Tampa Burn

by Randy Wayne White

  Since the 1920s, Gibsonton—or Gib’town—has been the favorite winter home of circus, carnival, and sideshow people, both performers and support staff. What attracted them was the weather, the good fishing on the Alafia River, and also a population of locals who didn’t seem to have the usual prejudices against carnies or sideshow attractions such as giants, monkey-faced women, human pincushions, dwarfs, and other curiosities. Instead of staring, the locals accepted them for the good and decent people they happened to be.

  In time, county officials made Gib’town even more attractive to that small nomadic society by granting the village “show business” zoning, which meant residents could keep Ferris wheels, trapeze gear, or even caged lions on their property. The post office installed a special mailbox for the ever-increasing population of midgets.

  The arrival of the Ringling Brothers’ circus train each November to unload performers and performing animals, who were winter residents, became a notable event on the Gulf Coast of Florida.

  “Several years back,” Harris said, “Gibsonton got a lot of bad publicity because of the Lobster Boy murder. Did you hear about that? Lobster Boy had some kind of disease that made his hands and legs look like flippers, and he’d been exhibiting in sideshows since he was seven. His wife said he was a mean drunk, an abuser, and she paid some teenager to shoot him.

  “Other than that,” he said, “you never hear anything bad about Gib’town. They’re good people. They have their own tight little society. I’ve heard they even have their own kind of language. Different words that outsiders can’t understand. So the carney folks, the circus people, they’re different. But they’re O.K. I’ve known ’em most of my life. There are a lot of stories about foreign tankers being moored up the river waiting to be loaded with phosphate, and the crews sneaking into town to party with the show people. You know, dwarfs and bearded ladies and things. The Gib’town phosphate docks are so isolated, security has never been real tight—just one cop on the docks so the crew can’t go marching down the gangplank.”

  I asked him, “How’s security now?”

  “For all of Tampa, if you’re an inbound foreign commercial ship, it’s tighter than it used to be. If a skipper’s smart, and willing to risk it, he can still slip in just about anything he wants. And Gibsonton, it’s still the same—a single cop on the dock when a foreign ship’s in town.”

  “How about security for outward-bound foreign vessels?”

  I was thinking about how Lourdes might travel if and when he decided to return to Central America. And about where a man with a disfigured face might blend in easily.

  “It’s a lot easier. You’ve got to clear customs, but they don’t really look for anything leaving the country. They never have.”

  Abruptly, he pointed toward shore. “There you go. There’s an example of what this town’s about. Welcome to Gib’town.”

  We’d rounded a bend, and the mangrove fringe opened to reveal a small trailer park on the south bank and a camper-trailer park on the north. The park to the south looked like it dated back to the days of black-and-white television. There were rows of old mobile homes, bread-loaf shapes with peeling aluminum, some with TV antennas sticking up, the wire corroded by years of heat and I Love Lucy reruns.

  Along the border of the trailer park were wobbly finger docks and a few inexpensive boats, aluminum mostly.

  Lourdes had used a rental boat in Miami. What looked to be a 20-footer or so.

  There was nothing like that moored here. But there was a cement ramp. Instead of someone offloading a boat, though, a shirtless man with the biggest handlebar mustache I’ve ever seen was hosing down a young Indian elephant, allowing it to wade in the shallows of the river.

  Ashore, parked along the narrow streets of the mobile-home park, I could also see a cage built on a flatbed trailer, its wooden façade painted neon orange and green, with a banner advertising the spectacular Parnell Monkey Act. Nearby, there was another canvas banner draped from a tree, as if recently painted, that read:

  SEE TO BELIEVE!

  RAGTIME KURT AND KATHLEEN STOCKER

  THE AMAZING AERIALISTS

  FIRE BREATHER ROBBIE ROEPSTORFF

  KONG, THE WORLD’S STRONGEST TATTOOED GIANT

  A tattooed giant?

  That got my attention.

  Turning, I watched a snowy egret, standing one-legged on a low limb, stab its yellow beak into the water and skewer a wiggling, silver minnow.

  Except for its white feathers, the bird looked very much like its relative, the reddish egret.

  Overhead, I heard a wild screeching, squabbling, and I lifted my eyes to see a flock of parrotlike birds seem to tumble past, then crash, bounce, and cling to the high boughs of a pine, still squawking.

  They were bright green birds with dark heads—monk parakeets.

  I leaned, scooped a handful of water and tasted it: fresh, tannin-sweet.

  Gator country.

  I had been in this situation many times in my life—closing in on some unsuspecting target of choice—but I had never felt so charged with purpose, or so focused.

  My son was here. He was somewhere nearby. I was convinced of it. Could feel that it was so with an atavistic certainty that held no currency or rationale in the frontal lobe of my brain.

  When I looked from mobile home to mobile home, window to window, my vision now had a searchlight intensity, and my eyes moved with the same tunneling focus.

  In one of the trailers, I noticed curtains move . . .

  In a patch of front lawn of another, a woman in a baggy dress and wearing a huge straw hat seemed to watch us peripherally as she swept her sidewalk . . .

  In the distance, silhouetted in the shade of trees, a large man stood facing us, his face unseen . . .

  Near him was a modern circus wagon with a huge marquee painted in red and blue that proclaimed THE WORLD OF WONDERS awaited inside, including the Half Girl, Half-Snake; the Bear with Three Eyes; and Dezi, the Talking Wonder Dog.

  I stared at the marquee, thinking about it as Harris said, “Don’t let these old trailers fool you. The carnies don’t live here, most of them. They make a lot of money in the business. They’ve got a lot nicer places on up.”

  He was right about that. We crossed under the U.S. 41 bridge, fast traffic passing overhead, Bullfrog Marina alongside, and motored another mile up the creek and into a pretty lagoon. There were palms and oaks, Spanish moss hanging like fog in the shadows, expensive houses set back, a couple of gators drifting, eyes periscoping above the mirror skein of water.

  It was a beautiful area. Backcountry Florida idyllic.

  Seeing a place so pretty caused me to recall something that a tattooed giant had recently said into the phone while he was directing us around Miami. He was saying to some woman that the reason she needed to come visit him was because he lived in a part of Florida that still looked the way people dreamed it should.

  Here was that little chunk of Florida.

  My association between the two was not random or coincidental: There he was, the tattooed Mediator. From the boat, I could see him jogging along the street, beneath shading oaks, unmistakable with his head the size and color of a bleached basketball, skull shaved clean and trapezoid muscles that pyramided to his ears, his skin dyed in Easter egg hues, reds, greens, blues.

  So now he also had a name and a title. He was Kong, the World’s Strongest Tattooed Giant.

  To Harris Lilly, I said, “Commander, I’m going to ask you to dump me off here, then bug out and take my boat back alone. Do you think the Tampa Yacht Club will let you moor it there for the afternoon? Maybe the night?”

  He looked from the jogging giant to me, then back to the giant, concerned. “Are you sure? You know, old buddy, I have just about every kind of security clearance there is. I can tag along, watch your six, and never tell a soul. Promise.”

  I was pointing toward a section of seawall where I could step off as I gathered my gear back out of the forward locker. “I wish
I could. I really do. But I can’t.”

  As I stepped off, I told him, “I’ll let you know how it goes.”

  I got the impression that the tattooed giant had seldom been surprised in his life.

  He was surprised now. His eyes went wide, and he jumped a little, startled, when I jogged quietly up behind him, tapped him on the shoulder, and said, “Hey, Kong, I think it’s time we had a little talk.”

  He liked the Everlast muscle shirts. This one was blue. He wore a belly pack and red shorts, but they didn’t seem as colorful as the fire-bright tattoos that covered his legs: dragons, snakes, and gargoyles.

  I jogged alone for a few steps as he stopped, jamming hands on hips, getting himself under control before he said, sounding cheery, “Well, well, well, if it ain’t Mr. Booky-Boy. Where’s your long-haired hippie pal, Mr. Freaky Creepy?” Then he added, not the least bit cheerfully, “It is very uncool of you to track me down, buster. Very uncool. It ain’t gonna help your cause one bit.”

  As he started to jog away, I reached out and put my right hand on his chest, stopping him.

  He wasn’t used to that, either. Being touched. Being told what to do. His face reddened as I told him, “You’re not going anywhere. Not until we have our talk.”

  Kong said, “The only place you’re goin’, Booky-Boy, is the hospital to get ya a new arm if you don’t take your paw off me right now. I done told you: I got nothing to say ’cause I don’t know nothin’. People hire me for middle-man work.”

  Before I could reply, he pivoted, swatted my hand away as if it were nothing, then lunged, grabbed me beneath the arms, and lifted me without much effort until I was nose to nose with him.

  My options were to go for his eyes . . . or maybe pop his eardrums, then go for his throat . . . or to let it play out and just listen.

  I decided to listen.

  The guy was strong.

  Holding me there, nearly a foot off the ground, he told me, “I don’t want to know what business it is you got going down. Not listening is how Mr. Kong keeps his pretty ass out of trouble. Like I told you, my brain ain’t the biggest, but it do got some torque. So why don’t you just run along—and leave me alone.”

  He’d just told me the only way I could involve him. If he was telling me the truth. If he wasn’t part of the deal already.

  If he was lying? It wouldn’t matter anyway.

  Talking fast, I said, “The guy who hired you kidnapped my son. A guy named Praxcedes Lourdes, but he’s probably going by something else. I think they’re hiding out somewhere here. Somewhere around Gibsonton, and he’s going to kill my son if I don’t find him.”

  I continued before he could interrupt, “Maybe you’re being straight with me. Maybe you don’t know who you’re working for. But Lourdes knows you. Which means you probably know who he is even if you don’t realize it.”

  Kong shook his head, expression pained, and dropped me to the ground. He seemed to rub at a knot behind his ear, saying, “Kidnapping? You’re kidding.”

  “No. It’s the truth. That’s who you’re helping.”

  “Jesus Christ, I don’t get involved in anything heavy like that. The guy hinted around it was some kind of extortion deal. Like maybe he had naked pictures of the pretty lady or something. Or blackmail. Dope deals and bribery. That’s mostly what I do. But kidnapping someone’s kid? Jesus Christ!”

  “He’s Pilar’s son and mine.”

  Kong was still shaking his head, a little dazed by what he was hearing. “You just had to tell me, didn’t you? Not only that, you just cost me like ten, maybe fifteen grand. ’Cause now I got to walk. Wash my hands of the whole deal, both sides. I can’t listen to another word, because if the story gets around, I’m out of the mediator business. Which is not a good thing, asshole. Not good at all because this late in the spring, a guy like me, a guy who works carnivals, I’m not exactly rolling in cash.”

  I said, “My son’s life’s on the line. So don’t expect any sympathy. I’ll pay you, if that’s the only problem. I’ll pay you what Lourdes was going to pay if you’ll help.”

  Kong made a face, thinking about it, then sighed. “If I was to double-cross a client, cut a private deal, that really would screw me.”

  I said, “I’ll pay you double. If you find a way to help me, I’ll pay you cash.”

  The World’s Strongest Tattooed Giant said, “Double, huh?” He looked at his watch, mulling it over. “I guess, we can at least walk up the street and have a drink. We can talk her over. But kidnapping. Goddamn!”

  KONG said he’d missed lunch and would have preferred to go to the Giant’s Camp Restaurant because they had such good collard greens, but a car had smashed through the place recently, and temporarily shut it down.

  “The giant,” he told me, “was Big Al Tomaini. He was ’bout eight-four, a lot bigger giant than me, and his wife, Jeanie, was less than three feet tall. Nice lady. And great collards.”

  Kong, I could tell, enjoyed the carney business.

  Instead, we walked along U.S. 41 to the Showtown Bar & Grill, with painted clowns on the door, a jukebox on a cement floor inside, and lots of circus posters and murals on the walls. There were a dozen or so people inside, and I stood in Kong’s shadow while he said hello to Peti, the fire-eating midget; Chuck, the owner; and some other show people. I listened to them talk about the latest controversy: Land developers wanted the county to revoke Gibsonton’s special show-business zoning so they could put in big-ticket subdivisions and not have to worry about rubbing elbows with cotton candy wagons, Ferris wheels, and sideshow exhibits.

  “That’ll be the end of us show people,” one of them said.

  I heard another say in reply what sounded like, “Giz-iz-bye ciz-iz-arney tiz-iz-own . . . ,” speaking in what seemed to be a kind of pig Latin that I couldn’t understand.

  Talking their own secret language, maybe, because I was there.

  Then Kong ordered a beer from Rocky the bartender, nothing for me, and I followed him to a corner table. First thing, he said, before he’d talk about anything else, he wanted to know how I’d found him.

  “Coincidence, “I said. “That’s the truth. I saw a banner about Kong the Tattooed Giant, then saw you jogging. But it’s no coincidence that I think my son’s in the area. I have some pretty good sources.”

  Kong was nodding. “So what I could do is, contact the guy who’s paying me, tell him you’re closing in. The boy dies, but I still get paid. What’s to stop me?”

  I said, “A prison sentence. If you help Lourdes, or anyone who’s working with him, you become an accessory. If you aren’t already, legally speaking.”

  Because he knew I was right, Kong said, “Shit,” the way guys say it when they’re in a corner.

  Then he said, “O.K., Booky-Boy, the truth is, I don’t know who hired me. It’s a voice on the phone. The caller I.D. number’s always blocked. But, yeah, it’s probably someone who’s in on it. In on it—that’s carney talk for being part of the carnival business. ’Cause he left my first payment—two grand, cash—in my box at the Showman’s Club, our private place just across the river.”

  “Was the voice familiar?”

  “Never heard it before.”

  “The guy I’m talking about was badly burned as a teen. Maybe terrible scars. Or always wears something to cover his face.” Looking at the posters on the wall of the Showtown Bar gave me an idea. “A clown maybe. Always in costume. He might try to pull something like that.”

  That made Kong smile. “Buster, there are about ten thousand circus people, sideshow exhibitors, and show business folks who spend winters in this little town. We don’t make a habit of talking about each other to outsiders. But I will tell you this is the best place in the country for a person who looks bad, or scary, or dresses weird to live, because nobody asks him any questions, and he’d never get a second look.”

  As I said, “Yeah, that’s just what I’ve been thinking,” the cell phone inside Kong’s belly pack began to ring. Th
e calliope music that seemed so odd in Miami fit here.

  He looked at the caller I.D., raised his eyebrows. When Kong answered—“Talk to me”—he listened for a moment before looking across the table, then pointing at the phone.

  I watched Kong mouth the words: It’s him.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  I listened to Kong say into the phone, “Uh-huh. I can give them the message. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. You’ve sent the e-mail, so then I follow up by phone. Hey, hold on a sec. Let me get something so I can write this down.”

  It felt weird hurrying across the bar to find paper so the tattooed giant could take a message from my son’s kidnapper that was intended for me.

  A minute later, Kong shut off his phone, cleared it, and said, “The guy’s a fucking weirdo, man. That’s the only bad thing about being a mediator—some of the scum I’ve got to deal with. People think carnies are bad? In sideshows, all we do is stick a spotlight on things that you rubes, the townies, dream about doin’ in the dark. It’s people outside of the gates that’re the scary ones.”

  I said, “The person you just spoke with burns people because he enjoys it. Kills them by setting them on fire. He’s a serial killer from Central America.”

  That got Kong’s attention. “You’re shitting me. For real?”

  I nodded. “And he’s got my son.”

  Kong said, “There was a freak act a while back. Sideshow geek stuff. A guy would shoot fire out of his butt, his tallywhacker, then blow himself up. But this dude really sets people on fire?”

  “Yeah. He really does. What’s the message you’re supposed to give me?”

  Kong had written on the back of a lunch menu. He looked at the menu as he said, “The big bridge that crosses over from the mainland to St. Petersburg, the Sunshine Skyway. On the St. Pete end, there’s a little place called Maximo Park. Do you know it? He wants you and your pals there by seven-thirty tonight with the money and—this is him talking—‘with the money and the other stuff.’ That’s a little before sunset.”