“Time to wake up, Sleepy Head!” Sam had never been so mad at another human being.
Mikey groaned and opened his eyes. He tried to sit, then realized he was tied-up and in trouble.
“What’s going on? What the fuck’s going on here?”
Sam sat back down and dropped a chunk of ’cuda in the clear blue water. He was just barely able to control his rage, but tried to keep his voice calm.
“I need you to tell me what you did with my treasure. No bullshit old man. Just tell me where it is.”
Sam dropped two more bloody hunks of fish over the side.
The old crabber was coming awake fast now, and was trying to size up the situation. He was scared, and his eyes showed it.
“Shit, Mister! Look, you got the wrong guy, I don’t know anything about no gold!”
Sam shook his head and sighed. He grabbed Mikey by the hair and stuck his head over the side so he could see the big bull sharks that were swimming just a few feet from the boat now. Sam let loose of the old man’s hair, and Mikey fell back and hit the back of his head hard on the floor of the boat.
Sam dumped the rest of the barracuda over the side and grabbed a leg.
The old crabber was so terrified he could hardly talk. “I, I m-moved it!”
“Tell me where!” Sam held a bare foot over the side of the boat, his arms shaking with rage. Mikey lost control of his bladder and a dark stain moved over his pants.
“Jesus Christ, Mister! I’ll tell you! I hid it at the house where – ”
A seven-foot bull shark stuck its head out of the water and clamped razor-sharp teeth into Mikey’s foot a split second before the crabber started screaming and thrashing around in the bottom of the boat. Sam held on to the leg with both hands, but the shark shook its head and was gone with most of the old man’s foot. Mikey was screaming his head off, kicking Sam with what was left of his feet, getting blood all over him and everything else. Sam got his belt off and pulled it tight around the bloody leg so Mikey wouldn’t bleed to death.
Mikey stopped screaming and struggling. He’d had a heart attack and was dead.
♦
Sam carefully checked the shack and the area around it that day, trying not to make it look like someone had disturbed anything. People forgot about the missing crabber after a few weeks. Sam came back and took Mikey’s shack completely apart, then dug under and around where it had been. He used a metal detector and searched every square inch of the island, even the area around the island at low tide.
He kept track of any treasure that came on the open market over the years, but there was never a trace of anything from the missing chest until he saw Jeremy’s picture of the Golden Chacmool.
∨ Key Weird ∧
37
Gretta
Gretta just about shit when she saw Carol. She was well into her first set of the evening, and down to her silver g-string and long gloves when the head of the Spider Cult came in the side door with Butch. Carol was dressed like a Frederick’s of Hollywood model, which was different from the usual sexless baggy clothes that Charlie had made his girls wear. But then, Gretta was sporting a different look as well, at least at the moment.
♦
Gretta was twenty seven, and had been living with Charlie since she was nineteen. She’d been on the run from an abusive boyfriend and an even worse family situation, when she went with a friend to one of his early lectures. Charlie had taken her in and patiently taught her about sorcery and sex. Gretta had seen a lot of women come and go in the group since then. He’d been great at first, but soon tired of her, as he was always looking for someone new. She stuck it out with Charlie, though, even when he became a major control freak as his little harem grew.
When Charlie died in such a horrible way, Gretta bolted. She just wanted to get away from the Spider Cult and everything to do with it. She didn’t have a passport or much money, so she looked at a map and determined the place farthest from LA in the US with decent weather. She rode buses until her money ran out, then hitchhiked the rest of the way to Key West.
♦
After the initial shock of seeing Carol, Gretta tried to keep her long red wig over her face until her former fellow Witchette went into the back with Butch. She’d cut her already short hair down to almost nothing and had even been using a different name, her real name, since she left California.
Carol had looked her way and started coming over once, but luckily Butch had stopped her. Gretta had no idea how she’d been tracked, and it was creeping her out, bad. To top it all off, the little bald guy in the boots that always sat up front was suddenly looking a lot like a guy she’d seen Charlie talking to a couple of times.
Gretta wasn’t going to hang around to see how this played out, either. Jose was leaving in the morning to take his wife and kid to Disneyworld for a few days. She could probably catch a ride with them, maybe get a job in Orlando. She was going to hate to leave Key West, but she wouldn’t miss this sleazy job. She would miss the people she had gotten to know at the bakery, and she was especially going to miss Taco Bob.
∨ Key Weird ∧
38
Sam and Carol’s Meeting
Neither Carol nor Sam were happy with the way their little meeting was going.
Sam had decided that this woman with her chest about to explode out of a black lacy top didn’t have the golden idol from his long-lost treasure. Sam knew she was the head of some kind of cult out in California, so there was no telling what she wanted with another Chacmool or where she had gotten the first one, the one in the picture. She might even have a whole collection of the things for all he knew.
The woman said she’d inherited it from her uncle, who had bought it years ago in Mexico. Before he died, he’d told her there was another one that had gone down in a Spanish treasure ship around Florida.
She said it had been her uncle’s dying wish that she find the other Chacmool, and she was prepared to pay better than the market price for it. When Sam asked her why her uncle would have wanted her to have two Chacmools, she said, in a matter-of-fact way like it was really obvious, “So I would have a pair, of course.”
This broad didn’t have his idol or she wouldn’t be here trying to buy it. Sam didn’t trust her any farther than he could throw her, and if it came to that, he’d have Buster do it for him.
♦
Carol was pretty sure the old fart didn’t have her Chacmool, but he was sure interested in it. He must have at least seen it before. She wondered what he would do if she pulled out one of the Chacmools she had in her purse. No way Carol trusted this guy enough to do that though.
She had offered to pay the big bucks for the piece, but that didn’t even get a rise out of the geezer. Carol sure hated to spend the money, she’d hoped to get the last Chacmool on the cheap. But she figured once she had all three she could control anyone she wanted, that is, after she learned how to do this lucid dreaming stuff. Then whenever she wanted to do some shopping, she’d just have some billionaire slip her a few million.
But things weren’t going anywhere fast here, so Carol decided to make a gesture.
“Look, Mr. Turbano. I want the idol, and you seem to know something about it. Why don’t we work together on this? I might have resources that could help find the piece. If we find it, I would at least pay you a finder’s fee.”
♦
Sam thought he could probably find out more of what Carol knew by slapping her around some, but the way women were these days, she’d probably get all uppity and not want to cooperate. He didn’t trust this fancy bitch, but he didn’t have any better ideas. He decided to throw her some bait and see where she ran with it.
“There was a crabber up the road at Marathon years ago named Mikey Smith. Rumor has it; he sold a gold necklace in a bar up there, a necklace that might have been from a treasure find. He disappeared and nobody has heard from him since.”
Carol seemed to be giving that some thought.
“Did he have a w
ife, or girlfriend, or any relatives around here?”
It was Sam’s turn to do some thinking. He’d been careful not to do much asking around after Mikey had fed the sharks that day. A few months later he found out that the old crabber might have had some relative, a young girl, but she’d left town and the fisherman who told Sam about it didn’t remember her name. He hadn’t thought about that in years.
“I think there was a girl, a cousin or niece that lived around here, but I don’t know her name or what ever happened to her.”
Sam was lost in thought when Carol got impatient on him all of a sudden.
“That’s it? A missing crabber with maybe a cousin who might have had a gold necklace? Is that all you’ve got?”
Sam saw red. He glared at the cult bitch and she started backing down.
“Okay! That’s something! Don’t blow a tube here! I’ll see what I can do with that and get back to you.” She got up and headed for the door. Sam cleared his throat.
“There is one other thing. He might have hidden something around a house, but not the house where he lived.”
♦
Carol left Sam’s office and found Jeremy holding up a dollar bill to another dancer. The loud music made conversation difficult, so she decided to forgo formal greetings and just grabbed the little worm by the ear and headed for the door. Once outside, Carol decided that the best short-term solution to everything was to kick Jeremy’s ass.
♦
She figured it was just poor judgment, or poor timing, maybe both. A police car cruising by the Pink Snapper mistook Carol, an obvious woman of class, for a perp while she was strangling Jeremy with her bare hands. It took some explaining, but Jeremy saved himself even worse problems in the future by explaining to the redneck cops that Carol was his boss and it was all right.
“Really, Officer, she does this all the time! It’s like, part of my job description!” Jeremy came up with a marginally earnest smile.
The cops finally left, and Carol calmly strolled through the evening tourists down Duval Street with Jeremy so she could find a more secluded spot to finish strangling the little slacker.
Some sort of primeval survival instinct must have triggered inside Jeremy. He was suddenly interested, trying to be helpful, so Carol told him about Mikey Smith the crabber, the necklace, and the young girl. Telling him made her realize just how little she had so far. Maybe check around town and see if there was anyone else who knew the treasure scene. Do some checking somehow on the old crabber.
She decided to deal with Jeremy later. Right now she just wanted a good meal and a long, relaxing bath. Carol got a taxi and told Jeremy to get her bags sent over to her suite at the Hilton.
As the taxi dodged roving bands of gaudily dressed tourists, she wondered what you had to do to get laid in this town.
∨ Key Weird ∧
39
Daltons
A rusty old pick-up truck. Two ex-cons pulled up to a traffic light on Duval Street. The driver was a small man. He looked over at his partner.
“Let’s go over it again. What are you going to say if anyone asks what we’re doing in Key West?”
The big man stopped eating out of a grease-stained paper bag, his face showed deep concentration.
“I don’t say nothing! If anybody asks me anything, I…I don’t say a damn thing!” He gave a proud smile and took another bite out of a burrito.
“Yeah, Lenny, that’s real good. Maybe next you could remember not to talk with your mouth full.”
George looked at the big bear of a man next to him dribbling food down the front of his shirt.
“I don’t know how you can eat those things. God knows what that old guy with the shower cap puts in ’em.”
The light changed and they crept along slowly with traffic. The big man sucked down the last of his food and licked his fingers. He narrowed his eyes, looked around cautiously, and went to a conspiratory whisper.
“George, are we gonna steal furniture and rob people again, like we did before we went to prison?”
The little man gave him a fierce look. “I TOLD you not to say that! We did our time, at least most of it, but we’re free men now. We’re going to make a new start!” George pushed his hair back with his fingers and smoothed it out with the palm of his hand; the big man copied his movements exactly.
“Okay, so things didn’t go too good in Miami. Taco Bob wasn’t there, and we had a few tough breaks, but I’ve got a new plan. As soon as we kill Taco Bob, we’ll try out this sweet new scheme I been working on. In fact, maybe we’ll even give her a try right away.”
This seemed to make the little man happy, which made the big man happy. Lenny waded up the empty food bag and dropped it out the window, one hand going into his pocket. George noticed.
“What have you got in that pocket?” The big man looked pained. He slowly pulled his hand out, but kept it closed.
‘It ain’t but a little stone crab, George! I was just petting it! I ain’t hurting nothing, it’s already dead!”
The little man rolled his eyes and gave his partner a disgusted look. “It’s gonna start to stink!” He held his hand out as he stopped at a light in front of a T-shirt shop.
“Give it here, Lenny, right now!”
The big man looked like he was about to burst into tears, but handed over the crab. As soon as it touched George’s hand, he flung it out the window towards the crowded sidewalk.
“Jesus H. Fucking Christ! It’s already starting to smell! I don’t know why I put up with you sometimes, Lenny!” The big man wanted to say something to calm his partner in crime. “Is it because I can carry furniture out of houses so good?”
“I told you to forget about that! I got a plan, a good plan this time. I got the idea while I was working in the prison library. There’s a lot of writers living in Key West, right?”
∨ Key Weird ∧
40
Mama Rosa
Mama Rosa had moved to Key West twenty years earlier with her husband Georgio. Georgio was semi-retired and sold a little real estate. It wasn’t a great life, the cost of living was high, and there never seemed to be quite enough money at the end of the month. It got too hot in the summer, and every winter the island got a little more crowded with tourists.
But they were comfortable, and they were happy to be away from the winters of Dayton. When Georgio had passed on suddenly three years ago, Mama Rosa started telling fortunes a few nights a week in the back room of a T-shirt shop. She’d read a book once on fortune telling, and since Key West was the place where people were known to try just about anything once, she’d decided to give it a shot. It still wasn’t a great life, but at least she wasn’t in Dayton.
♦
The little bald guy who just left had been different from the usual tourist that would slap down twenty bucks to be told there was romance/sex/money/adventure just around the next corner. This guy had some story about treasure and was looking for a crabber who had disappeared years ago. Said he’d been standing out front, thinking about the crabber and looking at the Fortune Teller sign, when a crab hit him in the back of the head. So he came in for a reading.
She told him he’d meet a beautiful woman who would fulfill his deepest desires. He said he already knew that, but she wasn’t all that beautiful, and she better fulfill his deepest desires for what he was paying her. What he really wanted was for the fortune teller to use her psychic powers to find this crabber guy.
So Mama Rosa told him it would be expensive, and he went for it. She got the information and a deposit and figured she’d give her nephew, the private detective in Miami, a call in the morning.
∨ Key Weird ∧
41
Saying Goodbye to Taco Bob
“And I was having such a damn good time too!”
I wasn’t always an aspiring amateur gourmet chef, but since watching a few cooking shows on TV, I’d been trying out a few new things.
Mary Ann was off working at the club, so I was
deep-frying myself some Bahamian mango-grunt loaf for dinner when Pete come by to tell me he got a new job and was leaving town.
“This fella from North Carolina I was talking to down at the marina a couple weeks ago called this morning and made me a hell of a offer. We’d talked a bit about me working for him when he was here, but I hadn’t give it much thought since.
“Man calls this morning and says his boat captain quit sudden-like on him, and said he needed me up there right away for a big fishing tournament coming up. I checked the man out with some folks here. The guy’s got a good reputation, and two first-class boats up there. It sounds like a helluva deal TB. I’m packed and flying out first thing in the morning.”
I was sorry to hear Pete was leaving, but I was proud for him to be getting the chance to make some good money for a change.
The grunt loaf turned out crispy with a palatable bouquet, but a little dry, so we decided to have a drink, especially since it looked to be the last we’d be seeing each other for a while. So, it was off to Capt. Tony’s for a few laughs, the Green Parrot for the ambiance, Schooner’s for the music, and Sloppy Joe’s for tradition. After the bars closed we shared a bottle of Jack down at the beach, standing knee-deep in the water and singing old possum-rancher songs in the moonlight. We got a cab to the airport before dawn, and just like that, ol’ Pete was off on his way to a new life in North Carolina.
I got back to the house just as the sun was coming up. I was feeling a little down and just wanted to get me some sleep, and get on with my own life. I got up to the front door and it was already open a little. Sure enough somebody had gone through the place and tore it up real good and stole a bunch of stuff.
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