Stairway to the Bottom - a Mick Murphy Key West Mystery (29 page)

I sat on the settee. “You’re ready for a long sail.”

Tita smiled and sat next to me. “Maybe we’ll do that next Thanksgiving.”

“That’s something to look forward to.”

“That gives me a year to forget everything you’ve taught me about sailing.”

“It’s like sex, once you get it right, you never forget.”

“And how do you know that!” She pouted and then smiled. “I’m sorry, I wasn’t supposed to make you laugh.”

“I’ll forgive you if you’ll get me a bottle of water.”

She got the water and sat down while I swallowed two pills.

“For pain?” she asked.

I nodded.

“It’s serious, isn’t it?”

“No,” I said. “This will heal up and I’ll be back to normal before you leave.”

“Not the cut,” she said. “Whatever’s happening. It’s serious.”

“More so than I first thought.” I sat back, trying to get comfortable, but the pills hadn’t begun to work. “You know Walsh…”

“Doyle Mulligan,” she said. “That’s his real name.”

“Yeah. You know about him and I listened to him spew crap for hours, so I know a side of him too. I don’t like him. But these other guys, these
old spies
as Norm calls ‘em, they’re a joke. They’re chasing Mulligan thinking he’s an old Cold War agent that got away with millions in diamonds.”

“That’s what this is all about, diamonds?”

“Yeah and before the Russians got involved it was funny. In a stupid way, but it was. Even your friend Chris and her buddies. They’re using names of dead Red Sox players from the ‘50s. For God’s sake, do they think that’s a cover identity? How am I to take them seriously?”

“But the Russians, they’re serious?”

“Alexei, the boss, is old KGB. Now he’s a big shot in the Russian mob and wants the diamonds,” I said. “I’ve told them all they’re wrong, but they won’t listen. They want to talk to Walsh themselves.”

“Tell them where he is, he doesn’t deserve protection.”

“I have no idea where he is,” I said. “And I don’t want to, but if I did, I’d tell anyone who asked.”

“And no one believes you.”

“Norm and Richard, maybe.”

“Can I do anything?”

I kept quiet. I’ve dealt with her Puerto Rican temper and stubborn streak before. Her analytical mind had a hard time accepting my lifestyle, as she had recently explained to me in detail. I didn’t want to add more examples to her accusations.

“Is your silence a yes or no?” She didn’t miss much.

“Everyone thinks you should go, for your own safety,” I said and kept locked onto her eyes.

“Including you?” She didn’t blink.

“You’re leaving anyway.” Some of the hurt I’d felt because of her leaving for Boston tainted my tone.

She looked surprised. Maybe hurt but she recovered. “I could fly out tomorrow. I was only staying because of you.” Her words were sharp and cut deeper than the knife, surprising me.

I wondered what else she hid in her offer to leave.

“I know. But there’s not much I can do now.” I touched my T-shirt above the stitches. “I’m laid up here for a couple of days.”

“I would’ve made a good nurse.” She smiled. “Sponge baths.”

“Sounds interesting, promising even,” I said and saw concern in her eyes.

“Do you need anything?”

“A meal and a shower,” I said. “A bandage and maybe some sleep.”

My cell phone chirped and the caller said our food delivery was here. One of Pauly’s men passed it to Tita on deck and walked away. She put the steak and potatoes on plates and we sat at the small galley table and ate.

“Will you stay at my house?” Tita took small bites of her meal. “You know, to keep an eye on it after all this is over.”

“It’s going to remind of you.”

“You’re supposed to miss me,” she said without a hint of a smile.

“I already am,” I said. “You go to Boston tomorrow and I’ll stay at the house and I promise to come for Thanksgiving.”

“Couldn’t we go to New Orleans for the week instead?” She stopped eating and stared at me.

“Where’d that come from?” She was full of surprises.

“We’ve talked about going before.” Her eyes pleaded and her smile melted my resolve. “We can stay at the house for two days and let you rest. We could leave on Sunday. Norm said by tomorrow they’ll know if it’s safe.”

“You could go tomorrow, get us a nice hotel and I’d meet you on Sunday.”

She laughed. “And that would be like your staying in Boston after college,” she said. “You didn’t. You left and I won’t let you leave me again.”

I tried to hold back a laugh, but couldn’t and my side smarted. “Yeah, it had nothing to do with your being seventeen.” I didn’t say anything about her leaving me, but I wanted to. I knew better than to bring it up.

“I would’ve turned eighteen.”

“While I was in jail.”

“I would’ve waited for you.” Her smile grew large and her eyes brightened. “I would’ve lied before I let them take you to jail.”

“I’ll make you a deal,” I said. “Norm says it’s okay to stay for two days, we will.”

“And then New Orleans?”

“We’ll run it by Norm.”

“And Chris.”

“Hell, why not Pauly, while we’re asking.”

“Finish your steak before I think about asking my mother too.”

We ate quietly and I could feel the pain pill’s effects. My side stopped throbbing and I became lightheaded. The portholes showed shadowy light from outside, along the dock now that it was evening, and the
Fenian Bastard
rested still in her slip. It was getting late. Tita cleaned the dishes as I stretched out on the settee. She put classical music CDs in the player and tidied up the cabin. No matter how neat I thought it was, she found something that needed to be cleaned or moved or stowed. The music filled the boat and I felt myself drift toward sleep.

Tita sat opposite me in the captain’s chair and read. “Go to sleep. I’m going to read and then take a shower.”

“And my sponge bath,” I babbled, slurring the words as my eyes closed.

I awoke, startled, when I felt something hard hit against the hull of my boat and then almost instantly an explosion in the bow cabin followed. I sat up and thought I’d had a nightmare I couldn’t remember. I smelled smoke and could see the shattered forward cabin door. It wasn’t a dream.

Something hit the stern, shaking the whole boat, and then an explosion lit up the aft cabin and galley, knocking me off the settee. I had a loud ringing in my ears. The two explosions came so close together I didn’t have time to call out to Tita. I could feel the lines of the boat moaning, screeching, as they stretched tight against the dock, pulling at the cleats as the boat banked onto its side. I smelled something burning. I saw fingers of flames dancing along the broken aft cabin door.

Unsecured items fell from place in slow motion. Water covered my legs and kept getting higher as an unseen energy dragged me across the floor. Objects tore into me. Water continued pouring into the cabin and I couldn’t clear my head. My back hit the chart table and I stopped. I tried to call Tita’s name but the words wouldn’t come. The water continued to get deeper. I felt the
Fenian Bastard
list further onto her side. I couldn’t stand, even though I tried and each attempt sent spasms of pain though me. The water turned a bloody color as it rose to my chest. The lights flickered and then went out. The darkness was broken only where pieces of defused light twinkled through the upended portholes. I felt the dock lines give way and knew when the mast hit the water the boat would right itself. Water rose rapidly. I tried to call Tita again but bloodstained water filled my mouth as it rushed from the direction of the bow cabin. The torn top of Tita’s bikini floated past and I saw it as the water engulfed me and then everything faded to black.

Chapter 65

I
became aware of floating outside the boat. It didn’t scare me or make me wonder how I got there. I knew I was somewhere between sleep and death, in a dream world. That place you drift off to when you lie down and then suddenly you’re startled awake, forgetting the dream. You know you’ve slept but can’t remember falling asleep. It might’ve been an hour’s nap or eight-hours, but that moment from being aware of your surroundings to falling asleep comes quietly, usually unnoticed. That place most of us slip into nightly, practicing for the final sleep.

What I experienced I assumed to be the final sleep. I floated into the darkness. It didn’t matter how I died, for when death takes hold all is forgotten. Maybe at first you pass through limbo or the netherworld. Its blackness is impossible to describe other than to say it’s black upon black upon black and with it comes serenity.

Far away, a pinpoint of light shined. Even though it was small, the light had a strong pull, a promise of clarity, of lasting peace. The blackness blanketed me and I couldn’t feel my body. I knew in the opposite direction the world of sleep and dreams existed, but the light charmed me. I was weightless and at peace, and time didn’t exist. The past had no effect on me, even though it was only moments old.

The image of a hospital room flashed for an instant before me and then it was gone. Everything, the past and the present, I knew in my mind without seeing. Peace returned. Another flash shattered that peace, Norm standing by the hospital bed. Then blackness and peace returned. Padre Thomas’ image flashed, sitting next to the hospital bed, rosary beads in his hands, his fingers moving slowly from one bead to the next as he prayed.

The blackness began to fade. I wanted what it promised. I heard voices. I felt pain.

The pinpoint of light grew smaller and then it was gone. I felt a loss. Tita’s voice came from far away, soft and gentle. “Not now,” she whispered.

My eyes sprang open, I heard commotion, voices yelling, hands probing, and something hurt as it came out of my mouth, a breathing tube, and I gasped for breath. Hastily called instructions. More probing hands. Nurses. Doctors.

Norm and Padre Thomas stood above me, smiling but concerned. Tears welled up in my eyes and flowed down my cheeks. I tried to speak but my throat hurt and nothing came out. How long had I been there?

“Welcome back, hoss,” Norm drawled and broke into a grin. “Thought you’d gone away.”

I wanted to tell them where I’d been, how I’d heard Tita but I drifted off. Not the blackness this time, but the old world. A world of pain and suffering; of death and survival; a world of love and hate; struggle and disappointment. Life as I knew it.

I woke briefly twice again and saw a nurse poking at the machine above me and writing in my chart, and then I went back to the dream state. It wasn’t peaceful and I felt pain.

No one stood next to my bed when I woke. I knew I was awake because my eyes stayed open, there were no flashes, and I didn’t return to the dream world. An IV stand held two bags of medicine that fed into my arm. A monitor recorded my heart rate and blood pressure. No alarms went off when I moved on the bed. Beep, beep, beep. I guessed that was a good sound.

It took a few minutes for me to focus. I heard people talking as they walked by in the hallway. Had it all been a dream? The black upon black and the tiny white light? My flashes?

A hospital gown fit loosely over me. Bandages covered my arms and a sheet covered my legs and chest. I felt my face and the IV connection pulled and it stung. I still had a beard and a bandage on my forehead. I lifted the sheet and there were more bandages.

“Well, look who’s joined us.” A nurse stood in the doorway. She checked the monitor above me and smiled. “You have a couple of very tired friends outside.” She wrote something on the chart at the end of my bed. “Do you feel like company while I get the doctor?”

I nodded. I wasn’t sure I could talk. The nurse left the room and Norm and Padre Thomas stood there. I waved for them to come in.

“You gonna stay with us?” Norm stood by the IV stand.

“Yes,” I whispered because I feared I’d lost control of my voice.

“How do you feel?” Padre Thomas stood on the opposite side of the bed.

I spoke a little louder, testing my voice. “Is that a hospital question?”

We laughed quietly.

“I think so,” Padre Thomas said.

“Do you remember what happened?” Norm touched the bedrail that kept me from falling to the floor.

I looked at him and saw no expression. “No.” But that wasn’t the truth. The peace and serenity of moments earlier had begun to give way to the hardness and brutality of this word. “Yes,” I said.

The room was quiet and I heard the corridor noise and beep, beep, beep of the monitor above me.

“We’ll talk about it later,” Norm said. “Now you need to rest.”

“Now I need to know,” I said using my whole voice.

The stillness returned to the room. I wanted to know and Norm hesitated. A woman doctor stood in the doorway.

“Gentlemen, will you wait outside, please,” she said and picked my file off its place at the end of my bed. “It shouldn’t take long.”

“We’ll be right outside,” Norm said.

“I need to know it all,” I said as they left the room.

Chapter 66

D
octor Arianna Carpino stood about five-ten, with shoulder-length dark brown hair, hazel eyes and the air of a no-nonsense individual. Her smile made her nose wrinkle and it gave her face a youthful look.

“Do you know who I am?” She read my chart.

“No.”

She made the bed rise up until I was in a sitting position.

“Comfortable?”

“Uncomfortable,” I said. “But not in a bad way. You can leave it.”

She wrote in the chart. “You’re a special case.” She put the chart back. “I’m a Navy doctor.”

Key West is a Navy town, so I didn’t know what she expected me to say. I noticed that she wrote in my chart but didn’t check any of my vitals.

“Not impressed?”

“Impress me with how good you are.”

“I am good,” she said. “So good they flew me in from D.C.”

“Who?”

“If I tell you I’ve gotta kill you.” She smiled, her nose wrinkled and her eyes brightened. “And I can’t do that since
they
flew me here to save you.”

“It seems you’ve done your job.”