Stairway to the Bottom - a Mick Murphy Key West Mystery (17 page)

“She’s supposed to call me from Miami if she makes the six o’clock connection. If not it’ll be the nine o’clock flight,” I said and the words sounded sad, even to me because I wasn’t looking forward to the news she brought from Boston.

“You take care of Tita and don’t worry,” he said crushing the cigarette with his foot. “I’ve gotta run, but I’ll be in touch.”

“Thanks for the beers,” I said, reminding him he bought two rounds.

“Don’t be a smart ass, I’ll pay for them on the way out,” he said and turned.

“You’d better,” I called after him, “because my memory isn’t that good and I might leave the tab open in your name.”

He didn’t turn but shook his head and his mop of shaggy hair flew about. I left the empty beer bottle on the railing and walked toward the cigar kiosk thinking I’d get a fresh cigar and walk down to Smokin’ Tuna, Charlie Bauer’s bar on Charles Street.

Three people lined up in front of the kiosk questioning the salesman about the cigars. I was getting antsy and hoped Slim, the proprietor, saw me waiting, when two burly men bumped into me. They didn’t look like tourists who’d bump into you as they meandered about because the bar was crowded. They wore garish tropical shirts trying to look like tourists, but had long pants on, and my mind quickly jumped to the two CIA men, Piersall and Williams, wearing socks with sandals and gaudy tropical shirts from Duval Street—pretend tourists.

Without a word, each man grabbed me under an armpit, lifted me off the ground, and continued toward the boardwalk, forcing me along. I struggled and went to say something when one of them hit me quickly and hard in the stomach. I doubled over like a drunk and the men smiled. They began talking in Russian and kept smiling. No one paid attention. Three guys who had too much to drink.

At the boardwalk, they stopped and when there was a break in the foot traffic, hurried toward the finger dock. My feet were off the ground and my breath came back slowly. We were halfway down the dock when they suddenly let go, startling me again as I landed on the concrete floating dock, stopping myself with outstretched arms. I shook my head, turned around and saw the Russians facing two others. The other two had military haircuts, guns in their hands, and whispered to the Russians.

Bric Wahl, an old salt, Conch treasure diver, walked past the four men and helped me up.

“A problem, Mick?” he said with a scary expression etched on his sunburned face. “Friends of yours?”

“No,” I said and wiped my cargo shorts clean from the salt encrusted dock residue. I looked at the two Russians and they were quiet while the two men who saved me held guns on them. “What’s going on?”

Bric motioned everyone further along the finger dock and stopped next to a go-fast boat. The military types edged the Russians along, grudgingly.

“Not sure what’s goin’ on, Mick,” Bric said in his Conch accent, “but Pauly asked us to keep an eye on you.”

“Russians,” the man with the blond crewcut said. “This is their boat, saw them come in on it.”

“You want to explain yourselves?” Bric asked the Russian with the bushy mustache.

“Go away,” he said in a thick accent.

The two men with guns laughed.

“You got a way with words, Ruskie,” Bric said and then followed through with a solid punch to the man’s midsection. Blond crewcut kept him from falling.

Bric turned to the second Russian, who had a very straight nose and scruffy eyebrows. “You want to answer for your friend or do you want your nose broken?”

“You do not know who we are,” bushy eyebrows said in his thick accent. “You need not get involved.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ve heard it all.” Bric chuckled. “You’re the big, bad guys. Who the fuck are you and what do you want?” he said in a menacing voice. He walked over to the go-fast and looked onto the deck. “Nice boat,” he said. “Too bad if it sank.”

“You are dead men,” bushy mustache mumbled. “The man who owns that boat can buy and sell you many times over.”

“I don’t think so, Ruskie, ‘cause we ain’t for sale, right boys?”

The two men holding the Russians nodded.

“But I can assure you, if we see your sorry asses in

Key West again, or anywhere near Mick,
you’re dead men
,”

Bric said within inches from bushy mustache’s sinister grin.

“I am not afraid of you,” he said and spit in Bric’s face.

The man holding him, hit him hard on the back of the head with his gun, but held him so he wouldn’t fall and draw attention to us.

Bric took a handkerchief from his back pocket and wiped his face. He walked up close again to the Russian and landed two blows to his midsection.

“You should be afraid of me if I’m the one killing you,” he said and walked in tight circles on the narrow dock. “The boat I’ll take you out on isn’t as nice as this, but it’ll go to the Gulf Stream. I’ll tie an anchor around your legs. You understand this?”

The Russian looked uninterested.

“Where should I shoot him, boys?” He said to his two cohorts.

“In the leg,” crewcut said.

“Fuck him, in the head,” said the quiet baldheaded man.

“Naw, I don’t want to kill him quick,” Bric said. “I think I’ll go for the shoulder, more blood that way. Know what I want the blood for, Ruskie?”

Bric received no reply.

“Sharks can smell blood in the water from miles away.” He smirked and got both Russians’ attention. “Yeah, I’d say about five, maybe ten minutes in the water, bleeding and there will be a shark frenzy.” He looked toward his friends and they both agreed.

“See, along with the anchor on your feet…you know, to make sure you hit bottom, eventually… I’ll have a rope under your arms so I can keep you from sinking, hold you halfway in the water as you bleed. When the sharks start eating you, I’ll let go of the rope and they’ll follow you down.”

Both Russians looked nervous for the first time.

“Chances are the only thing the sharks won’t eat is the anchor.” He smiled.

“That’s a waste of a good anchor,” baldheaded guy said. “Don’t use the anchor, just tie their legs together and when the sharks attack, let ‘em go into the frenzy, bones sink.”

“That’s an idea,” Bric said. “Now, let me tell you two stupid fucks something, pass the word to whoever it is you work for, that if you come after Mick, we’re gonna go after you, all of you and the sharks around here are gonna be well fed. You understand?’

Neither Russian spoke, but their eyes darted between us, and they were not smiling. Bric took guns from their waistbands and nodded. The two men who saved me pushed the Russians into the water. One Russian started screaming.

“What’s he saying?” I asked as we walked away.

“The one crying says he can’t swim, the other one thinks the tarpons are sharks.” baldhead man laughed as we walked onto the boardwalk.

“Look at the time,” Bric said with a glance at his wristwatch, and hurried along.

“I’m supposed to be on stage with Michael and Carl for this set.”

Chapter 41

T
he Key West International Airport didn’t always looks like it does today. When I first flew here for a vacation, twenty some years ago, the airport building was a Quonset-style hut without air conditioning. The Conch Flyer Restaurant and Bar was at one end, ticketing in the middle and the arrival/departure lounge at the other end—a long, narrow cut in the wall held arriving luggage and a canvas flap protected it from the rain and sun.

Today, passengers check-in at a concrete-and-glass building above the parking lot across from the arrival area, then they take an escalator down to the departure section after passing through security, and only ticketed passengers can gain entry to the old Conch Flyer.

The hole in the wall for luggage and the canvas flap are lost to our memories. Today, the arrival area has a luggage carousel and air conditioning—the old
you-have-arrived-on-a-tropical-island
feel of the airport has gone the way of the unicorn.

Tita called from Miami and said she would make her six o’clock flight. I was waiting in the arrival area with the car rental agents and half a dozen others when she arrived.

The airlines use regional jets or large prop planes these days, so there are fewer flights, but the ones arriving are full. Tita walked across the tarmac behind fellow travelers. Some were locals I exchanged small talk with before they headed to the carousel, most passengers were tourists excited about being on the island.

She wheeled her carry-on bag into the building. In Boston, at her brother’s house, Tita kept clothing for the New England weather and had her summer clothing in Key West. She saw no need to wait around for lost or delayed luggage, or pay extra to the airlines for a checked bag.

Her green eyes looked tired, but she smiled thinking it would conceal her weariness. I’ve known Tita since she was a teenager and her brother Paco and I went to college together. Maybe I would never understand her—or any woman, for that matter—but I could read her looks and knew the weariness came more from the news she brought rather than her hectic schedule.

We hugged, bumped by arriving passengers, and she held me tighter than I held her.

“Hi,” she said, smiled, and kissed me on the cheek. “I’ve missed you.”

Then she kissed me on the lips and it was a strong kiss. It was not
a hello-I-missed-you
kiss; it was a
good-bye kiss
that’s given at an airport from someone expecting to be gone for a longtime.

“I missed you too,” I said and kissed her gently.

She grabbed my arm. “Take me home.”

On the short ride to her Conch house by the Key West cemetery, Tita talked about her brother, his family, and how chilly it was in Boston. All small talk.

“The leaves change color next month,” I said. “About the only thing I miss from up there.”

“When I was young we used to press the leaves in wax paper with an iron,” she said. “It was always a project when we returned to grade school.”

The conversation stayed light because the real topic was going to be hard—hard for her to tell me and harder for me to accept with a smile.

“Did you remember to turn the A/C on?”

I parked my Jeep in an open space a few houses up from her place. “It’s on, there’s fresh milk in the fridge and the other things you asked me to buy.”

“You want
arroz con pollo
, right?”

“Have I ever refused your
arroz con pollo
?”

It was a joke between us. When she was a teenager she knew I liked her rice and chicken dish, so when she cooked it, she always called Paco at college to remind him to come home on the weekend for dinner. Paco would mention going home and I would tag along if he said dinner was going to be
arroz con pollo
. His family was my second family during those days and that was one of the reasons I avoided the braless teenager as she flaunted her beauty around the apartment. Years later, Tita told me she did all that so I would come over. She had a teenage crush on me.

I told her I knew and we both laughed.

I had her rum and coke waiting after she’d freshened up.

“Thank you,” she said and took a long sip. “Be nine o’clock by the time we eat.”

“Gives you time to tell me all about Boston,” I said.

Tita looked at me, surprised for a second that I’d ask, and then smiled. She was saying a lot without words.

She collected ingredients from the cupboard and fridge and began cutting up the chicken before she spoke.

“What do you want me to say?” The words came slowly, her back to me.

I took a beer from the fridge, my second, and sat at the kitchen table. “Tell me what they offered you.”

She laughed softly as she cut up chicken, whacking the knife through the bones.

“Everything. They offered me everything.”

“I thought they’d done that last time they were here.”

“You’re talking money,” she said.

“What are you talking about?”

She busied herself with the ingredients and when she finally put the pot on the stove, she turned to me. “Money was never the issue.”

“What offer clinched the deal?” I thought by saying I knew she’d accepted the job it would be easier for her.

She leaned against the sink and sipped her drink. “You know, Mick, I came here ignoring the law practice’s offer five years ago. I was in love with you—I still am. Your life here is a dream come true…to you, at least,” she said and finished her drink. “You sail, you drink, sometimes you get work and write for the newsmagazines, then you come back and it begins all over again. You live a very hedonistic life.” She smiled and shook her head when I offered to make her another drink. “I think you and your friends have found a way to hold off being responsible adults.”

“Like Peter Pan?” I tried to match her smile but couldn’t.

Tita struggled not to laugh. “Yeah, Key West is your Never-Never Land. And maybe your friends are the lost boys… I never thought of it that way.”

“Me neither.”

“There’s more to life,” she said and washed her hands, even though she’d washed them a few times while preparing dinner. “You live here and what do you give back for enjoying paradise?”

“I don’t understand what this has to do with Boston?”

“Of course you don’t.” She moved forward, leaned over, took my face in her hands and kissed me gently on the lips, and then moved away. “Your innocence is one of your charms. You’re a contradiction. War correspondent, world traveler, educated and with all that…baggage…whatever it is, you still have an innocence about you. Strange.” She checked the pot on the stove, stirred it and put the lid back on. “In the short time I’ve been here with you, people have tried to kill you…hell, they blew up the boat you were in.” She laughed, but it wasn’t because the subject was funny. “Mexican drug cartels have come here wanting you dead. To you, it’s all a game.”

“They came after me, Tita, you know that,” I said. “I didn’t chase these guys or bring them here. I left that life in California.”

“There’s your innocence again, Mick,” she said.

“Your life is one successful disaster or failed miracle after another and it’s brought on by decisions you made…maybe in El Salvador or Los Angeles, but you made them…and that karma, or whatever, is only steps behind you and you’ve turned a blind eye to it. Norm is your guardian angel and you should be thankful for him.”