An excerpt from Skeleton Cay
© 2005 Mark Seymour

Skeleton Cay

Hosing the blood off the deck of my ninety-foot tugboat, the Bad Mawr, I pondered the difference between fish and men. The fish who died on that deck never gave up. Eying their murderers with the same cold and distant gaze with which they regarded their prey, the fish flapped their strength away on the hard smooth wood, gasping at the thinner air, trying desperately to regain the water. Reluctantly, and always with admiration for their struggle, we would give them solace, a stroke from a bat sending them first into convulsions and then into the icebox. The men who died on that deck showed different responses in the face of death: those who begged for redemption, those who resigned themselves to their fate, and those who, like the fish, fought fiercely to the end. Unlike the fish, however, few men ever went quietly. In the end, however, and almost never with admiration, they were all made silent, a bullet sending them first to hell and then over the side into Davy Jones' Locker.

But this had been only a fishing run, and the scales glittered in the water running fast and pink through the gunnels. We had boated a good string, including a couple of swordfish, and the iceboxes were full; there would be expensive eating in the island restaurants tonight, and plenty of fish grilling here on the fantail. Instead of driving the boat, Master Chief Jolly would change hats and become Chef Jolly; by the time the sunset viewing ritual was over, the aroma of another Cajun recipe from his mother's people would attract a swarm of boat bums and tourist girls. But we'd caught enough fish to burn the tough whiskered mouths of all the sailors who'd bring the cold beer, as well as the sweet tender mouths of all the women who'd bring their bikini'd bodies, and this would be another good evening in Key West.

I was visualizing the pleasures of the night ahead when the cell phone rang and nearly didn't answer it, but I was expecting a call from a yard on Stock Island, where the Bad Mawr was scheduled for some hull work. At first I couldn't remember where I'd put it, intending to keep it out of the water, but then I saw the little silver slab, right where I'd left it, on top of the life raft. Snatching it up, I checked the the number on the display. For a moment I didn't recognize the unlisted number of my old boss; while I hadn't spoken with him in a couple of years, it isn't everyone who has a phone number where the last four digits are 1111.

When your former employer is one of the richest men in the Southeast, if not on the planet, you damn sure don't let him go to voicemail. I flipped off the hose and punched the talk button. "Mister Pescador. What's up?"

"I need your help." The voice was as deep and mellifluous as I remembered. But there was a touch of hesitation I couldn't recall hearing before.

"No problem. I can be up there on…" I added a day's padding to my travel time, for the unexpected. On the water, there's always the unexpected. "Say, Thursday."

"My aircraft is in the air." The hesitance was gone, and the familiar imperative was back. "What is your exact location?"

In these days of GPS, 'exact' was no longer a euphemism. But I liked doing some things the old fashioned way. I looked past the starboard rail, eying the low shadows of the islands to westward, and recalled my last look at the local chart; it was only forward ten or fifteen meters in the charthouse, but he wouldn't want to wait that long. "Twenty miles to the east of Islamorada, near enough." The service had taught me the metric system, but on the water I still reckoned in nautical miles.

"Where is the nearest airfield?" The voice was definitely imperious now; there must be something serious going on.

That was an easy question; in the Keys, there were only a few of any size. "Marathon. We're five hours from there." Less, if we made all possible speed, but I didn't want to do that if I could avoid it. This boat was old and just a little battered, and I didn't like stressing her hull and fittings more than absolutely necessary. Avoiding pirates and hurricanes called for all the turns we could coax out of her engines; for anything less we normally made no more than dozen knots, even with a following sea.

"I will ask the Coast Guard to meet your boat and bring you in."

Given his clout, I knew it was entirely possible, but behavior at that level would only attract attention, and I didn't need any more from the Coasties than I was already getting. If they alerted the other alphabet agencies, now that they were part of Homeland Security, we'd never get anything done. "Let's leave that for an emergency, okay?"

"This is an emergency." The pleading tone was back; whatever it was, it was bad.

"Let me think for a second." I glanced at the sun and, just to make sure, at my watch. "The nearest strip is on Plantation Key but, unless he's flying a helicopter, your pilot won’t be able to get in there."

"He can land anywhere, and will do so within an hour. Meet me at the Cafe, as ever." He actually sighed. "Please hurry, Davy. Trust no one." The phone clicked and went silent.

"I'll do the best I can," I said into the dead phone. To get such a short response time, Pescador must've had the pilot already doing a pre-flight check when he called. But they'd need a chopper to negotiate the tiny strip at Plantation, and the forced switch would gain me some time. I was wondering what could be happening in Miami to cause all this excitement when Jolly's drawl returned me to the problem of getting ashore, on time and on target. "They call from the boatyard, boy?" His face, tanned and lined from fifty years on the water, peered from the pilothouse hatchway.

"Damnedest thing." Hoisting the two-inch hose onto my hip, I lofted the cellular to safety atop the raft. "That was Pescador."

"That rich Jew up to Miami?"

You could take a man out of Louisiana, you could even show him the world, but some behaviors just wouldn’t change... "Yeah, that rich guy." The word 'rich' did not begin to encompass the wealth and power Ruben Pescador held, or was responsible for, as he always insisted. Shy of Bill Gates or Warren Buffett, there were only a few people in this country with more of both. Since he kept much of his money in other countries, ones with 'rational tax structures', as he put it, Pescador didn't appear in the annual Richest Floridians articles, an oversight which was fine with him. "He wants my ass in Tavernier in an hour."

"Hell, we're nigh onto twenty miles from Tavernier, or any port thereabouts."

Eighteen, measured off the chart, but close enough. I shrugged, my hand ready on the nozzle; there was still fish debris on the deck, drying rapidly in the sun. "We’ll just have to see what the old Bad Mawr can do."

If you get lost, consult the map of this site