Smugglers 4 - South Beach Heat

by Gerald McCallum

  Finally, she went out to the dock to check on things and go to work. As she looked at the boats, she thought to herself, ‘Ask me no questions, and I’ll tell you no lies, or maybe I don’t want to know.’

  Glenn got to Jim’s house and walked up to the door. There was Jim, drunk and stoned on coke. Glenn could tell he’d been up all night.

  “Your eyes look like piss holes in a snow bank. For Christ's sake, calm down! Have you checked the house and all the accounts at the bank to make sure you haven’t left any clues besides being stoned out of your mind? Jim, I told you to be cool and that the only one you have to fear is me. So throw that shit away—now! Get some sleep and get your head out of your ass. I’ll see you in a couple of days.” Glenn left for town.

  He went to the hardware store, the bank, and ran his other errands. He got back to the marina around four in the afternoon and went to see Nikki to tell her he was sorry for what he had said. While he was kissing her, a call came in. It was from the eight people on the two boats. They had started partying two or three hours ago and asked them to come down for a drink.

  “I can’t. I must get some sleep. You go ahead, Nikki, but I’ve got to go to bed every three of four days.” With that Glenn gave Nikki a long kiss and went upstairs to his bed.

  Glenn got up at around three in the morning, quietly got dressed, and went downstairs to his car. He didn’t take the Jeep that he usually drove, but his old blue four-door Ford that he only used for work. He went to Jim’s house and let himself in. There was cocaine in three or four rooms in the house and lots of beer bottles and butts everywhere. He walked quietly down the hall to where Jim was passed out. He reached behind his back to his belt and pulled out a Colt Woodsman 22 long-rifle pistol with a muffler on it, not a silencer, and shot Jim in the back of the head three times. He spent the next hour putting Jim’s tapes, his hard drive, and anything else that would tie him to Jim’s business in the trunk. He set up a delayed gas fire for the house and left.

  When he got back to the dock, he put everything in a net dive bag. He stuffed in the gloves, Colt Woodsman, hard drive, and tapes and pulled it tight. Then he went down to his boat and dropped it in the water beside his boat where the water was only fifteen feet deep. It went straight to the bottom. It was now 4:30 in the morning, so he walked quietly to his apartment, lay down, and went to sleep.

  CHAPTER 6

  At around 8:00 the next morning Nikki came out on the dock to go to work. The only people up were Mark, the “Major” and Don, having coffee on Don’s fifty-seven footer, which had an aft cabin. They all said good morning to her. She acknowledged the greeting and told Mark to finish his coffee, stating she would see him around 9 o’clock.

  She kept walking down the dock and inspected the tie down chains, the dock, and the boat ropes. Her ex-husband Bill used to get five hundred dollars to tie down a boat if a hurricane was on the way. The first time, only three people paid up. When the second one was ready to blow in, there were too many people to deal with. The first three survived the hurricane. If a boat was tied too tight in the water when the storm surge came and the water went up eight to ten feet and then down ten feet, it would tear the cleats out of the boat or sink it. The same went for house boats. This year three hurricanes had hit the mid Keys. Bill did know his shit, and so did Mark. Together the two could secure the boats so that most would survive.

  Nikki went up and had a cup of coffee with the boys. It was Cuban style, which meant thick as fifty weight oil and blacker than a well digger’s ass. It was so strong it came in shot glass size cups, and one sip got your heart pumping like you did a four-inch line of crank. About one cup was all Nikki could take or she’d stroke out.

  Nikki saw the boys step out on the dock, Bert and Ernie or Frick and Frack as some boaters called them behind their backs. She waved to them, and they replied “good morning.” She left the boat, the three boys, and that black thick shit they were calling coffee.

  She walked to the end of the dock just to look at the blue sky and ocean. Just then, Bruce, the captain of the sixty-one foot Tollycraft, started walking toward her. When he reached her, he said, “I found Auschultz dead in bed when I got on board this morning, so I called the Sheriff’s office. They’ll be here in thirty minutes.”

  “Can I help you with anything?” she asked.

  “No, I got it,” Bruce replied.

  “Do you have a number for a relative?” she inquired.

  “Yes. He gave me his sister’s phone number,” he said.

  Nikki went down the dock to where the boys were still having coffee and gave them the news. Then she went to her office to pull Auschultz’s file.

  The coroner and two cops showed up at the end of the dock. She went out to greet them and take them to the sixty-one foot Tollycraft where Auschultz was, then started back to her office. On the way there, she ran into Bobby, who lived in the four-plex, and gave him the news as well. She returned to her duplex, then went upstairs to Glenn’s and knocked on the door. He came to the door looking like he had been pulled through a knothole.

  “I came to let you know Auschultz was found dead this morning.” she said.

  “Can I be of any help?”

  “No,” she replied.

  “How about some coffee then?” he asked.

  “No, thanks. My heart is still coming out of my chest from the Cuban stuff this morning,” she said.

  Glenn poured himself some coffee in a foam cup, and they went down on the dock. By this time there were at least twenty or thirty people standing around.

  ‘God,’ Nikki thought to herself, ‘you would think they were all in the will.’ People had even come from across the bay. They walked down to see what was going on at the sixty-one footer. One cop was outside. Just then, down the dock came the renter of apartment two who was a cop in town. He just stopped to see what was going on. He was divorced, had no kids, drank a lot, and was powerless.

  Around four hours later, the coroner wheeled Auschultz out. Captain Bruce came out to tell Nikki that he had called Auschultz’s sister in New York, and that she would be here in the next two weeks. She told him to fire the cleaning lady and keep working on the boat. She ordered him to get the boat surveyed to establish value for sale.

  Nikki and Glenn went to the Marina office, and Glenn turned on the TV for the local news. They were showing Jim’s house burned to the ground. The only thing left standing was the fireplace and the chimney. They had not found Jim yet. Glenn went to find Nikki in the kitchen.

  “I’ll make us some breakfast. Bacon and eggs, okay?” she asked.

  “I have a better idea. Let’s go downtown, and I’ll buy us breakfast.”

  “Okay. Let’s go,” she agreed.

  They got into the car and headed downtown. When they walked in the restaurant, they saw two cops having coffee. One of them said he heard about Auschultz, and he told Nikki he was sorry. A news bulletin flashed on the screen from the TV on the counter. They had just found Jim’s body, and they suspected foul play. Everyone turned their attention to the TV.

  One of the diners asked, “Glenn, wasn’t that Jim guy a friend of yours?”

  “Yea, I can’t believe he’s dead. God! I knew him a long time. He always drank and smoked too much. I still can’t believe he’s gone. He wasn’t even fifty years old,” Glenn replied.

  Nikki and Glenn ate breakfast, made small talk about themselves and their neighbors, and then returned to the dock. At the end of the day they went down the dock and talked to people about the two deaths. After about two hours or so they went home, had a couple of drinks, made love, and went to sleep holding each other like they were helium balloons trying to get away.

  Morning came at around 5 a.m. for Glenn. He went upstairs and turned on the TV. No news until six so he took a shower, got dressed for the day, and then sat down with his coffee to check the news again. They had found holes in Jim’s head, but that’s all they knew for now. When the broadcast turned to other local news, Glenn went
down to Nikki’s place and got the coffeemaker set up for her. It was still early, so he didn’t turn it on. He went out onto the dock to look over his boat.

  About an hour later he went to his storage locker and loaded the interior of his boat into the Jeep. It was all white Naugahyde and like new because it had not been in the boat for years. He put it in the back of the jeep, covered it up, and returned to the dock. He went in to see Nikki, kissed her good morning, and saw she had found the coffee he had made. They kissed several more times before he went up to his apartment to change, get his mask, suction cups, and boat wax.

  Glenn went to his boat and started cleaning the sides and waxing the boat. He wanted people to get used to seeing him in the water next to his boat. He spent several hours in the water and talking to people on the dock to make sure they took notice of him in the water.

  That night about 8 o’clock he carried the interior of the boat from his jeep to his boat, and then went back to Nikki’s office to have a couple of drinks, dinner and make love. After that, they went to sleep.

  It was around 10 the next morning, when Glenn went to the boat and installed the seats and other items, then returned to his apartment to change. He got back in the water and started waxing again. At the end of the day, after seeing several people, he dove to the bottom, and retrieved the dive bag. He brought it up to the center engine and tied it to the prop. He got out, sat on his dock box, and had a beer with Patrick from the fifty-footer.

  A lot of people saw and talked to him about waxing his boat. On Friday morning Glenn went to his boat and started the two outside engines and put the fishing poles in the bimini top. He guided his boat out to open water and when he got to the “Ditch,” he cut the loop around the center prop that held the dive bag which held the tapes, hard drive, muffler and guns. He watched it disappear into 6,000 feet of water. With that done, he took off for the open ocean. He stayed out about two hours then went in and parked.

  At the same time half way down the dock, Nikki was talking to Mark and her ex, Bill. A few minutes later she went down and joined Glenn and said that Mark and Bill told her that while he was out, the two cops had come to the dock looking for him and his boat. “Oh, something about me and Jim, I suppose,” he said nonchalantly as they went into Nikki’s apartment.

  Patrick called to see if they wanted to go to dinner and asked about the other boat that pulled in. They agreed to dinner, and Nikki told him the other boat pulled out this morning and would be back next week some time. Later that evening they went to dinner, drank, and danced until the wee hours.

  When Glenn got up around 9:30 the next morning the two cops were talking to Mercedes. The town cop was there, too. Glenn took a deep breath and his coffee and went down to see what they wanted.

  “You’re Glenn, and you were Jim’s best friend, right? How did he make a living? We checked his bank records and his house. He paid cash for the house fifteen years ago and had over two million in his checking and savings, not to mention other bank accounts and several deposit boxes,” the cop said.

  “I don’t know what he did. He always cried poor mouth around me. I thought his mother left him the house,” Glenn said.

  “How long have you been here, and where do you work?” the cop asked.

  “I’ve been here about four or five years and grew up here in the Keys. My mother and dad were killed in a car wreck on Seven Mile Bridge coming back from Key West one Sunday. My parents left me a hundred grand and the house. When they died I got eight hundred a month for life from the trucker’s insurance company that killed my folks. I can give you copies if you want,” Glenn replied.

  “When was the last time you were at Jim’s house or saw him?” he asked.

  “We went fishing a week or so ago. We used to fish a lot. Mostly shark, catch and release; you know, you two live here.” replied Glenn.

  “The last time you saw Jim was when you went fishing?” repeated the cop.

  “That’s it,” said Glenn.

  “Okay. We’ll get back to you if we need to,” and they left the dock.

  Glenn thought to himself, ‘I think I’m okay.’

  Nikki had been watching from inside. She came out on the dock and walked over to Glenn and Mercedes, greeting both of them.

  “Glenn, what did they want?” asked Nikki.

  “Just when was the last time I saw Jim, that’s all,” he said.

  Glenn found it funny that the three of them were standing on the dock making small talk. He wondered if Nikki knew that Mercedes was screwing Bill, how long that had been going on, and if that had started before Cynthia. He wondered if they had ever had a threesome or thought about it. He told them he had to check his boat and walked off. He had to get out of there or he would break out laughing. All that came out of just the thought of the three of them talking on the dock.

  CHAPTER 7

  The “Major” came out and said that he had heard about Auschultz, that he was sorry and asked Nikki if he could be of any help. After delivering his condolences, he went to his car. Nikki stayed a few minutes more talking to Mercedes then went to work on the dock.

  Soon it was Sunday, and Glenn thought he would take Nikki and the people on the Pipefitter out on his boat and go bar hopping.

  They had not been out more than an hour when the first DEA boat stopped them and went through the boat from stem to stern, and from bimini top to water line. They even made Glenn blow in a device to do an alcohol test at noon. That was one of three stops that day, all with searches and questions about the guests and Jim.

  When they got back to the dock, they all went to Nikki’s apartment and had more to drink. Patrick went to get his coke. They all partook except Glenn. It was four in the morning when Patrick and his friends finally went back to their boat. Nikki and Glenn made love until the sun came up, then fell asleep in each other’s arms. Glenn didn’t wake up until 11 o’clock. When he opened his eyes, Nikki was just laying there in his arms staring at him with a tear running down her face.

  “What was that all about yesterday with the DEA, the Coast Guard, and the Water Patrol? What the hell is going on? Why are they on your shit so bad? And don’t tell me that it’s because you were Jim’s friend. Shit doesn’t go on like that if you two were just friends! Glenn, they’ve been on this dock three or four times and stopped us three times in one day. What was Jim doing or what were you and Jim doing? Look, Glenn, I’ve been in the Keys for over fifteen years, and I know smugglers when I see them. What’s going on? What happened to Jim? Where were you that night?” she said with concern.

  “I was here, asleep upstairs. I don’t know anything about Jim or his business,” replied Glenn. He took his coffee and went outside to his boat.

  On the way he ran into Dave, the cop from apartment two. It was his day off. He walked to the boat with Glenn. Glenn could smell the whiskey on his breath and saw that his glass was full, too.

  “They have your cell phone records for the past several years to see if you called Jim or any big boats at night,” Dave said.

  “They’ll see I called Jim a lot. He was my best friend, and we went fishing all the time,” exclaimed Glenn.

  Little did they know that every time Glenn went to Miami he made several stops and bought three or four Trac phones. So he never called the mother ship on his phone, and the Trac phones couldn’t be traced, and those phones got the deep six treatment on the way back from each run. He never used the same phone more than once, and they were not in his name. He always paid cash in several stores in Miami, and he never bought them at home.

  Glenn thought, ‘As far as what Dave said to me about my cell phone bills and the cops, this business is like a real high stakes Texas Hold’em game. You get more from what your adversary does and says than the cards. Empty wagons rattle the most. It’s better to be quiet than speak up and prove you’re a fool. My dad and mom were bush smugglers here, and my granddad and grandma ran rum and scotch before them. Consequently they never, that’s never talked to s
trangers as you would end up in jail.’

  Glenn took the boat out for a while and ran it at one hundred mph. Then he tied it back up. The ride felt great and gave him time to think about his next move and what the cops would do when they found nothing in his cell phone bills or his being friends with Jim. His finger prints were all over Jim’s house but they were supposed to be. He was his friend for many, many years.

  It was Saturday, and Glenn was having coffee with Nikki and several of the tenants. Dave the cop was sober and at work in town. There were five cops in the department all together including the Chief. They had very little to do. They were either old and close to retirement or young and stupid with nothing to do. Being a cop in town meant they were all badge heavy rednecks. They had grown up in the Keys, and either their grandparents, parents or themselves had been or were involved in the smuggling business. If you stopped one of these cops to ask how far Key West was, he would tell you and pull off without saying another word or even goodbye. You just didn’t talk to strangers. Someone may see you and misunderstand and take you fishing out to the Ditch. It didn’t matter who you were, what you did for a living, or who your mother and father were.

  They were all having Bloody Marys on the dock when Patrick from the Pipefitter came out to invite them out on his boat for a ride and drinks, and then maybe they would go to lunch. Everyone agreed to go.

  Nikki and Glenn went home and changed, got something for drinks, suntan lotion and then got on The Pipefitter. Glenn told Patrick what happened yesterday and advised him to take everything off the boat that wasn’t legal, the bush, crack, money or guns, and leave them in his dock box.

  When they left the dock the sun was hot, the ocean and sky were blue and the drinks flowed like water. They were only out about an hour when they were pulled over by the Water Patrol.

  Glenn knew they just didn’t do this, not to a fifty-footer or bigger, and this was a fifty-footer. They boarded, went below, and went through drawers, closets, tool boxes, everything. They rummaged around for over thirty minutes. They gave Patrick a ticket for an unlocked through hole fitting, from the holding tank to the ocean. It could only be open or unlocked while out at sea. They finally left, but everybody on board knew what was going on. They were all involved, the Water Patrol, the Coast Guard, the DEA, and the Sheriff’s Department, but not the town cops. They were too close to everybody on the Keys. They had grown up here and would tell someone, who would tell Glenn what was going on. That was why the town cops were always kept in the dark.