The Mangrove Coast

by Randy Wayne White

  From my lab, I’d telephoned in an order for a fried conch sandwich, coleslaw and iced tea, which Joyce served to me in a brown-paper sack with a stack of napkins. As I left, she said, “In case you haven’t heard, stay out of Mack’s way. He’s on the warpath.”

  I said, “Too bad the snake didn’t make an appearance. That would have made him happy.”

  “Oh yeah, the snake. What I’m still worried about is that drunk we had as a part-time cook—Laurie?—that Laurie cooked the thing and served it. The snake I’m talking about. When I was away on vacation, she have any specials with Italian sausage? Bratwurst, anything like that?”

  I was smiling. “I usually stick to the conch or the grouper.”

  “Playing it safe, I don’t blame you. Just the same, it worries me. And I meant it about Mack.”

  I said, “I know, I know,” and carried my lunch, along with Amanda’s envelope, out onto the docks.

  The fishing guides were just returning from the morning charters, and I watched them tie up their skiffs as I took a seat at the picnic table which was beside the big bait tank between the Red Pelican gift shop and the water. Jeth Nicholes was now running an eighteen-foot Hewes, BUSHMASTER painted in red script on port and starboard sides. Big Felix Blane—all six feet, five inches and 250 pounds of him—was backing his twenty-four-foot Parker, Osprey, into its slip, and Nelson Esterline was hunkered down in the live well of his Lake & Bay, transferring fish into a bucket, getting ready to head to the cleaning table.

  The guides always drew an audience, which they not only knew, but enjoyed, each of them handling the attention with a kind of jaunty, wind-weary cheerfulness that put their audience at ease and, more importantly, attracted new clients.

  If you meet an aloof, self-important fishing guide, he probably isn’t a very experienced guide.

  I watched a crowd of tourists collect around Nels as he carried the bucket toward the filet table—a couple of big redfish judging from the tails protruding, and several trout. A half dozen pelicans waddled along in pursuit, while an umbrella of gulls and terns circled above. There was lots of noisy squawking and screaming; tourists moving in a hurry now, trying to get a good spot to watch. Then Jeth came behind with three large tripletail—a strange fish that resembles a massive leaf because the dorsal and anal fins are situated far to the rear: effective mimicry, which allows the animal to float suspended on its side and ambush smaller fish that come to it seeking shade or protection. These fish looted as if they ranged between ten and fifteen pounds. Nice tripletail.

  The docks were a good place to have lunch at the marina. There was always something interesting to watch while you ate.

  As I munched my sandwich, I called to Felix, “You tarpon-fishing today?” speaking loudly above the noise of the birds.

  He flashed me an appreciative look: Good, let the tourists know why he wasn’t standing at the cleaning table with the other guides. “My angler, Mr. Palmona, he wanted to see what it was like to fish Boca Grande. Left before sunrise, we just got back. You ever see so many boats in your life, Mr. Palmona?”

  Felix’s client was a lean, dark-haired man who had the articulate, easygoing look of old money. He stood on the dock packing his gear into a little duffel, getting ready to leave while Felix cleaned his boat. “I thought Felix was exaggerating. A show like that, I wouldn’t have missed for the world. All of those attractive women in the bikinis, he told me what it would be like, but …” The man gave a bemused shrug.

  In crowded Boca Grande Pass, the largest and most expensive of the fishing yachts were invariably bedecked with lounging, sun-lazy, beach-browned women who were proud of their improbable bodies—living, breathing symbols of wealth whom the guides appreciated as interesting adjuncts to the great tarpon-fishing. Emboldened by the built-in anonymity that boats provide, it was not unusual for some of these women to sunbathe topless. The guides always made running commentary on the VHF of what they saw, and since I hadn’t spoken to Felix by radio that day, he updated me while I ate.

  “One of the Futch boys was running some big corporate boat, had five or six girls topside, out there on the bow all oiled up and baking. Frank Davis had him an even bigger boat and more women above deck. The swimsuits now, they come in these bright colors like pieces of Easter candy. That’s the way the girls looked. Sweet as candy out there. Two of them had just their bottoms on and both seemed to like Mr. Palmona. They waved a lot.”

  Felix’s client had a dreamy, reflective expression on his face.

  Yeah, he’d enjoyed his morning fishing in Boca.

  I glanced around to see if any of the manna’s female liveaboards were nearby. I don’t have much patience for the hardcore politically correct It’s the newest form of Fascism. But living on a boat requires a certain drive and independent spirit that, for good reason, would not allow our marina women to tolerate their kindred being discussed as mindless confections. JoAnn Smallwood, pretty Donna Legges of the sailboat Bowhard, and Janet Mueller were aboard Tiger Lily, sitting in deck chairs and locked in animated conversation. But they were close, well within listening distance, so I decided to change the subject. “You catch any fish?”

  “We jumped four tarpon, landed one. About a hundred-pounder, wasn’t he, Mr. Palmona? One of those juiced-up males, Doc, that’s harder than hell to get to the boat.”

  Felix’s client was still wearing the bemused expression. He wasn’t following the conversation. “The girl in the apple-green bikini,” he said, “she really did seem to be waving at me. There was eye contact, I’m absolutely certain. Looked right at me and kept looking at me. I’d swear to it, I really would.” He seemed to be talking to himself.

  Felix said, “Or the fish could’ve gone maybe one-ten. Pretty good-sized tarpon, Doc, but one of the kind that doesn’t want to jump. We had to chase him through the whole fleet, then follow him halfway to Siesta Key. He was a beauty, huh, Mr. Palmona?”

  I smiled at Felix when the man said, “Beauty? Oh, she was absolutely gorgeous. Her hair, that kind of cinnamon-colored hair, it’s my favorite. The green suit, the red hair. And the way she singled me out and waved at me. I found that very flattering. It was a wonderful day on the water. An absolutely wonderful day. Wish I didn’t have to fly home to Chicago, Felix, or I’d book another trip. Maybe two or three trips. But if I work things right, get one of our younger partners to cover for me, it’s possible, just possible, I can be back in a couple of weeks. Will the big boats still be fishing Boca Grande Pass?”

  Felix was smiling back at me. Guides made their living on repeat business, and Mr. Palmona clearly planned to be a regular. “You bet, Mr. Palmona. Fishing will actually get better, plus there’ll probably be lots more big boats carrying pretty girls.” Then, as he finished swabbing out his boat, Felix said to me, “Hey, I forgot to ask. How’d you and Tomlinson do in your baseball game Sunday?”

  I had opened Amanda’s manila envelope and was shuffling through the contents. There were several bank statements, to which I gave a quick look and then set aside, as I answered Felix: “We lost, six to four. Pretty good team from Minnesota. Their pitcher had a nasty slider.”

  “You catch?”

  More bank statements that verified many withdrawals and, surprisingly, several computer-printed deposit slips. I placed those in the stack. “Yeah. Went oh-for-three but hit the ball hard twice. Their centerfielder made a heck of a play.”

  “What about Tomlinson?”

  There were two glossy photographs. The first was of Gail Richardson Calloway and ex-husband, Frank. She hadn’t changed that much since the photos I had seen years ago in Cambodia. Dark hair that swept across her forehead and curved to her shoulders. Cheeks and chin and eyes, those eyes. I could picture her in an aerobics class, dark leotard, a mature woman working hard to stay fit … or in a 1940s movie, black and white, with a lot of night scenes, streetlights and bus stops, the kind of film where women with faces as haunting as hers paused on street corners to light cigarettes. Frank looked a
rticulate, moneyed, smart. I said, “Tomlinson has had better games.”

  “Yeah? What, he make a few errors?”

  I put the photo of Gail aside. “It wasn’t so much that as he just kind of … well, he wasn’t there.”

  “You mean he didn’t show up?”

  “No, we rode in together, like always. But bottom of the first inning, he hit this shot into the gap, and he just kept running: From second base, he veered off into the bullpen, then ran out of the stadium. Never changed stride. We didn’t see him again until just after the game.”

  The other photo was on the table now, and I glanced at it—my first look at Jackie Merlot.

  Felix said, “That Tomlinson, he’s a weird one. But a good guy.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Sometimes he says stuff, I don’t have a clue what he’s talking about. The other guides, it’s the same with them, too. Was he drunk?”

  I said, “Huh?” I was looking at this hugely overweight man, spray-hardened hair on a head the size of a pumpkin, his haunch of an arm wrapped around Gail Calloway’s waist.

  Felix said, “Tomlinson. Why would he do something like that? Get to second, then run off the field. Was he drunk?”

  I looked up from the photo, but my eyes drifted back. There was something compelling about a combination so … grotesque? Yes, grotesque. No other word fit. Bobby Richardson’s widow, healthy, fit and breasty in designer jeans and dark sweater, dwarfed by a man who had to weigh three-eighty, close to four hundred pounds. He might have been a sumo wrestler or an NFL offensive lineman but for his face. Amanda had described it accurately. It was the face of a prepubescent boy; a strangely feminine face, hairless, very pale, with tiny, tiny dark eyes.

  Something about his expression made me uneasy, set me on edge. It was the expression of a man who was working hard to project personality. Big smile, lots of teeth, big dimples above the folds of double chin. Hair combed perfectly and gelled in place … or maybe a toupee. Yeah, probably a wig.

  But that’s not what troubled me. It took a moment; I couldn’t figure it out, but then I knew. Part of it, anyway. There is the certain rare child, because of chemical imbalance or neurosis or freak genetics, who is so genuinely manipulative and evil that he or she must necessarily learn to communicate an air of perfect innocence. It’s more than an expression, it’s an attitude, it’s body language … and it is a totally contrived act. They perfect that act quickly because their survival depends on it … and they feel nothing but contempt for those gullible enough to mistake the act for honesty.

  Merlot’s expression reminded me of that … but there was more, too. There was something in his eyes, those tiny dark eyes. They were not much bigger than black pinholes in the folds of white flesh, but there was an intensity in them that misrepresented their size and that seemed vaguely reptilian.

  I had to think hard to remember, and then it came to me: A monitor lizard, that’s what I thought about when I looked at his eyes. Komodo dragon: another name.

  I’d seen monitors on the islands off Sumatra that were the size of rottweilers; animals that wind-scented carrion with their viper tongues.

  Their eyes had that same black, bottomless glare. With the huge face, the massive folds of fat and those obsidian eyes, Jackie Merlot was a strange-looking man indeed.

  “Doc? Hey, Doc! You okay?”

  Realizing that Felix was all but yelling at me, I jumped slightly. I said, “Huh?”

  “I asked if you’re all right. You look like somebody just walked over your grave, man.”

  I said, “Sorry … wasn’t paying attention. You were asking me something …?”

  Felix was giving me a very odd look. “About Tomlinson. Why he ran off like that, left the game.”

  I forced myself to look away from the photograph of Jackie Merlot, his massive arm locked around the waist of my dead friend’s wife. “Why Tomlinson did what? Oh! The baseball game. Yeah, he said the feeling was so good, hitting a ball into the gap like that and running, he just didn’t want the feeling to end right away.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Nope. So he kept running. He said he ran clear to the Cape Coral bridge and back. Stretched a double into a ten-K jog.”

  “Good Lord.”

  “Because in baseball, he said, the good feelings don’t last long enough and the bad feelings, when you screw up, they last way too long. He told me the same with life. So why stop running?”

  Felix was quiet for a moment, then he said, “Know what? I used to play baseball back in high school and the man is absolutely right. It’s pretty weird what he did, but, when you think about it, yeah, hit one in the gap and just don’t stop. You think he’s a dope, a real goofball, until you think a little more and then he seems like the smartest guy around. Not normal. No one would say that. But smart.”

  I said, “Yeah. I know what you mean.” I was putting the photos, the bank statements back into the envelope. I looked beyond the docks to where No Más, Tomlinson’s old Morgan sailboat—white hull, green canvas—sat bow-tethered on a strand of anchor line two hundred yards off the channel that led to Woodring’s Point and the mouth of the bay.

  Sailboat out there all by itself, fusiform shape on a blue-green plain, mangroves in the background … the water-space where the man had lived for the last nine years.

  His new Avon dingy, a bright orange husk, was tied off the stern.

  The man was home.

  I told Felix I had to go.

  I needed to speak with Tomlinson.

  9

  Tomlinson said, “I’m surprised at you, man. Thinking viscerally like this. Gathering information with your instincts, finally letting yourself cut across the meadow instead of taking that long-ass linear road. Yep, I think you’re making progress. Becoming an actual human being.”

  We were face-to-face at the dining booth in the cabin of his boat. I could smell kerosene and wood oil, hemp rope, old books and diesel fuel. There was something else … soy sauce maybe, and cold rice. Yeah, and incense, too. Sandalwood, that burned-musk smell. He must have just finished lunch. Or meditating.

  I was sitting with my back to the cockpit. Up the varnished steps, through the open hatch, if I turned, I could see the binnacle, the boat’s big stainless steering wheel, the folded steering vane, a black plastic bag with black tube hanging from the boom: a solar shower.

  On the table to my left was a paper tube unevenly scrolled: a chart of the Dry Tortugas, an anchorage off Garden Key marked in pencil.

  Tomlinson was planning a trip. I’d looked. A straightedge course, Sanibel lighthouse to Tortuga’s Channel, with compass headings and the piddly little amount of deviation figured in.

  And the man chided me for being obsessive?

  I said, “I didn’t come here to discuss my heart or my brain. I came to get your advice. So let’s try to stick to the topic.”

  But he wasn’t done with it. “Nope. Sorry. No can do. This is what my first sensei, Jasper Freeberg, would have called a minor breakthrough. You said the guy seemed dangerous from the way he looked in his picture. That was your strong first impression, the way you felt. Don’t deny it.”

  “Freeberg? Jasper Freeberg? You’re telling me that you learned Zen Buddhism from a guy named … Jesus, I don’t want to hear it. I was asking what you thought about the bank statements. Here … you haven’t even read them yet. The bank statements and the photographs.”

  He wouldn’t relent “Any other time in your life, you take a look at the photograph of a first rate maloojink like … like this oddity, this dude Jackie Merlot, you’d say, ‘The human eye can’t communicate emotion.’ You’d say, ‘Some of the most prolific killers in history had faces like choir boys.’ You’d say, ‘I don’t judge people by the way they look,’ when, in fact, we all do. You’ve never admitted any interest at all in letting your senses interpret what your eyes see. Until now.”

  “Mal-what? Mal-oo-jink? What the hell does that mean?”

  “It’s Ta
hitian. Or maybe from the lost language of the Easter Islanders. It means evil man. No … that’s not a precise translation. It means evil being. I look at this guy, the first thing I see is something … unhealthy in there hiding behind that smile. You felt the same way when you saw his picture, I’d bet on it The intuitive knowledge, go ahead and ‘fess up. This person is … different. I’ll tell you something else”—Tomlinson’s iridescent blue eyes seemed amused—“this person scares you. The first man I could ever say that about. Not that you’re some asshole macho kind of guy, Doc, no. It’s just that you’re always in control, the way you size men up, like in two seconds, because you’ve met about every kind of man there is. You know what they’re like, so what’s there to fear? But you’ve never met a guy like Jackie Merlot, because he’s not really a man. He’s a being and that scares you. You want to know something else?”

  I waited.

  “He scares me, too.”

  I said, “Oh?” wondering if it was true. Was I frightened of the man in the photograph?

  Tomlinson said, “He scares me because he’s empty. Like a pit. That kind of emptiness.”

  When Tomlinson takes off on a tangent, the best course is to play along. In the long run, it saves time. I said, “You can tell all that just from looking at his picture?”

  “Can’t you?”

  “No. You’re taking the few facts we have and dramatizing the guy’s negatives. His powers, too. What I think is—and I’m not judging him by his appearance, understand—but what I think is, he’s a user. A small-time con man, that’s my guess. Nothing more.”

  “So you don’t think you need to be in a big rush to find your old buddy’s wife?”

  He had me there. Since seeing the photograph I had, for the first time, felt a pressing urgency. Gail Richardson Calloway was in trouble. How I knew, I wasn’t sure, but I was now convinced that it was true. “Seeing the guy’s picture has had an effect on me,” I said. “I’m willing to admit that.”