The Deadlier Sex

by Striker, Randy

  “So you admit that this weapon is yours?”

  He held the assault rifle in one meaty hand. The hard hat was tilted back on his head, and his face was expressionless. Drugrunners are just about the only people afloat who carry automatic firepower. They have to—to protect themselves from the law and each other. And Spears thought he had me.

  Without asking, I got to my feet. His men backed up slightly, weapons ready, giving themselves room to work. “Chief Spears,” I said, “you’ve read me my rights, and I now freely waive them. I want to talk to you. But I want to talk in private.”

  He stared at me for a long moment, trying to figure out what ploy I was trying to work. Bribery? Coast Guard people love bribe offers—they can send you to prison for that much longer. So he decided to bite.

  “Talk to me alone, huh?” He thought for a moment—but I could tell he had already made up his mind. He turned to his two men. “I’m going below with MacMorgan. You guys keep a close watch on these people.”

  They nodded knowingly. They’d be ready, all right—ready to cut me in two at the slightest sound of commotion.

  He followed me down into the cabin at a safe distance. I paused at the little refrigerator.

  “What are you getting there, MacMorgan?”

  “Beer?”

  He motioned to the booth. “You have a seat. Let’s talk first.”

  The good ones don’t take any chances. In the occupations of war and law enforcement, the briefest mistake can mean death. Spears was no perspiring, nervous-eyed rookie overreacting. He was just one cool professional hell-bent on keeping the odds in his favor. And I didn’t blame him.

  “Chief, there’s a little round tin of snuff in my shirt pocket.”

  “Yeah, I can see the outline. Go ahead. Just keep your hands above the table.”

  I took out the Copenhagen and tapped a pinch between cheek and gum. He shook his head when I offered. “Used to chew when I played football for the Academy. Gave it up and took to cigars. Have to spit too much when you chew. It can mess up a boat.”

  “If you’re not careful where you spit, it can.” I was beginning to get a reading on this man, Chief Petty Officer Spears, United States Coast Guard. It was unusual to be boarded by a CPO. They usually send a plain petty officer as boarding chief. He must have been aboard the Royal Palm for some special reason. What? No way of telling. What I had to know was that he could be trusted. I had vowed to tell no one of my activities with the United States government, knowing that if I ever got in trouble they would, in turn, disavow any knowledge of my activities. But I sure as hell didn’t want to go through all the legal tanglings that went with being arrested for hauling drugs. He sat there across from me bulky and stumplike, chewing at his cigar, eyes trained on mine.

  “Chief,” I said, “I’m going to tell you the truth.”

  He shifted in his booth seat. “Sounds like a good start. How did you blow up that boat?”

  “Just hold off on the cross-examination until I finish, okay?”

  His dark eyes hardened momentarily. He didn’t like being told what to do by a civilian. But he let it pass. “Okay. Fine, MacMorgan. Talk.”

  So I told him what had happened, detail by detail, leaving out only the girl. She had convinced O’Davis that she had reason for not making her story known to authorities, and that was good enough for me.

  When I had finished, the chief rocked back and relit his cigar.

  “Just up here on vacation, huh?”

  “Came up from Key West to fish, drink beer, and relax.”

  He nodded, unconvinced. “Okay, MacMorgan. I listened to your story, now you listen to mine. Of the eighteen years I’ve been in the Coast Guard, the last ten have been the messiest, nastiest, and generally the biggest pain in the ass. This whole state has gone drug-crazy. Every Sunday boater has this dream of running to Jamaica or South America, picking up a load of grass, selling it, and retiring rich. And, damn it, a lot of them try. Now, this area here, the Ten Thousand Islands, has become the hottest drug drop spot in the nation. No law here, they figure. Nothing but deserted islands and empty sea. And since they shut down commercial fishing in the National Park, even some of the native-born fishing people are getting in on it. And I don’t care how many men you have, you can’t catch those good ol’ boy fishermen in that jungle out there if they have a mind not to be caught.” He paused, checked his watch, and munched on the cigar. “So you get the picture, MacMorgan? One hell of a lot of drugrunning going on here—some of it professional, but a hell of a lot of it amateur. See?”

  I nodded. “But what’s that got to do with us?”

  He held up his hand. “Wait a minute. I’m not done. Okay, in the last eleven months four large vessels—all hauling drugs—have blown up in this area. ‘Mysterious disappearances’ the newspapers called them. But there’s nothing mysterious about it when you find bits and pieces of hulls and bodies washing up on the beach. So that’s why the brass ordered me out of my plush office and gave me sea duty again. I’m supposed to find out who’s blowing up these boats. Do you know what I figure, MacMorgan?”

  “You figure that the pros are getting real tired of the small fry cutting in on their territory. Or maybe there are two or three pro drug rings having a little friendly competition.”

  He stared at me in reappraisal. Law-enforcement people get real suspicious of private citizens with law-enforcement instincts. It makes them wary. Why should anyone besides cops think about criminal motives—unless they are lawmakers? Or lawbreakers.

  “Absolutely right, MacMorgan.” He eyed me shrewdly. “So I come out here to investigate a fifth explosion. And what do I find? I find you and your Irish friend, both of you looking like pro linebackers—or organized-crime hit men. You’ve got dope aboard, a girl who refuses to give us her name, and a Soviet-made assault rifle that I’ve only seen in the picture books. Now doesn’t that sound just a little suspicious to you?”

  It did. It did indeed. But for one thing. I said, “It brings us back to the original question—why didn’t we just drop the dope and run? Why bother to report the explosion in the first place?”

  Spears shrugged. “Damned if I know. Maybe the guy you were trying to save got blown up by mistake. Maybe he was your brother. Or your friend. Or your priest.” He shrugged again. “All I know, MacMorgan, is that I don’t believe you’re just John Q. Public out for a week of fishing. That little-blond-boy face of yours doesn’t give away much—until you take a good look at the eyes. You’re no stranger to this business, MacMorgan. Nothing reads right about you. No nervous jokes and clammy palms from you like with most of the rookies we nab. You and your buddy out there are just a little too cool for your own good.”

  “Maybe we’re just secure in our innocence, Chief.”

  He snorted. “Even the innocent get real nervous when we come around, MacMorgan. They all figure they’re guilty of something. So you’re under arrest, MacMorgan. Face it.”

  He started to stand, but I stopped him. “Spears,” I said, “I didn’t want to go this far, but you give me no choice.” He looked surprised at first. Then just amused.

  “I know, I know,” he said. “You’re going to call some friend of yours and he’s going to get you off, right? He’s the mayor of some town, or maybe even a Congressman, and all he has to do is pull a few strings and we’re going to let you go scotfree.” His face hardened. And I could see that Chief Spears could be one bad man to have as an enemy. “Well, you’re wrong, buster. The governor himself couldn’t get you out of this. We’re the feds, remember? So just come along nice and quiet.”

  “Fine,” I said. “Have it your way. But before you cuff us, why not do us both a favor and make one simple phone call. It might save you some embarrassment.”

  He gazed at me stonily for a moment, then almost smiled. “And why should I?”

  “Because you’re right, Spears. I’m no stranger to this business.”

  “If this is going to be a confession, I want to g
et it on tape. With witnesses.”

  “It’s no confession. You just overlooked one possibility. Maybe I’m not one of the bad guys.”

  It stopped him. Surprised him. He fiddled with his cigar some more. And then: “You say you have a phone number to back that up?”

  I jotted the number down on a napkin. He seemed impressed by the area code—Washington, D.C. I followed him topside, where he took a hand radio from one of his men and contacted the Royal Palm. It took about twenty minutes for them to put the call through, and another twenty minutes for the orders to work their way down the chain of command. I couldn’t hear what was said because his two armed men had the three of us sequestered away on the fighting deck. It was a long wait. The girl said nothing. She stood by the stern rail looking out toward the darkness of White Horse Key. She seemed to be in her own little world, opening her mouth only to yawn occasionally. O’Davis hummed his strange little Irish tune, “Tum-de-dum-dum,” and paused to smile and wink at me from time to time. He knew what was going on.

  Finally Chief Spears signaled me to follow him into Sniper’s cabin. No careful positioning and distance this time, and I knew that my federal friend Norman Fizer had come through. Spears didn’t bother to sit. He made it quick. He stuck out his hand, and I took it. Firm dry handshake.

  “Story confirmed, MacMorgan. I don’t know what you do—and I don’t want to know. But some very big people got upset with me when they heard I had placed you under arrest.”

  I nodded and said nothing. His blunt face studied me, expressionless. “What, no cry of outrage? No demand for an apology from me to you and your friends?”

  “Not hardly, Chief. You were just doing your job. And from what I saw, you do your job damn efficiently. No apology necessary.”

  He smiled briefly, extended his hand again, and then said, “One more thing, Captain MacMorgan.”

  “What’s that?”

  He took the stub of the cigar from his mouth, eyed it evilly, then stuffed it into his shirt pocket. “I’d like to take you up on that offer to have a dip of snuff. I’d forgotten how much I missed it until I saw you take one. . . .”

  5

  The island was set apart from Gullivan Bay, totally isolated, yet close enough to open sea to be edged with sweeping white beach, Australian pines, and coconut palms leaning in windward strands. It was a tough island to get to. One natural unmarked channel snaked its way past mangrove islands and shoal water, and oyster bars guarded the mouth of the channel.

  It was some pretty island to see in the light of a clear June morning. Gumbo-limbo trees stood atop the swollen lift of Indian shell mounds, and the rest of the island was a thatch of citrus trees, mahogany, and ficus. Land birds cackled from the bushes.

  You couldn’t even see the neat line of white clapboard buildings until you were right on them. But they were there. Just as the girl had said.

  Because the channel was so narrow, O’Davis was forward on the bow testing the water with a fourteen-foot pushpole I normally carried in the Whaler when fishing for bonefish. He wore khaki cutoffs and no shirt. The muscles of his calves bulged above his ragged tennis shoes, and his shoulders corded as he plumbed the water. With his red hair and woolly blond leg and back thatch, the Irishman looked like some heather-born gnome who had been transformed and braced by oak four-by-sixes.

  “Coupla points ta port, Yank!”

  Steering from the flybridge, I made the necessary weave that kept us in the channel. The water was a roiled green, stained with the humic and tannic acids of this Florida backcountry, and the air was pungent with the herbaceous odor of mangrove and cactus and the iodine sharpness of open sea.

  Suddenly, O’Davis stopped working the pole. Something on the island seemed to capture his attention. And then I saw it too. About a hundred yards away on the white sand beach. And it captured my attention, too.

  “What was that ya were sayin’ back in Key West, brother MacMorgan?” O’Davis yelled up at me. “No women in the Ten Thousand Islands, didn’t ya’ say?” His face was contorted into a huge grin. “I’m a-tellin’ ya, they find me like moths find a flame, Yank! Look at ’em, mate—ain’t they somethin’?”

  They were something indeed.

  A half dozen women lay on towels and blankets, naked on the sand in the morning sun. Oil glistened on their bodies. They were of different ages, late teens to mid-thirties it seemed, all in fine shape. A tall brunette walked from the water toward the island, her buttocks swaying. There was no white swath of bikini stripe on any of the women. They were no strangers to his kind of sunbathing. I expected them to get up and run at our approach—or at least cover themselves. But they didn’t. They just lay there in the sun, oiled and brown and aloof, hair and bodies tawny as young lionesses.

  O’Davis had completely abandoned his soundings now. He stood on the bow, mouth agape, enjoying the scenery. It was okay with me. We had a strong incoming spring tide, and the water eddied around the shoal areas making the channel easy to read now.

  The girl had told us about the island after the Coast Guard had left us the night before. We were all dead tired, and I wasn’t up to trying to navigate strange backwaters by moonlight. So we had anchored off White Horse Key, sat on the stern with drinks, and watched Chief Spears’s Royal Palm salvage the drug flotsam and search for survivors. It was tedious work and gruesome. The Coasties aren’t paid all that well. And they work hard for what they do get. We didn’t watch for long. The girl seemed to be drifting deeper and deeper into a world of her own despair. She still refused to let us have her transported to a hospital for observation. She said Sniper’s hull had conked her on the head—but not very hard. So when we retreated into the privacy of Sniper’s cabin she sat on the gold cloth couch seat across from the galley, moping. The jazz station in Fort Myers had signed off, and WKWF in Key West had taken a sudden acid-rock jag, so Westy ambled over to the radio, switched it off, and gave me a wink.

  “Do ye not think, Captain MacMorgan, that the three of us could produce some better music than that?”

  I saw what he was doing—trying to cheer the girl up; maybe relieve her of the memories of the last couple of days.

  “I do, Captain O’Davis, I do—if you don’t sing along, that is.”

  I watched the girl. She actually let a smile cross her face.

  The Irishman put his hands on his hips and looked at me gruffly. “So ya think I canna sing, ya big ugly brute! Well, we’ll let this fine young lady here be the judge—but first, let’s fill our glasses!”

  So O’Davis filled our glasses ceremoniously. After my stay in Mariel Harbor, Cuba, I had just about had my fill of Hatuey beer. Not because it isn’t fine beer—it is. But because of where it is made—Havana. I had come away from Mariel with no love for Castro’s little commie haven, so now I was drinking that fine Tuborg beer from bottles. It was a silly little protest. But I’ve made silly protests before, and I expect I’ll make them again.

  So it was Tuborg for me, dark Guinness stout for the Irishman, and more peach brandy (minus the coffee) for the girl. O’Davis played what he said was an old Gaelic drinking game. We would all take turns singing a song of our choice. If the person who started the song forgot any of the words, he or she had to drain his glass.

  It was the sort of game where everybody loses—or wins, depending on how you look at it.

  But it worked.

  After a shy beginning, the girl began joining in with O’Davis’s endless repertoire of drinking and whaling songs, and she actually began a few of her own. At somewhere between eighteen and twenty-one, her taste in music was not nearly as limited as I would have guessed. She did a pretty good version of “Heartbreak Hotel.” And several glasses of brandy later, when her turn came again, she added a musky “As Time Goes By,” in a smoky contralto. It was a perfect choice for her. She had the same fine, unusually angular face as Bacall; the same torch singer’s voice. And when she finally forgot the words of the last verse, she swore with a fervor that might hav
e done justice to Bacall herself. The fact that Bacall never sang “As Time Goes By” seemed to make no difference at all in her delivery.

  It was about an hour into the game that she finally broke. Westy and I had been trying to harmonize on the old whaling song “Row Away.” She began to laugh so hard that she spilled her drink. We both stooped to pick up the glass at the same time, and we bumped heads mightily.

  And that made her laugh even harder, tears rolling, heavy breasts heaving beneath the blue plaid shirt.

  Westy and I recognized it at the same time. The thick laughter was suddenly edged with hysteria.

  She took two steps backward, holding her stomach, face tilted upward, and plopped drunkenly onto the couch.

  And her laughter became a rage of tears. O’Davis went to her, but she slapped him away, then hid her face in her hands, sobbing. We exchanged looks.

  I grabbed his arm and pulled his ear close to my face.

  “Remember that bucket?”

  “Aye. Yer thinkin’ that peach brandy might be a-seekin’ some fresh air.”

  “Shrewd, O’Davis. Shrewd.”

  He moved quickly from the cabin. I tore a handful of paper towels from the roll above the sink and handed it to the girl. She took them reluctantly and wiped her eyes. She began to say something, but grabbed her stomach instead. Her face turned pale, and the Irishman arrived with the bucket just in time. Nothing feminine about upchucking. She coughed and sweated and spewed. The convulsions seemed both physical and emotional; a two-in-the-morning cathartic that wracked her brain and body. It left her leached, weak—but she seemed to feel one hell of a lot better.

  And she actually began to talk.

  We were her two confidants. She included Westy and me equally. It happens that way—even in a short period of time—when you have suffered, drunk, and sung together.

  Westy had gotten a towel and loaded it with ice. She held it on her forehead. I had her feet propped up with a pillow, and her head lay on my lap on the little couch. At first, she seemed uncomfortable with the close contact, but finally she relaxed, settling back, one hand thrown up behind her head.