The Black Palmetto (27 page)

“Well, we might as well get some sleep and try to pick him up tomorrow.”

They docked back at Sam’s marina about 1:30 a.m. Sam gave Simone the use of the master stateroom, and he took the forward compartment. J.T. sacked out on the floor of the lounge.

****

Simone woke Sam at 6:00 a.m. “We’d better get going if we want to catch up with our guy. I found your coffee supply and made a potful.”

Sam wiped sleep from his eyes, got up, and took ten minutes to shower and shave. He pulled on clean clothes and went in for the coffee. Simone sat at the dinette in the corner of the lounge, and J.T. clicked away on the keys of his laptop from one of the easy chairs.

“You have him on the monitor?” Sam asked as he walked through to the galley.

“Yeah, he’s still in the same place. I’ve zeroed in on the location. It’s a motel on Dixie Highway, south of Coconut Grove. We just going to take him, or see if he can lead us to Knox?”

He knew the answer J.T. wanted to hear, and this time he was in agreement with him. “I thought we’d follow him first. Maybe he knows something about Knox that we don’t.”

Sam called a taxi and they took it to a car rental agency nearby. Within the hour, they were headed inland on the MacArthur Causeway. They took I-95 South for a few miles and peeled off to South Dixie Highway. At 7:30 a.m. they turned into Benetti’s motel. It had rooms opening only on the south side.

“This place doesn’t have a restaurant, so he’ll be coming out, sooner or later,” Simone said.

They had stopped on the way at a fast food drive-thru for breakfast sandwiches, so they ate while waiting in the cool shade of a live oak in the back corner of the place. About an hour later, the sun had moved over the treetop, and Sam started the engine and turned on the air conditioner.

At 9:30 a.m., Benetti exited his room on the second floor, went down the stairs to a small blue Toyota, and got in. He started the engine, fiddled with the air conditioning vents, and unfolded a map. After studying it for a few minutes, he backed out and drove onto Dixie Highway, headed north.

Chapter Thirty-Two

Harpo awoke and tried to push himself up, but his legs wouldn’t cooperate. Dr. Worth and all the others had gone quiet the minute he’d climbed into the little fan room. Maybe the machine had caused some kind of interference, and without the voices inside his head, the whirring of the blades had lulled him into a deep sleep. Sleep he hadn’t enjoyed since the explosion.

All quiet outside. Daylight spilled through louvers in the door. He turned the knob and chanced a glimpse into the big room. No one seemed to be out there, so he swung the door open, pulled his legs out of the cramped space, and stretched them out. They tingled for a few minutes as they came back to life. Full light outside, so it had to be at least 7:00 a.m. or 8:00 a.m.

The machete!
What had he done with it? Then he remembered: he’d taken it out of his sleeve and stood it behind the machine. He retrieved it and got to his feet.

Maybe Knox was still asleep. Harpo crept down the length of the room to a passageway where several doors stood open. The first was a small bathroom, and two others were bedrooms that were nicer than any he had ever seen in any house. All empty. He kept going to the far end where he found a closed door.

****

Sam watched the car stop at a doughnut shop, where Benetti got an order from the drive-thru. He ate as he pulled back into traffic. Sam waited until a few cars had passed before following. Traffic got heavier several miles up the road as they merged onto I-95, and Sam lost him for a minute or so.

“Don’t worry,” J.T. said, “I still have him on the monitor. He’s exiting onto Federal Highway.”

Sam moved into the exit lane and spotted him again. He stayed within sight as they both turned right onto Rickenbacker Causeway.

“Going to Key Biscayne,” Sam said. “He must think Knox is out there.”

“That’s pretty steep real estate,” Simone said. “Maybe our Senator Blaine has a place on the Key.”

J.T. said, “I checked all his residences yesterday, and didn’t find one listed on Key Biscayne. He could own one, though, and have it listed in another name.”

Across the bridge, Benetti took a right onto Harbor Drive, which wound around one side of the island. At one point, he slowed and turned into a driveway. Sam didn’t think he had spotted them, but turned off on a small side street and pulled into the driveway of a home. A couple of cars were parked in front of a closed garage, but no one was stirring about.

“Let’s go,” Simone said. “He just went back the other way.”

This time, Benetti slowed at an unpaved lane that led through a jungle of palms, pines and live oaks out toward the Bay. He turned in, and his car disappeared around a curve. A large red sign stood a few feet from the road that read: Danger. High Voltage Lines. No Trespassing

Sam pulled onto the shoulder of the road and left the engine running. “Can you get an aerial view of this place on the computer?” he asked J.T.

“Yeah, I think so.”

He brought it up and studied the screen. “There’s a building back there. It’s on the bay and has a big boat dock, but there’s no boat there in this photo.”

“Is it big enough for the yacht Knox stole?” Simone asked.

“Oh, yeah.”

Sam wondered if this might belong to Knox, or somebody close to him. “Try to find out who owns it.”

J.T. worked at the keyboard for a few minutes and came up with an answer. “It’s a company named GeoWatt. I couldn’t find any websites, though, so it could be bogus.”

“If Knox is in there,” Simone said, “he might have cameras, and we’d be sitting ducks if we went down that road.”

“Hey, wait a minute,” J.T. said, eyeing the computer screen. “I just noticed something on the Palmetto monitor. A second person is showing up in there with Benetti.”

That didn’t sound good. Sam turned in his seat. “He must have enlisted another of his cohorts, and told him about the two million Knox has. Do you have a name?”

“Hold on,” J.T. said. “Should be on Whitehall’s list.” A few seconds passed before he said, “Here it is. His name is Morgan Lockman.”

Simone huffed a laugh, but didn’t sound amused. “That’s just great. I had a funny feeling about following Benetti. Now, if we decide to take him down, we’ll have to deal with two goons instead of one.”

“Don’t get excited,” Sam said. “This just means we need to back off and think the situation over before we make any moves.”

J.T. set the computer aside. “You know, this other guy could be somebody Benetti brought in. The two of them might have captured Knox.”

“You’re right,” Sam said. “Let’s find a place where we can get a good view of that dock and see if the stolen yacht is there.”

They drove along the road until they found a house that appeared vacant. The place had a For Sale sign planted in the front yard. It included the name and number of a bank that was likely the beneficiary of a foreclosed mortgage. A two-story palace with a tiled roof, it would probably run several million in a good market. The lot across the street had a bulldozer and a back loader sitting idle, but no workers seemed to be present on the site. Sam turned into the circular driveway of the home and stopped the car near the front door.

Simone picked up the field glasses and said to J.T., “Bring up the picture of the boat.”

Once out of the car, they walked around the house to the back yard that led down a gentle slope to an empty dock. It ran about sixty feet along the property. They hurried to the point that jutted out the farthest, and Simone used the glasses to gaze along the coast.

“A boat is docked there,” she said. “Hard to say if it’s the one we’ve been searching for, though. Trees are in the way, and I can’t see a name or number on it.”

Sam studied the picture the dock master had printed for them and handed it back to J.T. “Let me take a look.”

She gave him the glasses and he put them to his eyes. The property curved inward, and a stand of palms partially obscured the dock area. He could see the rear end, though, and it appeared that a name on the transom had been painted over, the color slightly different. The hull sides were not visible from their vantage point, but he suspected any identifying information would have a fresh coat of paint. The parts of the craft that he could see, though, were similar to the boat in the picture. “I think this is it.”

Back in the car, Sam drove toward the entrance to the property, but pulled to the shoulder before reaching it. “Okay, let’s assume Knox is here and we want to go in. What are the scenarios?”

J.T. spoke up. “Like I said before, they could have already captured him. If we can sneak in, we could take all of them, no problem.”

“Could be,” Simone said. “But all three could have reached some kind of agreement to split the money, too. In that case, we’d have three guns to deal with, instead of two.”

“There’s another possibility,” Sam said. “This Lockman guy could have hooked up with Knox. In that case, they might battle it out with Benetti before we get there.” He said to J.T., “Is he still moving?”

J.T. looked down at the computer. “Nah, he stopped, and there’s maybe a hundred feet between him and Lockman.”

“If he stays put, maybe that means he’s working alone,” Simone said.

Sam shook his head. A feeling of dread swept over him, and he didn’t know why. “We have to consider the hostage, too. Lora might still be alive, so we can’t go in there spraying bullets.”

Easy to say, but every way he examined the situation, it turned out to be a bloodbath.

****

Harpo put his ear to the door and listened for a few minutes, but heard nothing on the other side. He readied his machete, twisted the knob, and pushed the door open with his toe. Peeking around the jamb, he saw no one. The room seemed as large as the living room, and had a big bed, a dressing table, and two closets. A bathroom lay to the left, and he stepped over to it. No one there, either. Everything looked as if nobody had been in the place.

Making his way back through the passageway, he had the feeling the entire boat might be empty. He went out the main hatch and gazed ashore. A metal structure stood about a hundred yards away through the trees. That had to be where Knox had gone with his hostage. The smell of fresh paint wafted by his nose, and he wondered where that had come from.

He strode off the dock and into the trees, and worked his way toward the building. A green car sat next to it. As he got closer, going from tree to tree, he saw a sign that read danger, and something about high voltage lines. Maybe this was the site of a transformer or something, and he wondered why Knox would be here.
Could’ve just found it vacant and moved in
. Harpo had done that many times. Perfectly fine places that nobody seemed to need at the time. Just going to waste.

Dr. Worth started a sermon, saying, “Who’s ready to go to heaven?” He repeated it several times, and the congregation answered each time, shouting, “We are!” Harpo thought about that for a minute. Though he did want to go to heaven, he had some things to finish first. The task of banishing this devil from the face of the earth still had to be done.

“Drop that blade and turn around.”
Uh oh. Doesn’t sound like the good doctor’s voice.

Chapter Thirty-Three

Harpo didn’t drop the machete, but he did turn to see who gave him the command. A man stood there with a handgun pointed at Harpo’s head. Someone he’d never seen before. “Who’re you?”

“I said drop it!” The man thumbed the hammer on the gun.

“Okay, I’m putting it down.” He bent over, as if to lay the machete on the ground, but instead swung it upward and hit the guy on the wrist with the sharp edge.

The gun flipped into the weeds. The man’s eyes shot wide with disbelief, and he grabbed his wrist. Blood spurted between his fingers. His eyes found his weapon on the ground and he dived for it. As he grasped it in his bloody fingers, Harpo stepped on his hand and he jerked it back, letting go of the gun.

Now prone, the gunman rolled over on his back and watched blood cover his arm and hand. A moment later his eyes rolled up and he passed out.

Harpo took the gun and stuffed it into the pocket of his baggy pants. Remembering bits and pieces of his medical training in the military, he cut a wide strip of cloth from the wounded man’s shirt and used it to fashion a tourniquet, twisting it tight with a piece of a dead limb. The blood flow stopped, and he was glad. Other than pulling a gun on him, Harpo had no quarrel with the man. He left him there, stood up, and peered around a tree toward the building to see if anyone had seen him. Nothing seemed to have changed from before.

Cameras were mounted high on each corner. Others were probably on the other side of the place. He hurried back to the water’s edge and used the blade to scoop up a glob of black mud. Staying behind trees where he could, he worked his way back to the building, and ran under the eave at the nearest corner. While hugging the wall, he stuck a golf-ball-sized piece of the mud onto the tip of the machete and slapped it onto the lens of the camera. Within a few minutes, he had made his way around the building, blinding three more of the devices. Maybe the guy would come out in a few minutes. If not, he’d knock on the door and see what happened.

****

Sam pulled the rental into a dense stand of mimosa and scrub on the same side of the street as the property. He killed the engine. “We have to figure out a way to draw them out.”

“I saw a bulldozer up the street,” J.T. said. “We could roll in there with it and tear out a wall. That would bring them out.”

“Yeah,” Sam said. “That would probably work, but Lora might get hurt in the process. We have to be more subtle.”

“I think we can get them to come out on their own,” Simone said.

Sam turned to her. “How?”

“Call the reporter’s phone. When Knox answers, tell him the police chief in Iguana Key told you that the FBI is closing in on a location on Key Biscayne.”

“He’ll wonder why I would alert him,” Sam said.

“Tell him you don’t want Lora to get killed in the crossfire when the Feds come in with the heavy artillery.”