Tampa Star (Blackfox Chronicles Book 1)

by T. S. O'Neil

  The same law firm continued to represent Jimmy through a series of appeals that had eventually resulted in a pending review of the case by the U.S. Court of Appeals. It was based on the precedent that Jimmy’s right to a speedy trial had been rigorously adhered to in such an accelerated manner that defense counsel was not allowed an appropriate amount of time to prepare his case.

  Bubba’s Boil was a ramshackle wooden building with peeling white paint that was as much an institution as Angola Prison. It had been around since the 1920s and was known for preparing humungous and sumptuous boils of Shrimp and Crawfish. It was also tradition for the law firms’ attorneys providing pro bono work to clients incarnated in Angola to stop for a meal and a few cold Abita beers before heading back to the office in New Orleans.

  It was easy to recognize him, as he was the only guy wearing a tie, having shed his jacket and slung it on the back of an unoccupied chair. The attorney occupied a large round wooden table in the far corner of the room, strategically located under an ancient belt-driven ceiling fan.

  Gus got up and bear hugged Michael, “How you have been ole son,” he exclaimed loudly, while motioning him to sit and calling for the waitress. Gus Thompson was the son of the firm’s founder, Edmund, who had originally defended Jimmy when he was unceremoniously returned to Louisiana to stand trial for escape and armed robbery in 1974.

  In those days, aspiring attorneys took cases representing indigent defendants under contract from the Public Defender’s Office. The case paid next to nothing, but it was a good way for an up and comer to quickly get public recognition, especially if the case was high-profile.

  Gus had been a star quarterback at LSU about four years ago and although he had gained a few pounds, he still looked like the guy that brought LSU Tigers to victory over Georgia Tech in the Peach Bowl. After college he had served a couple years as a marine gunship pilot and went into the reserves upon discharge from active duty.

  While at LSU during a summer break between semesters, Gus attended the Basic Course at Camp Pendleton. While some of his fellow students were celebrating Spring Break at the bars and strip clubs in Panama City, FL, Gus was taking his first steps towards earning the Marine Corps Helicopter Wings attending the Aviation Preflight Indoctrination at Pensacola NAS.

  Upon graduation he immediately went on to Rotary-Wing flight school and graduated near the top of his class.

  From there he was granted a coveted slot in a Reserve Marine Light Attack Helicopter Squadron headquartered at the New Orleans’s Naval Air Station. When Michael met him, Gus was piloting a Bell AH-1W Whiskey Cobra gun ship that was busily trying to save Michael’s ass from getting whacked by about thirty insurgents that had ambushed his platoon while they were conducting operations in Fallujah.

  The insurgents were easily routed thanks to the intervention of a few AGM-114 Hellfire missiles and a couple hundred rounds of twenty millimeter cannon rounds. Michael and his fellow Recon Marines were so thankful that they sought out the pilot and gunner to personally thank them for saving their highly trained asses from getting whacked. One of Michael’s teammates had been on temporary duty at the embassy in the Green Zone and had purchased a few bottles of Jack Daniels from the Embassy commissary.

  Due to the Commanding Generals’ fear of offending Muslim sensibilities and need to exhibit the highest form of caution in career management, alcohol had been outlawed in war zones since the first Gulf War. Most generals were colossal hypocrites who exempted themselves from most of the regulations and orders they shoved down the throats of lesser mortals. There were a few good ones that Michael respected, but for the most part they acted like a grenade had gone off in their helmets about the time they pinned on their first star.

  Michael presented the bottle to Gus and his gunner, a tall gaunt Warrant Officer from Natchez, Mississippi named Antoine Pembo. They all quickly retreated to Gus’ CHU, which stood for Coalition Housing Unit, opened the bottle and toasted their mutual good fortune multiple times.

  Although they had met only fleetingly, Recon was a tight knit group that operated well beyond the forward edge of the battle area and they were often dependent on rotary and fixed wing attack aircraft to pull their fat from the fire. The two had fought in the same battle, albeit at different altitudes; Michael on the deck and Gus above it all in the sky. They knew some of the same marines and mourned some of the same fallen heroes.

  He would see Gus later in the war, when the fight wasn’t going so well and extraordinary steps were being taken to gain intelligence about all the vehicle born improvised explosive devices, explosively formed penetrators and the host of other evils being used to kill and horribly maim U.S. troops. The U.S. decided to dance with the devil and employ a set of extraordinary means to stop, or at least minimize, the horrible attacks.

  A waitress appeared and wordlessly delivered Michael a cold Abita beer. He ordered the mixed boil and was assured it would be delivered with the other order. The two former Marines drank beer

  and exchanged small talk about Recon, “the war”—meaning both Afghanistan and Iraq, Marines they both knew that had been killed or wounded and of course, LSU football. The food arrived after fifteen minutes and all speaking stopped as they devoted their efforts to devouring the heaping load of shrimp, crawfish, potatoes and corn.

  After the remnants of the meal of were cleared away and most of the customers had exited the eatery, Thompson got down to cases. “So, how can I help you, Captain Blackfox?” asked Gus with mock formality.

  “Well, for one thing, you call me Michael.”

  Thompson nodded. Congratulations on the promotion, by the way.

  “Thanks, I think it’s just the Corps way of keeping you in the reserves, in case they need some cannon fodder.”

  “The active reserve is a good gig, you should give it a try. Double the pay for only one weekend a month.”

  “You could be a recruiter,” said Michael.

  “They pay me a bonus for everyone I pull in and they have a Recon Battalion.”

  “I think I need some time as a civilian, it’s almost as good as getting promoted.”

  Thompson, laughed. “Okay, so if joining the reserves is not on the agenda, what can I do for you?”

  “I need to talk with Jimmy O’Brien, outside earshot of the guards at Angola.”

  Thompson drained his can of Abita, signaled the waitress for another and addressed Michael, “That’s quite a tall order. The only ones allowed to have confidential conversations with a client are his attorneys and that conversation is to be solely about his case. Mind if I ask you why you want to talk with him?”

  “I’m looking for my dad and Jimmy may know how to get in contact with him.”

  “What’s the problem? Is he wanted by the law?”

  “That’s the thing—as far as I know, he is not being sought as a fugitive, but there may be people actively seeking to get to him in

  order to obtain information. Those same people may be trying to do the same thing with Jimmy,” speculated Michael.

  “That might explain a few things. Like why Jimmy is in the heavy discipline unit and segregated from the other prisoners. You couldn’t visit him if you wanted to. My initial feeling was he wasn’t coping too well as it seemed like he was fighting the system, but based on what you told me, he’s probably just trying to stay alive,” said Thompson. He took a sip from the beer bottle as sipped his beer and seemed to be mulling over something.

  “If your old man is not wanted by the law, as far as you know and you haven’t seen him in ten years or more, a jury would think you had an ulterior motive in seeking him out. Mind if I ask you what that is?”

  He’s my dad, I just want to make sure he’s all right” replied Michael.

  Thompson looked at Michael with a cocked eyebrow, took a swig from his beer can and replied, “That dog don’t hunt, ole son! Why don’t you stop trying to bullshit an old bull shitter and tell me the truth!”

  Michael, thought for a minute, took
a long drink from his beer and said, “All right, what you know about a ship called “The Star of Tampa?” Gus’s look told him he didn’t know much. Michael gave him some background on what he knew about what might have happened to the floating casino known as the Star of Tampa—a probable robbery of a million dollars in gold coins, a rogue wave that sank the ship at sea with the loss of all on board.

  He concluded with the odd fact that because the ship had been lost, what had transpired on board had never been reported as a crime. “Well, yeah, to have a crime, you have to have a victim, if all your victims died in a freak act of nature, you no longer have victims or witnesses to the crime; sort of like the whole if a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it fall,” concluded Thompson.

  Gus suddenly looked at his watch and sighed.

  “I gotta go. I have a late meeting and it’s a bit of a drive back to the office.” Michael offered to pay and Thompson waved him away. “Allow me the honor of buying a Recon Marine a meal.”

  They exited Bubba’s Boil and headed to their separate vehicles. Thompson pulled up to the side of Michael’s vehicle, signaled him to lower his window and said, “It was a crying shame what they did to Jimmy. He may have been guilty of a lot, but they

  sped him through the trial process faster than shit goes through a goose. My dad tried like hell to slow it down, impeach witnesses and generally raise the specter of reasonable doubt with the jury, but the state just outmuscled him.”

  Michael nodded and asked if there was anything to do to help. Thompson shook his head to indicate no.

  “I can’t get you in to see him without credentials from the State Bar, but I can take him a message. Tell me what to ask him and meet me here tomorrow and I will have your answer.”

  Michael nodded, “ask him to tell you if he knows where my dad is holding up.”

  Thompson nodded. “Are you staying nearby?” Michael nodded, but didn’t say where.

  “OK, I will swing back by Angola tomorrow morning and speak with him. Meet me back here at noon and I will let you know what he tells me.”

  * * *

  “Good morning counselor,” said Jimmy as he was led into the interview room at Angola. He looked every bit of his fifty-six years of age, except that he looked thin, but not frail—his arms had a lean, ropelike appearance to them, almost like he had been working out hard enough to lose weight and gain upper body strength; it reminded Thompson on how recruits slimmed down during boot camp, but gained upper body strength by doing lots of pull-ups.

  Jimmy was pale, due to his current extended stint in segregation, but his salt and pepper hair was closely cropped, probably due to the fact he was only allowed to shower once a week. The guard left and Jimmy sat down in an interview chair. They sat and discussed Jimmy’s case—the pending appeal had been working its way through the system for years and had been defeated at each stage until now.

  The appeal currently sat before the United States Court of Appeals. Fifth Circuit, where Gus thought that had a better than average chance of winning. But, they had already had that conversation and although Jimmy welcomed any interruption into the tedious regime that prisoners live, especially for a prisoner in disciplinary segregation, he was perplexed by Gus’ presence.

  “I had a meeting with Michael Blackfox” said Thompson. “He’s looking for his dad, Char.”

  “Yeah, I heard old Char had a kid, I wish I knew where he was.” Jimmy wouldn’t make eye contact, so Gus expected he might be lying.

  “Come on, Jimmy, stop jerking me off, I haven’t got time for this bullshit.”

  Jimmy nodded, “sorry counselor, I guess I am so in the habit of lying in here that it just got away from me. I get a post card from Char every couple of months, normally it’s from a state park or camp ground in Florida, usually up north, but once I got one from him from that state park in the keys, John Pennekamp. That one had a nice picture on it of the coral reefs, I still have it. The last one I got from him was from Ginnie Springs. He always signs the postcards with the names of different folks, but I always figure it’s him. No one else feels the need to stay in touch with an old convict.” Jimmy’s voice trailed off as he said the last sentence.

  Thompson had been Jimmy’s lawyer for the entirety of his legal career—he got Jimmy as a client as a gift from his pappy when he passed the bar. He knew Jimmy well enough to know when he was lying. The reason Jimmy was in Angola had little to do with the alleged theft of a short ton of gold that occurred thirty years ago. No charges had ever been filed in that case, because the only people who really knew what happened were the original conspirators and they were either dead or not talkative.

  “If Char knew where the gold was, why would he feel the need to tell you where he is at regular intervals?” thought Gus. He figured he had nothing to lose by directly addressing the elephant in the room.

  “Where is the gold hidden, Jimmy?” Thompson finally asked.

  “No idea,” he replied, without making eye contact.

  “This is getting tedious,” said Thompson.

  Jimmy asked for a cigarette and although Angola was smoke free, a certain amount of latitude was allowed in the meeting room, probably due to the large percentage of lawyers who still smoked. Thompson shook out a Marlboro Red cigarette, from a pack in his briefcase, placed it in the convict’s mouth and lit it with a Zippo embossed with the Eagle, Globe and Anchor of the Marine Corps.

  Jimmy took a deep drag on his cigarette and bent toward where his wrist was hand cuffed to the interview chair to take it from his mouth.

  “Help me get out of here, and I will cut you in for a share,” he said finally.

  * * *

  Michael spent an uneventful night in the local motel—most chains required a credit card and he wanted to stay off the grid as much as possible. His caution might be premature, but he figured it was something that all good Marines learn at one time or another—it was better to exhibit a little caution than to live with a lifetime of regrets.

  The motel was as nondescript as could be hoped for—twenty rooms in a one story brick building with an office at one end and a swimming pool in front. It was about fifteen miles from the prison, near the town of Coldwater. From the look and actions of some of the residents, it appeared to Michael that families of prisoners locked up inside Angola were the motel’s primary customers.

  The clerk barely made eye contact and didn’t ask for a credit card—just cash up; forty seven dollars, tax included. He retreated to his room and grabbed a nap, woke up hungry and drove into town to see what Coldwater had to offer.

  He found a Popeye’s Fried Chicken, bought a four piece meal, stopped at a local convenience store and purchased a six pack of Abita beer—he was good for the evening.

  The following morning, he slept in and had a cold piece of chicken and a biscuit for breakfast. Around noon, Michael headed over to Bubba’s to meet with Thompson. Michael entered through the double screen doors and found him at his usual table in the back corner.

  “He says he doesn’t know anything about the robbery, but that’s no surprise, Jimmy’s a fucking liar, most criminals are,” said Thompson. The waitress brought over a couple of heavily frosted bottles of Abita Ambers and a couple of menus.

  “Just the beer, Janie, I got to get back to Nor leans,” he said with a drawl as he handed her a twenty.” She nodded in acknowledgement, handed over the bottles and retreated with menus in hand.

  Thompson took a swig of his beer and began to outline his conversation with Jimmy. “Jimmy admitted that he had become somewhat unpopular with a certain element inside Angola, but he claims that it was due to a debt that someone didn’t want to pay back, he didn’t go into too many details.”

  “Did he say anything about whether he knows where my dad is hiding,” asked Michael?

  “He did say that he gets postcards he thinks are from your dad every couple of months. They’re signed with different names, but usually from a state park. He thinks that Char is ju
st letting him know where he can be found in case Jimmy gets out.”

  Michael nodded and took a swig from the beer. He remembered first drinking Abita while on a three day pass that he and his buddies spent on Bourbon Street and Jackson Square. The beer was almost painfully cold.

  “She keeps the beer for me at the bottom of the cooler as she knows I like it cold and I’m a good tipper.” Michael nodded and waited for Thompson to get back to the subject at hand. “The last postcard he got was from Ginnie Springs about a month ago.” Michael knew the springs— his dad had taken him diving there when he was a kid. It was north of Tampa, near Gainesville.

  They finished their beers and headed for the door. He shook Thompson’s hand and thanked him for the information.

  “One other thing, Michael, these guys that are after your dad and Jimmy, they are some mob connected guys and they want to lay their hands on that gold. They don’t care too much if there has to be any collateral damage. I suggest you watch your six” he added as an afterthought. Michael nodded, opened the white painted wood frame screen door that was probably twice his age and said something that Gus strained to hear.

  “I always do,” he said as he walked into the dirt parking lot towards his car.

  Gus drove straight to the French Quarter and parked in the lot adjacent to Jackson Square. He was a few minutes late, but knew that the Chief would be waiting for him. Red Sawyer was once a Chief Warrant Officer in the Marines and a pilot in Gus’ old outfit. He had fallen on hard times since he retired, the death of his wife of thirty years, a short lived rebound marriage to a stripper from the Quarter and a messy divorce that left him fighting to hold on to his pension.

  “How are you, ole son?” he said as he hugged the grizzled old man seated at the bar of Remoulade, a casual bistro attached to the landmark Arnaud’s Restaurant.