The Mangrove Coast df-6

by Randy Wayne White

  “Doggone rude. But maybe he’s got a good reason for it. Maybe he had an emergency or something.” She was moving the cards around concentrating. “Say, Doc, tell me somethin’.”

  “Sure.”

  “You know anybody that just died recently?”

  I stopped chewing again. “Why do you ask that?”

  “‘Cause you got the Tower card faceup. The last time I saw the Tower card faceup the way she is now, it was for this tourist lady, and a friend of a friend of hers got dead somehow. Maybe zapped by a truck or something, but he sure ‘nuff passed away.”

  “Is that right.”

  “Yep. The Tower card, positioned the way she is now, it almost always means somebody’s ready to cash in their chips.”

  I looked at the card. It was a gothic drawing of a medieval tower. The tower had been set afire… or caught in an explosion, perhaps. Stones were flying skyward in a starburst of orange flames.

  “I don’t believe in this stuff, Annie. You know that.”

  “Who says I believe it? Readin’ the cards, it’s just something to do for fun. How else am I gonna pass the time?”

  She moved that card, placed a couple of more cards on the bar and stared at them while I sipped my beer.

  From the dining room, I could hear the Sarasota ladies laughing about something. Playing some kind of game, it seemed. Friends and mothers, probably, who had the self-amused glow of contented, attentive wives. Good women getting together, having fun.

  It was my guess that Skipper would not have been readily accepted by this nice group.

  I looked up from the bar. Annie was backdropped by rows of liquor bottles. On the wall were old framed caricatures of local baseball players. The cartoons had been done years ago by Sam the three-fingered artist. Sam had lived down on the Keys, then one day just disappeared. Or so the story went.

  I said, “Say, Annie, I was wondering about something: Have you seen a man roaming around town, a really huge guy. Like I’m talking maybe three hundred pounds, probably more, and a head the size of a football. With perfect hair, the kind that looks painted smooth. You would’ve noticed him.”

  It was a reasonable question to ask. Not that it seemed likely that Calloway had been murdered. Wet tile, bare feet, blood on the marble countertop and hard kitchen floor. But it was a possibility and it didn’t hurt to check with one of the most observant women around if someone matching Merlot’s description was in town. Maybe the trip to Colombia, the entire postcard business, was a ruse just like Darkrume, Merlot’s alter ego.

  Annie said, “A really fat guy, huh? Is that the man you come here to see? This Calloway fellow?”

  “No. Another guy I thought I might run into up here.”

  “The carnival people, the ones who winter up in Gibsonton? They drive down to the beach sometimes. The ones they call freak show people, but you couldn’t meet nicer folks. The Giant used to visit with the Monkey-Faced Lady. They’d stop in for lunch. Sometimes they’d bring a couple of the midgets along. And the one I think they call Crab Man, I just seen him. Maybe they got a Fat Man travelin’ with ‘em.”

  “No, this isn’t a circus person.”

  Her attention was back on the cards. “You sure no one you know died recently? A woman. I’d think it’d be a woman.”

  That almost made me smile. Calloway lying stone-cold dead only a few blocks away and the cards were telling her it was a woman. “Yep,” I said, “I’m pretty sure I haven’t had any lady friends die recently.” Smitty had brought out my sandwich. I took my time, napkin on knee, getting ready to eat.

  Annie’s a nice person. I could see the concern in her face. “Then I sure wish you wouldn’t take that trip. Colombia, you say? Some of the local boys have been down there a time or two. They say she can be a pretty dangerous place, Colombia.”

  “Annie, you’re worrying for no reason. I already told you I don’t believe in fortune-telling. Tarot cards, palmreading, none of it.”

  “I don’t either, Doc. I don’t either!” Now she was scooping up the cards. Seemed eager to get them back in their box. “I just read them for fun. They don’t mean nothin’. Not a blessed thing. Just fun.”

  I was smiling at her. “Then why do you look so concerned?”

  “‘Cause sometimes readin’ the cards is more fun than others. Now eat your grouper and let’s talk ‘bout something else.”

  13

  On the phone, Amanda Richardson said to me, “You’re talking about Frank? Why’re you being so nice, trying to get me to say that I still feel an emotional attachment to Frank?”

  Smart woman… and exactly what I was trying to do. The reason was, she’d spoken badly of the man earlier and I didn’t want her saddled with additional guilt when I told her that Calloway was dead. Wanted to nudge her into saying some nice things before I gave her the news. Something else: I wanted to get a sense of how she felt for him deep down. She’d already told me her roommate wasn’t home, and I needed to decide whether I should contact one of her close friends first. Make sure the friend was nearby when I told her. Or maybe drive over there. It was only two hours to Lauderdale, and I was flying out of Miami International tomorrow anyway.

  Would that work? No… because by the time I got there, someone else would’ve already contacted her. The county cops, probably. So I needed to tell her now or find a way to get her out of her apartment; give her something to do until I had time to get to her.

  She said, “A question like that, it seems just a tad touchy-feely for a guy’s guy like you. Or wait… tell me if I’m right: you and Tomlinson went and got drunk and you’ve got a bet going or something. About how Amanda really feels about Frank-the-jerk. One of those heavy conversations drunk men have.”

  It was nearly 8:00 P.M. and I was back in Dinkin’s Bay, back on Sanibel Island. My skiff was tied bow and stern to the counterweight and pulley system I use when the weather’s foul or I might be away for a while. There seemed to be a little preweekend party going on aboard the soggy old Chris-Craft, Tiger Lily. Chinese lanterns had been strung around the flybridge and I could hear music drifting across the water: “Rum amp; Coca Cola,” the big band version. Lately, JoAnn and Rhonda had been listening to 1940s music. They had also taken to wearing glossy scarlet lipstick, equally bright hibiscus blossoms in their hair, and flowered sarongs. The Dorothy Lamour look, as if waiting for the GIs to return from overseas.

  Fashion is nothing more than gossip in fabric form, energized by hope and dispersed by osmosis. Which is probably why I’d been noticing that men around the dock were beginning to favor pleats and anything olive drab. And probably why, lately, female waitresses and bartenders around the islands were parroting the Dinkin’s Bay look: sandals, Lennon Sisters hairstyles and sarongs.

  Funniest thing of all, though, it was Tomlinson who had rediscovered and popularized that Stage Door Canteen combination.

  The sandals and sarong, anyway. His hair, Tomlinson always wore that down. Even when he played baseball.

  With the phone wedged between my shoulder and ear, I told Amanda, “This has nothing to do with a bet. I’m asking for a reason. That question, Do you understand why you’re mad at Frank? it’s something you need to consider. What I’m saying is, I know you care about the man. No matter what you said about him earlier, I know he helped raise you and you care about him, and… that’s all a given.”

  “Christ-o-mighty, you can be so weird sometimes, Ford. Talk about a strange phone day! I get home, there’s this hysterical message from Skipper the Bimbo Queen on the recorder, call her immediately. The two born-again dolphins must have had their first fight. Now you’re behaving like Father O’Malley. Hey, can you hang on a minute? I’ve got your uncle on the other line.”

  So the newly widowed Skipper had been trying to get in touch. Amanda probably hadn’t called her back because she’d been talking to Tuck. The man’s timing was extraordinary. This was a rare exception because his timing was almost always, always bad.

  I waited�
�� and waited. Then: “Your uncle, he really could get to be one of my favorite people in the world. He’s so darn… I don’t know, sincere or something. And so easy to talk to. He makes me laugh. Really laugh.”

  I was in no mood to hear this. “Do you want me to call later? After you’re done listening to Tuck?”

  “Come on, now. Don’t be snotty. No… what I told Mr. Gatrell was I’d call him back when we were done. Know what he said?” Her chuckle told me that she found the man amusing. This twenty-some-year-old woman sitting in a Lauderdale condo linked by fiber-optic thread to an Everglades gangster who’d driven cattle on horseback and poached gators for a living. “What your uncle said was, ‘Well, lil’ lady, then you’ll be calling me back real soon, ‘cause Duke, he’s not a man to use two sentences when one word’ll do.’”

  Her impersonation was pretty good, but I didn’t want to encourage her.

  I said, “Really.”

  “Yeah. You two guys… do you want me to tell you why it is I think you don’t get along? It’s like when my mom and I get into these spats, it’s not ‘cause we’re so different, it’s ‘cause we’re so much alike.”

  “Take my word on this one, Amanda. Tucker Gatrell and I are nothing alike. Nothing.”

  “Jesus, you don’t have to bite my head off. It should be something we could at least sit down and talk about.”

  “I don’t have a lot of time. I’m leaving for Colombia tomonow. I’m taking the morning Avianca flight, and I’ve got a checklist of things to take care of before I leave.”

  She was very quiet for a moment before she said, “If you’re going to Colombia looking for my mom, I’m going. But you coulda at least given me a little warning. Your uncle, he wants to go, too.”

  “Tuck’s not going and you’re not going, either. There’s something I need to tell you-”

  “Hold it!”

  I raised my voice to make her listen. “Amanda, I have something very important-”

  But her voice was louder: “What you have to say can just wait, ‘cause I have something I need to tell you, too!” She practically shouted the last of it. Yep, she could be forceful and had chosen this moment to show it.

  In a normal tone, I said, “Okay, okay. We’ll do it your way.”

  “Damn right we will. What I need to tell you, buster, is you’re not the boss. I asked you to help, yeah. But if I want to go to Colombia, I’ll go. And if Tucker Gatrell wants to go to Colombia, he’s my friend and we’ll both by God go.”

  Her voice had more chill than fire. I was smiling a little, her tone was that familiar to me. The same pissed-off intonations that had been in Bobby’s voice when he was mad.

  First Bobby, now Frank Calloway.

  This woman had lost them both and didn’t even know it yet.

  Speaking of the death of her dad, Amanda had once told me, “You don’t know what it’s like.”

  Didn’t I?

  Standing there with the phone to my ear, alone in my house, I decided to tell her something I’d never told anyone, not even Tomlinson. The circumstances made what I had to say relevant, but it was more than that. There was something about this girl that I liked and trusted.

  I said, “I want you to calm down. And I want you to sit down.”

  “If you think you’re going to talk me out of going-”

  This time, instead of raising my voice, I spoke more softly. “I’m not going to talk you out of anything, Amanda. If you want to go to Colombia with me, that’s fine. Or meet me there later. Whatever. But we need to have a talk first.” She was listening now.

  “I’m going to ask you a favor. It may seem like a strange favor, but if I’m willing to help you, then you need to be willing to help me. I’m going to tell you why I don’t want Tucker Gatrell around me. Or even near me. Let alone with me in Colombia. It’s something I’ve never told anyone, but I’ve decided to tell you, because… well, you’ll understand when I’m done.”

  She must have read something in my tone; hadn’t heard me this serious before. She said, “This isn’t about my mom, is it? My mother, she’s okay, isn’t she? If that man’s hurt my mom-”

  Her voice had a little-girl quality when she was frightened.

  “No, it’s not about your mom. But look… this favor I’m going to ask is important to me. What I’d like you to do right now, the moment we hang up, is get in your car and drive to…” Where? I’d thought about asking her to pick a hotel on Lauderdale Beach. Take her for a walk, give her the news that way, very gently. But no… it’d take me two hours to get there, which meant that she’d probably spend the next hour or so in her own apartment waiting. By then Skipper or the Sheriffs Department would have been in touch.

  I said, “What I’d like you to do the moment we hang up is get in your car and drive to… to Everglades City. You ever been there?”

  “Well… sure. But that’s more than an hour from my place. I take Alligator Alley west, then south on highway twenty-nine. It’s a really narrow road; lots of swamp. So more like an hour and a half-”

  “It’s about the same distance from Sanibel. If we both leave now” — I was looking at my watch- “we can meet there by ten. Earlier, if we push it. You know where the Rod amp; Gun Club is? The old hotel right on the river?”

  “Sure, the Rod amp; Gun. The mansion-looking place with the alligator skins on the walls and the big fireplace. Yeah. I’ve had lunch there with clients. In fact, I was planning on driving over that way early next week to call on my accounts in Marco and Naples. So… I guess I could change things around, see them tomorrow, if it’s really that important to you.”

  I said, “Whoever gets to Everglades first, go ahead and get a couple of rooms and order dinner. Better yet, I’ll call ahead and make reservations. It’s a nice night, so tell the woman there-her name’s Hortensia-tell her who you’re waiting on and that we’ll eat out on the porch by the water. All on me. My treat. She’s from Costa Rica, a friend of mine.”

  “You’re serious.”

  I said, “Very much so.”

  “The reason you want me to leave my apartment, it’s not because I’m in some kind of danger or something is it?”

  “Nope.”

  “You scared me there for a minute. I thought there was something wrong with my mom.”

  I said, “The Rod amp; Gun. I’ll meet you at the bar for drinks.”

  I told Amanda, “The reason I don’t trust Tucker Gatrell, the reason I don’t like being around the man is because he managed to get both of my parents killed. I hadn’t quite reached my teens when it happened.”

  She whispered, “Dear God.”

  I told her as we were walking deserted streets along the Baron River. It was an hour before midnight on a moonless night with stars. Everglades City is a mangrove town built at the nexus of saw grass and brackish backwater that is the Ten Thousand Islands. It has had the same streetlights since the 1930s, milky glass bowls on elegant iron stems. The globes created incremental pools of light along the river. In each pool was a precise island of asphalt and lawn, of wooden dock and flowing black water. In some places, the streetlights found a framework of ficus limbs, vines and leaves.

  When I said it-“He managed to get both my parents killed” — Amanda took a few more steps and then stopped as if frozen. Maybe it had taken a few seconds for her to realize what I was telling her. That’s when she whispered, “Dear God.”

  Then: “Oh, Doc, I… I’m so sorry. I had no idea.” She put her hand on my elbow, then found my hand, meshing her fingers tightly into mine.

  I found myself oddly uncomfortable with her reaction. The fact that she felt I would welcome an emotional demonstration so obvious and familiar surprised me a little.

  I said, “I’m not telling you this because I need sympathy. It happened so long ago I don’t even think about it anymore. I’m telling you for a reason.”

  “I know, I know… because it hurts. I know how much it hurts.”

  I remained patient, evenhanded.
“No, that’s not the reason.”

  “But… how did your parents die? You’re uncle’s such a nice man. Why?”

  “I don’t know why. Is there ever a reason good people die? But how it happened, that’s another story. It was an accident, but an accident that was completely unnecessary. The whole thing was pointless. But it did happen and all because of Tucker’s idiotic… his idiotic selfishness and his sloppy approach to life. That’s exactly how I define Tucker Gatrell as a person: selfish and sloppy. And what Tucker is as a person killed my mother and father. He’s careless. He has a random approach to everything. Tucker is the center of his own universe… his own chaotic universe, and that is the height of indifference.”

  Now she locked her arm into the crook of my arm. “You’ve never told anyone this before?”

  “No.”

  “Will you tell me?”

  We continued walking.

  I didn’t embellish. Didn’t dramatize how it happened or romanticize the notion that I had suffered because of it. I gave Amanda the facts as coolly and unemotionally as I could.

  She listened. She made empathetic sounds. Once I think she started crying, but didn’t want me to hear.

  I told her that, while I never knew either of my parents well, I suspected I would have come to like them. My father had played a couple of years of pro football for Chicago and the old Atlanta organization before he took up running lobster traps down on the Keys. That and pompano fishing.

  My mother by all accounts had been a gifted amateur naturalist and one of the earliest advocates for a save-the-Everglades movement. She spent a lot of time giving talks in the moneyed tourist cities or lobbying hard up in Tallahassee. There is a little brass plaque almost hidden by mangroves in Flamingo, once an isolated fish camp, now headquarters for Everglades National Park. My mother’s name is on the plaque, second column, about midway down.

  I saw it once. I happened to be in Flamingo with nothing to do. I found the plaque and cleared some of the brush away. Had to get down on my knees to do it.