Laurence Shames - Florida straits

Joey spoke not to him but to Zack. "It's too much. I wanted to keep it local, but we're gonna hafta shop it in Miami."

He started to rise, and as he did so, the neatly rolled nautical chart that had been laid across his lap rustled with a crisp sound like new-printed money. Clem Sanders could not pull his eyes away from the precious tube of paper. He squinted as if trying to pierce it with his gaze, to locate the treasure that, in his view and under the law, was as much his as anybody else's. "Now hol' on a minute," he purred. "I didn't say we couldn't negotiate."

"So negotiate," said Joey. He sat back down but stayed near the edge of the seat.

Sanders tugged absently at the doubloon around his neck. "If it's like you say, if you've got the location, then I s'pose I could live with sixty-forty."

Joey frowned. "Clem, you know what I do for a living, right? I stand out onna street corner and I give people a pitch to go see Parrot Beach. One a the things I tell 'em, I say, free passes to the Treasure Museum, Clem Sanders, greatest treasure hunter of all time."

"Thank you kindly."

"Yeah, well, I'm not sayin' I believe it, I'm sayin' it's parta my pitch. But hey, if it's true, it's gonna take you half a day to do this job. Maybe less. Are you gonna tell me you won't take a million dollars for three, four hours' work? I'm willing to cut you in for a third, no more."

Sanders looked at the ceiling, then exhaled past lips that were permanently cracked and crevassed by the sun. He glanced at Zack, fingered his doubloon, then lightly slapped his desk. "Shoot-why not? You got a deal."

Now, Joey had been an observer at certain low-level sit-downs in New York. The people running those meetings had been observers at midlevel sit-downs, and the people running the midlevel gatherings had been present at certain congresses of the big boys. What filtered down from the top was a style based on rigorous restraint. One did not show emotion at the striking of a bargain. It was unmanly to smile, dangerous to gloat. So Joey kept his face and voice as neutral as he could.

"Good," he said, watching light stream through the barred windows of the treasure room. "Now there's just a couple other things. We're partners, I'm gonna be totally up front, 'cause I don't want any headaches after. These emeralds, the way they got there, it's not, like, totally-"

Clem Sanders held an enormous pink palm in Joey's face as if fending off the evil eye or some terrible contagion, and at the same time he let out a deep defensive noise: Bup, bup, bup, BUPPPP.

"Hol' on," he said. "I don' need to know, I don' wanna know, and besides, hit don't make no difference. No difference a'tall."

"None?" asked Zack, with a lifted eyebrow. Still hovering between salesmanship and crime, his voice hinted at a secret disappointment that he wasn't well on his way to outlawhood.

"None," purred Clem. "By law. The ocean, gents, it's like a baptism. Cleans away everything. Old secrets, old errors, old sins. All gone. Stick somethin' in the ocean"-he cupped his hands, then slowly lifted them in a sacramental gesture as of rising from murky depths into the virginal light of day-"it comes out reborn."

At this, despite his best efforts to remain becomingly stone-faced, Joey could not help smiling. Innocent emeralds. Free of the taint of Gino. Cleansed of the reek of Mount Trashmore. Redeemed from the horror of fleeing rodents and the threat of getting whacked. Or so he needed to believe.

"That's terrific," Joey said. "But listen. You don't wanna know the reasons why, that's fine. But ya gotta understand it's very important that everything is out innee open heah. Ya know, like public, so people can see it's onnee up and up."

Now it was Clem Sanders's turn to blow the stoic act. He grinned and in fact could not help chuckling. Not for nothing was he widely regarded as Key West's most undaunted self-promoter. "Son," he said, "this is gonna be the most public damn thing you ever saw. Everything I do is public. First off, if I'm goin' out, I call the papers, tease 'em along. Then I get the cable people. Plus I got friends at the networks. They'll send crews down from Miami 'cause they know I'll deliver, I'll come cruisin' in in time for the midday news, twelve o'clock local edition. If there's a find, I radio right away, the coast guard sends boats, sometimes helicopters, guardian angels like, to hover over us. Every cop in Key West meets us at the dock. City cops. County cops. State cops. Marine cops. Fuckin' IRS is there. The mayor shows up to get his picture taken with me. Then we all hop into armored cars and ride in a televised motorcade straight into the bank vault. That public enough for you?"

Joey nodded, savoring a moment of perfect contentment as he imagined Charlie Ponte's thugs, their almost matching blue suits soaked with sweat, their hemorrhoids on fire from endless weeks of sitting in the car, leaning against the hoods of their Lincolns and watching helplessly as an army of police brought their boss's emeralds to the bank.

"Sounds fine," he said. "But me, ya know, I wanna be left out of the public part."

Sanders gave a worldly shrug. He'd seen it all. Some people craved the spotlight, some had compelling reasons for staying out of sight. "We can set it up any way you like. Basically, it's a legal partnership. With shares. You pay in a certain amount to underwrite the costs, then you get your split. I'll retain a third, the rest is up to you."

"And the costs?" Zack Davidson asked.

Clem Sanders toyed with his doubloon and picked an easy number. "If it's as quick and dirty as you say, call it fifteen thousand. Five thou a share up front."

Joey had already decided. "Fine. I want it one third in Zack's name and one third in my brother's. Gino Delgatto."

The world's greatest treasure hunter smiled past cracked lips. "I'll have the papers drawn up." His bleached eyes had once again become glued to the tube of paper on Joey's lap.

"How long does it take?" asked Joey.

"The papers?" said Sanders. "About a week."

"No good," said Joey. Ponte's goons might be dumb, but how much longer would they stake out a hotel that Gino had already escaped from? "How 'bout you get the stones tomorrow?"

Sanders let out a slow whistle. Young guys, northerners especially, always seemed in such a hurry. Sanders usually was not. Most of the stuff he went after had been lying on the bottom of the ocean for two, three hundred years-what was the rush? "We are hot to trot, ain't we?"

"Yeah, we are," said Joey. "By noon tomorrow- yes or no?"

Sanders cocked his head, toyed with his doubloon. "Well, the boats are ready, I can raise a crew. I s'pose we could go out tomorrow, weather permitting. But you know, boys, nothing happens till I get the ten thousand for two thirds of the shares."

"No problem," said Joey, and Zack could not help flashing him the kind of look that partners in a negotiation should not flash each other while talks are under way. "Get the papers drawn up, I'll be back with the cash in a coupla hours."

"Cash," said Sanders. The word brought forth a most benevolent expression. "O.K. Dawn tomorrow, calm seas, we hunt."

Joey and Zack got up to leave. Sanders pointed to the rolled-up nautical chart in Joey's hand.

"May as well leave that here so's I can study up," he said.

Joey sent back a smile every bit as trustworthy as the treasure hunter's own. "Study it later, Clem. After the papers are signed."

Hot April sunshine poured in through the open top of the old Caddy, shafts of it splattering into rainbows as they sliced through the facets of the spiderweb windshield. Joey was buoyant as he drove away from Clem Sanders's office and out toward the weird migrant sand of Smathers Beach. He gingerly fondled is hot steering wheel, he tapped his left foot as he drove. He felt like he finally had the different pieces of his life perfectly lined up. The new part, the Florida part, that was right where it should be: he was wheeling and dealing in a way that fit the climate, he was about to pull his fortune, or at least the start of it, out of the water. The old part, the neighborhood part, well, he was on his way to dip one last time into its deep pockets and to use the proceeds to put it behind him once and for all.