The Riptide Ultra-Glide (10 page)

“How hot?”

“Upper eighties, nineties.”

“Sounds too hot.”

“Listen, the place is on U.S. 1. That's right along the ocean.” Pat leaned and typed. “Walk out of our room and we're splashing through the surf in ten seconds.”

“I don't see the ocean in the pictures. You'd think they'd show that.”

“Trust me.” Pat entered a credit-card number on the reservation page. “I used to live there.”

“Why is it called the Casablanca Inn?”

“They do that in Florida.” More typing. “The Sands, the Dunes, the Sahara, the Algiers. It's a magnificent state in its own right, but some places think they also need an Arabian theme.”

“Sounds more like a Vegas theme.”

“Then there's the Polynesian, the Tahitian, the Hawaiian Tropic. That's the Pacific Ocean.”

“I know.”

Pat finished with their billing address, then moved his cursor over the “Submit Reservation” button. He turned to his wife and raised his eyebrows. “Your call. Say the word.”

She smiled back. “Go for it!”

Click
.

Chapter Nine

THE NEXT MORNING

D
awn broke through the mangroves on an incoming tide.

The 911 call came from the cell phone of a fly fisherman working a shallow bank for snook.

The Key Largo police came in cars and boats, unspooling crime-scene tape and an orange berm in the water. Others high-stepped through the mangroves, collecting potential evidence in garbage bags, but mainly it was old beer cans and a few bleached Styrofoam crab-trap floats that had gotten loose and tangled in the roots.

The body was onshore, but only the feet and head were visible. Someone in a dress shirt leaned over the victim, taking photos of the undisturbed site. Then he gave a signal to the homicide guys that he had what he needed: disturb away.

“All right,” said a lieutenant. “Start getting those things off him.”

Investigators grunted as they strained to lift. No good way to get a grip; one slipped and sank a foot in the muck. Others in latex gloves snipped rope from mangrove roots, preserving the knots.

The lieutenant glanced sideways at the medical examiner standing next to him. “You might be able to make breakfast after all. Pretty obvious what we've got here.”

“Yes and no.”

“Why do you always have to say that?” asked the lieutenant. “This time it's more than clear: He was instantly crushed to death.”

“No, he slowly suffocated.”

“But look at all that weight. At least nine hundred pounds.” He pointed at the growing pile the investigators had formed near the waterline. “How can you possibly say this was slow?”

The examiner looked up at the sky. “Because it rained last night.”

“What's rain got to do with it?”

The examiner bent down and checked the capillaries in each eyeball. “He started with a maximum of forty pounds on him. Took several hours for it to reach nine hundred.”

“Now I'm completely lost,” said the lieutenant.

The examiner walked over to the pile and felt along a seam for a manufacturer's label. “These aren't regular sandbags. They're a newly developed type for easy, lightweight storage and transport. Two pounds each, dry, filled with special chemically reactive crystals that swell to a cement-hard thirty-five pounds when exposed to water.” He looked at the sky again. “We're dealing with one of the worst kinds of killer.”

“What kind's that?” asked the lieutenant.

“Patient.”

THREE HUNDRED MILES NORTH

A
n hour before dawn, a mild, rhythmic thunder broke morning silence in the empty hills. The sound didn't originate from a stationary source, but swept by with Doppler effect. Then it was quiet again. Ten minutes later, the same thunder. And ten minutes after that. Perfectly spaced.

Eyelids fluttered open in a parked Durango.

Catfish sat up and shook his head to clear the cobwebs. Then he reached toward the passenger seat and poked a shoulder. “Gooch, wake up.”

“Huh? What?”

Still not quite back among the living. Another poke. “Okay, I'm awake. Stop it.” Gooch looked around the darkness. “What's that sound?”

Catfish pointed toward the other side of the wooden fence. The shape of a horse ran by, jockey standing high in the saddle.

Catfish could see the question on his subordinate's face. “It's morning warm-ups.”

Gooch straightened the rest of the way. “What time is it? Where are we?”

“Six o'clock. Ocala.”

Catfish started the Durango, drove fifty yards and turned up a private road. It went through a gate and under a giant wooden sign nailed up cockeyed on top of tall, crooked posts. An expensive sign company did that on purpose. It was from the bucolic section of its catalog. The sign's logo had an interlocking
D
and
G
.

Dry Gulch Farms.

“Isn't it kind of early to pay someone a visit?” asked Gooch.

“Not here. We actually overslept.”

Five lengthy barns stood scattered across distant pastures. Lights already on. Catfish drove toward the nearest. A horse passed the car.

Gooch twisted all the way around in his seat. The farm went on in all directions beyond sight lines. “Look at the size of this spread! I didn't know there were places like this outside Kentucky.”

“Most people don't,” said Catfish. “But Ocala has one of the largest horse industries in the country with close to a thousand Thoroughbred farms. The Triple Crown hasn't been won for over thirty years, Affirmed in 1978, and he was raised right here in these hills.”

“That's very interesting, but I don't know what it's got to do with our problems.”

“Watch and learn.”

The Durango pulled up to the barn and parked just outside the open stable doors.

A jockey trotted a horse inside, and Catfish followed.

The horse was greeted by a lanky man in jeans and a plaid shirt who took the reins from the jockey. He patted the horse on the side. The jockey removed the saddle, and the other person grabbed a thick, coarse blanket off a cedar bench near a stall and threw it over the back of the mare.

“Parsons! Parsons Gram! You son of a bitch!”

The man looked up and squinted into the darkness at the barn doors. “Catfish?”

Smiles broke out. They approached for a macho, back-slapping hug. Parsons held him out by the shoulders. “How long has it been? And what the hell are you doing here?”

“Thought I'd take me a little Florida vacation.”

Parsons simultaneously pointed in opposite directions, east-west. “The beach is that way. And that.”

“It's a working vacation.”

“Uh-oh,” said Parsons. “Here it comes now.”

“I've got a business proposition.”

Parsons shook his head. “I've heard this tune before. Look, I know we had some times—boy, did we. But I'm too old for that shit.”

“Don't tell me you've settled down.”

“Like Ward and June.”

“At least hear me out.”

Parsons folded his arms and smiled. “For entertainment value.”

“What are you doing with your horse blankets these days?”

“Same as usual. Shipping them to Versailles.”

“Versailles?” Gooch chimed in. “
Our
Versailles?”

“My manners,” said Catfish, making way for his traveling companion to step forward. “This is Gooch Spivey, my assistant.”

Parsons reached out and shook his hand. “Pleasure to meet.”

“Why do you ship those blankets to Versailles?”

“For cleaning.”

“But the shipping cost must be nuts,” said Gooch.

Catfish and Parsons looked at each other and laughed.

Gooch glanced back and forth at the two. “Did I miss the joke?”

Parsons put a hand on his shoulder. “Son, these ain't regular horses. And those aren't regular blankets. Actually they are regular blankets, but you can't just clean them any old way . . .”

Catfish jumped in: “After morning warm-ups, you got to put blankets on the horses so they don't chill during the warm-down. And you can't transfer the blankets horse to horse because they could pick up parasites or skin diseases and such. It's just not done with Thoroughbreds.”

“There are only a few places that can clean them right,” said Parsons. “The shipping is nothing to protecting the investment.”

“But who in Versailles?” asked Gooch.

“Remember our friend Bing, the firefighter who retired with partial disability?”

“Yeah?”

“He got an idea from the department,” said Catfish. “After every blaze, they took the firefighters' bunker gear and mailed them to Chicago or Philly or some bullshit.”

“Why?”

“Federal regulation. Potential carcinogens from burning building materials. They had to be cleaned according to very specific occupational standards before the department could put them back in use. Which means special washing machines that aren't very common, ten thousand a pop. So Bing bought one, and started doing his old department's gear for a lower price. Then other departments heard about it, and he bought a second machine and a third. Gear started coming in from Tennessee and Kansas. Ran the operation on the cheap out of an old gas station that had been shut down for leaky tanks.”

“But what's that got to do with horses?” asked Gooch.

“Remember in the nineties when we had to lay low? The pot helicopters? And I had to do odd jobs in a stable?” said Catfish. “So I'm drinking margaritas one night in a Mexican restaurant in Lexington, and run into Bing and we catch up, and he tells me about the new business, and I'm like, you're sitting on a gold mine and don't even know it. He draws a blank, and I say, where are you living? Surrounded by horse farms. And I explained my work in the stables and the hassle with the blankets. His machines were perfect. More than perfect. Now he's got like thirty employees and a new big building near the Keeneland track. He owes me.”

“I get it,” said Gooch. “We ship all our problems in the horse blankets.”

“Not a chance,” said Parsons. “Whatever you're talking about shipping, count me out.”

“But it will be like old times,” said Catfish.

“I like the new times . . .”

A trotting sound outside the doors. A jockey brought in another stakes winner.

Parsons took the reins as the jockey dismounted. “Thanks, Eddie.”

Catfish grabbed a second set of reins off an iron hook on the wall. He watched until the jockey was out of sight.

Then from behind, he wrapped the leather straps around Gooch's neck.

“Catfish!” yelled Parsons. “Have you lost your mind?”

Catfish was too busy with the reins; Gooch turned out to be stronger than he looked. He kicked backward and threw elbows. Eyes bugging out, gasping for breath, thrashing side to side. They crashed into a stable door and went down in the hay, Gooch on top.

Parsons grabbed a horseshoe and leaped. Bashing Gooch in the head over and over. The body went limp. Blood everywhere. Catfish released the reins and pushed the body off him. “Motherfucker!” He grabbed a hooked knife off a Peg-Board, repeatedly slashing Gooch's chest and stomach.

Parsons grabbed Catfish from behind. “He's dead, man. He's dead.”

Catfish was still kicking and cursing the body as Parsons pulled him off. “Jesus Christ! What the hell's going on?”

“Let go of me!” Catfish jumped back down and ripped open Gooch's shirt. “They flipped him.” He pulled a taped mini-microphone and wire off his chest.”

“Oh my God!” Parsons grabbed his head. “They recorded all this?”

“Out of range.” Catfish threw the listening device in a pail of water. “That's why I took these back roads, to make sure there was no tail.”

Hoofbeats outside the barn.

“A jockey's coming!”

They quickly dragged the body into an empty stall just as another mare came in the stables.

Parsons took the reins. “Thanks, Willie.”

The jockey dismounted tentatively, staring at blood spatter on their faces and shirts. “Are you okay?”

“A bird got trapped in here and was spooking the horses, but we got him.”

The jockey didn't answer, just stared some more as he backed away.

A half hour later.

“The sun's already up,” said Parsons.

“I'm digging as fast as I can,” said Catfish. “You sure they're not going to develop this land?”

Parsons threw a shovel of dirt. “Been in the family forever. And I think there's some kind of historic horse designation . . . Duck.”

Hoofbeats went by. They peered out of the woods as a jockey disappeared.

Catfish pulled something out of his pocket.

Parsons leaned against his shovel. “Why do you have smelling salts?”

“Because I just felt a pulse. Gooch is only unconscious.” He waved the packet under his victim's nose. “Ain't no way I'm letting him sleep through this.”

Gooch came out of it with a start and moan. “Ooooooo . . . What?” Thoughts of sitting up, but he was beaten too badly.

Catfish smashed the flat side of his shovel down on Gooch's nose. “Don't be passing out on me again! . . . After you stabbed me in the back, I'm going to enjoy every minute of this!”

“Ooooooo . . .” Gooch's head fell to the side and he instantly recognized the general dimensions of the rectangular hole they were digging. “Please! Catfish! Don't bury me!”

“Sucks to be you.”

Parsons jabbed the spade back in the rich earth. “So you never told me what we're smuggling.”

Catfish explained. “Had some problems lately with our I-95 pipeline.”

“I saw those intercepted buses on the news.” A shovel full of dirt went flying. “That was you?”

“We got a deal?”

“Sounds risky. And this ain't pot we're playing with.”