Saltwater in the Bluegrass (10 page)

He was always laughing and telling folks about some stupid, dirty joke he had just heard or some story he had come across. Uncle Buddy was a nice old man, though; a nice man with a drinking problem. He always seemed to be asking the same questions, like,

“Can they do that?” and “Are you feeling alright?” But still, he was sincere in his way.

I sat there for about ten minutes wondering what on earth he needed that was so important, but knowing him I felt obligated to go and help if I could. I remembered all the times he had helped me out when I was growing up, when I was trying my best to cover up one of the piles of crap I had stepped into from time to time. It was time to pay back those favors, and I was more than obliged to go over and see what all the fuss was about.

I grabbed a piece of paper and pen from the third drawer of the front desk and wrote out a quick message for the front door. I turned off the coffee pot, closed the windows, and made a quick once around the office just to make sure everything was secured. Above the front door, where the words Private Investigator were etched, I taped the following message for anyone that might be in need of a good private eye:

I will be back when this note changes.

Until then I am busy!

I locked the door to the office and headed downstairs to the parking lot.

As I walked down the flight of stairs, I could not help but wonder what Uncle Buddy was trying to tell me over the phone. Why the rush and what was it that was so secretive that he could not just say it over the phone?

It was getting close to ten a.m. now.

It was about forty minutes before I needed to meet Uncle Buddy at Spits. I knew it would only take me about fifteen minutes to drive over to the harbor, so I decided to stop back over at my place and grab a couple of things that I might possibly need. It was on the way, and I was not very sure what it was that I might be walking into. In the excitement of Buddy’s call, I had forgotten to return the call from Hadric Vaughn, the gentlemen who had left several calls the day before on my phone. I wrote myself a note and stuck it in my shirt pocket with plans to get back in touch with him or at least phone the number that he left on the answering machine when I returned to the office later that afternoon.

Living only five minutes from work is still one of the smartest things I have done since leaving my illustrious two semesters of college at Florida State University. I seemed to continually find myself each evening leaving the dorm after classes, trying to study at the Flora Bama Club instead of the college library.

When my first private eye gig seemed to pay more than my classes ever would, I decided that I was better off reaching for the ropes instead of being tied to them. I parted ways with school and found myself a piece of higher learning.

I solved a case involving a diamond dealer over in Boca Raton, and with the large retainer and fee I received, I bought myself a boat, a crafted vessel with elegance and dignity. She’s a fifty-six foot, Sea Ray Sailing Schooner with a sixty foot main spar in the aft position, a forty foot boom, and she has a white pearl design. The forward spar climbs fifty feet towards the head, or sails top corner. I named her the
Brenda Kay II
.

When I bought her she was a crafted vessel. Now she’s a treasured lady, with a combination of fine crafted inlaid teak wood, brass, and electronic circuitry.

The main sail, carried by the aftermast is tall and sleek, white with red and gold trim running across her in a wind-shaped graphic design. In big, bold, blue letters below the trim lines on the sail is the printed word “ENDEAVOUR.”

The spirit of the wind that powers my vessel is named after Captain James Cook’s famous ship of the eighteenth century. I guess if the name was good enough for the Apollo 15 astronaut crew to name their command spacecraft after James Cook’s vessel, so could I. Two settee sails, a jib, and a mizzen sail make up the completed set when the sheets are taut and she’s running across the water with a full crew of eight members. As for racing her, I don’t. At least I haven’t in quite a long while.

I’ve only navigated her hard like this on two separate occasions. Both times, both voyages with pilot and nautical charts, were during the first year I owned her. I must say, she did splendid on the open sea with all fore and aft sails flying. She took on a certain rhythm, easing herself gracefully across the water, where we logged 120 plus miles each day.

It was a real treat, a pleasure I will always remember. The
Brenda Kay II
was named after my first real test of love, my fourth grade elementary school teacher, Miss Brenda Kay Enyurt. She had lines that made a young man want to stay after school and bang erasers.

Not planning on sailing her on a continuous voyage that never set anchor at ports around the world, I found myself a masterful way of parking her at the Pompano Beach Resort and Harbor Club, slip number six, my old high school baseball uniform number, without paying.

Billy Morley, the owner of the Harbor Club and I had come to a real workable relationship, something I am very proud to say happened. I would keep tabs on his wife and all of her extramarital affairs for a future, well-thought-out divorce party—something that is already in the works—and he would see to it that slip number six never got billed.

I pulled into my space provided by the resort, jumped out and headed down the floating boardwalk to my boat. I climbed aboard, went forward, turned off my security system, turned on the lights, and went down through the hatchway into the stateroom. I grabbed my pair of Bushnell optics, my .357, my survival knife, and my Olympus camera with 36mm zoom lens. All standard equipment, especially when you are not sure what you may or may not be walking into. By the time I picked up what I needed, it was close to ten fortyfive. I knew Buddy would be waiting, so I double-timed it back up the dock, started my car, and headed over towards the pier.

It hadn’t taken long
getting over to the harbor marina just south of Hillsboro Inlet, making my way across Atlantic Boulevard, over the intra-coastal canal, and then through several side streets linking to the pier and the sandy drive where Spit’s place was located. Traffic on N. Riverside for this time of the day had been unusually light, even for rush-hour on a Monday morning in April.

By this time of the year, late spring, most of the snowbirds had packed up their belongings and headed home, leaving Florida to the locals and the holiday vacationers. It’s something I look forward to every year along with the defection of post spring breakers and the crap they left behind. It’s always something. Like I said, traffic was light and I made good time.

Spit’s place is pretty much like it sounds: dark and not too crowded, at any time of day or night. It’s a harbor bar, nothing more, next to pier number seven near the Hillsboro Inlet Fishing Fleet, across from where fishing charters dock and tourists hang their oncein-a-lifetime trophy fish for pictures they can take home to show their friends. For those with lots of money, they can have their prized catch turned into a plastic-coated, lifeless replica to hang above their desk at home.

Over the door of the bar hung a sign that read in large letters

“Oysters and Beer,” and in small print below was printed, “Bring Your Own Bucket.”

As I pulled into the parking lot, got out of my car, and walked across the dirt and sandy gravel drive, I could feel the normalcy leaving my body. Anxiety can communicate a variety of emotions. It could have been the smell coming from the trash piled up—old smashed beer cans, cigarette butts, and pizza containers littering the ground. Several seagulls were busy entertaining themselves in and around the dumpsters to the side of the building. I was ready to bet I was the only one within a mile of this stinking hole that had taken a bath today.

Almost to the door of Spit’s and ready to walk in, still focusing on the trash and the stench instead of paying attention to the surroundings and my peripheral vision, I suddenly felt someone grab my arm, stopping me in my tracks. It wasn’t smart. I had obviously been paying too much attention to the wrong things. I turned startled.

“Say, boy, thanks for coming.” It was Buddy.

I looked at his face. He looked upset. I felt foolish. The red glow of alcohol was still there, but he looked flush. Something was definitely on his mind. He must have seen me pull into the parking lot and park alongside the stacked fishing nets near the fish scales. The harbor was busy with boating traffic, boat repairs, onlookers, day rentals and shoppers, and the pier to the right was crowded with tourist. It always is on Mondays, a sure sign that summer is just around the corner.

On the scales at the end of the dock, several Amber Jack, a Dolphin, a Dusky Shark, Cero, Kingfish, a gray (Mangrove) Snapper, a Jack Crevalle, and a Spanish Mackerel were being hung; nothing I thought big enough to be thought of as keeper. Still, people were standing around taking pictures and bragging about their catches. Johnboats, trawlers, skiffs, bass boats, and small spit-window runabouts were being loaded or unloaded, full of activity. Captains and their first mates were washing down their boats and equipment, cleaning up their tackle, and restocking the supplies for their afternoon charters.

It quickly brought back memories of a summer break, back when I was in high school, when I had worked for Captain Wally at Reel Work Fishing Charters in Fort Lauderdale. At that moment I wished I was still there.

Buddy had obviously wanted to catch me outside before I walked into the bar. Maybe he thought I would get mugged if I walked into Spit’s without him. The thought really hadn’t worried me. I can usually handle myself. The bar was crowded with the regulars who spend their mornings washing down what they had drunk earlier and celebrating the fact that they are still alive.

Buddy and I walked in.

No one stood up to greet us. Then again, I was not expecting it. In a place like this, popularity isn’t a notable expectation. Several of Buddy’s friends looked up, giving half-hearted waves, and then went back to their beers.

We made our way around the tables that obviously had no order to them. Most of the tables were bunched in a zigzagged manner. A wooden bar ran the length of the room and a jukebox was in the corner. Above the bar; the mountings of a large Big-Eyed Thresher and a Hammerhead Shark hung, keeping an eye over the room. I followed Buddy as he walked through the maze of chairs, finding his way to the corner booth where we could talk.

The remains of twenty years of spilled beer and blood had stained the wooden planks on the floor, and I was pretty sure that Buddy had dropped a few of the breadcrumbs along the way in his time. Some spots in the floor were more recent than others, and some spots I just made sure to step over.

The table in the back corner was adequate for our needs, old and antiqued with names carved in it. Above the salt and pepper shaker and an empty napkin holder that was bent in on the right side—probably by someone’s head—was a carved sign that had probably been nailed to the wall by a drunk, one-eyed carpenter, with the left corner of the sign leaning down. It read:

Busted Flush

Been There, Done It, Had It, Lost It

Obviously, it was great work of art, probably made by a poet who lived before his time, a traditionalist who creates masterpieces to be handed down through generations—fine art and treasures, like
Dog
Playing Cards
and signs that say “
Don’t Bother Knocking if the Van
is a Rocking.”

Buddy and I both knew
there was something he wanted to tell me. First, though, we needed a couple of beers to set the mood. There was no waitress inside Spit’s. Then again, I had not expected to see one.

We walked up, ordered two cold drafts from the bartender and waited. I grabbed some peanuts from the end of the counter, and then when the drinks came we went and sat down. I hoped this wouldn’t take long. I had things to do.

I wished Uncle Buddy had just come out with it sooner, saving all the dramatics, but this was just his way. He was slow and not quite to the point, a trait I had noticed about him over the years. Buddy was still nursing his first beer. I’m sure with plans of me buying him another when he finally started to open up. His voice was hard. He looked tired. His emotions were on edge. His body language was unlike anything I was used to seeing. Buddy was sagging in the booth, and he seemed to have gotten old before his time. He was stressed by something. Considering his age and health and the fact that he was my dad’s brother, I was a little more than concerned for his condition.

Our conversation was going nowhere. I began getting antsy just sitting there.

Then suddenly things changed. With that said, my impatient behavior suddenly changed. Uncle Buddy seemed to get his second wind.

From behind the large wood backing of the booth that ran some four feet in the air, I felt someone walking up behind me. Then I heard an echo of footsteps.

I set down my drink. In the line of work I’m in, the people I sometimes run across, I immediately went into my defensive mode. I got a hand up, just in case. I turned in tempo to escape the confines of the booth if necessary, with fist ready to drill the sucker in the head, who might be set off or asking what I was doing sitting in his seat. My reaction, although reliable to a possible situation, was not necessary or warranted.

“Jimmy—I—this is—Remember, little Kristy, your cousin, my daughter. Remember?”

“Hi, Jimmy. It’s been a long time.”

“Kristy Ann.”

“It’s Kristina now.”

“I remember you. Please, just call me Jimmy.”

It had been thirty years since I had seen her. All at once I felt like I had been invited to a family reunion without notice or an invitation to stick on the refrigerator door.

“Yes, I remember you. I remember you used to be that little brat that followed me and my brothers around during family reunions and social gatherings. You know, down at the lake before grandma and grandpa passed away,” I said.