“Alex!” I called out his name when I spotted him in the shade of his houseboat’s overhang. “What are you reading?”
“A book.” He smiled and gulped from his coffee cup.
“You got a minute?”
“Sure, come aboard.” He closed the book.
“You going to school?” I saw a textbook as I sat down.
“City College,” he said. “Time to get educated.”
You don’t ask personal questions of boat people. You know what they want you to know, so I knew little about Alex. He looked young, possibly not even twenty-one. He’d bought the houseboat two years ago and moved in. He was quiet and kept to himself. On occasion, he showed up at one of our infamous dock parties, where the food was homemade and liquor flowed for hours. Sometimes he drank and ate, sometimes he shared a joint, and other times he walked on without stopping.
“You choose a major?” I tried to sound interested.
“Maybe biology,” he lied.
I have a built-in BS detector and returned his smile without saying anything. “If I tell you the truth, you won’t laugh?” He leaned toward me. “Or tell anyone else on the dock?”
“If it’s funny, I’m gonna laugh,” I said. “But whatever it is, it’s between us.”
“Police science,” he muttered and sat up straight. “I signed up for the police academy and filled out the papers to be a city cop.”
“That’s great,” I said.
“What if nobody on the dock will talk to me when they see the uniform?” He frowned. He was young enough to care what others thought.
“Or everyone will feel safer knowing a cop lives at the marina,” I said.
He smiled his reply.
“I’m wondering if you can help me,” I said after an uneasy moment of silence.
“With what?” He sat back to be more comfortable or distance himself from my request, I’m not sure which.
“Is there a Goth club in town?” I tried to say without too much of a silly grin.
“There’s a new hangout on the water,” he said suspiciously. “Why?”
“I’d like you to go there with me.”
He must have thought it was funny, because he burst out laughing.
“Yeah,” he tried to say as he gulped air, “you’d fit right in, just like I would at the yacht club.”
He had a point, and when he stopped laughing I told him, in a roundabout way, about the murder of Tracy Cox and how it was thought to be related to her series on Gothic clubs.
“I read a few of her stories online,” he said, more in control now. “Did you know her?”
“Yeah,” I lied and was glad he didn’t have his own BS detector. “I want to look into what happened and maybe finish her series.”
“Mick, with red hair, a beard, and a tan a tourist would kill for...” He hesitated, probably wondering if saying the word kill was in bad taste. When I didn’t reply he went on, “You’d draw more attention to yourself than a centerfold shoot on Duval Street.”
“Hadn’t thought of that,” I admitted, realizing he was also young enough to look at Playboy and not read the articles. “Where is this place?”
He got us coffee and told me about an old yacht that had anchored off Christmas Tree Island in Key West Harbor about two months ago and hosted Gothic-themed parties.
“After midnight, there’s a shuttle boat that picks you up at the Simonton Street Pier,” he said. “I’ve gone a couple of times, but, like I said, I’m moving in another direction now.”
“How does the boat know who to pick up?”
He gave me a quizzical look and shook his head. “It wouldn’t pick you up, that’s for sure. If you look like you belong, you can get in the boat.”
“And you look the part?”
“A hell of a lot more than you do.”
“Do you know who owns the yacht?”
“An older guy, older than you.” He finished his coffee. “I don’t mean anything negative, it’s just that everyone there is young, high school or college age. But this guy is creepy, like he believes he’s Dracula.”
“What do you mean?” He had my full attention.
“He’s whiter than me, has fangs, and speaks with a Spanish accent,” he said. “I dated an English girl back home who wasn’t that pale. He makes his rounds of the party a few times and then disappears below deck. Maybe he keeps his coffin there.” He laughed.
“Who runs the party, then?”
“Two hot babes.” Alex smiled. “There’s a couple of dudes off in the shadows and I think they’re security, but I don’t know for sure.”
“I need to get on board and snoop around.” I ran my fingers across my beard. “Maybe dye my hair.”
“And bleach your skin, look like Michael Jackson.” He shook his head and laughed. “Look, if it’s that important to you, I can put a few studs back in my ears and do your snooping.”
I guess he really did want to be a cop. Goth to cop, go figure.
“Tell me what you’re looking for and I’ll go tonight.” He was getting excited.
I didn’t like sending someone to do my legwork, but he had a point about me standing out. There was no way I would fit into the Gothic scene. My presence could make them suspicious and possibly they’d disappear again. Or, maybe they had other ways of dealing with snooping journalists.
I tried to get a look at the yacht Alex mentioned from the Glass Bottom Boat dock at the end of Duval Street. The Sunset Pier at the Ocean Key Resort blocked my view, but I did see the yacht’s outline. I cut through the resort and found a good viewing spot at Mallory Square.
My guess about the anchored yacht, which had to be a hundred feet long, with a wooden hull, was that it was once beautiful. It had a large, open aft deck, and inside there was sure to be a roomy salon with staterooms below, a galley and crew’s quarters, too; an engine room in the lower aft section, an enclosed bridge above the salon.
Today, the yacht fit in with the background of Christmas Tree Island and its desolate pine trees and landscape. Across the channel, Sunset Key and its million-dollar homes sparkled in comparison. Once, the old ship might have belonged with expensive island homes, but now it bobbed in Key West Harbor, while Jet Ski riders zipped past, as if it were a forgotten stepchild. The yacht anchored far enough offshore to keep it from city jurisdiction.
“The gates of hell,” came from a voice behind me. I turned to see Padre Thomas Collins.
Padre Thomas is an Irish-born Jesuit missionary who walked away from his mission in Guatemala when the angels he sees and talks to told him to. Soon afterward, the right-wing junta’s soldiers massacred most of the villagers and Padre Thomas still suffers from survivor’s guilt all these years later. He’s of medium height, thin as a rail, and slowly losing his hair. He gets around town on an old bicycle and chain-smokes cigarettes. He’s sixty if he’s a day. Or maybe guilt has aged him.
“Padre Thomas,” I greeted him and waited for his explanation.
“I thought I’d find you here,” he wheezed and lit a new cigarette. “What are you going to do?”
It’s scary how often he knows what I’m doing before I do. “About what?” I said without conviction.
Padre Thomas pointed to the yacht.
I smiled. “Beautiful old boat. Why’d you call it the gates of hell?” I turned away and looked back at the water.
“Because the devil lives there.” He sighed callously. He wasn’t joking.
“Lucifer or one of his fallen angels?” I tried not to laugh.
Padre Thomas moved up next to me. “Evil resides on that boat,” he whispered.