The sun was coming up on Isla Mujures. Incredible sight. I never got tired of seeing it. Artimus and I were sitting on the dock watching the fisherman getting ready to go out. The power of the black beauties was still keeping me wide awake. I opened up what must have been our fiftieth beer and passed one to my burly partner.
“The bus got to Grand Forks and I found out that there was a huge blizzard down in southern Minnesota and all buses going there had been canceled. The northern part of the state was clear though. So I thought I’d take a bus to Duluth. The thought of having to spend the night in Grand Forks didn’t fill me with a warm, fuzzy feeling. That turned about to about a bad idea.”
“I hadn’t made a lot of dough working for Chet, so I was traveling on a bare bones budget. When I got to Duluth I tried to check into this landmark dump called the Seaway but they were full. So like a dumbass, I decided to spend the night in that shelter. One half dicked brother later, the rest is history.”
Artimus had been standing there taking a piss off the dock. All the fisherman and their families running around and he doesn’t even make an attempt to be coy.
“So what happened after you escaped from the bughouse?”
“I called my sister and woke her up. She about shit. She came on down and picked me up. I spent the next few nights hiding in the spare bedroom in her basement. Checked into a hotel after that. I was afraid that the heat was going to look for me at her place. She said that years ago some Feds came around asking questions but she hadn’t heard anything since. All they told her was that I was AWOL. All the money I had sent was there.”
“I asked if the Feds had been to our parents. Couple of years ago I guess they inherited a bunch of cash. My mothers father had ran off years ago. He was a gambler living out in Reno. He had died and left his estate to this old hooker who was in her eighties and still working. Kind of a novelty act. The will stipulated that she had to quit the life if she wanted the dough. She said fuck that, so my mother got the inheritance. Now they live in North Dakota at some religious, far right wing, militant compound. Haven’t been heard from in years.”
“Anyway, I sent my sister out and had her get the film developed at one of those places where the machine does the developing. Had them ready in a hour. If the person who worked there saw them they would have called the cops for sure! You wouldn’t have believed those pictures. They start off with the admiral and Rose doing all this kinky shit and winds up with her laying on the floor with her brains bashed in. I had her get three sets of prints.”
“So what did you do with them?”
“I sent one set to the Honolulu police department along with an anonymous note, Roses I.D., and a map detailing where they could find her body. The other set I had put in a safety deposit box.”
“What about the third set?”
“One night I had my sister drive me to Lakeville. It’s this suburb south of the Twin Cities. I wanted to call that number that Captain Clint had given me the night before we graduated from UDT training. I was worried that they’d be able to trace the call so I didn’t want it any where close to where my sister lived. So I called and this lady answered. I asked for the extension and she put me through just like it was a normal business. The phone rang about a hundred times and I was just going to hang up when this guy answered.”
“Holy fuck man! Who was it?” Artimus was all ready oozing sweat.
“I don’t know. But when I told him that the Captain gave me the number and who I was, he said that some people had been looking for me for a long time. Wondered why it took me so long to call? I told him everything. About the drug dealing, Leon, Rose and the admiral, me being AWOL, even about Wonderland Avenue. But more importantly, I told him all about Zak being killed. When I told him about the pictures, he wanted them. He gave me a PO box in Langley, Virginia. That’s where the third set went to.”
“So what did he say after all that?”
“He said that I sure had been a busy boy. And that this was it. This was my one favor, but he could only do so much, and he was only doing that for Captain Clint. Then he told me to tear up that card and eat the scraps and forget I had ever called that number.”
Artimus was doubled over in laughter. “So did you eat the card?”
“Fucking A, I ate it.”
“So then how did you wind up here?”
“I just booked a charter flight to Cancun. Showed up with my fake birth certificate and walked right on the plane with all the other tourists. I bummed around Cancun for a day or two before I took the ferry over here. Found the job tending bar for Orlando. I met you and here we are. I got us those fake Canadian passports using the same book I bought from that company in Washington state.”
“Shit, man, do you still have those files on Morrison and Elvis?”
“That was last thing I did before I went out to the airport. I stopped off at the post office and dropped that file in the mail to Rolling Stone magazine. About a month later my sister got a check from the editor. It was enough for a nice down payment on a house out west for her. It was the least I could do.”
“So you don’t even know if you’re in the clear on any of this shit?”
“I know I’m AWOL. I know I’m an escapee from a mental institution. But everything else is in the wind.” I said holding my hands up.
“So who’s the asshole that you saw down by the snorkel charters?”
“I’m gonna take care of that today.”