Key Weirder

by Robert Tacoma

  He laid a picture of the idol on the table in front of Mama Rosa.

  “In fact, we’re looking for three of them this time, and we think this woman might know where they are.”

  A bad picture of a mousy woman went next on the table. Mama Rosa laid a hand on each picture and closed her eyes.

  “Yes! She is near! I feel great mystery and danger!” She pulled her hands back off the pictures like they were burning. “There are strange forces at work here! I will have to consult the spirits to find this woman for you! This is too dangerous for me on my own!”

  She closed her eyes while holding very still, then started making low moaning noises.

  “So, Mama Rosa, how much is this going to cost anyway?”

  Her eyes popped back open.

  “Same deposit as last time, non-refundable, cash or credit card, sorry no checks. Gimme a couple days.”

  The eyes slowly closed and the moaning started again. Jeremy filled out the form and came up with a shiny new Visa Gold.

  ♦

  The next day Mama Rosa’s PI nephew in Miami, Tommy Areconda, came through with the news he had obtained through certain channels that there was a bounty hunter from Georgia subbing out some work for a big firm in LA. The nephew’s source indicated one Saul Thorpe was contracted to find a certain unnamed fisherman who might have a little gold statue.

  Tommy faxed his aunt in Key West the little bit of background info he had on Mr. Thorpe, and an invoice. His aunt was a little weirder than his other clients, but she was a good businesswoman and always paid her bills.

  ♦

  “She put her hand on the picture and said she’s near! I think she’s going to come through for us here, Carol!”

  They were sitting on a low stone wall outside one of the outdoor cafés at the end of Duval Street. You could forget about getting a table, everything in Key West was filled to capacity and had been all day. A fat man with white hair and beard, wearing a rough sweater, was sitting at a table in the café with another fat guy who seemed to be painted gray. They were staring drunkenly at Carol, especially the part of Carol showing out of the top of her lacy bustier.

  She wasn’t impressed with what Jeremy had, but after a full day of fighting the crowds to get to the treasure museums around Key West, the former owner of two golden chacmools didn’t have anything better. No one recognized the picture of Sara she’d been showing around. Things looked bleak.

  “Look, Carol, Mama Rosa said it would be a couple of days. What say we live a little while we’re waiting?”

  Jeremy was holding his hat in his lap and absently fingering himself while watching the women walking past. Carol was absently fingering the little controller in her bag. She was thinking about why she was sitting on a hard stone wall in Sweaty Pink Tourist Hell in the first place. Carol sighed and her finger tapped the button.

  Jeremy let out a yelp and both hands went to his neck. Hemingway gave Carol a wink. Carol gave Papa the finger and turned slowly to Jeremy.

  “Let’s keep those hands where we can see them, my little perv.” She waved the small black box menacingly. “How about I go somewhere and have a cool drink, and you sit here and watch for your little friend Sara?” Jeremy looked at Carol with pleading eyes. “Okay, tell you what. You sit right here and look real hard while I’m gone, and maybe I’ll bring you back some lemonade, how’s that?”

  Jeremy gave her a blank look. Carol slowly and deliberately put her finger on the button. The little man with the blue dog collar started panning his head back and forth, intently looking in the crowd of people passing by on the street. Jeremy and half the people in the café watched Carol’s tight designer jeans walk back up Duval Street.

  As soon as she was out of sight Jeremy ran into the café and forced his way through the crowd to the bar and ordered a double Margarita, to go.

  ∨ Key Weirder ∧

  45

  Swamp

  The trip to the Everglades coast didn’t take as long as Sara thought it would. It was still a long ride though, and it was late afternoon by the time she got to what she hoped was the right area.

  The water had gotten rough for part of the way and she had to slow the boat down for the last hour of the trip to keep from getting pounded so much from the waves. Even with the charts it was tricky. Once she got to the mainland and started up Lost Man’s River, there wasn’t any chart of the area.

  Going across Florida Bay from Key West had been all wide-open sky and water with the occasional little mangrove island, but going up the river it was a completely different world. She had seen a few other boats off in the distance earlier, but once up in the tree-shaded river she felt very alone.

  There was nothing but mangrove trees here – huge trees that grew over the river and made darkness come early. The mangroves had shaded out all other vegetation – it was just mangroves, black water, and mosquitoes. The air smelled close and damp with just a hint of decay.

  Mr. Willie had been right about all that mosquito stuff, they were like a cloud that descended on her as soon as she got up into the dark shade of the river. The old man had said they were worse at night, so Sara got out the fine mesh net that covered her hat and came down to her shoulders. The only other place she had exposed skin was her hands, and the mosquitoes were already covering them. She sprayed repellent on her hands and some on her clothes as well.

  Now all she had to do was travel the maze of little creeks and swamp that stretched for miles and find a little old hermit that only one other person had seen in years. And find him before it got dark.

  The creeks got narrower and shallower, and soon even with the motor idling and tilted up, it was hitting bottom. Sara turned the motor off and used the long pole that Willie had given her to push the boat slowly farther back in through the mangroves.

  It was tough going in the steamy swamp – the skiff wasn’t really built for poling.

  Sara quickly learned to drink water from a plastic bottle without taking the mosquito net off her head. She just put the bottle to her mouth and drank through the screen. Having to pee was another matter.

  There was no place to get out of the boat because there was no land. There was only black muck covered with several feet of tangled mangrove root. It was awkward enough trying to pee over the side of the boat, and it didn’t help that every mosquito for miles seemed to show up when her little white butt came out of her pants.

  It stayed semi-dark for a long time and then it got dark for real. Sara was quite a ways back in the swamp, so she tried calling out.

  “Hello! My name is Sara! I am looking for the golden statue of the Chacmool! I don’t mean any harm here, I come as a friend!”

  The swamp was the darkest place she had ever seen. The trees covered what little light there was from the stars. The only sounds were the night birds in the distance and an occasional screeching noise she didn’t think she wanted to know the source of. There were some frogs making noise and sometimes she heard something splashing in the water.

  Mr. Willie had it right about the mosquitoes after dark too. For the first hour or so after sunset they were worse than ever. Sara turned on her flashlight and scanned the area. She was amazed at how thick the cloud of mosquitoes had become. Even with two kinds of repellent on her hands she was getting bit. The thin gloves helped with the mosquitoes, but it was so hot and humid that Sara took the gloves back off after a while.

  It was a still night, and Sara called out several more times. She hoped she was close enough to the old hermit that he would hear her and come to investigate. It was too dark to try poling anymore, so she tied the boat off to some mangrove roots and turned on the little lamp she had bought in Key West that morning.

  The crowds of Key West, which she had experienced just that morning, seemed so unreal to Sara sitting there alone in the wilderness. Duval Street would be lit up with throngs of people for the first Fantasy Fest parade. Men and women in the parade would be wearing all kinds of wild costumes, there would b
e loud music coming from everywhere, and everyone would be drinking and yelling and acting crazy.

  Surrounded by the pitch-black night, Sara opened a can of peaches under the little light in the boat. She managed to feed herself with out getting bit too many times and settled in for the night. It was too hot for the sleeping bag she’d brought, but it did make a nice sleeping pad on the front deck of the boat for her to curl up on.

  She turned the light off and lay there listening to the night sounds and mosquitoes. In the morning she would find the old man and ask him for the third Chacmool. Then she wouldn’t have to just dream about Charlie Spider anymore.

  ∨ Key Weirder ∧

  46

  Parade

  It turned out Fantasy Fest wasn’t so bad after all. Carol’s everyday attire seemed to fit right in with the elaborate costumes and wild body paint most of the people were wearing. With a tall rum drink in her hand, she enjoyed the loud music and frenzied atmosphere of Duval Street while collecting an impressive amount of bead strings around her neck. Carol had to keep them arranged so they didn’t cover too much cleavage, so she could get even more beads thrown to her from the floats in the parade.

  The motel manager named André who she’d spent a lively evening in bed with during her last stay in Key West recognized her and jumped off a float toward the end of the parade. He was a little drunk but seemed happy to see her, though he said he was a little wary of her since she’d kicked him out of her room at 3 am the last time. All the nearly naked sweaty bodies, music, and rum had Carol feeling very much a woman. She swore she wouldn’t dream of kicking him out at 3 am again if he would like to stop by for a little while.

  ♦

  At 4 am sharp, Carol closed the door on a protesting André and went back to bed to get some sleep.

  A little after eight she heard someone very carefully try the door to her room. There was just the slightest click as the lock held, then a faint scratching like someone using a credit card on the latch. After a quick glance at her watch, she sleepily reached into her bag by the bed and gave the little transmitter device a good squeeze. There was a loud scream outside the door followed by gagging sounds.

  Carol fluffed her pillow a little before snuggling down into the bed and going back to sleep.

  ∨ Key Weirder ∧

  47

  Cabin

  When Sara opened her eyes there was just the faintest hint of daylight. The mosquitoes definitely seemed to be worst right at sunset and sunrise. Sara wanted to sleep more, but she needed to stick her butt over the side of the boat again. She stood and looked around in the pale light before quickly pulling down her pants and making the mosquitoes’ day. After she had finished and mashed all the mosquitoes trapped in her pants, she looked around again slowly. It was very still in the swamp as the light tried to find its way through the mangrove canopy for another day.

  She was about to try calling out again when there was movement in the distance. A small dark figure seemed to be standing on the water holding a long stick. She didn’t move or make a sound, and the figure slowly came closer until she could see it was a person standing up and poling a little canoe that stuck up only a few inches above the water. There was hardly a ripple of water from the canoe as it eased closer, and not a sound.

  “Hello, my name is Sara! I’m looking for a man who might be a treasure hunter. I am seeking a gold statue, a little Idol called a Chacmool.”

  The canoe stopped far enough away that Sara still couldn’t make out what the little man looked like in the semi-darkness. She carefully reached down into her bag and pulled out a Chacmool and held it over her head.

  “I am looking for one of these!”

  The canoe came closer. Sara slowly brought the Idol down and held it out in front of her towards the approaching figure. As he got closer she could see that it wasn’t an old man at all, but a young boy, maybe ten or twelve years old. He seemed to have some Indian features, but it was hard to tell in the poor light, and because he was wearing a large hat and old baggy clothes. He seemed to be looking at the idol, not at her.

  When he got close enough, the boy reached out and took the Chacmool from the young woman and held it close to his chest and examined it. He was near now, but she still couldn’t see his face because of the hat. The small hands of the boy brought the Idol back towards her and she noticed that he was missing the little finger on his left hand. The boy was smiling and Sara started to smile back, then she saw his eyes. Sara felt a flash of alarm and almost dropped the Idol in the water. It was the face of a young boy, but the gleaming eyes were those of an old man.

  ♦

  After a couple of hours of poling the skiff behind the boy and his canoe, Sara was working up a good sweat. The coolness of the morning hadn’t lasted long, and she had to pole hard to keep up with the boy. There were some breaks in the tree canopy that let in some sunlight, and the mosquitoes didn’t seem to be as bad. At least she didn’t need the netting over her hat anymore.

  He hadn’t said a word after handing the idol back to her, just gave her a smile and started to pole his canoe back from where he’d come. He hadn’t gone far when he turned and motioned for her to follow. His little log canoe seemed to slip effortlessly through the mangrove swamp, while Sara was having a hard time with the much larger and heavier skiff.

  Once, after a quick drink of water, Sara didn’t see the boy out ahead anymore. She poled along a little further before stopping and looking all around. At first she didn’t see it in the distance, but there seemed to be a roof outline in mangroves, and then she saw the boy sitting in front of a doorway smiling and waving.

  “Is this your home? Where are your parents?”

  Sara tied the skiff to the wooden steps in front of the weathered little cabin stuck back in the mangroves. Inside the screen door was a small table and a rusty little stove. There was a mat on the floor against the far wall and different kinds of dried roots hanging by strings from the ceiling rafters. A small stack of old paperback books was against the wall not far from the stove, the book on top of the pile missing most of its pages. She figured the book pages were being used to start fires. There was a black iron pot on the stove with some kind of soup. The soup smelled really good.

  “Do you live here by yourself?”

  The boy pointed to the table where there was a box to sit and a wooden bowl and spoon. Sara got the picture and helped herself to some soup. It was different than anything she’d had before, but it was warm and delicious.

  “This is good stuff! Did you make this yourself?”

  The boy sat down against the wall on the floor not far from the mat. He smiled at his guest and then looked to his left, toward the mat, and nodded and let out a quick little laugh. He almost seemed to be carrying on a conversation with someone else, an invisible person. Great, thought Sara, and I’m the one people are always saying is a little crazy. The boy suddenly turned to her and tilted his head to one side and smiled. His strange eyes were full of mischief.

  “I am Henry. I thought you might want to get out of the bugs for a while. Maybe have some soup?”

  He looked over at his imaginary friend again, and looked surprised and put his hand over his mouth to suppress a laugh. Sara kept eating; she hadn’t realized how hungry she was. The boy seemed to get over his joke with his invisible friend.

  “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be rude. I don’t get many visitors.”

  He was sitting up straight now and giving Sara his full attention.

  “My parents are long gone, but do not worry about that, I am fine here by myself.” He seemed to be trying to ignore something going on to his left and gave a quick little smile that way. “I’m quite curious about the little statue you have. Did you say you were looking for one like it?”

  Sara stopped eating. This was what she had come for.

  “Yes, I have two, and I am looking for the third one. An old black man in Key West told me that someone he knows had been back here not long ago an
d had met an old man who used to hunt for buried treasure on the islands around here. For some reason I thought he might have it.”

  The young boy nodded, then shook his head.

  “There used to be a little statue here like the one you have, but it is gone.”

  Sara’s disappointment must have showed. The boy looked to his left, then back at his guest and smiled.

  “I wouldn’t be surprised if it came back again sometime soon though.”

  ∨ Key Weirder ∧

  48

  Chacmools

  The days Sara spent with the young boy were some of the most interesting of her life. Henry took her around the swamp and introduced her to some of his friends. Further inland the terrain changed, with more types of vegetation and wildlife. There were palms to rattle in the breeze and logs in the water with eyes that turned out to be alligators. Sara had trained for years to be quiet, and could stalk most animals and people with ease, but she was a clumsy mess compared to little Henry. He could move through the woods in a way that didn’t even disturb the leaves on the ground.

  The friends turned out to be a deer and some raccoons. When they went to a place where there was some dry land and a vegetable garden, a small doe came out of the brush after the boy made a purring sound. Sara had never been so close to wild animals before, but the boy and the deer seemed so natural together that she didn’t even flinch when the deer came over to her and put its head under her hand so she would scratch it.

  Sara didn’t even notice the heat or the bugs, and then she wondered if she might be dreaming the place with the deer and vegetable garden. She looked at the hand that wasn’t scratching the deer and counted her fingers. Five was right, it wasn’t a dream.

  Henry was working in the garden, pulling weeds and talking to his imaginary friend. The deer turned its head and Sara looked back over at the boy, but now there were two boys. Startled, she looked back at the deer. The deer’s eyes seemed to glow before it slipped back into the brush with hardly a sound.