Deep Shadow

Florida, to study the fish, huh?”

I said, “That’s right.” The knife was still strapped to my calf, but King no longer seemed interested. The third coin had hooked him, I could see it.

“You gentlemen show up with a truckload of gear just to swim around and look at fish because you’re some kind of scientist, huh?”

“A biologist. It’s what I do.”

King’s expression read Bullshit. “Then where’d this coin come from? It’s just like the two we found in Grandpa’s pockets.”

I shrugged but didn’t give it much.

King said, “You’re a smart guy, Jock-o. What do you figure a coin like this is worth? Couple grand each? Just for the gold, I’m saying.”

I didn’t want to sound too eager. I said, “If the coins are real, maybe. For all I know, they’re fakes.”

“You’re full of shit. They’re real. Feel the weight.” King was holding his palm out like a scale, judging the density of the coin. Perry did the same.

“Feels about the same as the gold eagles, that’s what I think,” Perry said.

Gold eagles? I wondered what that meant.

King was nodding as he held a coin close to his face, lips pursed as he deciphered details. Perry did the same, reading aloud, “Re-pub-lick-A dee-Cuba.”

King corrected him, saying, “Re-pub-lic-uh DAY-Cuba,” showing off, I realized, wanting to impress me for some reason or to prove something maybe. Then he asked, “How many more of these things are down there, Professor Jock-a-mo?”

Back on the teacher thing again.

I said, “Three, that’s all we found. For all I know, they could be brass. Some kids could’ve thrown them in the lake, screwing around. We didn’t expect to find them, they were just there.”

Arlis picked up fast on what I was doing, and managed to say, “What we found is none of your damn business,” giving it just the right touch of guarded indignation. “I own this property and I want you the hell off my land.”

Perry was still studying a coin, obviously impressed, as King looked from me to Arlis, letting his imagination put himself in our shoes. “What I think is, there’s a bunch more of these things down there. That’s closer to the truth, isn’t it?”

I gave Arlis a nasty look, as if he’d said too much.

When King smiled, he had an odd way of tilting his head back, as if focusing through bifocals. He said, “Perry, I think we’re onto something here. But I think Gramps and the professor don’t want to share. Isn’t that right, Jock- o? If you’re smart, though, you’ll play nice and tell me the truth. What’d you dudes find down there on the bottom?”

Arlis and I exchanged looks but remained silent.

Perry spoke. “These coins are from Cuba. What they doing out here in the middle of this shithole?”

King told him, “Miami’s loaded with Cubans. You don’t watch TV?” After several seconds, he added, “It’s the dates that don’t make sense. The coins are dated”—King reached to take Perry’s coin, then compared the two —“one says nineteen twenty, the other nineteen eighteen. That’s too old to be from Miami and too new to be found on what you’d call a ‘sunken galleon.’ Back in those days, they cut the silver and gold from bars, so the coins were sorta square, not round.”

The man paused but wasn’t done with his history lesson.

“Do you know what a twenty-dollar American gold eagle sells for? Mint condition, uncirculated?”

He was showing off again.

“No reason for me to know,” I said.

“You probably don’t even know what an ounce of gold sells for, either. And you being such a smart guy! You must have a hell of a lot of education, but you don’t even know something so simple as the price of an ounce of gold.”

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