Fallen Palm (Jesse McDermitt Series) (6 page)

Monday, October 17, 2005

“Hey Sonny, you got a sec?” Lester asked as he entered Sonny’s office. The old loan shark was at his desk in the back office of a junkyard he owned on the outskirts of West Palm Beach, just off US-1. He’d bought it ten years ago, mostly as a front for his other enterprises, but also because it had a dock on a canal that went straight to the water.

“Got nothing but time, kid. Did you ever find that deadbeat Joseph Whatshisname?”

“Had a line on him in Riviera Beach on Saturday,” Lester replied. “I waited around where he was supposed to show all afternoon and he never showed. I’ll find him, though. Look, I got this problem and I don’t know what to do about it and I was thinking maybe you could help me out,” Lester was looking at a picture of a naked girl on the calendar by the door. It was dated 1975, but she was still hot, he thought.

“Whatcha need, kid? An advance? I can probably give you a couple C notes,” Sonny said, as he opened a drawer in the old metal desk and pulled his wallet out.

“No Boss, nothing like that,” Lester said. “See, it’s like this. You know I took up scuba diving a few weeks ago. Well, I found something the other day and it’s pretty valuable. But, I don’t wanna go to a fence I don’t know and was wondering if you might know someone that could maybe handle it for me.”

“Hmm, yeah I know some people,” Sonny said thoughtfully. “Been down here for over forty years. Not too many people I don’t know in this town.” Found something valuable in the water, huh, he thought. Some old broads broach, maybe?

“Thing is, Boss, well, this thing is maybe more valuable than anything I could ever find. I don’t wanna get took by anyone.” With that, Lester closed the office door and opened the green gym bag he was carrying and pulled out a towel. He set it on Sonny’s desk with a heavy thud and unrolled it. “It’s a solid gold bar, Boss.”

Sonny couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Sure looked like gold and he reached to pick it up, but misjudged it’s weight and it dropped back onto the towel. Using both hands he picked it up. Damn thing must weigh ten pounds, he thought. “Where the hell did you find this, kid? You didn’t knock over a Brinks truck did ya?”

“Found it in da ocean, Boss,” Lester replied. “Found a few other things, too.” With that, he unrolled the towel the rest of the way. There were four gold coins, one mounted and hung on a necklace and a gold cross, with three big green stones on it.

“Holy shit,” Sonny said. He recognized the gold doubloons, he’d seen a few of them before. Mostly in museums, but once he saw a guy wearing one on a chain around his neck, like the one that was mounted here. “You mean to tell me that you was swimming in the ocean and just found all this stuff.”

“Not exactly, Boss. Well, the bar, I found in the ocean, yeah. The other things turned up later. Any idea how I can get rid of them and how much they worth?”

Sonny thought for a minute, rolling the doubloons in his fingers. Then picked up the cross and looked closely at the stones. There was a setting for a fourth one, but it was missing. “Well, I’m pretty sure I can help ya fence it, but it’ll cost ya. You work for me, so I’m gonna take a big cut. That bar’s gotta weigh at least ten pounds, I’d guess it’s worth $200 thou, by itself. The coins are sometimes called doubloons. They’re two escudo cobs, worth maybe a thousand bucks each. But, this gold cross might be worth more than all the others combined if it wasn’t missing a stone and these are real emeralds. Saw one like it in a museum and they said it was worth a million bucks. With a stone missing, I’d guess maybe half that. But, ya gotta unnerstand, kid. My fence ain’t gonna pony up full price and the price will be melt value, so the cross might bring ten grand. Best guess is he’d do about fifty cents on the dollar. So, you’re looking at about a hundred thousand, maybe a bit more. I’ll take thirty percent. That fair to you?”

Lester arched his brows, thinking. Math wasn’t exactly his strong suit, so Sonny added, “That’d be $70 thou to you and $30 thou to me. Give or take a few grand.”

“That’s more than two years pay for me, Boss. But, I’d like to keep the necklace, it’s cool looking. Sounds more than fair. How soon ya think ya can get the money?”

“Tell ya what I’ll do, kid. I was about to go downtown for lunch, anyway. Let me carry this to a guy I know. Once he verifies it’s the real stuff, I’ll give you your $70 thou outa my own pocket, when I get back. I’ll prolly have to wait a day or two to get the money from him. Why the hurry? You ain’t gonna cut out on me, are ya?”

“No way, Boss. I got it good here. I think I might wanna buy myself my own car. Not that I don’t like tooling around in your DeVille, but I think I’d kinda like something a little sportier. I also kinda found a Ford truck, but it’s old and pretty beat up.”

Sonny laughed and said, “Found a truck, huh? Look kid, ya need to just torch that, okay? Sportier car, yeah. But with a clean title. You’d look good with a red Mustang or something wrapped around ya. Look, I ain’t gonna pry about where this stuff come from. But, is there anything else you wanna tell me?”

Lester thought it over and said, “It’s like this boss. I also found this book, when I found the coins and the cross. The guy that owned it wrote down a lotta shit in it. I think he’s a treasure hunter. Lots of dates and numbers. I got no idea what they mean.”

“What kinda numbers?”

“Long ones,” Lester replied. “To long to be a phone number or anything. They all start with the same group of numbers, but some in the middle and end is different.”

“You say this guy’s a treasure hunter? They’re prolly GPS numbers he saved for places he found stuff.”

“Yeah! He had one of those GPS things,” Lester blurted out.

“So, you know this guy? Is he gonna know you got this stuff? Maybe come looking for it, or call the cops?”

“No, Boss, I seriously doubt he knows I got it and he ain’t gonna be callin’ the cops. I also got the GPS thing, too.”

“Anything else in this book, kid? Anything at all?” Sonny was thinking he really needed to look at the book.

“I got it right here, Boss,” Lester replied, pulling a small leather bound book out of his back pocket. He opened it to the first page. “The Dates go back to 1980. Only thing other than dates and numbers is this one name. See here, says ‘Jesse McDermitt’ and it’s repeated a few times further on.”

Sunday night, October 23, 2005

I climbed down from the bridge and walked across the gang plank after Deuce. “Power’s out, Jesse,” Rusty said. “I got the backup generator going, but it only gives enough juice for the house or the bar, not both. Got the bar powered up right now. Everything in the cooler’s gonna go bad when I switch it over to the house. You guys hungry?”

Art and Tony joined us on the barge and Tony said, “If you got any more of that ‘bacon fish’ or whatever it was, hell yeah.”

We all laughed and Alex asked, “You still pulling that hogfish joke on unwary tourists?”

“Only when I can find a gullible enough tourist,” I replied.

Jimmy called out from the end of the canal, as he was walking toward us, “Here comes rain, man.”

“Let’s get inside,” I said. “That squalls gonna be here in a few seconds.” We all ran to the Anchor and made it inside, just as the rain started pounding on the roof.

“Okay,” I said, “we need to come up with some kind of a plan. Let’s check the update on the storm on the TV first. Deuce, do you guys have a place to stay?”

“Yeah, we have two rooms at the Blue Water Resort, just down the road,” he replied.

I looked at Rusty, who shook his head. “Might be better to stay here, Deuce,” I said. “When the power goes out, it’s usually the whole island. Plus, if Wilma stays on track, the north side of the island will get it worse.”

“We have a guest room in the house,” Julie said, looking at Deuce. “We asked Alex to stay with us. Or we can just all stay here in the bar.”

“Jimmy and I will bunk in the boat,” I said. “It’s plenty safe way up here in the canal. Way better than Dockside. The crew cabin has three bunks. Anyone want dibs on the couch in the salon?”

“That huge forward berth, for just you?” Alex asked. “Kinda stingy there, ‘friend’. Here’s an idea. How about I bunk with you? The Commander here can take the guest room and Jimmy can bunk in the crew cabin with these nice Sailors and learn to cuss properly.”

That brought a huge laugh from everyone, but I was too busy looking at Alex. She coyly smiled at me and nodded, saying, “If that’s all right with you, Captain.”

“Well, um, yeah,” I stammered. Turning to the others, I said, “Okay, so that’s taken care of. What next? Rusty?”

Rusty was behind the bar and had turned on the TV. The Weather Channel was just coming out of a commercial and Rusty was setting beers on the bar, along with a bottle of ginseng tea for Jimmy. Though he smoked pot, he very rarely drank alcohol. Two local fishermen, Lefty and Diego, looked up at Rusty expectantly. “Drink up, people. Beer’s gonna get hot before long. On the house,” he said looking at the two fishermen. “Julie, you seen Rufus?”

“He was headed to his cabin a little while ago, want me to get him?” she replied.

“Yeah, let him know we got some fish to cook up,” he said. “And anything else he has in the ice box. Sorry, Tony, the hogfish is all gone. But, Rufus makes a mean blackened grouper.”

Julie looked over at Deuce and asked, “Will you come with me, it’s getting dark.”

Deuce dutifully put down his cold Red Stripe and followed her to the door. I looked at Rusty, who looked after them as they walked outside. He looked back at me and shrugged.

“Hey, turn that up, Rusty. They’re about to give the update,” I said. Everyone gathered at the bar, watching as the local weather guy came into focus, wearing a yellow slicker, being buffeted by the wind.

“
This is Shomari Stone, in Marathon, with the update on Hurricane Wilma. As you can see the wind has really started to pick up. Wilma has been upgraded to a category three storm, a major hurricane, with winds clocked near the eye at 120 miles per hour. It has increased forward speed and as of eight o’clock Wilma was centered one hundred miles west southwest of Key West, heading northwest at twenty miles per hour. Hurricane warnings are now up for all of the Florida Keys and southwest Florida. A mandatory evacuation has now been ordered for all of the Lower Key and a tropical storm warning has been issued for the rest of the state. Right now, here in Marathon, we’re about 100 miles from Key West and the winds are coming out of the southwest at 30 miles per hour, with occasional gusts to 40. The rain’s been coming down in sheets, as the outer bands come over the island. If Wilma maintains her current path and speed, it should make landfall somewhere south of Fort Myers in the early morning hours. We expect conditions here in the Middle Keys to worsen throughout the night, but it looks like the Keys may dodge this one. However, we know from past experience that even a glancing blow can have devastating affects. We should expect winds here to reach tropical storm strength in the next couple of hours and may even reach hurricane force before this is all over.”

A cheer went up in the bar, as Julie and Deuce came back in through the back door, with old Rufus following behind. “Rufus, you feel like cooking?” Rusty asked. “Power’s out and I got the generator running, but when I switch it over to the house, everything’s gonna go bad.”

“Yes suh, cook it all up? I guh fiyuh up mi cookas.”

“Yeah, all of it. Gotta be more than ten pounds of grouper in that cooler, plus about a hundred jumbo shrimp,” Rusty said. Turning to his friends he asked, “Any special requests?” Without waiting for an answer, he turned back to Rufus and added, “No? Good. Blackened grouper and shrimp it is, Rufus. If you find anything else in that cooler, cook it up now. It’s only gonna go bad if we don’t. ”

“Yeah mon sah, Mista Rusty,” Rufus replied. “Got some corn an stone crab claws inna dire too, mon. Might could be di lass good food wi get fah a coupla days.”

Coming out from behind the bar, Rusty walked up to me and said, “Jesse, my skiff’s still hooked to the pickup. Can ya help me unhook it and stake her down?”

“We’ll get it, Captain,” Art said. “Just show us where you want it.”

“Thanks, son,” Rusty said. “Follow me.” They headed out the front door of the bar and the wind caught and slammed the door shut, but it looked like it’d stopped raining for the moment.

I turned to Alex and said, “Are you sure about this?” I’d thought about taking it to the next level many nights, before she left. Many, many nights.

She looked me right in the eye and as if reading my mind said, “I’ve been thinking of you every day, since I had to leave. Thought about you quite a few nights, too. I know you wanted to take it slow last year. I thought that maybe you just weren’t interested. Are you?” Typical Alex, direct and to the point.

I took her hand and led her to a table. Sitting down next to her I said, “Interested? Yeah, a lot, I thought. I’ll admit, I wanted to go slow. You’d become a good friend and those are hard to find. I’ve never had much luck with relationships though. You know that. I just didn’t want to risk losing a friend.”

“Jesse, you spent a lot of time over seas, I know that. Neither of your exes could handle that. They were weak women, if you ask me. Many women can’t handle that. Too bad for them, though. Besides, your globe trotting warrior days are over now. Let’s just sort of pick up where we left off last year, okay? No rush, no lifetime commitments, just one day at a time.”

“I like the sound of that. Once this storm passes, I have a surprise for you. Do you remember that island I bought up in the Content Keys? Well, I cleared part of it, cut a channel and built a little stilt house.”

“Really? You don’t sleep on the
Revenge
anymore? The old man from the sea has a real house?” She laughed at her own joke. “I can’t wait to see it. Do the snook still run through the pass up there? Does it have a kitchen?”

Typical Alex, I thought. Always thinking of her next big catch. I’d tried with both my ex-wives to get them to go fishing. But they were both too citified. Alex isn’t like that at all. This woman was born to fish. “Yeah, I got an eight pounder just last week. And yes, I have a galley and even a head. Nothing fancy, just a propane ships stove and refrigerator, a few cabinets and a small table. The lights are all twelve volt and there’s a solar panel and small wind turbine to keep the batteries charged. I’m pretty sure you’ll approve.” I couldn’t wait to show it to her. She’d mentioned once that her ideal home would be on or near the water, away from the rat race in the city. Every day, as I was building it, I was thinking of her. And what she’d like in a house. I never guessed she’d be back in my life, though.

Rusty, Art and Tony came back in. Deuce was talking to Julie at the bar, but came over to the table when Rusty went behind the bar. “You got a minute, Jesse?” he asked.

“I’ll go out and see if I can help Rufus,” Alex said. “I just love that little old Jamaican mon. His voice reminds me of singing.” She smiled at Deuce as she headed to the back door. I couldn’t take my eyes off her, as her hips swayed in those tight jeans.

Deuce sat down and handed me a beer. “To sea farers and the women who wait for them,” he said as he touched the neck of his beer to mine.

“I’ll certainly drink to that. What’s up, Deuce?”

“Suddenly, I have a number of things to talk with you about. Damn, where do I start?”

I looked over to the bar, where Julie was watching us. “Maybe you could start with that little bar wench, over there?” I kidded.

“Yeah, well, there is that. First, about my dad. You brought it up last night. Now, I’ve only known you a little over twenty-four hours, but I’m good at sizing men up. You said that dad was part fish. Truth is, I have my doubts about that coroners report and I think you do, too.”

I thought it over for a minute. “We’re all gonna leave this life one day,” I said. “I just can’t imagine any circumstance where a man like Russ Livingston would go out that way.”

“Coroner’s report said he’d gotten his tank fouled in his anchor line. Said he must not have been able to pull the anchor free and ran out of air. Dad never dived without at least one knife. He’d have cut that anchor line.”

“What did the cops say?”

“Big city. Too many murder investigations to handle. They seemed to accept the Coroner’s report, rather than have another investigation on their hands.”

“Big city? Fort Pierce is a small town.”

“It happened in West Palm. About a mile off the coast. I’d talked to him a few days before and he said he had some new information on a Civil War wreck he’d been searching for. I just don’t buy that report. He also said he had a new diver working with him, part time. A muscle head by the name of Lester. Look, dad changed some since he left the Corps. He’s found a few things, sometimes in areas he wasn’t supposed to be looking. Sometimes he turned a blind eye. He told me about what you and he found, back when I was still a kid, living with mom.” Russ and I had promised not to let anyone know about that, I thought. Was Deuce trying to feel me out? Did Russ really tell him? I knew he’d been skirting some laws.

“A hundred thousand in silver,” Deuce added, confirming that Russ had told him. “He’d been drinking when he told me; I doubt that he remembered it the next day. Anyway, his and your secret is safe with me. We have to get back to the base, day after tomorrow. What I wanted to ask you was this. I won’t have time now because of this storm, but if we can get out to that reef tomorrow, to fulfill his wishes, I’d appreciate it. Then, I’d like to impose on you to go up to Fort Pierce and box up his stuff and send it to my mom, for me. His boat’s in evidence at the Sheriff’s Office, along with his dive gear and everything else that was on the boat. Think you can bring it all down here and sell it? Whatever you get, you can donate to whatever charity you like. We have a mission coming up in about a month and I’ll be way too busy training.”

I thought about it. “Tell ya what,” I said, “we’ll all go out to Conrad tomorrow afternoon and give Russ a Viking send off. Then Wednesday, if I can borrow Alex’s Jeep, I’ll drive up and take care of his things. Knowing Russ, it won’t take but a few hours. Now, what about that bar wench?”

Deuce colored a little and smiled. “That obvious, huh?”

“Well, considering that neither Rusty nor I have seen her take an interest in anyone, yeah, it kind of sticks out like a sore thumb. She’s a great kid and Rusty likes you. He might not always show it when he likes someone. I’d advise you though, read up on the ‘Rules for Dating a Marine’s Daughter’.”

Deuce laughed so hard, I thought he was gonna spew beer out of his nose. “You know I have a sister, right?” he asked when he got it under control. “Dad had those rules framed and hanging by the kitchen door when she started dating. I really felt bad for those guys. There’s one other thing, though, that I wanted to talk to you about.”

“Fire away, but make it quick. I smell blackened grouper coming through that back door,” I said.

“I’ve actually left the Navy,” he said simply. Just like that?

“Really?” I asked. “Why? Hell, you gotta be more than half way to retirement.”

“I resigned four months ago. I was offered a position where I can make a bigger difference. Our hands were getting tied tighter and tighter with new ROE’s,” he said. ROE means Rules of Engagement. In the first Gulf War, we were shackled with some very stringent ROE’s, so I knew exactly what he meant. “I can’t really say anything more,” he continued. “But, I do know this. The people I’m working for now are looking for someone like you, too. I talked to my new boss, and he asked me to give you this.” He handed me a business card, with a name and phone number on it, nothing more. I looked at it for a minute. The printing was standard military style block lettering, not embossed. But the card itself was heavy stock, with no rough edges.