Chapter Two

  

Blu Carraway held up his hands to show he wasn’t holding. The guy with the Colt Python looked like he was ready to blast him. The room had the acrid bite of gunpowder to it, as if a shootout had just taken place. Blu wanted to take in his surroundings, and more of the man in front of him, but all he could focus on was the gun. Several long moments of them standing there facing each other passed, the man with the hand cannon and Blu with nothing but empty hands.

The man asked, “Who are you?”

“Name’s Blu Carraway. I’m a private investigator. I’d be happy to show you my identification.”

“Don’t make any sudden moves,” the man said.

“How long you want to stand here like this?” In Blu’s mind it was a fair question. He couldn’t hold his hands up forever.

It happened quite a bit in his business, but he never got used to it. Blu had no idea what was going on. All he knew was he was supposed to meet his old Army buddy, Skip, here at this particular time and this guy points a gun at him as soon as he walks in the door. This wasn’t a robbery. This was the aftermath of battle.

  

Brack was annoyed. And not by the two men that had shot up his bar. It was the way the guy in black standing in the doorway with his hands raised had spoken to him. As if he was in the cross-hairs all the time.

Ignoring the man’s question, Brack asked one of his own. “What are you doing here?”

“Easy there,” came the same calm voice. “Why don’t we put the gun down before someone gets hurt?”

That same annoyingly calm voice. Brack wanted to keep blasting—needed to keep blasting—to relieve all the pent-up tension caused by the shooters and their dead eyes, one set of which now stared blankly, and now really dead, from the floor. The one he’d taken down first with the shin shot, and then the two center mass holes for good measure. A .357 can do some damage.

With a deep breath, the tension started to melt away. Aside from the nonchalant attitude, this guy didn’t appear to be a threat. Brack lowered the pistol. “Okay. Now, what are you doing here?”

The man named Blu Carraway rotated the sunglasses to the top of his head. “What the hell happened here?”

The police siren blared louder. Tires screeched outside from the street in front of the bar.

Brack looked into the eyes of Carraway—they were killer’s eyes. Not dead like the shooters. But eyes like his own. Eyes that had seen death, caused death. Brack said, “Not sure what just happened. You see anyone leaving when you were coming in?”

  

Blu looked around the room and answered the guy’s question. “No.”

With the gun lowered, he relaxed enough to check out the surroundings. The bar was a few steps up from being a dive, although the new bullet holes certainly took it down a notch or two.

Blu took in the barkeep. About ten years younger than him, a solid six-footer. Not a meat-head, but not small, either. And dark skin for a white guy, darker than Blu’s own half-Cuban hue. He wore his thick hair trimmed short, a t-shirt that said “Need More Cowbell,” frayed cargo shorts, and sandals.

And he still held the gun.

Paintings of pirates hung on the walls along with a trove of nautical paraphernalia, keeping with the whole shipwreck theme. All that was missing was the one-eyed barkeep with a parrot on his shoulder.

Blu asked, “Anyone else here?”

  

At once, Brack remembered the customer—what was his name...Skip? He made his way toward the back deck and felt more than saw Blu Carraway follow.

The customer was still on the back deck, where he’d gone to drink his beer and Jack and to smoke. Unfortunately, they’d all be his last. He lay sprawled out on the floor, arms spread open, a smoke trail coming from the lit cigarette still between his fingers. His eyes were open wide as if in surprise, but there was no life left in them.

Brack counted four holes in the man.

Carraway said, “Damn.”

“You know him?”

Nodding, he said, “Yeah. His name is Skip. I was supposed to meet him here.”

Two police officers rushed inside the front door, a couple more jogged up the back stairs from the beach.

All had weapons trained on Brack. Probably because the Colt Python was still in his hand.

And one of the officers was Waters.

A week ago, Waters had been in the Pirate’s Cove, drunk, and tried to pick a fight because his girlfriend hit on Brack. Two of the other officers also currently training their Glocks on Brack had dragged Waters out of the bar. And they had since given Brack reason to suspect he wasn’t their favorite barkeep anymore.

Waters said, “Drop it!”

As slowly as he could, Brack slipped his finger outside of the trigger guard, and lowered the pistol to the floor.

As soon as he did, the officers swarmed him. Before he knew it, he was on the ground, his hands behind his back and zip tied. Someone kicked the Python away from him.

Brack looked over and saw the guy with the sunglasses getting the same treatment. This was especially harsh procedure, given that he knew most of the officers. Except that it was Waters and his buddies. Instead of complaining, Brack kept quiet, waiting for Chief Bates to arrive.