Tampa Burn df-11

by Randy Wayne White

  In my mind, I replayed the first minutes that we’d been alone together; could hear Pilar saying, “Do you know what concerns me the most since I found out? That Laken calls you ‘father.’ If he believes your blood runs in his veins, will he try to emulate you? Already, he’s becoming more and more like you. At night, I go to sleep worrying about it. Will that part of you be in him? That gene, that kind of.. . of evil? Is there a killer inside of my child, waiting?”

  Her odd wording now made sense.

  I could also hear her say, “You’re not the good man I fell in love with. You couldn’t be. How could you have done those things?”

  Did she really believe this guy could be Lake’s father? Or was it simply because she now preferred to believe that it was true?

  I knew I’d want to read the letter later, study the nuances, so I saved the e-mail to my computer’s personal files. I then moved the cursor so that I could read the second e-mail she’d written Tinman. It was sent on Sunday, the night before she left for Miami.

  It was as shocking as the first: My dear Campanero, I write a final time begging you to answer. Do you remember the good days when we called each other by that name? It honors peasants, not politics. I ask you to reflect on those days, and so agree to help. I know you must still have loyal connections in Central America. We all admired your heart and brain so much. I ask you to call on those connections now and ask them to look for a monster named Praxcedes Lourdes, the one who abducted my son, and to pass the information on to me. I wonder if you are getting my letters? Or maybe you don’t respond because you still feel guilt because you encouraged MF’s friendship with the hope of gathering information about his country’s illegal activities. In this way, we are the same, my dear Tinman. I also felt much guilt. Unlike you, though, I no longer feel any remorse. One day, when we are together and alone, I will tell you why. Perhaps, then, you will finally answer me. What happened that night? I remember laughing and laughing, and being very dizzy. I think you know the truth. Are you Laken’s father? His face reminds me of yours. P

  I’D recently taken delivery of the finest microscope I’ve ever owned. It’s a Leica Selectra Trinocular, with extraordinary resolution, variable zoom, and a vertical photo tube. I turned away from the computer and seemed to float across the room, where I reached out to the microscope as if it were a lifebuoy.

  I removed the scope’s cover and found a glass slide on which I’d already mounted a cross section from a piece of loggerhead sponge. I’d found the sponge while collecting on the flats a few days earlier. I fixed the slide on the scope’s stage plate, touched the light toggle, and removed my glasses. Then I leaned toward the viewing head’s eyepieces, eager to escape into that bright world of exacting focus.

  I had to have a break. My brain was so fogged by what I’d just read, I felt dizzy, even nauseous. It couldn’t be true, but it was true. Pilar had become friendly with me, and then ingratiated herself, in order to gather information about my covert work. So she had known. Or, as she’d told me, at least suspected-but not the extent of the things I’d been ordered to do during the revolution that was going on in her country.

  Tinman had done the same thing-whoever the hell Tinman was. He, supposedly, was also a friend. At least, that’s the way her letter read.

  I’d gone over the sentences only a couple of times, but they’d already been seared into my memory: I also felt much guilt. In this way, we are the same, my dear Tinman. Unlike you, though, I no longer feel any remorse.

  Yeah, there was no room for doubt.

  But which of my male friends? I’d had several good ones during my time there. At least, I’d thought of them as good friends.

  Are you Laken’s father? His face reminds me of yours.

  That certainly narrowed it down.

  If Lake and Tinman actually did resemble one another, then Tinman also had to be distinctly non-Latin-looking. In his photos and in person, Lake could pass for a Midwestern farmboy.

  The possibilities made me feel wobbly. I needed an emotional retreat. The microscope awaited. I touched my eyes to the twin eyepieces and was instantly transported. I took one… two… and then a third full breath.

  Magnified by the fine optics, the protein fibers of the sponge’s osculum-its excurrent water opening-seemed large enough so that a model city could be erected within its perfect convexity. There were vast corridors and safe hideaways that, to me, were alluring. I longed to climb inside.

  I touched the glass plate, and the view changed. There was a curling flagellum, a hairlike paddle that pulls in water… and the crosshatched symmetry of the animal’s silicate skeleton. The skeleton was an intricate pattern of fluted ramps on a curving honeycombed infrastructure. I increased magnification until the sponge fibers became an extraordinarily modernistic sculpture. A single filament might have been a stairway designed by Dali.

  I was looking into a world that was no less chemically complex and biologically diverse than my own. Sponges consist of cooperating communities of different cells. We have counted as many as sixteen thousand animals, and many species, living in the canal systems of a single sponge.

  Complex, yes. But not nearly so complicated.

  My mind cycled away from this articulate microuniverse, back into the murkier world that was my own. I stood suddenly, and lowered my glasses.

  I’d scanned my memory synapses over and over, and the results were always the same. During that general time period prior to Lake’s birth, there were only two men whom I considered friends, who’d also known Pilar in Masagua, and who were unmistakably Anglo-Saxon.

  One was my old partner, Thackery, the crazed Australian surfer and SAS operative. I remembered that he had a Ph. D. in oceanography, was a passionate environmentalist. Part of his cover was that he’d infiltrated an ultra-left-wing environmental group that was helping to fund the guerrilla fighters. Or supposedly infiltrated them. Could Thackery actually have been working for the enemy? Could he, in fact, have been a double agent, fighting for the other side?

  I hadn’t seen the man in years. Wondered how I could track him down. And if he was Tinman, I would have to find him… or at least make certain that people in the American intelligence community knew about him. Even though several years had passed, it was still a serious security breach, and it would have to be dealt with.

  Yet, the truth was, I hoped that Tinman was Thackery.

  There was only one other possibility. That was Tomlinson.

  At a little after four in the morning, I opened the screen door and stepped into my little house to see Ransom curled in the chair, still holding Crunch amp; Des. But instead of sleeping, her eyes were open wide, staring at me. She looked alarmed.

  She yawned, stretched, still staring, and said, “My brother. I just had me a witchin’ dream, and you was in it. Now I open my eyes, and here you are in front of me lookin’ so pale, like you just seen a ghost.”

  I told her, “In a way, I just did.”

  I’ve spent a lifetime maintaining my own counsel, and keeping secrets. Even if I believed in the value of psychoanalysis, emotional purging-name a popular term-I swore an oath to a covenant long ago that bars me from any such therapy. So, after living such a long and solitary internal existence, I discovered something new in Ransom. She’s become a friend and confidante who, because she actually does treat me with the unconditional love of a sister, has earned my unconditional trust.

  So I told her. Told her about Pilar’s e-mails, and that I might not be Lake’s father. Without getting into my clandestine activities-information I can never divulge-I told her all that I could about Thackery, and then added, “The only other possibility is Tomlinson.”

  I’d felt sick. But the expression of outrage on her face rallied me. “You serious. That ol’ hippie-stork needs someone to tie his cock in a knot. Or throw a potion on him that makes his Willie Johnson limp as boiled yarn. Maybe tha’s just exactly what I’ll do. Came close to doin’ it back the time we dated those few times and I f
ound out he was already diddlin’ other womens.”

  I nearly smiled.

  I said, “The thing is, the timing with Tomlinson and Pilar doesn’t work out quite right. He was in Masagua with me before Lake was born, but it was only five or six months before he was born.”

  Sounding cynical, Ransom asked, “Were you there when that baby born?”

  “No.”

  “Know anybody who was?”

  “I didn’t even know she was pregnant.”

  “Uh-huh. Sometimes a woman lie about when a baby come out when she not sure who the daddy be. Who the one that told you about the child?”

  I had to think back. The answer surprised me. “It was… Tomlinson?… Yeah, it was. He brought me a newspaper that had a photo of Pilar and Lake. It was taken not too long after she gave birth. He had blond hair back then, so I just naturally assumed…”

  Ransom was nodding, still saying, “Uh-huh, uh-huh…” Then she asked, “When did the woman tell you that you was the daddy?”

  I had to think about that, too. “Because of where they lived, Masagua, I couldn’t go back to that country for a long time. There were… reasons. On my end, not hers. So I guess it would have been in phone conversations. I remember waiting for her to mention it; figuring that she would. And she finally did. When Lake was maybe three or so, she said something like, ‘He’s at an age where he’s asking about his father. So we need to have a talk.’ She put it like that. She said she thought I’d be a good father when the time came for us to be together.”

  Ransom said, “Uh-huh, uh-huh,” in the same knowing tone. “Why you think the timing’s so far off with that ugly Stork Man, Tomlinson?”

  I said, “It might not be. There’s a chance Pilar met Tomlinson before she met me.”

  To explain, I had to tell her things about the man that I’d never shared with anyone.

  As far as I know, even Tomlinson isn’t aware how far our relationship goes back.

  There’s a good reason for that. But because of things that I’m obligated to keep confidential, I couldn’t lay it all out for Ransom. I had to blur the edges. I tried to say little but imply a lot.

  Ransom has a first-rate intellect and great intuition. She seemed to understand that I was constrained by something, and she reacted to those limitations with only the occasional, careful question.

  Stroking the black cat’s ears, she listened intently as I told her that not so long ago, in this same room, nearly in tears, Tomlinson had confessed to me that, many years before, he’d participated in a crime that had killed a friend of mine.

  I told Ransom, “I already knew. I pretended like I didn’t. But I’d found out long ago that Tomlinson was involved. Even before I came back to Sanibel and started leasing this place.”

  I could see that she wanted to ask, How? Instead, she just nodded.

  Tomlinson, I told her, had been a member of a political extremist group responsible for sending a bomb to a San Diego naval installation. The bomb had killed three people and injured another.

  One of the sailors killed was a naval Special Warfare officer. The officer had been a good friend. He’d had a wife and a child. I took it personally.

  I couldn’t tell Ransom that I was a member of an organization that also took the murders very personally. A secret organization so small and select that we took orders from three or fewer people at the very top of the political ladder, and conducted operations that were never officially documented or acknowledged. Not that we knew where our orders originated.

  I found that out much later.

  Our group had exceptional resources, and few legal or political boundaries.

  Tomlinson hadn’t sent the bomb. He hadn’t participated in the making of it, nor had he been aware of the plan. But he hadn’t tried to stop them or have them stopped, either. He’d been a member of the group. As far as we were concerned, there was blood on his hands.

  We didn’t know it at the time, but he felt the same. It was more guilty blood for the heir to a fortune soaked in the blood of others.

  It was then he began to study Buddhism, and that he secretly created a scholarship fund for the children of the murdered sailor.

  It was also then that Tomlinson fell apart. He went insane. He was institutionalized by his family for many months, and given shock treatments, and kept heavily drugged.

  I told Ransom, “Being locked away like that saved his life. But not in the way you might think. It saved him because it got him off the street. The group responsible for the bombing had thirteen members. Within two years after the explosion, six of the thirteen had been either killed in freak accidents or badly injured. Two others- poof -vanished. No trace ever found.”

  The woman understood my meaning. I could read it in her expression-a look of growing, uneasy dismay-as she said, “Like this here cat when it be after a bird. Someone was huntin’ them folks down and murderin’ them.”

  I corrected her. “I don’t think you can call it murder. Not if it’s sanctioned.”

  Now her expression had saddened, seemed to say, Oh Lord, I don’t want to believe you said that.

  IT seemed wiser to continue talking than to risk a pause that might invite her questions. So I said, “When I came back to Sanibel and found out this stilt house could be leased, I had no idea that Tomlinson sometimes used Dinkin’s Bay as an anchorage. Quite a coincidence, huh? I didn’t think so at the time.

  “When he showed up and I realized who he was, I was suspicious as hell. I figured he had to be suspicious of me, too, though he never showed it. In fact, he came on like the same sweet, brilliant flake he seems to be today. Like maybe the shock therapy had changed his wiring or something. That’s what I thought could’ve happened.

  “But I was still on my guard. The group that sent the bomb wasn’t the only radical organization Tomlinson had been involved with. I.. . knew about him… for reasons I might tell you down the road. So I thought maybe someone had sent him after me. Or maybe some government agency had leveraged him and was using him against me.”

  Ransom asked carefully, “There’s a reason some government might do that to you, my brother?”

  I barely nodded twice- Yes -before I continued, “I got my chance to test Tomlinson’s motives when a pal of mine got into some trouble and I had to go back to Central America. I invited him along. You get a man in the jungle, all the little tricks and gimmicks fall apart after a few days. Once I got him in the jungle, I knew I’d find out the truth.”

  I made a grunting sound of derision. “At least I thought I would. So maybe there were some clues I could’ve picked up on. He knew a lot about the people, the customs. Maybe more than he should’ve. Another was that he talked about the Maya like a university scholar. So it could be that one of the organizations he belonged to was a thing called Fight-4-Right, and he’d been in Masagua before. Fight-4-Right is an underground radical group that raises money for violent political causes, and works closely with the village populations of Third World countries.”

  Ransom said, “The Stork Man, our Tomlinson, he be workin’ for some group that preach violence? My brother, he be like the least violent human soul I ever met. The only weapon he ever use is that big dick a his, and that a happy-makin’ thing. You know that.”

  I said, “It was a different time. People, politics, philosophies, and Tomlinson got caught up in the dynamics of his generation. Me?”-I shrugged-“I’ve never cared about politics. Never will, and I’ve never felt a part of any generation. So I never understood the behaviors.”

  I’d been pacing as I talked. I stopped now, looked at my watch, and said, “So, see why I had to give you the background? It wouldn’t’ve made sense without it. The point is, Tomlinson may have met Pilar before I met her, or around the same time-only I wasn’t aware of it. Because of their past political associations, there may be reasons for both of them to still keep secrets from me. At least, think they should.”

  I began pacing again as I added bitterly, “Which means
maybe neither of them were the friends I thought they were.”

  Ransom said, “That ugly Stork Man, he may be a crazy ganja-smokin’ fool, brother, but he always your friend. You know that, too. I think that always safe to say. He almost like your brother.” Her tone of gentle rebuke said I was wrong to doubt him so quickly.

  Still angry, I replied, “I’m not accusing him. I’m just saying it’s possible, that’s all. If he and Pilar were here, I’d be tempted to stick my nose in their faces and ask just what the hell the truth is. But I wouldn’t. I can’t. There’re too many-”

  I caught myself. I’d almost said that there were too many security issues involved to confront them. I couldn’t. I couldn’t even hint that I’d uncovered the information until I was absolutely certain of the identity of Tinman.

  So I finished lamely, but still bitter, “I can’t ask them because they’re holed up in some hotel room in Miami. They won’t even answer my calls.”

  Shaking her head for some reason, Ransom was suddenly up, getting something from the galley-a piece of paper. “That where you’re wrong. I meant to tell you. I come inside the house before you got here, and found this note on the door. It from the Stork Man.”

  Tomlinson’s penmanship reminds me of the eloquent ink craft that I associate with previous centuries-beautifully formed and slanted loops and swirls. Spencerianscript, he calls it, and credits his writing hand to a former life in which, he says, he worked as a shipping clerk, eighteenth-century London, on the Thames River.

  The note read: Doctor, my Doctor, We took a shuttle back to the island about an hour after you dropped us at the hotel. Pilar started worrying we might get an important e-mail, and said we should check it. Guess you must have stopped somewhere or got hung up. Bring some beers and come on out to No Mas if it’s not after 11, man. My corporeal ass is dragging, so will hopefully be drunk, stoned, or asleep very soon. Abrazos, mi hermano!