Don Bruns: Too Much Stuff

“To the Keys. That’s all I said.”

She swung her gaze to James.

He shook his head back and forth.

“You’re sure?”

James turned to me. “Well, I might have just mentioned it to the manager at Cap’n Crab. Julie wanted to know why I was taking two weeks off work.”

“You mentioned this specific spot?”

“Oh, maybe I mentioned something,” his voice faded away.

“Someone knows I’m here. My guess is they also know why.”

“This thing happened over seventy-five years ago. I mean who would know? Who would care?”

“Who would care? Let me tell you something. Something I didn’t share with you before.”

A cold chill went down my spine.

“I hired another detective agency to look into this.”

James’s eyes got wider. “So there’s someone else down here?”

“I don’t know.”

“But you just said-”

“I said I hired an agency.”

James frowned. “Did they find this information buried somewhere under the old Coral Belle?”

She hesitated, then spun around and looked at both of us.

“I don’t know. I don’t think so. They came down here, and I hadn’t yet given them all the details that they needed.”

“That means?”

“I hadn’t translated the letter.”

The lady liked to give half the story. You had to pull the rest out of her.

“So what happened to them? Did they find anything or not?”

“Six months ago, they vanished.”

“Vanished?”

“Vanished.”

A very descriptive term. Disappeared. You’d think maybe they got lost in the fog. But vanished. That was the ultimate disappearance. Without a trace.

“No sign of them, no calls?”

“Nothing.”

“What do you think happened?”

She shook her pretty head, the hair moving softly around her face.

“I have no idea. Their phone in Fort Lauderdale has been disconnected, letters have been returned, and their website has been taken down.”

Letters and websites. Old school. “You’ve tried texting, Facebook, Twitter?”

“Nothing.”

That chill went down my spine again.

“That’s why I’m here this time. I don’t want something happening to you guys.”

More like, I’m not sure I can trust anyone .

“So our job is to find the information, or map, or whatever-it is that’s there?”

James jumped in. “We do not follow maps to buried treasure, and X never, ever marks the spot.”

I had to think for a moment. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade . It was a line Harrison Ford throws out to his students.

“Just a movie quote,” I said to her.

The lady looked puzzled. “Well, in this case he may be right. I’m not sure we’ll find a map, and I’m not certain that we’ll find the X , or the exact location of the old hotel.”

She walked to her door, both of us following like puppy dogs.

“There’s one more job that we have to do.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. We’ve got to find Todd Markim and Jim Weezle.”

“Weezle?” It was all James could do not to laugh out loud.

“The investigators who came down here. Their company is-was-AAAce Investigations.”

Trying to be first in the Yellow Pages. AAA. I had to give them credit.

“And why do you want to find them?”

She opened the door, and waved her hand. She wanted us out of the room, no question about that.

“Two things could have happened to them. One, somehow they found the information, and maybe the gold. In that case they are buying their vanishing act. They’ve taken off with the treasure and we’ll never hear from them again.”

“And number two?”

“They were killed by someone who wanted to have the gold for themselves.”

She closed the door, leaving us on the outside walkway, looking at each other, and wondering what we’d gotten ourselves into.

There was another hurricane where stolen gold was involved. In 1733 a hurricane grounded a Spanish ship loaded with treasure on what is now Islamorada. Wreckers, land pirates who went out and looted wrecked ships, made off with all of the loot. Historians believe they took it down to Key West and as a result, Key West became the richest city in the country. The richest city in the entire United States.

The state of Florida was, by Mary Trueblood’s definition, a land of cattle barons and railroad magnates. But my impression of my home state was a country of pirates. Surrounded by water on three sides, Florida was ripe for the seafaring trade and those who preyed on that trade.

We’d taken the magnetic MORE OR LESS INVESTIGATIONS signs off the truck and put them in our room. James replaced them with SMITH BROTHERS PLUMBING signs.

“We’re basically undercover, amigo. May as well disguise the truck.”

I thought it was a dumb idea. It had gotten us in trouble before, with people mistaking us for real plumbers.

“Why don’t you just leave the truck naked, James? No signs. We don’t have to be anything.”

He dismissed the idea with the wave of his hand.

As my best friend drove the oil-burning vehicle south, he puffed on a small cigar.

“You know, amigo, somebody stole a gold bar from Mel Fisher’s sunken treasure museum in Key West a couple of years ago. Thing was worth ninety-nine thou. All kinds of security, and these two guys just waltzed in and lifted it.”

“Your point is?”

“I think this Kriegel stole the gold. I think he saw his chance and took it. Think about it, dude. The ultimate heist. Everybody thinks you’re dead and that the gold has washed out to sea.”

I seemed to remember that the state of Florida claimed at least twenty-five percent of the treasure when Mel Fisher found the wreck of the Atocha , the Spanish galleon that sank back in the sixteen hundreds off the coast of Key West. Twenty-five percent. That was already diluting our take of fifty-five thousand dollars.

“And where did he take it?”

“Key West.”

“Back then, you could get lost in Key West.”

Some vehicle with a loud engine was behind us, and I caught the driver coming around on James’s side of the truck. It was a black Harley-Davidson motorcycle with a shiny gold fender. The driver wore a dark helmet with the Plexiglas face guard pulled down. The bike screamed by with its trademark roar and James flashed him the finger.

“Damn, these lanes are narrow enough.”

We watched the bike disappear in the distance, then James got a grin on his face.

“Ooooh. I know. Cuba. Damn, you could sail to Cuba back then. Rum drinks, sexy women, gambling. I think back then a guy could get lost in Cuba and have a very good life for a million-plus dollars in gold.”

“Well, if he took the gold to Cuba, we sure aren’t going to find it here.”

“Point well taken.” He was silent for a moment. “So officially I don’t think he went to Cuba. The gold is here in Islamorada, and we’re going to find it.”

I had to smile. “We’ve got a clue. A real clue with that letter.”

James glanced over at me, both hands on the wheel. “Another clue. Which will lead to another clue, which will lead to another clue. That’s all there will ever be-another clue.”

I knew it, but couldn’t place it.

“You’re slipping, partner. National Treasure . Nicolas Cage.”

We were on our own for lunch and it was an expense. So, on the card. We decided on The Green Turtle.

“According to the Internet report you Googled, this was one of the two places that survived the hurricane.”

I nodded. The Rustic Inn, as it was called in 1935, was the only structure that suffered almost no damage. There was a hotel that had been hit pretty hard, and the Rustic Inn. That was all that remained.