Shark River

by Randy Wayne White

  An image of Jeth popped into my mind. I checked the docks again—he and Janet weren’t out there. Hopefully, they’d gone off on their own to talk. I said, “Yeah, I know exactly what you mean.”

  “Gale was such a macho jock, Mr. Tough Girl, that I wouldn’t’a believed she’d ever cried in my life. Wrong. I don’t know what my dad said to her, but she was bawling her eyes out when she came out of that room with him. She’ll never work for him again. Maybe never work in the security business again, he was so pissed off.”

  I said, “Your father would really do that to her? Ruin her career?”

  “He said she wasn’t very good at it.”

  “I agree. She was terrible. Still—”

  “You don’t know my dad, Doc. Nicest guy in the world—if he decides to make time for you. But don’t cross him. Ever. And he’s always been so protective of me, it’s practically like being smothered. Want to make him mad? Do something to hurt his little girl. Me, I mean. That’s the way he still thinks of me. The weird thing about Dad is, the madder he gets, the quieter he gets. That’s how I knew he was furious at Gale. He smiled at her—but a different kind of smile—and kept his voice real soft and low, which told me, uh-oh, Gale’s about to have her head handed to her on a platter. Which is what happened. She’d almost gotten me killed, that’s the way he saw it, and she had to go. He’s got this favorite saying. How’s it go? Oh yeah: In diplomacy, getting even is the best revenge.”

  I told her, “I can hear him say it.” I could, too. After talking with Harrington on the phone, I didn’t doubt it for a second.

  “But know what the great thing is, Doc? He actually likes you. First time maybe ever that he approves of a man I’m seeing. From just that talk you guys had. That, plus after checking you out through probably every file the government computers can access. He didn’t tell you that, though, did he?”

  “A computer check,” I said. “No kidding? He’d have gone to all the trouble of running my name through a computer? It’s surprising what some fathers will do.” Through the window, I could see Tomlinson now. He had the Verner twins following along behind him, Bobbi and Barbie, the two of them with big smiles, drawing lots of attention themselves, looking buxom and identical in navy blue warm-up pants and white T-shirts. They looked like they were dressed to run a couple of miles. Or to go for a sail with Tomlinson.

  Through the phone, I could hear Lindsey ask, Was I kidding? Her dad had done background checks on everyone she’d ever dated. Then she said, “Why would that surprise you? Hello-o-o. He had us taped, for Christ’s sake. When we were making love. Remember? Of course he’d do a background check. But it musta come out complimentary, ’cause know what he told me?” She changed her voice, made it deeper, imitating her father. “ ‘That Doctor Ford, he seems like a good man. Lot of integrity. If you’re smart, you’ll stay in touch with him. He’s not like the kind of losers you usually run with.’ ” She laughed at her own theatrics. “He even told me, after things die down, when he feels I’m out of danger, you and I ought to head off on some kind of trip. Can you believe it? Have a little fun. Jesus, he even referred to you as the astronaut, joking about it, which embarrassed the crap out of me. But Dad was like, ‘Hey, no big deal.’ ”

  Mindful of one of the promises I’d made to Harrington, I said, “I’ll make a deal with you, Lindsey. You keep working out, stay healthy, I’ll fly you to Florida and we’ll spend three or four days cruising around, camping. Whatever you want.”

  “By ‘staying healthy’ you mean staying clean. Just come out and say it. No drugs, no cocaine.”

  “Okay, no drugs, especially cocaine. I like the woman I met on Guava Key very much. Don’t go screwing up a winning combination. Plus, I meant the part about working out. Even without Gale there to push you. Keep the momentum, then we can start working out together when you get to Sanibel. I need a running partner.”

  “Sanibel,” she said dreamily. “I’ve been there. What’s the name of that big bird sanctuary? And I love the beaches. I can just picture us, waking up early and going for long walks. But Doc? Something that’ll help motivate me is you calling. Every day if you can. Twice a day would be better. I don’t want to be pushy, but it’s already boring as hell here. The bodyguards are supposed to take me cross-country skiing tomorrow. But I’ll have my cell phone. Hearing from you gives me something to look forward to.”

  Staying in touch with Lindsey was also part of my promise to Harrington. “A couple times a day,” I said. “You got it.”

  I worked in the lab until about ten. I had a stack of bills to pay, and a smaller stack of invoices to send out. Do business with any state or federally funded organization—which is about all I do—and you soon learn that the bureaucrats make even getting paid a complicated series of often meaningless, unnecessary, busywork hoops. Small people exercise their power in small ways.

  I also had a little stack of personal mail to answer. The inexorable use of the Internet and e-mail has conferred a new and surprising power to handwritten letters, and I take care to answer the few I now receive. I had a long letter from Dewey Nye. She started out by apologizing again for her last-minute cancellation of Guava Key, which caused me to reflect on how certain small decisions may have a gigantic impact on our lives. I played the private little mental game of what-would’ve-happened-if. What would have happened if Dewey had ignored her lover and stayed with me on the island? What would’ve happened if she’d been running along beside me the afternoon I confronted the kidnappers? She might have been shot, not me. Might be badly wounded, might be dead. Or, instead of grazing my arm, the slug might have drifted a few inches to the left. Human existence seems a dichotomy of random intersections acted out on a precise biological framework . . . which may explain my passion for biology.

  I answered Dewey’s letter and a couple more. Kim and Mike from Cabbage Key had gotten married and the happy couple had sent me a card postmarked Fiji. There was also a note from Captain Peter Hull of Mote Marine reminding me to contact him about the five-year research master plan they were contemplating for Charlotte Harbor.

  I sat there writing in the perfect little circle of light provided by a gooseneck lamp. Then, because I hadn’t eaten, and because Mack and the others tend to get miffed if I don’t make at least a token appearance at their Friday parties, I showered, changed, locked the lab behind me, and headed off for the marina.

  I carried the mail with me outside. Stopped, listened, then slowed my pace where the path opened out onto the shell road.

  Was there a car waiting, engine off, at the gate?

  Yep. Lights off, too. I could see one . . . no, two dark figures sitting in the front seat.

  I felt my heart start to pound harder as I stood there trying to decide whether to keep going or trot back to safety and call the police. I was still standing there when the car started unexpectedly, the passenger window rolled down and I heard a snatch of laughter, a teenage hoot, then peeling tires on loose shell.

  Kids parking.

  I berated myself for being unduly paranoid... then forgave myself immediately, remembering the way Clare’s big arm had crushed the air out of me.

  I had become a target, and I knew it. Which is why I had to be very, very careful. You’re not paranoid if the bad guys really are after you.

  And they were.

  I readjusted the mail in my good arm, and walked it to the marina’s drop box before joining the party.

  The band was still playing: three men with guitars, another on congas, Tomlinson on harmonica, and Ransom on steel drums. They were doing a Buffett song—One Particular Harbor—all six really into it, banging it loud, the crowd singing along, some of them dancing, too, maybe prompted by Ransom, who danced with Bahamian rhythm as she played.

  I watched Tomlinson for a few moments. He was shirt-less, his abs and veins demarcated by dock lights, his face invisible behind a screen of hair as he leaned his mouth into cupped hands, playing. He was barefooted, too, his knobby legs prot
ruding from purple and yellow paisley surfer shorts that hung below his knees.

  I stood there listening, enjoying it, looking out past the docks to the dark water and stars beyond. JoAnn brought me a beer, then Rhonda joined us, too, linking her arm into mine and leaning her weight against me, the three of us standing close as if slow dancing, me sandwiched between. Old friends.

  “Shadow loves it!” Rhonda yelled. Mark’s old retriever sat at Tomlinson’s side, panting, eyes focused upward, as if expecting a treat.

  Nearby were the Verner twins. Both had similar expressions on their faces. Same thing—expecting a treat.

  I’d finished that beer and another by the time the band took a break. I had joined the guides at the picnic tables under the tin roof near the bait tank. That’s where the food had been moved just in case of rain. I dropped a ten-dollar bill into the jar and filled my plate with shrimp, cracked conch, and a slab of baked redfish.

  I’m not a fussy eater; certainly no gourmet snob, but I rarely order seafood at a restaurant. The Timbers on Sanibel and the Prawnbroker on the mainland are exceptions. The restaurants on Cabbage Key and Useppa are a couple of others. I rarely order it for a very simple reason: The marina’s seafood and the seafood I make at home are both always so far superior; why risk it?

  Shrimp are a good example. Buy shrimp from any American market or restaurant and they can’t compare, because commercial shrimpers give their catch a chemical soaking so the shrimp will smell milder, fresher, and be a viable, salable product longer.

  Not so at the marina. We buy the shrimp right off the boat from the bay shrimpers. Shrimp that haven’t been soaked in chemical brine, so none of the delicate iodine flavor has been leached away.

  Combined with that is the fact that Joyce, who cooks in the seafood market, uses a very simple recipe I brought back from Panama, compliments of some of my Zonie friends. Fill an empty wine bottle with virgin olive oil and a dozen or more chili peppers. Cork and allow it to age for at least a few weeks. In a large bowl, pour the chili oil over fresh shrimp, squeeze in the juice of two fresh limes. Not lemons, limes. Salt heavily. Add garlic, black pepper, and, if you can find it, some Everglades Seasoning from La-Belle for a nice Cuban touch. Allow the shrimp to marinate for a day. Cook them on a very hot grill. The oil creates a lot of flame and sears them nicely black. It only takes a minute or two on each side. Overcook the shrimp and they’re ruined—dry and tough to peel. Get them off just as they turn pink and you’ve got one of the world’s great culinary experiences.

  Which is why I’d heaped my plate high with shrimp. I sat there eating the shrimp, washing them down with iced beer, talking to the guides. Talking with the guides is a favorite pastime because they spend so much time on the water that any anomaly, any unusual experience, is immediately noted. Most light tackle guides are keen observers and have an even keener sense of humor—a necessity in their very tough business.

  I sat there with Dalbert Weeks and Javier Castillo from Two Parrot Bight Marina, plus Nels Esterline, and big Felix Blane from Dinkin’s Bay. They wanted to know about the attempted kidnapping on Guava Key, and I reduced the incident to three or four vague sentences, then spent the next half hour or so listening to their stories. Trolling offshore in twenty feet of water for king mackerel, Dalbert’s party had jumped what he swore was a sail-fish—extremely rare that close to Sanibel or that far from the Gulf Stream. But as Felix noted, “That’s the great thing about saltwater, man. There are no gates out there and fish can swim anywhere they want. You know Sword Point up by the mouth of the river? Supposedly, way, way back, some guy landed a swordfish there and that’s practically fresh water come the rainy season.”

  Tracking the same king mackerel run, Javier had found the flotsom of what he thought was a refugee boat. As a Cuban who’d fled his homeland during the Mariel boatlift, he’d examined the debris more carefully than most. “Inner tubes tied together, that’s what I first see. Three in all, one of them got no air. That tell me something ’cause inner tubes, that’s the way we used to fish off Havana. Paddle them out”—he made a twirling motion with his hands—“use nothing but hand lines right there at the edge of the Stream.”

  He’d also found a five-gallon plastic can with AGUA spray-painted on the side. The can was empty. “Those people dead,” he said sadly. “Died of thirst, maybe went crazy drinking saltwater. Who knows. Over so many years, how many people you think that maricón Castro has killed in all?”

  I noticed Ransom walking toward me, signaling me to come over, as I listened to Nels ask if anyone else had noticed that orange-colored cloud right at sunrise. He told us it was floating over the Gulf of Mexico all by itself, and was shaped perfectly like the head of a man.

  “It looked like Mark Twain,” he said, “with the long hair and mustache. Or maybe Albert Einstein. Wouldn’t it be weird if it was one of their birthdays yesterday?”

  Ransom was smiling, seemed real happy with herself. She was thumping her hands, playing an invisible drum, her hips swaying. I noted that she was wearing the golden ring once again, lion’s head in black, as she said, “My brother! I like this marina where you live. People, they so nice to me. Ev’body come right up and talk real friendly jus’ like back on Cat Island. An’ they love you, man. They tellin’ me, ‘Your brother, he a good man. He do this for me, or he do daht for me. Your brother, he hold this whole community together.’ ” She hugged her arm around my waist. “That make me so proud. You know what I think I’m gonna do?”

  What she was thinking about doing was moving to Sanibel. As I listened to her tell me about it, I noticed a commotion going on over near the rental canoes. It was Tomlinson and several people standing around watching. Tomlinson seemed to be playing tag with Mark Bryant’s dog. He’d tiptoe up to the dog, lunge to grab his collar, and the dog would sprint away. The dog seemed to be moving faster than I’d ever seen an old dog move. He was amazingly agile for an animal his age. It had to be some kind of game, yet Tomlinson appeared to be getting frustrated.

  I watched him continue to stalk the dog as Ransom said, “You know what I’d planned to do. I planned to go back to my island, buy me some property, build me a big house with a satellite dish so I don’t have to go to the hotel bar no more to see my shows on the television. Maybe buy me that red car, too, and some air-conditionin’ for the hot days. But after just one night here, seeing how friendly the peoples are, I got me another idea.”

  I smiled as the dog began to sprint in crazy circles, really having fun, as Tomlinson tried to anticipate the dog’s trajectory, strangely not seeming to be having much fun at all.

  Ransom said, “So the idea I got into my mind, I was talking to some of the women about it. That nice girl, Joyce, who does the cooking and JoAnn, too—man, that woman got a sweet feeling for you! What those ladies think I ought to do is don’t buy a house at all, but maybe buy me a little boat instead. See, that way I can live right here on Sanibel. You get sick or hurt or need somethin’ done at your house, then I’m right here to help you. And if I get homesick for the islands? I’ll just drive my lil’ boat back to the Bahamas and work my way real slow down the chain ’til I get to Cat Island.”

  I heard Rhonda call, “Hey, why is Tomlinson chasing Mark’s dog?” as Ransom added, “I already got me a little less than seventeen thousand dollars. That plus the three thousand Daddy Gatrell left me, that’ll give me nearly twenty thousand. Now don’t go tellin’ me that ain’t a lot of money.”

  I’d warned her before, and now I warned her again about Tucker’s absurd jokes.

  I watched her grin fade into a puzzled scowl. “Why you keep saying that, man? What else I got to do but show you those gold coins? Our daddy, he never told you he hid away money?”

  Actually, Tucker had told me that he’d hidden away money. Often. He was always bragging about all the money he’d made; how much he’d pissed away on failed business schemes, whiskey, and women; how much he had buried if he could just get to it. Tucker had been a tropical jun
kie. He’d loved the islands; he jumped at any excuse to hop a banana boat or a freighter and head south. The only thing I never doubted about him was that he’d wasted a lot of money. He spent much of his life working cattle in Central America and Cuba, and commercial-fishing the Bahamas. The man I knew never had a cent.

  I told her, “Remember what I said about exaggerating? That’s what he might have been doing. He exaggerates to make himself look more important than he really is. Than he really was, I mean.”

  The woman’s tone became severe. “Don’t you talk that way about Daddy. Way you speak, you didn’t even like the man.”

  Truth was, she was right; I didn’t like Tucker Gatrell. I had my reasons, too. Good reasons.

  “Did you read the letter I left out for you? The one he wrote just to you?”

  I told her I hadn’t, and instantly regretted it when I saw the unhappy look on her face. I’d known her for only a couple of days, so why did I already hate the idea of disappointing her or hurting her? It wasn’t rational, but there it was. I liked her as a person. She had an endearing honesty about her; seemed genuinely good-hearted, but it was more than that. “I’m going to read it,” I added quickly, “tonight.”

  She was shaking her head. “Man, why you want to wait? You go read that letter right now, then come back and listen to us play some more.” She looked at my empty plate. “What’s the holdup? You done stuffin’ your face.”

  I chuckled, amused and penitent, dropped my garbage in the can, and told her that’s exactly what I’d do if it made her happy. I walked around by the shallow water docks past the rental canoes to tell Tomlinson that I’d be right back.

  The little crowd that had been watching him play tag with the dog had scattered. He stood there alone by the big sea grape outside the Red Pelican. He had his hands on his hips, sweating, breathing heavily. He motioned with his head when he saw me approach and said, “Look at that evil little son-of-a-bitch. And I used to sneak him Milk-Bones every time I had the chance.”