I said, “When you make what a marine biologist makes, there’s no reason to keep tabs on world gold prices.”
King grinned. “See there? A real smart dude.”
I was still on one knee, my knife hanging by a strap, and now I was calculating the distance to Perry’s legs. If I could get in under the rifle, all I had to worry about was King, with his pistol . . . or the possibility that Perry would ignore me and shoot Arlis.
My eyes must have given me away. Both men took a step back, their feral instincts on full alert.
King said, “No reason for you to care about what an ounce of gold is worth, huh? You just came out here to check on the fish and got lucky? Perry, would you listen to this guy? He’s such a shitty liar, how long you figure he’d last in the joint?”
Perry said to me, “Meat, if you keep lying to us, I’ll put a bullet in your head. Tell us what you found down there.”
I looked at Arlis again. I could see that blood was soaking into his shirt. He stared at the ground as if embarrassed. I was afraid he was going to pass out.
King said, “Know what I think? These dudes have found themselves some kind of sunken treasure. They don’t give a damn about their two butt buddies. That’s all show. They’re more worried about protecting what they found. Otherwise, Professor Jock-o wouldn’t be blowing smoke, promising us the truck keys, if we let him go back in the water.”
I said, “Do you want the keys or not? I need extra tanks, I need to rig a piece of equipment and get down there.” I caught my own left wrist before raising it to check my watch.
King acted as if he didn’t hear me. He was stalling. He said, “Maybe it wasn’t an accident, Jock-o, your two little girlfriends getting trapped. Split the take two ways instead of four ways, just you and Grandpa. Or maybe knock Grandpa in the head and leave him in the lake, too. That would make the math a whole lot better.”
Arlis turned to give me a nasty look as if he’d already considered the possibility. He was hanging in there, playing his role.
Perry was bouncing the coin in his hand, looking at King, his expression saying How many more do you think’s down there?
King was smiling now. “By coincidence, me and Perry have us a situation. The sort of situation where a bag full of gold coins could buy us a change of scenery and a whole bunch of good luck. But guess what, Jock-o?”
I waited.
“Perry and me, we’re in no real rush. So I say let’s all four of us stroll over to those trees, sit ourselves in the shade, and maybe you’ll decide to stop lying—in, say, half an hour or so.”
The smile vanished as the man raised the pistol toward me. He took a step closer so he wouldn’t miss, and yelled, “You take that goddamn knife off your leg like I told you. Hear me? Now.”
As I unbuckled the scabbard, I said to Arlis, “I don’t have a choice—you heard the man. They’ll kill us. I’ve got to tell them the truth.”
Arlis looked sick and shaken—which he was—but the expression of disgust he gave me was pure Hollywood. He turned away as if he wanted no part of it.
I said to King, “Okay, here it is. There’s a plane down there. That’s why our truck’s loaded with extra gear for salvage work.”
King said, “A plane,” watching me closely. “What would a plane carrying Cuban coins be doing in the middle of Florida?”
I said, “It happened. Just listen—okay? In nineteen fifty-eight, a cargo plane from Havana, on its way to Tampa, crashed. It was a stormy night, the plane was slightly off course and no one ever found it. It was on its way to Tampa because this guy—he was the Cuban dictator before Castro—had robbed the treasury and was on the run. It’s in the history books, if you don’t believe me.”
Looking at the two men, I could see their expressions. They believed me.
I nodded toward Arlis. “A couple of weeks ago, Captain Futch found the wreckage by luck. It’s on the bottom of the lake—we’re the first to find it—and the thing’s untouched. We don’t know for sure how much the plane was carrying in coins and gold bars, but figure it out for yourself. This guy robbed the national treasury of an entire nation.”
When Perry said, “But Cuba’s an island, right, not a nation,” King told him, “Shut up and listen,” giving me his full attention.
I said, “I was down there. I saw what the plane was carrying—some of it, anyway. But the wreckage is lodged under a big limestone ledge and it collapsed after my friends and I finally managed to pry open the cargo door. That’s how my friends got trapped. They’re down there now. With the gold.”
Perry’s breathing had changed.
Softly, King asked, “How much in all, you think?”
Arlis said, “Don’t tell them any more. Shut your damn mouth! I’d rather die right here than let this spawn in on the deal!”
Perry snapped, “Shut up, Gramps, or you just might get your wish. Let the man talk.” He focused on me. “A guy like you would’a done a lot of research and stuff. What’s it say in the books you read? How much did the Cuban dude steal?”
I pretended to ignore Arlis and looked toward the trees. “He and his men loaded four cargo planes in Havana, but only one crashed. It’s impossible to say how much the plane was carrying because no one knows for sure. They didn’t keep a list.”
“You know what I’m asking you,” Perry said. “Answer the goddamn question. How much gold’s down there?”
I let the men watch me think about it before I nodded toward the truck. “There’s too much to carry it all in the bed of one pickup—that’s how much. It would take three or four loads.”
King said, “You’re shitting me. That can’t be true,” but the tone of his voice said he wanted to believe it.
I shrugged, my expression telling him Believe what you want, before saying, “I’d guess there’s at least half a ton in bars alone—they’re stacked in what were probably wooden cases. I didn’t see them all, but there’s got to be more.”
“You saw the stuff?”
“The wood’s rotted away. The coins are scattered all over the bottom, but the bars—the stacks I saw, anyway—mostly settled in one place. It looked like the bars were stacked two high, probably eight to a box, and I saw at least eight boxes of the things. What used to be boxes, anyway. So that’s at least forty-eight bars, but there’s bound to be more. And there’s definitely a lot more coins.”
Perry said to King, “How much is a bar of gold worth?”
King was blinking his eyes, possibly staggered by the fortune I had just described. He said to me, “Why didn’t you bring up a bar instead of just one shitty little coin?”
“I’m not going to stand here and argue with you. I saw what I saw.”
“You’re kinda touchy, aren’t you, Jock-o? What do you figure one of those bars weighs?”
“Standard mint is one kilogram, isn’t it? That’s what I would guess.” Perry said, “How much is that? I hate that European bullshit. In pounds—talk English, goddamn it.”
“A kilogram’s a little over two pounds,” King told him. “Sixteen ounces per pound, thirty-two ounces per bar, plus a little extra—say, forty ounces even, just to keep it simple. And you say there’s at least forty-eight bars?” King was calculating it in his head but still giving me his full attention.
“More probably, but that’s what I saw. You’re the expert. How much does gold sell for by the ounce?”
King was smiling as he looked at Perry. “Those bars would sell for about sixty grand each. Forty-eight bars, that’s . . .” He had to think about it. “That’s three or four million bucks. Plus the coins.”