Just Needs Killin

by Jinx Schwartz

  After dinner, Jan and I went back out to raise the panga and give it a wash, and while we were at it, shampooed Po Thang. Now, even wet, he probably smelled better than us, so the next order of business was the shower. With all this going on, there wasn't much time for our evening glass or two of wine in my cabin, so Jan turned in early and I was left with a wet dog and an empty glass. I'd vowed to stop drinking alone, and that a dog didn't count.

  I emailed Jenks, and turned in myself. The next thing I knew it was five a.m. and I was wide awake. Po Thang snored softly on his top bunk, and didn't bat an eye when I went to the head. He is not an early bird dog.

  Hooking the minicam to my PC, I downloaded our footage of Kazoo and Moto the day before, kind of hoping for a shark, but no luck. They surfaced, hefted their dive bags into the panga, then left the cove. Nothing new or exciting there.

  I ran it back and started over, frame by frame, looking for anything unusual. Kazoo actually got into the panga first, pulled those dive bags over the gunwale, with a boost from below by Moto, who remained in the water.

  "Boor-ing, Po Thang," I declared. "Wanna go pee or something? I need coffee."

  He gave me a one-eyed glare and buried his head in his paws. Too early still.

  As I was returning with my coffee, I met Jan in the companionway. She, too, woke early, so I invited her into my cabin for a look at our handiwork. She arrived with coffee, which garnered a slight head raise from sleepy head, and we reran the footage.

  "Stop!" Jan yelled, startling Po Thang wide awake.

  "What? What did you see?"

  "Look at that first dive bag. Notice anything weird?"

  I zoomed in on the mesh bag. "Oh, crap. No wonder they were giving us looks at dinner. That's our anchor they've got there. It's no surprise it took two of them to bring in those bags."

  "Yeah, why?"

  "Because the anchor is heavy?"

  "Yep. But what about the other bag?"

  Once again I zoomed in and this time we realized the second bag must have been much, much heavier. Even with the two of them, they barely got it over the gunwale, and Kazoo jumped back to clear his feet from the bag's path as it fell.

  I stopped the action once again and we stared at the screen.

  "Can you zoom in more?"

  "I can try." I fiddled up and down arrows on the screen, but all I did was make it blurry. Then I un-zoomed (technical term) one click at a time, until it cleared.

  Jan sucked in a surprised breath, and my heart rate doubled. "Hetta, do those look like gold bars to you?"

  "Oh, my ears and whiskers, Alice. I do believe they do."

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  The best defense is an offense, they say.

  When you need a good cover story, the best thing is to launch an offensive.

  We were all seated at breakfast when I launched.

  "You know, Kazoo, you might have warned us about that abalone hole of yours."

  He looked as totally confused as I wanted him. "Desho?" he grunted, which is the Japanese equivalent to, "Huh?"

  In a scolding schoolmarm voice I said, "Jan and I wanted some more abalone shells, so we went out there where we thought you got them, and the surge was so awful, we never even got to look for any. And, on top of that, our anchor got tangled in the rocks and that's why we lost it."

  Kazoo's mouth dropped open, but nothing came out.

  Chino rallied to his rescue. "You're saying it's their fault that you lost your anchor?"

  Jan jumped in with a profound, "Well, duh!"

  Fabio let go with a guffaw, and everyone but Kazoo and Moto joined in.

  Kazoo did manage to clamp his lips into a very Japanese sign of disapproval, but he still looked at a loss. I waited for him to say he found our anchor, but he didn't.

  Moto, evidently a little faster on the uptake, said, "Oh. I believe we found your anchor yesterday. We did not realize it was yours. And you are correct, as that dive area is very dangerous."

  Kazoo recovered, and I gotta give him credit, his defense tactic was brilliant. He adopted my own scolding tone and shook his finger at me. "Yes, it is very dangerous. And you, as a novice, should never have attempted to dive there."

  Which, of course, stirred up Chino, who gave us a lecture on safety.

  Jan interrupted his angry spiel. "Chino, honey, you are so right," she cooed. "Hetta and I have decided we are never, ever, gonna dive again, period."

  Caught off guard by this uncharacteristically easy capitulation, he said a lame, "Well, then, good."

  Fabio eyed us and shook his head. "Gringas!"

  We made a great show of scrubbing our dry suits, rebreathers, and other dive gear. After they were sun-dried, we packed everything in canvas bags, declared it all retired, then took both bags down into the engine room, to the gear storage bin.

  "Think they believed we never dove on the wreck?" Jan whispered when we were back up on the aft deck, reattaching the formerly lost anchor to our panga.

  "Who knows? What I want to know is where they're stashing the gold?"

  "If it is gold. We don't know for sure. But if it is, don't you wonder if that's why they are really here. And just who sent them?"

  "Yep, I've been thinking about that. If they came here on a mission of their own, financed by someone in Japan, that someone wants that gold. So why, if they knew where it was all along, didn't they just come and get it? Why use the expedition for cover?"

  "Because they can't just waltz in and go treasure hunting without the blessing of the Mexican government? Chino has a permit. Perfect cover."

  "Yes, but this plan of theirs was hatched, in my opinion, long before Chino was permitted."

  "You said yourself the Japanese sometimes plan a hundred years in advance."

  "They do, but let's say they did have this, whatever this is, in mind since...since when?"

  "Maybe since they gave Chino this ship?"

  To make a long story short, Tanuki Corporation, whose employee was my contact for that feasibility study I was hired to do for a desalination plant in Magdalena Bay, were embarrassed when it turned out that their employee, the now beheaded and missing Ishikawa, had a scheme to use the desal project as a cover for his more lucrative whale in a can thing.

  As I summarized the events as a way of maybe understanding what was going on now, it went like this: "So, Tanuki's man in Mexico (and Ishikawa's co-schemer), Ricardo Dickless Lujàn, got busted when we outed their plans, and as a way of saving face, and earning that GET OUT OF JAIL card for Dickless, they gave the Tanuki Maru—which was eventually destined to snag baby whales—to Chino for a research vessel."

  "Sounds right so far. Chino, who is well respected both in the global scientific community, and locally, was convinced, especially after we dredged up that astrolabe during the hurricane, that his ancestor's galleon sank and deposited other valuable historical artifacts in and around Magdalena Bay, and someone in Mexico city agreed."

  I picked it up. "So, Chino renames the Tanuki Maru the Nao de Chino, but he doesn't really have the money to launch an expedition, so he applies for a grant from Mexico City and gets a lousy twenty-five grand, which won't even fill the fuel tanks, much less outfit a dive team."

  "Well, we did get a government discount on the fuel. Only cost us fifteen grand to top 'em off."

  "Like I said, no way he could swing this little expedition. Sooo, enter, or re-enter, as it were, Ishikawa-san. With, I might add, a hundred grand bankroll. Coincidence? I think not, dear Watson. And by the way, I suspect the fifty he offered you was on his own dime."

  "I should've taken the deal. I mean, since he was dead and all when I got to his room anyhow."

  "You are such a sentimentalist."

  "I got it from you, Hetta-san."

  I shot her a digit. "And, said dead dude is then spirited away by our favorite villain, Dickless, and his band of merry dicks. Only to later be fortuitously reported as a passenger on a missing airliner halfway around the world."
r />   "I've been thinking about that. Bad as I hate to say it, you and I both know that everyone on that plane is gone. Really gone. Even if they find the wreckage, anyone onboard will never be found. Sad, but so very convenient for whoever wanted Ishikawa dead, but accounted for."

  "Someone, I might add, with the power to fake a name on that passenger manifest."

  She stood and gave Po Thang a head scratch. "And maybe plant two men on our boat? Men who might be carting gold bars somewhere for someone. I just don't think they're freelancing. Way too much coincidence there, as well."

  "Okay, first things first. The gold, if that's what it is. Let's find their stash. It's gotta be between here and the dive site."

  "My guess is it's here, on the boat. You still got those keys for all the cabins?"

  "Is there a bouffant do in Dallas?"

  From the bridge, we closely watched Kazoo and Moto's return each day. They couldn't see us, and anyone entering the bridge would be led to believe we were bird watching, since I placed an Audubon Society book nearby.

  After each dive, the two brought heavy bags onboard, removed abalone and lobster from those bags as cover, then washed the bags down. They were pretty slick, but because we knew what to look for, we could tell the bags were not altogether empty.

  Unfortunately we couldn't exactly follow them to see where they took those bags, and we had to wait a few days to make our raid on Kazoo and Moto's quarters. As luck would have it, Fabio remained aboard that Sunday, but it was manageable because he was only one man, and we were two very determined and underhanded broads.

  Since the two Japanese men had been less than warm and fuzzy towards us all week, we left the ship at the same time as the others to put them off guard. Of course, we didn't go all that far, and watched the ship with our binocs. When we saw them leave, we doubled back.

  Fabio was surprised to see us return so soon, but we told him everything in town was closed until noon, so we'd decided to come back and make brownies. Fabio has a soft spot for double fudge with walnuts.

  Jan's job was to keep a close eye on Fabio's whereabouts while I executed a little B&E job on Kazoo and Moto's quarters. I guess, since I had a key, it wasn't technically breaking and entering, but breaching the privacy of a fellow shipmate's quarters is morally a big no-no.

  Luckily, my morals were breached many moons ago.

  Jan and I both had handheld VHF radios with us, just in case she needed to alert me of anyone approaching the boat, or Fabio leaving the upper decks.

  I hit Kazoo's digs first, as he seemed to be the one in charge of the two-man team, and literally struck gold two minutes after entering the small cabin. Since we were all responsible for cleaning our quarters and changing our bedding, he must have felt confident enough to store the bars in such obvious spots. He had removed the stuffing from the mattresses on both bunks and stacked the bullion into them. A rolled up futon resting in the corner explained where he slept.

  When I pulled a bar through a zippered opening, I was surprised at its heft. Measuring about only two by six inches, and maybe two inches thick, it still weighed a good ten pounds or more.

  Not at all resembling the Swiss bars I lusted over on the Internet, these looked as though they'd been poured into a crude mold, but there was no doubt at all they were the real deal.

  I did a quick count through the thin cotton fabric and figured they were stacked five high, the length of a six-foot bunk. I'd do the math later, but that was one honkin' stash. It was amazing the bunks hadn't collapsed under the load. I was leaving for Moto's cabin when I spotted Kazoo's PC, open, with the screen saver—cherry blossom time in the old homeland—lit up. I jiggled the mouse, hoping for something like an email from his boss, but everything was in Kanji.

  Disappointed, I was turning to leave when the screensaver page changed, and a black and white photo of what looked to be a young Japanese soldier popped up. It would have been hard to date the photograph, had it not been for the background. He was posed, looking solemn, as they did in those days, in front of two banners: the Rising Sun, and the Swastika.

  The radio crackled, jolting me from my shock. "We have company."

  That was all the warning I needed. Carefully relocking the door, I sprinted down the companionway to my own cabin, hid my precious stash of keys, and went up to join the cookie baking.

  When I rushed into the galley, I saw Jan standing stock still, her big blue eyes bugging out of a white face. Fabio, next to her, didn't look much better. Po Thang, held firmly by his collar by both Fabio and Jan, was squirming to get free, and growling.

  "Wha...oh, hell!" I cleverly blurted as I realized that Kazoo, Moto, and of all people, Ricardo Dickless Lujàn, were in the galley.

  They had guns.

  I didn't.

  Damn.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  As I stared dumbly at the gathering of goons, goon Numero Uno spoke. "So, we meet again, Miss Coffey," Lujàn said. He sounded, to my shocked self, like the villain in a grade-B movie.

  "Much to my dismay. You practice that line a lot, Dickless?"

  His face colored, but Kazoo and Moto seemed confused by our comments, for they looked at each other.

  Moto, always the one to break silence, asked, "You are acquainted?"

  "Why, we're old buds. Matter of fact, last time I saw Dickless here, he was carting away Ishikawa-san's headless body."

  "Shut up!" Lujàn shouted, and pointed his gun—looked like a Glock—directly at me. Then, as an afterthought, he changed the barrel's direction, toward Po Thang.

  I shut up.

  Kazoo and Moto marched Jan, Po Thang, and me to my cabin, and jammed the door shut from the outside with something sturdy. I know because I put my considerable weight against it and it wouldn't budge.

  I ran for the computer to get out an email or two before someone thought to shut down the system. Too late. I was rummaging through the desk drawer for my banda ancha thumbdrive as Jan plopped down into one of my two chairs and declared, "Well, shit."

  "I couldn't have said it better, except I gave up the "s" word. By the way, you owe the cuss jar ten dollars."

  "Make it a hundred. Shit, shit, shit—"

  "Less cussin' and more doin'." I tossed her my cellphone. "Here, turn this on and see if we have any bars at all."

  I found my banda ancha thumbdrive and plugged it into the computer.

  "Is that broad band thingy gonna work out here?"

  "If you get any bars on that phone, it will. Thank the stars I paid for six months service right before I decided to come here."

  We were both quiet for a few minutes. I had my fingers on both hands crossed as I watched my hard drive light blinking. I willed it to bring up the Internet, and my Yahoo account.

  "Hetta! I got two bars."

  "Move over by the porthole, and open it."

  "Okey-dokey." She struggled with the stubborn porthole and it finally creaked open. Holding the phone near the opening, she watched the screen. "Three...four! I got four bars."

  I picked up the computer and moved next to her. "Bingo!"

  I started furiously composing a message to Jenks, Craig in Arizona, and Nacho—who was going to be royally pissed that I didn't have time to bcc his—when I heard a noise outside and just managed to push the computer under a pillow before the door swung open. Jan, who was trying to call Chino, stuffed the cell into her shorts pocket.

  The door swung open and Fabio stood there, his hands tied in front of him. Lujàn was behind him with his gun barrel nudging Fabio's neck.

  With a savage snarl he must have picked up from Animal Planet, Po Thang propelled himself from the top bunk, sailing over Jan's head and almost making it to Lujàn, who slammed the door. Poor Po Thang caromed backward with a yelp, but when I checked him for injuries, it seemed only his pride was hurt.

  Jan and I cuddled him while he continued to growl at the door.

  "Get control of your dog or I will shoot him," lily-livered Dickless squalled from
the safety of the other side.

  "Uh, him, who? Fabio, or Po Thang?"

  "I believe he means both of us, Hetta," Fabio said. He always makes my name sound like Aayy-eee-tah.

  "Hold on a moment, I'll put on his collar and leash."

  "Make it fast," Lujàn warned.

  "Get the harness and his doggie cam," I whispered to Jan. She helped me strap Po Thang in. The minicam, to the uninitiated, looks like a large dog tag.

  "Okay, he's on a leash now," I yelled.

  The door opened and, as instructed by Dickless, Fabio grabbed Po Thang's collar with both tied hands. He looked down, gave me a look of surprise and a small lip twitch. Lujàn, still standing behind him, missed both.

  Dickless motioned Fabio out the door and when I tried to follow, Lujàn stopped me with a harsh, "Stay!"

  I jumped back just as the heavy door took a swing at my nose. I was a little luckier than Po Thang had been, but it was close. "Well, Sh—"

  "Double that. What do you think they're up to?"

  "I dunno, but it can't be good."

  "When Lujàn is involved, it never is. Why the hell didn't we off him? What were we waiting for?"'

  "An opportunity that didn't send us to a Mexican jail forever?"

  "Oh, yeah, that. I—"

  "Jan? Jan? Is that you?" Chino called from Jan's pocket.

  I decided to forget the email for the moment and zeroed in on Po Thang's doggie cam. "Keep Chino on the phone. Maybe I can learn something from the camera."

  Jan talked softly with Chino in the background while I tried to see and hear everything the camera picked up. At first I saw nothing but furniture legs, stair treads, and then the bottom of the refrigerator as Po Thang strained towards it, only to be jerked back.

  "Not now," I heard Fabio say. "We have to go see all of those men on the deck."

  "Jan, Fabio says there are more men on deck."