Dead of Night (18 page)

He referred to it as his Death Dream—capital
Ds
, because of the dramatic way he said it. That’s all I needed to know.

“You’d go off on one of your talking jags. Rattle and prattle on and on about the hidden meaning. No thanks.”

“I don’t rattle, and I almost never prattle,” he said. “I take exception to that. It’s true that I’m prone to expound. But never rattle. If it wasn’t for the dream, I’d of never made that miserable decision to go into business with your sister.”

“I’m aware of that.”

“If I wasn’t sure I was going to die, I wouldn’t have fallen for her trap.”

“Ransom’s
trap,”

“You known damn well she conned me. Got me to agree to try and make lots and lots of money. Live like some fat-ass Daddy Warbucks, then blow it on crap that’s useless but establishes social status.”

“I’m aware you decided to change your lifestyle.”

I was expecting him to tell me, once again, that I appeared in the dream. I was the man who used what he described as “a staple gun-looking thing” to shoot him in the heart.

Another reason I didn’t want to hear details.

Tomlinson and I have a convoluted history that goes way, way back. Years ago, before we’d met, a government agency accumulated evidence that a group of underground activists had committed murder. Members of the group were declared a clear and present danger to national security. Agents were sent to track them down.

As Harrington put it, “Our team can do what others can’t.”

I’ve never admitted that I was the agent sent to hunt him, but Tomlinson has hinted that he knows.

It was no surprise I’d appeared in his death dream. He’d been making weird offerings ever since.

I turned toward the house. Swung open the door as he said, “I want to share the wealth, because I have the feeling it’s going to come true. I’m going to die within a few months.”

I looked at him, shaking my head. “No, you’re not.”

“You seem so sure.”

“I am.”

There was subtext in Tomlinson’s inflections. Mine, too.

“Guilt is a patient sword, man. It’s gotta happen.”

“Maybe. But not this year, not the next. Besides”—I paused to look at the board again—“I don’t think you’re guilty. I haven’t for a long time. When the time’s right, we’ll find out for sure.”

When he started to protest, I interrupted.
“Tomlinson?
Thanks for the surfboard.”

“Pretty cool, huh?”

“Yep. Very gnarly.”

“Doc?” I stared at him, hoping my pained expression would tell him I was done with it. “The only friend you don’t take good care of is yourself, and the only friend I think you’re capable of hurting. I want you to know I’m aware of that.”

“People can consider themselves as friends?” “Lots do. And you should.”

I remembered a blind carney telling me I’d one day take the life of a friend. Suicide? An unlikely new interpretation.

“Thanks. I think.”

The house phone began to ring. I let the door slam behind me, went inside, and checked caller ID.

It was Frieda Matthews on her cell phone.

 

 

I listened to Frieda say, “I’m still in Kissimmee, but Bob called a few minutes ago. Guess what a UPS truck just delivered to our house?”

Bob was her husband.

“Something from your brother?”

“His laptop computer. The one missing from his home. In the note, Jobe said to keep the computer until he asked for it back. That’s all. ‘Dear 6-6-4, please keep my computer.’ ”

I waited a couple of seconds. “No mention of why he sent it?”

“No. I had Bob open the laptop and take a look, but our seven-year-old son knows more about computers than my dear, nonconformist hubby. He even refuses to get cable TV”

I said, “There’s another reason why I like the guy.”

“Uh-huh. But he did find a folder on the desktop labeled Tropicane Sugar—slash—EPOC. As in Environmental Protection and Oversight Conservancy. Both names on the same folder.”

“Same organizations Jobe called the night he died.”

“Exactly. I walked Bob through how to use a mouse to double-click on an icon. There was only one document that he could open and read. It was a copy of a contract sent to Jobe as an Acrobat file. Tropicane and EPOC had hired him jointly to collect and test water samples over a two-year period in areas where Tropicane diverts water into the Everglades. If I remember right, diverting water to keep their fields dry is a common practice in the sugar industry.”

I said, “They all do it. Fields would be flooded half the year if they didn’t. But why would a big sugar company hook up with an environmental watchdog group to hire your brother? Organizations like those two, they’re usually at each other’s throats. Unless ... unless the sugar company
voluntarily
invited EPOC to participate. They’d only do that if they were confident test results would be favorable.”

Frieda said, “That’s what I was thinking. We both know the ecobusiness. Corporate America doesn’t invite independent oversight unless the news is sure to be good.

“Bob read me some of the contract details. Jobe was making decent cash. Basically, his job was to collect water from various areas, test it, then deliver the results independently to both organizations. Contractually, the data sheets were due every Monday morning.

“For better or worse,” she said, “each side wanted original data. No chance of doctoring the results, or trying to hide the truth between the lines. So, yeah, Tropicane had to be darn confident that the water they’re pumping into the ’Glades is clean.”

I was standing, phone to my ear, near my Celestron telescope, and the desk that holds my Transoceanic shortwave radio. As I listened to Frieda, I could also hear Tomlinson in the galley, rummaging through the refrigerator and cupboards.

I get nervous when the man’s alone in a kitchen. He once used mushrooms as garnish for a snapper he’d baked. I didn’t know the mushrooms were psychedelic until I’d eaten nearly half the damn things. They were psilocybin “ ’shrooms,” as they are known, personally handpicked by him in some Central Florida cattle pasture. We happened to be down on the Florida Keys at the time. My memory still generates brief, strobing colors when I hear someone say, “Key Largo.”

I interrupted Frieda, saying, “Excuse me a second, okay?” then covered the phone with my palm before calling to Tomlinson, “It’s too early if you’re making lunch. Unless I’m in there watching.”

Slighted, Tomlinson called back, “Relax, Admiral Paranoia. What I’m
trying
to do is find some olives for my
martini.
I have one of those big beakers from the lab filled with Stoli and ice, but I need olives, man. That would seem totally, like,
normal
to most folks. But you have a way of making whatever I’m doing sound
peculiar.”

I told him that a fresh jar of olives was in the food locker next to the fridge, then returned my attention to the lady. “How long had your brother been under contract?”

“Nearly eighteen months. He was almost done. Only six months left.”

“What day did he send the laptop?”

“The UPS slip said Saturday.”

The day before he died.

“Then his weekly report was due yesterday, so the report’s probably still on the laptop. A portion of it, anyway. That might tell us something.”

Frieda was ahead of me. “I know, I know, I had Bob open files related to the project. But he couldn’t read them because there was nothing to read. No words, anyway. Only numbers. Every document. Like the computer drawings we found upstairs in my brother’s house? Instead of the water symbol, page after page of numbers.”

“Numbers?”

“Jobe could remember numbers. Words gave him trouble.”

I thought about that for a moment, hearing the sound of ice cubes rattling in glass. “Did your husband notice if any of the numbers were larger than twenty-six? Or mention punctuation marks?”

“Twenty-six ... ?
Oh,
you’re thinking it’s some kind of code. Twenty-six numbers, twenty-six letters in the alphabet. Talk about feeling dumb. I didn’t ask.”

We discussed other explanations. Frieda told me she’d e-mail the Tropicane-EPOC folder to me once she got her hands on the laptop, which would be soon. Her husband and son were arriving in Kissimmee tomorrow, Wednesday, for the funeral, which was to be Thursday morning.

“It’s going to be a small service, Doc. Jobe didn’t have friends. But do yourself a favor, do us a favor. Stay home. Get some work done. You’ve invested enough time and emotion. I completely understand.”

Inwardly relieved, I told the lady I’d use the time to do some research on the Florida sugar industry for both of us. Refresh my memory on a few things.

I said, “You’re going to want to check into the kind of work your brother was doing, who he was working with.”

Her voice steely, Frieda said, “Oh, you can bet that I will.”

The two of us sitting beneath the helicopter shadows of the ceiling fan, Tomlinson confided, “You’re right. I had the dream. I’d smoked a couple of blimpies around the fire after surfing. It was the same in every detail but for one. This time, I didn’t die.”

I said, “See? I told you. It’s all a bunch of baloney.” I was sitting on a lab stool watching the little bull sharks, pleased by their attack displays as they began to feed on the tiny, fast baitfish I’d put into the tank. Backs arched, dorsal fins down, the sharks were doing approach elliptics, then attacking.

The deformed sharks weren’t as successful.

“This time when you shot me, it didn’t hurt. Before, it always hurt like hell, even dreaming it—”

I stopped him with a warning look. I didn’t want to hear it. “Then be happy. Believe it.”

He was stressed, hyper, but starting to relax—he’d filled another 100-milliliter flask with vodka, and it was down by half. He crunched ice, used his fingers to snare olives as he replied, “Six months ago, sure, I would have been happy. I was convinced I was a goner. Which is the only reason I let that ballbreaker you call a sister turn me into the televangelist of meditation.”

“Trapped you.”

“Damn right she did.”

“It’s
her
fault that you’re now getting rich by teaching nonmaterialism to the masses.”

“Exactly. The American way. But
only
because I believed the dream. Now, as far as karma’s concerned, I think I have seriously screwed the pooch.”

I said, “I don’t get it.”

He was shaking his head. I’d missed something that should have been obvious.

He stood and began to pace in small, distracted circles. “All the cash Ransom’s been laying on me lately! I woulda never bought the new dinghy, my Harley, the stereo system. Your
surfboard.
All my new clothes—Jesus, I just ordered two new silk suits. Plus my VW van, the Electric Kool-Aid Love Machine.

“I wouldn’t have any of that stuff if I’d known the dream was bogus. Cling to earthly material possessions? No way. I’m more than just a Buddhist monk, for God’s sake. I’m a fucking
boat bum.
It’s against everything I stand for.”

I was smiling. “Then get rid of it all. Go back to being who you really are. Ransom’ll understand, and everyone at the marina will be a lot happier. We’ve been worried. We like the old Tomlinson better.”

“Ransom won’t understand. Are you kidding—tell her I quit?” He whacked himself on the forehead. “The woman’s a
witch,
I tell you. She’s cast a spell. I’ve thought and thought and there’s no way out.”

 

 

Ransom is my only living relative, as far as I know, and I love the lady. She’s a lanky, busty, mulatto brown dynamo who wears Obeah beads braided into her hair, and sacrifices chickens, sometimes pigeons, on the full moon.

She’s the closest thing Sanibel has to a voodoo priestess. Casting a spell is something she could do.

Her father was my late uncle Tucker Gatrell. She inherited his tunnel-visioned genetics, minus the craftiness he passed off as finesse.

I would trust her with my life. I hope she feels as confident in me.

Nearly a year before, we’d been sitting on Ransom’s porch when Tomlinson tried to explain why he’d been in a funky mood. He didn’t mention the dream, not then. He said he knew his days were numbered—“I continue to inhabit this body for strictly sentimental reasons”—and now felt obligated to explore new experiences. So far, though, he wasn’t wild about the options. Maybe we could help.

“I’ve had this awakening,” he told us. “Heaven is
happening.
They drink rum there. Even play baseball—which is the good news. The bad news is, God has me scheduled to pitch on Sunday. Or a few months down the road. So I’m in a rush. As a spiritual warrior, I’m duty bound to touch all the experiential bases before I die, like it or not.”

He didn’t sound as if he liked it.

Problem was, he said, not many untouched bases remained.

“I’ve tried damn near everything there is to eat, drink, snort, shoot, seek, try, or experience, with the exception of bestiality, homosexuality, and living as a right-wing conservative dweeb.” He shuddered. “What an ugly trifecta. I don’t think I’m capable of taking a shot at any one of the three. My brain and my gag reflex, both have locked the gates to those particular streets ...”

He drifted away in thought before finishing, “Bestiality, homosexuality, and dweebsville. If that’s all that’s left, and I
have
to choose ...” He shuddered again. “Can you imagine me being gay? With my sex drive?”