We studied the shore, discussed lights in homes and on poles. “The tide’s coming in. I don’t see any rescuers. Let’s start talking through the radios. I’ll pole in and drop anchor. You kneel on the bow. Be my eyes. You’re looking for rocks.”
“Favor that Environmental Center,” I said. “I don’t want to crawl ashore in the mobile-home park. Some landowner’ll freak out, pop me with a twelve-gauge.”
In my ear: “You think they guard the coastline like the Cuban Army?”
“No, but they watch for Cubans. You can bet that.”
“My point, exactly. Anymore, a boatload hits the beach and a pack of starving people come ashore. They wander through yards, grateful to be on dry land. Maybe swipe fruit
off the trees. My buddy on Grassy Key doesn’t donate old clothes to Goodwill anymore. He hangs them in the yard. They’re gone by morning. The refugees leave behind salt water-soaked rags. They’re not a threat once they hit land. They’re glad to be in America.”
“Your point?”
Sam used his pole to slow our progress. “Define your threat. If shotguns pop, they’ll belong to your target, not the neighbors. But don’t think about it now. Just remember that Scott Kirby lyric.” Sam spoke as if reciting gospel: “If you’re walkin’ on thin ice, you may as well dance.”
“Mambo till the sea cows come home.”
“If I see action ashore that’s not you,” he said, “I’ll give you a
di di.”
“DeeDee lives in Indiana. She’s a sweet one.”
“This one’s Vietnamese. Means hurry your ass out of there.” He pointed to a moored sailboat. “If your boys shine a spot, I’ll hide behind that.”
“Time to go for it.”
“Get off the south side of the boat, in case you splash,” said Sam. “Think about noise, not hurry. Go slowly. If you trip, don’t try to stay standing. Roll with it, into the water. Land on your knees. Come up slowly.”
Sam was repeating words he’d heard over thirty years ago. Words he’d memorized going into enemy turf. Words that may have saved his life.
I went in. The thigh-deep salt water was warmer than the night air.
I heard Sam through my earphone: “Check in with me every couple of minutes. I hear the word
panic,
I’m on the beach.”
I said, “Okay,” into the microphone. “Did you hear that?”
“Don’t worry. The radio works.”
I eased through the water, aimed for a house between the study center and the Big Crab Fish House. I wanted to hit the beach just west of Thorsby’s dock. The shallows were rocky. I stubbed my feet, scraped an ankle, felt grateful
for my old basketball sneaks. I found a rhythm. I’d go a dozen steps, crouch, count to ten as I scoped the shoreline. I’d stand, repeat the process. I scanned the waterfront, memorized lights ashore. Lights turned on weren’t so bad. Lights gone out might mean an observer. For now, no lights changed. Only two boats at Thorsby’s dock.
Closer to land, I felt like my skin glowed, made me a walking target. I hit calf-deep water, wanted to hurry but minded Sam’s warning about noise. Every reflection was a warning shot. Chunks of broken Styrofoam net floats spooked me. I wanted to sort night sounds, judge each threat. I sensed that a rustling of lizards in the ground cover was prelude to a billy-club whack. Each time I stopped to listen, a truck on the highway, many yards distant, would drown out every other sound. I thought, Do real commandos worry about waterlogged shoes that squish when they walk?
“I’m on solid ground,” I said.
“I see you. Nothing else moving.” Sam had his night scope on me. “You get your pack wet?”
“Dry.”
I moved east toward the lobster boat I’d seen Tuesday. I tripped over a six-inch concrete footer. The foundation for a shed that never was built. The cat spray was either good or bad. Good, if people nearby were accustomed to prowling sounds. Bad, because I saw no cats. Perhaps, like the area birds, they’d been served for supper.
At the edge of Big Crab’s property, a motorcycle graveyard in a mangrove clump. Frames, bent wheels. No fenders, no engines. Light reflected off a few pieces. New items, their paint not yet dulled by sun and corrosion.
I crouched under the dock, held still. No sounds except for the soft slap of inshore waves. I moved east, angled inward. What I’d taken to be a mobile-home park was five shabby trailers. The rusted one close to the water stood alone. The next three formed a U. I couldn’t be certain in darkness, but they appeared to be connected. Light and voices and TV sounds came from the open windows of the
fifth unit, the one closest to the highway. A tall slat fence blocked my view. It also blocked the highway’s view of Thorsby’s compound. The sliding gate was wide enough to bring in a boat on a trailer. Or a stolen car. A faint two-track of flattened weeds ran from the gate to the triple-trailer U.
I heard a solid
thunk
in the occupied trailer. I froze, heard drink cans pop open. The refrigerator. Beers for three people. I heard an exaggerated moan and canned music. A porn-movie sound track. I couldn’t have hoped for a better diversion.
I followed the dirt track to the U, kicked something small and hard in the dirt. Shit. A trip wire, a silent alarm? I held still, waited for a scramble in the porn theater. I quickly looked down, caught a glint of chrome. A fresh Master lock, with no corrosion. I checked the rear wall of the nearest trailer. A false wall, a lift gate disguised as the ass end of a trailer, and a side-hinged metal door. On the door, an unsecured hasp. I pocketed the lock so no one could find it and lock me in. I opened up. A stink of grease and mildew.
“Going inside,” I radioed, almost whispering.
I heard: “Okay.”
I stepped up. A sticky wood floor. The door swung shut behind me.
“You hear me now?” I said.
“Yes.”
I pulled the small camera from my belly-pack, hung the string around my neck, flicked on the penlight. In the dimness I could see most of the large, U-shaped room. I wondered if Navy Security missed their F-150 pickup truck. In front of it, Teresa’s Grand Am. Then Heidi’s Jaguar roadster, Bug Thorsby’s low-slung pickup truck, a bright red Mustang Steeda Cobra, and a twenty-four-foot SeaRay powerboat. I didn’t know why they’d bothered to swipe the moldy Pontiac Sunbird convertible. It had belonged to a former bartender, Jesse Spence, now a boat builder in Fort Pierce. Maybe he had abandoned it. I walked slowly to my
left, to check the far trailer. At least thirty mopeds. A Conch Train Jeep. Two of Paul’s Portable Potties. Norby would be pissed. I moved back to the doorway. Hanging from the mirror of Bug’s truck: an upside-down crucifix cut from a compact disc.
I said to Sam, “They could open a used-car lot.”
I played the penlight along the walls to check for windows. I didn’t want my flash to draw attention. The windows had been covered with flattened grocery sacks and duct tape. I wanted front shots and license tags of each vehicle. I quickly shot three photos. After the fresh meat—Teresa’s car, the pickup truck, and Heidi’s Jaguar—I found no more license plates. I checked the Jaguar’s glove box. I pictured myself plopping pictures and registration slips on Liska’s desk in the morning. There was no paperwork in the truck, the Jag, or Teresa’s car. Liska would get only pictures.
A sound, outside. Oh shit, the fence gate sliding. The lock isn’t hung on the hasp. The bad guy’s going to know someone’s in here. I pocketed my mini-flash, replaced the camera, and palmed the pistol in my belly-pack. Leave the gun alone, I thought. Too much noise, a pistol shot. Sure to draw a crowd. I didn’t relish a knife fight in the dark. I didn’t know how good he was. I didn’t want to lose my only silent weapon.
I needed something quiet and solid. I took a chance, shone my penlight on the floor. Nothing. I shone it in the pickup bed. Nothing there, no two-by-four, no tire iron. Like the iron in Teresa’s trunk. Four months ago I bought her a decent NAPA jack and a four-armed lug wrench so she could toss the factory-supplied can opener.
My brain sped into high gear. Teresa had complained that the remote release lever didn’t work. She’d put a spare trunk key under the rear floor mat. Could I open the car door, shine the interior lights long enough to get the key? If shitbird walked inside the trailer and saw the light, all hell would cut loose.
I was walking on ice. Time to dance. I shuffled sideways,
popped the door, reached down. I found the key wedged in the seat track. I held tight, released the seat-adjustment lever with my other hand. The key slipped free. I popped the trunk. One more stroke of luck: I had offered, then forgotten, to replace Teresa’s burned-out trunk lightbulb. I reached under the old carpet she kept so things wouldn’t slide around in there. The tire iron, fresh as new. The store’s bar-code sticker still on the arm I grabbed. Now . . . close the lid without alarming the man. No way. Too much noise. Leave it open.
Suddenly the shed’s door swung open. A man’s voice: “Yo, Douglas?”
We weren’t twelve feet apart. I smelled the man’s cigarette, or secondhand stink from his clothing. He didn’t see me. He left the door ajar, went back outside. I watched his shadow in the moonlight. He was looking for the padlock. I crouched, hustled toward the wall, froze again. The door swung shut on its own. I slid along the wall to get close to the door. If he came back in, walked in far enough, I could bolt through the door. I could lock him in, make a run for it. No, I thought, that won’t work. If I locked him in, he could climb into the pickup and lean on the horn. They’d be all over my ass. Then I thought, he could be rounding up the troops right now. Even if he came back in alone, I was in trouble.
The door opened slowly. A strong flashlight beam jumped wall to wall. The hand that held the light was attached to an arm as big around as my calf.
He aimed the light at the open trunk lid. He whispered, “What the fuck?”
I slid behind him, poked my blade in his ear. I pushed him forward. The door swung shut behind me. “Say one peep, fuckhead, I’ll stick it through your voice box. You’ll drink your own blood.”
Sam was listening. He said in my ear, “Hang tough. Remember the code word.”
The man stopped, stiffened. He was my height, but outweighed me. His wrist swiveled, the flashlight came back
at my forehead. I dodged it, poked with the knife, slapped the light with my left hand. It clattered into the pickup truck bed, remained lighted.
“Don’t do what you’re thinking,” I whispered. “You kick me in the balls, you’ll never talk again. If you live.”
He tried, anyway. He snapped his right calf upward. His ankle cracked into the tire iron. “Shit,” he said. The iron fell on my foot At that point, pain was better than noise. The knife had remained in his ear. I’d felt it puncture skin.
I reached into my pocket with my other hand, grabbed the Master lock, fitted one finger through the loop, a solo-brass knuckle. I rapped the man upside the head. “No shit, no talk,” I said. “Walk to the open trunk.”
He smelled like a boiled-down vat of greasy chicken soup.
I edged him forward, felt power in his back and shoulder. I kept myself alert. He could spin away in an instant, grab me, pluck the knife, toss me out the door, fillet me like a sea bass in the pea rock.
“Get in,” I said.
“Bullshit”
I pressed the knife into his upper ear, felt it break skin again. He jumped. The knife stayed with him. I pushed on his shoulder. “I’ll slash your face, fucker. Or that fat blood vessel in your neck.”
He began to roll in, muttered, “Shit”
I rapped his ankle with the lock. “You kick, and I’ll make that bone popcorn.”
He was in. I pushed down the lid. He fought back. I was in no mood for a shoving contest I jumped up, sat on the damned lid. His resistance quit. The latch snapped shut.
I turned to make sure no one else had joined us. Stood in place for a few seconds to make sure no one had heard the commotion. I said to Sam: “One down, two to go. I’m fine for now.”
He responded: “Two neck arteries, called carotids. Also, jugular veins.”
“That’s good info. Thanks.”
I went to the pickup and flipped off the man’s eighteen-inch flashlight. I still needed pictures. I turned on my small flashlight, hurried around the oblong rooms, grabbed shots as quickly as the flash would recycle. The mopeds, the boat, the vehicles. The man in Teresa’s trunk began to kick and shout. I thumped the lid, told him I’d open up and come in slashing. He shut up. I hoped he didn’t make a personal mess in there.
The flash batteries went south. I took the large flashlight, flicked it off, pushed open the metal door. No one out there. I eased the door shut, fixed the padlock onto the hasp, snapped it. Listened again for observers, then retraced my steps to the dock. I couldn’t see squat on the path. I knew Sam couldn’t see me until I reached the waterline. I suddenly formed an image of Thorsby’s knife-throwing ace just missing me two days earlier.
My feet hit the beach gravel. “Got me?” I crouched by the property edge, sealed the camera in the Ziploc bag.
“Yes. And no one else. Come back the way you came. The long way. You walk straight from there, you’ll hit a dredged slot, be over your head.”
“I’ve been over my head for twelve minutes.”
Four minutes later I was in Sam’s skiff. He tilted his engine halfway down, started it, noise be damned. He let the partially submerged prop counter the tide. I used the flashlight I’d swiped to search for channel markers. After I found the first marker, Sam hit the tilt button, then the throttle. Neither of us looked back.
Twenty minutes later Sam pulled back the gas lever. We were south of the Saddlebunch Keys, near West Washerwoman Shoal.
“My man,” he said, “you need to learn the true essence of yachting.”
He switched off the ignition, reached into a small plastic carrying case, pulled out two iced bottles of beer. We sat on opposite gunwales, rocked on the waves, soaked up the quiet night sea air. Sam had risked his boat. I didn’t know how to tell him that I wasn’t in the mood for celebratory
beer. I wanted to put my photos to good use. I wanted to put a stop to Thorsby and learn his connection to the murders.
“Find what you needed?” said Sam.
“What I thought I’d find, except more of it Teresa’s car. Heidi’s Jaguar. Like Jemison had a small operation that suddenly got bigger.”