But Kelly was already laying out the platters of fried conch and shrimp on the picnic table. I could see a couple of industrial-sized Igloos that appeared to be straining at the seams. So the Dinkin's Bay Pig Roast and Beer Cotillion—"Perbcot," as it is known locally—would go on as usual.
At the good marinas around Florida, the old and important traditions die hard.
I strolled over close enough to one of the dump trucks so that Mack would see that I was there. He is a compact, muscular man—a native New Zealander—whose laid-back Kiwi qualities have made him a big success on the island. But he wasn't laid-back now. He was having some kind of loud conversation with a man who was wearing a sports coat and carrying a clipboard. Not an argument, just loud, so as to be heard above the din of the diesel. The man with the clipboard was an insurance adjuster, I guessed.
Mack saw me, waved, then held up five fingers after pointing to his watch. Pantomimed a drinking motion and grinned.
Which meant we wouldn't be bothered by the noise much longer.
Beyond what was once a dock, I could see Nelson Esterline. Nels was hammering at the wreckage of his skiff. Trying to remove the jack plate, it appeared. His teal-green Hewes had once been a pretty thing indeed. Teal green, polished bright, with functional lines—the prettiest quality of any boat. Now it looked like a Clorox bottle that had been accidentally left on a hot stove.
I considered walking over to offer him a hand. Sound him out about my two early-morning visitors; see if he knew anything about it; see if he was still mad at me. Decided against it. Men like Nels make up their minds in their own fashion, their own good time. Instead, I put a coin in the slot and read the local newspaper.
The day before, the death of Jimmy Darroux had made front-page headlines. I had read the story carefully. Darroux had been described as Hannah described him: a native of Louisiana. A commercial fisherman who had migrated to Sulphur Wells only a few years before. The story related that he had had several minor run-ins with local law authorities. He'd been arrested in a bar brawl, charged with public intoxication, but the charges had been dropped. On his record was also a charge for misdemeanor battery related to spousal abuse. He had pled no contest, was fined five hundred dollars and given a year's probation. Within the last two months, he had been arrested for possession of less than three grams of cocaine. The case had been scheduled to go to court in early February. He had also been arrested and fined for fishing outside proscribed times, and for having illegal fish in his possession.
Judging from the newspaper article, Jimmy Darroux had been just one more habitual loser. Not so hard to imagine him getting a belly full of booze, or a head full of crack, and setting out with a jerry can of gasoline to punish the people he perceived to be responsible for the net ban and his own troubled life. The article said the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms was assisting local authorities in the investigation. An A.T.F. officer said it was too early to tell if an explosive device had played a role in starting the fire, or in the death of Darroux. I knew that the A.T.F. officer wouldn't have admitted it even if he had known.
I glanced over to where the crane was stilling gobbling up wreckage. The yellow crime-scene tape was gone. The A.T.F. people, apparently, had found all they needed to find. If not, they wouldn't have released control of the area.
In today's paper, though, Jimmy Darroux rated only a token mention. His name was included in a story about the increase in thefts and vandalism up and down the coast. The story implied a connection between the crimes and the recent vote to ban the nets. In the last two months, the story read, fifty-four boats had been stolen, stripped, and destroyed—most of them small sportfishing boats. Sixty-seven outboard engines had also been stolen. A sheriff's department spokesperson speculated that a well-organized theft-and-chop-shop ring was involved. Two other skiffs had been set afire at their dock. In Naples, an unknown and unsuccessful arsonist had attempted to raze a marine storage barn. A night watchman had smelled the smoke and put out the fire before it had a chance to spread. In other places, arsonists had been more successful—they had burned several of the few remaining old stilt houses to the water. Also, sheriff's department records showed a report of someone stringing a cable across a waterway near Useppa Island.
I was relieved to see it reported. The more people who knew, the better.
The story also named several local sportfishermen who claimed that net fishermen were harassing them on the flats. Intentionally spooking the fish, yelling threats, throwing bottles. Finally, the story quoted an anonymous net fisherman: "They're taking our jobs away. They're taking our houses, boats, everything. They expect us to smile and be nice about it? You tell them paybacks are hell."
I folded the paper and dropped it in the trash can beside the bench outside the marina store. I had grown so accustomed to the roar of the diesel engine that when the noise abruptly died, the fresh silence made my ears ring.
"Hey, Ford, get your butt over here!" I looked to see Rhonda Lister waving to me from the stern of her water-bloated Chris-Craft cabin cruiser. There were Japanese lanterns hanging from the cabin framework, and painted in red script on the stern was the name: Tiger Lilly. Rhonda was wearing an elaborate green gown and a lot of complicated jewelry. Her caramel-bright hair was coiled into a towering bun, and there was a pale yellow hibiscus blossom behind her ear. Rhonda is a big, busty, hippy woman. Dressed the way she was, she looked like the proprietor of an 1850s-whorehouse.
I walked over, accepted the bottle of Steinlager she held out to me, and said, "You are unusually lovely tonight, Miz Lister."
She curtsied daintily. "Thank you, kind sir." Then did a quick double take. "Hey—how'd you get those scratches on your face? You get in a fight? You look like hell."
I felt lucky that a few scratches and a knot above my ear were the only injuries I'd suffered.
"I spent the day wrestling sea horses."
"Which means you don't want to talk about it?"
"Which means I'd rather talk about that gorgeous dress. Why the costume?"
Rhonda made a flittering motion with her hands; a regal effect. "The ladies who inhabit this fish palace have discussed it among ourselves, and we've decided that tonight should be a special night. A real celebration. Our little family of gunkholers and misfits endured a great trial by fire on Thursday, and we . . . and we . . . we . . ."
"Triumphed?" I offered.
"Damn right we did. Triumphed. So what we ladies have decided is, we are all going to wear our best gowns this evening. Show you men just how tasteful we are. Show we own something besides boat shorts and aren't always up to our elbows in engine grease. But mostly to prove that those sonsabitches can't scare us!" She smiled demurely and fanned herself with an imaginary fan. "Because we are, after all, ladies, sir."
I laughed as she whirled around, billowing her skirts. "What do you think, Doc? Pretty fancy, huh?"
"Stunning. The tennis shoes make just the right statement."
"It was JoAnn's idea. She said we'd get stuck in the dock. If we wore high heels? She said it wouldn't be ladylike because we'd fall and spill our drinks. Plus, it would make us easy prey for you vultures."
JoAnn wasJoAnn Smallwood. She and Rhonda were roommates, and co-owners of Tiger Lilly. Several years ago, they pooled a couple of hundred dollars and started an advertising sheet they called The Heat Islands Fishing Report. The advertising sheet was well accepted. Sanibel and Captiva certainly qualified as heat islands, and advertisers knew there was money in any publication that had to do with fishing. JoAnn and Rhonda worked eighteen hours a day, and pumped every dollar they made back into the business. Now their advertising sheet is a magazine-sized weekly. They've started a sister publication that deals with real estate. They are in the process of buying their office complex over near Periwinkle Place Shopping
Center. They've made way too much money to be living on a rot-pocked cabin cruiser in Dinkin's Bay. JoAnn says they stay on the boat because their business eats all
their liquid assets. But I know, from a good source, that each of the women owns at least one island home—which they lease—plus a couple of choice building lots. I suspect they continue to live on their roomy cabin cruiser because that is how they started life on Sanibel, and they still enjoy being a part of the marina community.
Rhonda said, "Look, do me a favor. If Tomlinson shows up wearing that Dorothy Lamour thing of his, the sarong, send him back to the boat and make him change. I don't mind, but I've got a couple of important clients coming later. No matter how many times I remind him, he still spreads his legs whenever he sits down. God knows, he's not the only one around here doesn't wear underwear, but it upsets some people."
I was in the process of telling her that Tomlinson was still on Sulphur Wells. But Rhonda interrupted me, saying, "My God, it's ... it's .. . it's Princess Di!"
I followed her gaze down the dock to see Janet Mueller approaching. Janet had a shy, crooked grin on her face and was making a hushing motion with her hand. Her gown was some kind of peach-colored gauze over a silver skirt and peach bodice. Apparently she, too, had visited one of the Dinkin's Bay hibiscus bushes. A bright red flower bloomed from her mouse-brown hair. She wore a light dust of makeup—pale lip gloss, some cheek highlighter, a darkening mascara—that reduced the roundness of her face. It was strange to see Janet wearing makeup. But she looked . . . nice . . . sweet. There was something touching about her appearance, as if she were a plump, wistful little girl who had used her older, prettier sister's clothes to play dress-up.
I said, "Can this be the same sweaty woman I ran with? No. It's impossible."
Janet seemed pleased and chagrined all at once. "This was all their idea, Doc. I mean it. I don't even own a gown ... I don't have one with me, I mean. So Rhonda, she insisted on loaning me one of hers. Then we had to spend half the night altering it, trying to get the hem even—"
"And drinking wine!" Rhonda hooted.
"I didn't drink nearly as much as JoAnn did. You either."
"Janet honey, no one ever drinks as much wine as JoAnn does. Doc, you should have seen the three of us. None of us knows a thing about
sewing, but there we were, trying to measure this, trim that, poking ourselves with needles. Then JoAnn started telling those raunchy jokes of hers!"
"I didn't even try the dress on until about midnight," Janet said. Then she looked at Rhonda; a friendly expression of mock threat. "If I look as stupid as I feel—"
I took Janet by the elbow, then held her away as if inspecting. After a critical pause, I said, "You look great. I mean it." I did, too. Janet had lived isolated and alone on her dumpy Holiday Mansion houseboat long enough. Didn't mix, didn't fraternize. Now, finally, she was allowing herself to be accepted into the marina community. She looked happy, and I felt happy for her.
"Ladies," I said, "if you look toward the picnic table, you will notice that Mack is already serving himself. That wouldn't be so bad, but Jeth is next in line. Jeth will eat anything, but he prefers shrimp. We'd better hurry, or the only thing left will be little bits of shell and Styrofoam."
I extended my arm to Janet. She wagged her eyebrows at Rhonda, then allowed herself to be escorted.
Mack opened the marina gates at around eight, thereby allowing a steady flow of locals and lost tourists to join the party. The locals wanted to inspect the damage caused by the explosion. Most of them had done that on Friday, but now they wanted to do it on a social basis. The tourists just wanted to have fun. They did—except for a dour young French couple who showed up asking to see "ze attrac-she-uns." Someone had apparently told them about the party and, due to a miscommunication, they had expected Perbcot to be the island's version of Epcot.
As Jeth Nicholes watched them stalk away, he said, "Jesus Christ, them French people are so dense you couldn't climb 'em with an ice ax. Know what I heard? They'll piss right in the sink, you give them a chance. French people, I mean."
At about nine, I was sitting with Janet—she was telling me about a conservation project for which she had volunteered; the St. Joe River cleanup. In northwest Ohio?—when Nels approached me, saying, "Doc, you got a minute?" Felix Blane, all six feet six inches and 250-some pounds of him, stood directly behind Nels, shadowing us both from the dock lights.
It wasn't ideal timing. Janet was finally starting to open up a little, starting to talk about herself instead of relying on me to carry the conversation. It wasn't that she sat there mutely. But she knew how to deflect attention from herself by asking leading questions; timing them so that I, or someone else, was always in the process of answering. As a result, I hadn't learned much about her. She was from Ohio—which I knew. She was in her mid-thirties—which I had guessed from her taste in music. She'd never spent any time around boats—no surprise. She had taught biology and chemistry at a high school near her home—I hadn't known that—and she was just telling me about the conservation project on the St. Joseph River when Nels interrupted.
I said, "I want to talk to you guys, but—"
"Doc, please go ahead. Really. I need to . . . check on something anyway." That quick, Janet was up and gone, as if glad for the opportunity to escape.
Nels watched her walk away, shrugged, and said, "Sorry, Doc. I didn't mean to chase her off. She seems like a nice girl."
I said, "She is."
Felix said, "I told you we should'a waited." Then to me, he explained, "This big dumb ass forgets that he scares most men and just about all women. The way he looks; just the sight of him."
Among men, hyperbole and character assassination mark the parameters of friendship. I found it heartening that I was still included.
Nels said, "You want to go after her, we'll wait. Whenever you got the time."
"Nope. She's just a friend."
Felix said, "Well, go ahead then, Nels. Spit it out."
Nels was suddenly uneasy; having a hard time getting started. Finally, he said, "It's like this, Doc. I was wrong to say to you what I said the other day. I was pissed off about my skiff, and you were a handy target. Shit, I felt like unloading on somebody, and there you were."
I said, "Don't worry about it. It was a tough day for all of us." I started to stick out my hand, but Felix interceded.
"Tell im the rest of it, Nels, before you go to shaking hands.''
Nels fixed him with a sour look. We had been sitting beneath the porch that shelters the bait tanks. Now Nels stood and motioned with his head, telling me he wanted to get away from the people who were milling around. As we walked toward the end of the T-dock, he said abruptly, "I did something stupid the other night. Thursday night."
I said, "Oh?"
"Yeah, and I want to be right up-front about it. There's this thing that happened."
What had happened was that Nels, distraught about his boat and his money problems, had gotten falling-down drunk.
"I don't know how much I drank," he said. "A lot. Way too much. I hit about every bar on the island. One thing about being a drunk, you never lack for company. I talked to people I knew, and I talked to a lot of people I didn't know and hope to hell I never see again."
Felix said, "That's what Nels needs to tell you. That night? I was standing guard duty. We told you we were going to start patrolling the marina? So I'm sitting on the dock, my thumb up my butt, feeling like an idiot. I'm carry a shotgun around. Shit, a weapon. It was like Highway One, back in Danang. That's how long it's been since I've carried anything. Except I'm doing it at Dinkin's Bay, where the only dangerous thing around is Jeth, who might walk out on his balcony to say hello, then fall on me, he's so clumsy. I mean, it's stupid."
Nels said, "Damn it, don't start. We've still got to keep a guard. I don't even have a boat left, and I think so."
Felix said, "Yeah, well, the point is, Nels is like an hour overdue for his shift, when this big-wheel truck comes barreling down the road—"
I said, "A pickup truck?"
"A pickup, yeah. It's like one in the morning. I'm dozing, I'm cold, I
've got to take an all-time hellish dump, and I wake up with this vehicle charging me. Jesus Christ, Doc, first thing that pops in my mind is it's Sir Charles. Mr. Sapper about to come down hard, and the only general order I can remember is: If it flies, it dies. You know? It startled me. I'm thinking it's a bunch of dinks until I'm full awake, which is the only reason Captain Nelson Esterline here didn't get himself waxed."
Felix was having fun with the story—he had an incongruously high laugh for a man his size—but Nels wasn't enjoying it. He seemed increasingly sheepish. I wanted to hear more about the pickup truck, and tried to hurry him along. "Whose truck?"
Nels said, "I don't know. I'm in a bar, then I'm in their truck, and they're bringing me to the marina because I'm late to relieve Felix. That's what I remember. There were three of them, I guess. I don't remember any names." He looked at Felix. "Is that right? Three?"
Felix said, "Three kind of rough-looking dudes. Fancy truck. I'd never seen them before, but they're like Nels's best friends 'cause they're all so drunk. The four of them come staggering up, and who they want to see? You, Doc. They're pissed off, in a mood to fight, and they want to see you. They're asking, 'Where's the goggle-eyed bastard?' " Felix had begun to laugh; was relishing Nels's discomfort. "What Nels had done was, he'd convinced them you're like a spy for the commercial netters, living over here in flats boat territory. A traitor. He was out there flapping his gums, yammy-yammy-yammy, and they all wanted a piece of you—"
"Would you shut up a minute so I can explain it?" Nels was tired of Felix provoking him. "Truth is, I said a lot of things to a lot of people that night. I hate a person who sneaks around and says stuff about someone else, so that's why I'm telling you. I didn't mean what I said. Hell, I can't remember most of the stuff I said. But that night, right or wrong, you just seemed a big part of what happened to my boat."
I said, "You can't remember anything about the guys in the truck?"
"Nope. They were staying on Captiva, so they must have money. All-pro sportfishermen to hear them tell it. I don't think I'd ever seen them before."
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