Deep Shadow

EIGHT

KING’S EYES WERE MOVING FROM ME TO THE LAKE to the coin in his hand, putting it together, as he exchanged coins with Perry. He said to me, “You came clear out here to the middle of Fumbuck, Florida, to study the fish, huh?”

I said, “That’s right.” The knife was still strapped to my calf, but King no longer seemed interested. The third coin had hooked him, I could see it.

“You gentlemen show up with a truckload of gear just to swim around and look at fish because you’re some kind of scientist, huh?”

“A biologist. It’s what I do.”

King’s expression read Bullshit. “Then where’d this coin come from? It’s just like the two we found in Grandpa’s pockets.”

I shrugged but didn’t give it much.

King said, “You’re a smart guy, Jock-o. What do you figure a coin like this is worth? Couple grand each? Just for the gold, I’m saying.”

I didn’t want to sound too eager. I said, “If the coins are real, maybe. For all I know, they’re fakes.”

“You’re full of shit. They’re real. Feel the weight.” King was holding his palm out like a scale, judging the density of the coin. Perry did the same.

“Feels about the same as the gold eagles, that’s what I think,” Perry said.

Gold eagles? I wondered what that meant.

King was nodding as he held a coin close to his face, lips pursed as he deciphered details. Perry did the same, reading aloud, “Re-pub-lick-A dee-Cuba.”

King corrected him, saying, “Re-pub-lic-uh DAY-Cuba,” showing off, I realized, wanting to impress me for some reason or to prove something maybe. Then he asked, “How many more of these things are down there, Professor Jock-a-mo?”

Back on the teacher thing again.

I said, “Three, that’s all we found. For all I know, they could be brass. Some kids could’ve thrown them in the lake, screwing around. We didn’t expect to find them, they were just there.”

Arlis picked up fast on what I was doing, and managed to say, “What we found is none of your damn business,” giving it just the right touch of guarded indignation. “I own this property and I want you the hell off my land.”

Perry was still studying a coin, obviously impressed, as King looked from me to Arlis, letting his imagination put himself in our shoes. “What I think is, there’s a bunch more of these things down there. That’s closer to the truth, isn’t it?”

I gave Arlis a nasty look, as if he’d said too much.

When King smiled, he had an odd way of tilting his head back, as if focusing through bifocals. He said, “Perry, I think we’re onto something here. But I think Gramps and the professor don’t want to share. Isn’t that right, Jock-o? If you’re smart, though, you’ll play nice and tell me the truth. What’d you dudes find down there on the bottom?”

Arlis and I exchanged looks but remained silent.

Perry spoke. “These coins are from Cuba. What they doing out here in the middle of this shithole?”

King told him, “Miami’s loaded with Cubans. You don’t watch TV?” After several seconds, he added, “It’s the dates that don’t make sense. The coins are dated”—King reached to take Perry’s coin, then compared the two—“one says nineteen twenty, the other nineteen eighteen. That’s too old to be from Miami and too new to be found on what you’d call a ‘sunken galleon.’ Back in those days, they cut the silver and gold from bars, so the coins were sorta square, not round.”

The man paused but wasn’t done with his history lesson.

“Do you know what a twenty-dollar American gold eagle sells for? Mint condition, uncirculated?”

He was showing off again.

“No reason for me to know,” I said.

“You probably don’t even know what an ounce of gold sells for, either. And you being such a smart guy! You must have a hell of a lot of education, but you don’t even know something so simple as the price of an ounce of gold.”

I said, “When you make what a marine biologist makes, there’s no reason to keep tabs on world gold prices.”

King grinned. “See there? A real smart dude.”

I was still on one knee, my knife hanging by a strap, and now I was calculating the distance to Perry’s legs. If I could get in under the rifle, all I had to worry about was King, with his pistol . . . or the possibility that Perry would ignore me and shoot Arlis.

My eyes must have given me away. Both men took a step back, their feral instincts on full alert.

King said, “No reason for you to care about what an ounce of gold is worth, huh? You just came out here to check on the fish and got lucky? Perry, would you listen to this guy? He’s such a shitty liar, how long you figure he’d last in the joint?”

Perry said to me, “Meat, if you keep lying to us, I’ll put a bullet in your head. Tell us what you found down there.”

I looked at Arlis again. I could see that blood was soaking into his shirt. He stared at the ground as if embarrassed. I was afraid he was going to pass out.

King said, “Know what I think? These dudes have found themselves some kind of sunken treasure. They don’t give a damn about their two butt buddies. That’s all show. They’re more worried about protecting what they found. Otherwise, Professor Jock-o wouldn’t be blowing smoke, promising us the truck keys, if we let him go back in the water.”

I said, “Do you want the keys or not? I need extra tanks, I need to rig a piece of equipment and get down there.” I caught my own left wrist before raising it to check my watch.

King acted as if he didn’t hear me. He was stalling. He said, “Maybe it wasn’t an accident, Jock-o, your two little girlfriends getting trapped. Split the take two ways instead of four ways, just you and Grandpa. Or maybe knock Grandpa in the head and leave him in the lake, too. That would make the math a whole lot better.”

Arlis turned to give me a nasty look as if he’d already considered the possibility. He was hanging in there, playing his role.

Perry was bouncing the coin in his hand, looking at King, his expression saying How many more do you think’s down there?

King was smiling now. “By coincidence, me and Perry have us a situation. The sort of situation where a bag full of gold coins could buy us a change of scenery and a whole bunch of good luck. But guess what, Jock-o?”

I waited.

“Perry and me, we’re in no real rush. So I say let’s all four of us stroll over to those trees, sit ourselves in the shade, and maybe you’ll decide to stop lying—in, say, half an hour or so.”

The smile vanished as the man raised the pistol toward me. He took a step closer so he wouldn’t miss, and yelled, “You take that goddamn knife off your leg like I told you. Hear me? Now.”

As I unbuckled the scabbard, I said to Arlis, “I don’t have a choice—you heard the man. They’ll kill us. I’ve got to tell them the truth.”

Arlis looked sick and shaken—which he was—but the expression of disgust he gave me was pure Hollywood. He turned away as if he wanted no part of it.

I said to King, “Okay, here it is. There’s a plane down there. That’s why our truck’s loaded with extra gear for salvage work.”

King said, “A plane,” watching me closely. “What would a plane carrying Cuban coins be doing in the middle of Florida?”

I said, “It happened. Just listen—okay? In nineteen fifty-eight, a cargo plane from Havana, on its way to Tampa, crashed. It was a stormy night, the plane was slightly off course and no one ever found it. It was on its way to Tampa because this guy—he was the Cuban dictator before Castro—had robbed the treasury and was on the run. It’s in the history books, if you don’t believe me.”

Looking at the two men, I could see their expressions. They believed me.

I nodded toward Arlis. “A couple of weeks ago, Captain Futch found the wreckage by luck. It’s on the bottom of the lake—we’re the first to find it—and the thing’s untouched. We don’t know for sure how much the plane was carrying in coins and gold bars, but figure it out for yourself. This guy robbed the national treasury of an entire nation.”

When Perry said, “But Cuba’s an island, right, not a nation,” King told him, “Shut up and listen,” giving me his full attention.

I said, “I was down there. I saw what the plane was carrying—some of it, anyway. But the wreckage is lodged under a big limestone ledge and it collapsed after my friends and I finally managed to pry open the cargo door. That’s how my friends got trapped. They’re down there now. With the gold.”

Perry’s breathing had changed.

Softly, King asked, “How much in all, you think?”

Arlis said, “Don’t tell them any more. Shut your damn mouth! I’d rather die right here than let this spawn in on the deal!”

Perry snapped, “Shut up, Gramps, or you just might get your wish. Let the man talk.” He focused on me. “A guy like you would’a done a lot of research and stuff. What’s it say in the books you read? How much did the Cuban dude steal?”

I pretended to ignore Arlis and looked toward the trees. “He and his men loaded four cargo planes in Havana, but only one crashed. It’s impossible to say how much the plane was carrying because no one knows for sure. They didn’t keep a list.”

“You know what I’m asking you,” Perry said. “Answer the goddamn question. How much gold’s down there?”

I let the men watch me think about it before I nodded toward the truck. “There’s too much to carry it all in the bed of one pickup—that’s how much. It would take three or four loads.”

King said, “You’re shitting me. That can’t be true,” but the tone of his voice said he wanted to believe it.

I shrugged, my expression telling him Believe what you want, before saying, “I’d guess there’s at least half a ton in bars alone—they’re stacked in what were probably wooden cases. I didn’t see them all, but there’s got to be more.”

“You saw the stuff?”

“The wood’s rotted away. The coins are scattered all over the bottom, but the bars—the stacks I saw, anyway—mostly settled in one place. It looked like the bars were stacked two high, probably eight to a box, and I saw at least eight boxes of the things. What used to be boxes, anyway. So that’s at least forty-eight bars, but there’s bound to be more. And there’s definitely a lot more coins.”

Perry said to King, “How much is a bar of gold worth?”

King was blinking his eyes, possibly staggered by the fortune I had just described. He said to me, “Why didn’t you bring up a bar instead of just one shitty little coin?”

“I’m not going to stand here and argue with you. I saw what I saw.”

“You’re kinda touchy, aren’t you, Jock-o? What do you figure one of those bars weighs?”

“Standard mint is one kilogram, isn’t it? That’s what I would guess.” Perry said, “How much is that? I hate that European bullshit. In pounds—talk English, goddamn it.”

“A kilogram’s a little over two pounds,” King told him. “Sixteen ounces per pound, thirty-two ounces per bar, plus a little extra—say, forty ounces even, just to keep it simple. And you say there’s at least forty-eight bars?” King was calculating it in his head but still giving me his full attention.

“More probably, but that’s what I saw. You’re the expert. How much does gold sell for by the ounce?”

King was smiling as he looked at Perry. “Those bars would sell for about sixty grand each. Forty-eight bars, that’s . . .” He had to think about it. “That’s three or four million bucks. Plus the coins.”

“Jesus Christ,” Perry said, his voice soft. “And it’s just sitting down there. Waiting.”

I was wondering why King knew so much about gold prices, putting it together with the American gold eagles they’d mentioned and the five dead people in Winter Haven, as King asked me, “How many coins, you think? Coins’d be easier to carry. Easier to sell, too.”

“There’s more than enough to split six ways, that’s the point I’m making,” I replied. “You guys are on the run for some reason—that’s obvious. I don’t care why and I don’t want to know. But it kind of works out, you showing up. You need help, we need help. Look at it as purely business.”

Perry said to King, “How many pounds are in a ton? Just in case he’s telling the truth. I used to know, but—”

“Two thousand pounds,” King said. “Half a ton is a thousand. And that cowboy Cadillac over there is big enough”—he was measuring the truck’s bed with his eyes—“Jock-a-mo could be wrong about not being to haul it all out of here in one load. But good coins are worth more. That’s what we want, Jock-a-mo, the coins. But a couple dozen bars of gold, that’d be okay, too. We could walk out of here with a few million each, easy.” The man’s smile hardened as he stared at me. “Drive out, I mean.”

He was lying about splitting the take, of course. King wanted it all, I could see it.

I said, “The gold’s one thing, but my friends are part of the deal. You don’t get the keys until we get my friends.”

“You keep saying that.”

“They’re down there with the gold. A ledge collapsed and covered everything. I can’t do it by myself. We brought a jet dredge. I need it to blast the sand and rocks away. But the pump takes at least three men to run. Two in the water and one man on land to tend the generator and keep the intake filter clear.”

Perry asked, “What’s an intake filter?,” but King wasn’t interested in the details. He said, “If that’s what you’ve got to do, then get to work! You and Grandpa do the water part. We’ll stay on land and run the machine, or watch the filter—whatever it is you want us to do. But we’re also gonna keep the rifle handy in case you try something cute.”

I was shaking my head. “Captain Futch is in no condition to do anything. Look at him.”

Arlis’s face had gone pale. Sweat on his forehead was streaking the coagulating blood, but he was still willing. He snapped, “I can work, don’t you worry about that.”

Even if he’d been able, I didn’t want Arlis’s help. My brain had been assembling a workable scenario, and I knew how I wanted it to go—how it had to go—if Will, Tomlinson, Arlis and I were to get out of this mess alive.

I ignored Arlis and spoke to the men. “It was stupid what you did to him, but now we’re stuck with it. If you want the truck keys and a share of the gold, you two have to help me, not him.”

“A share,” King said, sarcastic. “Sure, we’ll be happy with a share. What do you want us to do?”

I was getting to my feet, already reaching for my BC. “First thing for you to do is push the truck closer to the water while I get ready. There’s a hundred feet of hose, and I’m going to need it all.”

The men were looking at the truck thirty yards down a grade parked beneath trees, their expressions reading You’ve got to be shitting me.

Talking fast, I continued, “I need one of you in the water—on the surface, in an inner tube, not with tanks. Not at first, anyway. We don’t have an extra wet suit, and there isn’t time for that, anyway. Which one of you is the best swimmer?”

Instantly, Perry said, “He’s the best swimmer. He’ll do it.”

King’s expression read Huh?

“King worked as a lifeguard someplace in Florida. That’s what he claims, anyway. Where’d you say it was?”

The way King stood fidgeting, not answering, reminded me of a child who’s been caught in a lie.

“It was in Palm Beach,” Perry added, “that’s where he worked. He was the head lifeguard on some rich beach, weren’t you, King?” Perry was skeptical, though. It was in his tone.

King answered, “Sure . . . I lifeguarded for a while, but—”

“He said he did scuba diving, speared fish, the whole works.” Perry was talking to me, now.

“Well . . . sure. Yeah. Goddamn right, I did, but the thing is—”

Perry interrupted, saying, “You ain’t backpedaling now. He’s a big shot—all the time, he’s got to be the big shot. Now’s his chance to prove it, for once.”

King started to say, “Without a wet suit? When I was lifeguarding, we had decent equipment—”

Perry interrupted. “Go naked, for all I care. I want some of that gold and I want those truck keys. I’ll help push the damn truck, but there ain’t no damn way I’m going in that water.”

Perry was an angry man, but it wasn’t just anger I was hearing. He had seen something in the lake that scared him. I was sure of it now.

Arlis, I remembered, had said the rancher who sold him the property had behaved the same way. He had refused to come near the place.

“Even the roustabouts who work for the man,” Arlis had told me, “are afraid to go near that lake.”