Straits of Fortune - Anthony Gagliano [12]
“Matson had friends, and I have reason to believe that the house is being watched. Williams is almost psychic when it comes to things like that. He refuses to leave my side.”
“If that’s true,” I said, “then Matson’s friends must also realize that something’s wrong on that boat. It’s been there long enough. Why haven’t they gone out there to investigate?”
“It may be that they already have, possibly at night. If that’s so, they’re probably waiting for my next move, see whether I’ll call the police. They may be expecting me to send Williams out to take care of things, in which case I’d be here alone.”
“I’ll tell you what,” I said. “I’ll stay here with you while big bad Williams goes out and does the dirty work. How’s that sound?”
“You’re good, Jack, but you’re not Williams.”
“Funny, but for some reason I take that as a compliment.”
“Are you afraid?”
“Not yet.”
“Williams stays here. As I said, if Williams were to be caught, it would lead back to me. That’s not something I can afford at this stage of my life.”
“And if I get caught? They’ll think I killed him.”
“Your alibi is that I called you here to ask if you knew where my daughter was. I told you I thought she was on the boat. You went out there and found the body and decided to sink the boat and spare an old man the trouble of bringing the police into it. They’ll dig the bullets out, but they won’t match with any gun you own. We won’t mention the film, of course. That would give you too much of a motive.”
“So who killed him, then? That’s the kind of question the police tend to ask.”
“A man in Matson’s business makes plenty of enemies. The Russian mob has moved into the smut business in a big way. Matson ran afoul of them. I know a lot of judges, and I’ll get you a good Jewish lawyer. You have no record, and you used to be a cop. On top of that, I’ll double your fee.”
“How do you know I can even drive a boat like that?” I asked.
The Colonel smiled. “Let’s not be obtuse, all right? You know damned well I had you checked out long before you showed up here. You used to work for Captain Tony, right? Taught you everything he knew about repossessing boats. You have a captain’s license—expired, but I’ll overlook that, considering the circumstances. You and he even got shot at a few times. Once, down in Veracruz, you even got locked up for a few days. It seems the Mexicans thought you two were thieves.”
“Coming from them, that was pretty hard to take.”
He was talking about the time Captain Tony and I had been asked to return a thirty-foot sailboat that belonged to a stockbroker whose numbers had gone bad. The broker had sailed down to Acapulco to get away from it all, but he hadn’t gone far enough. Now he was in a prison up in central Florida, doing time for insider trading. After the FBI caught up with him, the Mexicans wanted to keep his boat. The bank had disagreed with that and called in Captain Tony. It was good money, but we had almost gotten killed.
“I understand you have a kayak,” the Colonel said.
“That’s right. So?”
“You’ll need it to get back once the boat sinks.”
“I’d have to take that boat out at least five or six miles, into the Gulf Stream. That’s a long way out.”
“You’re making excuses, Jack. We’re wasting time on all this. Are you going to do it or not?”
“The thought of jail fails to intrigue me, Andrew.”
“I don’t see why. You’d be able to lift weights all day long. Now, look: We can bullshit here all day, Jack. Yes or no?”
I looked across the table at him and shook my head. I stood up. The Colonel seemed crestfallen, deserted, as though his best hope had left him. All I wanted to do was get out of there, away from all of them, but the look on the Colonel’s face ate into my resolve.
“You don’t expect me to believe the blackmail story, do you?” I asked. “And don’t give me that crap about your friends getting the video. First of all, you don’t have any friends, and second of all, if you did, you wouldn’t give a rat’s ass what they thought. Besides that, nobody who knows Vivian