by Lyle Howard
Estaban shook his head. “But nothing, Pedro? No paintings? No curtains? No photographs? No pottery or sculptures? Something isn’t right here. You know it and I know it.”
Pedro walked back to where his brother was standing, tapping his right foot nervously. “So what do you want to do, little brother? Leave our men behind? Then what becomes of us? How do we ever recruit another crew if we suddenly have the reputation of being cowards?” He put his hands on his brother’s shoulders. “Now get hold of yourself. It sounds like a few of them have met some resistance, but there’s nothing, and I mean nothing that these guys can’t handle…”
Moving from left to right, a shadow streaked through the beam cast by Estaban’s headlight. “What the hell was that? Did you see it?”
Pedro Gallinas raised his pistol and his finger to his mouth to quiet him. Both brothers went silent. Even though both brothers were sweating profusely, they felt a frosty shiver shroud them like they had both just taken the ice bucket challenge.
Again, there was a glimpse of something that stayed just beyond the reach of their lights. Pedro fired once into the darkness. The bullet sparked as it hit the steel bulkhead at the far end of the passageway, striking nothing in its path.
The phantom shape was on Estaban’s side, now staying hidden just beyond the edge of his headlamp. Pedro blindly shot again, barely missing his brother’s head. For the second time, the bullet hit nothing but steel bulkhead.
Estaban stared at his older brother, not even concerned that he had just come mere inches from having his brains blown out. “Screw the ten minutes,” he said to his older brother. “You can stay if you want to, Pedro, but I’m getting the hell off this ship!”
With still no reply from anyone on his team, and much to Pedro’s regret, he chose survival over fortune.
The Gallinas brothers were down the rope ladder in seconds taking two rungs at a time. Once onboard the Rosalita, Pedro yelled to his brother. “Cut the line!”
Estaban didn’t have to be told twice—he pulled out a blade he kept sheathed around his ankle and, with one swift thrust, cleanly sliced through the rope as Pedro gunned Rosalita’s twin engines. The two men breathed a sigh of relief as their speedboat began to open the distance from the Nocturne.
“Are you over it now?” Estaban asked, as he shouldered past his older brother who was standing at the helm. “Are you finally over your obsession with that ship? Es el diablo!”
A million thoughts were racing through Pedro Gallinas’s mind, the least of which was his fixation on the mysterious vessel and what he thought they saw. No one would ever believe them. How would he explain his missing crew? What credible excuse could he come up with for their disappearance? They were probably better off never mentioning this night again, but there would be questions. He turned the Rosalita southeast and headed home toward Andros Town.
The warm sea air was like a soothing elixir blowing through his hair, drying the perspiration on his forehead—the Nocturne nothing more than a miniscule blip on the edge of the radar screen when his brother called out to him.
The younger Gallinas brother was hunched over a dark canvas bag lying on the deck. “Pedro, why would Montoto’s backpack still be on the boat? Didn’t he have it with him?”
Suddenly, Pedro Gallinas’s hands began shaking uncontrollably on the steering wheel. “Don’t open it!” he yelled over Rosalita’s roaring engines. But it was too late.
Estaban Gallinas stared down at the satchel full of C-4 explosives and the digital timer that had been attached and activated. The blinking red numbers were counting down and now read “00:01.”
TROUBLE IN PARADISE
One
A balmy, southerly breeze blew in off the Gulf of Mexico, embracing the tourists like a caress from a long lost friend. Against the fiery sunset, a flock of chestnut-colored pelicans hovered silently above the swirling whitecaps, busily stalking their early evening repast. As the awkward-looking birds soared over the thatched roof of the Paradise Shack, they blinked incomprehensibly down at the last remaining leathery-skinned, zinc-oxide nosed big city refugees whose bodies glistened in the waning light. Each of the lingering beachcombers lay stretched out on the narrow strip of man-made beach behind the bar, worshiping the final glimmer of the sun's ultraviolet radiation, only to be able to prove two days from now that they hadn't spent their well-deserved weekend as mundanely as the rest of their pallid skinned co-workers back at their offices.
This was the telltale sign that another weekend "down island" was well underway. It would start like clockwork every Friday afternoon with at least one fender-bender on the seven-mile bridge, and wouldn't subside until every neon beach towel had been shaken out come Sunday evening.
Cal Mackey thanked the heavens above for each and every one of these weekends. During those other five miserable days of the week, an average golfer like himself could venture out onto the slender sliver of sand behind the bar and practice whacking some really wicked five-irons over the old concrete pier without the risk of ever hitting another living soul.
Mackey was just such a second rate golfer, but what he lacked in ball striking proficiency, he more than made up for when tending the bar and seducing the female clientele. No matter how chaotic Saturday night might ever get inside the Shack, Cal could handle it in stride. Come the weekend, his massive arms would gyrate like the blades of a helicopter, the tattoos on each bicep blurring together into an obscene collusion between a dancing girl and a boa constrictor. Sure, serving up hundreds of bright yellow drinks with tiny red umbrellas bobbing between the crushed ice wasn't exactly going to win him a Nobel Prize for scientific achievement any year soon, but, to his customers, Mackey was drink-maker, toast-maker, odds-maker, and peace-maker all rolled up into one tough-as-nails package. For all intents and purposes, he was synonymous with the Paradise Shack, and it was this deference to the venerable barkeep, that most of the locals referred the Shack as simply, "Cal's Place.”
The Paradise Shack wasn't much to look at, but its reputation was legendary throughout the middle Keys. Cool drinks, spicy wings, driftwood walls, and no floor ... just sand, and that was it. If you were looking for air-conditioning, or quarter-folded napkins with insipid little cocktail jokes scrawled across them, then you were better off staying in your BMW for another sixty-five minutes south and sipping your mineral water at any tourist trap on Duval Street. That was the attitude here in Paradise, and if you didn't like it then you could just keep your foot on the gas.
Like so many other quirky facets of island life, fact and fantasy have a strange way of intermingling, until the two became inseparable. Folklore is a strange thing. It tends to take a simple event and blow it completely out of context and proportion. So, when it came to legendary tales, the Paradise Shack could surely hold its own with the best.
No one knew exactly how this particular ritual had started, but darts had become the game of choice and profit in the Shack. Some locals believed the myth that a British tourist had come up short on his bar tab one rainy Sunday evening and had challenged Cal double or nothing for his balance due. Cal would never reveal the legitimate details of the event, or answer the inevitable questions of who the Englishman was, or how he suddenly managed to produce the dartboard out of thin air, but the truth was that the old board was still hanging on the back wall today and the Limey had never been heard from again. Cal always managed a toothy grin whenever someone tried to dredge up the real story, but he never buckled under the pressure and remained as tight-lipped as a Monk. After a while, a curious person always realized that they were better off just leaving the fable be and chalk it up to another one of the many shrouded incidents that have lent credence to the mysterious reputation of the Paradise Shack. The locals say that if you were to hang around Cal's Place long enough, you were always bound to see something no one else would believe.
But if dart wounds and intoxicated locals were all Cal had to contend with every night, then he would have been a happy man. By
ten o’clock on any given night except Mondays, you could bet your bottom dollar that there would be some other kind of trouble in Paradise.
As a precaution, the Shack was always on the appointed rounds for the Monroe County Sheriff's Department. The green and white patrol cars would cruise by at regular intervals and pick up the drunk and disorderly at the curb like it was a predetermined bus stop. If the Shack hadn't been one of the Monroe County Sheriff's own favorite haunts, Paradise would have probably been boarded up or burned to the ground years ago.
With the last rays of daylight dousing the Shack in a kaleidoscope of pink and orange hues, Cal reached across the bar and poured two more fingers of spiced rum for Ernie, the retired the Chicago police detective. The old man was more than just one of the regulars. Some say he even helped build Paradise (another bit of erroneous trivia). Nicknamed "Big Dog Ernie" because of his pug nose and sun-dried puss, Cal was the only person on God's green earth who could get away with calling the old man by that name to his face without receiving a mouthful of arthritic knuckles in return. After all, he was his son.
Dressed in sweat-stained Levis, a pair of sandals that were held together by spit and a promise, and a short sleeved shirt whose buttons and holes had never had the pleasure of each other's company, Ernie was at home in the shadows at the less crowded far end of the bar. A disillusioned ex-cop, Mackey Senior ruled his end of the bamboo bar like a disenfranchised monarch. But in truth, the only two things he owned of any value anymore were the ramshackle old trailer he lived in, and the gold wedding band with the single pear-cut diamond he chose never to speak about.
"The night's still young, pop; take it slow," Mackey warned, as he passed his father another drink.
The elder Mackey peered above the rim of the shot glass through two heavy eyelids that concealed more stains than a church window. "Only the young die good, Cal my-boy. Remember that little truism and maybe you can pass it onto your grandkids someday!"
Cal tried to smile kindly as he wiped a ring of water off the top of the bar with a small blue towel. "Where's Pépe tonight?” he asked, raising his voice to be heard over the drone of "God Bless Texas" that was blaring out of the stereo system. "I thought you two guys were joined at the hip lately?"
The old man suddenly found himself distracted by the slow movement of the overhead fan and let his head loll upward for a short moment, and then, trying to refocus on the conversation at hand, looked back at his glass, his head still reeling from all the exertion. "He got himself a charter to the Tortugas!" he slurred, slamming the empty shot glass down on the bar. "Can you believe it? Who the hell would be dense enough to trust that pint-sized exile at the helm of a seagoing vessel?"
Cal tossed his dad’s empty shot glass into the soap-filled sink. "So you're pissed that he didn't ask you to tag along?"
The old man clawed fiercely at his nose as though there was something alive inside it. With a forefinger pinching his left nostril, he proceeded to blow out an alien substance from his other unobstructed nostril. Cal took a quick, disconcerting glance around the crowded bar just to make sure no one else had seen him do it. Add this to the long list of benefits of having no floor, he thought thankfully.
"I could’ve' gone if I'd wanted to!"
Cal looked down the length of the bar to make sure all the rest of his patrons were blissfully content ... which they always were. "So why you just sittin' around here makin' a mess of my floor, instead of cuttin' chum in the gulf with your amigo?"
"Overslept," he mumbled.
"'Scuse me?"
His father scratched at his wiry eyebrows to ward off the imaginary gnats that were starting to roost there. "I overslept, okay? What the hell do you want from me, Cal? A frigging signed affidavit?"
Mackey flipped the bar towel over his shoulder and shook his head. "When are you ever going to learn, Big Dog?"
The awful stale stench coming off the old man was one more than just mere liquor could have produced. "Hey, I don't need any frigging lectures from you! Just put a cork in your preachin' and pour me two more fingers of rum!"
Down the length of the bar, a dazzling young woman with an eager body and an even more eager empty daiquiri glass was trying to draw Cal's attention. He pointed a finger in her direction and gave her his most eligible wink, which caused her to swoon coquettishly in response. "Maybe you should order something to eat before your liver starts to shrivel like your dick!"
Ernie tilted his head sideways and burped loud enough to navigate a fogbound oil tanker into port. "Two organs I have very little respect for anymore, my boy."
It was obvious that the old man had well exceeded his limit and that the damsel in distress at the other end of the bar had waited long enough for her white knight to come to her rescue. "I think we need to give your innards a break for a few minutes, pop. What do you say we see about getting something solid down your gullet when I get back?"
The old man responded nonsensically under his breath as Cal walked away, and before Mackey could stop to pour another round for a customer, his father’s head had hit the bar top and he was snoring.
Two
She seemed to appear out of nowhere, standing out from the usual weekend crowd like a piece of fine art in a junkyard. Mark this date down in history, Cal thought to himself, this one just might be a keeper!
Walking up to the bar, the color of her hair seemed to capture the very heat of the sun that had just set. Her long, silken tresses plunged statuesquely down her spine like a fiery waterfall. Her hazel eyes were aloof but inquisitive, darting around the bar, taking in everything, and giving nothing in return. Her lips were as red as an open wound, glossy and full as though she had just licked them moist. Her skin was as pale as the soap bubbles in the sink behind the bar.
"You're not from around here, are you?" Cal asked, as he took the glass from her between her graceful fingers.
Her eyes narrowed deliberately. "Is it that obvious from my appearance?" she replied softly.
Mackey rinsed out her glass as he hunted for something, anything, to say to her. "Your accent? European?"
"You do a brisk business in here," she answered, intentionally or unintentionally skirting Cal's question, he wasn't sure of which.
"It keeps me in golf balls," he said, trying to soften her demeanor with his savage wit.
"Golf balls?"
Cal began mixing her a fresh drink. "I'm hooked on golf," he shouted, trying to be heard over the sound of the grinding blender.
A waitress squeezed in beside the young woman and handed Cal a receipt. "Two Piña Coladas, one Mai Tai, and a frozen Sombrero!" she ordered, and then disappeared back into the crowd.
"Don't these people drink anything straight up, anymore?" Cal muttered.
"How do you keep track of so many drinks?" the girl of his dreams asked.
"Years of experience, sweetheart ... years of experience."
He handed her another frozen melon daiquiri and, in return, she passed him a ten-dollar bill as she started to walk away.
"Hey, don't run off so fast," Cal begged, grabbing her arm across the bar, "you're the most interesting person I've talked to around here in months! Can't you stay and chat?"
Her lips peeled back, revealing the most perfect set of teeth Cal had ever seen.
"But this drink is not for me. It will melt."
Cal's heart sank into the balls of his feet. Please tell me it's for a girlfriend, he silently prayed.
She tilted her head toward a table in the middle of the room. Through the mob, Cal spied where she was motioning. Sitting at the small round table, confined to a wheelchair, was the most emaciated human being Cal thought he had ever seen. The old man's eyes were set deep into his skull and were surrounded by dark ominous circles that only added to his unnerving appearance. In contrast, though, his stark white hair, which was full and well groomed, strangely contradicted the notion that he was a relic. With the exception of his hair, and judging from the rest of his condition, the guy had to
be at least two hundred years old if he was a day, Cal estimated cynically to himself.
"It is for my father."
Cal was genuinely apologetic. "I'm sorry this place isn't very wheelchair accessible ... with the sand floor and all. You must've had a hard time getting him in here."
She turned to walk away again, but then stopped, her shoes gouging small pits into the fine gray sand. "Looks can be very deceiving ... she said over her shoulder, waiting for him to finish her sentence.
"Cal ... Cal Mackey," he called after her.
"Don't be fooled by appearances, Cal Mackey. I am much stronger than I look."
Cal flashed his patented killer smile again. "Well, Plato once said, 'Everything that deceives may be said to enchant,’” he screamed over the music, trying to impress her by sounding exceptionally erudite for a man with a tattoo of a colossal snake on his arm.
Reaching her table, she handed the old man his drink and kissed him gently on the forehead. "Plato was a very wise man," she whispered out of the corner of her mouth.
The old man sipped his beverage carefully. "Yes, he was," he whispered back.
Three
Arthur Geiger had been a Monroe County Deputy for nearly ten years, although, to hear him tell it, it seemed like an eternity. A big-city transplant himself, Geiger had served six years with the Philadelphia Police Department before a nasty divorce and custody battle had sent him scurrying for the sanctity of the slow lane "down island.” It had taken awhile for the predominantly white police department to adjust to an African American in their midst, but he soon proved himself worthy of their trust.