Perry muttered, “Goddamn it!,” as I continued, saying, “Half an hour at the most—any longer, my friends will be dead, anyway.”
As the words left my mouth, I realized it was a stupid thing to tell them, but I kept going, adding, “One of the guys trapped down there is a teenage boy. The other’s the laid-back hippie type—he’s the one who owns the truck. They’re no threat to you. Give me half an hour, you’ll get your keys. It would take you half a day to hike out of here. There’s no cover, nothing but palmetto scrub.”
Because I didn’t get an immediate reaction, I added, “Give me thirty minutes. It’s a no-brainer—for anyone with half a brain, that is.”
That hit a nerve. King took a couple of quick steps toward me, pistol raised, as if imitating Perry, the way he had clubbed Arlis. But then he changed his mind. My knife was still strapped to my calf, and he didn’t want to put himself at risk by getting too close to someone my age, my size, whose hands were free. King was also a coward. No surprise there.
The man was four paces away when he stopped—a safe distance. He motioned with the pistol. “Take off that vest and throw it over here. I want to see what you got in the pockets. Maybe you’re the one with the keys.”
I ripped open the Velcro straps, slipped the harness off and tossed the BC toward his feet.
“Now the knife. Unbuckle it, but don’t take it out of that damn rubber case. Pull that knife, it’ll be the last thing you ever do.”
He was pointing the pistol at me, both hands steadying it like maybe he’d seen tough guys in movies do. He kept his finger on the trigger, not parallel to the barrel like an experienced shooter.
Before King knelt to retrieve my vest, he stuffed the pistol into his back pocket, saying to Perry, “Forget Grandpa. Keep the rifle on Jock-o. If he moves, shoot him in the belly. Hear me?”
Perry positioned himself so he could do it.
I had been so focused on Tomlinson and Will that I’d forgotten about the gold coin I’d found until I saw King grin, drop my BC on the ground and turn to Perry. He was holding the coin so it caught the sunlight. “Goddamn, ace, look what we got here!”
When the rocks started falling, I must have stuffed the coin into a pocket.
Perry leaned close to look, saying, “Another one? How much you figure these things are worth?” Now he was taking a similar coin from his pocket to compare.
I had begun unbuckling the knife scabbard but stopped.
Another one?
It took me a moment to understand. Commercial fishermen are superstitious. For luck—and maybe so he could show Will—Arlis had brought along the coins he’d found earlier. Perry and King had found them in the truck or on Arlis, apparently.
Gold.
I could see the greed in their faces.
Suddenly, I knew that I had all the leverage I needed—if I worked it right. Diving to look for Cuban coins was a more attractive gambit than looking for nonexistent truck keys.
What’s the smartest way to play this?
I had to get it right the first time, there was no room for error. Push too hard, Perry and King would sense it—they would have survivor instincts, if they had spent time in prison. Go too slow, Will and Tomlinson would run out of air and die.
I remained on one knee, a nonthreatening posture, and stole another look at my watch.
Fourteen minutes of air remaining, give or take. Sixteen, maybe twenty, counting their emergency bailout bottles.
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?”