At Tarpon Bay Marina, where I was a guide, my friend Ralph Woodring owned a boat with
Dusky
painted in big blue letters on the side. My friend, Graeme Mellor, lived on a Morgan sailboat named
No Mas.
Dusky MacMorgan was born.
Every winter, Clyde Beatty-Cole Bros. Circus came to town. Their trapeze artists, I realized, were not only freakishly strong, but they were also freakishly nimble.
Dusky gathered depth.
One of my best friends was the late Dr. Harold Westervelt, a gifted orthopedic surgeon. Dr. Westervelt became the Edison of Death, and he loved introducing himself that way to new patients. His son, David, became Westy O’Davis, and our spear-fishing pal, Billy, became Billy Mack.
Problems with my hero’s shark scar and his devoted friendship with Hemingway were also solved.
Working around the clock, pounding away at my old black manual typewriter, I wrote
Key West Connection
in nine days. On a Monday morning, I waited for the post office to open to send it to New York.
Joanie sounded a little dazed when she telephoned on Friday. Was I willing to try a second book on spec?
Hell yes.
God, I was beginning to
love
New York’s cando attitude.
The other three writers (if they ever existed) were fired, and I became the sole proprietor of Captain Dusky MacMorgan—although Signet owned the copyright and all other rights after I signed Joanie’s “standard” contract. (This injustice was later made right by a willing and steadfast publisher and my brilliant agent.)
If Joanie (a fine editor) feels badly about that today, she shouldn’t. I would’ve signed for less.
I wrote seven of what I would come to refer to as “duck and fuck” books because in alternating chapters Dusky would duck a few bullets, then spend much-deserved time alone with a heroine.
Seldom did a piece of paper go into my old typewriter that was ripped out and thrown away, and I suspect that’s the way the books read. I don’t know. I’ve never reread them. I do remember using obvious clichés, a form of self-loathing, as if to remind myself that I should be doing my
own
writing, not this job-of-work.
The book you are now holding, and the other six, constituted a training arena for a young writer who took seriously the discipline demanded by his craft and also the financial imperatives of being a young father.
For years, I apologized for these books. I no longer do.
—Randy Wayne White
Cartagena, Colombia
1
The corpse was gone, but the sprawled outline was still there—traced in white chalk.
The floor was of pale wood. Not pine. Some kind of tropical planking that held the metallic stink of blood: a black amoeba splotch that had rivered beyond the chalk confines and dried.
“You found her just like this?”
“Aye. I did, mate.”
“And they think you murdered her?”
“They
thought
I’d murdered her. Can you imagine? A sweet lad from the home soil like meself!”
I turned away from the outline on the floor. The cop who had traced the corpse had caught the feminine curvature of hips and the delicate fingers of her left hand, which had been thrown out wildly to stop her fall.
Only there was no stopping that fall.
It was the final descent.
Death.
There was something grotesque about a thing so temporary as chalk marking the resting spot of a being who had lived and laughed and loved only to rendezvous, facedown, with wood and a knife slit across her throat.
That plus the stink made me feel unexpectedly queasy. Unexpected because I’ve seen plenty of death before. But there was a coldness to this white outline of a woman who I would never know. Like so many things the cops do, it seemed to reduce murder to a faceless shape, complete with bloodstain.
“Mind if we step out onto the porch?”
“Aye. I canna stand the sight of the blinkin’ thing meself.”
I followed him outside. The screen door slammed behind us. Beyond the black growth of gumbo-limbo, mahogany, and jasmine, stars threw paths upon the Caribbean Sea. It was one of those soft winter nights in the tropics. The sort of night people come to Grand Cayman to enjoy. The wind was cloying, blowing off the sea, and you could hear the roar of waves upon the reef, half a mile out.
“You knew her, right?”
The features of my good friend Wes O’Davis seemed softer by the yellow porch light. Or maybe by the finding of a dead woman upon his living room floor. There was the broad Gaelic face and the Viking beard and the ugly broken nose—but the pale eyes seemed withdrawn, as if he were someplace else.
“Did I know tha’ poor wee girl? Aye, I knew her. Treated ’er like a tramp, I did.”
“Is this a confession?”
“Hah! Might as well be, lad. Might as well be.” He stepped off the porch and kicked at a big conch shell—forgetting he was barefoot, apparently. He jumped around for a second, then grabbed the shell and gave it a savage toss. You could hear it hit the water. “I treated her like a brute, I did,” he said.
“But you didn’t kill her?”
“N’ do I look like a murderer to you, Mr. Dusky MacMorgan?”
“You
look
like you are capable of robbing churches and assaulting nuns.”
“I take it that’s a yes.”
“It is.”
“So you think I killed her?”
“I didn’t say that. I know you, remember? I know you’re no murderer. But you called me down here to help, right? So let me help. Shake off that case of the guilts you have at least long enough to tell me what in hell happened. Ever since I got here you’ve been tight as a drum. A blacksmith couldn’t get a pin up your ass with a hammer. Just relax—I’m a friend, remember?”
He rolled his shoulders, flexing his neck. Then he gave a sudden leprechaun grin that I knew well. “Yer right. I’ll be needin’ to fill you in on all the particulars—if yer ta help me, that is.”
“Okay. Good. So talk. You knew the girl.”
“Aye. Monster that I am, I knew her the way I’ve known a hundred other lonely tourist ladies. They come to Grand Cayman by themselves or with a husband who is no longer very attentive.”
“Then you step in.”
He nodded. “In me own defense, Yank, I must say most o’ them seem the happier for it.”
“What was her name?”
“Cynthia. Cynthia Rothchild. Met ’er at one of those snooty little teas in Georgetown. We’re still very English here in Caymans, ye know.”
“She was wealthy?”
“Said she was a nanny. Had the care of a boy child fer some very rich folks from London. Sir Conan James and Lady James. Sir Conan has an advisory position with Government House, appointed by Her Majesty. That’s why I was invited to the snooty tea.”
“As a bodyguard?”
He shrugged. “’Tis probably the real reason. But they said me attendance was required so they could present me with some damnable award.”
I smiled. “From the Queen?”
“Aye. Pretty little thing it is, too. Lady James pinned it on. A great beauty, that Lady James. Magnificent woman—even if she is English.”
“But you settled for the nanny, Cynthia Rothchild.”
“Aye. She was something of a beauty herself, Yank. Very black hair. Lovely figure. You know me weakness fer the ladies. Saw her three—no, four times. She’d drive her wee rental car over from Three Mile Beach when the lad was asleep.”
“And spend the night?”
“Aye. The best part of it.”
“So she lived on the island.”
“Sir Conan keeps a home here. But they live in London.”
“And he didn’t mind his nanny’s sneaking out?”
“He’s a bit of a womanizer himself, I’m afraid. So I’m sure he understood. Besides, Her Majesty honored me with an award, remember? Sir Conan would overlook such a thing with me.”
“When’s the last time you saw her?”
“In the afternoon, day before yesterday. We had lunch together. She seemed very nervous, Yank. Bothered me, it did. She had the lad with ’er—little Tommy. Fine-looking boy, ’bout fourteen. Something of a genius, to hear Lady James talk. A regular wizard. That night I supped at Betty Bay Point, made the round of the pubs with a few of me island mates, and then went home. She was layin’ on the floor of me living room. Part o’ her dress was ripped away. She had this awful look o’ surprise on ’er face. Her throat had been cut.”
“And you called the police?”
“Aye. Rang up the substation at Boddentown. The constable is a friend of mine. He seemed very sorry to have to arrest me. That’s when I called you.”
“I was kind of surprised you met me at the airport.”
“They knew straightaway I didn’t do it. I was with me mates, remember. Besides, Sir Conan found the note.”
“What note?”
The Irishman picked up another conch shell and threw it in a moonlit spiral toward the sea. “The ransom note, Yank. They’ve taken little Tommy. Kidnapped ’im, they did. Sir Conan has seventy-two hours to pay them two million pounds. So that gives us three days to find the kidnappers, snatch the lad, and bring him safely home.”
“Wait a minute—does Sir Conan want you to get involved?”
“Her Majesty does, Yank. It’s a dangerous precedent to set—a true Irishman serving the Queen. But they killed me little Cynthia. And she was a fine sweet girl with a pretty laugh and a wonderful way beneath the covers. She was too good for the likes of me, Yank. Treated’er like nothin’ but a sleepover. So now it’s me dooty to make amends. And yer jest mean enough to help. Three days, Yank—that’s all we have. An’ three days is all those bloody buggers have to live. . . . ”
2
It was a coincidence that I happened to be at the marina in Key West when Westy’s telephone call for help came in.
I had left my weathered house built on stilts a mile out upon the Calda Bank flats early that morning. Usually when I charter I point my thirty-four-foot sportfisherman toward the Gulf Stream. But on this particular morning, an old and valued client was in town and he had a yearning to pole the flats in search of bonefish and permit.
Sportsmen from the great gray northlands find their taste in fishing changes in direct proportion to the number—and type—of fishing magazines they have read before flying south. And this orthopedic surgeon from Bryan, Ohio, had spent a brutal February and March poring over articles on the flats masters.
So he arrived at the docks at dawn, new fishing cap upon his head and Polaroids strung around his neck on mono line, a dreamy, boyish grin on his face.
It was one of those pink and iridescent blue sunrises unique to the Keys. Along with the diesel smell of the harbor came the jasmine and frangipani spice of Key West on a freshening south wind out of Cuba.
“Damn,” was all he could say, his face glazed with pleasure. “Damn, I don’t care if the fish hit or not. It’s just something being here.”
He wasn’t lying. He was one of the rare clients: one of the rare sportsmen who hire me because they see fishing as both pleasure and poem. He was among the few I really enjoyed fishing with; a man who did not gauge the success of a trip by the number of iced fish carcasses he could stack on the dock upon our return. So the two of us climbed into my little Boston Whaler and powered off toward the flats of distant Content Key, the little skiff stretching across the clear water as if upon air, brain coral and sea fans appearing and disappearing beneath us as if upon some screen of personal reminiscence.
I had gone over the tide charts carefully beforehand, marking the ascent of tide peaks in my own mind, plotting a fishing itinerary that should guarantee us that epic intersection: a bonefish or permit foraging upon the same flat that held our bait.
It turned out to be a good day. He thought it a great day. He landed and released three good bonefish, then lost a permit to a staghorn after two Homeric runs that made his reel scream as if about to explode.
He had big plans for the next morning. And the next. And I was more than willing. After spending a month alone on my stilthouse listening to my shortwave and eating my own cooking and forcing myself to complete a daily exercise routine that would test a Spartan, I was looking forward to fishing with a friend and eating black beans and yellowtail at the El Cacique and drinking cold beer with my buddies at the dock.
But Westy’s call ended all that.
I was out washing down the Whaler when the call came. Steve Wise, America’s version of a houseboat David Niven, came ambling barefooted out of the marina office to get me.
“Phone for you.”
“This late?”
“And it’s not even a lady.”
“Didn’t give his name?”