Tommy's Abode

This is a church we flew by on our way to Tommy's on the Long Island.




So the first order of business is Long Island and the records they had found. We don't move the Caribbear to the site because they don't want to tip their hat any more than they have. We fly the slick over... me, Lou, Chris, Jerry, the local that was briefing us, and some local official that is supposed to pave the way. He came out on a launch just before we lifted off. Kind of a smarmy guy, a glad-hander... like he is running for office or something. He starts talking, telling us who he is and how important he is on the island. Chris interrupts him like he is a blabbering child... just starts talking to us, drawing our attention his way and the guy is left talking to no one and he stops.

"The storekeeper's log... we have only heard what was written in it but we need to see it first hand. The family still has a presence on the island. They run a place called Tommy's Inn. Tommy has an estate at Dawns Bayview Point. We will run the operation out of there and find out what we can."
Chris looks out of the window as we fly over one of the smaller Cays. "He has a boat at our disposal... and diving gear."

The slick flies for twenty minutes or so further, past a dozen small Cays that are uninhabited, and then we see Long Island. We take an aerial tour before we touch down. There is a beautiful church we fly by and the tourist in me snaps a shot.
"If we have time it would be cool to pay that place a visit."
"If we have time it will be to find some little honey to hold and a beer to drink, Nancy."

We come upon a small marina with a half a dozen large boats. On the shore are a couple of large homes. Across the access road is another wide path leading to what looks to be some new construction... that is where we set the slick down.

Before we get the door open on the slick a van pulls in and two rather large gentlemen get out.

"Ah, those must be Tommy's guys." Antonelli states as he heaves himself out of the helicopter.
"And what if they aren't?" Lou says quietly, ever-aware of the possibility of danger.
"Don't worry about it, Lou... they are Tommy's guys, I swear it."

We take our gear from the slick, what there is of it, and it lifts off and heads back to the ship. The downdraft of the chopper is replaced by the trade winds, the sound of slapping rotor blades by the calls of seabirds and the hush of the surf.

"Chris?" One of the two men steps away from the van and towards our position.
"Yeah, I am Chris. Did Tommy send you to grab us?"
"You got it. Put your gear in the van. We're just heading down the road."

"Where can a guy get a beer around here?"  Jerry asks.  His question goes unanswered.

I can feel Lou's discomfort. I am sure it is because he has no weapon, none that I know of anyway. Lucky for them they take us to the large house near the marina. It isn't stately by any means. Practical from an island standpoint, and I am sure it is safe in any type of weather. Almost as though he is reading my mind, the driver announces that the structure was made to withstand a category 4 hurricane.

"Why not make it able to withstand a cat 5? Then there would be nothing to worry about." I ask, knowing there must be a reason.
"There would be nothing to come back to... total destruction, you know?" The man riding shotgun says as the van stops and he hops out.

We are in a covered drive... like something you would find in front of a home improvement store.  There are a pair of ornate doors, old wood planking with a couple of stained glass windows behind thick Plexiglas.
The design of the blue, brown, and amber glass in the window is that of two ships... wrecked on a reef, or beached.   As I am looking at the doors, they open and there is a man our age, drink in one hand and a cigar in the other.

"Welcome, welcome,  I'm Tommy."  He looks passed me at Chris as he gets out of the back of the van.
"Hey Tommy, nice to see you, man."  Chris gives him a hearty handshake and then gestures to me and Lou.
"These are my good friends, Jake and Lou."
"Jake."  I offer, shaking his hand.
"Welcome, Jake."  He looks at Lou, "and you must be Louis?"
"Lou will do fine."
"Lou it is."
Tommy looks at Jerry and Jerry nods... "Jerry, pleased to meet you."
"Well come on in boys and take a load off."

Tommy excuses himself for a moment and has a word with the other two that came with us.  There is a look of surprise on both of their faces, and then they are whisked away in the van.  Where they are going I don't quite know. 

The inside of this industrial looking structure is anything but stark.  Inside the door is a waterfall from ceiling to floor, bordered with lush tropical growth.  At the base of the falls is a pool with exotic fish that should be swimming off of a reef somewhere.   The water continues along the wall, then cuts back across our path and under a small bridge to a larger tank that is below our feet that looks as big as our living area back at El Corazon.

"Watch your step."  Tommy warns as he starts down a sweeping staircase.
We end up in a massive room that is below ground level.  One whole wall is made up of the fish tank we walked by after the little bridge.  Inside there are hundreds of wildly colored fish, a sea turtle, puffer fish, several small reef sharks, and God knows what else.

"That's some aquarium."  Chris remarks, standing in front of it.  The face of it is as large as a movie theater screen.

"Well, it isn't exactly an aquarium.  Twenty years ago there was a blow-hole between my home and the beach.  I had the "basement" dug long before construction started on my home.  They actually tunneled back toward the blow-hole until they broke through.  Then some ingenious diver friends of mine figured a way to plug the sea-side of the blow-hole so we could open the access a little more and then install this wall of twelve inch thick Plexiglas.   We transplanted the seaweed and and coral into the tank, and then deflated the plug and towed it out of there."

"No shit.  That is amazing."  Lou watches a shark glide by and then turns back to Tommy.
"So the fish just come in through the passage?"
"Well, some of them do.  Most of them we take off the reef and dump them into the tank.  They stay for a while because we feed them.  But they eventually cycle back out into the sea.  The sharks, they stay.  Lately they have been eating pretty well."

As he says this I see a shoe lazily turning this way and that with the sway of current from the blow-hole passage.  I tips for a moment and I can see that there are the remains of a foot inside.  I know he knows we see it, and whatever message that sends is understood.

"You boys want a drink?"  Tommy draws our attention away from the aquarium wall to a bar that runs the length of the far wall.  There must be a hundred bottles on display, lit from below by soft neon through the glass block tiles that make up the shelf on which they sit.  Near the middle is a familiar sight.

"Well I'll be damned.  You like the Muerte Verde, Tommy?"
Tommy cracks a wicked smile, "Now you're talkin', friend."
Before long we are in the grips of a Muerte binge, the first skull falling early, making way for a second from a free-standing freezer behind the bar.  Cigars are offered and we hold the prize Cubans in our hands.

"Shoulda brought this one up first and put the other down in that freezer.  This shit is way wicked when it is ice cold."

I can see the look on Chris' face.  He is anxious and hasn't touched his first shot when we have down three or four already.  Lou is irritated at this disrespect to our host.

"We should take it easy, boys, we have work to do."
"Fuck that, this is what we are doing now."  Lou tosses back what must be his fifth shot.  Tommy chuckles drunkenly and throws down another, as do I.

"Now... come on, guys, my mother is expecting a progress report in a couple of hours."
"Hey FUCK that... dragon woman."  Lou burps.
I shake my head, "come on, Lou, that's the boy's mother."
"I ain't on any time schedule here.  We are enjoying the hospitality of our fine host.  This fucker wants to be rude and not drink... then fuck him.  Let him tell his mommy on me.  I don't give a flying... "  he stops to move his shot glass toward Tommy, who is once again pouring.

"Chris, relax my friend.  We can't  do anything today.  Those two that came with you, they have to go back to Cuba to retrieve the shopkeepers log."

"But I thought the log was here, with you."  Chris is confused at this point.
"Yeah, it was in the safe at the lodge, but they took it."
"Who took it?"  I ask.
"You do know that there is another party interested in the Grifon?"
We nod collectively.
"They managed to bribe my night manager into "having a look at it" last night.  They ended up taking it and my night manager managed to be beaten, cheated, and lost his job all in a matter of fifteen or twenty minutes."

"So why Cuba?"
"That is who took it.  I checked the surveillance cameras behind the counter and in my office.  I recognized one of the men who works for one of the government officials there in Cuba."

"So they are going to take it back?"  Chris asks, knowing that the two men they sent for the job weren't the right two men.
"Buy it back.  Whatever they wanted it for they have got their information.  They will sell it back to me just because they are money hungry motherfuckers.  But whatever you are looking for they might find first." 

Lou puffs his cigar to life, "That... "  he puffs a few more times until it is really smoking well, "that will make our job easier if they find it first.  Let 'em, and then we will just take the prize right out of their hands."

Tommy taps an inch long ash from his cigar and then pops it into the corner of his mouth.  He gives Lou a long look, then me, then settles on Chris.
"Do you boys know what it is you're looking for?"

"You know what we are looking for, Tommy, that is why we came to you.  The wreck of the Grifon, the treasure."

"Come on, Antonelli, you're looking for those tablets.  The ones with the diamond as big as your fist."