With Pepper standing beside the examining table Dr. Bean Wilson lay her on her stomach, drew up her blouse, proceeded with more trigger point injections, the usual stuff, Marcaine Hydrochloride, Depo-Medrol, tetracaine, she couldn't keep them straight. A prick of local anesthetic at four nerve sites in her lower back, then the deep injection, four inches down, using the flexible needle so he could turn it subcutaneously, fanning the drug to a larger area.
When he was finished, the handsome, kind, sweet, wonderful doctor turned her back over, smiled down at her, and said she was going to sleep now and when she woke up she would be in a different place.
"What different place?"
"I'm moving you," he said. "Pepper's boat. It's quite comfortable."
"The Miss Begotten," Pepper said. "My father named it. He was a rumrunner, among other things."
The doctor fastened one of the restraining straps across her torso, pinning her arms.
"Boat?" Greta smiling uncertainly. "What're you talking about? We're going on a cruise?"
"Something like that," Pepper said.
The doctor tightened the strap across her ankles.
"You want to be rid of your pain, Greta, don't you? The burning?
"What's going on?"
"You'll be fine," he said. "You'll fall asleep in a minute or two and when you wake, I'll be there and we'll try some new things. Some better things."
"I'm leaving town tomorrow," she said. "Did you forget?"
"It's a simple procedure."
"What're you talking about? Are you drunk?"
Greta twisted against the restraints, but he had her by then. Four webbed bands holding her tight to the stretcher.
"There's just one important issue, Greta, the question I must ask every patient in your situation. A formality, really, but I have to ask."
Pepper was smiling at Greta. The room getting hazy.
"Are you sure you can tolerate a foreign body inside your body?"
"What!"
"You know the routine, Greta. One-hour procedure, small incision in your belly, nestle the pump in a pocket on top of the muscle tissue, tunnel the tubing around your side and then guide it into your spine, one-day recovery, very little pain. Tomorrow you'll wake up, your stomach will be a little sore, but that's all."
"Wait just a goddamn minute. You can't do this. Hey!"
He patted her on the shoulder and left. When the door shut, Greta Masterson cried out, then she bucked and twisted and fought the restraints, but they didn't give. Pepper stood beside the bed, still with that small smile.
As the anesthetic kicked in, Greta began to sweat and a rush of panic swept over her. She squirmed and wrenched an arm, managed to free it, but by then she'd lost all dexterity and could not loosen the other straps. Lathered in sweat, she flailed her free arm and began to babble. Picturing Brad Madison parked down the street waiting for her to come rolling down Eaton. Coming to pick Greta up, take her back to Suzy, to her old life, her new life. Coming tomorrow. Tomorrow afternoon to take her home.
Pepper stood over Greta and stared down at her, eyes empty. Then she refastened Greta's arm beneath the strap and walked away. And Greta began the long descent—a heavy sleep dragging her down into its breathless depths, its immense gravity.
***
"She was clawing and screaming. All I could make out was this. I was supposed to tell whoever answered the phone that she was in terrible trouble. To come right now and kick down the door."
Dr. Bean Wilson sat at the desk and stared at the slip of paper Pepper had scribbled on. He touched the corner of the paper with his finger, straightening it, lining it up with the edges of his desk.
"Shit," he said. "Shit, shit, shit."
"You want me to call the number, find out who answers?"
"No."
"I don't mind. It might be a good idea. She could have some family we didn't know about. A boyfriend or something. Somebody who'd come looking for her later and could cause a lot of trouble."
"Goddamn it, I already know whose number it is."
"You do? Who?"
The doctor crumpled the paper. Mashed it between his hands, rolling it into a tight little ball, which he dropped on the desk in front of him.
"His fucking name is Brad Madison."
CHAPTER 5
Wednesday morning Thorn finished his morning coffee out on the wood dock. Blackwater Sound was as sleek and gray as dolphin flesh. A couple of miles out, two white fishing boats skimmed south abreast of one another. An easterly breeze carried their muffled exhausts, along with the scent of grated ginger and cheap beer gone stale, the morning smell of mangroves. Seaweed rode the swells along shore; a paper cup, a length of rope bobbing near the pilings of his dock. The blue was just seeping back into the sky for another long day of uninterrupted sun. The National Weather Service had been playing its unvarying message since the end of February. It was never going to rain again. Never, ever.
Thorn watched Rover stalk butterflies in the lantana. Pointing, taking one careful step after another, holding his profile low. Such poise, such focus. Another step, another, closing to within a yard, the magic distance for butterflies, then holding there, cocking his body like the tightest of bowstrings. Then, at some mysterious signal, he leaped toward the thicket, a beautiful strike. But somehow the clumsy insect with its speck of brain and foolhardy trajectories lurched away from him. Saved itself again from Rover's jaws.
When he'd finished his coffee he went back upstairs and for the next couple of hours he tied Crazy Marys. It was a bonefish fly he'd created a month ago after his friend Sugarman dropped off a grocery sack full of red hair he'd discovered behind the beauty shop next door to his office. Turned out it was Mary Fitzroy's hair, an old salt who'd been cultivating that mane for over eighty years. Most of that time she'd been an offshore fishing guide, taking the three-hundred-dollar-a-day crowd out after dolphin and sail and marlin. Years of sun hadn't dulled its deep cherry hue, but lately Mary had come to believe that the weight of her hair was robbing her brain of vitality. How else to explain her sudden lapses of memory, or an occasional inability to sight the subtle roughening in the ocean's surface caused by a passing school of dolphin. Mary told Lisa Ann at the Hairport to just whack it off, shave it down to the shiny scalp. The stuff was too much damn work to take care of anymore and it required more goddamn energy than she could spare to keep lugging it around.
For the last few weeks Thorn had been working his way through the hair, pinch by pinch, shaping flies with bright silver bead chain eyes, crimson Mylar over a Mustad 3407, fluorescent green Flashabou, and Mary's hair for the saddle hackles. Proud Mary was the name he'd given the flies, but as soon as the guides discovered the source of the hair, they started using the same nickname they'd always used for Mary Fitzroy. Crazy Mary. At first there were a group of them who refused to touch the flies after hearing they were made from Mary's hair. Some kind of sacrilege. But after word got around that the lures were catching fish, all the superstitions blew away.
By eleven that sunny morning, Thorn's fingers were dull and clumsy, and his back was tight from stooping over his custom vise. It was Wednesday, two days since the dolphin slaughter, and so far he'd kept his word to Monica. He'd left it alone, kept himself locked up inside the meditation hall. Though to be honest, his mind was not fully cooperating in the venture. He thought of little else.
While he had considerable work to do on the Chris-Craft to get her back in service, Thorn decided instead to make a run down the highway, take his backlog of five dozen Crazy Marys and offer them to a few of his tackle shop buddies. His cigar box was down to less than a hundred dollars, enough to get through the month, but without much cushion.
That's what he told himself as he ate a quick lunch—turkey sandwich and iced tea. And that's what he said aloud to Rover when he set down the dog's breakfast of leftover fried grunt fillets and white rice. Thorn was simply going out to sell flies, something he'd done a few thousand times before. Nothing to
feel guilty about, nothing to explain to Monica later. Going out to sell some Crazy Marys. Simple as that.
***
Roy Everly was lying on a yellow chaise beside the empty dolphin pens when Thorn pulled his VW bug convertible into the driveway. The Keys Cruiser was over thirty years old and was starting to show some serious wear. For the last few years the convertible top had been stuck in the down position, and the upholstery had taken a hell of a beating from the rain and sun. Lately a few rust spots had eaten all the way through the floorboard near the accelerator pedal, so now Thorn could watch the asphalt highway speed by between his legs. A new thrill.
Thorn wore a pair of gray canvas shorts and a white polo shirt. He'd selected the pair of running shoes Monica had given him a month back when she was trying to convince him to join her in a shape-up campaign. The shoes had plastic bubbles in the soles so you could see the air you were walking on. They were red and silver and looked like they might glow in the dark. He'd put them on because he thought they might be just the ticket for a long day of selling flies.
Thorn went through the open gate, glancing at the mangled lock lying in the sand. Roy continued to stare out at the empty tanks as Thorn took a seat beside him in a webbed aluminum chair.
Roy was wearing his red thong and a Panama hat that looked like he'd rescued it from a week in the middle of a busy highway. Roy's flesh was as dark and oily as tobacco juice. His coppery eyes might have been sized right a couple hundred pounds ago, but now they were dwarfed by Roy's ten-gallon head, like two old pennies sinking into a bog. There was a three-day grizzle on his cheeks, silvery and thick. He had a rum lover's overripe nose and a couple of scars Thorn had never noticed before, one near his eye that curved just above his eyebrow and another at the corner of his mouth. They had the look of feminine slashes, some outraged flick of nail file or cuticle scissors, as if this boy whose mother would not die had once or twice leaned in too close to check her breathing.
"Hey, Roy."
The big man grumbled hello.
"Sorry about this. It's a shitty thing."
"Shitty as it gets," Roy said.
"What do you do now?"
Roy snorted.
"I sit here. Maybe they'll come back, slice me open."
"Who was it, Roy? You have any idea?"
Roy glanced over at Thorn, then past him toward the house. Thirty feet away his mother was sitting by an open window with her head bent forward as if she were knitting, but Thorn could see her left ear aimed in their direction. Roy turned back to the empty tanks.
"When'd you start jogging, Thorn?"
"I haven't," he said. "Monica gave me the shoes. I'd sure as hell hate to mess them up by running in them."
"Monica's a good lady. You should treat her right."
"I'm trying, Roy. Trying hard."
Roy Everly took a deep breath and polished the bulbous tip of his nose with his big right paw.
"How the fuck should I know who killed my dolphins? You think if I knew who did it, I'd be sitting here?"
Thorn leaned forward, elbows on his knees.
"No suspicions?"
"Whatta you doing, Thorn? You visited this place exactly three times your whole life. What the hell do you care who carved up my dolphins?"
"What do the police think?"
Roy touched his chin to his chest and watched a bead of sweat run down the dark hump of his belly. He cut his eyes to the window. His mother wasn't there any longer. Probably went to get her hearing aid.
"So, you're taking this up? You making this a project, are you?"
"No," Thorn said. "I'm just being neighborly."
"Monica send you over here?"
"I'm here on my own. In fact, I'd rather you not say anything to her about my coming by. She's trying to keep me out of trouble."
Roy turned his chunky head toward Thorn, settled those bronze eyes on his. This was a man as smart as anyone the island had ever produced. Test score smart, engineering and electronics smart. A stack of Popular Science magazines always tumbling out of his school locker. Even with those strikes against him, Roy might have had a gang of friends, for Key Largo was forgiving of its eccentrics, but Roy had a bitter streak. And even now, beneath the sad girdle of inert flesh, Thorn could still see the narrow, wolfish kid who thirty years before had made a career of defying his teachers and mocking anyone who dared to speak to him.
"The police," Roy said with a sour smile. "They think it was somebody drove down from Miami, one of those Santerias. Haitians or whatnot. Some kind of sacrificial bullshit. Voodoo, witchcraft, something like that. Those fucking moron cops."
"And what do you think, Roy?"
"Fuck you, Thorn. I don't need your help. When I get ready, I'll find some more dolphins and start over. So you can just butt out, okay?"
Thorn watched three white-haired ladies power-walking down the street. They slowed as they passed by the dolphin pens and murmured fervently.
"The other day I noticed a guy. He was watching you, Roy, keeping an eye on you as you went through your routines. He didn't seem very interested in the dolphins or the people swimming with them. But he seemed very interested in you. Red baseball cap, aviator shades. Tall with a potbelly. I saw him here twice."
From inside the house Roy's mother called his name. Roy looked off toward the street and said nothing. A moment later a burst of cackling laughter broke from the back window. Sounded like one of those joke-store gadgets—battery-operated hilarity.
"You believe this shit?" Roy swung around and glared at the house. "I took away all her handbells. Calling me all the time like I'm a fucking maid. Now she uses that goddamn thing. I can't get it away from her."
Thorn could see the dolphin blood on the sides of the cement tanks, spattered like crude graffiti.
"You have an idea who did this, don't you, Roy?"
He flicked away another bead of sweat heading down his gut. He looked at Thorn, then looked back at the horror of the tanks.
"That guy you saw," said Roy. "He was probably one of those Free Willy fuckers."
"What?"
"Goddamn dolphin radicals. They been campaigning to shut me down last couple of years. They don't want captive dolphins of any kind. Doesn't matter how much good comes out of swimming with them, if a dolphin's in a cage, then it's a crime as far as those fucks are concerned."
"Come on, Roy. Dolphin nuts aren't going to massacre the animals they're trying to save."
"Fuck that, those people are crazy. Like those assholes out in Oregon trying to save the owls. They'll booby-trap trees, kill lumberjacks, they don't care. Fucking madmen'll do anything to get their way."
He sat up and glared at Thorn. There was booze on his breath and his eyes were clouded with it. A couple of Cuba libres with his Wheaties. A snarl momentarily reshaped Roy's lips, then he swallowed deeply and let the anger go and a look surfaced that Thorn had never seen on his face before. Roy Everly's eyes welled and his mouth softened into a melancholy mess. He hiccoughed once and it seemed to Thorn that he was about to break into an uncontrollable blubber when his mother once again called out his name and a moment afterward that piercing synthetic laughter sounded again and again from deep in the house. Roy's face hardened again.
"The fuckers had to be cutting on them for a couple of hours."
"What?"
"The way the blood was tracked around. You can see the goddamn footprints. They went down there, climbed back out, went down there again. They were cutting on them, taking breaks, sitting around, having a smoke, then cutting some more. Having a good old time. Nice long evening of torture. While I was lying in there not more than fifty feet away, dead to the world."
Roy waved at the decking on the edge of the nearest tank.
"Go look for yourself."
Thorn went over and stared at the footprints. One large set, one smaller. And it was like Roy said. They'd taken their time. Sat around in bloody clothes and watched the dolphins bleeding. The smell was bad, growing wor
se as the sun had its way. Thorn went back over to Roy.
"See what I mean?"
Thorn nodded.
"The fuckers cut out their spines. That sound like Santeria to you?"
"Their spines?"
"Shit, yeah. Spines, brains. They knew what the fuck they were doing. They hacked on the bodies, made a real mess, but these fuckers had a purpose. Some kind of plan."
Thorn tried to swallow away the lump of nausea rising in his throat.
Roy turned his head, glared at him.
"So what'm I supposed to do, write you a retainer check, Thorn? That how it works? You got some kind of fee? Hundred dollars a day plus expenses, like on TV?" Roy knew better, of course. He was just angry, trying to goad Thorn to the same place he was.
"You find out anything else," Thorn said, "you know where I am."
"Yeah, I know. Up in the trees with the birdies and the bees."
Roy rose to his feet. He glanced once at the empty tanks, then padded toward the horrors in that house.
***
One suitcase sat by the front door. The other was on the bamboo rug, half closed, Monica sitting on top of it. She'd managed to lock one of the latches, but the other one wouldn't catch.
She got up, opened the suitcase again, looked inside, then flung a couple of blouses onto the bed, and closed it again. This time both latches caught and she stood up, breathing hard. She was wearing black jeans and a black-and-white checked sleeveless blouse, sandals.
It was nearly twelve-thirty. She was on her lunch break. They gave her an hour, but today she was going to take longer than that. She was going to take forever.
Hitting the road again. Change her name, find a job scrubbing somebody's pots. What the hell difference did it make? The fever was on her. The rapid breathing, failure to focus, the jangle in her veins. Love deficit disorder. Alarms bells ringing. Fly, run. Go.
Red Sky At Night (Thorn Series Book 6) Page 5
