Bone Deep (6 page)

I’ve known good athletes who had the physiques of McDonald’s clerks. A couple of all-American wrestlers so mild-mannered, so shy, they would have looked right at home stocking shelves at Kmart. Gauging ability based on size is typical of our culture, but unwise, naïve—dangerous, too, in a violent situation.

Like now. My boat had been commandeered by a man who was unimposing, even clumsy when he’d tumbled aboard. But so what? A heavy duffel bag and a gun proved nothing. He could be a skilled burglar . . . or a psycho killer with a new trophy to add to his collection.

Something he could also add were my billfold, my phone, and a fine Gerber multi-tool he’d pocketed after ordering me to empty my pockets on the deck. Clumsy or not, the man was careful. Which is why I was thinking,
Pick your move. Make it clean, something you can explain without ending up behind bars—or dead.

Standing at the controls, I considered options while we cruised at thirty knots toward an empty turquoise horizon. My abductor faced me from the other side of the windshield, his knees on a cooler. It
gave him a clear view of what lay behind: Venice Beach, Manasota Key, the coastline shrinking, but no helicopters or boats in pursuit. He kept the pistol pressed to the Plexiglas, a profile view, his hand flat over the weapon to brace himself against the mild dolphining of waves. But he used the weapon for emphasis whenever he yelled to be heard.

He raised the gun now, asking, “Can this boat make it to Mexico?” The windshield became an aiming post for his cheap revolver, the kind sold in pawnshops. The cylinder was loaded, but at least one chamber was empty, possibly two. The weapon had been fired.

Yucatán, Mexico, was four hundred miles away, which I communicated by shaking my head, then held up a hand until he angled the pistol away. I tried reason. “What happened back there? It can’t be worse than what you’re doing now, but I won’t press charges if you talk to me—and give me my stuff back.”

The man looked south where two boats, in tandem, cruised the beach, then north where another boat was exiting Roberts Bay. Wiped a hand over his bald head and muttered,
“Shit.”

“Take it easy,” I told him. “There’s not a boat around that can catch mine. If police saw you get in, they know that, so they won’t try.”

It wasn’t true, but it earned his attention. “Yeah?” He considered the B-Impact boat’s stealthy coloring, the electronics and oversize engines, wanting to believe, but he didn’t. “Doesn’t feel like we’re going that fast.”

“You want to attract attention?” I asked, touching the throttles. “We can. You should be worried about helicopters. That’s what they’ll send. Use a laser that transmits our GPS coordinates, but they’ll keep their distance if they know you’re armed.”

He licked his lips and sniffed, “Cops are the least of my worries, man,” but his eyes moved from the console to the sky.

I kept talking because it’s easier to kill a stranger. Told him I was willing to help but needed to understand the situation. Then shared an ironic truth I couldn’t entrust to a friend—or even a woman I might be falling in love with.

“I’ve been chased before,” I said. “You’re going about this all wrong.”

He looked at me, really looked at me. “That’s bullshit. What did you do?”

I smiled a grim smile but only replied, “We should have headed into the backcountry. Some creek with mangrove cover so we can lose a helicopter if that’s what they send.”

Pistol sights found my forehead. “Hey, goddamn it, I asked you a question.”

I waited for the barrel’s angle to change before I answered, “Police wanted to arrest me for murder. No . . . not arrest me. They would have questioned me first, then shot me. Newspapers would have said they
tried
to arrest me.”

“In Florida?”

“No. This was a few months ago in another country.”

“Where?”

“South of here. The name doesn’t matter.”

“Arrested for
murder
?”

“An assassination, is what they called it, but the same thing.”

The pistol, in profile, returned to the windshield.
“Christ,”
he said, worried about it, then asked, “Did you do it?”

Ahead, I could see a color change, water translucent green, now that we were two miles offshore, the murk of mangrove rivers and
nutrient crude thinning. I also saw a Styrofoam ball in the distance—a trap marker, blue crab, or a marker forgotten by a stone crabber. The ball would be attached to a hundred feet of nylon rope and a heavy cage. I steered toward it, turning the wheel gradually, while I answered, “It doesn’t matter. What I’m telling you is, I’ve been through this.”

“Did you do it or didn’t you?”

I looked at him and said, “They were convinced. Same difference.”

Color was fading from his face. “Jesus Christ,” he said. “Are they still looking?”

“Of course. It’s a capital offense.” Then asked, “Did you shoot someone? Or just rob a house?”

For a moment, he came close to answering. The moment passed, and he vented his frustration by yelling at the sky, “Son of a bitch! Out of all the boats in Florida, I’ve got to pick one owned by a goddamn wanted killer.” Flipped his middle finger at clouds, then looked north. “Then you better not let them catch us. What about Tampa? It’s only an hour by car. How long in a boat?”

I found the starboard trim tab with a finger, getting ready for what came next. “Too far,” I said, then lied, “but Saint Pete’s just up the beach. You can see it from where you’re standing.”

My abductor was on his knees, not standing. I wanted him to get to his feet and reach for a starboard handhold—a finesse that might be less time-consuming than snagging a crab trap. He shielded his eyes to see. “Where? That’s bullshit. Saint Pete’s way the hell north of here.”

“Right
there
. Are you blind?”

Then he did it—he stood, balance unsteady—which is when I made my move. Before his hand found a support, I trimmed the boat’s starboard chine deep and buried the throttles while spinning
the wheel hard in the opposite direction. Engines cavitated . . . deck bucked like a trampoline . . . the man bellowed, “Hey!” Then he belly-skidded along the starboard tube for an instant and tumbled overboard.

If the pistol went flying, I didn’t see it, yet I spared him from the propellers by turning immediately to starboard. If I’d known for certain he’d shot my friends, it might have been different, I might have increased speed as I circled back and hit him again while he floundered on the surface. Coast Guard investigators are good at their jobs, but I had just staged an “accident” scenario that kills boaters year after year. Usually, the passenger falls off while pissing, then becomes an unintended victim when his catcalling buddies return to fetch him.

A dozen variations of that scenario were still possible as I slowed and turned. Who would investigators believe? A dead criminal or his frightened captive? Never mind the thousands of hours I have logged at a helm.

I wasn’t sure Tomlinson and Dunk had been shot, however. So I idled toward him, yelling, “Show your hands!”

He did—not because I demanded it but because jogging suits absorb water, and my abductor was fighting to stay on the surface. Like a dog learning to swim, his arms flailed, pistol on the bottom by now.

“Asshole. You did that on purpose.”

I checked the GPS while he hollered threats and paddled toward my boat. We were 2.1 miles off the beach, close enough to see Finn Tovar’s roof of orange tile; to the south, a ridge of silver roofs, houses built shoulder to shoulder. We weren’t close enough to hear sirens . . . or had the sirens stopped?

Stopped, I decided. Two miles and a mild shore breeze separated
us, but sound carries over water. What had silenced the sirens? A corpse or two might be enough to turn an emergency into an academic recovery. The temptation was to return at top speed and find Tomlinson. I couldn’t call him. My phone and wallet were soaking in my abductor’s blue jogging suit . . . or drifting toward the bottom.

I thought about using the VFH radio, then decided,
Not yet.
Call the Coast Guard and I would have to either rescue the man or kill him before a chopper was scrambled from Tampa. Go off and leave him, he would drown, and that risked dealing with paperwork and questions later.

An alternative popped into my mind.

In the stern locker, I keep a spare anchor that’s attached to a buoy the size of a volleyball. I use it when tarpon fishing—a rig I can jettison before a tarpon strips my reel, then retrieve later. No big deal if I lost it.

I decided to risk losing it now.

Engines in neutral, I gathered buoy, line, and anchor and dumped it all over the side . . . watched the buoy flutter as the line unpeeled. Then I backed the boat away from the approaching swimmer to send him a message.

The man looked at the buoy, then at me. “Hey . . . what are you doing?”

I continued backing.

“Hey, goddamn it. You can’t leave me out here.”

Yes I could. I’d found the buoy on the beach, the anchor while diving—neither could be traced back to me.

“That’ll float you for a while,” I called. “Maybe someone will come by.”

“Are you
crazy
?”

I answered that by asking, “Remember what I did in South America?” then put twenty yards between us before switching off the engines.

I wanted to see what was in the duffel bag he’d brought aboard. Even if I learned nothing, it would give my abductor time to panic. When he did, I would demand information—along with my wallet, phone, and multi-tool. My phone was in what some PR person deemed a “waterproof” case, which meant it was probably ruined by now.

If it still worked, a call to Tomlinson would decide whether I left my abductor way out here to drown.

•   •   •

THE BAG WAS BIG,
constructed for military deployment. Roomy enough for four Pelican cases. I ignored the man’s pleas while opening the first case. Inside were dozens of gigantic shark’s teeth, some mounted for display, most thrown in by a burglar who was in a hurry. They were remnants of extinct monsters, sharks that could swallow a great white in a gulp. The teeth were fossilized blue-gray ivory, some bigger than my hand.

Think of it as blue ivory
—Leland Albright’s words.

No doubt now that the late Finn Tovar’s house had been robbed.

I opened the second case, then the third, noting the contents in a rush: bones and prehistoric skulls, arrowheads of volcanic black and blazing orange or coral pink—hundreds of them—and a serrated dart, eight inches long, notched for a spear. When I saw that, my hand moved involuntarily to my chest. It was the barb of a prehistoric stingray retooled as a weapon. Lethal, as I knew too well.

I sealed the cases one by one, wondering if I should bother
opening the fourth. Police would confiscate the stuff anyway, and it had been ten minutes since I’d left Tomlinson and Fallsdown. I had to make a decision.

“Keep the shit, we’ll make a deal.” My struggling abductor, thirty yards away, had changed tactics and was trying to negotiate. He had the buoy clutched to his chest but was running out of steam.

I ignored him until he added, “The gold alone’s worth twenty grand.”

Gold?

I opened the fourth case. It contained several sealed display boxes. I peeked into a few: a silver bar encrusted with coral . . . two coins of gold, their archaic crosses struck off-center—doubloons from Conquistador times. Something big wrapped in plastic: an elephant tusk, mammoth or mastodon. It had a polished blue-black density when touched. The thing was heavy, almost a yard long.

Splashing to stay afloat, the man yelled, “I know where we can sell that shit, too!” while my brain cataloged the items as
Spanish Contact portion of the Finn Tovar collection
.

But I was wrong. When I opened the smallest box, I knew it—after recovering from my surprise. Looking back at me was an owl’s face, its eyes rimmed with white as if once set with pearls.

Most definitely not Spanish.

My abductor had gone after the most valuable artifacts first and he had used this case. Items were more carefully packed, each protected by bubble wrap, including the small rosewood box in my hand.

I cleaned my glasses, removed the artifact, and set the box aside. Came damn close to smiling when I looked closer. Photos taken decades ago had not captured the pearl sheen around the eyes nor the
black glisten of soapstone. The carving possessed an ancient weight when held in my modern hand. But it was only three inches tall, not six as Fallsdown had told me.

Hypnotic, those stony eyes. I had to look away to wonder,
Where’s the second owl?

I hurried through the rest of the items, but it wasn’t there. So I returned the carving to the little box, slipped it beneath the console, and repacked the duffel bag. Maybe my abductor knew the answer, so I started engines and idled toward him.

Soon, he was clinging to the side of the boat. I had my wallet, my Gerber, and cell phone, too, which still worked, just as advertised.

Phone in hand, I told him, “If you lied to me, I’ll leave you out here.”

I had asked the obvious questions by then.

“I
believe
you,” he said.

Maybe it was something he saw in my eyes when I punched in Tomlinson’s number. While the phone rang, the man tried to pull himself into the boat. When the call went to voice mail, I stepped on his hands until he yelped and fell back into the water.

“My friend doesn’t answer,” I said, looking down. “What happened to him, Deon?”

That was his name, Deon Killip—probably fake, but I had filed it away. Criminals under duress often use the name of an accomplice.

“How should I know, man? Yeah, okay, I robbed the damn house. But I didn’t shoot anyone—I swear.”

Prior to my call, he’d claimed he had permission to enter Finn Tovar’s house.

“Keep talking,” I said.

“But I never fired that gun. I told you, it was some other dude.
The guy shows up out of nowhere wearing a ski mask. Carrying a pistol. He shot at
me
. Would’a killed me. That’s why I had to get away from the beach.”