound for New Orleans. He had looked up Jimmy’s law firm in the court papers filed as records of his trial for Bank Robbery, Theft, Assault, Escape from Custody and Theft of a narcotic substance, among other charges. Jimmy was originally represented by one of the partners, Augustine Thompson.

  Thompson, Antoine & Henri, was a long established Legal Firm with a history of doing pro bono work for indigent defendants within the Louisiana System of Criminal Justice. According to the court filings, Jimmy received a speedy trail and was subsequently convicted by a jury of his peers. The judge had little sympathy for an escaped bank robber who had managed to stay free for three years while living in the State of Florida. He received an eighty-five year sentence.