Florida Firefight (8 page)

Only his eyes told the truth: for once Buck Hamilton had lost control. And it frightened him.

“I want to thank you for helping Dr. Tiger, Buck. I came here to try and help you, and you end up saving my life.”

Hamilton brushed away Hawker's thanks as if it were a fly. “Horse turds, boy! T'weren't nothing. You're the first one in this town to stand up to those mother dogs, and every man around just has to brag about what he'd of done if he'd of been in your shoes. It's upped my bar business fifty percent.” He snorted in self-deprecation. “If I had a ball left between my legs, I'da hunted them down with a kill-gaff and made it so they had to say grace through their assholes.” He thought for a moment, sobering. “In fact, if I'd had any balls at all, I'd of gotten some of the boys together and done it a year ago, when we first started having problems.”

“Jacob Hayes told me a little bit about it. It didn't sound too good.”

Buck Hamilton's head bowed as if under a weight. “How's old Jake doing, anyway? I liked to cried when I heard about his boy. Only saw him once—about three years ago when Jake senior brought him down to catch his first tarpon. Fine-looking kid. Had a mind of his own, like his daddy.” Hamilton took a little tin of snuff from his shirt pocket, jammed a ball of it inside his lip and spat into the brass spittoon near his chair, disgusted. “I'll tell you, James, this whole goddamn country has gone looney tunes. They let these crazy fuckers roam the streets, but they'll sure as hell throw an honest man's ass into jail if he kills a burglar trying to break into his house.”

Hawker nodded and said nothing. Buck Hamilton was carrying a lot of bitterness and a lot of shame. Proud men don't like to ask for outside help. Hawker decided he would let Hamilton work into it his own way.

“And have you been to Miami lately?”

“Not since the early seventies.”

Playing for the Tigers in the Florida Instructional League, Hawker had traveled most of the state.

“Shit, you wouldn't recognize Miami,” Hamilton said. “Not since they brought in all them refugees from Mariel Harbor, Cuba, anyway.”

“Buck,” Hawker said softly. “You've got problems here. Let's talk about the Colombians.”

Hamilton scratched his head and studied his feet. “Guess I have been going at it like a bird dog after a skunk, huh?” He looked at Hawker. “Fact is, I'm so ashamed of the way I and every man in this town has acted, it fairly makes my stomach roll. Don't even like to talk about it.”

“The only difference between a coward and a brave man is the distance they'll let themselves be pushed. Maybe the men in your town have been pushed far enough,” Hawker said.

At that moment the New Zealand bartender, Graeme Mellor, entered with Hawker's supper. The big yellow stone crab claws were piled high, and the fillet of grouper had to weigh two pounds. There was plenty of lime, sour cream, garlic toast and a bowl of drawn butter.

“That ought to keep you busy for a while,” Mellor said with a grin.

“I hope so,” said a suddenly subdued Buck Hamilton. “Mr. Hawker here is about to hear a very long and very sad story.”

While Hamilton talked, Hawker did justice to the dinner.

He had had stone crab claws during his days as a catcher in the Tigers' organization, but these were even milder and richer than he remembered. He used nutcrackers to open them, dipped the pale meat in the butter, then ate them with the garlic toast. He washed it down with the iced beer, clearing the way for the lime-drenched grouper.

Hawker stopped long enough to ask a few questions during Hamilton's narrative. But mostly he listened. And ate.

The first Colombians had arrived a little over a year ago. There were four of them, all men. They said they wanted to go into commercial fishing. The townspeople helped them as they would have helped any newcomers. Then more Colombians arrived, buying boats and houses, flashing big money.

It wasn't long before things started to go sour.

There were a few separate incidents of Colombians ganging up on local fishermen in bar fights. Local people bristled, but it was generally accepted as inevitable when outsiders move into a historically hometown industry.

But then it got worse.

Men who defied the Colombians would go down to the docks one day to find their boats sabotaged. Nothing obvious: sand in the fuel tanks, or an accidental fire. If their defiance continued, the local fishermen would sail out to pull their stone crab traps, only to find the traps had been stolen.

After about four months the local fishermen had had enough. A group of them traveled to Tallahassee, Florida's capital, to complain. But their complaints were shrugged away as just those of more redneck racists who didn't like outsiders.

The Colombians, it seemed, had access to political power somewhere.

Upon the group's return, the fishermen had a town meeting and decided to clear the South Americans out on their own. But the fishermen were badly prepared, with almost no organization. The Colombians had already bought up most of their harbor stronghold by that time, and they were ready and waiting.

That night they beat the fishermen back savagely, almost killing a couple of them. And those few local men who remained standing were given a very clear message: The next time the townspeople tried to interfere in their business, the Colombians wouldn't stop at the men. They'd go for the women and children, too.

“I'll tell you, it took the starch out of 'most everybody,” Buck Hamilton said. “We've had a couple of meetings since then, but all we did was bitch and bluster about what we ought to do. Nothing ever came of it. Them Colombians beat us bad, James. Men around here can't hardly look each other in the eye. They walk around with hangdog expressions like they got weights on their shoulders. And they're good men,” Hamilton added fiercely. “It's just that we got out-toughed. It's embarrassing as hell, but it's true. The Colombians are just more ruthless and less vulnerable. And the worst thing is, the women and kids sense it, and they're scared worse than we are.”

“The night you tried to fight them, who was your leader?”

Buck Hamilton sighed. “Hate to admit it, but I guess I was. We had the meeting here, and I led the boys down to Chatham Harbor—that's where the Colombians are. Hell, I figured we'd just walk in there, kick ass and not bother with names. They got this huge mulatto called Simio—means ‘gorilla' in Spanish, I guess. He's their ringleader's bodyguard. Well, Simio hit me a clip that knocked me out for a day and crossed my eyes for a week. I didn't get us equipped right, so our other boys didn't fare much better. Them Colombians are some kinda bad cattle, let me tell you.”

Hawker remembered the name one of the Hispanics had used that afternoon. “Is their ringleader someone named Medelli?”

“Yeah, and he's a slick one, too. Shiny black hair, pencil-thin mustache and shit-pot full of gold chains on his neck and wrists. He lives out there in the Gulf on a yacht the size of a jetliner. Cruises up and down the coast, taking care of business. Funny thing is, the Coast Guard doesn't bother him. Medelli's got some pull somewhere.”

“He never comes to Mahogany Key?”

“Oh, sure. Comes in to collect his drug money, I guess. He was here at the Tarpon Inn about a month ago. Brought that mulatto of his, Simio, with him. He swung a suitcase full of cash money on the bar and told me he was buying my place. I told him it wasn't for sale. He asked me how I'd like to end up as 'gator feed out in the 'Glades. I told them to get their asses out, and they left.”

Hawker smiled. “After the beating you took, it's not the sort of thing a coward would do.”

Hamilton looked sheepish, peering at Hawker through the bifocals. “I guess I didn't mention I was holding a double-barrel Winchester on them at the time, huh?”

The two men laughed, feeling comfortable in each other's company. The New Zealander brought Hawker key lime pie—pale yellow and delicate—and excellent espresso. They shifted the topic of conversation to more pleasant things.

Hawker asked questions about the operation of the inn and was assured Graeme Mellor could run the place blindfolded. As diplomatically as he could, he asked why the place had been allowed to fall into disrepair. Hamilton couldn't give him a good answer, but even before he finished, Hawker realized he had known the real reason all along: When people are stripped of their personal pride, they no longer take pride in their personal possessions.

It explained the creeping decay he had seen all over the island.

As Hawker stood to leave, he asked, “The night you fought the Colombians, did the other town leaders go with you?”

Hamilton wiped a massive hand across his face, thinking. “You mean like the mayor, or Ben Simps, chief of our one-man police force?”

Hawker shook his head. “No, not the figurehead leaders. You know the kind of men I mean—the kind of men people watch and listen to and admire, whether they admit it or not.”

“I guess there's only one man in town who fits that description,” Hamilton said after a moment. “Local boy I watched grow up. Boggs McKay. Hell of an athlete in high school, and went to Florida State on a football scholarship. Smart, too. No one really knows for sure, but some say he's got a masters degree in … something. He married up there, had kids. Made lots of money. But then something happened. Heard his kids got killed by some drunk driver, and then his marriage went on the rocks. Just showed up here about three years ago like he'd never left. Bought a boat and went to crabbing. Doesn't talk much; never talks about his past. But when Boggs McKay does talk, mister, people straighten right up and listen.”

“Was Boggs with you that night?”

An amused smile settled on the face of Buck Hamilton. “Mr. Hawker, Boggs McKay doesn't follow
anybody anywhere
.”

ten

That night Hawker settled into his cottage. It was a garish rental cabin behind the main lodge, built of board and batten, painted flamingo pink.

There was a kitchenette, a sitting room with a black-and-white TV and a bedroom with a brass bed gone green from age. There were throw rugs on the linoleum, and the wall was rust streaked from the ancient air conditioner. With the windows open, you could hear the tidal rush and an occasional guttural heron cry from the Chatham River outside.

Hawker stripped off his clothes and went to the mirror.

The Colombian's knife had dug a six-inch furrow in his shoulder. Dr. Winnie Tiger's stitches were like black teeth. The wound intersected an older scar: in December of 1975 he had gotten stabbed trying to break up a bar fight on Chicago's South Side.

He flexed the shoulder and stretched the muscles until sweat beaded on his forehead.

His nose had clogged with blood again. He blew it clean, then stopped the bleeding with a styptic pencil and nasal spray.

When he could breath again, Hawker showered. He turned the water as hot as he could stand it, then as cold as it got. He pulled on thick cotton sweat pants and a soft black rugby jersey, then set about opening the crates Jacob Montgomery Hayes had shipped down from Chicago for him.

He placed the 128k RAM computer on the little desk near the telephone, then mounted the video screen atop it. He patched in the telephone modem and the second disk drive, then checked it all to make sure it worked.

It did.

There were three crates of weaponry. He opened only one. From it he took a 9-millimeter Ingram MAC11 submachine gun. It wasn't much bigger or heavier than a standard .45 automatic pistol. The silencer was longer than the weapon itself, and Hawker threaded it on. He filled the thirty-two-round clip, then armed the weapon before sliding it under his bed.

From the crate he produced a Colt Commander .45 automatic. It wasn't the sort of weapon he could carry in his pants pockets, but it was among his favorite heavy-shooting handguns. He had had the Commander customized by Devel Corporation in Cleveland, master gunsmiths. They had chopped it, making it more compact, and added a Swenson speed safety. There was a low-mounted Bo-Mar rear sight and a bright yellow insert on the front ramp sight. Among other things, the Devel people had customized it with an electroless nickel finish, giving the pistol a satin silver appearance that made it look even more lethal.

He placed the Colt Commander under his pillow.

In another crate Hawker found the Marconi-Elliott Avionic-built alarm system. It was an improved version of the old Tobias Seismic system.

He decided six of the little radio-operated seismic plates would be sufficient and carried them outside. The night had turned blustery, with cloud scud speeding past the winter moon. Streetlights rattled in the wind. Hawker found a shovel in one of the sheds and buried the seismic plates in the sandy soil one by one. He positioned them in a fifty-meter circle around his cabin and along the back lane that exited from his cottage and the Tarpon Inn onto Bayside Drive. To test them he turned the Monte Carlo's radio on low and went inside.

The main unit was housed in an aluminum briefcase. Hawker snapped it open and scanned the rows of knobs and toggle switches. There was a general audio alarm, guarding all four channels. The alarm was on: an irritating whine. Hawker flipped it off. A needle bounced in visual alarm on the channel tuned to the area around the drive. Hawker placed the earphones on his head. He could hear the music plainly—and the nearest seismic radio plate was twenty yards from the rental car.

Satisfied, he went outside and turned off the radio, then returned the unit to general four-channel alarm guard.

Hawker turned his attention to the computer. On a piece of paper he scribbled the names he wanted to check: Chief Ben Simps, Boggs McKay, Medelli, Pedro Cartagena, Graeme Mellor and Dr. Winnie Tiger. He didn't have high hopes of getting much information on the Colombians, but he could try. He had a telephone, and information operators—and data banks—around the world never slept.