Tim Dorsey Collection #1 (53 page)

Salt water flooded into Sean’s nostrils as he was pulled by his neck to the bottom of the Gulf. When the cement block stopped, Sean hung upside down eight feet above the ocean floor. Alongside was a dead Saffron. Sean’s body jolted with glands that seared his insides and made muscles spasm and contort.

He felt as if his heart had burst and his chest cavity were full of boiling blood. He had gotten only a quick breath on the way down and it was long gone. Thirty feet under, the pressure stabbed his eardrums, and his lungs crushed. His mind was in hell.

There was large movement next to him as David’s block hit the ocean floor, landing between Sean and Saffron.

David twisted through the water until the hands behind his back found Saffron. He had overestimated his air supply and it was already depleted. His chest started to thrust.

Upside down and disoriented, David found it harder than he’d expected. Blindly, he turned Saffron around little by little, a few inches of his shirt at a time. David’s fingertips felt around behind him frantically. He grabbed Saffron’s belt and turned him some more. His lungs were about to blow; he didn’t even look to see how Sean was doing. He felt a leather strap a little lower on Saffron and followed it to the middle of his back and the holster. There was no time left, but he couldn’t rush and drop the gun or it was over.

He came up with the pistol, and kicked away from Saffron. He bumped into Sean, this time luckier, and he quickly felt the chain at Sean’s neck. He groped in the dark water and pressed the gun to the chain and pulled the trigger. As advertised, the Glock fired underwater.

Sean shot to the surface. He sneezed and inhaled water through his nose as the chops washed over his head. David doubled over below the Gulf, grabbed his own chain and fired again. He popped back up next to Sean, and they struggled, trying to tread water. Sean thought they’d escaped from the ocean floor only to drown on the surface, but David managed over the next few minutes to shoot through both their handcuffs.

They ripped the tape off their mouths and swam to the anchored yacht,
Serendipity II
.

When the radio call from the Fort Jefferson ranger’s station came in to Key West, Susan Tchoupitoulas
asked if she could fly out on the Coast Guard rescue helicopter.

The duty officer said the core of the storm was still on the way, but it was her call.

The chopper made time despite the headwind. A petty officer turned the searchlight down into the harbor, where there was growing confusion. Three marine biology students chased a dome tent that had pulled up its stakes in the wind and blew across the beach, a three-hundred-dollar nylon tumbleweed. Half the anchors had pulled loose from the soft bottom, and the boats blew toward the others. Collision sirens and klaxons went off. Several fired their engines and backed around in the close quarters in a high-stakes game of asteroids.

“This looks awful,” said Tchoupitoulas.

“Actually, this is pretty tame for the Tortugas,” said the petty officer.

In contrast to the pandemonium in the harbor, two park rangers escorted Sean and David calmly across the moat bridge to a clearing between the palm trees. The chopper lowered a rescue sling.

It hovered and Sean and David squinted in the downblast. Sean came up first. David was in five minutes later. The helicopter banked and accelerated. It cleared Bush and Long keys and flew out of the leading edge of the squall into the clear, toward Key West.

Sean and David were fine, but Susan told them they couldn’t expect the sleep they coveted. They were material witnesses and low-order suspects, al
though she expected that to disappear after questioning. Things had gotten wiggy in Key West with the discovery of the dead serial killer from Tampa and the escape of the other suspect. A state legislator was killed under suspicious circumstances, and then four more bodies, all members of a cocaine cartel whose trail mysteriously ended in a post office box in Grenada.

Now add a dead manufactured-housing salesman and a Tampa insurance executive. Susan said it all seemed to spin around room 3 at the Purple Pelican. Below the helicopter, a catamaran sailed in the opposite direction toward the Tortugas, Blaine Crease in a safety harness.

Sean and David wrapped themselves in blankets and sipped cocoa on the copter. They gave exhaustive statements until after midnight at the police office, where they reclined in Police Athletic League jogging suits and ate fried calamari from the Crab Shack.

At one point Dave nodded toward Susan’s badge and said, “Some last name.”

“The T’s silent,” she said, jabbing back.

As midnight approached, Sean and David begged to go to sleep or have a beer or both.

Susan promised if they could hang with it another hour, the department would take them to dinner the next day, expenses be damned.

“Good,” said David, “because this guy lost our traveler’s checks.”

Sean and David slept in past checkout at the Angelfish Inn. So late that upon waking, it was time to plan sunset activities. The phone in the room rang.

Susan Tchoupitoulas looked more disarming in cutoffs and an oversized jersey. It said “Fighting Conchs,” her high school’s nickname. Her hair was out of the small ponytail and brushed down, not quite long enough to touch her shoulders. She didn’t need makeup.

When Susan saw Sean and David, she stood up from her outdoor table atop the La Concha Inn, the only high-rise on the island.

“Mallory Square is such a zoo,” she said. “This is a little better.”

The top floor of the hotel had an indoor lounge in the middle and a wraparound deck outside. Susan was at her favorite table at the northeast corner. Except it wasn’t a real table; it was one of those cocktail deals, and their knees mashed together underneath. Sean was worried if he leaned too hard on the ledge, he might break loose a barrel tile and kill someone eight floors down on Duval Street.

“Hope you have a good restaurant in mind,” she said. “I get to eat on the department tonight too.”

Susan fulfilled her second promise, to fill them in on everything. There was no real investigation to jeopardize, because just about everyone was dead.

Susan told them about the missing five million dollars and the string of murders all over the island by and among drug enforcers and Florida lowlifes.

“What about us?” asked Sean.

“Looks like mistaken identity,” she said. “We checked the records and room three at the Purple Pelican was your room before you canceled. There are no other links. As far as we’re concerned, you’re in the clear.”

She took a sip of her Coke. A crowd of visitors from the suburbs of America filed onto the deck. In another corner, a two-piece band backed by a tape-deck set up. The crowd, fresh from the theme parks of Orlando, began shouting for “Margaritaville.”

“People think these criminals were geniuses, especially that idiot Blaine Crease,” said Susan. “They left a slick of evidence a mile wide.”

“What about that doctor I met?” asked Sean.

“It appears the guys named Serge and Coleman killed him in Cocoa Beach and took the five million,” Susan said. “They dropped a bread-crumb trail of hundred-dollar bills all down the coast. The serial numbers matched the bank in Tampa.”

“So where’s the money?” asked Sean.

“We’ll probably never know,” she said. “Serge and Coleman hid it somewhere. Doesn’t really matter. It was all cocaine money, so nobody’s making a stink. Everyone connected with the insurance company is running for cover.”

A man who looked like Weird Al Yankovic sat on a stool holding a guitar. The tourists pressed closer and quieted.

Susan continued: “The district attorney’s office says it’s almost better if the money is never found. A Costa Gordan holding company has put in a claim
for the cash. Everyone knows it’s drug money, but the DA says the holding company has a better than even shot arguing that Saffron and New England Life stole it from them and it should be returned.”

“What about those Latins?” asked Sean.

“You mean Uzbekistanians. Part of the new Russian mob in south Florida. They rented a postal drop in Grenada and tried to go native.”

Susan looked at the singer in the corner and back at David. “I used to love Buffett.”

Yankovic, in a bright shirt with parrots, began strumming. “
Nibblin’ on sponge cake
…” The crowd went goofy.

“Let’s go inside,” Susan suggested.

They settled in at the bar with green frozen drinks. The TV was on Florida Cable News. Blaine Crease bobbed in his harness on the prow of the catamaran. In the background was Fort Jefferson, and next to him in a second safety harness was a young man in octopus beach jams.

Crease spoke dramatically at the camera. “Tonight we have an exclusive interview with Crash Johnson, The Hit Man’s Pilot!”

Crash leaned into Crease’s microphone. “Hi.” He smiled and gave a quick wave.

“As the personal pilot to Charles Saffron…” began Crease.

“I wasn’t actually his personal…”

“But as the pilot who spent a great deal of one-on-one time flying with the murderer…”

“He really didn’t talk much.”

“When did you first realize he was a time bomb, the infamous Keys Killer?”

“When you told me. Remember? Just before we put on these harnesses.”

“Harnesses?” Crease laughed.

“Yeah, right under your suit there.”

Crease cleared his throat.

“They used to have fresh water out here at Fort Jefferson, but you know what?” asked Crash. “All the cisterns cracked…. Guess what Tortugas means?…”

Crease broke in: “The murderous events of the last few days have taken their toll in the Florida Keys, including this brave young air force veteran who endured a life-or-death flight…”

“When was I in the air force?”

“…and is clearly disoriented. That’s our report this evening from the killing waters of the Dry Tortugas.”

“Thanks, Blaine,” said the spunky anchorwoman. “And now to the Krome Avenue immigration and detention center west of Miami….”

The TV screen showed a diehard band of exiles waving Cuban and American flags. They had tables and chairs and beach umbrellas set up just outside the entrance gate. Buses from Immigration and Naturalization rolled through gates topped with barbed wire.

A young female correspondent in a red dress spoke to the camera: “Demonstrators have turned out to boost the spirits of the latest wave of Cuban free
dom fighters to be brought to the detention center.”

Two buses turned slowly into the compound, and the camera zoomed in on a third bus, where a bearded man was trying to climb out a window.

“I’m an American!” yelled Captain Xeno, dressed in an immigration jumpsuit.

The protesters erupted in cheers. Flags waved furiously. “
Libertad!
” someone yelled.

“No, I mean it! I really am an American!”

“Yes you are, my brother!” yelled someone in the back of the crowd, and the group exploded in cheers again. Captain Xeno disappeared into the compound.

David said to Susan, “Excuse us for a moment.”

“Where are we going?” asked Sean.

David, standing, smacked Sean in the back where Susan couldn’t see. “We’ll be right back,” said Sean, and they both went to the men’s room.

When they came out, David sat back down, but Sean remained standing. He stretched and yawned. “Sorry to be a party-pooper, but I’m spent.”

Sean left and Susan turned to David. “You always this obvious?”

David smiled. “I’ve got a restaurant in mind.”

The Key West Police Department paid $127.42 for dinner at Louie’s Backyard and drinks on the Afterdeck Bar and nothing for the stroll on the beach.

Late the next day. David didn’t speak as he pumped gas at Dade Corners, a fueling/convenience megaplex outside Miami on the edge of the Everglades that carried shellacked alligator heads. Airboats filled the parking lot and newspaper racks showed photos of the Marlins victory parade.

David capped the tank and climbed behind the wheel. They started across the ’glades back toward Tampa.

“If you don’t want to talk about it…” said Sean.

“I don’t.”

“Because if you did…I mean, I think she’s perfect for you. You need some stability.”

David turned on the stereo, Allman Brothers, and they began counting Indian concessions on the side of the Tamiami Trail.

The Allmans sang about being born in the backseat of a bus on Highway 41. David told Sean they were singing about this road, the Tamiami Trail, US High
way 41. Halfway across the swamp, they passed the last Gray Line tour of the day, pulled over on the south shoulder. Its sixty riders taking snapshots of a white wooden shack with a sign that read: “Ochopee, smallest post office in the United States of America.”

“Did you notice about the trip?” Sean said.

“What?” asked David.

“No fish.”

Out through the windshield, the sky was blood red over Naples, and in the rearview a deep violet above Miami as the Chrysler split the Everglades without another car in sight.

Back about forty miles, where the two-lane road started its western run across the swamp, a humble gopher tortoise had begun crossing the Tamiami Trail in the fading light. Its world suddenly became much brighter as the high beams of a black Mercedes limousine lit up the road.

The limo was on cruise control doing a hundred. In the driver’s seat—actually sitting up in the driver’s window outside the limo and driving with his right foot—a man was taking photographs of the magnificent sunset over Naples. The sun barely down, crimson shafts now sprayed up into a furnace of clouds. The limo’s steering column was shattered and hot-wired, and an impound ticket from the Key West Police Department lay crumpled on the floor.

At the last second, the driver noticed he was about to hit the turtle. In a reflexive evasive maneuver, he jerked the wheel with his foot. The car yanked hard
left, missed the turtle and violently threw the driver back in the window, tossing him around the front seat at will—“Whoooooooaaaaaaaa!”—as the car left the road and pounded through the sawgrass.

The driver grabbed the wheel and fought to hold it steady as he climbed up from the floor mats and back into the seat. The limousine crested the lip of a gator hole, but he managed to turn it back onto the pavement and into the proper lane.

“Geez, that turtle came out of nowhere,” the man muttered to himself, loading a.357 Magnum. “I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself if I’d hit it.”

The limo raced west across the Everglades, closing distance, Serge looking out at the end of his high beams for a Chrysler.