So they had been in the trees, watching us when we arrived.
I said, “Captain Futch was driving, but he doesn’t own it. It’s my buddy’s truck. He’s got the keys in a waterproof pocket”—I opened a Velcro pocket on my BC to validate the lie—“they’re built into the vests. That’s better than surfacing and finding your truck gone.”
Perry muttered, “Goddamn it!,” as I continued, saying, “Half an hour at the most—any longer, my friends will be dead, anyway.”
As the words left my mouth, I realized it was a stupid thing to tell them, but I kept going, adding, “One of the guys trapped down there is a teenage boy. The other’s the laid-back hippie type—he’s the one who owns the truck. They’re no threat to you. Give me half an hour, you’ll get your keys. It would take you half a day to hike out of here. There’s no cover, nothing but palmetto scrub.”
Because I didn’t get an immediate reaction, I added, “Give me thirty minutes. It’s a no-brainer—for anyone with half a brain, that is.”
That hit a nerve. King took a couple of quick steps toward me, pistol raised, as if imitating Perry, the way he had clubbed Arlis. But then he changed his mind. My knife was still strapped to my calf, and he didn’t want to put himself at risk by getting too close to someone my age, my size, whose hands were free. King was also a coward. No surprise there.
The man was four paces away when he stopped—a safe distance. He motioned with the pistol. “Take off that vest and throw it over here. I want to see what you got in the pockets. Maybe you’re the one with the keys.”
I ripped open the Velcro straps, slipped the harness off and tossed the BC toward his feet.
“Now the knife. Unbuckle it, but don’t take it out of that damn rubber case. Pull that knife, it’ll be the last thing you ever do.”
He was pointing the pistol at me, both hands steadying it like maybe he’d seen tough guys in movies do. He kept his finger on the trigger, not parallel to the barrel like an experienced shooter.
Before King knelt to retrieve my vest, he stuffed the pistol into his back pocket, saying to Perry, “Forget Grandpa. Keep the rifle on Jock-o. If he moves, shoot him in the belly. Hear me?”
Perry positioned himself so he could do it.
I had been so focused on Tomlinson and Will that I’d forgotten about the gold coin I’d found until I saw King grin, drop my BC on the ground and turn to Perry. He was holding the coin so it caught the sunlight. “Goddamn, ace, look what we got here!”
When the rocks started falling, I must have stuffed the coin into a pocket.
Perry leaned close to look, saying, “Another one? How much you figure these things are worth?” Now he was taking a similar coin from his pocket to compare.
I had begun unbuckling the knife scabbard but stopped.
Another one?
It took me a moment to understand. Commercial fishermen are superstitious. For luck—and maybe so he could show Will—Arlis had brought along the coins he’d found earlier. Perry and King had found them in the truck or on Arlis, apparently.
Gold. I could see the greed in their faces.
Suddenly, I knew that I had all the leverage I needed—if I worked it right. Diving to look for Cuban coins was a more attractive gambit than looking for nonexistent truck keys.
What’s the smartest way to play this?
I had to get it right the first time, there was no room for error. Push too hard, Perry and King would sense it—they would have survivor instincts, if they had spent time in prison. Go too slow, Will and Tomlinson would run out of air and die.
I remained on one knee, a nonthreatening posture, and stole another look at my watch.
Fourteen minutes of air remaining, give or take. Sixteen, maybe twenty, counting their emergency bailout bottles.
EIGHT
KING’S EYES WERE MOVING FROM ME TO THE LAKE to the coin in his hand, putting it together, as he exchanged coins with Perry. He said to me, “You came clear out here to the middle of Fumbuck, Florida, to study the fish, huh?”
I said, “That’s right.” The knife was still strapped to my calf, but King no longer seemed interested. The third coin had hooked him, I could see it.
“You gentlemen show up with a truckload of gear just to swim around and look at fish because you’re some kind of scientist, huh?”
“A biologist. It’s what I do.”
King’s expression read Bullshit. “Then where’d this coin come from? It’s just like the two we found in Grandpa’s pockets.”
I shrugged but didn’t give it much.
King said, “You’re a smart guy, Jock-o. What do you figure a coin like this is worth? Couple grand each? Just for the gold, I’m saying.”
I didn’t want to sound too eager. I said, “If the coins are real, maybe. For all I know, they’re fakes.”
“You’re full of shit. They’re real. Feel the weight.” King was holding his palm out like a scale, judging the density of the coin. Perry did the same.
“Feels about the same as the gold eagles, that’s what I think,” Perry said.
Gold eagles? I wondered what that meant.
King was nodding as he held a coin close to his face, lips pursed as he deciphered details. Perry did the same, reading aloud, “Re-pub-lick-A dee-Cuba.”
King corrected him, saying, “Re-pub-lic-uh DAY-Cuba,” showing off, I realized, wanting to impress me for some reason or to prove something maybe. Then he asked, “How many more of these things are down there, Professor Jock-a-mo?”
Back on the teacher thing again.
I said, “Three, that’s all we found. For all I know, they could be brass. Some kids could’ve thrown them in the lake, screwing around. We didn’t expect to find them, they were just there.”
Arlis picked up fast on what I was doing, and managed to say, “What we found is none of your damn business,” giving it just the right touch of guarded indignation. “I own this property and I want you the hell off my land.”
Perry was still studying a coin, obviously impressed, as King looked from me to Arlis, letting his imagination put himself in our shoes. “What I think is, there’s a bunch more of these things down there. That’s closer to the truth, isn’t it?”
I gave Arlis a nasty look, as if he’d said too much.
When King smiled, he had an odd way of tilting his head back, as if focusing through bifocals. He said, “Perry, I think we’re onto something here. But I think Gramps and the professor don’t want to share. Isn’t that right, Jock-o? If you’re smart, though, you’ll play nice and tell me the truth. What’d you dudes find down there on the bottom?”
Arlis and I exchanged looks but remained silent.
Perry spoke. “These coins are from Cuba. What they doing out here in the middle of this shithole?”
King told him, “Miami’s loaded with Cubans. You don’t watch TV?” After several seconds, he added, “It’s the dates that don’t make sense. The coins are dated”—King reached to take Perry’s coin, then compared the two—“one says nineteen twenty, the other nineteen eighteen. That’s too old to be from Miami and too new to be found on what you’d call a ‘sunken galleon.’ Back in those days, they cut the silver and gold from bars, so the coins were sorta square, not round.”
The man paused but wasn’t done with his history lesson.
“Do you know what a twenty-dollar American gold eagle sells for? Mint condition, uncirculated?”
He was showing off again.
“No reason for me to know,” I said.
“You probably don’t even know what an ounce of gold sells for, either. And you being such a smart guy! You must have a hell of a lot of education, but you don’t even know something so simple as the price of an ounce of gold.”