Snows Of The Caribbean

A blizzard in the Gulf Stream makes for heavy sledding . . .

It was high noon on Redeye Key. The sun was hot as a stolen wife. The Caribbean out the window was blue as royal blood, and Winston Clarence Fellows (it said on his office door) was shiny-black as a Miami bad-boy Lamborghini. Operator of Redeye Key Marina, he kept shaking his head like a defense witness testifying that on the night in question "Joey Thumbs" was at Swan Lake.

"It's not here, I tell you," he said again. "Never was."

He was lying, but that was good. He knew something worth lying about.

"What if I could prove otherwise," I said.

"You'd be wrong."

I'd had this conversation a thousand times. You develop an instinct about lies—you can taste them. And one way or another, usually another, you make the guy come around. But this was Winston Clarence Fellows' country, 80 miles southeast of Miami, and I was on my best behavior—which isn't swell in the best of times.

I handed him the photo of Penny Wise, a Rivanna 58 that somehow had gotten misplaced. It was insured for a trim $660,000.

Looking at the picture, his hard drive began to whir, planning things to say. In the photo's background, the sign read, Redeye Key Marina.

Winston Clarence Fellows wrinkled his nose. "It stopped here for fuel? I don't know. I don't remember it."

"How long have you been manager, Clarence?" (I couldn't bring myself to call him Winston.) "You sure you want to get mixed up in this? Archer All-Risk, the insurer, thinks Penny Wise was berthed here for five months."

I waited a beat.

"We're talking major fraud, Mr. Fellows—two-thirds of a million dollars."

His eyes went dead flat.

Then he smiled, the saddest smile in all the world—he was afraid of something.

But nobody's perfect. I was starting to like him.

"How much do you know about Redeye Key?" he said.

"Obviously, not enough."

"I have a life here and I'd like to keep it."

I waited.

"Ever heard of Pablito?"

I hadn't.

"Pablito Morales de Rivera?"

Nothing.

But I was getting "that" feeling.

He pointed across the bay to three manmade fingerlets of land. They were lined with gated, guarded luxury condos—warehouses for storing rich people.

"You can't see from here," he said, "but go along that last row."

"Why?"

"You'll see."

His voice went tense. Almost threatening. "But I didn't tell you. I know nothing."

He'd stopped lying, but neither of us felt good about it.

"I need to rent a skiff," I said.

"Anything to help our friends from the States." He flashed two rows of huge, perfect teeth. "But don't talk to anyone over there."

"Why?"

"Don't."

Given the feeling in the air, thanks seemed out of place.

 

 

Redeye Key is one of those geographical mistakes barely keeping its nostrils above the Gulf Stream. Two days before, Artie Logue from Archer All-Risk ("Arthur," now that he's got his driver's license) had awakened me out of a sound daydream. His boss was all over him like porcupine love. He started describing the thing to me, but it sounded all wrong. A billionaire Illinois meat-packer named Max Conray buys a $660K boat six months ago in Miami, insures it in Louisiana and keeps it in Redeye Key. He can't quite describe the stolen boat, leaves all sorts of blanks on the theft report—but it's gone and he wants 660,000 notes of condolence.

Some lies you can actually taste.

I'd done the usual—papered the Caribbean with stolen-boat flyers. I'd tried to call Conray and was put off twice. I'd gotten everything I could about Penny Wise from Artie Logue, including the photo that broke Winston Clarence Fellows.

This morning, I'd flown to Redeye Key to sniff out Max Conray's lost darling.

 

 

When I left Fellows' office, I tried phoning Conray—the bereaved—again. This time, I got through. He sounded bored and angry all at once. (Try it sometime.) I asked for his captain's phone number, but he'd fired him a month ago, no forwarding address.

Convenient.

"I hired a new guy," Conray said, "but he's still in England."

Very convenient.

"What was the problem with the other one, Mr. Conray?"

"That's none of your business."

"In the circumstances, it's very much my business."

There was a pause.

"All relationships have a lifespan," Conray said, end of dispatch.

His voice was like a hacksaw tearing sheet metal.

The day hadn't gotten any cooler when I headed the skiff across the harbor. Taking in the sights, I thought about cold beer.

Redeye is white-shoe paradise—full of plutocrats from Oklahoma who think a tropical depression should be treated with Prozac. They build a big house on a sandspit and are shocked when Hurricane Milhouse launches it into the Gulf Stream. On Redeye Key, money is looser than an Atlantic City massage parlor.

The luxury condos ahead had the usual smug look, only more so. Hereabouts, real-estate appreciation is a way of life. And these condos weren't Jersey Shore townhouses for retired schoolteachers. The units were huge.

I didn't like the feeling it gave me.

At the last row, I rounded the bend. No machine-gun emplacements.

But plenty of high wrought-iron go-away fencing and black-white-and-red No-Trespassing signs.

Cozy.

I slowed the skiff. Six adjoining units lined the water, each with a dock and its own … they weren't "boats," really.

Say, cruise ships.

I passed one after another, looking for what Clarence said I'd see. At the fourth dock were not one but two boats. The nearest was a 60-foot full-race power catamaran, and beyond it—

A Rivanna 58.

Blue-and-yellow trim.

The transom read, Penny Wise.

Clarence had earned himself a finder's fee.

I climbed onto the dock and shot pictures of Penny Wise and its adjoining condo unit. It had a name—Castillo Pablito. Little Pablo's Castle.

Adorable.

I shot one last view of Penny Wise and the catamaran—when I heard them coming. Three of them. On steroids. Hispanic defensive tackles, the kind that don't have names, don't need names. All they need is a dark back alley in Newark.

Or a Redeye Key private dock in broad daylight.

They stopped at knifing range. The ugly one—as opposed to the really ugly one—said something in Spanish. If I have an ear (and they let me keep it), it wasn't South American. Mexican. I thought.

"I don't speak Spanish," I said helpfully.

"What do you do here, mi capitan?"

"I'm an insurance investigator."

No nod. Coal-black menace.

"You get off. Now!"

I was considering it.

"Before your legs are broken. Give me!"

He meant the camera.

The good-looking one with all the pockmarks lunged for it, but I jerked my hand away.

"Estupido," the ugly one purred. "You like to be hurt?"

I heard a boat then—a police launch. Just in time!

"Now who is estupido?" I said.

The ugly one smiled like a wolf.

A young black officer in uniform Bermuda shorts tied off the launch. The sun-ravaged white constable in the pith helmet and bad mood stepped off. He emanated heat, laxity, tropical decay. "Who the hell are you?" he said, meaning me.

I couldn't place the accent. Not American. Not British.

"You're trespassing, my friend. Leave."

"Don't you even want to know who I am?"

"I know who you are, Mr. Slade—get going!"

The officer in shorts didn't blink, a lizard in the sun.

"If you don't want a warrant sworn against you, clear off!"

The three Mexicans watched, eyes glittering like Dobermans. Suddenly, the ugly one snatched my camera. It made a soft plooop! in the water.

"Hey, you can't—"

"You are trespassing!" the pith helmet said. "Get off this dock before your legs are broken."

I grinned. "You guys must have the same writer."

"You don't want to be in my jail, I promise you."

I climbed into the skiff.

"Canadian," I said. "Right?"

"None of your bloody affair. Move off."

 

 

I'd found a stolen boat, but there was no time for dancing. After thinking it over behind a cold beer at Sharkey's, next to the marina, I took the skiff back across to the public dock near Pablito's condo.

Then I called Conray on my cell. "Found your boat."

"What!"

"Slip 26, Regency Villa Condominiums in Redeye Key. Imagine that."

Nothing.

"I'm standing fifty yards from the place right now."

"Listen, there's a call I have to take," Conray said. "Call you right back."

"Wait—"

The phone went dead.

I looked around while I waited. The unit across from Pablito's had a name, too—Mad Max. I went to the condominium office, mad that I hadn't thought of it sooner.

The manager smiled.

"I'm a guest of Mr. Conray's," I said, "and I forgot his unit's number."

The manager's smile tightened. "Mr. Conray is not on the island."

"He told me to meet him," I said. "I have the right condominiums, don't I?"

"I'm not allowed to say, sir."

He wouldn't divulge Castillo Pablito's owner, either. I told him there was a stolen yacht at its slip.

"I can't talk to you." He went into his office and shut the door. And the run-like-hell look in his eye was good enough for me.

I wasn't ready to run yet, though. I stood in front of Castillo Pablito and gave Conray a minute more. He wouldn't call. The Canadian constable had gotten my name somewhere—and not from Winston Clarence Fellows. That left Max Conray.

I'd call Artie Logue in Miami and tell him where I was, just in case. Then Castillo Pablito's front door opened. The ugly one looked at me with laser eyes. There were six of them this time. Pablito had a whole football team in there.

But I still wasn't ready to run. I dialed Artie fast—and felt something hot at my ear. My cell was brand-new, not a month old. But a wisp of smoke came out of the earpiece and I smelled hot plastic.

They were coming. I had no communications.

Nobody knew where I was!

I was ready to run.

I hurried to the dock. They came closer like a bank of black fog.

I gassed the skiff and didn't look back.

 

 

At my hotel, I used a landline to call Jack Amestoy at Coast Guard Special Investigation in Miami.

"Calling Dick Tracy," I said.

He laughed.

Then I described what had just happened.

"Who'd you say?"

"Pablito something," I said.

"Pablito Morales de Rivera," he intoned.

"You know him?"

"Get outta Dodge—now!"

"But the boat! I've gotta . . . I can't just—"

"Take the first flight out! He's the biggest snow-mover down there. He owns Redeye Key."

"So I see."

"Pablito disappears guys like a Key West bartender swats flies. Get out or you're dead."

 

 

The first flight out was full—but a wad of fifties convinced a New Jersey tarpon fisherman to extend his vacation. I was in Miami by sunset.

I called Winston Clarence Fellows next morning.

Surprise—Penny Wise had been "stolen" again. He'd heard it was somewhere in the mangroves three islands south.

Days passed. Weeks. Conray never tried to collect his $660K. He refused to go to Redeye to make a theft report, claiming he was "in danger." The truth was, if he tried to collect, we'd hit him with theft fraud. Jack Amestoy, the Coastie, said half his fortune came from Caribbean snow. Conray tipped the Canadian constable about me—by name—and when I went back, he hung up and told the Dobermans I was there. He was in this up to his fedora.

Not every case ends like a Gene Kelly musical. Penny Wise wouldn't be recovered. And I'd gotten pushed around more than I like. But the company's $660K was safe, so Artie Logue's boss was happy. Who knows why Conray did it. Maybe some scrape with Pablito.

My theory is, he's just greedy. They get that way.

For a week or two in Miami, I kept thinking I was being followed. I got to hate BMWs and Mercedes with dark windows. In Miami, that's all of them.

Gradually, my sleep began improving. It was almost back to normal. But when I wake up at three a.m. because I "hear" something, I never wonder why.