Chapter 6

Monday morning I woke up and did my usual morning run, but already I was getting nervous trying not to overtly watch for my watchers. Now that I was a 'person of interest', I had the pretty distinct idea that most of my usual sources for official information were not going to be too happy to be hearing from me, at least anytime soon. Heck, these were probably the exact same group of assclowns that had set me up, pushing me slowly into the position of being their willing private executioner. But I gave it a try anyway.

I called Detective Dick Smith first, just on principle since he was higher up in the food chain, but his tone during our scant ten second conversation was positively arctic, and he couldn't wait to get me off of the phone.

Calling next my usual main source for information, my friendly midnight photocopier Sergeant Frank Gordon, didn't reveal much more information and his mood towards me wasn't much of an improvement. I got the definite impression that he didn't quite know what was going on at the moment but that he was more than quite certain that somehow it was my entire fault. I didn't bother to confirm his worst fears.

"Look," I told him, "I don't have a clue what is going on! Sure I showed a strong interest in the Masher case, but so have a lot of people up to and including hardcore investigators from America's Most Wanted and Crime TV. I had some car trouble getting home Friday night in the big storm and now some folks have me measured up for a murder rap, but I don't even know who it was that I'm alleged to have killed? Since Captain Baker showed up, I assume this means something to do with the Masher Task Force! Did someone finally get the bastard?"

"It does or it did. Our number one suspect, you-know-who, has gone missing ... with some very significant friends, who have even more important friends. There was supposedly a witness at the scene but she died yesterday in the hospital, and now everyone around here is going nuts ... and your name has been whispered."

"A witness? What happened?"

"Don't know – don't care. The Task Force is now suddenly very officially closed and the case files are being stamped 'Unsolved', to be sent off to permanent storage. I'm working bunko squad now as of this morning and damned lucky not to be sent off to traffic detail. I really don't have anything further to say to you, and this cell phone number is about to become lost, probably off of the next pier that I see. If I were you, Ree, I'd start finding a big rock to hide under, but I didn't suggest that because we never spoke ... I've never spoken with you. Goodbye."

Dead witness ... that had to mean Belinda had been silenced as a loose end in the hospital, but had she spoken of what she had seen and heard that night? I really didn't have any way now of finding out.

That morning I tried a few more personal cell numbers for every Monroe County sheriff's deputy, or police officer or constable in the entire Keys that I had a private phone number for in my business address book and I ended up batting exactly zero. Most were polite but a few of the apparently more politically connected ones hung up the moment I introduced myself.

The worst part was the waiting and worrying, knowing that there was nothing I could do. Captain Baker had pissed away three years of investigation against Wally-boy, obstructing and misdirecting the investigation at every step. Sergeant Gordon had told me this much over a year ago. Now, like a hound off of its leash, he was already baying for my blood, but damned if he had any evidence to prove it. Now I had to worry about shit like planted evidence, with my Glock being used to shoot a few more extra holes into the cabin to be 'found' conveniently later for evidence. I was just hoping that other crime scene units had already been there and collected enough documentation to cast serious doubt on any suddenly new found evidence.

With the situation already bad and looking to get worse, I decided that it was time to make a bank run about noon-time, so that I could better hide in the lunch rush traffic. My bank was right on the main drag, about three blocks away, but I took a circuitous route via Mrs. Elliot's back yard to take a few side streets to get there, just in case I still had a tail. I didn't spot one and I've got sharp eyes, but I was sort of new at being the one hiding from investigators.

I deposited the six thousand dollars I'd reported to Captain Baker in my normal checking account; just enough to make my account nicely flush again but not enough to warrant a written federal notification of deposits of ten thousand dollars or more. This was from the collection of pocket money from the gunsels, Wally-boy, Steve and Chesty's wallets. If questioned about it I'd repeat my claim that this was a cash payment from my Miami hotel case client. Heck, I had the carbon copy of a fake receipt for the money and I'd even written it into my account ledgers and if I lived long enough I'd even pay taxes on it. This was enough to cover the checks I wrote for my back owed rent and my preposterous AmEx credit card bill. I might be framed at any moment by the agents of the Watters crime organization but at least my debts would be paid.

I still had no other ideas about what to do with the gym bag money, which when counted up hastily looked to a bit over six hundred thousand. Way too much to legally deposit and really much too bulky to run around with in a bag. For lack of any better ideas, I went to a pay phone and called up DeeDee.

"Dee, my good man, hey this is Ree. Remember me? Haha!"

"How could I ever forget!" He laughed over the phone. "How did your rendezvous with your old friend go? I could take a break for a few minutes to hear the erotic details." This was a hint that his end of the line was fairly safe and that I could carefully talk if I wanted to, but ... it would be better to have this talk in person. No phone conversation is ever 100% safe.

"Better and worse than I expected. We had our bit of nasty fun but he's out of my little black book, for good. Some of his buds are pissed at me now for interfering with their plans for the weekend banging some other beach bunny airheads, especially since I didn't feel in the mood to be shared by the three of them. Can you take a break from chasing beach girls young enough to be your granddaughter? Say lunch in about an hour? I'm buying." He quickly agreed.

I told him I might be late as my car was giving me problems and I'd need to take a cab. I was pretty sure someone had a GPS hidden in my car by now and didn't want to tip off anyone about what I was up to. He'd given me the address of the same café that I'd first met him at last week, and even with some slight delay in obtaining the services of my stoner cabbie friend, I was just there on time to see DeeDee request a second refill for his iced tea. I'd stopped at home real fast to change clothes into something more business casual and grabbed my moneybag just on principle. I needed to find a more secure place to stash this away fast, and I was sure my bent locksmith friend might have an idea or two.

"How bad?" He asked, reading the stress lines on my face and the dark circles under my eyes from the lack of any real sleep since last Friday morning.

"Bad, possibly worse. The biggest problem is that I can't quite tell yet how ugly it's going to get. The bad guys are still deciding how they want to react. The scumbag I told you about had two buddies with him when things got nasty. One of the other guys was just a punk that the world won't miss too much, but the other was the one and only grandson of Boss Watters. Get the idea?"

"Ree, when you fuck up, you do it with style! You popped Chesty?" I nodded, and he continued.

"I've heard of Chester before, Chesty they called him. Smart, good looking skinny prick who was being groomed to replace the old fart when he finally kicks off, even giving the orders now to his own dad, who doesn't have much they say for either brawn or brains. I heard a rumor that Chester was the point man for most of the drug and gun running now, and if so, his loss puts a big fuckup into their operations that someone will try to quickly exploit. Boss Watters doesn't give his lieutenants all that much authority and now someone's got to take over the kid's reins and that'll take time to get the operation flowing smoothly again. There have been rumors that the old man's health wasn't good and the grandson was about to take over everything soon. He's going to be hot, pissed off beyond all words."

"Yeah, I'd heard something like that. Full court press, I assume?"

"At least. The old bastard owns the local cops and most of the state police as well, and when he says jump, they'll all ask 'how high?' I assume you covered your tracks?"

"Mostly, but there was one little fuckup. Already I'm a person of interest, but they can't pin me to the scene ... and they'll never find the bodies. That's going to make it tough to make any kind of legal public case against me, so they probably won't bother with that. My guess is that I'll be framed for something else, and soon, or else I'll have some 'accident'. I wouldn't mind becoming someone else for awhile ... if you know what I mean."

"Ah, an introduction then to one of my other old retired friends, who used to wallow in rather low places? Also I assume you'd like me and a few of my old beachcombing buddies to keep our eyes and ears out to listen for approaching of angry marching feet?"

"If you please, kind Sir!" We gobbled a quick snack and we were off.

His friend, an elderly bespectacled forger who bore a startlingly strong resemblance to old Geppetto in the Disney version of Pinocchio, was quick with his hands and more than a little skilled. In less than two hours I had a new Florida driver's license that he assured me by tomorrow would be active and legal inside the state license computer system. Same for the new passport, which looked perfect and even had a properly encoded RFID security strip. Getting this code into the federal passport computers would take at least a week, he warned, but when done the passport would be perfect and safe for me to use anywhere. For backup ID, I now had a VISA card that was quite valid, but unfortunately was currently rather limited in credit. It was a collateralized card, and I would need to make some sort of online or mail payment to bring the available balance up before I could use it much, but it was a valid card I could use immediately in an emergency.

Overall I was more than impressed. I'd seen fake ID's all the time at my last employer, and while they had done quite serviceable work there, this stuff was on another level of quality and just oozed legal sincerity, and I was pretty sure that I'd soon get the chance to test it all out.

I never got his name, other than just 'Richie', and it was probably just as well. It was maybe the best $20,000 I'd ever spent. If I needed to use this new identity long-term, or get another one later for that purpose, he advised me that I'd need a complete false background as well, such as a fake diploma with high school attendance records that could withstand verification. That would be extra and take time (and much more money), but he assured me it could be done right, and even superior to federal witness protection relocation standards. I thought about this for a minute and gave him the down payment of another twenty-five grand to start the wheels rolling. Like anything done right, this would take time anyway so I might as start the wheels rolling.

When asked if he also knew a somewhat less than above board banker that could be trusted to be quiet about illegally large cash deposits, DeeDee just laughed and pointed me in the direction of his car. The Savings & Loan we went to looked long established and nicely legit on the outside, but DeeDee assured me that the branch manager here probably handled more secret banking after business hours than he did during the day. How he could keep his sets of books straight, I'd never be able to figure but they'd always survived federal bank inspection for over twenty years. Rumor was that this bank still funneled CIA money for ongoing operations in Cuba and was 'hands-off' to normal banking inspectors.

"I have my own money here." DeeDee said with a shrug as we entered and that comment more than anything calmed down my overtaxed nerves. I'd lived part of my life almost entirely outside the law and I found the community of folks who lived on the very razor edge of it to be highly entertaining. I was pretty sure that my criminal education was just beginning.

The S&N manager, an oily Cuban by the name of Ramon Martinez, a rather abundantly common name in these parts, didn't blink in the slightest when my moneybag plopped on top of his desk in his private office and in less than an hour I had exactly $200,000 on deposit here, under my new identity with a valid debit card for accessing the account. Another $350,000 was then deposited off-shore at 1st Grand Cayman bank leaving a much more manageable $56,000 or so squashed into my oversized purse for daily use. It really all couldn't have gone any smoother!

This wasn't a fortune in petty cash really, but it was enough to give me some assets to fight back and hopefully have a chance to win!

For dessert, or rather spoils for another day, I asked DeeDee to hunt me down a slightly kinder and gentler illegal gun dealer, if such a creature existed in the wild. No one with Watters associations or even gang ties to them preferably, but maybe some part-timer working the 'B' circuit, like one of his old buddies now in retirement hustling for some bingo money. Naturally, DeeDee knew of just that sort of fellow. I gave him a broad shopping list of things that would 'do', but really I wasn't too fussy. I just needed some suitable plastic coated steel for my fingers to hold for when things got too suddenly interesting. I'd probably never get my beloved Glock 32 back again, or even my SIG .45, so I needed to plan for alternatives.

I took the bus from Miami back down to the Keys for my late afternoon return home. It was just as horrible a trip as I'd claimed in my alibi statement to the crooked Captain Baker. The bus was impossibly crowded and the driver didn't even glance in my direction as I boarded. It was good to know that some things never changed and I wouldn't have to worry about that little part of my alibi statement.

I'd be late for my normal run time but I didn't want to be 'predictable' any longer. My mental shopping list for military arms and other goodies was growing and now getting impossibly long. I wanted to prepare for a real shooting war and every way I totaled up the odds the Watters bastards seemed likely to have more and bigger guns.

There had to be another way to fight back and win!

With my nerves now even more of a wreck, I took a longer than usual late evening run around the Key to work some of the stress out of my system. After my afternoon trip I'd found that my hidden tape pieces on the front and back doors were untouched and my watchers were still gone, for now. That was the worst part of my run, expecting to see police and mob gunsels following me everywhere, stalking me. Now that I'd had time to think about things some more I wasn't sure that any more solitary runs anywhere or at any time were a good idea any more. Someone was going to quickly come up with the bright idea that a simple accident on the beach would solve nearly everyone's problems, probably including all of mine too, but I wasn't going to give them the satisfaction.

The phone had been silent ever since my return home early Sunday morning, but now late this Monday evening the phone rang and oddly it wasn't a charity or someone wanting me to do a marketing survey.

"Irene? You might know the voice but say nothing. Can you meet me at the usual Place in about two hours? I think you'll know me when you get there." Click. The phone line was pretty shitty but I had a clue or two about the voice, and the meeting point, The Place, was friendly turf for me. Even if this was just another bad fuckup I'd have friends there to back me up, or at least a few casual acquaintances. It was probably the single safest place left in the Keys for me!

With what had happened in the last day or two, I normally couldn't have be forced out of the house to meet a stranger in the dark, even by force kicking and screaming, but I was pretty certain that I needed to make this trip, and maybe it might end up being more than worthwhile. Besides, at this point I needed all of the friends I could get!

I really won't get into too much detail about The Place and what a seriously cool place it is in Key West to hang out at. The core crowd is a perverse assortment of transplanted Yankees who all came down in force some years ago, and a weirder than usually conglomeration of pot heads, beach bums and seriously peculiar Conch-landers. It's not a tourist bar to get wildly drunk at so that you've got an excuse to show off your tits, although that's far from uncommon there, but instead everyone tries to be serious cool, nerdy and even worse, witty. I don't do either of those three things well, but it's honestly way more fun than showing off your tits on Duval Street with the rest of the drunk tourists.

On the other hand, the place is a psychic magnet for anything serious weird and it calls to the badly emotionally damaged, such as people like me. Apparently my fucked up life shines like a beacon in that place and I seem to amuse them somehow, but so far I hadn't confessed to jack shit. Tori, until her murder was my old confessor, and she was the person who first introduced me to The Place, but someday I'm going to have to find someone else I can trust, or none of my older or newer sins can ever been forgiven or somehow redeemed.

A trip to The Place is nevertheless the best thing short of a psychiatrist's office, and a much better place to get a cold beer, frozen margarita or the world's best Irish coffee. They also like their privacy too and don't advertise. I've said more than enough about The Place.

I drove my own car down to Key West and as far as I could tell I didn't have any watchers. I didn't think it would be too suspicious for my trackers to note my travelling down there, but I thought that taking a taxi back and forth would be even more suspicious. I couldn't keep pretending that I was staying at home all the time. I parked just off of Duval and then walked the rest of the way to the bar. Even if I was seen going into The Place, which was several blocks away, no one would really think twice. Everyone has their favorite watering hole, and The Place was mine.

My mystery caller was already there in a nice quiet corner near the fireplace that down here in the sweltering Keys was only used to shatter glasses into when making a toast. I recognized him at once and walked over to greet him quietly. He pulled out a chair for me and asked me what I wanted to drink.

"A Corona with lime for now, Chief, but after our conversation I'll probably need a bit of the stronger stuff." He nodded, not at all a good sign. The Chief could drink with the best of them, usually pretty awful blended scotch, but at the moment he was nursing a Red Stripe.

"Ok, how bad did I fuck up?" I asked. The Chief, the highly respected and anointed Chief of Police for Life of Key West and the Conch Republic just grimaced and gave me a weak half-smile. He was an acquaintance but not really a friend and I'd never once bothered him about my private vendetta against the Monroe Masher.

The Chief looked to be as old as the hills with weather toughed skin and a walrus mustache long turned to silver, but his eyes were black and sharp. The Chief had been a young patrolman here in the Key West when Papa Hemingway was still shark fishing with a Thompson machinegun, and he had ears and eyes everywhere and knew almost everyone in the Keys, including Tori and Phil. His look was sad but not unfriendly.

"Could be worse I suppose, but I don't think it's going to get any better for you anytime soon. Let me start by telling you a story, all mostly just rumor, innuendo and hearsay and without a lick of any solid evidence behind it. Tonight about twenty different people could tell this story and by the end of tomorrow at least two hundred people could guess most of the details, and so on. It all starts with a nasty little rich-fuck who moonlighted for a couple years as the infamous Monroe Masher." He paused while our drinks came, and I gave him a gentle nod to verify that he'd gotten at least the start of the story right.

"Then one shitty night, this fucktard plays too rough with his latest out-of-state beach babe and she ends up dead on one of our beaches, here in the Keys, except that this time she's not a tourist but a local, a girl that a lot of us knew well. A girl who had friends, including an old military friend that fixed anchor here to stay. Now this friend asked a whole lot of questions for about three straight years to nearly everyone in law enforcement, most of which still couldn't give the slightest shit about the Mashers because the perp had money and family, and a buddy with a nasty enough grandpa that even the Governor himself would think twice about crossing him or his."

Batting a thousand so far. I gave another quick nod and drank about half of my cold Corona in one long gulp. The odds were slim to none that the Chief of Police was wearing a wire and recording me. He was a real straight-shooter and didn't play those sort of games, but I wasn't going to verbal confirm or admit to a thing. The Chief finished his beer and started on his glass of Johnnie Walker Red Label.

"Now it took a few years, cultivating friends on the Masher Task force that would speak freely with that person, passing even the odd photocopied file or tiny legitimate nugget of real evidence, but it was clear that the official investigation was going absolutely nowhere ... and never would, but it's not my place to confer blame onto the Captains or other Assistant Chiefs, Directors and Superintendents involved. But recently our mysterious avenger learned some previously hidden little morsel of information that led he, she or it to discover our killer, or killers', private hidden playground. Off in a private very secluded place where the accidental risk of discovery was virtually nonexistent. A major discovery ... you'd think that the investigators would all be pleased."

"Hardly." I laughed with a great deal of sarcasm in my voice and drank the rest of my first Corona. "Way too much paperwork. Names on reports and other impolite things. Very bad for promotions, or a long healthy life expectancy, let alone a quiet retirement." By the time the empty beer bottle hit the table a fresh cold one was there waiting for me. I needed it too.