Gator Wave

by David F. Berens

  She cocked her head to the side. “What would make you want to do that?”

  He inhaled slowly and let the deep breath ease out of his nose. “Been thinkin’ lately that right around the time it came to me … well, that’s when all the trouble started followin’ me around.”

  “Trouble? Like, what kind of trouble?”

  He opened his mouth to tell her, but closed it when he realized he was about to tell the tale of a bunch of dead bodies piling up around him everywhere he went.

  She squinted her eyes. “You’re not that cowboy killer are you? I’ve been seeing all that on the news, but you … you don’t strike me as that type.”

  He laughed. “Nope. I’m no killer. Did a short stint in Afghanistan, but my knee took a bit of shrapnel in the worst way.”

  “So, what were you? A Navy Seal? Green Beret? Or one of those super-secret spy kind of guys?”

  “Actually, I was a pilot. A glorified taxi for the brass really.”

  She considered this for a second, then said, “Then you can take care of me.”

  He nearly did a spit take. “Do what now?”

  She hooked her arm through his elbow. When he looked into her eyes, he saw that she was joking on the surface, but something underneath said she was concerned … afraid.

  “Take care of me. You were a soldier. That means you have to defend citizens, right? Well, I’m a citizen and I need defending.”

  “I haven’t been a soldier for a long, long time,” he said, finishing his beer. “I’m guessing that might’ve been before you were born.”

  Her smile faded. “I have to work tonight and I’m afraid of what they’ll do to me.”

  “What they’ll do to you? Who? Customers? Just a bunch of drunks,” Troy said.

  “No. Not them. I can handle them.” She dropped her bottle into the cooler. “Something weird is going on around Woody’s. My … well, sort of my boyfriend is missing. He hasn’t called me in like three days and that never happens. I’ve tried to call him, but his phone goes straight to voicemail. It’s not like him at all. I think something really bad has happened to him.”

  “That sounds like somethin’ you gotta call the cops about.”

  “No!” Suddenly her tone was sharp. “I can’t do that. I think he’s been murdered or something.”

  “Then it is most definitely time to call the police.”

  Troy stood up, slid the lid back onto the cooler, and picked it up. She grabbed his arm. “I need your help. What do I do?”

  “Listen, I’ve been here before, darlin’. More than once.” He took a few steps toward the highway behind them. “We gotta get back to the apartment and we’ll call in the cavalry. If we don’t, it’s just gonna get worse and worse. Trust me.”

  Tears welled in her eyes. “No. Please don’t.”

  “Why not?”

  She took a deep breath. “He’s Dante’s son.”

  “Who’s Dante?”

  “The owner of Woody’s. A member of the Caparelli family.”

  Troy shrugged. “Okay. I’m not sure what that has to do with anything, but—”

  “The Caparellis are … they’re mafia … at least, I think they are. If I go to the cops with this, they’ll start looking into the family. And if Dante finds out I’m the one who called them … I’ll probably be the one to disappear.”

  Troy’s mind flashed back to all those moments through the years when this exact same scenario unfolded before him. It all flashed before his eyes like a bad movie or a whole bunch of Dateline episodes back to back. Somebody had died, someone needed his help, he got messed up in the whole dang thing. He looked up at the brim of his hat. Why are you doin’ this to me? he thought. He was shocked to hear what must’ve been the hat say, you’re the only one who can help.

  “Just come to work with me tonight. Hang out at Woody’s, I’ll buy. I mean, maybe Matty is really just on a bender with some friends in South Beach … or maybe he’s met another girl and is cheating on me. I’d be fine with that. Or maybe he’ll even be there or they will have heard from him. I just need a friend. I don’t want to go alone.”

  For a long moment, Troy thought about hitching his way right on out of town. He’d come to what might be called the debate moment in any good story. He had a choice and he knew if he made the wrong decision, someone could die … or maybe not. Maybe it was like she said. This kid, Matty, was probably sitting at the bar drinking a Sex on the Beach, or a Cosmopolitan, or something equally ridiculous. He let out the air he’d been holding in his lungs.

  “Alright,” he said, shrugging his shoulders. “I’ll come down in a bit. Just need to shower off the sweat and sand.”

  She grinned and wrapped her arms around his neck, hugging him tight. “Me too. Wanna share?”

  Before he could answer, she took off walking at a fast clip across the road toward the tennis club.

  “Oh … dang,” he muttered to himself.

  He woke up to find the sky a deep shade of long-post-sunset purple. No sunlight was left, but the moon cast enough light for him to see. A warm breeze rocked him back and forth. He wasn’t too surprised to find that he’d fallen asleep in the hammock on the veranda waiting for Cinnamon to get ready for work. He walked up the stairs to the apartment and found the door closed, but not locked. Inside, he found the kitchen light on, but otherwise the place was dark and quiet. A Corona—he would soon find out was the last Corona—sat condensating on a handwritten note. He popped it open and picked up the note. Though the water had blurred the writing a bit, he could still read it.

  Please meet me at Woody’s. I left you sleeping because I figured you must really need the rest. I really hope you’ll come in tonight. I need you.

  “Well, well.” He sighed and took a big gulp of the tepid beer. The clock on the stove told him it was well past midnight.

  It wasn’t late enough for Woody’s to be closed. There was still time for him to head up there. The debate played in his head. As of now, he was pretty much the same guy he’d planned on being when he got to the island. If he hopped in the bed and rolled over, he’d be that guy in the morning, too. But if he picked through his things for a reasonably clean shirt and walked up to Woody’s, he might not be.

  He opened the fridge and found two packets of ketchup, an empty jar of green liquid that had once held bread and butter pickles, and—probably most importantly—no beer. He closed the door and sighed.

  “When have I ever walked away from trouble?” he asked the empty room.

  He could almost hear the walls say, “Hasn’t happened yet.”

  His best short-sleeved button-down linen shirt was a little wrinkled, but then again, a good linen shirt always was. He smelled under the sleeves, then smelled his own underarms, and decided it would have to do.

  When he walked out of the small, one room apartment, he felt a little chill in the air … or maybe it was in his spine. The debate had been won, but he wasn’t sure if the right side had prevailed.

  20

  Kayak Hunting Season

  Gary tied the string on his pajama pants and gulped down the remaining sangria in his glass. There was so much to tell Dani that he wasn’t sure where to start.

  “Okay, so, let me start at the beginning,” he said, reaching out to hold his boyfriend’s hand. “There was this guy.”

  Dani jerked his fingers out of Gary’s and folded his arms tight across his chest. “A guy? Okay. Go on.”

  “Just a friend, Dani. You know I would never … it was just someone I met doing that show down at … okay, never mind.” Gary felt his heart racing. A little flirting with another man was the least of his problems right now.

  “And just what does this have to do with your hag of a landlord and you shagging her in the bed where we made love for the first time?”

  Gary felt the acid in his stomach starting to boil with the tart alcohol and anxiety mixing into a volatile cocktail.

  “I might have stolen a kayak.”

  Dani’s
face, though still stone-like, remained frozen, but the creases of confusion folded around his eyebrows.

  “Well, more like borrowed it … without the owner knowing about it.”

  Dani stood up and turned toward the door.

  “Wait,” Gary jumped up and grabbed his shoulders. He turned him around gently. “I took the man, my friend, Matty, out for a kayak ride.”

  “On the borrowed kayak?” Dani asked.

  “Yes. And now the owner wants it back. He’s put up a twenty-five thousand dollar reward for it.”

  “So what?” Dan threw his hands up in frustration. “That is no reason to be boffing your disgusting skin-sack of a landlady. Just return the stupid boat and we’ll be done with all of this.”

  “Yeah. There’s a problem with that scenario,” Gary said.

  “The kayak is … dead.”

  “Dead?”

  “Eaten … or at least mangled pretty badly … by an alligator.”

  Dani considered this for a moment. “Then you’ll just have to man up, go to the owner, confess everything, and buy him a new kayak. That will sure be a lot better than being on the wrong end of the whole reward business. At least maybe that way, you’ll stay out of jail.”

  Gary took a deep breath. “There’s a problem with that, too.”

  “Jesus, Gary,” Dani huffed. “What are you not telling me? Just spill it.”

  “The man I mentioned before … the alligator ate him, too.”

  Dani spit out a few curse words that Gary didn’t think his boyfriend had ever said in his life. He was sure sailors thought twice before using some of the words he heard that day. Dani slumped down on the futon in the living room.

  “Then, we need to go to the police.”

  “No can do,” Gary said. “Matty’s dad is mafia or something like that. If they found out I had anything to do with Matty’s death … I’m not really sure what they would do, but I don't really want to find out.”

  Dani’s eyes glazed over, apparently deep in thought. “Where is the boat now?”

  Gary shrugged. “In the mangroves. We were down around eighty-two.”

  “Do you think there’s any chance anyone will find the remains of it?”

  “I mean, if they were really searching for it … maybe.”

  Dani went back to his thinking pose. “We’ll hide it. We’ll trace your steps, find what’s left of it, and get rid of it.”

  “Okay, first things first, there’s a giant alligator out there who ate the man I was kayaking with. Second, if we even find it, what the hell would we do with it?”

  Dani’s lips turned up into a sly smile. “I have a friend who owns a dive boat. We’ll sink it to the bottom of the ocean. No one will ever see it again and you can tell your landlady to kiss off.”

  “That’s absolutely the most ridiculous…”

  Gary’s voice trailed off as the plan began to sink in. It wasn’t the worst idea ever. He was pretty sure he knew where they had been when the alligator attacked. And this time, he wouldn’t go without certain precautions.

  “Okay. I’m in. When should we go?”

  Dani looked at his rhinestone-encrusted watch and grimaced. “Well, I’ve missed my show for sure. Might as well head there now.”

  “Fine. I need to get some clothes on.”

  Dani followed him into the bedroom. He changed into a pair of dark jeans and a long sleeve pullover to protect his arms against the thorns and stings common in the mangroves. It wasn’t often a place that killed you with one big bite. Usually, it was the thousand or more tiny wounds that did you in. Gary reached up on the shelf, back in the corner and found what he was looking for, wrapped in a black cloth. Behind it was a box of shells. He’d bought it back in a time when men of his sexual preference were not well received in public—a barbaric time called the early eighties. There had been a short period where he thought if he was outed, it might come to violence. He unwrapped it and dropped the cloth on the floor. It was a revolver, that much he knew. Other than that, he had no idea what brand, or what size the bullets were, or—most importantly, how to fire it.

  He was able to check and see that there were no bullets in it. He reached up again and patted around until he found the box of shells proclaiming that they were .38 Special, 130 Grain, Full Metal Jacket bullets … whatever that meant. He turned around to find that Dani had changed clothes as well.

  He was wearing an outfit that looked as if G.I. Joe had dipped himself in glue and then jumped into a vat of sequins and glitter.

  “That … is … ridiculous,” Gary said.

  “Almost as ridiculous as you thinking we’re taking that gun with us.”

  “Dani, you didn’t see the size of that alligator. I’m not going out there without it. I’d rather do time for stealing a kayak.”

  “If you take that, I’m not going,” Dani said, crossing his arms and sitting down on the foot of the bed.

  “Fine then. I’ll go without you.”

  Dani jutted his chin toward the ceiling. “Fine.”

  Gary sat down next to him and put his arm around him. “But it would be a shame for you not to wear that fabulous outfit now that you have it on. It kind of turns me on.”

  Dani seemed to be fighting the urge to smile. Finally, he shook his head and rolled his eyes.

  “That’s the first smart thing you’ve said all day. Okay. We’ll go, but don’t put any bullets in it yet. I don’t want your gun going off prematurely.”

  Gary raised an eyebrow and opened his mouth to reply with the obvious joke, but Dani lifted a finger and put it on his lips.

  “Later, silly boy. Let’s go get this kayak, then we’ll talk more about guns.”

  Gary pecked him on the cheek. They tiptoed out of the apartment and softly down the metal stairs. The last thing they needed was Myrtle poking her head out and seeing them leave. Gary fired up the Jeep and pulled it out onto the highway.

  “Now there’s a garish outfit if I’ve ever seen one. Too bad, really. Not a bad looking guy. Do you think he’s … ?” Gary said, pointing at a man walking north on the side of the road.

  “Pfft. Wearing a wrinkled linen shirt, khaki cargo shorts, flip-flops, and a straw cowboy hat? Not a chance. That guy is as straight as a Mormon missionary.”

  Gary laughed and waved to the man. He touched the brim of his hat in reply.

  21

  A Basketball Jones

  Ian Bass peeled open the Islamorada Sheriff’s Department’s last bandaid and applied it gingerly to the cut between his left thumb and forefinger.

  “So,” Sheriff Paul Puckett said, sitting back in his chair, his hands folded behind his head, “tell me again what happened to your uniform.”

  Ian tried his best to shrug off the question. “When I stopped to check out the accident, a truck … a tractor trailer … raced past and splashed me with mud.”

  Puckett rolled an imaginary toothpick around between his teeth. Seeing doubt creep onto his face, Ian added, “or sewage or something. I think there was a backed up drain there.”

  “Uh huh.” Puckett stared at him for a few seconds, then sniffed and sat up. “Check in the back. I think we might have a spare.”

  He began clicking the keys on his computer doing his best to look like he was busy. Ian knew from the past few days that the sheriff was likely playing solitaire. His suspicion was confirmed when he cursed and muttered something about the deck missing all of its aces.

  Ian tucked the white t-shirt into the gray sweatpants he’d bought at the Dollar Tree to replace his soiled police issue shirt and pants. He walked back to the stockroom and found a uniform folded on the top shelf behind the paper towels and Folgers coffee. He pulled it down and checked the tag on the shirt. XXL. Great. He draped it over his shoulders and felt like one of the happy patients who had completed a successful season of the TV show, My 600-lb Life. The shirt bagged out all over like loose skin. He did his best to tuck the extra material into the pants—waist size 44. Cinching the belt as
tight as it would go, he knew he probably looked like a clown.

  As he rolled up the sweatpants, he considered what he’d just been through and worked out what his next action might be. He’d seen the Cowboy Killer—or at least a man fitting his description—down at the Islamorada Tennis Club. But the guy sure wasn’t acting like he was on the run. Maybe it was just a dude wearing a cowboy hat, but that seemed like a huge coincidence. He figured he’d drive back out that way and do some proper surveillance—from the road, rather than the swamp. God knows he didn’t want to run into that behemoth of a gator again.

  He also saw the kayak that most likely belonged to the writer that had taken out that ad in the paper offering a twenty-five thousand dollar reward. Though Ian wasn’t hurting for money, he wasn’t exactly getting rich working for the FDLE. He had given some serious thought to telling the sheriff about the kayak, but hadn’t made up his mind about that yet. Twenty-five g’s was a lot of money. If the dude at the tennis club turned out to be the real Cowboy Killer, he’d clue Puckett in on the location of the mangled boat.

  The sheriff looked up when he emerged from the back and immediately started laughing. Ugh, what is this, Ian thought, the third grade. When he finally collected himself, Puckett said, “Oh, that’s funny. I’m sorry, just couldn’t help it. I’ll get Mark on the horn to order a new uniform for you today. Should be here by the end of the week.”

  “Great. Thanks,” Ian said, putting his keys, wallet, and cellphone into the overly-deep pockets of his new uniform.

  “I guess you’re not quite as big as Big Jim was,” Puckett said, wiping a tear from his eye. “Same height though, it looks like.”

  Thankfully, the pants, though voluminous in the waist, were the right length. At six-foot-two, Ian wasn’t exceptionally tall, but he was taller than the sheriff and the other officer on staff.

  “Say, that reminds me,” the sheriff said, sitting up and flipping through the pages of a nearly empty calendar, “the town three-on-three charity event is coming up soon.”