Wreckers' Key (20 page)

I shook my head when I turned Lightnin’ into the lot at the IGFA. It was downright amazing the sorts of things men could turn into a pissing contest. The parking lot looked like somebody was holding tryouts for a monster-truck extravaganza. Ocean Towing’s bright green diesel truck was the most ridiculous. It looked like it had overdosed on steroids. Even a man the height of Neville Pinder would need a ladder to climb up into that vehicle, with tires taller than most school-age children. The damn thing bristled with antennas and spotlights, mini cranes and winches. Offshore Marine had an extended-cab white Ford F-350 with the TowBoat/US logo painted on the side. Sea Tow had both a yellow truck with a winch on the back and a yellow SUV. Nearly all the vehicles in the lot were trucks or large SUVs. In that crowd, my poor little Jeep looked like a toy—one that had been left in the sandbox and rusted, too.

When I slipped into the back of the meeting room, I saw a long table on a stage, and more people than I expected sitting at round tables scattered throughout the room. I slid into an empty chair between Perry Greene and Captain Cassidy, who worked with Perry sometimes. The guy up front was droning on about the elements that had to be present for a tow to change into a salvage operation. A name placard in front of him identified him as a representative of the Marine Industries Association of South Florida. I figured he had to be a desk jockey. I’d never seen him on the water.

I leaned over and whispered to Cassidy, “What did I miss?”

“We’re getting Salvage 101 up there. This is a waste of time.”

“Why did you come?”

“Because we all know there’s a problem but nobody here’s really talking about it.”

The panelists continued to talk, but I tuned them out and looked around the room. I guessed there were about fifty people, and I knew, or at least recognized, most of them. There were quite a few captains from Sea Tow. They generally owned their own boats and bought into a franchise agreement with that company. Neville Pinder was present with a large entourage of local Ocean Towing captains wearing neon green shirts, ocean towing stitched over their pockets. In his case, Pinder owned all the gear—including the monster truck out front—and the boat drivers worked for him. Compared with the other captains, they were a scruffy-looking group with shirttails untucked, baseball caps worn backward, and tufts of hair sprouting from under their caps. The slouching postures of the Ocean Towing group seemed to signal a contempt for the proceedings. I saw Tia sitting at the Offshore Marine table. Their group looked shipshape in white shirts and blue shorts, the typical captain’s uniform. I even saw a group from the Water Taxis and Dania Harbor Tugs. All the players were sitting there in that room.

So, I thought, if it’s true that somebody’s up to no good in the salvage business, odds are that someone is sitting in this room.

After another fifteen minutes of presentation from a maritime attorney, the Coast Guard officer, with a placard in front of him that read lieutenant A. J. Gunnar, asked the audience if they had any questions for the panel. Several hands shot up. The first fellow started in on a long story about a particular case where an inexperienced salvage crew caused even more damage to the stricken vessel, which eventually sank. For an instant, I feared he was going to tell the whole gathering the story about me and Melvin Burke and
Seas the Day
.

As the questioner continued, Perry groaned. Finally, the moderator interrupted the man and asked him to ask a question. Turned out he was a boat owner who had been towed off the beach by Perry and before he could get pumps on her, she sank. The Coast Guard guy cut him off saying that they were not there to comment on individual cases. The next question was about whether a tow could become a salvage operation if the owner never signed a form.

Cassidy was right. Nobody was talking about the real problems in our business. I raised my hand. After a couple of minutes, Lieutenant Gunnar called on me.

“I don’t know about you guys, but I’m sick and tired of hearing salvage called piracy. And the folks doing the name-calling have good reasons sometimes. Something stinks in this business these days. Some of you in here are telling customers that your work is salvage when it really should be a tow. You’re ripping people off. People out there are getting afraid to take a line from us. And now there’s a new wrinkle. I know that it’s just like in prison—everyone who puts his boat on the beach cries innocent. Says it wasn’t his fault. But lately, some of those cries have been ringing true. I know one guy who said it—Nestor Frias—and most of you knew him, too. And now he’s dead. Instead of sitting around here politely discussing maritime law, somebody needs to figure out who and what is going on.” I turned around to make sure my chair was still lined up behind me and saw a face at the back of the room. Quentin was sitting in a chair against the back wall. He smiled and lifted a hand. I nodded at him, then sat down and faced front again.

The crowd stayed quiet for several seconds. Then the noise level rose as dozens of conversations broke out at the tables all around the room. Lieutenant Gunnar started shouting, “Could I have your attention, please?” but he’d lost them. This group had sat still just about as long as they could stand it. Chairs scraped as people got up. The formal part of this meeting was over.

Along one wall there was a long table with brochures and information, as well as plates of cookies, bags of chips, soda, and a coffeepot, and most of the captains in the room got up and headed for the free food. A lady took the microphone from the Coastie, thanked everyone for attending, and insisted that everybody sign the attendance sheet on the table by the coffeepot.

I was watching some very thick-looking coffee trickle into my Styrofoam cup when Neville Pinder appeared at my side.

“I see you and Mr. Berger’s boat made it home okay.” I blew on the liquid in my cup and watched him over the Styrofoam rim. He was helping himself to a cup, but the corners of his mouth turned up and his eyes kept glancing to the side. He knew I was watching him, and he was enjoying it.

“We had a nice trip—except for Thursday night off Marathon. Heard the calls on the VHF—some poor guy put his boat on the stones. A big sailboat,
Rendezvous
. Your guys sure were quick to get out there.”

“Oh yeah, my guys are good,” he said, and when he turned to face me, I noticed for the first time that the pale green of his eyes appeared nearly as unnatural as the neon shade of his shirt. “They floated him free the next day. Almost no damage to the boat.”

The coffee wasn’t as bad as it looked. I took another sip. “I guess that means you’ll be able to buy another new boat pretty soon. Or maybe another truck like that monster out front.”

He smiled. “You know, I just might do that.”

“So, I was wondering, how is it that you showed up on the scene about a year ago and suddenly you’re the biggest thing in salvage in this town?”

“I tell you what it is. You’re old school, Sullivan. The times have passed you by. You’re like an old dog, not good for much but eatin’ and shittin’. Time to let go of the little piece of this business you still got.” He held his thumb and forefinger up about two inches apart—and I couldn’t take my eyes off the scarred stubs that had once been his fingers.

Tia walked up and said, “Seychelle, I haven’t met your friend.”

The way he smiled at her, it was clear he thought of himself as the rock star of the towing business. He didn’t realize Tia was no groupie.

I introduced her to Pinder and took the opportunity to slip away. I wanted to put distance between the big Bahamian and myself. And I wanted to catch more of the gossip in the room. Captain Cassidy was standing with a group of guys who worked with him. When I walked up, they all started congratulating me for speaking up.

“After what I’ve been through this week, I’m tired of being polite and talking around things.”

“Yeah, we all heard about Nestor,” Cassidy said. “Is it true you found him?”

I didn’t want to have to talk about that again, but in fact, Nestor was really the reason I was there. I just nodded, then said, “I don’t get it. Who called this get-together and what did they think they were going to accomplish?”

“It was the Marine Industries Association. I guess they’ve been hearing the complaints. It seems there was one really blatant case of taking advantage of a poor schmuck who didn’t know any better. Like typical boat people, the guys who did it had to brag about it.”

“Are you naming names?”

“Let me just say the amount of money they made could make you
green
with envy.” The two other captains laughed at Cassidy, but what he said didn’t surprise me.

“Just that truck out front must have cost him over fifty grand,” I said. “I wondered where he was getting the money.”

Cassidy squinted as he watched Pinder having an animated discussion with Tia. “Lots of us have been wondering about our friend Neville. From what I hear, he started with one crappy little boat in Key West and suddenly, a year later, he’s got new boats in every major port from Key West to Stuart. He’s also picking up the lion’s share of the emergency calls. He’s had an amazing run of luck—his boats have been first on hand to more than half the wrecks in the last six months.”

I thought of Nestor. Maybe he was right about the
what
, just wrong about the
who
. “You sure it’s luck?”
 

“What else could it be?”

“I don’t know—but I intend to find out.”

Cassidy shrugged and patted me on the shoulder. “Keep me posted.”

I saw Quentin standing alone and hurried over to him. “How’s it going?”

“Good to see you, skipper. I’m doing okay. Jeremy let me stay on
Power Play
—I’m doing some brightwork for him, but I’m looking to be on a boat that will move. Took the bus here hoping to find a job.”

“I saw you talking to one of the green shirt guys.”
 

“Yes, that is Brian. I have an interview with his boss tomorrow.”

“Be careful. I don’t like that bunch.”

“Brian’s okay. He has an interesting story about a boat he just pulled off the reef here in Fort Lauderdale.”
 

Perry Greene joined us then and interrupted me before I could find out more. “Hey, you guys headed to the Downtowner? I heard Neville Pinder’s buying drinks.”
 

“You’re kidding,” I said.

“Yeah, I am,” Perry said, and he threw back his head and let loose with his high-pitched cackle. “Everybody is heading over there, though.” He rubbed up against my arm. “How about you, sweet cheeks?”

“Perry, did you see that lagoon outside the door of this place? You rub that body of yours up against me one more time and I’ll reach into your drawers, rip off your privates, and feed them to the gators in the pond out there.”

Perry grinned so wide I could see his receding gums. “I love it when you talk dirty, girlfriend.” And then he took off at a run before I could catch him.

XVIII

I’d barely reached my Jeep before fat raindrops began to splat against the windshield. When I parked in the lot behind the Downtowner, I pulled an old rain poncho out from under the backseat and ran from the parking lot to the covered walkway that faced the river. The temperature had dropped into the low sixties again, and only the die-hard smokers were sitting, huddled together, at the outside bar.

Stepping inside, my ears were assaulted by the volume of the music, conversation, and general revelry, and the warmth came not only from all the bodies packed into that small space but also from the sense of homecoming I felt. The place was a throwback to another era. No marketing firm had decorated the interior, and the menu didn’t have pictures of plastic food. The main bar was built of wood and fitted together as though by shipwrights, while the windows at the bartender’s back opened via shutters onto an outside bar and the view of the river beyond. Small brass plaques affixed to the bar marked the stools of the regular customers, and each strange item hanging from the walls had its own story. There was the name board off a wartime hospital ship, the life ring from a former judge’s yacht, and the outboard once confiscated by the Fort Lauderdale police when a mayor’s son had been caught joyriding. Black-and-white photos hanging on the walls showed a Fort Lauderdale from the early days when the river out front was a supply highway for the town and the docks offloaded vegetables from the farms around Lake Okeechobee. To most of the people in the bar tonight, the river was still the main artery keeping their careers alive.

A group of the towboat captains had pushed three tables together and they had been joined by some of the regulars like Captain Kaos and Wally. I considered pulling up a chair, but instead I made my way left to the side bar and asked Pete for a Corona. When he set the bottle in front of me, he leaned over the ice bin and said, “That sucks about Nestor. How’s his wife doing?”

“How do you expect her to be doing?” After I said it and saw the hurt look on his face, I felt bad. “Sorry, Pete. I’m just frustrated. Something’s not right and I can’t even figure out what it is.”

“You want to talk about it?”

“No, I’d just get myself more confused. I came tonight to talk to some people and see if I couldn’t make some of these things gel, but when I walked in here just now I realized I don’t really feel like talking to anybody.” I took a long drink; even the cold beer didn’t taste particularly good. “You know, Pete, I think I need to get out of this business. It’s just not fun anymore.”

“You think this job’s fun?” He waved his hand to include the whole bar.

“Pete, you like to bitch, but I can see it. You love what you do.”

“Well ...” He pulled the towel off his shoulder and wiped his hands. “Some days are better than others.”
 

“You are a part of this place, you know.”

“And things wouldn’t be the same on the river without
Gorda
.”

“That’s true, but it doesn’t have to be me running the boat.”

“Are you serious? You’re thinking about selling?”