Predator in the Keys

by Matthew Rief

  “Just shut up and open the gate,” Buck snapped. “I’ve got a delivery.”

  The young guy stared with wide eyes for a few seconds. They’d developed a certain system, a standard way of handling business between their group and the reclusive Gladesmen. This wasn’t the way their business was supposed to be conducted.

  Dreadlocks shook his head. “Darby isn’t going to like this.”

  “He’s going to like this,” Buck growled, grabbing the black duffle on the seat beside him and hoisting it into view. “Now open the damn gate.”

  He took a step back, then raised a finger, signaling for Buck to wait a minute. He reached into his pocket, pulled out a cellphone, then pressed a speed dial number. He moved a few more steps away from the gate so Buck couldn’t hear his conversation. Less than thirty seconds after grabbing his phone, he hung up and moved back over to the fence.

  He replaced the cellphone with a jingling set of keys in his pocket, then unlocked the gate. In the distance, Buck could see one of the warehouse’s garage doors rise up.

  “Pull into the warehouse,” the young guy said after pulling the squeaky gate open.

  Buck flipped the guy off as he accelerated past. He rolled into the dark warehouse, stopped beside a black Chrysler 300, then killed the engine. The manually operated garage door slammed shut behind him. Dim light bled in from a nearby office window. Aside from that, the place was pitch black.

  He turned to look at Martha in the backseat. She had duct tape pressed tight to her mouth. It wrapped around her head twice, flattening her dark curly hair to the back of her neck. Buck had cut off the backseat nylon seat belts and used the strong fabric to bind her wrists and ankles together.

  “Not a sound out of you,” he said.

  He grabbed the duffle bag and stepped out. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust in the darkness. The guy who’d operated the garage door was at his back, but Buck didn’t even acknowledge him. Instead, the rough killer strode confidently straight into a small office.

  There was an old leather couch on one side. Two women lay on it, smoke rising from a few old joints resting in a tray on the table beside them. An old white guy with wrinkled skin and colorful tattoos up his neck sat at a desk. It was clear aside from a stack of papers and a ballpoint pen.

  The old guy rose right as Buck walked through the door.

  “Well, Bucky,” the old guy said. “You’re having a bad fucking day.”

  His voice was raspy, the product of years of inhaling tobacco fumes.

  “I don’t have time for small talk, Darby,” Buck said. He walked over to the desk and dropped the duffle bag right in the old guy’s face. “There’s twenty pounds there. That’s two hundred big ones if you want it. Now”—Buck leaned over the desk and narrowed his gaze—“fork over the cash so I can get the hell out of here.”

  Darby stared with unflinching eyes back at Buck. After a lifetime of crime, he wasn’t intimidated easily. He leaned back in his chair, stuck his tongue against the inside of his cheek, and shook his head.

  “You don’t know your place, redneck,” he replied.

  He raised a hand and snapped his fingers.

  In an instant, the young guy with dreadlocks appeared in the doorway. The two women sat up on the couch and stared at Buck.

  “You come storming into my house unannounced,” Darby said. “Desperation oozing out of your fat body. You’ll take twenty grand for the coke. That’s the discounted rate for pissing me off.”

  There was a brief moment of silence. The two hardened men stood facing each other as if engaged in a Wild West standoff. The tension in the room was so thick it made it difficult to breathe.

  Buck gritted his teeth, then raised his hands in the air and lowered his head.

  “Where’s the money?” Buck said, agreeing to the new deal.

  Darby shot Buck an evil smile. He swiveled his leather chair around and opened the safe behind him. Grabbing a stack, he turned around and dropped it on the desk.

  Buck extended his right hand before Darby could lock up the safe. The old guy hesitated a moment, then accepted.

  “You always were a terrible businessman,” Darby said. “Consider this the end of our working relationship.”

  As soon as Buck’s hand slipped away, he snatched the pen from the desk and stabbed it into Darby’s left eyeball. The small tip sank deep into the soft, gooey organ. Blood dripped out and Darby’s head jerked back. He let out a shrill cry and pressed his hands up to his face.

  With the smooth, quick action of a trained killer, Buck snatched the revolver from his hip. He spun around and put a bullet through Dreadlocks first. The young guy was raising a handgun of his own when the lead struck his chest and knocked his body back through the door frame behind him. The two women on the couch screamed for only a brief moment before being silenced by two more quick shots.

  Darby continued to yell and curse as blood dripped down his face, splashing onto the weathered wood surface and staining the papers. He reached for the shotgun he kept stowed under the desk. Just as his hands gripped the handle, Buck wrapped his left hand around his neck and jerked his body up over the desk. The shotgun rattled to the concrete floor. Darby looked up in desperation, the pen still stuck halfway into his face.

  “You should have taken my offer,” Buck grunted. “Now, I’m taking everything.”

  Buck slammed the handle of his revolver against his ear. Darby let out another yell and continued to shake from shock and pain. He was an experienced drug dealer, but he’d made one very costly mistake. He’d underestimated the power of desperation.

  Buck stormed around the desk, kicking the shotgun across the room. He unzipped the duffle bag and emptied out all the coke onto the floor. Then he replaced the drugs with stacks of cash. He loaded up everything in the safe as well as the twenty thousand on the counter, then zipped it back up.

  Throwing the bag over his shoulder, he looked down at Darby, watching as he struggled to breathe in a pool of his own blood.

  “Consider this the end of our working relationship,” Buck said.

  The old guy looked up at Buck, dark red covering half of his face.

  Buck raised his revolver a few inches, then pulled the trigger, sending a round exploding into the struggling man’s forehead. Buck gave a sinister smile as his head turned into a grotesque mess of blood, skin, and bone.

  Casually, Buck wiped his brow and holstered his revolver. He crouched down, searched Darby’s pockets, and snatched a ring of keys. Grabbing the duffle, he strode back to the door, stepped over Dreadlocks’ lifeless body, and headed to the Chrysler parked beside the park ranger SUV.

  He set the cash-filled duffle in the passenger seat, then popped open the trunk. Stepping back over to the SUV, he pulled open the side door and grabbed Martha by her shoulder forcefully.

  “Get out,” he said sternly.

  She shifted over and he practically pulled her down to the ground. He forced her into the trunk. She could barely fit in the fetal position, and before Buck slammed the door, he reminded her that if she made any noise, she’d be dead.

  Once the trunk was shut, he opened the garage door, then plopped down in the driver’s seat and started up the engine. Putting it in reverse, he backed out, then flicked on the headlights. At the entrance, he hit the gas and broke through the gate. He drove toward US-1 but pulled over to the curb of a side street before turning onto it.

  He didn’t know why he’d pulled over. Glancing to his right, he stared at the duffle bag, which contained over a hundred grand in cash. The best move would be to make a break for Mexico. To get in the car and drive around the Gulf.

  The engine was running. It hummed in front of him. All he had to do was hop on the road and turn left, so why couldn’t he?

  Their faces—he couldn’t get them out of his mind. He saw his brothers as clearly as if they were still alive. They haunted him from the grave and drove him mad. But they weren’t the only faces he saw.

  There wa
s also the guy who’d been responsible for everything. Logan fucking Dodge, the guy he’d wrestled with in Hells Bay. The one who’d tracked them down, discovered their hideout, and rained hell upon him and his brothers.

  He needed to make things right. To settle the score. He needed to avenge his brothers’ deaths.

  He sat in silence, thinking back to his radio conversation with Eli Hutt. It took him a minute, but then it all came back to him.

  Logan Dodge. Lives in Key West. Keeps his boat at Conch Harbor Marina.

  His foot pressed the gas pedal. He drove forward, then turned onto US-1, heading south.

  THIRTY

  We weighed anchor at 1400 and motored back toward Key West. The wind had picked up to four knots, but the sky was mostly clear and it was still a beautiful day out on the water. Ange was wearing a turquoise bikini and lying on a sprawled-out towel up on the bow. Jack was napping on the sunbed behind me, and Pete was sitting at the dinette, going over a few underwater pictures he’d taken.

  As I piloted us past the Eastern Dry Rocks, I heard a sharp whistle. Turning my head, I spotted a white-hulled Privateer Pilothouse roughly a quarter mile off our port bow. There was a guy dressed in full scuba gear standing on the boat’s swim platform. He whistled again, then waved at us.

  Ange propped herself on an elbow. Her bronzed skin was covered in oil and sparkled under the tropical sun. She turned back to look at me through a pair of dark sunglasses and laughed.

  I was used to such behavior. Being married to a woman as beautiful as Ange means I’ve witnessed a whole lot of guys giving her attention. Whistles, waves, hey babys—they’re all part of the deal. They almost always lay off when they find out she’s married. Rarely do I have to step in and tell the unwanted solicitor to take a hike.

  I turned the wheel slightly to starboard and picked up speed.

  She’s not interested, pal.

  I laughed and smiled back at Ange.

  “Hey, that’s Cal!” Jack said over the roar of the engines and the gusts of wind.

  I turned back to look at my friend, watched as he sat up on the sunbed. Looking back over the port gunwale, I saw that the diver was still waving and whistling away. I eased back on the throttles, wondering if maybe his friend was in trouble of some kind.

  Jack waved back, then slid his bare feet onto the deck beside him.

  “Logan, turn around, bro,” Jack said, moving his lean frame effortlessly up beside me. “That’s Cal Brooks. Looks like he found something.”

  I eased us down to thirty knots, then performed a big, sweeping turn.

  “He owns the Conch Republic Dive Shop, right?” I said.

  “Yeah. We’ve known each other for years. He operates out of Boot Key.”

  I nodded. I’d met Cal once or twice in passing at various places in the islands. His charter was small but had a good reputation.

  I motored over alongside Cal’s boat, Zig-Zag, then idled the engines. A young guy wearing a Panama hat was at the helm of the privateer. The main deck had been customized to take out diving groups, with benches on the sides and tank holders against the transom. Cal was still standing on the swim platform. He was a short middle-aged man with an impressive belly.

  “What’s up, Cali?” Jack said. “You need me to help set up your dive gear for you? That second stage goes in your mouth, by the way.”

  Cal had his mask hanging around his neck and his regulator hanging over his shoulder.

  “No, I was gonna offer some carbs for your bony ass,” he retaliated. “This breeze is gonna take you with it any second.”

  Jack laughed. “No charter today?”

  “Nope. Just out for fun. I called you guys over ’cause an eagle ray just swam by.”

  Jack turned to look over at me, his eyes wide. The large majestic fish was one of Jack’s favorites.

  “Hey, Logan,” Cal said. “Good to see you. The ray was swimming south when we saw it just a few minutes ago.”

  I told him it was good to see him too, then thanked him.

  “Having dinner at Joe’s later if you guys wanna join us,” he said as we motored off.

  Sloppy Joes was a landmark in Key West. The bar and restaurant had been a favorite hangout spot of Hemingway, who’d owned a house just down the street from it.

  Jack thanked Cal again, then I accelerated us south. After a few minutes, Ange shouted from the bow.

  “There it is!” she said, pointing down at the water.

  I glanced at the dash. We were only in about thirty feet of water. It would make sense for one of us to stay at the controls rather than drop anchor.

  “I’ll take the helm on this one,” Pete said, reading my mind.

  We switched places and he used the fish finder to track the ray. In less than a minute, we had our fins on and our masks strapped. We splashed down ahead of the ray and finned toward the bottom. Jack had been smart and pocketed a few dive weights. Combined with his zero body fat, he sank to the bottom like a rock.

  Moments after we reached the sandy seafloor, the massive ray came soaring into view like a B-2 stealth bomber with white spots. Spotted eagle rays are usually seen in shallower waters in the Keys, gliding along while slowly flapping their large pectoral fins, which jut out like wings. They can grow up to nine feet long and eight feet wide and can weigh over five hundred pounds.

  The incredible creature swam right by us, then continued on, gliding right over a shallow patch reef. It was a breathtaking sight. I’d seen eagle rays before, but never that close. With the show over, we looked around briefly at the sand and seagrass around us, then finned for the surface. I made a mental note to buy Cal a drink that night at Joe’s as I broke the surface.

  “How awesome was that?” Jack said.

  “That was enormous,” Ange added.

  We swam over to the Baia, which was idling beside us. Pete was at the helm, but he wasn’t looking at us. He had the radio pressed up against his ear and was staring through the windscreen. As we neared the boat, he turned around and lowered the radio.

  “I got Jane on the line,” he said.

  Jane Verona was with the Key West Police Department. She’d been chosen as the temporary sheriff until the city went about picking a replacement for Charles Wilkes. Charles, a career homefront patriot and a good friend of mine, had been killed by Carson and her Darkwater thugs four months ago.

  “What is it?” I said.

  Pete paused a moment. He looked uncomfortable.

  “It’s not good,” he said.

  I didn’t even bother moving over to the swim platform. I kicked, wrapped my hands over the top of the starboard gunwale, and pulled myself up out of the water in one quick motion. Sliding out of my fins, I set them on the deck. Pete cranked up the radio’s volume, allowing us to hear the thirty-six-year-old Latina.

  “I’ve got everyone listening in, Jane,” Pete said. “What happened?”

  “There’s been a serious incident in Tavernier,” she said. Her tone was hard, her voice articulate even through the radio speaker. “Four people were murdered at Blue Sky Boatyard.” She paused a moment, letting the information sink in. “It’s clear that the assailant is the same guy you tracked down in the Everglades. Buck Harlan.”

  I shook my head, then looked out over the water. I’d had a bad feeling deep in my gut ever since he’d escaped on his airboat the previous day. At once, the worst-case scenario became a reality.

  “Who were the victims, Jane?” Pete asked.

  “From the looks of things, a group of drug dealers that law enforcement has been tracking here for some time now. Looks like this Buck guy was here to make a deal. For one reason or another, shit hit the fan. Then Buck left his stacks of cocaine and made off with a safe full of cash.”

  Holy shit.

  We went quiet a moment. Ange moved over and sat down beside me.

  “Guess you were right about the coke, Pete,” she said.

  “It gets worse,” Jane said. “I talked to Mitch Ross from the park
s service, and he told me that the ranger vehicle at the scene of the crime was issued to Martha Green. Mitch said that she didn’t show up to work this morning and that she wasn’t in her trailer.”

  I pictured the woman in my mind and gritted my teeth in anger. I’d just seen her the previous day at the visitor center in Flamingo. It didn’t look good for her. If by some miracle she was still alive, she’d be in bad shape.

  Pete looked down at the deck and said, “Wait a minute, if he left the vehicle, how did he get out of there? He take one from the guys he killed?”

  “Looks that way,” Jane said. “And we don’t know where he went after that. We have teams on the loose, looking everywhere for him. We also have a police inspection on US-1 in Key Largo. Coast Guard’s on alert as well. We’ll get him, you guys. We have to get him.”

  Pete lowered the radio, then glanced over at us.

  “So this asshole not only makes it out,” Jack said, “but he kidnaps a park ranger in the process, then murders a bunch of people.” He shook his head. “Can this guy’s rap sheet get any damn longer?”

  He was standing with his back to the transom, hands on his hips. We were all upset, and rightfully so. I’d felt a surge of anger swell up during the call but had quelled it and was running everything over in my mind logically.

  I stood up, grabbed a towel from the dinette seat, and handed it to Ange.

  “It’s time we finished what we started,” I said. “The longer this guy stays alive, the more people are gonna die.”

  Ange nodded as she toweled off. “Agreed.”

  “At least the feds have geography to their advantage,” Pete said. “There’s only one road in or out of the Keys. He might have a hard time with their blockade.”

  “Unless he hauled ass out of here right after killing those people,” Jack said, playing devil’s advocate. “If that’s the case, he could be anywhere.”

  “The only reason he could have to come here would be to get that money,” Ange said. “He’s probably gonna try and make a run for South America, right, Logan?”