“Look, sweetheart, we got a big day ahead of us here. You coming or not?”
Of all the slimey things Jeremy had done, this was the worst. Carol should have known that his recent behavior of acting mildly responsible wouldn’t last.
“Hold on to your hat, Captain Ahab, I’m coming.”
Carol was wearing the latest in fashion resort jungle safari wear, featuring tight-in-the-right-places-but-with-room-to-move black safari pants and a marvelous matching top with button-down pockets and mesh venting in the back, underarm, and cleavage areas. She had a brand-new two-idol-size fanny pack, wide-brim safari hat, and a designer backpack. She was as chic as someone heading out for a day in the wild could hope to be. At least Carol thought so.
Anyway, it wasn’t so much the clothes, at least in this case, as it was the way you carried yourself. Carol held her head high and declined help in coming aboard and promptly slipped on the front deck of the boat and fell on her ass.
♦
There usually wasn’t that much available in the way of rental boats in Key West. Sam had, of course, known someone, and they were on their way toward the Ten Thousand Islands in a roomy, shallow-draft center-console skiff with plenty of power.
Butch had done a lot of belly-aching about not wanting to go, but with Jose still on vacation up in Ratword, Sam didn’t want to take anyone else from his bar staff. They were all reasonably competent, and he didn’t want to lose them. So he told Butch to quit whining and be at the marina in the morning, or else hit the pavement.
Sam had gotten the guy he rented the boat from to help him the night before loading tools he figured they might need. The weather was good, the boat was running fine, and they had plenty of gas. Sam wanted his treasure back.
♦
Carol sat in the back behind the two men and tried to keep the wind from messing up her hair. The old man here had plenty of equipment; maybe he actually knew what he was doing. She hoped so. She really wanted that third Chacmool.
Carol tried to think of all the things she was going to do with her new powers, but mostly just thought about different kinds of torture she would like to try out on Jeremy for leaving her alone with these two clowns. At first she wasn’t so worried about old Sam having a stroke or something because Butch was along. But Macho Man here was acting like he was terrified of his own shadow since they’d left Key West. Not good.
♦
Butch just about lost control of his bowels the first time a porpoise surfaced near the boat and that big dorsal fin came out of the water. He knew it was a porpoise, but it was still unnerving. Butch’s normal method of dealing with his intense fear of sharks was to just never go near the water, which, when you live on an island, wasn’t all that easy. Even when he worked at the jet-ski rental place, he wouldn’t go out on the water; he just worked the ticket counter. Working at the Pink Snapper was about as far from sharks as you could get in Key West.
He saw porpoise fins several more times, and at least once he saw something that didn’t look like a porpoise fin. He decided to just sit there in the seat next to Mr. Sam, look straight ahead, and keep a firm grip on the handholds while they were running. Butch tried to think about nice dark barrooms and asphalt parking lots. At least he was sure the old man and the cult bitch hadn’t noticed how scared he was.
♦
Sam wondered what was wrong with what’s-his-name here. The boy was always so tough acting and ready to bust heads, but he was about to shit his drawers about something out here. As long as he could dig when they got there.
He doubted the woman would be good for much except getting in the way. She had come through with the information on the house though; he had to give her that. Sam wondered if she even knew that the house itself had been gone for years. He looked over at the big guy with the big nose sitting there with a white-knuckle death-grip on the boat and a strained look on his face, and made a mental note to find a new bouncer next week.
∨ Key Weird ∧
51
Meanwhile, Back at the Motel
Jeremy had hidden under the bed when the phone first started ringing. He stayed there for a couple of hours after André had pounded on the door and told him he had an emergency phone call from a very angry woman. When he decided it was safe, he slipped out the back way of the motel and walked down the side streets to the Pink Snapper.
∨ Key Weird ∧
52
Unhappy Campers
By mid-morning, when they got to the site of the old house, there was already a two-person kayak pulled up on the shore. Sam ran the skiff up on the beach about 50 feet further down and told the other two to wait in the boat.
A couple in their twenties, a skinny guy and a chubby girl, were standing a little ways from their campsite taking turns looking through binoculars at a pair of curlews in a tree across the channel. They had already broken camp, and their gear was all packed and sitting on the ground between them and where Sam had walked up.
“I’m sorry folks, there’s no camping allowed here. I’m afraid you’ll have to leave.”
The young couple turned and stared at the old man in the big suit. The girl frowned.
“We checked with the park rangers three days ago before we came out here, and this is one of the places they said we could camp. Besides, you can see that other people have camped here.” She gave Sam a look like she wasn’t about to be taking any shit off anyone not in a park ranger uniform.
God, but Sam hated dealing with the public. He had a lot to do and didn’t need this.
“I’m sorry. I meant to say that smart-mouth little fat girls and their needle-dick boyfriends aren’t allowed to camp here.”
Sam pulled a Glock 9mm out of his shoulder holster and showed it to the couple whose mouths dropped open.
“Is that clear enough for you?”
Sam held the gun down and stepped to the side because the conversation seemed to be over. The two kayakers suddenly seemed anxious to comply with the new camping rules. They grabbed their stuff and made for the water. Sam looked around a bit at the old house site, and when he went back to the skiff, the kayak was gone.
♦
“Can we get out now? I need to take a leak, and Ironman here looks like he wants to get out and kiss the ground.” Sam motioned them to come ashore.
“Judging by the way those people left I guess it would be safe to assume you didn’t convince them to leave with your winning personality.” Carol headed for the nearest bush.
Sam ignored her and told Butch to bring the metal detector and machetes first. Butch seemed to be happy to do anything that involved being on dry land again.
∨ Key Weird ∧
53
A Cozy Cabin Waits for Mr. Small and Taco Bob
“Soup for what ails ya!”
When we got back to the cabin after our shark encounter, Mr. Small didn’t have much to say; he just moved real slow and went inside and sat there in his spot. He didn’t seem to want me fussing around him, so since it was getting dark, I hurried over to the garden in the old man’s dugout. When I got back I baited up a pole and managed to catch a little snapper before the bugs ate me up. I got a fire going in the stove and got us a pot of fish soup cooking.
The old man came over to the table and showed me in the light coming from the stove fire that he had stitched up his hand where he’d lost the finger. It looked like a good job, and the bleeding had almost stopped. He took some green paste from a bowl on the table and put it on the wound. I figured he must have made the paste while I was gone from one of the tuber things hanging from the ceiling.
Mr. Small didn’t usually eat much anyhow, mostly fruit, so I wasn’t surprised when he hardly touched the soup I set there for him. He went and sat in his spot and got real still like he was asleep.
I ate my fill and then lay there on the mat with just the little bit of light from the coals coming through the cracks in the stove. I listened to the skeeters buzzing outside the screens and thought about
the fish I had caught that morning, the tarpon, the sharks, Mr. Small, and the rest of my life. I finally drifted off, and if I had any dreams, I didn’t remember them in the morning.
♦
Something had changed with that close call with the sharks, and it wasn’t just that Mr. Small acted different. It felt like it was time for me to move on, but I stayed around with the old fella another day just because I was worried about him. I kept asking him if he was going to be all right, but he just said that he was fine, he was just a little tired.
Mr. Small stayed outside most of the night again like he had when I first come around, and I wanted to take that as a sign he was feeling better. He did finally start acting a little more like his old self, and asked me the next day if I was going to share any of that whiskey I had before I left.
I couldn’t help but look surprised, because I hadn’t told the old man I had found a pint of liquor way up in the anchor locker when I had done my boat inventory. I figured the guy I bought the boat from must have stuck it in there and forgot about it. I hadn’t said anything about leaving either.
The old man gave me the first grin I’d seen out of him in a while, and I knew he was going to be all right, and it was okay for me to go.
∨ Key Weird ∧
54
The House
The old Watson house was definitely gone all right. The whole place was mostly choked with Brazilian pepper twelve feet tall in places, but they did manage to figure out where the house used to stand. Sam had Butch carry the metal detector and chop at the jungle in places, while he struggled through the underbrush and led the way. It was hot, dirty work. Carol found some shade by the boat and kept putting on more insect repellent while she earned her keep as lookout.
♦
It was getting to be late afternoon, and in spite of the jungle, they had covered a good-sized portion of the area around where the house had stood. Sam was not a young man, and was suffering from the heat. Butch was not an old man, but was also suffering from the heat and getting real tired of carrying around the metal detector. He hoped they would find whatever it was they were looking for soon so they could get the hell out of there. He was also hoping they wouldn’t find it, because then they would get back in the boat. He didn’t even want to think about going all the way back to Key West, across all that water, in the dark.
♦
Sam let his employee take a break for a sandwich and was using the detector himself around the cistern when he got something other than another beer can. He told the big lug to get his ass over there and do some digging. They had to cut some Brazilian pepper branches out of the way, and by the time the real digging was going on, Carol was there to whine about the bugs and heat again.
Sam was getting good at ignoring her and stayed on Butch’s ass to keep digging. Butch didn’t get down very far when he hit something hard and metal. Sam couldn’t stand the suspense after all these years and got down on his hands and knees, pulled several handfuls of dirt away, and uncovered a corner of the chest. He stood up and told Butch to dig. The woman came up closer.
“Shit! That’s it, isn’t it? Is that my idol?”
She grabbed Sam by the arm, and he pushed her away and drew his gun.
“Keep it up and I’ll give you a bug bite to remember!”
Butch saw the gun and dug harder. Carol stepped back and kept her mouth shut.
“That’s enough! Now drag it out!”
Butch got a hold on the big rusty handle and strained hard getting the chest out of the hole.
“Use the shovel on it!”
A couple of hits with the shovel blade and the lid came loose. Sam holstered his gun and pushed the sweaty young man to the side. He grabbed the lid and yanked it open.
♦
Sand. Sam stuck his hands down in the sand inside the chest and all he could feel in there was sand. He pushed it over and the sand spilled out on the ground and Sam ran his hands through the sand and spread it out on the ground. There was nothing in the chest except sand. Nothing.
♦
Sam sat there for a while and stared at the empty chest. He mumbled something about how it was definitely his chest, and it was definitely empty. Then he stood up and looked in the hole for a while. He told them to gather up the tools, then started walking toward the boat like he was in a daze.
Carol decided not to say anything. She looked first in the chest, then the hole, making sure there weren’t any Golden Chacmools in there that had been overlooked. There weren’t.
Carol and Butch were heading back to the skiff when they heard gunshots up ahead. They dropped what they were carrying and ran towards the boat. Sam was there, pointing the gun at the water where the last couple of feet of a big gator were going under. The murky water was filled with bubbles and blood.
Carol stopped running when Sam turned around and faced her. He was still holding the gun.
“Jesus Christ, Sam! What the hell did you do that for?”
Sam looked pissed.
“Look, I’ve been having a real bad day, and I felt like shooting something. This just looked right, you okay with that?”
Carol turned around and went back to get what she’d been carrying. She swatted more mosquitoes and decided she wasn’t having one of her better days either.
♦
Butch followed Carol to get the stuff. It was going to be dark before they got back to Key West. It looked like nobody was having a good day.
Sam started the outboard after everything was loaded and slammed the motor in reverse to back away from the shore. Butch could still see some blood in the slow-moving water, and he had a flash of white-hot fear when he saw a big swirl, and a fin came out of the water just downstream from the boat. He really hoped it was a porpoise.
♦
The bow of the skiff came loose from the shore and the boat moved backward a few feet. The outboard jumped, made a bad noise, and stalled. Sam swore and ran the tilt up on the motor so he could see what was going on. He stepped to the back of the boat and saw a big log just under the water moving with the current and a very bent propeller on the outboard. There was no way they were going anywhere like that. Sam grabbed a hammer out of the toolbag, and motioned to his barroom bully.
“Take this and lean out over the back of the boat and try to bang that propeller back in line.”
The big guy just sat there and clutched the seat with both hands with a horrified look on his face. He stared at Sam and slowly shook his head. It obviously was going to take more than a gun to get him to lean out over the edge of the boat. Carol had moved to the front and seemed to be trying to look inconspicuous.
“I’ve got to do everything around here, don’t I?” Sam grabbed the outboard with one hand and leaned way out over the stern but couldn’t get a good angle with the hammer. He looked back at what’s-his-name sitting there with a death-grip on his seat.
“Brian, pull yourself together! Come over here and grab hold of my belt and – ” Sam’s hand slipped on the outboard’s cowling and he was in the water. The boat had drifted out, away from the shore, and was slowly moving along with the current. Sam hadn’t done any swimming in years, but it came right back and he splashed his way over to the boat. At least from the water, he had the right angle and started banging on the propeller with the hammer.
“Goddamn it, Butch, I told you to – ”
Suddenly, Sam was gone. He just disappeared under the water. Carol was on her feet and headed for the back of the boat. About ten feet away, a foot came out of the dark water, then a big fin, then a hand. There was a lot of blood in the water. The water boiled with shark fins and shark tails, and then it was over.
Carol stood on the back seat of the boat with her hands on her hips.
“Well, that sucks! He did say he was having a bad day. I guess he was right!"
Butch started to cry. Carol came over and patted him on the shoulder.
“Don’t be sad, at least he got your name right finally. What t
he hell’s wrong with you anyway? Haven’t you ever seen anyone eaten by sharks before? Didn’t you ever see the movie Jaws?”
Butch lay down on the floor of the boat and went into the fetal position, sobbing uncontrollably. Carol stood there looking down at him.
“Hmm, guess not. Oh well.”
She got her cellphone out of her backpack and punched the number for the Monroe County Sheriff’s Department, which she’d thought to write down on the cellphone cover. She hadn’t thought to check her calling plan range, however, and while Butch sobbed and the boat drifted, she ran the battery down trying in vain to get something besides a dial tone.
♦
It was a hellish night on the boat. The mosquitoes were out in full force as soon as it started getting dark. The bites were bad, but the incessant buzzing was maddening. Then, if things weren’t bad enough, a thunderstorm blew in and they got soaked from the rain.
Butch refused to acknowledge Carol and spent the night lying on the floor of the boat, curled up in his own nightmares, sobbing and moaning. The boat was drifting out the river slowly, and Carol tried to cover her head with a towel as she lay on the front deck. The hard fiberglass was uncomfortable enough, and the bugs made sleep almost impossible. Sometime during the night Carol took the fanny pack off and did a little whimpering of her own before falling into a fitful sleep.
∨ Key Weird ∧
55
More Good-byes for Taco Bob
“I’m sure gonna miss the ol’ fella!”
Mr. Small and me sat up late that last night, sipping whiskey and talking by the light of the stove there in the cabin, listening to the thunder from a storm off in the distance, and me trying to do a better job of listening overall. He showed me his left hand where he’d lost the little finger, and it looked like it was going to heal as well as could be expected.
Key Weird 01; Key Weird Page 15