Baja Florida (13 page)

They sat me in a cheap white plastic chair, tied my wrists behind me, and wrapped duct tape around me and the chair.

The chair was in the middle of a big, cluttered room. The door was at my back, open windows on either side. On the ceiling directly above me, two long fluorescent bulbs cast a bluish aura on the surroundings.

It was more ware house than office—power tools, cans of marine paint, saw horses, the pervasive odor of resin and fiberglass. On the floor—greasy rags, oil-soaked dirt, and random heaps of trash. Cobwebs consumed the corners of the ceiling. A breeze passed through the door and windows, provoking small torrents of dust.

One of the men—he looked to be the oldest, in his thirties—sat behind a wooden desk. He wore a tight white T-shirt with a tattoo displayed on one forearm. An anchor with roses entwined around it. An old-school tattoo, like sailors used to wear. Something done in a drunken whim in some foreign port. Or prison. Not the artful filigrees sported nowadays by everyone from hipsters and house wives to schoolgirls.

Another brother, in his twenties, sat on the edge of the desk. He was shirtless with a pistol stuck in the waist of his jeans.

The third one couldn't have been more than eighteen or nineteen. He kept the shotgun pointed at me from the far side of the room.

Looking at the Dailey brothers was like looking at those computer-generated images the cops use to show what missing persons looked like ten years ago and what they might look like now. Variations on a hereditary theme and a predictable arc of aging.

Same eyes, same basic build, same set to their jaws, all of it reflecting an undistilled strain of meanness. Reddish brown hair. On the youngest, it fell nearly to his shoulders. Middle brother kept it trimmed above his ears. And the oldest one wore it cut tight in deference to an eroding hairline.

Their genetic stock and pigmentation was not predisposed toward long hours under an unyielding tropical sun. The youngest of them, the one with the shotgun, owned a thin face still relatively unblemished and the beginnings of a mustache, not so much because his face needed it but just to show he could grow one. The middle one, plumper in the cheeks, displayed the onset of carcinomas-in-waiting—discoloring on the forehead, a festering blotch on his nose. And the older brother, the one with first-stage jowls and a double chin, had an ugly canker on his lower lip and crusty outbreaks along his brow. Case studies for the annals of dermatology. Having had plenty of pieces of my own self lopped off over the years, I'm more than casually observant about such things. The Dailey brothers should have spent some of their disposable income on sunscreen.

The one behind the desk, the oldest one, said, “You some kind of cop?”

I shook my head.

“Insurance man?”

I shook my head again.

“Then why you interested in that particular boat?”

“Belongs to the daughter of a friend of mine. She's gone missing. I figure if I find the boat it might lead me to her.”

The one behind the desk worked his mouth around. His smirk became a snarl.

“That what you figure, huh?”

I didn't say anything.

“Who told you to look here?”

“Just a hunch,” I said.

“Bullshit. Who told you?”

I shook my head.

“Donnie,” he said. “You might have to loosen his tongue.”

The middle brother, the one with the pistol, hopped off the desk and planted himself in front of me. He pointed the pistol at my right knee. Then at my left knee. Then at a spot in my forehead that I didn't want to think about.

“Who?” the oldest brother asked.

“Screw you,” I said.

Donnie took a step and whacked the pistol against the side of my head. I saw stars and diamonds and prisms of light, and I went somewhere else for an instant, and then all the pieces came together and I was back in the chair. Coach Lowe used to say: “
Only hurts if you rub it.”
And I couldn't. For what comfort that was worth.

“Who?”

“Must be an echo in here,” I said.

Donnie smacked me again. This time the stars and diamonds took longer going away. I shook my head to get rid of them. And still it was like the whole room was underwater.

Something sour came up at the back of my throat. I coughed and gagged trying to hold it back.

“Last time,” big brother said. “Or else Donnie puts a slug in your knee.”

The sour stuff was not to be denied its destiny. It gushed up, I hurled and it drenched Donnie.

“Son of a bitch,” Donnie said.

He stepped back, pointed the pistol at my knee…

A flash of silver, something flew past me. And I actually thought:
It's a goddam bird, a crazy goddam bird flying straight through the room.

The blade of Boggy's knife sank into Donnie's arm, at the hinge of his elbow. He screamed, fell to his knees, dropped the gun.

After that, everything happened all at once: Charlie raced in from behind me, took down Donnie…Boggy dove across the desk, floored big brother…A shotgun blast, the desk splintered…I pushed up with my feet and toppled over in the chair…Another blast from the shotgun, the floor exploded beside me…I rolled with the chair…Another blast into the desk…

Big brother yelled, “Hold off, Sonny, goddammit! Stop!”

I lay on my side, couldn't move. It gave me a skewered view of things: Charlie with the pistol held to Donnie's head…Sonny, backed up in a corner, shotgun leveled at his waist…Boggy rising from behind the desk, an arm locked around the neck of the oldest Dailey brother, whose shoulder was splattered with red.

Donnie stared at the knife in his arm.

“I'm stuck! I'm bleeding!”

Sonny, the kid with the shotgun, took aim at Charlie. Charlie pressed the pistol harder against Donnie's head and pinned him on the floor.

“Don't do it,” Charlie said.

“I'll shoot your sorry ass, believe me, I will!”

Charlie eyed the kid, eyed the shotgun. He said, “You already got off three shots and you didn't hit anyone.”

“He hit
me
, goddammit,” big brother said.

“OK, strike that,” Charlie said. “He didn't hit anyone he aimed at. I'm liking my odds.”

“Fuck you,” Sonny said. He moved along the far wall, trying to get a better angle.

Charlie yanked Donnie up from the floor. He put Donnie between himself and the shotgun.

Donnie kicked and screamed.

“I'm bleeding, I'm bleeding!”

Big brother shouted, “Shut the fuck up, Donnie!”

Charlie steadied Donnie's arm and looked at the knife sticking out of it.

“In there pretty good,” he said.

Then he grabbed the knife and pulled it out in one swift movement. Donnie screamed as the wound spewed blood.

“I'm bleeding to death! I'm dying.”

“Yeah,” Charlie said. “You might be at that.”

Donnie grabbed the wound with his free hand, tried to stop the flow. Blood seeped between his fingers.

Boggy moved from behind the desk, pulling big brother with him. Charlie handed him the knife and Boggy cut away the duct tape that bound me to the chair. I stood.

Sonny still had his shotgun leveled at us. He was frantic now, swinging the gun from side to side, moving from one foot to the other, not sure what to do.

“Now the way I figure it,” Charlie said, “that twelve gauge of yours—it's a shitty old Remington—it can hold seven shells. I can't tell from here if you've got it plugged or not. But let's say you've got it plugged. That means only three shells. And that means you're empty.”

Sonny looked down at his gun, then at big brother.

“Ronnie,” he said. “You alright? I didn't mean to shoot you.”

“That's OK, Sonny. I know, I know…”

Sonny edged along the wall. Charlie turned to match his move, holding Donnie up in front of him. The wound didn't seem to be bleeding as much as before, but Donnie was going limp. Shock was setting in.

Charlie looked at me. He nodded to the doorway. I began backing toward it. Sonny swung on me, then back on Charlie.

“But let's say that gun of yours isn't plugged,” Charlie said. “I'm betting you don't leave it sitting around your house fully loaded. I'm betting that when you and your brothers ran out here to find my friend Zack, you didn't go to all the trouble of sticking seven shells in it. You were in a hurry. You stuck three shells in it. Maybe four. Probably not five…”

Sonny slapped a pants pocket.

“I got plenty shells right here,” he said.

“Good for you, boy. Good for you,” Charlie said. “But this nine-millimeter I'm holding, it's an automatic. And it's got a full clip. By the time you reload, I'll have a bullet in both of your brothers and plenty left over for you,” Charlie said. “So let's not go down that road, OK?”

Ronnie strained against Boggy's grip. He said, “Just keep your head, Sonny. We'll get out of this.”

Boggy put his knife to Ronnie's neck and walked him toward the door.

“You good to hold this one, Zachary?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I'm fine.”

Boggy handed me the knife. I got an arm around Ronnie's neck and poked the knife into his back just to let him know it was there. He jumped. I might have poked a little too hard. So sue me.

Boggy pulled a bandanna from his pocket and walked back to where Charlie held Donnie. He pried Donnie's hand from the wound and tied off the bandanna around it. He helped Donnie stretch out on the floor and knelt beside him, applying pressure to the wound with both hands.

No one said anything. After a minute or two, Boggy spoke softly to Donnie, “The bleeding, it has almost stopped. You keep holding it. It is not as bad as it looks, but you need to see a doctor.”

Charlie aimed the pistol at Sonny now, both hands on it.

“We're going to step out of here, real peaceful,” Charlie said. “And we're going to take your brother with us. So don't do anything stupid.”

“Where you going with him?” Sonny said.

“Don't you worry,” Charlie said. “You just stay right there.”

Charlie and Boggy backed away, and when we were all outside, I tightened my armlock on Ronnie and pointed him toward the hangar.

“Let's take a look inside that thing and see what we can find.”

“I don't have the keys on me,” Ronnie said. “I keep 'em in my desk.”

I heard the sound of Sonny racking more shells into the shotgun.

“Let's leave it until the morning, Zack,” Charlie said. “We can come back with the police.”

Sonny appeared in the doorway, gun leveled.

“I got a full load now, you son of a bitch.”

I gave Sonny another poke with the knife.

“Talk to your brother,” I said.

“Be cool, Sonny,” Ronnie told him. “Be cool and everything's gonna work out.”

We started moving toward the gate and the car. From inside the block house, Donnie hollered: “Sonny, get back here. You gotta take me to the doctor.”

“Shut the fuck up, Donnie,” Sonny said.

He moved out of the doorway and trailed us at a distance. He stopped at the gate as we loaded into the car.

“Where you taking Ronnie?” Sonny yelled. “You hurt him, I'll come after you.”

He kept the shotgun pointed at the Hyundai as we pulled away.

All the way down that bumpy limestone road, I asked Ronnie Dailey questions. Was
Chasin' Molly
in the hangar? Had he seen Jen Ryser? All I got was nothing.

I gave him another poke.

“How about I start cutting off parts of you with this knife?”

“Go ahead,” he said. “Start cutting.”

We got to where the limestone road met the hard top. I opened the back door and pushed him out.

“Stay sweet. Don't ever change. See ya real soon,” I said.

“Fuck you,” said Ronnie Dailey.

I gave Boggy his knife and he returned it to its sling. When we got a little farther down the road, I asked Charlie to hand me the pistol he'd taken from the Daileys. I waited until we were crossing a small bridge over a narrow cut in the mangroves. I rolled down the window.

“Now, Zack,” Charlie said. “That's a nice gun.”

“Contradiction of terms,” I said.

And I flung it into the water.

I leaned up from my seat, gave Boggy and Charlie each a slap on the back.

“The two of you did some pretty good work back there,” I said. “I appreciate it.”

Both of them nodded.

“Only I was wondering…”

Charlie said, “Wondering what, Zack?”

“Wondering if you saw them come up and grab me by the hangar?”

They both nodded.

Boggy said, “I was watching from behind one of the boats.”

“I was down by the dock,” Charlie said. “Saw it all.”

“And you saw them drag me into that room and sit me down in the chair and tie me up?”

They both nodded.

“We came up in the shadows,” Charlie said. “And we were watching from just outside the door.”

“And you saw that one brother whack me in the head with a pistol?”

Charlie winced.

“Bet that hurt, huh?”

“And then you saw him whack me again?”

They both nodded.

“And yet you stood out there, watching, until I was whacked silly and he was getting ready to shoot me before you chose to do anything about it? That's what I was wondering about.”

“Timing,” Boggy said.

“Timing? What the hell do you mean, timing?”

“We were waiting for you to puke, Zachary.”

Charlie laughed.

“Waiting for me to puke? How could you possibly have known I was going to puke? I didn't even know I was going to puke until it happened.”

“I knew you would do something. You always do,” Boggy said. “And when you puked it was good timing and everything went according to plan.”

“Plan, hell. You didn't have a plan. You were standing out there, enjoying the show, making things up as you went along.”

“Now, Zack,” Charlie said. “That's a little harsh, don't you think? Considering we just saved the day.”

“I'm just saying…”

Charlie said, “I think you oughta practice.”

“Practice what?”

“Puking on demand like that. Maybe it can get your ass out of a jam when we aren't around.”

I leaned back in the seat.

“Still got a bad taste in my mouth.”

“We can fix that,” Charlie said.

There was a store up ahead. Charlie parked the car and went inside and came out carrying a twelve-pack of beer and some beef jerky and some red-hot peanuts.

When we got back to the Mariner's Inn we sat on the patio behind my room and drank and ate and didn't talk much. There was no postmortem of the altercation at the Dailey brothers' boatyard. No talk of how we took it to them and how we got away.

The beer went fast and Charlie stepped to his room and brought back a bottle of Havana Club, the seven-year-old, and we turned our attention to that. Boggy threw down a glass, called it a night, and excused himself.

Somewhere in the very early morning, after the adrenaline settled and the nerves stopped being all jingly and jangly, Charlie reminded me that we hadn't stopped at Lita's Take-A-Way to pay Williamson the rest of his money.

“Bet he's still sitting right there, waiting,” Charlie said.

“Bet he is, too.”

“I could drive us out there.”

“Yeah, you could.”

“Only, I've been over-served.”

“Yeah, you have.”

“You could drive.”

“Yeah, I could.”

“Only, you've been over-served, too.”

We kept talking around it and wound up agreeing it was a far wiser thing to settle up with Williamson by the light of day.