Johnny Winston liked to work alone and he liked to work under the cover of darkness.
And he didn’t like it when he had to leave New York City.
Over the years Johnny had taken on a few other likes and dislikes.
“So, maybe that’s why the brass gave you this assignment,” said Eddie “Three Fingers” Johnson. “Maybe they thought you was thinkin’ you was one of them instead of bein’ just the hired help.”
The drive to San Francisco was taking forever. At least it seemed that way to Johnny. Eddie was a good example of why he liked to work alone. Talk. More talk. And then still more talk.
They were driving cross-country rather than flying because there would be less of a paper trail. Also, with the tight scrutiny the TSA now imposed, it was too risky for Johnny and Eddie to go through security checkpoints.
And while they might not need their Glocks for this job, at least they would have them with them.
Johnny and Eddie were two of about twenty wise guys who did grunt work for a syndicate in New York. The work they did was often dangerous, almost always illegal, but it paid well.
“Recovering merchandise” usually meant going out and collecting a debt from somebody who owed the mob money.
This job was different: Johnny and Eddie were going to an island off the California coast to recover some buried treasure.
While Eddie was as excited as a ten year old kid about the whole deal, Johnny thought somebody upstairs was maybe losing their marbles.
He would rather have just gone to the Bronx or Queens and broken somebody’s face.
#
Kyle Smith, one of the syndicate’s lieutenants, had given Johnny and Eddie a brief history of the treasure.
Back in 1985, Ronnie James had robbed eight jewelry stores in the Bay Area in a little over six months.
The story was that after each heist a helicopter had taken Ronnie to an island off the San Francisco coast where he had stashed the loot. Ronnie and the helicopter pilot had not come back from the island after the eighth run. It was presumed by Ronnie’s associates they had crashed at sea on the way to the island or on the way back.
For years nobody knew where that island was. Then a real estate agent in Oakland was going through his late father’s files and found inquiries about islands off the coast that a Ronnie James had been interested in. The agent couldn’t find anything to show that Ronnie had ever purchased an island, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t have used one that nobody else owned to stash his loot.
The agent, Tom Jenkins, remembered the story of the jewelry store heists and figured this information could be valuable to the right people.
Tom could have tried to find the jewelry himself, but he had read enough crime novels to know that was probably something a little over his head.
Six months later, Johnny and Eddie were on a boat in the Pacific and Tom Jenkins’ widow was having dinner on Fisherman’s Wharf with her new boyfriend.
#
“I’ve never driven a boat this big,” said Eddie. “Remember two summers ago at the company picnic?”
Johnny remembered; the party had been on Coney Island. The brass had rented four or five runabouts and everybody had had a good time racing them up and down the shoreline.
Those runabouts had been about fifteen feet in length. This walkaround was at least thirty feet. Johnny figured that was because they would probably need something this big if they were going to venture ten or twenty miles out into the Pacific.
The San Francisco “branch office” of the New York syndicate had taken care of procuring the boat.
They had also stocked it with a large cooler filled with ice, a six-pack of beer, a bottle of whiskey, a twelve-pack of bottled water, and a dozen deli sandwiches. This was supposed to only be an afternoon reconnaissance mission, but since neither Johnny nor Eddie had had much experience on the water, they figured it best to pack more rather than less.
Fifteen miles out the guys spotted an island and pulled up near it.
“I don’t think a helicopter could’ve safely landed on that little spot of sand and rock,” said Eddie. “Let’s move on.”
Johnny agreed. They were looking for something at least thirty feet by thirty feet. Smaller and landing would be difficult. Bigger and somebody with more money than they knew what to do with might buy it on a lark. They were looking for something nobody would want to plunk a cottage down onto.
“Farther out,” said Eddie. “I think we want to be farther out.”
After another ten miles of going south and west they saw another spot of land in the distance. As they got closer they could see some wooden wreckage sticking out of the sand near the center of the roughly forty by fifty foot isle. It looked like a make-shift lean-to had collapsed some time ago.
There was easy access to the island and Eddie drove the boat partway up onto the little beach.
“People have been here recently,” said Johnny. “There’s beer cans and fast food wrappers stuck in the rocks. Probably kids.”
“But if this was the island with the stash and some kids found it, it would’ve been in the news,” said Eddie. “Let’s look around.”
Lifting up the lean-to they discovered that the ceiling had once been insulated from the elements with newspapers. Eddie grinned at Johnny as he pointed out the dates on the newspapers. 1985.
There were a few palm trees a short distance from the lean-to.
“I kinda like the idea that Ronnie James would’ve buried the loot near the trees,” said Eddie. “Like ‘X marks the spot,’ right?”
Johnny thought Eddie’s enthusiasm was getting a little old but agreed that maybe James would have wanted a landmark of sorts to more easily spot the island from either the air or the water.
They had purchased two shovels and a small wheelbarrow in San Francisco. Toward one end of the island was the established stand of four palm trees, each about three or four feet from its neighbor.
“Let’s each take a tree and start shovelin’ around it in a circle,” said Eddie, wheeling the shovels from the boat to the trees. “We can then work our way away from the trees and hopefully hit pay dirt.”
#
They had left San Francisco a little after 9:00 in the morning. It was now about three o’clock and the digging hadn’t produced anything but blisters.
“Let’s take a break and have some beer and sandwiches,” said Johnny.
“Yeah, but let’s make it a short break,” said Eddie. “We have to get back to land before dark. I don’t want to get turned around out here and run out of gas.”
Twenty minutes later they were back at it.
“Hey, I just found somethin’,” said Eddie. “It looks like an arm or leg bone.”
“That could be good or not so good,” said Johnny.
“I saw in a movie once this pirate had a couple of his men dig a hole to bury the treasure and after they had put in the loot he killed ’em and buried ’em with it.”
‘I suppose that could belong to the helicopter pilot,” said Johnny. “But then how did James get off the island?”
“Or maybe this belongs to James,” said Eddie, turning the bone over in his hands. “Maybe the helicopter pilot killed him and then took off for Mexico. It’s only about thirty or forty miles southeast of here.”
“Let’s call this in,” said Johnny. “Time to have the big guys decide what we do from here.”
“But we haven’t found any jewels,” said Eddie. “We don’t even know for sure that this is the island.”
“Okay, we dig for another hour,” said Johnny. “But then we head back to the coast.”
More digging turned up more bones. Too many bones for one person.
“Two skulls, two rib cages and a lot of arm and leg bones,” said Eddie. “Looks like there was a third party.”
“Somebody other than James and his pilot would have to have been in on it,” said Johnny. “Else how would the “eight trips out” urban legend have gotten started?”
“So either the jewels are a little bit deeper under these bones,” said Eddie. “Or somebody took them thirty years ago.”
“I’m gonna call in,” said Johnny.
“The boat!” yelled Eddie. “Where’s the goddamn boat?”
#
Johnny and Eddie sat on the beach looking out at their boat floating fifty feet from the island. The evening tide had come in and the boat had slipped from the shore into the ocean while they had been uncovering the bones.
“I thought I’d run it up far enough on the sand,” said Eddie. “I don’t know nothin’ about tides.”
“I can swim some, but I don’t think I could swim that far,” said Johnny. “Even if I got out there to it, how would I climb aboard?”
“Do ya think maybe it’ll start to move back this way when the tides change?” asked Eddie.
“Maybe,” said Johnny. “Maybe.”
#
They took an inventory of what they had. Luckily, they had brought everything off the boat when they had landed.
“Can you get a signal on your phone?” asked Eddie.
“Nope.”
“How ’bout we use that lean-to as a float and kick our way out there,” said Eddie. “Once we got there maybe one of us could boost the other into the boat.”
“Not bad, Eddie,” said Johnny. “Better than what I got, which is nothin’.”
#
The guys dug the lean-to out from the sand and launched it into the water.
“Does it seem like the boat’s closer or farther?” asked Eddie.
“Seems closer, maybe, but I can’t tell for sure. Keep kickin’.”
“Don’t think about sharks,” said Eddie.
“What?” said Johnny.
“If ya think about ’em, it attracts ’em like a magnet. They can smell your fear in the water.”
“You’re nuts,” said Johnny. “Keep kickin’.”
#
The sun was getting low in the West by the time they got to the boat.
“Look,” said Eddie. “There’s a rope danglin’ a little ways over the side. Maybe we can reach it.”
They maneuvered the lean-to so it was up against the side of the boat near where the rope would maybe be within reach. Johnny steadied the lean-to in the light waves and Eddie clambered onto it as far as he could without causing it to be pushed farther rather than closer to the rope.
“Got it!” said Eddie as he grabbed the rope. The rope played out for a frighteningly long way before it finally held firm.
Eddie climbed into the boat and handed the rope to Johnny.
“Here, let me help ya,” he said pulling Johnny into the boat.
“You saved our lives, Eddie,” said Johnny, lying on his back panting on the boat’s floor. “I owe ya one.”
“Ya, well ya can pay me back when we find the jewels.”
“Let’s take the lean-to,” said Johnny. “Waste not, want not, right?”
Eddie jumped into the water and fastened the rope around the lean-to. They pulled it on board and started back to the island.
Just as they hit the beach, the sun set. But there was a full moon rising in the East that would provide all the light they would need.
#
After taking care to secure the boat, they each had a couple of sandwiches and a beer. They decided to save the rest of the supplies until the next day. After their experience with the boat, they thought it best to conserve what was left in case they ran into more trouble.
“Ya wanna talk about what our plan should be?” asked Eddie.
“Well, I know we don’t wanna try and find the coast in the dark,” said Johnny. “I think we should get some sleep and decide what to do in the morning.”
“Only….,” Eddie began, but then stopped. He looked over his shoulder to where the palm trees could just be made out in the moonlight.
“Yeah? Only what?”
“I don’t know if I can sleep with them bones over there,” said Eddie. “Maybe we should throw some dirt on them to keep ’em from—”
“Keep ’em from what? Those bones have been buried for thirty years; ya think they’re gonna crawl over here and attack us?”
“Come on, Johnny, I’ll sleep better if I know they’re buried again.”
“Throw the bones back into the hole and put the lean-to over it,” said Johnny. “I’m beat; I’m gonna get some sleep.
#
“Eddie! Where the hell are you?”
Johnny had awoken with the sun and expected to see Eddie someplace near him. He wasn’t.
He walked over to the palm trees and stared at the lean-to covering the hole Eddie had first found the bones in. Though it was now daylight, it spooked him; he couldn’t bring himself to pick up the lean-to. Why did he think Eddie was under there?
“Hey! I’m over here,” came Eddie’s call.
Johnny turned and saw Eddie standing in the boat with a big smile on his face.
“I slept like a baby, how about you?” he said.
The fact was Johnny hadn’t slept well at all. In the middle of the night he’d had a waking dream of ghosts hovering over the diggings by the palm trees. It was dark, but because it was a dream Johnny could clearly see two spirits shaking their heads back and forth as if warning him of something before they abruptly disappeared.
It had taken him a long time to fall back into a troubled sleep. But because Johnny didn’t believe in ghosts, the dream was no longer with him. Or so he thought.
“Come on, numb nuts, let’s look for the jewels,” said Johnny. “I wanna be outta here by noon.”
That seemed like a judicious plan considering what had happened with the boat the previous day.
But things were about to get hinky.
#
After they had lifted the lean-to from the hole that had contained the bones, Eddie and Johnny continued to dig in the same spot, hoping the jewels were buried under the bones.
The bones now lay in a jumble next to their digging. Eddie suddenly stopped digging, threw his shovel down, and starting walking toward their pile of supplies.
“It’s not time for a break yet,” said Johnny. “We just got started.”
Eddie ignored him and continued walking. When he reached their little camp, he rummaged around and finally pulled his Glock from the pile. He turned to face Johnny and then put the barrel of the gin in his mouth.
“Noooo!” yelled Johnny.
The back of Eddie’s head exploded and blood and gore flew out onto the sand.
Johnny remained in the hole for a minute in a daze. The minute turned into five minutes and then the five into ten.
Then, seeming to come back from someplace far away, Johnny stepped out of the hole and walked toward the supplies, pushing the wheelbarrow in front of him. He loaded all of the supplies except for one of the shovels and his Glock into the boat and threw the wheelbarrow in after them.
He fired three shots into the cooler. With a grunt, he pushed the boat a little way off the beach. Climbing aboard, he started the engine, put it reverse, and set it at low throttle. Out of the boat and once again back on the beach, he fired four shots into the hull below water level. Returning to a trance-like state, he watched as the boat slowly backed away from the island, taking on water in its retreat.
Picking up Eddie, Johnny carried him back to the hole they had been digging in. He gently lowered him into the hole. “Sorry, buddy,” he mumbled.
He added the bones to the grave and shoveled sand on top of them. He filled in the other hole that he had started when Eddie had found the first bone yesterday.
After tamping everything down, he stepped back to admire his work. Once again, the minutes ticked by.
Shaking his head as if to clear the cobwebs, he started to drag the lean-to from the diggings back to the spot from where they had dug it out of the sand.
He dug a shallow hole about six feet long and two feet wide, piling the sand around the lip of the hole. As he was digging, he turned up part of another set of bones. He left them in the hole and dug a short trench to secure the lean-to in pretty much the same way it had been when they had found it.
With the lean-to back in place, Johnny lay down in the trench he had dug. He put the shovel next to him and started to pull the sand from the surrounding lip, covering him, the bones, and the shovel.
A muffled sound came from under the light cover of sand as Johnny took his life as Eddie had.
#
That night a violent storm caused the water to come up onto the island past the lean-to and all the way to the stand of palm trees.
By the following noon, the sun had dried everything and it looked exactly as it had when Eddie and Johnny had pulled up to it two days ago.
Through the storm, the lean-to had remained in place and now continued to serve as a beacon to those who may consider spending a night on a deserted island.
—
Roy Dorman is retired from the University of Wisconsin-Madison Benefits Office and has been a voracious reader for over 65 years. At the prompting of an old high school friend, himself a retired English teacher, Roy is now a voracious writer. He has had flash fiction and poetry published recently in Black Petals, Yellow Mama, Theme of Absence, Dark Dossier, Near To the Knuckle, Bewildering Stories, Shotgun Honey, and a number of other online and print journals.
