Aloha, Lugosi! The Gretch Bayonne Action Adventure Series Book #4

by Steven M. Thomas

  “Then educate me,” I said. “I don’t care what the islands are called. Just take me to them and I will pay you.”

  “What they refer to as the Hawaiian Islands are nothing more than a bunch of rocks sticking up out of the ocean,” he replied. “And they happen to stretch out fifteen hundred miles across the Pacific. Only a handful of them can sustain life.”

  “I have to look,” I said. “I’ve come a long way already. I want to check every island, every rock. I don’t care how long it takes or how much it costs. Now do you want the job or not?”

  Crumby sat silent for a few moments as if he were contemplating my offer.

  “One hundred dollars a day plus expenses,” he said.

  “Agreed,” I replied.

  “I will need a minimum of one thousand dollars before we set sail,” he added. “That will be a nonrefundable deposit.”

  “I will give you fifteen hundred right now,” I said, “if we can leave tomorrow morning.”

  “We’ll need some supplies,” Crumbly said.

  “Get them tonight,” I replied. “I will pay for them.”

  “Then we have a deal,” he said, extending his hand.

  As we shook on it, I noticed Crumbly was wearing an unusual looking bracelet that appeared to be made out of shells.

  “What is that?” I asked, pointing to his wrist.

  “Oh, this?” he asked. “It’s just a lucky charm. I suppose you could call me superstitious.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with that,” I said. “What is it made of?”

  “Sharks teeth,” he replied. “I was stuck on one of the islands many years ago and had an unpleasant encounter with a tiger shark. Fortunately, I was the victor. The teeth on this bracelet are the smallest ones the beast had. The others were a good three inches in length. But those wouldn’t work very well for a bracelet.”

  “My god!” I said. “That is amazing! So this is your lucky charm to protect you from sharks?”

  “No,” he replied. “I don’t have a fear of sharks anymore. I overcame that. But I still have a terrible fear of being stranded on an island.”

  I didn’t put it together instantly. While I slept that night, it came back to me in a dream. The psychic Vieta Jo had said, “I see a bracelet made of shark’s teeth.”

  It was either a very strange coincidence, or I was on to something. I could only hope that the latter was the case. Otherwise, I’d just given fifteen hundred dollars in cash away and was chasing the rabbit down the wrong damned hole.

  Chapter Five

  I found Captain Crumby bright and early in the morning as his crew was loading supplies onto his ship, the Eclipse. There must have been a hundred boxes in all.

  “What the hell are these?” I asked.

  “Canned beef,” Crumby said.

  “Are we really going to eat all that?” I asked.

  “It’s not for us,” Cumby replied. “It’s for the natives.”

  The Eclipse was a very old sailing ship, about seventy-five feet in length. Cannons were mounted on each side. There were two great masts, one large mast in the middle and a smaller one in the front. It looked like something out of a pirate movie.

  “So, we are feeding the natives?” I asked.

  “It’s important to have something to barter with,” the captain said. “Trust me, this is better than gold to them.”

  “I guess I have to,” I replied. “This ship looks ancient. How old is it anyway?”

  “She was built in 1834,” Crumby answered, “by Mattison and West in Australia. One of the best ship builders in the world.”

  “So this ship is one hundred years old?” I asked.

  “That’s right, Mr. Bay,” he answered. “And she will sail for another hundred or more.”

  We left the bay in short order and were sailing through the blue water at an incredible speed. The ocean sprayed smelly salt water all around us. I had barely gotten aboard and hadn’t even been introduced to the crew yet. They were busy tending to the sails and tying off ropes.

  I made my way to the pilot room, where Captain Crumby was manning the giant steering wheel. He was whistling and smiling from ear to ear.

  “How long will it be until we get to the first island?” I asked him.

  “We just left the bay,” he replied. “We won’t pass the next rock for a while now. Maybe two hours. Once they have the masts tied off, I will show you the gully and your sleeping quarters. Until then, just be quiet and enjoy the view.”

  Crumbly finally took me downstairs into the belly of the ship. The first big room was an open cooking area and table. It smelled like fish. Beyond that was a series of tiny sleeping chambers. My first thought was that I would rather sleep in the pilot room.

  “I’m not sleeping down here,” I told the captain. “This is worse than the damned Graf!”

  “Suit yourself,” he said. “Sleep wherever you’d like.”

  While the guts of the ship had a certain old world charm, it was one that didn’t appeal to me. There were no windows, of course except for a few small round ones in the main room. I felt claustrophobic being down there. I wanted to be able to see the ocean and the sky. I could barely breathe in the gully.

  We went back up to the pilot room and Crumby introduced me to his crew.

  “This is Sharkey,” he said. He was a tough looking character. It was difficult to peg how old he was. He had white hair and a beard and big bushy eyebrows.

  “He has been on boats all of his life,” the captain said. “He’ll likely die on one. He doesn’t feel comfortable on dry land.”

  Hand shaking didn’t seem appropriate. I wasn’t sure what to do, really. So I just asked him a question. “Why do they call you Sharkey?” I inquired.

  “I don’t know,” he replied. “That was the name my father gave me. He died many years ago.”

  “And this is Barber,” the captain said. Barber looked even older than Sharkey. I wasn’t about to ask him where he got his name. I just smiled and nodded.

  Crumby introduced the last crew member to me. “This is Speck,” he said. “He is an expert navigator and one of the best damned crows in the ocean.”

  Speck was much younger than the others and sported a pair of eye glasses thicker than the steaks at Truser’s Restaurant.

  “Nice to meet you, Speck,” I said. “But what is a crow, if you don’t mind me asking?”

  “I stay in the crow’s nest,” Speck replied, pointing a finger upward. “Up top on the high mast.”

  “A crow is the lookout,” the captain explained. “It is his job to see what is coming. Without a crow, you might as well be sailing with your eyes closed.”

  It was an odd bunch I was with, to be sure. A captain who had a fear of being stranded on an island, two crazy looking old dogs named Sharkey and Barber, and a young man in glasses who claimed to be a crow named Speck.

  Chapter Six

  I lost track of how many rocks we’d passed by. It had been a couple of days, and I saw nothing but rocks. By then, I knew Captain Crumby was right. No one could live on these islands.

  I spent most of my time in the crow’s nest with Speck. It was an incredible view. Most of it was nothing more than the blue ocean, but from that vantage point, you could see a great distance in all directions. And I got to know Speck much better.

  I found out that his vision was quite incredible. He only wore the thick glasses because he was so accustomed to looking through binoculars that it gave him horrible headaches when he tried to use his eyes without them. So he took to using glasses that magnified his vision a hundred times over when he wasn’t staring through high-powered binoculars. Without the glasses, he was virtually rendered blind.

  “How long have you been working for Jonas?” I asked Speck.

  “Captain Crumby?” he replied.

  “Yes,” I said. “Captain Jonas Crumby.”

  “Let’s see,” Speck said. “What year is it now?”

  “It is 1934,” I replied.
<
br />   “I met him almost ten years ago,” Speck answered. “I had been working for his cousin, Alex before that on a merchant ship. Captain Crumby offered me a job on the Eclipse and I have been with him ever since.”

  “What made you decide to do that?” I asked.

  “Back then, Crumby made me an offer I found difficult to resist,” Speck explained. “And his cousin was a mean man. I was happy to be rid of him.”

  Being in a crow’s nest, high on top a sailing ship is a sobering experience. The perspective is frightening at first. But after a while, you get used to it. After three days up there, I finally figured it out it. This was the best place on the ship to be. It was as close to being with God than I’d ever experienced before.

  “Do you know who I am?” I asked Speck.

  “Your name is Bay,” he replied, “and you are looking for your friend and his wife.”

  “That’s right,” I said. “But do you know who I am outside of that?”

  “No,” he replied, “but you seem like a nice man. And you are paying us.”

  I hadn’t met anyone who did not know about the Graf book or Hollywood. I wasn’t famous in the crow’s nest. Speck had no clue who I was or what had transpired in the last year outside of his perch above the Eclipse.

  I was climbing up and down the great mast several times a day to check in with Captain Crumbly, but I always felt more comfortable in the crow’s nest with Speck.

  “We’ve sailed by a lot of islands without getting that close to them,” I told the captain. “I specifically told you I want to check every nook and cranny for my friend. We could have passed him by!”

  “Calm down,” Crumby replied. “I told you most of these islands are nothing more than rocks. If your friend is alive, he wouldn’t be on any of these.”

  “Dammit, Crumby!” I yelled. “You don’t know that!”

  “Yes, I do,” the captain replied. “Why do you think I took this assignment to begin with?”

  “Because you saw a sucker coming,” I yelled. “And you are going to make a lot of money!”

  “I am sorry you feel that way,” he said, “but that is not the case. You see, I too am looking for something on the islands. You just happened to come along at the right time to spur me into looking again.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” I asked. “What are you looking for?”

  “Treasure,” he replied. “I looked for years then finally gave up.”

  “I should have known,” I replied. “You are crazy. So I am financing a damned treasure hunt for you?”

  “We are all looking for something,” he said. “You are looking for your friend and his wife. I am looking for a treasure, and I am not crazy, Bay. This is not a pirate story. It is true. There really is a treasure on one of these islands. I just haven’t found it yet.”

  It was too late to turn back. I was stuck on the Eclipse with Captain Crazy who was searching for a treasure that most likely did not even exist. All I could do was ride along and hope for the best. It reminded me that even people outside of Hollywood have ulterior motives. I suddenly realized that I was the producer of a treasure hunt that would no doubt be a major flop at the box office.

  Chapter Seven

  Speck spotted a ship not too far behind us and high tailed it down the mast to tell the captain.

  “Who is it?” I yelled, following behind him. “Is there some sort of a problem?”

  “It’s Alex!” he yelled. “He is following us again!”

  Speck beat me to the pilot room and was in near hysterics by the time I caught up with him.

  “Are you sure?’ Crumby asked him.

  “It’s him all right!” Speck replied. “It’s definitely the Retreat!”

  “Would somebody please tell me what is going on here?” I asked.

  “It’s my cousin,” the captain explained. “He’s after the treasure. He’s followed us before. It looks like he found out I was headed for the end of the alley again.”

  “What the hell is that?” I asked.

  “The end of the islands,” Crumby said, “where the treasure is believed to be buried.”

  The captain gave orders to lower the main mast.

  “What are you going to do?” I asked him.

  “We’re going to let him catch up to us,” he said. “Then fire our cannons.”

  Within minutes, we were dead in the water. The captain asked me to assist with loading the cannons. Then we sat and waited for Alex to catch up to us.

  “You can’t just go firing cannons off,” I said. “This isn’t a military ship. What if you sink it? We could get in a lot of trouble!”

  “You let me worry about that,” Jonas said. “I should have done this years ago.”

  The Retreat was within about a hundred yards from us when the captain gave the orders to fire. Sharkey and Barber lit the two cannons simultaneously. I’d never heard anything so damned loud in my life.

  You could see the cannon balls flying in an arch through the air, then dropping down directly in the middle of The Retreat.

  “Hoist the mast now!” Jonas replied.

  Smoke was visible on the ship we’d just attacked but I didn’t see any fire. I could only guess that the damned cannon balls went straight through the wooden deck of the ship. Within minutes, we were sailing again at high speed. The captain was piloting the Eclipse with the intensity of a bulldog. His eyes were fixed on the water just ahead. It was amazing to watch.

  “If he continues to follow, we’ll do the same thing again!” the captain yelled. “Only next time, we’ll reload the cannons until we sink the damned thing!”

  It wasn’t long before the Retreat was barely visible behind us. “I think you scared him off,” I remarked.

  “He’ll keep coming,” the captain said. “He always does. When we reach that rock up ahead, we’ll lose him.”

  “How are you going to do that?” I asked.

  “We’ll cut through Hammerhead Alley,” the captain replied. “He won’t want to do that, so he’ll have to go all the way around the other side.”

  “This doesn’t sound good,” I said.

  “It’s a risk we’ll have to take,” the captain said.

  “Look,” I said. “I just want to find my friend. I don’t want to have to deal with people chasing you to find a damned treasure.”

  “We could turn around,” he said, grinning at me.

  I had no choice but to go along with him. Stopping was not an option. I was out in the middle of the Pacific, firing cannons off. It seemed extreme to me, but the captain was only doing what he felt was necessary. He was protecting his treasure.

  “You have to tell me the details of this crazy treasure you’re looking for,” I demanded. “And it better be a damned good story.”

  The captain yelled for Barber to take control of the wheel. The two of us sat down on a bench just outside the pilot room. He looked as serious as a heart attack, staring off into the ocean. After taking a deep breathe, he started telling me the story of the treasure.

  Chapter Eight

  Crumby started talking about how he grew up in Australia, and how much he loved the sea. He was raised by an aunt whose husband was a merchant sailor. The uncle was gone most of the time, but when he did come home between long journeys, it was like a holiday.

  It was an interesting story, but didn’t seem to have anything to do with a treasure. I was getting restless, so I asked him to cut to the chase.

  “In 1884,” he said, “a ship entered the main port in Honolulu. The King was having a dinner party that night, and the military were in their barracks, also eating and probably settling in for the evening. Seventy or eighty men got off the ship and took over the port.”

  “Go on,” I said.

  “The men were armed with Winchester rifles,” Crumby continued. “You see, in those days, no one thought to have a military presence in the port. They took everyone by surprise. There was one man who was obviously in charge of the operation
. And like a brilliant general, he ordered his men to seize the King’s palace. And they did.”

  “While the King’s Army slept?” I asked.

  “Precisely,” he said. “They located the head of the Honolulu bank and had him open it. Then they seized a large quantity of solid gold bars and coins, and simply fled.”

  “That is amazing,” I said.

  “Not a single shot was fired,” Crumby continued. “No one got hurt. But the bandits got away with what was estimated to be two million dollars worth of gold.”

  “There are a lot of tales,” I said. “How do you know this one is true?”

  “Oh, it happened,” Crumby said. “It wasn’t widely reported at the time by any means. The San Francisco Chronicle was the only newspaper that carried the story. You see, the King was embarrassed by the event. It was kept quiet.”

  “And what makes you believe the gold is still out there somewhere, waiting to be found?” I asked.

  “There was a mutiny on the ship after they stole the gold,” he explained. “The plan was to split it up, but a sword fight broke out on the deck of the vessel. It quickly became every man for himself. And after the blood bath, only one remained alive.”

  “And he hid the treasure?” I asked.

  “Exactly,” Crumby said. “You see, he could not sail such a large ship alone, and he knew the authorities would be searching for the vessel. So he pulled the treasure chest into a small dingy with the aid of a massive amount of blood. It was fairly easy to slide through the warm, red liquid. He managed to make it to a small island, where he buried it.”

  “I’m sorry, Crumby,” I said. “But this smacks of a sea legend. There are a lot of stories out there, but they are just that. Stories.”

  “But I haven’t finished,” he said. “The man was rescued from the island by a merchant boat and taken back home. But he was in very poor health by then, and died a short time later.”

  “The sole survivor of the heist died,” I said. “And took the secret of the whereabouts of the treasure to his grave.”