Bitter Tide

by Jack Hardin

  Kyle felt dead.

  It would be the first of many.

  His wife, with whom he shared all, was inside checking email on her laptop, maybe watching reruns of Parenthood. Her husband was a drug dealer.

  His son and daughter were in their beds asleep, dreaming of whatever innocent kids dream about—Optimus Prime and Elsa? Their father was a drug dealer.

  Worse, even. He was the guy who made sure the drug dealers’ businesses thrived. Without men like Kyle their operations simply limped along, no wind in their sails.

  He downed the last of the bourbon and wiped his lips with the back of his hand. He couldn’t speak up now. It was too late. The last six weeks had seen him move hundreds of kilos across state lines. They would cut him a deal for squealing, but Andrés had been correct when he noted that Kyle would still be looking at ten years easy. Maybe twenty. He knew because he had Googled it, and Florida case law in this instance was easy to come by.

  Somehow, in just a very short amount of time, Kyle had managed to fall into a nightmare of grand proportions. He was a drug dealer now. Another cog in the grand ol’ machine that kept the cartels high on the hog.

  His glass was empty. He needed another drink. He reached for the bottle of Evan Williams and bumped it. It fell out of reach. He stood up, too fast, and felt the space between his ears turn to fuzz. He reached out and grabbed the porch swing for balance, but the swing, as porch swings tend to do, moved beneath his weight. Kyle pitched forward and, with nothing else to grab onto, planted his face into the pine floorboards and saw a spangled flash of tiny starlight before sleep came early.

  Chapter Eighteen

  The Mango Mania Festival was held the third weekend of August and saw the celebrated fruit being brought in by the truck load, most of it coming straight from the north end of the Island.

  Local growers, besides furnishing mangoes, brought along every possible mango dish and fixing. Tables and pop-up tents were filled with dried mango, mango ice cream, mango soup, mango mustards and jams, mango curry, and dozens of other recipes. Trying to list off all of them brought to mind Bubba Blue on the bus, rattling off to Forrest Gump all the possible ways there were to cook shrimp. The festival brought Saint James City its busiest weekend of the year, with nearly all of the island’s ten thousand inhabitants showing up to take part and thousands more pouring in from all over the state.

  Fish houses set up tables with fryers, offering up local catches of crab, fish, and shrimp. Merchants selling festival t-shirts, conch shells, and fish were perched all along the southern tip of Oleander Street and halfway down the Norma Jean pier.

  Jean Oglesby had a large pop-up tent set up right next to The Salty Mangrove, the most sought after location for merchants on this busy weekend. Jean had once confided in Ellie that every time the festival came around she made enough money selling her art and merchandise to pay her mortgage for the next twelve months. Judging by the size and location of Jean’s home, that was not a small amount of money.

  Tyler and Ellie walked up the ramp that led to the bar. Tyler had driven in from Cape Coral, parked at her house, and they walked down to the marina together, navigating congested parking and whining golf carts. With the crowds came traffic. Cars would line Stringfellow Road for a mile on each shoulder, and the island’s governance ran shuttles all the way from Pine Island Center seven miles north.

  Ellie had considered bringing Citrus but had finally decided against it. Citrus didn’t do leashes. He would have gotten down here and been so excited that this many people had come out to see him that he would have run off the end of the pier in sheer, uncontainable excitement. And there was no doggie ramp.

  Live trop-rock music greeted them as they walked past The Salty Mangrove and out onto the wider boardwalk. Joel Henderson’s laid-back tunes sounded like a musical marriage between Jimmy Buffett and Glenn Campbell and that, along with the suds being poured freely at the bar behind them, had everyone in a relaxed mood, feeling as if they were in their own slice of paradise. Major was moving at a near-frantic pace behind the bar like a mother trying to feed a gaggle of toddlers at snack time. He beamed when he noticed her and waved just before a patron stole his attention away. Ellie had offered to help him this weekend—his busiest of the year—but he had insisted otherwise.

  “Hey, look at this,” Tyler said. Ellie followed him over to a couple children juggling mangoes. A small crowd had gathered and was oohing and aahing over their skills. The children, a boy and a girl, no older than ten, were in a coordinated rhythm, flicking mangoes to each other. Ellie counted nine in the air at a time. “I can do that,” Tyler said.

  “Sure you can.”

  “I mean, really. I juggled chainsaws in Texas. At spring bluebonnet festivals. People ate it up.”

  “You can’t even hold your truck keys without dropping them.”

  “I said chainsaws, Ellie. Car keys...those are a whole different beast. Very slippery. Lots of pieces.”

  She shook her head. “Come on. Let’s see what else there is.”

  Tyler fished a couple dollars from his jeans and tossed them into a bucket at the children’s feet. He caught up to Ellie, and they made their way down the pier, finally stopping at a table that sold beach-themed jewelry. The young owner was busy talking to another couple. The table was filled with necklaces made of shark teeth, tiny shells, and sand dollars, small lockets filled with sand, and wire earrings molded into every kind of sea life. A necklace made of green and blue sea glass caught Ellie’s attention. She pinched at the thin silver chain and held it up. Ellie didn’t own much jewelry, locally made or otherwise, but she liked this one. She waited for the owner to finish with the other couple and then asked, “How much?”

  “Twenty-two dollars.”

  Tyler reached into his back pocket and grabbed his wallet with one hand while the other slipped the necklace out of Ellie’s hand. “I’ve got this.”

  “Hey, I’m a big girl. I can get it.”

  “I know you can. But I’m a bigger boy, and I’ve decided to get it for you.” He threw her a wink, and Ellie conceded, a flutter crossing her stomach. He fished out a twenty and a ten dollar bill and handed them over. “Keep the change.”

  The girl behind the table brightened. “Thank you. Do you want me to wrap it for you?”

  “Nah.” Tyler stepped in front of Ellie and maneuvered the chain through her hair and around the back of her neck. He was close, and Ellie felt the warmth of his strong chest radiating onto her cheeks. He stepped back, assessing her. “That’s nice. Pretty necklace on a pretty girl.” He looked down. His green eyes filled her blues.

  A warm, muted crimson crept up Ellie’s neck. “Thank you.” She pulled her eyes away and looked down on the jewelry. “It’s nice.”

  “Come on,” he said, and started walking again. They kept going, scanning the vendors, both of them silently reflecting on the moment that had just passed between them. They came to a white pop-up tent on their left. A banner hung at the front: Wild Palm Distillery.

  A man that looked to be Ellie and Tyler’s age greeted them. He was tall, slender, had short brown hair and a strong forehead. His eyes were kind.

  Ellie said hello and asked, “Are you the owner?”

  “That I am. Kyle Armstrong.” He reached out and shook both their hands.

  “My uncle loves your rum,” Ellie said. “He always has a couple bottles at his house and sells a ton of it at his bar.” She noticed a big knot on the right side of his forehead, like he had whacked into something, wondered how he had gotten it, and decided not to ask him about it.

  “Yeah?” he said, smiling. He grabbed a bottle from the table and twisted the cap. He poured a little into two plastic shot glasses and handed one to Ellie, one to Tyler. “Who’s your uncle?”

  “Warren Hall. He’s owns The Salty Mangrove.” Ellie tilted the tiny cup back, and just before the clear liquid entered her mouth she saw Kyle Armstrong’s expression change. It was hardly noticeable, but Ellie had be
en trained to notice hardly noticeable. It was a quick descent of the eyebrows and, behind them, worried eyes. Kyle recovered in an instant.

  Tyler hadn’t noticed. He lowered the cup and winced against the burn of the rum. “So good,” he said.

  “Glad you like it,” Kyle said. A small girl popped out from behind him and waved at Ellie.

  “Hello,” she giggled, and then said, “you’re pretty.”

  “Thank you,” Ellie said. “You’re pretty too.”

  Kyle set a gentle hand on the crown of the girl’s head. “This is my daughter, Sophia. My best employee.”

  “Nice to meet you, Sophia,” Tyler said. “Are you the taste tester?”

  Ellie sent an elbow into his ribs, and he coughed. He looked at Kyle. “Sorry, just kidding.”

  Kyle laughed, patted his daughter’s head again. “She makes sure that the table has enough cups on it.” A couple men dressed in biker leathers approached. Kyle excused himself and gave the newcomers his fresh attention.

  Ellie and Tyler continued on down the newly repaired section of the pier, passing more vendors and stopping at a tent whose owner Ellie knew well. “Sharla, you’re not out of that mango ice cream yet, are you?”

  “Ellie. Hi, sweetie.” Sharla came around the table and gave Ellie a hug. “It’s always so good to see you.” She stepped back and looked at the man beside Ellie. “Tyler, right?”

  “Yes, ma’am. That’s what my mother named me, even if I didn’t have a say so in the matter.”

  She gave Tyler a hug too and then returned to the shade of the tent. “Gary went to go get more ice cream out of the cold storage. We made twice as much as we did last year, but it’s going twice as fast. Here.” Sharla reached into an ice chest and pulled out two paper cups with lids on them. She extended them, and Ellie and Tyler each took one. Sharla handed them a couple spoons. “These are on me,” she said. “Gary added something extra to it this year, and I think it’s one of the reasons it’s selling so fast. People can’t get enough of it.”

  “It’s mangoes, isn’t it?” Tyler said. “He added mangoes, didn’t he?”

  Sharla shook her head. “I can’t believe it.” She leaned in and whispered. “If anyone finds out, they’ll just go out and make it themselves.”

  “Good thing I’m an expert at keeping secrets,” he said.

  “All right then. Let’s make sure it stays that way.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Sharla,” Ellie asked. “Is Jimmy Joe Claude still working with you?”

  “You bet your biscuits he is. I was telling Gary just yesterday that other than Carlos, Jimmy is one of the best employees we’ve had in years. He shows up on time, gets his work done properly, and stays late if we need him to. I know he had a lot of trouble with the law there for a while, but it looks like he may have really turned himself around.”

  Ellie was half impressed. Jimmy Joe Claude had been in and out of prison much of his adult life. A couple months ago he had offered up a couple key leads for Ellie's investigation into the local drug trade which brought about several arrests and the breakdown of a large drug organization.

  “He’s a hard worker,” Sharla continued. “In that way he reminds me of myself when I was younger. Did you know that before Gary and I moved here we owned a cattle ranch up in Montana?”

  “You’re kidding me. How did I not know that?”

  “I’m sure your father did. I know Warren does. Anyway, it was awful. All the cattle got diseased, and they had to get put down. We ended up going bankrupt. The man who owned the plantation that is now The Groovy Grove actually lived just a few miles from us, and he didn’t know anything about growing mangoes properly, nor, apparently, did the folks he put in charge down here. Gary and I, we didn’t know either, but we were willing to learn. So we bought the place from him and came on down. Watching Jimmy ask a million questions about mangoes and working hard at it reminded me, I guess, of myself all those years ago. Gary too, of course.” Sharla took a five dollar bill from a customer and handed him a cup of ice cream. “Did you hear there’s a decent hurricane brewing in the Atlantic? I sure hope it stays away. I really don’t want a mess on my hands.”

  “I guess you’ve been through a couple of those,” Tyler noted.

  “We have. Every time, we lose trees and most of the fruit ends up ripped off. We lose an entire season.”

  A crowd of teenagers gathered to the booth. “We’ll let you take care of them,” Ellie said.

  “Good to see you both,” Sharla said, and waved a quick goodbye as they turned to leave.

  Ellie and Tyler kept on down the pier until they came to the last table and turned back. Halfway back up the pier a voice came from behind them. “You kids being good?” It was Major. They turned around.

  “For now,” Tyler said. “We’re going to egg The Salty Mangrove later tonight.” He looked down at Ellie. “Was it okay to tell him that?”

  “What are you doing out here?” Ellie asked Major. “The bar’s hopping, isn’t it?”

  Sweat was glistening off his forehead. “The temp help is doing great. I had to run a couple bags of ice up to Henry Salvers’ tent. He called me and said he was running out and couldn’t get away.” He rolled his eyes lightheartedly. “The Mangrove, as you know, has the only ice machine out here.” He put a hand into a pocket. “I passed Reticle’s table, Tyler, and picked up a keychain.” He brought his hand out. A blue one. “These are terrific. You know, you should have gotten some koozies too. I’m sure they would have been a big hit.” He laughed.

  Tyler’s eyes moved to half mast. He looked at Ellie. “You told him?”

  “Of course I told him. I couldn’t keep something like that to myself.”

  “Tyler,” Major said, “you really should consider renaming your whole enterprise. Reticle. It’s just not as memorable as say...Teticle.”

  Tyler sighed. “Good grief. I’m not going to live this down, am I?”

  “Not a chance,” Ellie laughed.

  “I’ve got to run, kids,” Major said. “Be good.” He picked up his pace and hurried back toward the bar.

  The live music at The Salty Mangrove grew louder as they drew nearer; the low pitched rhythm of the buleador, deep notes of the guitar, and the earthy, resonant timbre of the marimba together formed a distinct genre that had a magical ability to work its way into your muscles and relax them. “You want a drink?” Tyler asked.

  “Sure. A longneck is fine.” As she mindlessly scanned the crowds down the boardwalk and looked over the sea of tents, tables, and festival goers, she thought she saw someone she knew. Someone from her past. He wore a gray ball cap pulled down low over his eyes. She quickly shrugged it off as an overactive imagination. But then she paused on instinct.

  “Give me a minute. I’ll catch up to you in a little bit,” she told Tyler, and looked back 0ver the crowd.

  “Umm...okay. Everything good?”

  Her eyes were fixed over the sea of people. “Yeah. Yeah, it’s fine. Give me a few minutes. I’ll find you.” She walked off, her face set hard toward the point in the crowd where she had seen Virgil disappear.

  Chapter Nineteen

  He had intended for her to see him, to subtly catch her eye. Coincidences happened. What did not happen was one of the best spooks in the world randomly showing up in your small hometown on the busiest weekend of the year. As she brushed through the crowds, Ellie’s mind raced, trying to conceive why he would be here. During their six years as a team, no one had known each other’s real names. Toward the end, when she and Voltaire had begun a clandestine relationship, she had learned his—Brian Carter—but that was it. Virgil being here meant that he knew her and knew something that had led him to search her out and find her. She quickly negotiated baby strollers and loud groups of young men who had already consumed a little too much to drink. She passed The Salty Mangrove and walked toward the marina. The crowds thinned out as she drew closer to the marina. She passed the empty slips—most of the boats
were out on the water for the day—and approached the marina’s dry dock. She stepped inside, looked around, and walked past a row of steel racks and several boats. A thin metallic click carried across the building. It came from the back, from behind the farthest row of boats. The only door back there led to a storage room used to keep fishing equipment in the off season. Ellie walked down an aisle, passing a rack of skiffs and bowriders, her sneakers silently padding along the concrete floor.

  She opened the door and stepped inside the storage area with heightened senses. There he was. Standing at the end of the room, on her left, his back toward her, handling a fishing pole that he had pulled back from the wall. “Ellie. How are you?”

  It had been almost four years since TEAM 99 had been disbanded, but hearing Virgil’s strong voice—seeing him—brought back a flood of emotions, nostalgia the most prominent.

  Ellie didn’t answer him. Hearing him say her real name was unnatural. She had only ever heard him address her as Pascal. Virgil set the tip of the fishing rod back against the wall and turned around. He looked nearly the same: thick, muscular upper body, legs as stout as tree trunks. The spaces beneath his eyes had started to hollow, but his complexion was still as smooth as butter; he still had that plump baby face.

  Inquiry overruled a certain happiness she felt in seeing him again. She offered only a partial smile. “What are you doing here?”

  “Sorry to interrupt your fun. You look good.”

  Again, no reply.

  He came closer and looked at the door, making sure it was shut, and brought his eyes back to his old teammate. “I’m in some trouble.”

  “Okay...” Her tone was intentionally cautious.

  He let out a deep breath. “I think I’m being framed for something. I think...well, I think we all are.”