Tampa Burn df-11

by Randy Wayne White

  My Uncle Tuck had lived at the edge of the Everglades, on a dilapidated ranch, mostly mangrove and palmetto. He spent his final years bragging to anyone who’d listen that he was among the last of old Florida’s cowboys-cow hunters as they were known-and about the many famous actors and politicians he’d introduced to Florida during his years as a fishing and hunting guide.

  It’s true that he built a reputation as a guide. He became better known, though, as a smuggler, a shyster, and a transparent con man. Yet Tucker, for reasons I’ve never unraveled, still sustained the devoted friendship of several good, decent, and remarkably gifted men.

  So he must have had some redeeming qualities. Maybe the day will come when I’ll discover what those qualities were. Maybe. So far, I’ve never felt the need to try and find out.

  One of Tucker’s closest friends lived miles deep in the ’Glades, on the road I was now driving. He was a bluegrass fiddler and composer by the name of Ervin T. Rouse. Ervin wrote one brilliant, enduring American classic before retreating to this place to drink whiskey and swap tales with the likes of Tuck and similar ’Glades dwellers. The song was “The Orange Blossom Special.”

  As a teen, I’d come with Tuck many times to visit; had never heard anyone before or since play a fiddle like that great old man. So I knew the road, and I knew the area well, though it had been years since I’d been here.

  As I drove, I felt a curious mix of tension and deja vu, bouncing along, both hands on the wheel of the Ford, fighting the potholes, unable to see much behind me because of the dust cloud blooming in my wake. The sensation was that of having lived two distinct and separate lives; lives that were now intersecting on this bad road, in this isolated space. That I had returned dragging trouble behind me seemed an additional irony. That there was the potential for violence added to the irony.

  I remembered Ervin’s shack-for that’s what it was, a shack, a plywood and tin shack. I remembered that it was on a sharp curve near a long-abandoned hunting outpost called Pinecrest. I wanted to find it because I needed a section of road that could be easily described to a stranger over the phone, and just as easily found.

  If my memory was accurate, the curve was sufficiently distinctive to serve. Not that I expected the shack still to be standing. Didn’t need to be. Ervin was long dead, and it was now illegal for people to live in this section of the ’Glades. But I felt confident I’d recognize the curve once I got to it.

  Or would I…?

  I came to a bend that seemed about right, but I wasn’t sure. Opposite it, on my left, was a canal shaded by tall cypress trees. On its mud-slick banks, turtles and small alligators lay in sunlight or shade, regulating body temperature beneath a glittering mobile of dragonflies.

  I stopped the car and stepped out.

  Visitors don’t think of wilderness when they think of Florida, but this was wild country, deep swamp. Insects created an oscillating synthesizer backdrop to chattering, whistling birds and a hammering frog percussion. When I slammed the car door, I also slammed the frogs silent. The silence created a momentary void in the water-weighted air.

  I jogged toward an open patch of scrub that once might have been a clearing, and began to kick through rotting wood, limbs, trash. In the weeds, I found chunks of tin. Nearby, I found a wooden sign that read:

  GATOR HOOK LODGE

  NO GUNS OR KNIVES ALLOWED

  It was the sign that had hung on the old bar and restaurant that flourished for years near here. It’d burned, I’d heard.

  Then I began to find ruined pieces of album covers, country music titles, and photographs grown over by weeds. The photos were of country music stars.

  The walls of Ervin’s shack had been papered with the things.

  This was his old home site, no doubt.

  I was hurrying, but I still took the time to lean and retrieve a fragment of photo that showed a grinning, toothless Ervin T. Rouse posing with a country music icon. Even I recognized Johnny Cash.

  The photo had been violated by rain, insects, sun, time. That this once treasured memento had been reduced to roadside litter catalyzed in me a startling sense of transience. Since my early years living near this place, I’d traveled to regions few have been. I’d seen and experienced things few could imagine. Seeing the photo keyed a surprising and reassuring fatalism: If I screwed up, if my life ended here while trying to save my son, that wasn’t a bad way to go.

  It was the kind of emotional reaction I seldom experience.

  Ervin was that kind of man. He was a good one. A real character.

  I almost slid the bit of photo into my pocket, but stopped when I realized I couldn’t risk the chance of it being found on me and later connected with this location. Instead, I turned and sailed the paper into the canal where he’d once loved to fish. A sort of private farewell.

  Jogging back to the rental car, I still felt a powerful tension, but my anxiety over whether the strategy would work or not was gone.

  Home field advantage.

  If nothing else, I had that…

  From beneath the front seat, I retrieved my handgun, the 9 mm Sig Sauer. A Sig Sauer is weighted steel-dense, blue-black, and has a look of industrial efficiency that implies precise engineering, exact tolerances. I shucked a round into the chamber as I walked toward the right side of the road. At the sharpest bowing of the curve, I looked both ways before firing three rounds harmlessly into the canal.

  Fwhap… Fwhap… Fwhap

  The shots echoed in the tree canopy, then were absorbed by lichen, water, ascending birds.

  The handgun ejected the empty brass casings automatically near the shoulder of the road. I noted where the brass fell, and was pleased that the casings were readily visible.

  I hurried back to the car. As I turned the ignition key, I checked my watch: 6:28 P.M.

  There couldn’t be much time left before other vehicles began to arrive.

  I put the car into gear, resisting the temptation to floor the accelerator, because I didn’t want to leave obvious tire tracks. Then I drove down a straight-away, around a second curve, and toward what I remembered to be the location of a logging trail. At least, I hoped I remembered.

  I did. There it was: a rutted, narrow lane overgrown with brush, but still getting some use, still maintained by someone, because the Ford banged down twenty yards or so of trail without difficulty. I drove in far enough to be hidden from the road, but not so far I couldn’t back out in a hurry if needed.

  Then I shoved Pilar’s satellite phone into the crack of the front seat and looked at my watch once again: 6:33.

  Under pressure, the brain begins to second-guess itself. It asks questions designed to contrive easy excuses for quitting, for giving up, or running away.

  Do I really have time? Is it worth the risk?

  Now, though, the questions were meaningless. I was committed. There was no going back.

  Head down, arms up to protect my face from brush and branches, I ran as fast as I could to the gravel road. I looked both ways-no cars or engine noise coming from either direction-then sprinted another thirty yards toward what had been Ervin’s shack. Standing near the right side of the road, I fired off three more rounds from the SIG 9 mm. Again, I left the brass casings where they fell, clearly visible near the ditch.

  After that, I had a hell of a tough decision to make. The safest thing for me to do-and I preferred the safest course-was to hide my old handgun away for later retrieval, then stand and wait by the rental car until the black Chevy arrived.

  It wouldn’t be long now.

  The worst my pursuers might do would be slap me around some. Maybe a kick or punch or two. But they wouldn’t kill me. They couldn’t risk it. Not right away. I knew where Pilar and the money were. No matter how ruthless, they’d make a determined effort to squeeze the information out of me before taking harsher action.

  So that’s what I wanted to do. Stand and wait. Let them make the first big move, and thus give them the chance to make the first big mis
take.

  But my brain was still feeling pressured, and so it continued to second-guess. I kept asking myself: What if they’re not armed? What happens if they’re not carrying weapons that fire 9 mm ammunition?

  If they didn’t have at least one weapon that matched the caliber of my handgun, I was screwed. I was screwed because the people following me had to be at least temporarily linked with the shell casings I’d left lying in the road.

  A more reasonable voice reassured: Of course they’re armed. They’re here to take your money.

  Something else: 9 mm ammunition has become the world standard. The percentages are on your side.

  And yet… and yet, I knew that if I guessed wrong, the entire scheme was doomed. Far worse, I would be putting Pilar, Tomlinson, and my own son in mortal danger. So there was no choice. I had to err on the side of caution.

  Erring on the side of caution meant I had to take a big personal risk.

  So I checked to make certain the hammer on my SIG-Sauer was down, then popped the magazine. As I did, I trotted along the road, away from the curve where Ervin Rouse’s shack had been.

  That morning, I’d loaded thirteen copper-blunt Hydra-Shok cartridges, 147-grain, into the magazine. The cartridges, specially designed as man-stoppers, were distinctive in appearance, short and stocky, with stemmed hollow points.

  I’m not a gun aficionado. I don’t collect firearms, don’t frequent gun shows. I don’t even enjoy shooting. To me, this handgun, these special loads, were tools, nothing more.

  I’d fired six shots, so I knew how many rounds remained. But I’m also a freak for checking and rechecking my data. Doing the mental arithmetic wasn’t good enough. I wanted to visually confirm that I now had six rounds in the magazine, plus one in the chamber.

  Yes, the count was right.

  Less than fifty yards beyond the logging road where I’d hidden the Ford, I found a place wide enough for a car to turn around. I pictured the black Chevy slowing at the wooded entrance where my car was hidden; imagined the men inside confirming the location of the rental on their GPS tracker, then squabbling about what to do, how to handle it.

  Most likely, they would drive past, pull off the road, then walk back. They’d take their time. Be stealthy. Send just one or two guys to check things out. Or, depending on how they reacted, they might do an immediate U-turn. Come charging back.

  Either way, this was the first section of road that was wide enough to turn.

  It was here, I decided, that I would ambush them.

  On one side of the road, cypress knees protruded from black water. Lily pads floated in shadows beneath arching limbs. Opposite the canal was a dense thicket of Brazilian pepper trees.

  I climbed in among the trees, eyes searching the ground for fire ant mounds-ferocious, swarming insects. You don’t want to stumble into those when you’re trying to hide quietly.

  I balanced the pistol in my hand, checked my watch once more.

  6:51 P.M.

  I was ready.

  Pilar had described the man who abducted our son as a monster. A sociopath from a prison for the criminally insane who burned people, and who, I suspected, had used a portable torch to burn Lake’s arm.

  What brand of sadist could do such a thing to a child?

  Standing quietly in the bushes, I thought again of my son. Felt the terror he must have felt the night he was abducted, and wondered about him now, in this instant. Was he still frightened? Was he even alive?

  Masked Man, Praxcedes Lourdes, represented the kidnappers, in my mind. The people in the Chevy were more like jackals.

  I couldn’t deal with the monster until I’d found a way to pen the jackals.

  I took Tomlinson’s cell phone from my pocket. I dialed 911 for the second time, still thinking of my son.

  TEN

  Sitting in the Toyota, with the brat bound and gagged in the trunk, Prax told the driver that, as a teenager, he and his parents had been cruising the coast of Nicaragua when the boat they were on hit a reef and sank.

  Only he had made it to shore.

  Then Prax told him about the night the soldiers came to the village of his adopted Moskito Indian family and set their hut on fire.

  His story had changed several times over the years, along with the lies he used to keep the story believable.

  As Prax Lourdes talked, though, the truth came into his own mind’s eye: the sailboat he’d set ablaze, and the shrieks of his biological parents as he paddled away in a dinghy. Then, two years later, the windstorm woosh of his adopted Moskito father, clothes on fire, a human torch chasing him, catching him, as the man screamed, “You witch, you evil witch! You’re going to burn with us.”

  To hear that arrogant man crackle was worth the pain that came later.

  To set a human being on fire: what an incredible kick; what a sensation of power. To trigger an absolute and frantic loss of control in another man was to dominate him completely. A woman, the same thing, only somehow the feeling was more physical… sustained

  … sweeter.

  Fire did that. No method was as instantaneous, more intimate. In the first microseconds, fire stripped away all the crap, all the superiority games and social fakery. Flames unveiled the pathetic little monkey that lived at the core inside all people.

  Even thinking about it, hearing his adopted father’s cries, Prax would feel again the flooding abdominal tension, and he could remember the very instant when he realized that awe-some feeling could be duplicated.

  His adopted father caught him, but Prax awoke. He survived.

  His adopted father didn’t.

  Aware he might go to prison, Lourdes spent his waking moments perfecting the details of his alibi. In the burn unit of Managua’s peasant hospital, Hospital Escuela, speaking through bandages, he told student doctors a detailed story about soldiers attacking in the night.

  Unconvinced, they sent a volunteer psychologist to interview him. She was a blond woman who tried to hide her breasts beneath baggy scrubs and vests. She reminded him of his biological mother, whom he’d despised.

  Lourdes was so heavily drugged, and in such pain, that he had to concentrate with all his will to lie convincingly. That was nothing new-he was used to dealing with pain. He’d endured excruciating headaches for as long as he could remember. So he managed to keep his answers consistent when she asked her questions in different ways, trying to trick him.

  Did he enjoy setting fires? Did he prefer to play alone? Had he ever wet his bed? Had he ever successfully masturbated to completion? Did he feel sorrow that his adopted mother, father, and three sisters had all died in the blaze? Had he ever intentionally burned himself, and taken pleasure from it?

  One question, he just played dumb. X rays, the woman said, showed that he’d had a serious head injury years before as a child. Why had he lied to them when they’d ask if he’d had any head injuries?

  He said he didn’t remember anything about it. Which was close to the truth.

  One morning, the nurse brought a tall black woman. The black woman said to him in French, then in English, and, finally, in Spanish, “Why don’t you tell us your real name, my love? About your real parents. From your accent, and when you talk in your sleep, we know that you seem to be French, but that you know a lot of American English, too. Why won’t you talk to me?”

  Actually, he and his family were French Canadian, though they barned in Florida when not sailing. As with many carnival and circus people, there was a small town in Florida, populated almost entirely by show people, that was their winter home.

  The town was on the Gulf Coast, across the bay from Tampa. His family had a mobile home in a trailer park on a little river there, where he learned about boats and water. It was a weird little place, with midgets and clowns, elephants, chimps, and carney freaks for neighbors.

  That’s why it spooked Prax to learn he’d been talking in his sleep.

  Carnival society was a closed society. Had its own vocabulary, and dialect. After te
n years working carnivals all across Canada, working his family’s sideshow acts, and the center joints and cook shacks, Prax knew that if a savvy person heard him speak English, they’d know right away who he was, the kind of work he’d done.

  Not that carnies didn’t cover for one another. It was part of the deal. You never gave straight information to cops or strangers, and you didn’t give up a fellow carney, no matter what. That didn’t mean all or even some carnies were crooked. It’s just the way it was among people who were always among strangers, no matter where they were.

  That was no guarantee the Mounties or the cops couldn’t nail him, though. So Lourdes kept his mouth shut. At night, he slept with a tongue depressor between his teeth.

  The only time he came close to speaking openly was after the black woman had left and the nurse said to him, “I don’t understand why you won’t tell us. You shouldn’t be living in Nicaragua with Indians. We should send you home to be with your people.”

  Prax replied, “I’ve spent nearly two years as a Suma. I like way the Suma deal with problems, their assholes, the ways of Yapti Tasba.”

  It was true. He liked the freedom of the culture. Men were expected to spend long periods of time away from the village, wandering or lobster diving, while women stayed home and worked.

  That kind of freedom, always moving, it had a carney feel.

  He wasn’t surprised when the psychologist answered, “But your village doesn’t want you back. We’ve contacted them. We think they’re afraid of you. Why would they be afraid of a boy?”

  Prax ignored her, replying, “Then I’ll find another village. I’m staying. This is home.”

  Nicaragua was cool. The place had potential. He was smart enough to realize that. Even though he was only fifteen, Prax was shrewd from years of living on the road, conning money out of local marks.

  Better preparation, though, was a lifetime of being different. A lifetime of having to give the appearance of being normal every waking minute because if he didn’t, he’d be busted, and that would be the end.