Tampa Burn

by Randy Wayne White

We listened to America sing, “No, Oz never did give nothing to the Tin Man . . . that he didn’t, didn’t already have . . . ,” before Tomlinson locked his eyes into mine, and then asked softly, “Does it really matter?”

  I thought about Lake, replayed the inflection when he called me “Dad,” before I replied.

  “No. Not between us.”

  THE next morning, to fullfill his “moral mandate” as a spiritual warrior, Tomlinson wrote a letter confessing that he was responsible for the long-ago bombing of a San Diego naval base. He addressed it to the federal courthouse in Fort Myers and put it inside the mailbox that sits outside the marina office, flag up.

  “They’d have treated me like I’m a kook if I went there in person,” he said.

  I told him, “Yeah, they would. Those samurai robes take some getting used to.”

  When he was safely away in his dinghy, puttering back to No Mas to say goodbye to his beloved boat, I removed the letter from the marina’s mailbox and closed the lid, flag down.

  I would later touch a match to the letter and use it to light my propane stove before cooking a dinner of bay shrimp steamed in coconut water, lime, and cilantro.

  That wasn’t the end of it, though—as only I knew. A week earlier, upon my return from Central America, I’d found Hal Harrington waiting on me at my lab—Hal Harrington, head of the organization of which I was a member, and would never be allowed to leave.

  I wasn’t surprised.

  Quid pro quo, he always said. Quid pro quo.

  But I hadn’t been cooperating lately, Hal told me.

  “With the exception of the executive action you took against Omar Mohammed, former head of Abu Nidal, you haven’t done anything for us, Doc. I offered you three assignments. You turned them all down.”

  I remembered Lake telling me that he wanted me to stop the assassination bullshit. That it wasn’t necessary.

  I said, “I keep telling you, Hal. I’m done. No more assignments. Not those kind of assignments, anyway. Not for me.”

  “Doc, there are certain countries where you’ve operated that would love to extradite you. After a few months in one of their prisons, you’d be begging for the firing squad.”

  I said, “Go ahead. I’ll risk it.”

  “Are you absolutely certain?”

  “I’m absolutely certain,” I told him.

  He said, “I expected as much. But I’m afraid it’s not that easy. You owe us one more. At least one more. And you know it.”

  Harrington is not the sort of man who engages in debate. He threw an envelope sealed with wax onto my stainless-steel dissecting table as he said, “Here’s the name. Your last assignment—if that’s your decision. I have no choice, Doc. If you don’t do it—I’ll find someone who will.”

  I waited until Hal left before I opened the envelope and took out the small, familiar duty card.

  The name was familiar, too, as familiar as my own. I’d read it on a similar card long, long ago . . .

  Later, I thought. I’ll deal with this later.

  SO I had a lot of things to share with Dewey during our long talks, though, of course, Hal’s visit wasn’t one of them. My next-to-last night in Iowa, she said she had something to share with me, too.

  I’d moved from the guest room into her bedroom, and over the last several days, we’d been sharing a lot more than just words.

  She asked me, “Remember the night I came to your house and told you about the little ceremony I wanted to have? With those pregnancy test strips I bought at Bailey’s General Store?”

  We were in the kitchen, had just finished cleaning up after dinner. I watched her hold up a little box. It was similar to the one I’d found in her bathroom on Captiva.

  I said, “Oh yeah. I remember that night.”

  She wagged her finger at me, a fun, familiar look in her eyes telling me to follow her to the bedroom. “Well, it’s about time you found out if you’re going to be a dad again.”

  Later, as we made love, windows open, the smell of hardwood, clover, and corn moving through my girl’s bedroom, she spoke into my ear: “Are you sure?”

  I was thinking of Lake, and Dewey, and of friends who had become more than friends. Key elements came to mind, then key words: family . . . heredity . . . genetics . . . blood.

  I leaned and kissed her, then kissed her again, feeling her hands on me, searching; felt the imperceptible shifting of her legs as she made a wider space and began to guide me.

  “I’m sure,” I said.