Stairway to the Bottom - a Mick Murphy Key West Mystery

by Michael Haskins

  “You wouldn’t believe me.”

  He bitch-slapped my face and I tasted blood. I wished I had a mouthful of it when I’d spit at him and, as if he was reading my thoughts, he moved back a step or two.

  “There are a lot of people who think you know. Why is that?”

  “The foreigners?”

  “And the CIA.”

  He had been keeping score. A lot of people had.

  I made a half attempt to laugh. Pain to a man who thinks he’s going to die is a reminder that he’s still alive. In that sense, the pain felt good. I held onto the slim hope that Norm would find me but knew I had a better chance skating on thin ice.

  “They aren’t looking for Doyle.”

  He bitch-slapped me again. “I know they’re looking for him.”

  “They’re looking for an old spy that got away with diamonds.” I tried another laugh but it sounded like a grunt.

  “They couldn’t care less about Bulger.”

  “They’re looking for Doyle.” He backhanded me hard across my nose and I swallowed more blood.

  “They think Doyle is the spy. You know, I thought you guys didn’t find Bulger because you were covering up. Now I think you couldn’t find your ass in a dark room.”

  His punch hit my left eye and I saw stars. It was then that I realized I wasn’t afraid of dying. Living scared me. The dreams I’d have every night of Tita dying, scared me. Dying would bring peace.

  “That the best you got asshole?” I yelled.

  He signaled Agent Ryan and the other agent and they lifted me from my chair.

  “You tell us where Doyle is or I beat it out of you. Your choice,” Agent Gallagher said through clenched teeth.

  The driver of the SUV handed him a pair of gloves. Agent Gallagher put them on and smiled.

  “I’ve got all night,” he said

  “What time is it?”

  He hit me in the gut while the two men held me up. I felt blood drip down my cheek and thought it must have come from my eye. I closed the damaged eye and realized it hadn’t been opened. It had swollen shut.

  “Sun comes up…you’re gonna wish…we never met.” The words fumbled out of my mouth.

  He punched me in the mouth and I spit blood. The one victory I could have would be to die before he realized I knew nothing about Doyle. That would leave him wondering and he would have to live with the doubts. A small victory but I knew he planned to kill me eventually, so I was willing to take whatever came.

  I shook my head and blood dripped from my open mouth. My nose had to be broken because I couldn’t breathe through it. I breathed through my mouth. My swollen left eye threw my vision off. I laughed to myself because I really felt like warmed over shit but Agent Gallagher thought I was laughing at him and he kidney punched me and I almost pissed my pants.

  “You’re not laughing now,” he said and stepped back.

  “When my arm’s tired I’m going to use the Taser.

  Remember the Taser?”

  “What are the odds…that your arm gives…out before I do?” I said a few words, took a breath and said some more. It was a slow process.

  “He doesn’t know anything,” the driver said from the back of the room. “Look at him. If he knew he’d talk.”

  I must have looked like a runner up in a rodeo stampede. “You should listen…to J. Edgar.”

  I got another kidney punch, screamed more than I wanted to, and pissed my pants. It wasn’t the way I wanted to die, but it didn’t look like I had much choice.

  “Get the Taser,” Agent Gallagher said. “We’ll give him a few jolts and he’ll talk.”

  “It might kill him,” the driver said.

  “Save us a bullet. Get the Taser.”

  I couldn’t make out more than blurs but saw an image move across the room and heard the door open and close. The Taser must have been in the SUV. Agent Ryan dropped me into the chair. I couldn’t find a spot that didn’t burn with pain. My cargo shorts were damp with urine and stuck to my underwear. The thought that I’d be dead in a few minutes actually calmed me.

  “Where the hell is he?” Agent Gallagher was impatient.

  “Don’t hurry…because of me.” The words weakly blundered out of my mouth.

  “Shut the fuck up asshole,” Agent Gallagher said.

  The door opened.

  “Hurry up,” Agent Gallagher said.

  Even with blurred vision, I saw the images of the agents moving quickly and grabbing for their weapons. I heard something hard roll across the floor and then there was a loud explosion and bright light. Someone cussed. I fell from the chair and covered my ears even though my arms hurt like hell. I hurt like hell. Another flash-bang grenade went off and then another. Smoke chocked me. I coughed and heard gunshots.

  Chapter 71

  I’m not sure what happened next or if things happened in the order I remember them. I lay on the floor coughing and I know it caused me to have spasms of pain as if each cough brought with it a blow from Agent Gallagher. I heard my name yelled, but when I opened my good eye smoke filled the room, my eyes burned and tears flowed. My damaged left eye was tender to the touch, so I wiped away tears from my right eye but the burning stayed in both.

  I recognized Norm as he picked me up and put me in the chair.

  More tears followed the smoke-caused tears from the pain that singed through me because Norm was quick and rough in moving me.

  “You’re okay,” he said a few times and I couldn’t tell him I wasn’t. I nodded my understanding.

  Sounding like muffled words yelled in a tunnel, I heard someone say to open the windows and then the cross breeze slowly cleared the small room of smoke. My eyes still stung and even with a broken nose, I could smell burnt gunpowder and something that reminded me of pepper spray. Add the ringing in my ears from the flash bang—it had done its job—and I was a miserable mess.

  Padre Thomas, dressed in his clerical outfit, came up to me and gently touched my face.

  “We got here as soon as we could,” he said. “I kept calling Norm.”

  “Thank you,” was all I could force out.

  My eyesight wasn’t any better as the smoke cleared. My one good eye continued to burn. I noticed blurry images lying prone on the floor, not moving. Pauly walked over and kicked handguns away from the bodies. Piersall and Williams seemed to be checking the bodies for a pulse. They didn’t find any. I had to force myself to focus the one eye.

  I remember thinking I could be in the world the Professor studied—not dead, not alive, somewhere in the middle world, maybe purgatory. My mind found it difficult to put the CIA agents, Pauly, Norm and Padre Thomas together in the same room. I fought confusion trying to stay in the now.

  I saw the black-clad image of Padre Thomas standing over each body, giving a blessing.

  “What the hell’s he doing?” Pauly grunted next to me. “The fuckers are dead.”

  “He’s in the forgiving business.” The words came out soft and slow.

  “They weren’t,” he said. “Can you walk out of here?”

  I tried to stand but fell back into the chair. “No.”

  “What are you doing?” Norm said. Chris stood next to him.

  “Hi sailor,” she said.

  “Hi.”

  “You got somewhere to go?” Norm said.

  “No.” I let out a sigh and realized I hadn’t a clue to what was going on. Death would’ve been so much easier. “I need pain medicine.” I raised my left arm so they could see the IV connection still in place. “Gallagher has the IV pouch in one of his pockets.” The words came out one at a time, as if I was learning a foreign language.

  “Who are they?” Norm turned to Pauly.

  Pauly held three identification wallets and read from them. “John Gallagher, Jeffrey Ryan and Patrick Quinn, Boston, FBI.”

  “Your people,” Norm said because they were Irish-Americans.

  “The fourth one?” I said, forgetting what Norm said.

  “Outs
ide, dead but without any ID,” Pauly answered and put the wallets in his pocket.

  Norm turned to Chris. “Agency?”

  “No,” she said. “Smart enough to know the best plans can fall apart.”

  Pauly walked over to what must have been Agent Gallagher’s body, found the IV bag and brought it over.

  “We’ve got to get you back to the hospital.” Norm took the IV bag. “We’ve got work to do.”

  “The nurse reported them.” I pointed in the general direction of the four bodies.

  “I’ve taken care of that,” Chris said. “We’ll get you back like nothing ever happened.”

  If wishes came true, I thought as Pauly helped me from the chair. We walked slowly toward the exit.

  I remember Piersall and Williams bringing heavy pieces of rebar into the shack and must have passed out before we got to a vehicle. When I woke, I was in the same hospital room as before.

  Chapter 72

  I woke each time a nurse asked me if I was feeling okay. I must have answered because they left and I went back to sleep. It seemed to go on forever but hindsight tells me they checked hourly for the first day. I’m not sure if I needed the rest to rejuvenate or there was something in my IV that made me sleep. It didn’t matter, I was out.

  When I finely woke on my own, I didn’t know where I was and became anxious. Padre Thomas jumped from his chair and stood alongside the bed.

  “Relax Mick,” he said placing his hand on my shoulder. “You’re safe.”

  I looked up, he was smiling and still in his clerical clothing, clutching rosary beads.

  “Someone’s been with you all the time,” he said. “You weren’t alone.”

  He was wrong. Wherever I’d been, I was there alone. Now I was back. Maybe the Professor was on to something after all with his parallel existences. I couldn’t remember it clearly, but I had been somewhere and it wasn’t a bad place.

  “Thank you, Padre.” I reached for the water on the bed tray and drank until it was gone.

  Padre Thomas refilled the glass. “Norm is here. He’s walking Chris to her car.”

  Confusion rattled in my head as I tried to put order to all the information spinning around in there. “She’s going somewhere?”

  “Leaving.” He’s not usually a man of few words.

  A nurse came and said she was happy to see me awake. “Are you hungry?” She checked the machine above me.

  “I’d like some soup,” I said.

  “Let me see what I can do.” She wrote in my chart and left.

  “Scaring the women already?” Norm said as he walked into the room. He looked almost as tired as I felt.

  “You have a room here?” I found the remote device and raised the bed to sitting position.

  “I could use it. How do you feel?”

  “Not sure.” I swung my feet so they hung over the side of the bed. “What day is it?”

  “Tuesday afternoon. You’ve been Key West’s answer to Rip Van Winkle for almost three days.”

  “If I closed my eyes I’d go back to sleep.”

  “You’re beat up inside, Mick.”

  “Doctor Carpino tell you that?”

  “No.” Norm turned to Padre Thomas. “Can you excuse us Padre. Go get something to eat, it’ll do you good.”

  Padre Thomas looked like a rain-soaked dog trying to hide from the elements. “I’m going home,” he said. “I’ll be back tonight.”

  “Rest and come back tomorrow,” I said. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  “We’ll see.” He fingered the rosary beads and walked out.

  I felt uncomfortable. I wanted to ask questions but they all came back to one, why did Tita have to die.

  “Norm, I need to know what happened. And why.” The room grew quiet. I could hear the blood pressure monitor beep and muffled footsteps in the hall. “You owe me that.”

  He stood over me, expressionless. “The marshals followed Walsh, hoping he’d lead ‘em to Bulger. You know that.”

  I nodded. “Yeah. Will we ever know what happened to him?”

  “When he took off on that Jet Ski and made the papers, it put a whole other group of people into the picture. They stretched the imagination to the breaking point. They came here hoping to find a Cold War agent with millions in diamonds.”

  “It’s all about money,” I said. “Whitey’s money or diamonds. But there were no diamonds, just greed.”

  “No diamonds and no Cold War agent,” Norm said. “Doyle is a cold blooded killer, but he had street smarts. For him it was survival. But we found him.”

  “Where?”

  “Years ago in Boston, he met a girl from Brazil and married her. He moved her to Rio and went back and forth with an Irish passport. They’ve got three kids. And you know what else?”

  I shook my head.

  “Brazil won’t deport anyone with Brazilian dependents. He also moved Bulger’s money to his own bank account in Rio. So you weren’t too far off on your guess.”

  “How’d you find this out?”

  “Chris’ people did a deep background check and when they found the Irish passport, pieces came together.”

  “What do you do now?”

  “Nothing. As long as he stays in Brazil.”

  “What about the FBI? Were they real agents?”

  “Yeah, once. Their claim to fame came with breaking up the Mafia in Boston. With Sullivan, they used Bulger as a snitch and overlooked his criminal activities. They got praises from Washington and thought they’d be able to control it. An unstoppable team.”

  “They were wrong.”

  “Big time, but wouldn’t admit to it.”

  “Did they want Bulger’s money too?”

  “I think they felt they deserved it,” he said. “They sabotaged the investigation into where Bulger was. New agents got involved and decided to look for Catherine Greig, Bulger’s girl friend.” He laughed. “No one thought of it before? Hard to believe. You know what happened. One day of TV commercials with her photo and Bulger gets caught.”

  “What happens when the agents show up dead?”

  “They won’t,” he said.

  I waited for more. He wasn’t forthcoming. “Why won’t they?”

  “Piersall and Williams, remember them? The two you thought were ridiculous.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, they weighed the four down with rebar and dumped the bodies in the water.”

  “Padre Thomas…”

  “He went to the hospital with you,” Norm said. “You owe that guy.”

  “Many times over.”

  “If he hadn’t followed the SUV here, you’d be the one hugging rebar. He called me. I was with Pauly and his crew when I finally got the message. We all came. Chris too, obviously.”

  “How’d he follow them? He’s got a bike.”

  “He pedaled fast, I guess. He waited here until we arrived.”

  “What’s next?” A surge of energy charged me. It was better than pain medication.

  “What’s next is you getting better,” he said.

  “I want him, Norm. I want Alexei in front of me.”

  “I know and if you remember what I told you before the Boston boys showed up, I’m gonna help you. But you need to be one-hundred percent, to do it right.”

  “My trigger finger works.” I pumped my finger.

  “Yeah. Your mouth works too, now let’s get your head working.”

  “Norm, you gotta find him,” I said. “I’ve got to put an end to all this.”

  “All this? All this what?”

  “I walked away last time without settling scores. I won’t do it again.”

  “Settling scores is for egos,” he said. “Padre Thomas knows walking away is sometimes the right answer. He’s not a bad example to follow.”

  “I’m not in a ‘turn the other cheek’ mood. If you don’t want to help me, I’ll find him on my own.”

  “If you find Alexei it’ll be because he found you.”

&nb
sp; “That’s okay too, as long as I get my shot.”

  “You’re buying a one-way ticket, hoss, and I ain’t going on that trip.”

  “If that’s the only way I can get him, that’s what I’ll do.”

  “You need at least three months to recoup, Doctor Carpino said. Take the three months. Hell, come back to LA and I’ll put you in the gym’s penthouse. All the equipment you’ll need to rebuild your body.”

  “LA is far from Miami.”

  “So is Alexei.”

  I was quiet, fighting the anger and trying not to be too hostile. “I miss her Norm.” The image of Tita wouldn’t leave my mind.

  “I know,” he said. “Killing Alexei won’t change that.”

  “It will make me feel better.”

  “No it won’t. Not even briefly. And I know that from experience.”

  I knew he was trying to be helpful, but the angry side of me didn’t care. “If you’re not fucking with me, thinking I’ll change my mind, I’ll do what you say. But we never stop looking for him. No matter if it takes forever.”

  “Forever’s a long time.”

  “Forever ends when I put a bullet in his head.”

  “It’s what begins after that, that should concern you,” he said and looked down the hallway. “Certain things you can’t take back, no matter how badly you want to. Be careful of getting what you wish for.”

  “Point me in the right direction when the time comes and I’ll go it alone.”

  Pauly stood in the doorway, looking somewhere between grim and relieved. “You’re up, that’s good.” He walked in and nodded to Norm. “What’s your opinion?”

  “On the mend,” Norm said. “I’m gonna catch some sleep.” He checked his wristwatch. “I’ll be back around six. You want anything?”

  “Hell yeah,” I said. “A ham and cheese, with everything, from Siboney.”

  “Sounds good.” He walked away.

  “You two okay?” Pauly moved closer.

  “Yeah. I think he’s just tired.”

  “You gave us a scare, amigo,” he said and grinned. “Turned out okay. About Tita,” he mumbled the words. “I’m sorry, Mick.”

  “Your guys took out the shooter, so I owe you.”

  “Didn’t see it coming.”

  “No one did.”