James Grippando - A King's ransom

Gulf stream waters felt warm all around me, caressing my skin, making me almost giddy. Though completely submerged, I could glance up and see the sun. So clear was the water that intermittent clouds were actually casting shadows across the bottom of the bay. I was skin diving at a depth of fifteen feet with a mask and snorkel, no scuba tanks, poking around some rocks.

Other boys around me were gathering lobsters into sacks. We’d come upon a huge colony. The floor was moving with crustaceans. I saw a big one scamper over a grassy hump, then behind some rocks. I swam right to the hole and reached inside.

Suddenly an eel lunged from a crevice. I immediately pulled back, but its powerful jaws locked on to my forearm. I struggled to get away, but the rear half of the eel was coiled around a large rock. My diving gloves extended up to my elbow, so the bite didn’t break the skin. But the eel was too strong, and I couldn’t shake free. I needed to surface for air, but it was holding me under. In my panic I was taking in water, a little at first, then huge mouthfuls.

My father swam over to help. He poked at the eel with a stick, but it only tightened its grip on my glove. My father grabbed a rock and hit it. Its tail uncoiled from the rock that had anchored it, but the snakelike head was still staring me in the face, locked to my arm. It was at least three feet long-monstrous to me. Dad grabbed the eel and me, pulling us up. We broke the surface, and I gasped for air. I wasn’t even sure what was happening. My arm felt numb, but the eel was still with me. Dad pushed us to the dive platform at the stern, then climbed up and pushed us into the boat.

I was screaming, more shocked than in pain. The eel was flopping on the deck, refusing to let go. My father was screaming, too-at me.

“I told you never to poke your hands in those rocks. Use a stick!”

“Get it off me!”

“If I hadn’t been there to pull you up, you could have drowned!”

“I’m sorry!”

I just wanted this awful thing off me. Even as a boy, I knew that an eel would never let go. The only way to get free was to cut off its head.

“Cut it off!” I cried.

“You do it!”

Dad handed me the knife. But I was too afraid, too shaken.

“Do it, Nick!”

“I can’t, I can’t!”

He grimaced and grabbed the knife, shouting, “Damn it, Nick! For one lousy day in your life, can’t you just act like your father’s son!”

He lopped off the head. The long body fell limp to the deck.

I rolled away sobbing, more stunned by my father’s words than by the bite of the eel. I was lying on the deck, holding my arm, my lips quivering. I’d have a bad bruise, for sure, but the diving glove had protected my skin.

I looked up and saw immediate contrition in my father’s eyes. He knelt beside me and took me in his arms. Tears were streaming down his face. “God, I’m so sorry, Nicky!”

I could smell the liquor on him. I didn’t know which to believe, the outburst against me or the tearful apology. But it was too late for forgiveness anyway. I looked up and saw the stunned faces aboard the boat that had anchored beside us.

I’d been utterly emasculated in front of my five closest friends and their very sober fathers. .

The chiming clock on the wall roused me from my memories. It was 9:00 P.M., and time was marching toward a deadline we might not be able to meet. But mercifully, time also had a way of healing. I had long ago gotten over the embarrassment of that diving trip, and Dad had won his battle with alcoholism. What had yet to be laid to rest, however, was the underlying fear that Mom had verbalized earlier tonight-that his drinking had perhaps unleashed his true, inner feelings. In all honesty, I didn’t always act like my father’s son. But I was still his son, always would be.

I vowed that when he came home-just as soon as he walked through the front door and sat down for dinner at the place Mom had set for him-I’d say those exact words to him.

Finally we’d be past it.

“Nick!” my mother called.

I shot bolt upright. It was almost eleven, and I’d dozed off on the couch.

“Come here!”

The urgency in her voice propelled me down the hall. I found her in the living room holding an envelope.

“I just took out the garbage and saw this tucked under your wiper blade.”

It was a plain white envelope, no addressee, no return address, no markings of an international courier service. It was unlike any of the past deliveries from the kidnappers.

I opened it. Inside was a single sheet of paper.

“What is it?” asked Mom.

I read it, but the point didn’t register. “Just a guy’s name and address. Jaime Ochoa.”

“Sounds Hispanic. You think he works for the kidnappers?”

I started to answer, then stopped. The name was suddenly familiar to me. I checked the back side. “Oh, my God.”

“What?”

“I don’t think Mr. Ochoa works for the kidnappers. Check this out.”

She read aloud. “ ‘Nick. Ask why he got fired. A friend.’ ” She looked up at me and asked, “Who’s ‘a friend’?”

It was just a guess, but the only person who came to mind was Duncan’s secretary. I smiled thinly and said, “Thank you, Beverly.”

Iwas in Hialeah before the morning rush hour. I hadn’t bothered with a phone call before starting out on the road. From what I remembered of my last meeting with Jaime Ochoa, hitting him cold was the way to go.

The note was cryptic, but it was just enough to set my thoughts in motion. Jaime was the so-called psychic who’d sent me the e-mail a little more than a week after my father’s kidnapping, claiming to know his whereabouts. I’d thought it was a total scam. With this latest note, however, I had a compelling sense that Jaime really did know something and that his knowledge was linked to the vague question of “why he got fired.”

I knocked twice before he came to the door dressed in shorts and a T-shirt, no shoes.

“Hey, Mr. Nick, I knew you’d be back.”

A predictable greeting from a guy who’d claimed to “know” everything. “I wanted to follow up on some things. Got a few minutes?”

“Sure.” He opened the door and led me back to the kitchen. I entered carefully, checking for that Doberman pinscher that had pinned me against the wall last time. I heard barking outside, looked out the window, and was relieved to see Sergeant chained to the doghouse.

Jaime went to the espresso machine on the Formica counter and measured out a scoop of ground Pilon. “Have you reconsidered my power package?”

“Let’s not waste time with that psychic stuff again, all right?”

“I do know all.”

“But not because you’re psychic.” I was pushing it, but I had to pretend to know more than I did. “It’s from your other job, isn’t it? The one you were fired from.”

He placed his espresso cup beneath the drip and said, “Jaime Ochoa has never been fired from any job.”

“I’m not talking about just any job,” I said, still fishing.

“I know exactly what you’re talking about. Jaime Ochoa never worked for Quality Insurance Company.”

My heart raced. He was in denial, but at least he’d confirmed my suspicions that we were talking about Quality Insurance. “That’s not what I hear,” I said, bluffing.

“Then you heard wrong. Jaime Delpina was fired from Quality Insurance. Not Jaime Ochoa.”

“Who’s Jaime Delpina?”

The little espresso cup was full. He downed it in one swallow, then said, “Yours truly.”

“You changed your name?”

“They made me change it.”

“The company?”

“ Claro .”