Icy Blue Descent jlm-4 Read online

  "My name is Kathy. I arrived early this morning. You were sleeping the sleep of the dead."

  "Do we know each other?"

  "No, Mr. Leicester, we do not." She sat the tray on the bed. "This house belongs to my brother-in-law. He allows me to use it. They don't come down much, my sister hates the isolation."

  "How do you know my name?"

  "Dave Billingsly is a friend of mine. He knew that I was going to be here for the next month, and he left a letter for me at the ferry dock in Marsh Harbor explaining the situation."

  "That’s wonderful."

  "Have some coffee, then we'll get you cleaned up. You smell like a goat and those cuts need attention. There is a first aid kit here. Call me when you get out of the shower."

  She disappeared through the bedroom door. She wore white shorts and a halter-top. The shifting movement of the soft cloth and the way she carried herself gave off an air of athleticism and confidence.

  Feeling weak and sore, I thought about yesterday. I hoped the Snowpowder boys wouldn't find the dinghy missing back at Family Beach, or dig up my grave and find it empty. Running fingers through matted hair, I found a huge lump that was unfamiliar. It's been a rough few days.

  The coffee helped. Swinging my feet off the bed, I felt pain radiate throughout my legs. The cuts were bad. Coral injuries have a tendency to heal slowly and almost always get infected.

  Limping to the shower, I turned the faucets wide open. The stinging hot water felt like something sent from heaven, soothing and loosening sore muscles. I stood for long, blank minutes enjoying the cleansing effects, then suddenly realizing it was not the grime from sand and sea, but the face of Rene Renoir and the closeness of my own death that I was trying to wash away.

  Stepping out of the shower, Kathy stood there with a towel. Silent for a moment, she unsettled me by her stare as it moved from the top of my head toward my face and along the line of my jaw with a concentration I could feel physically like the caress of a summer breeze. Reaching my feet, her eyes cut back to mine and she threw her head to the side and laughed. It was a soft, low, breathless sound. Her eyes were half-closed in the mocking, conscious triumph of having embarrassed me. She turned and walked away, her black hair swaying with the wide circular movement of her stride.

  Wrapping in a towel, I gingerly hobbled to the bedroom, hoping to fit into some of B.J.'s clothes. A pair of his pants proved tight, but would do. Kathy returned with bandages and antiseptic.

  "Put your feet in my lap, this is going to burn."

  She poured methylate into the cuts. It felt like fire, but it was necessary. Sweat beaded on my forehead.

  Wrapping the wounds with cotton gauze, Kathy gave me a pair of white socks to put on. I found a pair of worn deck shoes and managed to squeeze my feet into them.

  "Come, I'll fix you something to eat."

  Over scrambled eggs, bacon, and fresh Bahamian-baked bread she told me about herself. A flight attendant for T.W.A. for eight years, she had married and divorced a Captain with the same airline. Recounting the events that led to the breakup caused her face to lose its clear, frank look; the expressions that played across it were too vague and fleeting to read. Her features seemed to relinquish some of their definition. It was as though she were looking at her past through a veil of fog.

  She liked the isolation of the cays. No one bothered her here. It was only a twenty minute run to Marsh Harbor in the runabout if she got too lonely. There were friends at the Conch Crawl bar, or dinner at the Conch Inn.

  Helping Kathy with the dishes, I spotted one of the fast cigarette boats, running full speed, round Pelican Point and head straight toward the house.

  "If that's anybody you don't know, tell them you are alone and have not seen anyone since you've been here. I'll be under the steps leading to the ocean side of the beach."

  There was surprise and fear in her eyes. "I understand. Now hurry."

  The steps were steep and there was only enough room to squeeze beneath them. It would be a horrible place to die. Voices and footsteps sounded overhead.

  "Jay, it's me."

  "Glad to see you still alive."

  "I don't have much time. Everyone thinks I'm visiting a girl staying on one of the cays. They seem to have bought your death."

  Dave looked at Kathy. There was amazement on her candid face, then swiftly changed to one of resolve. She bit down on her lips, the way women do when they wanted to spread their lipstick evenly, and the line bracketing her mouth deepened. She suddenly looked very concerned.

  "What's the plan?"

  "Little Will is up to his neck in sharks. I'm doing everything to get him out of this Snowpowder business alive. If he tells them one more time that he wants out, they'll probably kill him. I need your help. It may get messy."

  "Well, as the boy in the jetliner on that fateful September the 11 ^th day, said, "Let's roll."

  "The one that ordered you killed, the Snowpowder King, has no competition in the Bahamas. His blow is flown in to the outer cays and he's bribing Customs agents."

  "Too bad."

  "Yeah. Tell me again how you came to be snooping around the Sun Dog in Nassau?"

  "Lynn Renoir's sister was killed with an overdose. Back tracking, I found she'd been aboard the boat. From what I can figure, she was supposed to have been disposed of somewhere around Nassau, but somebody botched the job. They ran her over to Bimini and put her aboard the seaplane to Miami. Someone called the Miami Police Department and told them she was on the way. I don't know how Rene ties in with these people or why they would want to kill her. There was no ransom demanded."

  Dave scratched his chin, threw me a hard glance. "The Renoir woman I sent to you was having breakfast at the Conch Inn in Marsh Harbor this morning in the company of a female I've never seen before."

  "You sure?"

  "Positive."

  "She was in Nassau the night I was shanghaied. She was supposed to stay out of the investigation into her sister's death. Did she recognize you?"

  "She never saw me. If she's asking around and the Snowpowder King gets wind of it, she could be in serious danger."

  "That's why I didn't want her nosing around. You can't baby sit them and work a case, too. But I'll have to worry about her later. What's your plan for Will?"

  "A big load of dope is arriving tonight to supply a car rental convention starting tomorrow up at Treasure Cay. Fifteen thousand people are coming in. They plan to bring the Sun Dog in across the bar and anchor up behind Bridges Cay. I've arranged to buy ten kilos tonight at nine o'clock. I want you along."

  "They know what I look like."

  "We'll figure something. Be ready at eight-thirty. I've got to get back. See you tonight."

  "You'll tell me the plan then?"

  "If I figure it out." He cracked a sly grin. "Kathy, thanks for the help."

  She nodded, said nothing.

  Walking with Dave down to the beach, I asked if he thought Kathy could be in any danger?

  He smoothed his hair with both hands, an angry spark flashed in his eyes, then his eyelids narrowed slowly. He looked at me and his face relaxed to a look of understanding at my question. "I can't see any. They don't know who she is or where she's staying. If there was the slightest chance of harm to her I'd move her out."

  Pawing at the loose sand with a sore foot, I said, "For your information, the Renoir woman is worth over a billion dollars. She's about to take control of her father's business that previously has been handled by Joe Glossman in Ocean Springs."

  Dave looked at me with hard, knowing eyes. "Yeah, Max Renoir. I knew him. But no ransom demand on her sister. Interesting."

  We pushed the cigarette boat back into the water and he roared away.

  Kathy and I stood in the kitchen watching the boat carve a foamy opening in the calm, emerald waters of the Sea of Abaco. The open wound slowly healed until soon all was as before, no trace, not even a scar left to what had passed before.

  Shafts of sunlight slan
ted into the house hitting walls of polished Caribbean pine. There were a few pieces of hand-made furniture, a ceiling of bare rafters. An archway with some kind of carved hieroglyphics opened into the small kitchen with rough shelves, a bare wooden table made of one-inch thick planks, and there was a butane gas stove. The place had the primitive simplicity of a seaman's cabin, reduced to essential necessities, but done with elegant, modern skill and sat down smack in the middle of Valhalla.

  With seven hours to kill, it was time to do some serious thinking. Sitting on the small couch in the living room, the drumming of the overhead fan began to pulse to a slower beat, like the throb of great engines below deck. They whispered the same warning over and over. The air grew weighted and all times felt troubled. A dangerous voyage was about to begin.

  Kathy came and sat beside me. Her breath, sweet and soft, brushed across my cheek. Her body shimmered under the white shorts snugged tightly around the smooth firm buttocks, like the promise of life itself. She was good company, and helped the afternoon pass quickly.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  A cool breeze blew through the house making it pleasant and comfortable. Looking north toward Cornish and Sandy Cay, I could see the mainland behind them. Two white markers used to line up the pass through the North Bar channel stood like sentinels. On the sloping hills of Abaco dark pyramids of Casuarina pines stood immovably straight in defiance of the seasonal hurricanes, their needles trembling in the sun and wind.

  I thought about Dave's brush with death on the reef at Sandy Cay. If it hadn't been for Karl Strange, he would have drowned.

  A young woman's brother hired Dave to get her out of Marsh Harbor and bring her back to the United States. She'd gotten in over her head with a mean-tempered New York mobster who was running a money laundering operation in Abaco. She wanted away from him, but he wouldn't let her go, and there was a lot of abuse.

  Dave made some mistakes, and one of the Italians chained him to a concrete block at low water on Sandy Cay reef. He left him there for high tide and sharks to finish the job.

  Karl Strange risked his life to get him loose from the chain. At one point he thought Dave's foot would have to be amputated to get him out, and Dave urged him to cut it off. On his last attempt, Karl cut through a link in the chain. Dave owed him one.

  Getting Will out from under the Snowpowder boys was one way he had of repaying Karl. How he worked his way into the dope pusher's inner circle, I had no idea. Always good at infiltration, it was his specialty when he was a Special Agent with the FBI. It was also his undoing. He got too close to his work.

  Kathy brought coffee from the kitchen and sat back down on the couch. "Anything you want to talk about?" The sun threw broken bits of light across her face. She had a serious look of intimate concern.

  "I'm working out some details. It's better you not know."

  "I see."

  "What's your last name?"

  She threw her head to one side, black hair moving like pages of a book blowing in a stiff wind. "Peirce, with the 'e' and 'i' reversed."

  "Yes, there was an artist from Maine, Waldo Peirce, spelled his name like that. I have some of his work."

  "You do not?" The words were pronounced with a singular emphasis. "That's my grandfather."

  "Small world."

  "What works do you have?"

  "A book illustrated by him, a painting titled, DEATH IN THE GULFSTREAM, and a lithograph of him by another artist. Not much really."

  Kathy made me forget the reason I was here was to find the sadistic killer of Rene Renoir.

  Dave arrived at eight-thirty. Meeting him down at the beach, I noticed that his long, narrow face and taught skin made it appear as if he had to stretch his facial muscles to keep his mouth closed. This gave a suggestion of sternness to a face that displayed nothing else.

  There had not been a lot I could do to change my appearance. An old sailor's cap, a peacoat B.J. kept for cold days, and a pair of eyeglasses with the lens removed. Dave thought I could get away with it.

  Pointing the cigarette toward Bridges Cay, we pulled in behind the north point of the cay out of sight of the Sun Dog. Dave shut the engine down, and we lay ahull in the calm waters in darkness so black it was scary.

  A half-mile to the south, we could see the lights of the Sun Dog anchored in behind Bridges Cay. We had twenty minutes before Dave was to arrive and pick up his part of the load. I still did not know the plan for tonight.

  The stars suddenly brightened to their full radiance. To the west, out over the shallow flats known as the 'Marls,' thunderstorms appeared as giant billowing pillars reaching sixty thousand feet into the night sky. Lightening illuminated each individual storm from the inside, making them look false, like a theater stage prop. Having fought my share of wars with these huge battlements that contain enough force to rip an airplane apart, I have seen them make cowards of the bravest of airmen, and make them wish desperately to be somewhere else.

  The night was still warm. The peacoat, hot, even though I wore it unbuttoned. Sweat glistened on Dave's face. There was no breeze and the mosquitoes quickly found us.

  "Run me through the Nassau thing again."

  It gave us something to talk about, so I repeated the whole story starting with how Lynn Renoir's concern for her missing sister led to Glossman in Ocean Springs and the Will that Max Renoir left. How Rene ended up dead in Miami from a gallon of drugs coursing through her veins. My meeting with Mako, and finally, getting caught on board the Sun Dog.

  "You should have known someone like Ignacio Sanchez would not leave a boat load of cocaine unguarded."

  My mistakes did not need to be pointed out.

  "There was a small arsenal of automatic rifles, AR-15s, with enough ammo to take Cuba."

  "Another clue for you."

  "Ignacio Sanchez…I know that name."

  "Used to run the strip joints along the coast, Biloxi, Gulfport."

  "Of course. He's been gone since the big cleanup back in seventy-five."

  "That's right. He and his brother ran the gambling, dope, and prostitution all the way from Bay St. Louis to Ocean Springs. Ignacio was the brains behind the operation. His brother, Miguel, the muscle. When it all went down, Miguel took the fall. He's still in prison at Parchman. It'll be interesting to see what happens when he's paroled. Word is, he wants to have a talk with his brother.

  "So Ignacio moved to the Bahamas and went into the Snowpowder business, and the Dixie Mafia took over the coast until the big boys moved in with the legal 'Dockside' gambling."

  "Exactly. But Sanchez is a lot smarter, meaner, and extremely deadly. We will take no chances with this scumbag. There's no way to know how many people he's killed. You came close, my friend. Your luck must be running good."

  "Yeah, I've really got fine luck."

  "They've moved everyone off Johnston's Harbor. All business will be conducted aboard the Sun Dog from now on. So, I think we're safe with your death and the dinghy being discovered."

  "How deep is Will in with these people?"

  "More than he needs to be. He's a good kid at heart. Saw a way for some quick money selling to rich tourists. Didn't seem wrong to him. Once Sanchez gets his hooks into you, there is no way out but dead."

  "They never think beyond the money."

  "Will wanted out when they pushed him to sell at the school. They threatened his family. That's when I got called in."

  "How big is Sanchez's operation?"

  "He's got six men working for him on Abaco, alone. Moving about seven kilos a week. There's a lot of heat around Nassau at the moment. That's why they've been working out of Johnston's Harbor. He's dealing all over the Bahamas. I haven't been inside long enough to know his distribution network, or where he's getting his supply."

  "How did you get inside with Sanchez?"

  "Will introduced me. My cover is that of a dealer from Memphis. I made an offer for fifty kilos at ten grand a pop. I've gotten forty kilos so far, and the rest is due tonight. San
chez thinks I'm stashing it on a sailboat anchored in American Harbor up at Man-O-War Cay. I rented one of BYS's Endeavours and staying aboard."

  "That's half a million dollars’ worth of blow."

  "I paid in cash and that impressed Sanchez."

  "You are using the counterfeit money from the Williams case, aren't you?"

  Dave laughed. "Good guess. It would take an expert to tell the difference." He paused, rubbed both hands around the steering wheel of the cigarette. "There is something else you should know. I got word Sanchez plans to take back the Snowpowder he sold me. I would have been disappointed if he hadn't. He'll probably try tonight, after delivering the last ten kilos."

  "I'm here to help."

  "Nice of you."

  "You want to tell me the plan?"

  "There is only one way to end this." There was neither cruelty nor animosity in his face, only justice.

  "Yes."

  He meant taking out Sanchez and his crew. Suddenly we were about to become judge, jury, and executioner. This is a dangerous world. Sometimes one has to do desperate things to survive desperate situations.

  "We can take it down there, on the Sun Dog, or we can do it on board my sailboat when they come to take back the cocaine. The problem with my boat is that Sanchez might not show up. Someone will come; it's too easy a target. I vote for the Sun Dog. What do you think?"

  He watched my eyes, looking for some sign of disapproval, some weakness in his plan. He knew I would stay with him in the fight. We had been in some rough places together. We trusted each other.

  "It's your show. I'll go along with whatever you decide. The Sun Dog is a good choice. Everybody's in one place and we know the layout of the boat."

  "It's settled, then."

  "What's our firepower?"

  "Two full auto Israel machine pistols and two forty-four magnum revolvers with six inch barrels, like the one I killed you with. There's plenty of ammo."