by Carl Hiaasen
A babbling congress of cops, orange blazers, drunken fans, and battered Shriners had surrounded the Super Bowl hero. Brian Keyes was there, too, kneeling down and speaking urgently into Viceroy Wilson’s ear, but Viceroy Wilson was answering no questions. He lay face up, his lips curled in a poster-perfect radical snarl. His right hand was so obdurately clenched into a fist that two veteran morticians would later be unable to pry it open. Centered between the three and the one of the kelly-green football jersey was a single bullet hole, which was the object of much squeamish finger pointing.
“I’m telling ya,” the Notre Dame coach was saying, “he’s not one of ours.”
Outside the Orange Bowl, on Fourteenth Avenue, the King of Siam flagged a taxi.
33
Keyes made it from the stadium to Jenna’s house in twenty minutes.
“Hey, there,” she said, opening the screen door. She was wearing a baggy sweatshirt with nothing underneath.
Keyes went into the living room. The coffin was padlocked.
“Open it,” he said.
“But I don’t have a key,” Jenna said. “What’s the matter—he’s alive, isn’t he?”
“Surprise, surprise,”
“I told you!” she exclaimed.
“Put on some goddamn clothes.”
She nodded and went to the bedroom.
“Do you have a hammer?” Keyes called.
“In the garage.”
He found a sledge and carried it back to the living room. Jenna cleared the vase and magazines off the macabre coffee table. She was wearing tan hiking shorts and a navy long-sleeved pullover. She had also put on a bra and some running shoes.
“Look out,” Keyes said. He pounded the padlock three times before the hasp snapped.
Inside the cheap coffin, Skip Wiley’s detritus looked as muddled and random as before—yellowed newspaper clippings, old notebooks, mildewed paperbacks, library files purloined from the Sun’s morgue. Keyes sifted through everything in search of a single fresh clue. The best he could do was a sales receipt from a Fort Lauderdale marine dealer.
“Skip bought a boat last week,” Keyes said. “Twenty-one-foot Mako. Eighteen-five, cash. Any idea why?”
“Nuh-uh.”
“When’s the last time he was here?”
“I’m not sure,” Jenna replied.
Keyes grabbed her by the arms and shook hard. He frightened her, which was what he wanted. He wanted her off balance.
Jenna didn’t know how to react, she’d never seen Brian this way. His eyes were dry and contemptuous, and his voice was that of an intruder.
“When was Skip here?” he repeated.
“A week ago, I think. No, last Friday.”
“What did he do?”
“He spent half the day reading the paper,” Jenna said. “That much I remember.”
“Really?”
“Okay, let me think.” She took a deep theatrical breath and put her hands in her pockets. “Okay, he was clipping some stuff from the newspaper—that, I remember. And he was playing his music. Steppenwolf, real loud... I made him turn it down. Then we grilled some burgers with mushrooms, and the Indian man came over and they left. That’s what I remember.”
“He didn’t say a word about the Nights of December?”
“No.”
“And you didn’t ask?”
“No,” Jenna said. “I knew better. He was really wired, Brian. He was in no mood for questions.”
“You’re useless, you know that?”
“Brian!”
“Where’s the garbage?”
“Out on the curb.” Jenna started sniffling; it sounded possibly authentic.
Keyes walked to the street and hauled the ten-gallon bag back into the house. He used a car key to gash it open.
“What’re you doing now?” Jenna asked.
“Looking for Wheaties boxtops. Didn’t you hear?—there’s a big sweepstakes.”
He kicked through guava rinds, putrid cottage cheese, eggshells, tea bags, melon husks, coffee grounds, yogurt cartons, chicken bones and root-beer cans. The newspapers were at the very bottom, soggy and rancid-smelling. Keyes used the toe of his shoe to search for the front page from Friday, December 28. When he found it, he motioned Jenna over. She made a face as she tiptoed through the rank mush.
“This is the one he was clipping?” Keyes asked.
“Right.”
Keyes got on his knees and went through the newspaper, page by sodden page. Jenna backed away and sat on the floor. Pouting would be a waste of energy; Brian scarcely even noticed she was in the room.
He found Skip Wiley’s scissor holes in the real-estate section. A long article had been clipped from the bottom of the first page, and a large display advertisement had been cut out of Page F-17.
Keyes held up the shredded newsprint for Jenna to see; she shrugged and shook her head. “Stay here,” he said. “I need to use your phone.”
Three minutes later he was back. He took her by the hand and said, “Let’s go, we’re running out of time.” Keyes had called a librarian at the Sun. Now he knew what Wiley had clipped out. He knew everything.
“What about this mess?” Jenna complained.
“This is nothing,” Keyes said, yanking her out the front door. “This is a picnic.”
They arrived at the Virginia Key marina within minutes of one another, Skip Wiley by car, the Indian by airboat. The Indian’s round straw hat had blown off during the ride and his wet black hair was windswept behind his ears. Wiley had changed to a flannel shirt, painter’s trousers, and a blue Atlanta Braves baseball cap.
The Mako outboard had been gassed up and tied to a piling. The marina was dark and, once Tommy stopped the airboat, silent. He carefully lifted Kara Lynn into the outboard; she was limp as a rag and her eyes were closed. Her blond.hair hung in a stringy mop across half of her face.
“I gave her something to drink,” the Indian said, hopping out. “She’ll sleep for a time.”
“Perfect,” Wiley said. “Look, Tom, I’m damn sorry about Viceroy.”
“It was my fault.”
“Like hell. All he had to do was duck down, but the big black jackass decides to pull a Huey Newton. He really disappointed me, him and his Black Power bullshit—it wasn’t the time or place for it, but the sonofabitch couldn’t resist. A regular moonchild of the sixties.”
Tommy Tigertail’s eyes dulled with grief. “I’ll miss him,” he said.
“Me too, pal.”
“I found these in the airboat.” Tommy held up Viceroy Wilson’s cherished sunglasses.
“Here,” Wiley said. He fitted the glitzy Carreras onto the Indian’s downcast face. “Hey, right out of GQ!”
“Where’s that?” Tommy asked. With the glasses he looked like a Tijuana hit-man.
A pair of pelicans waddled up the dock to see if the two men were generous anglers. The Indian smiled at the goofy-looking birds and said, “Sorry, guys, no fish.”
A red pickup truck with oversized tires pulled into the lot. The driver turned the headlights off and sat with the engine running.
Wiley worriedly glanced over his shoulder.
“It’s all right,” Tommy said. “That’s my ride.”
“Where you off to?”
“I’ve got a skiff waiting at Flamingo, down in the back country. There’s an old chickee up the Shark River, nobody knows about it. The last few weeks I’ve had it stocked with supplies—plenty to last me forever.” Tommy Tigertail had stored enough for two men. Now there would be only one.
“You’ve been so damn generous,” Wiley said. “I wish you could stay and watch the fun.”
“If I remained here,” Tommy said, “I’d bring nothing but pain to my people. The police would never leave them alone. It’s better to go far away, where I can’t be found.”
“I’m really sorry,” Wiley said.
“Why?” The Indian wore a look of utter serenity. In a voice that carried a note of private triumph he said
, “Don’t you see? This way I will not die in prison.” That much he owed his ancestors.
“If you ever get down to Haiti,” Wiley said, “look me up in the phone book. Under E for Exile.”
“Stay out of trouble,” Tommy Tigertail advised. “Stay free.”
Wiley scratched his neck and grinned. “We pulled some outstanding shit, didn’t we?”
“Yes,” Tommy said. “Outstanding.” He shook Wiley’s hand and gave him the red kerchief from around his neck. “Good-bye, Skip.”
“’Bye, Tom.”
The Indian walked briskly to the pickup truck. An ancient Seminole with thin gray hair and a walnut face sat behind the wheel.
“Let’s go, Uncle Billie,” Tommy said.
They could see Skip Wiley toiling at the console of the sleek boat, warming the big engine. He was singing in a stentorian cannon that crashed out over the carping gulls and the slap of the waves.
Rode a tank, held a general’s rank, when the blitzkrieg raged and the bodies stank ...
“Who is the strange one with the beard?” the old Seminole wanted to know.
“With any luck,” Tommy Tigertail said affectionately, “the last white man I’ll ever see.”
When they reached the toll booth to the Rickenbacker Causeway, Jenna sat up and asked, “Where we going?”
“For a boat ride,” Brian Keyes replied.
“I thought we were going to the police. Don’t you think that’s a better idea?”
“The goddamn marines would be a better idea, if I had that kind of time.”
Keyes knew exactly what the cops were doing—setting up a vast and worthless perimeter around the Orange Bowl. The city was howling with sirens; every squad car in Dade County was in motion. There were no helicopters up because of the bad weather—and without choppers, Keyes knew, the cops could forget about catching the Indian.
Jenna shifted apprehensively. She said, “I think you ought to drop me off here. This whole thing is between you and Skip.”
Keyes drove faster down the causeway. Years ago—a lifetime ago—he and Jenna used to park there at night and make love under the trees, and afterward marvel at how the skyscrapers glittered off the bay. Since then, the causeway had become extremely popular with ski-mask rapists and icepick murderers, and not many unarmed couples went there to neck anymore.
Jenna said, “Why don’t you let me out?”
“Not here, it’s way too dangerous,” he said. “I’m curious—why’d you stop by the office today?”
“Just lonely,” Jenna said. “And I was worried sick about Skip ... I thought you might know something.”
Keyes glanced at her and said, “Your little chore was to keep me company, right?”
“That’s the dumbest thing I ever heard.”
“You were in on the whole thing.”
“I hate you like this,” Jenna said angrily. “So damn smug, you think you’ve got it all figured out. Well, you don’t... there’s one thing you never figured out: why I left you for Skip.”
“That’s true,” Keyes said, remembering how nasty she could get. She sat ramrod straight in the seat, chin out, a portrait of defiance.
“The choice was easy, Brian. You’re a totally passive person, an incurable knothole peeper, a spy.”
Keyes thought: This is going to be a beaut.
Jenna said, “You’re a follower and a chaser and chronicler of other human lives, but you will not fucking participate. I wanted somebody who would. Skip isn’t afraid to dance on the big stage. He’s the sort of person you love to watch but would hate to be, because he takes chances. He’s a leader, and leaders don’t just get followed—they get chased. That’s not your style, Brian, getting chased. The thing about Skip, he makes things happen.”
“So did Juan Corona. You two would make a swell couple.”
Keyes found himself strangely unperturbed by Jenna’s emasculatory harangue; maybe there was hope for him yet. He hit the brakes and the MG skidded off the road into some gravel. He backed up to the gate of the Virginia Key marina.
“I believe that’s your car,” he said to Jenna.
“Where?”
He pointed. “Next to the boat ramp. The white Mercury.”
“My car’s in the shop,” Jenna snapped.
“Really? Shall we go check the license tag?”
Jenna turned away.
“Skip borrowed it,” she said almost inaudibly.
Keyes saw her hand move to the door handle. He reached across the seat and slapped the lock down.
“Not yet,” he warned her. “You’re not going anywhere.”
“Hey, what is this?”
“It’s called deep trouble, and you’re in the middle, Miss Granola Bar.”
“All I ever knew were bits and pieces, that’s all,” she insisted. “Skip didn’t tell me everything. He was always dropping little hints but I was scared to ask for more. I didn’t know about the new boat and I sure don’t know where he is right now. Honest, Brian, I thought the stunt with the ocean liner was it; his big plan. I didn’t know anything about tonight, I swear. I wasn’t even sure he was still alive.”
Her eyes couldn’t get more liquid, her voice more beseeching. A metamorphosis in thirty seconds.
Keyes said, “You promised he wasn’t going to hurt Kara Lynn.”
“Maybe he’s not,” Jenna said ingenuously. “Maybe he’s already let her go.”
“Yeah, and maybe I’m the Prince of Wales.”
Keyes drove past the Miami Marine Stadium and turned down a winding two-lane macadam. The shrimper’s dock was at the dead end of the road, on a teardrop-shaped lagoon.
The shrimper’s name was Joey and he owned three small trawlers that harvested Biscayne Bay by night. He worked out of a plywood shack lighted by bare bulbs and guarded by a pair of friendly mutts.
Joey was dipping shrimp when Keyes drove up.
“I don’t know if you remember me,” Keyes said. “I interviewed you a few years back for a newspaper story.”
“Sure,” said Joey, peering past the end of his cigar. “You were askin’ about pollution, some damn thing.”
“Right. Look, I need a boat. It’s sort of an emergency.”
Joey glanced over at Jenna sitting in the car.
“Damn fine emergency,” he said. “But you don’t need a boat, you need a water bed.”
“Please,” Keyes said. “We need a ride to Osprey Island.”
“You and the girl?”
“That’s right. It’s worth a hundred bucks.”
Joey hung the net on a nail over the shrimp tank. “That island’s private property, son.”
“I know.”
“It’s black as a bear’s asshole and fulla bugs. Why the hell you wanna go over there on a night like this?”
“Like I said, it’s an emergency,” Keyes said. “Life and death.”
“Naturally,” Joey muttered. He took the hundred dollars and struggled into his oilskin raingear. “There’s more weather on the way,” he said. “Go fetch your ladyfriend. We’ll take the Tina Marie.”
Osprey Island was a paddle-shaped outcrop in east Biscayne Bay, about five miles south of the Cape Florida lighthouse. There were no sandy beaches, for the island was mostly hard coral and oolite rock—a long-dead reef, thrust barely above sea level. The shores were collared with thick red mangrove; farther inland, young buttonwoods, gumbo-limbo, sea grape, and mahogany. An old man who had lived there for thirty years had planted a row of royal palms and a stand of pines, and these rose majestically from the elevated plot that had been his homestead, before he fell ill and moved back to the mainland. All that remained of the house was a concrete slab and four cypress pilings and a carpet of broken pink stucco; a bare fifty-foot flagpole stood as a salt-eaten legacy to the old man’s patriotism and also to his indelible fear that someday the Russians would invade Florida, starting with Osprey Island.
Like almost everything else in South Florida, the islet was dishonestly named.
There were no white-hooded ospreys, or fish eagles, living on Osprey Island because the nesting trees were not of sufficient height or maturity. A few of the regal birds lived on Sand Key or Elliott, farther south, and occasionally they could be seen diving the channel and marl flats around the island bearing their name. But if it had been left up to the Calusa Indians, who had first settled the place, the island probably would have been called Mosquito or Crab, because these were the predominant life forms infesting its fifty-three acres.
There was no dock—Hurricane Betsy had washed it away in 1965—but a shallow mooring big enough for one boat had been blasted out of the dead coral on the lee side. With some difficulty of navigation, and considerable paint loss to the outboard’s hull, Skip Wiley managed to locate the anchorage in pitch dark. He waded ashore with Kara Lynn deadweight in his arms. The trail to the campsite was fresh and Wiley had no trouble following it, although the sharp branches snagged his clothes and scratched his scalp. Every few steps came a new lashing insult and he bellowed appropriate curses to the firmament.
At the campsite, not far from the old cabin rubble, Wiley placed Kara Lynn on a bed of pine needles and covered her with a thin woolen blanket. Both of them were soaked from the crossing.
Wiley swatted no-see-’ems in the darkness for three hours until he heard the hum of a passing motorboat. Finally! he groused. The Marine Patrol on its nightly route. Wiley had been waiting for the bastard to go by; now it was safe.
When the police boat was gone he built a small fire from dry tinder he had stored under a sheet of industrial plastic. The wind was due east and unbelievably strong, scattering sparks from the campfire like swarms of tipsy fireflies. Wiley was grateful that the woods were wet.
He was fixing a mug of instant bouillon when Kara Lynn woke up, surprising him.
“Hello, there,” Skip Wiley said, thinking it was a good thing he’d tied her wrists and ankles—she looked like a strong girl.
“I know this is a dumb question—” Kara Lynn began.
“Osprey Island,” Wiley said.
“Where’s that?”
“Out in the bay. Care for some soup?”
