Tampa Burn

by Randy Wayne White

  Captain Felix said, “The boat just sits there, they don’t keep the bottom clean, but it could be an O.K. little skiff if they cared a little more about it. Which they don’t seem to. So maybe that’s why the police department hasn’t paid their wet-slippage rent in a couple months.”

  “Seven months,” Mack corrected sharply. “For seven months, their bean-counters have been stringing me along. They don’t return my calls, they ignore my letters. I’m sick of being treated like a fool.”

  “That’s what this is about,” Captain Dave said. “The Sanibel Police Department hasn’t paid their rent, and Mack’s on the warpath. Now he wants us to do something that’s just plain nuts.”

  “Seeking justice isn’t nuts,” Mack said priggishly. “Do you remember what country you’re in? Or a thing called the Constitution? I’ve called them, I’ve sent notices. I’ve gone down to City Hall in person; wasted hours trying to collect that goddamn debt. They made me fill out forms because they haven’t paid their bills.

  “How long would I be walking around free on the streets if the tables were turned? If I owed the city money? If I told them to go piss up a rope when they came to collect?” Mack had been gesturing with his cigar, but now jammed it back in the corner of his mouth. “It’s the principle of the thing, damn it! When the government starts ignoring the basic rules of commerce, we’re all taking it up the bum. The department owes me money. They refuse to pay, so I’ve had it. I’ve given them every chance.”

  I could see that Mack had been worked up about it for a while.

  I asked, “So what are you going to do?”

  Jeth Nichols had avoided eye contact after our minor confrontation the night before, but that was now forgotten as he said to me with emotion, “He wants us to steal the Sanibel Police Department’s boat. All of us. We could get in a lot of trouble for doin’ something like that, couldn’t we, dah-dah-Doc?”

  Sounding as if he really were a little crazed, Mack said, “I want you to sink the son-of-a-bitch, not just steal her. Punch her full of holes, tow her out, and make a reef. We’ll catch enough grouper and snapper off that piece of junk to pay their tab twenty times over. Just what the bastards deserve, too.” He said the last as if he could feel the satisfaction it would bring him, already anticipating how he was going to feel.

  Captain Felix said to me, “He says we all have to help sink the boat, ’cause that way no one will talk. Every single one of us has to have a hand in it. We’ve already pulled her onto the canoe trail, out of sight, so the live-aboards won’t know.”

  “If we don’t all hang together, we’ll all surely hang separately,” Mack said, paraphrasing the famous Benjamin Franklin quote.

  Jeth appeared stricken. “Jesus Christ, they can still hang you for stealing shit from a police depa-pah-partment?”

  Mack calmed him with a look and a gesture before adding, “I’ve already locked the marina gate, so there’s no chance of any outsiders coming around. What I suggest you gents do is take axes, crowbars—” He pointed to the repair shop. “We’ve got all the tools right here. Knock plenty of holes in the hull. Take out all the flotation and fuel, then plug the holes with something temporary.”

  Puffing on the cigar, he looked at me. “Rags, maybe? Old life jackets? Whatta you think, Doc?”

  Sounding calm, but a little helpless, too, Captain Felix said, “He wants us to do it tonight before the moon gets up too bright. Tell him he’s crazy, Doc. Steal the freaking police department’s boat? Jesus, what are we going to say if we get caught?”

  Mack, all the guides, everyone was looking at me. Under any other circumstances, in any other mood, I would probably have used some gradual, delicate line of reasoning so that Mack would finally decide for himself that it wasn’t a good idea. But it wasn’t a normal circumstance, and I was in anything but a normal frame of mind.

  I looked at my watch—I could spare a little time before checking e-mails and meeting Tomlinson. Plus, I was aware, on some subtle level of consciousness, that this was a good thing for me to be doing; a healthy diversion, interacting with the marina family. Earlier, as I’d driven past the party the Jensen brothers were hosting, I’d thought about how emotional trauma distorts our normal orbit. But now the strong, not-so-normal gravitational power of Dinkin’s Bay was pulling me back into line again.

  To Mack, I said, “What I don’t understand is, we get along fine with the police. They’re a good bunch, from the top right on down. It doesn’t have anything to do with—”

  “It’s not the uniforms,” he interrupted. “It’s the bloody bean-counters. The suits. It’s not the cops themselves.”

  “How many months are they late?”

  “Eight, if you count May. And I think I will.”

  I said, “You’ve tried all the formal steps to try and get them to pay?”

  Nodding, Mack replied, “They enjoy making me jump through their bloody little hoops. They could pay. The bean-counters know they should pay. But I can’t sue ’em, and the bastards know that, too. So when they come lookin’ for their boat, I’m gonna say I don’t know what happened to it, and I don’t care. That boat stopped being my responsibility when they stopped payin’.”

  I looked from Jeth to Felix to Dave. I felt more like myself than I’d felt in days, yet what I said to them was way out of character: “Guys, I can’t believe I’m saying this, and I know you never expected it. But Mack’s right. Let’s go sink that son-of-a-bitch.”

  A few minutes before moonrise, I ran my 21-foot Maverick flats skiff past Woodring Point, the big 225-horsepower Merc blasting a platinum rooster tail toward the stars as I ran throttle-heavy toward the pocket of lights that marked the marina. I left the channel at Green Point, just before the old fish house ruins, touching the jack plate toggle to raise the engine, then increased trim and steered straight toward my lab, running fifty miles an hour across the flat in two feet of water, sometimes less, sometimes more.

  As I expected, Tomlinson was in the house waiting on me. His dinghy was tied up next to my 24-foot trawl boat, the old cedar plank netter I bought in Chokoloskee and use for dragging up specimens. The moon was already so bright that I could read the words SANIBEL BIOLOGICAL SUPPLY painted on the stern.

  As I tied my skiff, he called from inside, “I was about to give up on you. Or come looking. Since we met, I can’t remember you ever being late before.”

  I called back, “I’ll be right up. Help yourself to a beer.”

  “I’ve already helped myself to three. I’m doing the fifteen-minute dosage tonight. But thanks anyway.”

  He meant a beer every fifteen minutes.

  I ignored the urge to hose and flush my skiff, and the guilt that went with ignoring maintenance, and went upstairs, taking the wooden steps two at a time. Tomlinson was in the galley, kneeling at the little refrigerator when I came in. He looked at me for a moment, then looked again, his expression a mix of surprise and uneasiness . . . but then the uneasiness changed to unexpected relief.

  “Holy shitskee, what happened to you?”

  I looked at my arms, looked at my legs, and saw that I was streaked with gray marl, bits of turtle grass, and that my shorts and shirt were a mess of mud and shell. There was some blood involved, too.

  Stripping off my shirt, I said, “Have you ever tried to sink a boat? Intentionally, I mean. I had no idea, but it’s damn near impossible. You know that cheap tri-hull runabout the cops use sometimes? It’s like a damn floating vampire. It just won’t die.”

  Tomlinson grinned—oh yeah, he was very relieved that I’d provided some amusing way to neutralize the discomfort between us. The fact was, I was glad, too. But I also wondered if, after this meeting, there would ever be an easy moment between us again.

  After he’d assured me that Pilar hadn’t heard anything new from the kidnappers or from Lake, Tomlinson asked, “You were intentionally trying to sink the police department’s boat? Why?”

  I explained the reason, and then how we’d gone about try
ing to sink the thing, as I changed into dry clothes—I’d shower later, after checking my e-mails. Just because they hadn’t contacted Pilar didn’t mean that I hadn’t been sent a note.

  We’d knocked holes in the runabout’s hull, I told him. We’d removed all the foam flotation—or so we thought. We plugged the holes with old life jackets and rags, then connected all the plugs with a complex network of fishing line so that we could remove all the plugs with a single yank.

  I said, “We towed it out into about ten feet of water near the mouth of the bay—you know the spot. When we pulled the plugs, the damn boat filled halfway up and wouldn’t sink any farther.”

  We’d spent the next forty minutes hacking, chopping, and then finally, with all of us in the water, physically trying to stomp and pull the hull under.

  “The guides are still out there. When I left, the tri-hull was sitting with its bow out of the water, just high enough so you could still see the Sanibel Police Department reflector stencil from, oh, say, no less than a quarter-mile away. I thought Jeth was going to start bawling, he was so upset. But then he got caught under the boat’s stern somehow and nearly drowned, and that seemed to calm him right down.”

  I was tucking in my shirt, hurrying toward the computer in my lab as I added, “The last I heard, they were sending a skiff back to the marina to load up that old stove that’s piled with the storage junk. How they’re going to fit a stove on a fishing skiff, I don’t know. But the plan is to shove the stove off onto the deck of the police boat, and the weight of the stove is supposed to take it under. You know, finally kill the bastard. A stove through the heart.”

  Tomlinson and I were both laughing as I sat at the computer and began the process of signing on to AOL. But then I stopped laughing and turned to look at him, suddenly serious. “You know something, Tomlinson? Even with all the crap that’s going on in my life, I realized something tonight. Just hanging out with the guides, doing something as idiotic as trying to sink a stolen boat, it reminded me. We’ve got great lives here. Dinkin’s Bay’s a great little place. A bunch of fun people who don’t take life too seriously, but with enough fabric and character to give a damn. To know that other people’s lives matter. Plus, they really seem to care about us.”

  He was nodding, listening carefully but not making eye contact as I continued.

  “For a couple of tropical drifters like you and me, it’s probably the closest we’ll ever come to having a home. I’d hate to see anything screw that up because of old . . . old stuff. Things that happened in the past. Events, or old promises. Alliances that maybe seemed the right thing to do at the time. Bullshit like that is absolute poison, and it always comes out sooner or later if you try and keep it hidden.”

  Now he was looking at me, his eyes wise and old as he tugged nervously at a strand of frazzled, sun-bleached hair, still nodding, and I could see that he understood.

  He said softly, “I was right this afternoon; right about you changing. So there’s something I wish I’d’ve told you a long time ago. Back when I figured out I could trust you. Back when I realized that you and I—about the two most unlikely nerds in the world—were going to be friends. I’m damn sorry about that, Marion.”

  I said, “From one nerd to another, we all make mistakes. I’ve got scars from dealing with my scars.” I studied his face evenly for a moment before adding, “But that doesn’t mean everything can be forgiven. Some mistakes, there’s no statute of limitations.”

  I waited through his long, thoughtful silence, then watched him stand a little straighter before he said, “I know that. I realize the risk. Even so, there’s something I need to tell you—”

  Listening, I turned, glanced at the computer screen . . . and then did a quick double-take before interrupting, “Whoa. Hold it right there,” stopping Tomlinson in midsentence.

  I was holding up a warning index finger, my eyes fixed on the screen again as I added, “If you’ve waited this long, it can wait a little longer. There’s an e-mail here from Lake. I’ve got an e-mail from my son.”

  TWENTY-ONE

  THERE was an old, blind, black carney who lived in the trailer park, and who owned a utility van that had once been a phone truck. He’d bought it so neighbors could drive him places when he needed to go. Lourdes used the van to get around Tampa, and the old carney stayed with the boy when he was away.

  On Sunday afternoon, Prax had driven through Tampa, then across the bridge onto exclusive Davis Island, where Tampa General Hospital was located. It was a huge complex, eight stories or so high, a pink-looking color, with helicopter pads and a multistory parking garage. The hospital was right there by the water, and within easy jogging distance of lots of older, classy-looking million-dollar homes.

  He’d spent some time driving the streets, getting to know the area in daylight so he’d be comfortable there at night, looking at the mansions set back on shady lawns, all the rich assholes probably out playing golf or tennis or some other bullshit game.

  On Monday, he’d come to the same area, but in the 22-foot Boston Whaler Outrage he’d bought for cash and kept at a marina on the Alafia River, which was just down the road from his trailer. Nice boat with twin 150-HP Yamahas, and the bastard could fly.

  He’d cruised back and forth by the hospital, then cruised the canals looking at the mansions again, wondering which one was owned by his e-mail pal, Dr. Valerie. He kept his face covered with a bandana—not unusual for fishermen with skin cancers in Florida.

  That was the afternoon he was pretty sure he spotted her. Her e-mails hadn’t given him any information about where she lived or her personal life, but she’d mentioned a couple times that she was close enough to the hospital to jog to and from work. So Prax had idled around the car bridges pretending to fish when, a little after sunset, there she was: a fit-looking, middle-age woman in fancy turquoise and black running tights, wearing a pink visor. She came jogging out from what seemed to be the back of the hospital, across the parking lot, then took a left toward the island’s cozy little business district.

  She looked smaller than he had imagined her to be. In fact, Dr. Valerie looked tiny. It was weird how fame always seemed to make people look smaller in real life.

  Prax had gotten the boat up on plane, trying to follow along in the general direction. The last he saw her, she’d turned down what he found out was Magnolia Street, which led to a handful of the island’s largest homes, all right there on the waterfront.

  He was pleased. That narrowed things down.

  HE spent Wednesday in a rental boat, charging around Miami Beach. Now, on Thursday afternoon, he drove the van once again, but this time straight to the hospital and parked in the parking garage, third level. He had his face expertly wrapped with gauze bandages, one of his hands, too, and he was wearing a green hospital gown over his shorts and T-shirt, as if he were a patient.

  Screw it, if someone stopped him, asked him any questions, he’d just say he was a burn victim who wanted to take his own private tour of Tampa General’s famous burn center.

  What’s the worst they could do?

  He entered the hospital’s East Pavilion wing, walking through the bricked patio—people were eating at the outdoor tables there, blackbirds whistling above them in a tree. It seemed more like a modern shopping center—Christ, there was even a McDonald’s, along with other kinds of shops and crap.

  Inside, he found a directory on the wall, then took the elevator to the sixth floor. He stepped out into a wide, well-lighted hallway to see a black sign with white lettering that read: WELCOME TO TAMPA GENERAL REGIONAL BURN CENTER.

  Visiting hours were listed below, followed by: BURN ICU VISITORS MUST CALL BEFORE ENTERING.

  Prax decided to try and get into the ICU area anyway, just to see how far he could take it.

  He did, too—but only long enough to take a quick look. He saw the nurses’ station—counter and walls done in blue pastels—with staff sitting and standing, talking or hurrying past, everyone wearing surgical
scrubs and sometimes plastic, elastic hair coverings. Behind the counter, above a computer monitor, was a glass case filled with personal photographs: sons and daughters and grandbabies.

  It gave the place a personal touch that made Lourdes oddly uneasy.

  Beside and behind the nurses’ station, in a separate but open room, was one of the things he’d come hoping to find. It was an entire wall of medicines and medical supplies, everything stored in tall metal lockers, on shelves faced with glass so that you could see what was inside.

  Prax realized that he didn’t have a chance in hell of getting into the room unnoticed and stealing the drugs he wanted. Even if he pulled the fire alarm and caused a panic, there were too many security people roaming around.

  A disappointment.

  Something that didn’t disappoint, though, was the surgical schedule he found on a clipboard that was hanging on a wall. This was down the hall, near a far less busy Nurses’ Station C3.

  He read: Thursday: Dr. Santos, 2000 hrs, Operating Room II.

  He scanned down to read also: Thursday: Dr. Santos, 1400 hrs, Operating Room II.

  So maybe the famous lady was in the hospital right now, working her magic?

  He followed the signs until he was outside the double doors of Operating Room II, looking at signs that warned he could not pass through the electronic doors without being scrubbed.

  Coming through those doors, from inside the room, he could hear music playing. Loud music. Some kind of opera-sounding stuff, which always sounded like make-believe tragedy to him and which he hated. But maybe someone famous and sophisticated like Dr. Valerie would like opera.

  So maybe she was in there. Judging from the schedule, it looked like she’d be in the same operating room that night, too, working late. Would probably have to jog home alone in the dark.

  He wondered if she’d take a break, go home between surgeries, or just stick around the hospital.