Tricky Business (37 page)

When Fay was able to talk, she gave a detailed report to her superiors. There was a lot she didn't know, but she was able to describe Tark and his boat.

This touched off a massive search, and within hours a boat matching that description was found on a deserted beach on a small, sparsely populated island in the Bahamas. The boat contained a duffel bag filled with cocaine, and something else that made this very big news: the bullet-ridden bodies of two men, one of whom was Bobby Kemp, who, in yet another bizarre twist to this story, was wearing the costume of Conrad Conch.

The media were insane now, reporters from around the world swarming all over the story, reporting everything they heard, most of it not remotely true. Many investigations were launched at many levels; many leads were followed; many theories were devised and endlessly speculated upon. Books were written, and there were two made-for-TV movies.

But in the end, it remained mostly a mystery. Nobody ever did figure out what really happened out there on the
Extravaganza,
because the only person who had known it all was Tark, and his bones were somewhere on the bottom of the Atlantic, with Frank's bones still strangling them. In the end, the authorities stopped actively investigating the
Extravaganza
case, because newer cases came up, and besides, everybody who got killed out there was a scumbag.

 

LOU TARANT KNEW THAT THERE WAS A LOT OF product unaccounted for, and a lot of money, a
lot
of money. He knew—he
knew
—that it was out there, somewhere. But where?
Where was the money?
He thought about it day and night, in prison. Day and night. It made him fucking
crazy.

 

JOHNNY AND THE CONTUSIONS NEVER PLAYED another gig, at least not as Johnny and the Contusions.

Right after the
Extravaganza
crash, Ted, Jock, Johnny, and Tina each called friends or relatives, saying they were safe in the Bahamas, and they couldn't talk about how they got there, but they would be back soon. They returned to Miami a week later, by private plane, and immediately instituted massive upgrades to their lifestyles—new cars, new clothes, luxury condos.

This is the kind of bandmates Ted, Johnny, and Jock were: They offered to give Wally a full share of the money. This is how Wally had changed: He said no. He knew where the money had come from, and he knew that he could have the money, or he could have Fay. And he picked Fay.

Ted, Johnny, and Jock thought Wally was insane. They were thrilled to be rich. They invested their fortune in, among other things, a South Beach nightclub called Scrotum, the South Florida franchise of a cockfighting league, Enron, and a series of truly astounding parties. They were broke within two years, and went back to gigging, under the name “The Cosines” (don't ask). Sometimes they wished they'd been a little more conservative with their money. But man, did they have some
stories.

 

TINA USED HER SHARE OF THE MONEY TO BUY A health-food store, which she ran with great efficiency, but which got surprisingly little repeat business.

 

ARNIE AND PHIL WERE FAMOUS AT FIRST, THE two old guys who drove the Ship of Death into the hotel. For a while, they were all over the media, culminating in an appearance on Letterman, where they got into an argument when Arnie told Letterman that he would have got the ship back to Miami no problem if Phil had just let go of the damn wheel.

Eventually, the public interest in the
Extravaganza
case died down, and Arnie and Phil returned to their routine at the Beaux Arts Senior Living Center. Eight months after their night on the ship, while they were watching a baseball game on TV, Phil, having just disagreed strongly with Arnie about the umpire's call on a pickoff attempt, died.

Arnie buried his friend, and for a while stayed mainly in his room. After a few months, he started to see Mrs. Krugerman. At first, it was on a strictly pinochle basis, but in time it became more, and finally they got married at a nice ceremony, highlighted by Mrs. Bendocker singing a rendition of “Wind Beneath My Wings” that sent two guests to the hospital.

Arnie was reasonably happy, back in married life. But once a year, he went, alone, to the cemetery, where he placed on Phil's grave a chip from the
Extravaganza
casino, one of the chips he'd had in his pocket that night.

 

EDDIE SMITH RECOVERED SLOWLY, BUT HE RECOVERED. He didn't want to go back to sea, which was just as well, because nobody wanted to hire him to run a ship anyway. But he was more than content to stay on land with Luz and Alejandro, and eventually he got into a nice, successful little business, cleaning pools with his partner, retired
Extravaganza
bartender Joe Sarmino.

 

MARA PURVIS DECIDED SHE WAS GOING TO DO something more meaningful with her life than be a cocktail waitress. She enrolled in community college, earned a degree in business administration, and got a job at a big South Florida bank. She worked in Human Resources, where her primary responsibility was to help employees fill out claims for medical benefits. In seven months, she quit and went back to being a cocktail waitress.

 

FAY AND WALLY GOT MARRIED. YOU FIGURED that out a long time ago. They quickly had two more kids, both girls, to go with Estelle. Fay continued her career in the Coast Guard, and did very well, despite almost daily warnings from her mother about the deadly dangers involved. Wally gave guitar lessons part-time. But mainly he stayed home and raised the girls. He loved being a parent, and he discovered he was really good at it. He sang songs to his kids, made up games for them, packed their lunches, told them bedtime stories. The girls loved it, having a stay-at-home dad. One of their favorite things was this: Almost every morning, when their mom had left to go arrest bad people, their dad would take them over to Grandma's house. She made the
best
waffles.

Eventually, Fay and Wally remembered that the name of the actress in
Titanic
was Kate Winslet.

 

THE HUGE CACHE OF DRUGS THAT TARK HID IN the Bahamas was never found. Eventually, however, some of the packaging began to dissolve, and traces of cocaine, followed by larger and larger quantities, began to show up in the water supply of a major resort hotel. This was good for repeat business.

 

THE WORLD'S MOST VALUABLE INFLATABLE BOAT is still out there, floating, somewhere.

DAVE BARRY is a Pulitzer Prize—winning journalist for the
Miami Herald
, a guitarist for the legendary Rock Bottom Remainders, and the author of many best-sellers, including
Dave Barry's Complete Guide to Guys, Dave Barry Turns 50,
and of course,
Big Trouble
. For a while, his life was even a television series, but then it was canceled. The series. Not the life. He lives in Miami.

NONFICTION

 

 

FICTION