1 Red Right Return

by John H. Cunningham

  Only seconds of air remained. I willed every ounce of strength, determination, and rage to attack the handle. Twisted badly, the button hung from its spring, useless.

  I pulled at the belt with both hands until my lungs felt ablaze.

  The movement of light through the waves sent splintered shadows through the cockpit, or was it Gutierrez choosing the best angle for his next attack?

  Back up to the bubble, there was one last breath for each of us. My eyes met Karen’s. Her expression made it clear her life was in my hands. I launched a final assault on the handle, but this time instead of brute force, felt around the crumpled metal until I found a break in the seam that held it together.

  Karen flailed next to me, her air spent.

  The depleted oxygen in my chest felt like an acetylene torch. I dug my fingers into the broken gap and ripped it apart like an oyster. The handle crumbled in my hands, and the belt came free as the boat slowly rotated onto its side.

  Karen struggled violently as I grabbed her around the waist and dragged her toward the door, now pointed toward the ocean floor. All I could see was deep blue. The boat was now entirely under water, and sinking fast. Instinct had Karen kicking upwards toward the light, but we had to first go down and out through the—my pouch!

  It had floated to the top of the cabin and was pressed against the far door, ten feet away. My hand was wedged in Karen’s belt. She fought me, now swimming down toward the open door.

  Stretch! I couldn’t hold her and reach the pouch. My maps…the key!

  Regret filled my every cell, but there was no choice.

  The light of the sun glistened through the seemingly endless distance to the surface. A wave broke above. Were those Gutierrez’s kicking feet? He’d be waiting, but could I… Manic fear fueled the cauldron in my chest, afire with spent oxygen. As I rose upward with a few hard kicks, my senses faded to black.

  89

  LIGHT HURT MY EYES and the sound of coughing jarred me. I was…in Karen’s arms on the surface. I sprang from her grasp, and searched wildly around us.

  “Where is he?”

  “What are you—are you all right?” she said.

  Gutierrez had vanished.

  The shriek of a cannon shell tore over our heads, followed by three others. The explosions were nearly on top of us. The Cuban vessel was closing fast. I shoved my head under water. Gutierrez’s boat looked like a small toy sinking into the darkness of a bottomless pool.

  A loud buzz roared up behind us—Betty was bearing down fast. Lenny’s eyes were wide in the windshield. Beyond them, the horizon seemed filled by the Coast Guard Cutter Mohawk at full steam. A naval battle was about to explode all around us.

  I yanked Karen’s arm. “Come on!”

  We swam hard toward Lenny, who to his credit held Betty straight and pointed right at us. The props were perilously close to the water’s surface, and in order to reach the trailing rope ladder, we had to swim down the fuselage.

  Karen followed me between the propellers that would carve us into mincemeat if a wave pushed us inches off course. The sound of the twelve cylinders roared, which combined with the sting of water from the props was disorienting, but I kept the hatch in sight and kicked for it with every remaining ounce of strength, clutching Karen around her waist.

  Betty had slowed, but the hatch still shot past us. I dove for the trailing rope ladder, caught it with one finger, and clasped my hand around it. The pull from Karen on my other arm spread me to the point of splitting in half. A scream of determination gave me strength as I hauled her in. She kicked and grabbed hold.

  She pulled herself up into the plane and disappeared head first inside the cabin. I crawled up and collapsed on top of her.

  “We’re gonna die!” Lenny screamed from the pilot’s seat.

  I crawled through the fuselage, which now contained several inches of water. The duct tape over the bullet holes had given out. Soon we’d be too heavy to take off.

  “Close that hatch!”

  Lenny slid over to the right seat. “Get us the hell out of here!”

  I took quick stock of the situation. The Cuban Navy boat was bearing down at a speed that indicated their intent to ram us.

  A splash caught my eye.

  Gutierrez was swimming hard toward the Cuban ship, stopping every few strokes to wave his arms at them.

  Bursts of flame detonated toward us, and a machine gun round blasted out my vent window.

  I shoved the throttles down, and the RPMs leapt toward the red line. Betty jumped forward like a race horse in response to an open gate. A hard stomp on the pedals turned us to the right, parallel with the waves, but there wasn’t enough room to take off. The Cubans were blocking our path. Columns of water erupted in front of Betty’s nose. Their deck guns were honing in.

  The waves rocked us, and the props shot water in the blown-out vent window until Betty was turned into the waves, but the Mohawk threatened to block our runway.

  “Hold on, this is going to be tight!”

  With the throttles maxed, Betty shimmied in the surf, bounced, and heeled until we got up on the step. My eyes shifted from the Mohawk in front of us to the tachometers and airspeed indicator slowly edging clockwise.

  “Reilly, what the hell are you doing?” Frank Nardi shouted in my headset.

  What felt like the longest run-up since the Wright Brothers ran across the Kitty Hawk dunes finally ended when the airspeed indicators kissed 62-mph. I yanked the stick back, hit the flaps, and Betty jumped free of the ocean’s pull.

  The Mohawk’s superstructure filled my windshield. I pulled back on the yoke until our rate of climb threatened a stall.

  Too close to bank, I held course. We cleared their tower by inches.

  Lenny was a lump of nerves next to me, his eyes squeezed shut. Karen shot me a million-dollar smile. Her eyes sparkled in the sun pouring in between the strips of duct tape on the back windows.

  It felt like an eternity since our kiss at Margaritaville. She pointed out the window at the red float hanging under the starboard wing, then mouthed the words: “Take me home, flyboy.”

  I pointed to the headset next to her and she pulled it onto her dripping blond head. Her laugh was like champagne bubbles after a freshly popped cork.

  “I knew you’d show up, don’t ask me why, but I knew in my heart knew you’d come.”

  The image of my pouch, floating trapped in Gutierrez’s boat, tugged at me, but was eased by Karen’s smile.

  It no longer mattered.

  Karen wasn’t my beauty to rescue, it was she who’d rescued me.

  90

  THE CELEBRATION UPON OUR return was brief, cut short by Booth’s intercepting me on the tarmac. His revenge-driven demeanor killed my excitement. Whether or not the facts behind what happened aboard the Carnival would reduce the pressure for action against Cuba remained to be seen, but Shaniqua and Karen were home safe, Jackson Rolle, Perez and No-Name were in custody, Emilio dead and Gutierrez vanished at sea.

  Booth allowed me a brief hug from Karen before ordering me into the airport parking lot.

  “Where’s your Rover?”

  No use in lying. “Back of the lot.”

  “Let’s go.”

  As we passed glistening rental cars, the sound of my heart reverberated like fan blades in my ears.

  “Keys?”

  I dug into my backpack and held up the single key. My hand was shaking.

  “I don’t want it,” he said. “Get in.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “Just drive. Go around the beach over there.”

  Booth rolled down his window, and loosened his tie. I bit my tongue. At least we weren’t headed to the KWPD station. Yet.

  “All right, let’s hear it,” he said.

  “What?”

  “The story. Your evidence on Gutierrez. You damn near started a war today, based on whatever crap you came up with.”

  “His running for Cuba only substantiated—”
<
br />   “Oh, yeah, that’ll look good in my report to the director of the FBI, the one the president of the United States is expecting any minute. ‘The guy ran, so he must be guilty.’ You better have more than that, Reilly.”

  Booth’s expression was that of a tight-wire walker, confident overall, yet a discernible hint of fear. I enjoyed the pause, watching him—

  “Well?”

  “He was the rat behind killing the missionaries. My guess is that it was to fund a spy operation in Key West.”

  “Your guess? And what possible reason for killing—”

  “The Cubans were smuggling him valuable art to ply the emotions of the Cuban- American community and raise hard currency. When the Carnival’s mission went awry, Gutierrez kept attention off himself by using Palo Mayombe and diverted it to Santeria through his operative Emilio Garcia, the other guy on the boat.”

  His mouth curled into a sneer. “Voodoo is your evidence?”

  “Carnival, the name of the boat, San Alejandro, the name of the limited liability corporation that owned the boat, and The Jungle, the name of the reproduction painting in the front window of Gutierrez’s gallery that was painted by Wilfredo Lam, were all tied together in the Cuban art world.”

  “Fucking art? Everyone knows he was an art dealer.”

  I took my eye off the road long enough to look at Booth. “You came to Key West to investigate a smuggling ring, right? What was being smuggled?”

  He bit his lip, holding back…what? A smile?

  “Jackson Rolle confessed that they were smuggling relics, which is another word for paintings and sculpture,” I said. “Just like the rare paintings mysteriously available ninety-miles north of Havana. The Cubans are too broke to send cash, so they fritter away their national treasures so they can be ready to start a terrorist war here if—”

  “All right, Magnum, I’ve heard enough.” He dug in his pocket and lit a smoke. “You know, Reilly, for a tomb raider and inside trader, you actually showed some decent investigative skills.” He spoke while looking out the window, blowing smoke at the girls on the beach. The statement was so far a field from the anticipated Miranda rights it was all I could do to shift the Rover’s gears.

  “I was down here investigating an art smuggling ring, but found you and cracked an espionage network to boot.” He couldn’t keep the smile off his face. “Don’t let that go to your head, though, you’re still a bankrupt suspected criminal, as far as the laws concerned, but maybe, just maybe, I might have use for you every now and then.”

  I couldn’t even manage a grunt.

  “Getting to be an assistant director ain’t easy. You need innovative thinking, you need to have developed assets…. God knows I hate this wretched island anyway. You and that airplane proved pretty handy sticking your nose places I can’t, as a federal officer, but under my direction….” He was sounding more like Sanchez by the moment.

  “Why would I—”

  “I’ll tell you why, Reilly.” The smile slid into the familiar sneer. “Remember when I went to Washington after the bomb was found on your plane? That’s when I met the director for the first time and received his personal commendation for discovering the Carnival in Havana. For that, we’re even on your pissing away my life savings at e-Antiquity.”

  I swallowed hard. The tone in his voice indicated anything but gratitude.

  “After that I had some time to kill before returning to this stink rock, so I paid a visit to a friend of yours.”

  The smile was back. My hands tightened on the wheel.

  “Mrs. Jack Dodson.”

  Oh shit…

  “When she heard you were on house arrest in Key West, she got indignant, Reilly, in fact she had some interesting things to say. She wanted to know who would pay her bills if you were in jail too. She said you and her husband had a deal.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a piece of paper. “She even gave me this.”

  It was a copy of a check from Fox Run Farm. “That’s your brother’s signature, Reilly, implicating him in your conspiracy to commit fraud against the Government.”

  “I…I….”

  Booth laughed. “Then, someone left this at my hotel.” It was the first page of my ledger, detailing a couple hundred thousand dollars of payments to the Dodson’s. “Like I said, hot shot, I own your ass. It wouldn’t take much to expose you and your brother’s bankruptcy scam, or lean on Dodson, and then you could join him at Leavenworth.”

  “What do you want, Booth?”

  “You stay down here, living the life of Reilly, pun intended, playing charter pilot and part-time treasure hunter, but when I call, you drop everything. I say ‘roll over’ you do it, I throw you a bone, you fetch. My private operative, capiche?”

  My pride swelled with a dozen different retorts telling him what he could shove, swallow, eat, or do to himself, but an uncharacteristic restraint held me back as surely as if someone had their hand over my mouth.

  “If you tell anyone about this, I’ll deny it and throw your ass to the wolves. But if and when sufficient evidence turns up on your parent’s case, I might let the judge know you’d been helpful, provided you were, but you’d still go down, this isn’t any kind of pardon or anything. Consider it a stay of prosecution.” He glanced over at me.

  I dropped Booth off at the KWPD station, a smile on his lips as my parting gift. Still, a lot different from what I expected. A couple of turns later and I was smack in the middle of the parade launching the Old Island Days Festival. I half expected to see Karen, still soaking wet, hanging from a bungee chord from the top of the La Concha.

  Some special event Gutierrez had turned out to be.

  Numb from the past hours, days, and weeks, still wet, with dried blood caked on my forehead and wearing two-day old clothes, I must have looked like the Chain Saw murderer to the people in the hotel lobby.

  The numbness wore off at the realization that the adventure wasn’t over, only taking a new turn. There would be other battles to fight, but for now I just wanted a shower, a cold beer, and to start making a list of potential clues to crack the results of the last key word: CICEROSMUSE = LOVE OF HIS LIFE.

  I scanned the lobby. But first, where was mine?

  91

  LAUGHTER RANG HOLLOW IN my ears as I studied the packed crowd inside Blue Heaven from the corner of the ring. My bout with Bruiser Lewis was a macabre form of dinner theater for them, for me a meal ticket. Bright lights shone down from the banyan tree, illuminating the ring and casting odd limb-shaped shadows over the tables where wild chickens foraged on crumbs. My opponent had yet to arrive. Maybe, just maybe, he wouldn’t show.

  The week since rescuing Karen felt like a month, and the twice postponed Saturday night had finally come. The Carnival had been packed to the gills with Cuban paintings, sculpture, and relics, but it was Shaniqua’s wink and smile in the middle of the crowd below, where she was nestled closely to her father, that made the boat’s capture more valuable than the gold-laden Esmeralda. She blew me a kiss, and I felt my cheeks flush.

  I avoided Karen’s emerald eyes. She was just a foot away, leaning onto the lower rope watching Ray Floyd rub liniment into my legs. Our return to Key West had synthesized into a spontaneous combustion that exceeded even my active imagination, interrupted only by her frenzied schedule of special events during the now concluded festival.

  “The corner man’s the hidden secret behind most successful boxers,” Ray said. “Left to their own devices, most warriors of the ring dwindle into bloody lumps of scar tissue and—” Ray’s jaw fell open.

  Bruiser had arrived. His entourage encircled him, and his brother Truck brought up the rear. I hadn’t seen Truck since our return from Cuba, and I’d never seen Bruiser through sober eyes. The Gargoyles, pressed into duty as ticket takers, stood up and started to clap. I swallowed hard. Karen followed Ray’s rapture to my opponent. I tried to ignore her sharp intake of breath.

  The cacophony escalated when the crowd realized all combatants were
present and accounted for.

  “Ladies and gentlemen…” Lenny was in the middle of the ring, wearing a Salvation Army rhinestone coat left over from a distant Fantasy Fest. He held his arms wide and exaggerated his expressions in his best imitation of a boxing promoter. I still hadn’t forgiven him after he confessed having placed the white candle—for safety— under Betty’s port wing before I took Truck and the boys to Cuba. He pranced around like Mick Jagger, he looked like a man whose aspirations to be Key West’s mayor seemed bizarre, yet appropriate.

  “Tonight’s event is about to begin!”

  I tuned out the hype and focused on the training I began at the YMCA as a teenager, honed to moderate success in Golden Gloves competition, and now hoped to dust off after a five-year hiatus. My game had once been multi-faceted; I’d been able to pummel inferior foes or dance around like a guerrilla warrior. Those days had been filled with miles of running, whereas tonight would depend upon cunning.

  The crowd reverberated like a swarm of cicadas. Currito Salazar was at a back table with men huddled in close. I noted the exchange of currency. Frank Nardi sat next to Karen, drinking beer and laughing with Lieutenant Killelea at her persistent questions. A steady bongo beat led me to Enrique, the Stock Island Sancho, seated at a crowded table. I hoped he hadn’t resented my refusal of a jock strap laced with beads in my old friend Chango’s colors.

  My visual circuit ended at the opposite end of the ring, where Bobby Barrett, the photographer from the Key West Citizen, was poised on a barstool. His camera hung from his neck, and his eyes shied away from mine. He’d gratefully accepted the invitation to meet next week for the overdue flight I’d bartered in exchange for the pictures that led to learning Jackson Rolle’s and Emilio’s identities.

  The Citizen’s story covering the case of the missing missionaries had been picked up by USA TODAY. It detailed Gutierrez’s history of being funded by Cuba to create an art empire, the proceeds of which fueled covert cells around South Florida. Ironic that the Cuban Americans who detested the Cuban regime were inadvertently supporting their spying efforts here. The story also described the fiasco aboard the Carnival that blew the spy ring apart and noted the discovery of a prenda at Gutierrez’s gallery, cementing him to Palo. Once all the facts were known, the “Cuban conspiracy” dwindled like a pierced balloon, leaving only Mingie Posada still crying for retribution, with El Aljibe indefinitely closed down by the health department for cruelty to animals.