“How’d you like to make a hundred bucks a night for the next couple of nights?”
He eyed me suspiciously.
“Nothing illegal,” I assured him. “I just need a car and driver to ferry people over to Estero.”
“What time?” he asked.
“Come aboard,” I said. “If you have a minute.”
He dropped down and leaned against the coaming.
“Are you aware of the gang war that’s going on here?” I asked point blank, to gauge his reaction.
He nodded somberly; a sour look on his face. “Hard to ignore,” he said. “This marina’s just a stone’s throw from some pretty seedy neighborhoods.”
I dug into my pocket and took out a little metal card holder that had the seal of the Marine Corps engraved on it.
I took a card out and handed it to him. “I’m a private investigator. My associates and I need someone we can trust locally.”
He nodded at the metal card holder. “You a Marine?”
I saw the look in his eyes. A fire born of more than two hundred years of history. I’d met another Jarhead.
“Retired twenty years ago,” I replied. “Infantry.”
“Oh-four to oh-eight,” he said. “Arty.”
I grinned. Cannon-cockers were a tight bunch. “There are few problems that liberal doses of high explosive artillery can’t resolve.”
“I have my own car,” he said. “But I can’t get involved in anything that would jeopardize my job.”
“I understand completely. We’re here to try to put an end to the problems those neighborhoods are having. And hopefully find out what happened to a little boy.”
“What do I have to do?” he asked.
On the flybridge, I watched boat traffic out on the Caloosahatchee while I waited. It was hard to believe that just a few blocks away, rival gangs were fighting over territory, people were being killed, and drug addiction was being fed by the almighty dollar.
I’d grown up here. Dad had taken me and Mom with him whenever he was stationed somewhere that allowed it. I’d lived a short time up at Camp Lejeune and out at Twenty-Nine Palms. But Dad always thought a stable home was important, and he’d bought a house not far from Mam and Pap’s place. They’d lived out on Highway 80 in the Fort Myers Shores neighborhood.
Pap had bought land on the Caloosahatchee soon after he returned from the war in the South Pacific. He’d built a modest home on it, mostly by himself. He’d gone to college under the old GI Bill and earned a degree in architecture and design.
When Dad followed in Pap’s footsteps as a Marine, Pap had given him the down payment to buy a house in the neighborhood that had sprung up around his home. Dad married soon after and began to put down roots.
Mam and Pap’s old place stood just sixteen miles upriver, and the house Dad had bought was just a few blocks away from it. The dark water flowing past was no different now than it had been then. I’d played along the river’s bank, swum in its water, and later, as a teen, explored every inch of shoreline from here to Labelle by canoe.
I pulled my phone out and called Billy.
“I was just thinking about you, Kemosabe,” he said, without greeting.
Billy and I had always had a deep connection. We’d grown up together in this area, and even though our homes were separated by several miles, we were of different cultural backgrounds, and two years apart in age, we’d been awfully close friends.
“I’m sitting on the flybridge watching the Caloosahatchee flow by,” I said.
“That explains it.”
“How are things there?”
“A bit of excitement last night,” he replied. “But quiet today.”
“What happened?”
“A van loaded with gangbangers stopped by for a visit,” he said, his voice subdued. “A couple of them needed help walking back to their van and one will have a little trouble hearing.”
I grinned. Billy wasn’t prone to bragging, so I took what he was saying to mean he’d hurt several MS-13 members pretty badly. I knew it was a waste of time to ask if he was okay, but I did anyway.
“Nothing a few ibuprofen can’t fix,” was his reply. “Why are you here?”
“We’re coming at the problem from a different angle,” I replied. “MS-13 is having problems with a rival gang. I have a few snake eaters with me, and we plan to make life miserable for both sides.”
He chuckled softly. “Playing both ends against the middle, huh?”
“Keep your head on a swivel,” I told him, as Tony and DJ came walking down the dock.
“And my ear to the ground,” he said. He laughed at some inside joke, then ended the call.
“Come on up,” I called down to Tony and DJ. “Everything go okay?”
“No problem,” Tony said, pulling a wad of small bills from his pocket.
“Just hang onto that,” I told them both. “Tonight, we’re going shopping. I have a second car and a driver.”
“Who?” DJ asked.
“One of the dockmasters,” I replied. “A guy named Mark. He’s a former Marine gun bunny who offered to carry our guests down to a treatment center on Estero Island.”
“Where’s that?” Tony asked.
“Ten miles south of here,” I replied. “Across San Carlos Bay from Sanibel Island.”
“Ya know,” DJ began, “rousting the gang’s hookers won’t amount to much of a disruption.”
I grinned at him. “Which is why I’m glad you’re with us, DJ.”
His features turned wary. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Drug dealers would be pretty suspicious of me, just based on my looks,” I said. “Same with Paul and Tank.”
“That’s an understatement,” Tony said. “All three of you look as straight as the proverbial arrow. But I can pull it off in certain neighborhoods.”
I nodded and clapped DJ on the shoulder. “But DJ here, he looks the part better than any of us.”
“Oh, gee, thanks,” he grumbled. “Um…” He paused.
“You have a
