Art by Gin E L Fenton

Decoys

Gerald So

 

            Business was always being done at Jock's Bimini Bar, the sort of business for which no rules were written.  During Prohibition, Zath McGrath and I helped Jock smuggle Bahamian rum into Miami twice a week aboard our passenger flights.  When Zath was paralyzed in a crash, Jock paid his medical bills and I took over his flights.  Jock gave me a regular room upstairs from the bar, and though we never shook on it, I pretty much worked for him.

            I'd just splashed down from Key West when he trotted out personally to tie up my Grumman Goose.  He slapped me on the back and said, "Perfect timing, mon ami.  Someone you should meet."

            Jock was smiling, a good sign, but his delivery was a bit too smooth.  Like he was playing to an audience I didn't see.  Then again, he was always like that.

            I followed him through the main entrance.  He stopped long enough to point the someone out to me before blending into the crowd.  From the rear I could see black hair down to her freckled shoulders.  Her dress was a print of pink and orange flowers.  Her legs looked strong and comfortable on a bar stool.

            All the men must have noticed her, and one was moving in to make a pass.  I lengthened my stride, blocked his path with my hip, and took the stool next to the woman.

            "Nice move," she said.  I heard her over the usual din, though she hadn't shouted.

            "Thanks."

            She didn't turn to me, but her blue eye sized me up before I could say more.

            "I'm looking to sell some stones," she said, "but I might just take a quick flight out of here."

            "C.J. Stone at your service."

            She smiled, still not turning to me, and brushed her hair back to reveal an ornate diamond earring.  Hiding it again, she turned at last and said, "How much do you think I could get for a matching set?"

            "I don't know.  Have you talked to Jock?"

            She shook her head.

            I spotted Jock at the far end of the bar.  He nodded me back to his office.

* * *

            Jock's office by the washrooms has a desk and chairs made from palm trees.  As soon as he closed and locked the door, Jock seemed more relaxed.  If you never saw him in this corner you'd never guess he owned the bar.

            Jock introduced himself in French, giving Pioline as his last name.

            I wasn't sure the woman understood him until she too spoke French, giving the name Nicole Germaine.  I didn't know much more French, but I gathered she asked Jock about the earrings.

            She took one off and handed it to him.  He examined it with a jeweler's loupe and suddenly broke into English, telling of how the earrings were stolen fifty years earlier from the duchess of a small European fiefdom whose name I forgot by the time he finished the story.

            "But these are fake," Jock said.  "Glass and gold plating.  Tell me, did one of my guests give them to you?"

            The offense in his voice was false, but I only knew because I'd seen him genuinely offended.  He either went stone cold or got so nervous he couldn't speak.  He was feeling her out.  She was probably doing the same.  I was just waiting.

            "No," she answered.  "The duchy has since come under French government, and I'm in charge of recovering the earrings and whatever else I can from the theft."

            Halfway through Jock's story I suspected he was lying.  But if he was, what did Nicole gain by supporting him?

            "So your earrings are decoys," I said.  "If I offered to buy them—"

            "I would shadow you and if you led me to the real jewels, I would arrest you."

            "And if I told you they were fake—"

            "I would shadow you, and if you led me to the real jewels . . ."

            Jock returned the earring he'd appraised, and she clipped it back on.

            "I have identification and documents to support what I've told you," she said.

            "Oui.  Let us see them."

            This was genuine offense.  Jock showed no surprise when Nicole reached into her handbag and came up with a small gun.

            "Open the safe," she said.

            What safe? I thought.  Sure enough though, Jock went into his nervous trot, pushing aside a file cabinet I would have thought was too heavy for him.  Behind it was a wall safe.

            As Jock dialed the combination, Nicole was saying, "I know what kind of deals are made here.  I also know about you, Monsieur Pioline."

            She said the name as if it weren't his.  I didn't know either way.  Keeping the gun trained on Jock, she moved behind me and patted me down.  That yielded my folding knife, my wallet, two pieces of gum, and a breath mint.

            The combination lock clicked, and Nicole ordered Jock to stand clear.  She stepped up and removed the contents of the safe onto Jock's desk.  Jock was close enough to disarm her as she did this, but he made no move.  Despite its size I had no doubt the gun was real, or that Nicole could shoot.

            All that was in the safe was paper currency from various countries.  Nicole clearly expected to find the jewels.  To be honest, so did I.  We were smugglers, after all.

            Nicole could have shot us dead and taken the money.  Instead she returned it, closed the safe, and put her gun away.

            Jock said something in French about honor, jewelry, Cuba, and me.

            "Merci," Nicole said.

            Jock bowed again, and Nicole and I left. 

            I could tell she wanted to question more of Jock's patrons, but everyone was pretending she didn't exist.

            "What did he tell you?" I asked.

            "He said he heard the jewels were in Cuba and if I needed to fly there, you could take me."

            "Is that where you're headed?"

            "Oui."

* * *

            As we flew into the sunset, I told Nicole about Safe Harbor in Havana.  "Same sort of place as Jock's.  You should be able to get a line on the jewels there."

            "Would you believe me as the duchess's daughter?"

            "I believed you were with the French government."

            "I am French."

            Nicole and I got pleasantly drunk that night.  By morning my clearest memory was of  her dancing on the bar.

* * *

            I got back to Jock's by lunch, and over coffee in his office I asked, "Did you really hear the jewels were in Cuba?"

            Jock almost spat out his coffee.  "I made that up.  The whole yarn about the duchess, made up."

            "Nicole seemed to believe it, as if she'd heard it from more than just you."

            "She probably heard it from someone she trusted—"

            "—who heard it from you.  Are there any real jewels?"

            Jock opened the top drawer of the file cabinet and dumped out a bag of trinkets as if they weren't worth much.  Among them were three earrings matching Nicole's.

            "I've sold all of these . . . many times over."

            "And when your marks manage to sell them, they're too ashamed to admit where they got them, so—"

            "They find their way back to me," he said.

 

 

 

 

Gerald is Fiction Editor for The Thrilling Detective Web Site and editor of The Lineup: Poems on Crime. He is also TV/film columnist for Mysterical-E and a reviewer for Crimespree Cinema and Nasty. Brutish. Short. Visit his blog at http://geraldso.blogspot.com.