Ten Thousand Islands

by Randy Wayne White

  I noticed that Bauerstock stuttered momentarily as he said mistress; an emotional stumble that made me think of Jeth Nicholes back at Dinkin’s Bay.

  “Bella had a powerful hold on Dad. I think it was through Bella that he began to believe that certain objects made him stronger. If he wore them or touched them or placed them under his bed. Our estate is on the Indian mounds at Marco. We’ve got more mounds at our ranch east of there in the Everglades. Dad and Bella, most of their … well, let’s just say private encounters occurred on those mounds.” Bauerstock smiled an uneasy, reflective smile that bordered on embarrassment. “I was a kid, but I wasn’t dumb. And I sure as hell wasn’t deaf. The point being, Dad’s manic fixation is with the Indians who lived on those mounds. They controlled Florida for thousands of years. He wanted to one day control Florida. He was a poor orphan kid who had to fight for everything, and he wanted to end up on top.

  “My dad worked his ass off, but he was also fantastically lucky. Unbelievably lucky. Always made just the right connections, always bought and sold at the perfect time. With Bella’s help, he came to believe that certain artifacts taken from those mounds were the source of his good fortune. That much of his power came from them. When I was younger, it was just kind of a hobby. He’d even joke about it, like, ‘Well, I’ve got a new artifact so I should make an extra hundred grand in the negotiation.’ And he would. Year after year those things worked for him, until it became an absolute fixation. Tomlinson’s eulogy so exactly described how he feels about the mounds that dad was actually spooked. That’s why we left in such a hurry. As badly as he wanted to see that totem, we couldn’t stay.”

  “He doesn’t seem like a man easily spooked.”

  “He’s not. Not normally. But wait—I’m not finished. My father’s delusion has gotten to the point where he genuinely believes that he has a spiritual connection with a certain Calusa war chief. I won’t bore you with the specifics, but their most powerful chief carried that totem. That’s why Dad wants it.”

  “A man named Tocayo carried the totem and wore the gold medallion.”

  Bauerstock’s expression changed slightly; a look of evaluation. “Yes, I think that’s the name. Tocayo. Look at photographs of my father. You will never see him wear an open-collared shirt. It’s because he always had the gold medallion around his neck.”

  “He got it from Frank Rossi?”

  “Della told you the story, I guess. The medallion played a role in Rossi and dad’s business relationship, that’s all I know. Another example of dad’s fixation? At the ranch, we have what the Spanish call a cenote. A cenote is a—”

  “I know what a cenote is, Ted.”

  Florida has many cenotes, though they are known by the more popular name of springs: Crystal River, Weekie Wachee, Silver Springs. All are deep water holes formed when the limestone surface collapses over an underground river. Fresh water floats atop a saltwater passageway to the sea. They are very clear and deep, often with sides as sheer as the inside of a volcano. Cenote is a Maya word. I’d swam and dived dozens of them in Florida and Central America.

  Bauerstock said, “He’s come to believe that our cenote has restorative powers. He swims there every single day he can. When he travels, he takes bottles of the water with him. Maybe you already know this, but it’s not legend, it’s fact that Ponce de León came to Florida looking for what he called El Río de Jordan in his ship’s log, the River of Life. That was an Indian prophecy he’d heard in Cuba. See the connection?”

  Of course I could understand it. I had an uncle who’d once believed in the same thing.

  “I can see why someone would convince themselves it’s true,” I said.

  “He has. But what I’m getting at is, more than three months ago—the twenty-first of June, I’ll never forget the day—Dad went for his swim, and he lost the medallion. Jesus Christ, to him it was like the end of the world. He hasn’t been the same man since. His world hasn’t been the same since, either.”

  I said, “The chain broke?”

  “No, he was fanatical about the chain. You can imagine. Somehow the medallion broke. He doesn’t know how. It went fluttering down into deep water with my dad swimming like crazy after it.” Bauerstock laughed softly. “It’s actually kind of pathetic if you try and picture it. No one knows how deep that lake is. He hired a professional cave diver to search. It went on for months, but the diver gave up at three hundred feet. He found some interesting bones from mastodons and giant sloths, but no medallion. Unfortunately, Dad pushed him a little too hard and the diver was killed. Went down and never came back.”

  “One diver? He was diving alone in a spring? No diver, particularly an experienced cave diver, dives alone.”

  “I’m not sure why, but that’s exactly what happened. Maybe the poor guy wanted to keep the reward all to himself. Not that it was much of a bonus. It wasn’t. Dad offered the guy five thousand dollars plus his regular pay if he found it. The medallion was worth at least twenty times that. The diver’s body never surfaced.”

  “Was it on the news?”

  “No. But it will be. It’s only a matter of time. My dad paid off the family, but it’ll get out. Since he lost the medallion, Dad’s had a surprising number of business failures. In the last twelve weeks, in fact, it’s not an exaggeration to say he’s lost at least thirty percent of his wealth—many millions of dollars. You beating a confession out of Tony Rossi was the latest of many setbacks. Frankly, I’ve had some setbacks myself in my race for the state senate.”

  “Oh?”

  “You can look it up, so I might as well tell you. I’ve been falling in the polls. Turns out, my newest opponent is the son of one of dad’s oldest enemies. One’s as unscrupulous as the other. This guy hired two prostitutes to claim I tried to force myself on them. Sexually. Complete bullshit, but that’s what politics has come to. To Dad, I’m just an extension of his business interests. He’s lost the medallion and now my Senate race is going to hell along with everything else. That’s the way he sees it. He wants to reverse the momentum. He believes the totem might do that.”

  “What if Della doesn’t want to sell it?”

  “Oh, he’ll get the totem, count on it. That’s why I’ve called you aside, Dr. Ford. He’ll buy it from Della or use Dorothy’s scholarship fund to leverage it out of her. Or he’ll have someone steal it. That’s why I’m talking to you now. It’s not for you or for Della, even though I’m fond of her. It’s for Dorothy. She really was something special. I didn’t know her well, but she had a quality about her that was … well, I guess angelic is the only word that fits. She seemed too good for this world. I don’t want to see her mother get hurt.”

  I ignored the strange urge to ask him more questions about Dorothy. What did her voice sound like? Did she have a favorite expression? An interest in natural history? It was irksome that he’d actually spent time with her, but I hadn’t. Instead, I said, “You’re an unwilling pawn, just trying to help.”

  He stiffened slightly. “I don’t care for your tone and I don’t need your sarcasm. This may come as a big shock, Ford, but I really am going into politics to try and do some good. My father has spent his life hurting people and destroying lives, living a completely selfish existence. You’ll read this, too, so I might as well tell you: I spent my teenage years in a privately run cloister, fighting to overcome the emotional damage my father did when I was young. This was in North Dakota. Can you imagine a Florida kid being sent there? But I made it. I came out with my sanity and the conviction to live a constructive life.”

  When I offered no expression of empathy, the indignation faded. “You’re not interested in my personal history, nor my politics. I knew that the first moment I laid eyes on you. But you’re a rational man, so let me give you a condensed version of why we need strong people in political office with good motives. Shrink the earth’s population to a village of precisely a hundred people, and here are the ratios. There would be fifty-seven Asians, twenty-one Europeans, seven
South Americans, nine Africans and eight from the U.S. Seventy of those people would be non-Christian, eighty would live below the poverty level and half the world’s wealth would be in the hands of only six people, all citizens of the United States. And only two of those hundred people would own a computer.”

  I said, “Meaning there are dark days coming for a pampered nation.”

  “Unless we get very tough, quick. Yes.” He held his hand out to me. I didn’t want to take it. It is a common social quandary. Finally, I shook his hand as he said, “I’ll tell Dad you’re counseling Della on what to do with the totem. I suspect he’ll go easier on you if she decides to sell. I made her an offer. She’ll speak to you about it.”

  As he walked away, I told him, “Breaking the lease on my house, I can see why you’d do that. But this’s got nothing to do with Mote Marine. They’re doing great things for this state.”

  Over his shoulder, Bauerstock said, “You think my father gives a damn?”

  18

  Tomlinson was talking. “Know what I think I’ll do? I think I’ll cut my hair, buy some decent clothes, trim my nails and move to Pittsburgh. I hear it’s a lovely city. They have a surprisingly good baseball team and a great manager. Watching the Pirates at Three Rivers. That would become my hobby. I’ll send my sweet little daughter postcards and knickknacks.”

  I said, “Oh?”

  It was nearly midnight. The wind had freshened, gusting hot, then cool, followed by long moments of calm. Somewhere in the darkness, far out to sea, hot-air thermals were ricocheting skyward, absorbing tons of water vapor and beginning a slow, counterclockwise momentum.

  I was sitting in my skiff, wrapping tape onto a length of electrical conduit I’d found. Tomlinson was standing near me on the seawall. I’d loaned him my stout Loomis bait-casting rod with a fine old ABU reel that is loaded with twenty-pound test. I carry it for stopping big-shouldered fish around docks and mangroves. My fly rods are for sport. This bruiser was for putting food on the table.

  Tomlinson had tied on a very large lure called a Bomber. It was studded with gang hooks, all very sharp. When it hit the water, it sounded heavy as a brick. He was casting out onto the black water, then reeling it back slowly, very slowly.

  Behind us, there were still a few people on stools inside the tiki bar, but the music had stopped. Beside the bar was a flat-roofed, two-story stucco building rimmed with a balcony. It was an upstairs-and-downstairs rental duplex. In the lemon lights of the marina, the building’s green paint had turned gray, and the sliding glass doors of the upstairs apartment were illuminated. Nora was still awake up there, her silhouette moving across the scrim of living room light, maybe talking on the phone.

  The woman spent a lot of time on the phone.

  “When I get to Pittsburgh, I think I’ll buy a two-bedroom house in the suburbs—never know when a babe might want to sleep over. Yes, and get a nice desk job. County government, perhaps, something secure. Good money, good benefits. A meat-and-potatoes kind of job. I’ll buy life insurance. I’ll file my taxes quarterly. Perhaps marry a God-fearing Christian with multipersonalities. That way I could come home to a different woman every night. Whoops. Holy shit!”

  I heard a tremendous thrashing out on the water, then a whistling noise as the Bomber came zooming past my ear and landed in the coral rock by a coconut palm.

  I’d thrown my hands up—way too late—and now I sighed and returned to my wrapping. “You get a tarpon on like that, Tomlinson, you’ve got to bow when it jumps or it’ll throw the plug back at warp speed. You’re going to get one of us killed. That thing only missed me by a couple of feet.”

  “Sorry, sorry.” He was stripping out the tangle, retrieving the lure. “Big bastards out there in the dark. Absolutely fucking ferocious. If tarpon grew teeth, I wouldn’t go anywhere near the water. What I want is a nice snapper. Something tasty for lunch. Perhaps invite Della. They ought to be hitting on this falling barometer.” He began to cast again. “Where was I?”

  “Pittsburgh.”

  “Ah, exactly. I’ve come to regret this pirate’s life of ours, Marion. A life of excess and immorality. A man can only take so much sunshine and water, plus the constant party-party-party that Florida requires. I fear that chemicals are starting to take their toll. Reptiles have been visiting me in my dreams. I need to steel myself or rent a U-Haul.”

  “Um-huh. Tomlinson? Are you sleeping with Della?”

  He stopped reeling for a moment. “Of course I’m sleeping with Della. The poor woman needed comforting. I’m just what the doctor ordered.”

  “Then you know that Ted Bauerstock made her an offer on the totem.”

  The totem was still in the black bag, beside me on the boat.

  “I know, she told me. More money than she makes in two years. I told her to keep the totem for a while. Absorb some of its goodness, some of its power, then sell. But Ted wants it right away. She’s thinking it over.” He was silent for a moment, then: “You had a long, private talk with the man.”

  “Yeah.”

  Tomlinson’s laughter was oddly nervous. I’d never heard him make such a sound of discomfort before. “Know what he said to me? He said his father read somewhere, some deep government file someplace, that I was involved with a left-wing terrorist organization that killed nine people. His father warned him about me. This was like twenty years ago. The killings, I mean.”

  “An obvious attempt to leverage you. A ridiculous charge.”

  Tomlinson looked at me for a moment, then began to cast again. “That’s what I told him. Exactly my reaction. I like Ted. I like him a lot. I think his father is one evil son-of-a-bitch, but Ted’s trying to make up for it. You don’t like him, though, do you, Doc?”

  “Nope. I’m not sure why. He says all the right things in just the right way. Politically, he’s got great radar. This afternoon, he told me exactly what he knew I wanted to hear. But it’s like … he sees everyone else as a stage prop for his own life. Objects to be manipulated. That’s the impression I get. He’s too careful; had way too much practice at being smooth. No, I don’t like him. I don’t like Ted Bauerstock.”

  He sighed. “You’re wrong. Trust me on this one, amigo. Trust my instincts. I think Ted’s a good man.”

  I’d finished taping the length of electrical conduit. Now it was an effective sap, and I smacked it into my hand. It made a satisfying thwap.

  I said, “Really? I agree that he’s very charming, but when he talks about his father? I think he might be describing himself.”

  I awoke in a freezing sweat on the couch of the upstairs apartment, dreaming that I’d stepped into some slow-motion booby trap in a faraway jungle, and that a rope was pulling me up into the trees …

  I sat upright, groggy at first, then all senses at alert.

  Something had yanked at my ankle. Now it yanked again.

  It was fishing line.

  There were fifteen metal steps leading to our apartment, the only conventional entrance. I’d taken the weak, six-pound test line I’d bought at Kmart and tied it shin-high across the first step and one of the middle steps. From those lines, I ran a single piece up the wall, through a space between the window air conditioner and the window seal, then across the carpet to the couch.

  It was a very simple, very effective early-warning system. The line was so sheer that it was easily broken; it wouldn’t trip a person traveling the stairs, nor would they notice it. But it was strong enough to wake me.

  I popped the line from around my ankle and stood. Glanced at the door to the bedroom where Nora was asleep. It was closed.

  I was wearing gray boxer underwear. I slipped my boating loafers on and moved quietly to the sliding glass doors that I’d intentionally left unlocked.

  The glass doors looked out over the marina basin and a balcony that circled the second floor. The steps were on the opposite side by the road and parking lot. I went through the doorway onto the balcony and circled to my right. Below, the marina was asleep. I w
as at eye level with the masts of sailboats. I could see No Más out there, a ghostly white. Could see the porch light of Della’s trailer.

  I stopped at the first corner and peeked around. Nothing. Stopped at the second corner and peeked around, expecting to see someone futzing with the door, trying to break in. Nothing.

  Who the hell had hit the trip wire?

  I retraced my steps just in case my late-night visitor had gone around the other side of the balcony. No one there; still no one at the door … but there was someone coming up the stairs now: a tall, lean shape moving quietly in the dim light. Maybe he’d forgotten something. Had to go back to his car, and was coming up the steps for a second time. That would explain the lapse in time.

  I pressed close to the stucco. As I did, I realized I’d left the sap I’d made on the floor by the couch.

  Damn it.

  I had no choice, now, but to go after him empty-handed. I waited … waited until he was at the door and hunched over fiddling with the knob. That’s when I swung around the corner, driving hard with my legs, planning to smash him into the wall, then overpower him …

  … heard a woman scream “FORD!” and looked up just in time to see Nora’s terrified face a microsecond before I crushed her. I twisted hard to my right, hit the railing at full stride, somersaulted over the rail, fell feet-first ten feet or so and landed in a sea grape tree at the edge of the parking lot.

  “Jesus Christ, Ford, is that you?”

  I didn’t want to answer, but I had no choice. “Yes, it’s me, Nora. Out for a stroll, were you?”

  “Okay, so now that I know about your little alarm system, no more going outside at night to sneak a cigarette from my car.”

  “You said you don’t smoke.”

  “On Swamp Angel? Not having a lighter, I said that’s what I get for not smoking. And I don’t. I don’t smoke normally. I smoke occasionally. But I got out there and thought, nope, this time I’ve quit for good. So I didn’t have one.”