Black Joint Point

20

Jason Salinger, at first glance, reminded Whit of a lawn gnome. He was short, bearded, with apple cheeks and fat pink lips surrounded by a thick beard. He wore a T-shirt that read FOOTNOTE FETISH.

Jason said, ‘Don’t knock over any of my books.’

Easier said than done. Whit followed Jason into a dingy living room converted into a library. Books tottered against a computer desk. More books covered the sofa and lay scattered across the floor.

‘You’re a big reader, then?’ Whit stepped over a smaller stack of books and took a seat on the corner of Jason’s sofa.

Jason looked at Whit as though he were mentally damaged. ‘Why, yes, I am.’

Any books on social skills? Whit nearly asked but instead he smiled.

‘Excuse him. He’s a bear in the morning,’ Jason’s wife said. Cute and plump, dressed in faded jeans and a blue T-shirt, she was as sweet as he was dour. ‘Aren’t you, sugar pop?’

Jason made a strangled noise of agreement.

‘Would you like some coffee, Judge Mosley?’

‘No, ma’am, thank you. I’ve already filled the tank for the day,’ Whit said.

‘I’ll have a cup, please,’ Jason said.

‘You know what the doctor said about you and caffeine.’ She patted Jason’s shoulder, gave Whit a maternal wink, although he guessed she was six or seven years younger than he was. ‘I’ll let you boys talk.’

Then Whit noticed the headless pirate in the corner. Not headless. But an old tailor’s mannequin, just the body’s form, with a fancy blue coat, a red sash under the jacket, grayish pants. A sword and a revolver – they looked genuine – hung off the mannequin.

Jason swiveled a chair away from his computer desk and sat facing Whit. The Salingers’ house was in an older, slightly untidy section of Port Leo. The lawn looked untended, the furniture in the house fresh from the consignment store. But the books in Jason’s work area were fat, expensive hardbacks, lots of them, and his computer system was a top-of-the-line model.

‘What can I help you with, Judge?’

‘I understand you’ve done a lot of research on Jean Laffite.’

‘I do freelance magazine writing, substitute teaching, some book editing for a couple of very small presses.’

‘But Laffite’s your own particular interest.’

‘Sure. Gonna go to grad school in another year or so, write the definitive book on Laffite one day. Probably get a doctorate with a focus on Gulf history. Be able to teach anywhere from Texas to Florida that way. I don’t do cold winters well.’

‘I’m interested in the Laffite League.’

‘This has something to do with Patch Gilbert, right?’

‘Why do you ask?’

‘Well, he came to the last chapter meeting in Corpus in May. I figured he was interested in joining. Sorry to hear about him getting killed.’

‘You knew Patch?’

‘No. I just met him that one time at the meeting. He was a friendly guy, introduced himself to everyone. You don’t forget a name like Patch.’

‘Let’s talk about the League first. What exactly is it?’

‘I can slice the Laffite League into three groups for you. The vast majority are people with a strong interest in history, perfectly nice and respectable. Then there are those who are interested in the legends of buried treasure, although there’s never been anything other than old rumor to say Laffite buried his gold instead of spending it. But those folks have seen the movies, like The Buccaneer, and they think Laffite is Yul Brynner as a romance-novel swashbuckler.’ He swiveled on his chair. ‘Then there are the very small but fascinating subset of wackos. A few have claimed to be Laffite descendants, and have forged journals and documents to sell to the gullible or to try to live off the name.’

‘Dangerous wacko or amusing wacko?’

‘Amusing. There’s a guy who calls himself Danny Laffite – it’s not his real name. Nutcase in Louisiana, says he’s Laffite’s great-great-great-great-grand whatever. But harmless. He tricked some guy in Houston into paying ten thousand for letters supposedly written by Laffite to Andrew Jackson. Fakes, obviously. He ended up giving the money back and avoided prosecution.’

‘He’s in the Laffite League?’

‘Was. They revoked his membership. Forgers don’t make for trustworthy historians.’

‘What about all these legends of buried treasure?’ Whit asked.

Jason shrugged. ‘There’s no evidence Laffite buried an ounce of gold along the coast, but the rumors persist. Treasure means glamour. Adventure. Instant wealth attained in an interesting way, as opposed to the boredom of work.’

‘Romantic money.’

‘Sure. We all read or saw Treasure Island as kids. We all want to be Jim Hawkins, outwitting Long John Silver and finding the gold,’ Jason said. ‘Long John Silver. The only fictional murderer I can think of with a fast-food chain named after him.’

‘The truth is less romantic than the fiction,’ Whit said.

Jason jerked his head toward the mannequin. ‘Every year I dress up in that costume, pretend to be Laffite, go to the schools, and tell them the stories. The kids want to hear about Laffite being a movie-style pirate: storming ships, cutlass in hand, saving fair damsels on blood-soaked decks. That’s all crap. Laffite dodged taxes, sent out other captains to capture ships, dealt more in slaves and cotton than in gold. Was careful not to attack American shipping because that meant trouble. So he preyed on everyone else. More administrator than swash-buckler. And cold-blooded. A few months before he left Galveston a hurricane devastated the island. Not enough food for the thousand people living there. Laffite’s solution was simple: round up every black on Galveston, slave and free, and sell them in the underground Louisiana slave market. Even the free black women who were married to Laffite’s men. All hauled onto ships, the wives screaming for their husbands to save them. Laffite shot anyone who resisted. Fewer people to feed, fresh money in the coffers to rebuild after the storm. Simple and brutal.’

‘But you admire him.’

‘I admire his decisiveness,’ Jason Salinger said. ‘We’re a much less decisive world now. We analyze. We agonize. We second-guess. Laffite never had that luxury. Maybe one day I’ll write a book for business managers: Business by Laffite. You know, you find different avenues to make your money these days as an academic. Got to go mainstream.’

‘So where did Laffite keep all his money? There were no banks in Galveston then, and presumably a legitimate bank wouldn’t touch him.’

‘He probably laundered money and gold back into the banks in New Orleans. He had the best lawyers in New Orleans working for him. And he and his brother, Pierre, filed bankruptcy, saying they had very little. But of course mobsters today have hidden under that same cloak.’

‘But any accounts would have always been in danger from the US government? If they suspected an account was Laffite’s, they’d’ve seized it, right?’

Jason frowned but nodded.

A large map of the Texas coast was pinned above the computer. Whit stood and studied it. ‘Indulge me. Let’s just say, over the years, Laffite amasses a tidy fortune in gold. At least enough to get him started over if he abandons Galveston or his New Orleans accounts get seized. Or maybe he makes a few big captures right before he’s forced out of Galveston. He can’t go into port in New Orleans – he’ll be arrested as a pirate if he steps on US soil, right?’

‘Yes,’ Jason said. ‘He’d have been arrested if he set foot in America. His forces had already annoyed the navy by attacking an American merchant ship, although he’d executed the captain responsible. What finally empowered the American government to kick him out of Galveston was the capture of one of his ships, Le Brave, during an attack on a Spanish ship. Le Brave’s captain had papers that outlined the division of booty, written in Laffite’s hand, with his signature. It was the smoking gun the navy needed.’

‘So Laffite’s on the run. He’s got no place to go. If he’s transporting gold he stands to lose it if he’s stopped or attacked, right?’

‘He was given a document guaranteeing safe passage by the US Navy to leave the Gulf. They wouldn’t have bothered him.’

‘But that wouldn’t protect him from the Spanish, right, or any other country whose ships he attacked?’

Jason frowned. ‘No, it wouldn’t. But pirates really didn’t bury treasure very often. That’s way more Treasure Island than common practice. I mean, it’s accepted that Captain Kidd buried a treasure up in New England. But it’s never been found.’

‘But maybe Laffite’s got a better chance for long-term survival burying this treasure – just for a few weeks or months – than hauling it around a gulf sailed by navies who are pissed at him and risk losing everything. He’s a man without a country. Put yourself in his shoes. Where would you bury it?’

Jason stared at him, as though wanting to ask a question, but didn’t. He ran a finger along the curve of the coast on his wall map. ‘Not Galveston or Bolivar. Far too risky to be caught by an American patrol making sure he didn’t return to the area to set up shop again. Maybe further south or north.’ His finger moved south along the map. ‘Laffite had camps up and down the coast. For sure in Matagorda Bay and on St Joseph Island.’

‘Did he have a camp on St Leo Bay?’

Jason glanced at him, then back at the map. ‘Legend says that he did, but no trace has ever been found.’

‘Maybe he wanted to erase the trace of himself here,’ Whit said. ‘If I had buried gold I wouldn’t have my name right over it in big letters.’

‘His camps weren’t fancy. Just shelters if he or his men needed to get ashore, say in a storm, or to hide from other ships. Just four walls and a spare cannon, maybe.’

‘And one assumes if he buried the treasure he would mark it or come back for it quickly, if he could.’

‘Sure.’

‘So what happened to Laffite after he left Galveston?’

‘No one knows. There were a variety of reports. He might have died, might have gone to Cuba or to Mexico. Recently it’s been theorized he died in South America, as a freedom fighter.’ He smiled. ‘People are always trying to redeem pirates. We like them too much to remember they’re murdering thieves.’

‘So – possibly – he could have been kept from retrieving a treasure. Killed. Or imprisoned.’

‘Possibly. Sure. We don’t know with complete certainty what happened to him.’

‘Do the legends get specific about where this St Leo Bay camp might be?’ Whit asked.

‘Some say Copano Flats, some say Black Jack Point. Obviously old Black Jack believed Laffite had been there.’

‘You know about him?’

‘Just that he was a crazy old hermit, lived out on the Point from the Civil War until about 1890. I don’t know if he was black or his name was Jack. I think the Point must’ve gotten its name from the blackjack oaks that grow there. And maybe the name stuck to him, too. He claimed he’d sailed with Laffite as a boy and Laffite was coming back to the Point, gonna kill everyone in Port Leo because they’d taken his gold. Loony. He sure thought there was a treasure – he dug up enough of the Point. I guess the Gilbert family – they’ve had that land for ever – tolerated him. Sad, though. A whole life dedicated to greed.’

‘Wouldn’t you say that was Laffite’s life as well?’

‘Yeah, you’re right. Except for saving New Orleans, which was pretty cool.’ Jason raised an eyebrow again. ‘You going to tell me about why you’re asking all these semiloaded questions?’

‘I’m trying to get a feel for Patch’s life in his final weeks. Everything we discuss, Jason, remains confidential. I’m conducting an official death inquest.’

‘Man, you’re covering your ass.’

Whit shook his head. ‘We have no indication that Patch had found any antiquities or relics of any sort.’ That was true – Patch hadn’t. Maybe others had. ‘I would hate for a bunch of rumors to get started. Have people stampeding around on that land like a bunch of Black Jacks when the Gilbert and Tran families are grieving.’

‘Of course not,’ Jason said. ‘I don’t get off on rumors. I’ll keep my mouth shut. But if there’s a story…’

‘There’s not. I asked about treasure pretty much out of curiosity. It’s what people first think of with Laffite and I knew Patch had this new interest in him. Nothing more.’ Jason didn’t look convinced so Whit shifted gears again. ‘You know Stoney Vaughn?’

‘Sure. He’s the president of the Corpus chapter of the Laffite League.’

‘Friend of yours?’

‘No. Cat litter has more brains than Stoney. He’s all into the treasure hunter mystique. He’s financed treasure dives in the Florida Keys, where a lot of the Spanish galleons wrecked over the years. Tried to finance a partnership to dive on galleon wrecks down off Padre, but the state blocked him. The Texas Historical Commission, they hate treasure hunters. Any treasure in state waters or buried on public land is theirs by law, and they make sure you don’t dive without their approval.’

‘He finances treasure hunts?’ Whit kept his voice flat.

‘Yeah, well, in Florida. Lot more wrecks there, in the shallows along the Keys. I think he might have been in the group that financed Barry Clifford diving on Whydah, up off Cape Cod. That’s the only sunken pirate ship ever recovered. They got a shitload of gold, silver, and jewels off it. At least Stoney likes to talk big about it. He paid for a trip for about a dozen of the Leaguers last year to go to Yucatan, see the town where Laffite’s brother died.’

‘Were Stoney and Patch buddies?’

‘Don’t think they knew each other, but they probably met at the meeting,’ Jason said. ‘Okay, now you got me hooked. You ask about Laffite’s treasure and then you ask about a guy who does treasure hunts.’

‘If there’s anything to say… I’ll give you the exclusive story. But don’t hold your breath. And if you say a thing too early, no story.’

Jason raised an eyebrow. ‘Okay.’

‘Are there any other… treasure-hunter types around here, or in the Laffite League?’

‘Stoney did have a friend who came along on the Yucatan trip, a guy he knew from Florida. Allen Eck, I think his name was. Yeah. Looked like a professor. Comes across as very cool. But, Jesus, what an asshole. We were taking a tour of Merida, a small town down there. The tour guide was telling about Laffite history, but got a couple of really minor details wrong. I mean, most people would never know. Allen told him he was wrong, very quietly, and the guide firmly said, no, he was right. Maybe just thinking Allen’s some dumb tourist. I’ll never forget the look Allen gave him, just beyond cold, like this poor stupid guide wasn’t worth a roach’s ass. But he didn’t say anything more. Next day, they find the tour guide in an alleyway. Both arms broken, face a solid bruise, nose broken. Guy wouldn’t say who attacked him – either he didn’t see or he was too scared.’ Jason shook his head. ‘I know it’s crazy, but I kept thinking maybe Allen beat up that man.’