Shark River (23 page)

“No, man.
That
my brother. You let
him
go.”

It took a couple of seconds for his brain to process what she meant, then he laughed, amused. “This fella your brother? I let him go, all right. I’m gonna throw him down there with the sharks, let them decide dark meat or white meat.”

“No, you let him go now, damn you!”

“Don’t be swearin’ at me, sistren. You give me the ring, then I release this fella. As it say in the Book of Amos, ‘Are ye not as children of the Ethiopians unto Me, O Children of Israel saith the Lord.’ You do yourself righteous, my sistren. This your chance to please the living God of Abraham and Isaac, He Whose Name Should Not Be Spoken.”

“You know your verse, Clare. That much I give you.”

“Yes, I do. That from the Holy Piby. The one true Bible. Now give me the fuckin’ ring!”

Ransom was looking at me, looking into my eyes as Clare pushed me toward her. She stood there holding the ring high as bait, telling me something. I listened to her say, “My brother? You ready for what I’m gonna do?”

Clare said, “What you gonna do when? Give me that ring, that what you gonna do right now or I’m gonna rip your boyfriend’s head off. That exactly what I’m gonna do, my sistren.”

She was still looking into my eyes. “You want the ring, Clare? You want it real bad? Then you jump in there with the sharks and get it.” I watched as she tossed the ring in a high arc into the air; watched the ring spin and glitter down, then implode like a bullet slug on the surface of the water.

“You crazy girl! You one crazy bitch!” Clare had made a clumsy, last moment lunge to intercept the ring, but didn’t even get close. He’d taken his hands off me to do it, and I had to fight the urge to use the opportunity to spin away, jump down to the lower deck and escape to the marina. Leave Ransom there alone and run for my life.

I wanted to do it, but I couldn’t.

Instead, I stepped in behind Clare and hammered him in the small of the back with my right elbow. Drove the same elbow down on the side of his neck when he stumbled. Then tried my best to duck under his arms when he swung around to grab me.

I wasn’t quick enough, though and, once again, I was trying to battle my way out of the big man’s stranglehold. I could hear Ransom screaming at him to stop, as the world began to grow drab and gray once more. I knew I had to find a way to break that hold, or probably die, so I let my body go limp and my head fall forward, as if I’d passed out. When I felt Clare relax his grip, keyed by my sudden weight, I didn’t hesitate. I slammed my head backward and felt it strike a cartilaginous mass—his nose. Heard a phlegmy groan as I slammed my head into him once more. Then I dropped, turned, and drove the pad of my open palm into his chin.

Clare’s face was a mess; he was still stunned from the crushing blow to the nose. Even so, the shot to the chin didn’t drop him. When he stumbled backward, I caught him by the throat; slid my thumb and forefinger in and nearly behind the delicate laryngeal. As I pushed with my hand, I tripped his feet out from under him, then held his entire weight against the rail above the shark pen. His eyes were wide, probably from lack of oxygen, but terror, too. He knew what was down there.

I held him, my muscles creaking with the strain, pretending as if his three-hundred-plus pounds was an insignificant mass, no problem at all holding him with one hand. I wanted him to look into my face and believe that I held his life in my hands. Wanted him to feel the same demeaning realization that I’d felt, knowing that whether I lived or died was his decision to make.

I counted on his not knowing the truth about sharks—that it’s difficult to get them to eat even fish in captivity. That the only real danger of going into the water with them was the chance of being rammed if they panicked.

I held him there as he used both hands to try and pry my fingers free, squeezing, squeezing, and I said, “The way you’re bleeding, those sharks are going to be all over you, Clare.”

He could barely form words, his voice hoarse. “Don’t let me fall, man. I do anything you want. Don’t let me go there.”

“They missed your buddy. I doubt they’ll miss again.”

“Please, man. Please. I can’t even swim.”

I said, “Can’t swim? Good. Those sharks are bottom feeders,” and pushed him hard over the railing.

His falsetto scream was terrible to hear—but oddly gratifying, too. He hit the water with the grace of a boxcar and came up blowing water out his nose and still screaming.

Clare was wrong about not being able to swim. Apparently, he’d never been properly motivated before. I watched him doggy-slap his way to the buoyed netting and throw himself over into shallow water where Izzy was already wading to shore.

“We ain’t done with you yet, Ransom girl!” Clare was holding his face in obvious pain, his Rasta cap pouring water as he slogged across the muck bottom. “The Lion of Judah, He save me from the water demons, but He not gonna spare you!”

Ransom gave it right back to him. “You Jamaican trash—you come back to this island, the police gonna arrest you and put you
under
the jail!”

Which didn’t seem like a bad idea. I had not the slightest desire to test myself against Clare ever again. To Ransom, I said, “You go in, call the Sanibel Police. Just dial 911, tell them it’s for me. I’ll stay out here and make sure they don’t come back.”

Now Izzy was yelling threats as Ransom stepped closer to me and said, “Call the police . . . man, you think that’s a good idea?”

“Hell, yes, I think it’s a
great
idea. You want those two creeps following you? Maybe jump you when I’m not around?”

“Yeah, but the police, man. They listen to what Clare and Izzy have to say, then maybe they come askin’ about that ring. It down in the water, they
know
where that is. Or the seventeen thousand dollars. Then maybe they contact the Bahamian government, and I got to answer all kinds of more questions. Like how’d I get enough money to buy me one of them satellite dishes for my new TV, which I plan to buy soon as I get home. Or how’d I afford that fancy red sports car which I’m gonna buy, too. A car like that, on Cat Island where we only got a little piece of one paved road, it gonna be
seen.
Which means people gonna notice, man.”

“You and Tucker,” I said, disgusted. “Two of a kind.” I was watching Izzy and Clare hurrying into the mangroves now, looking back and still yelling at us, but giving it less and less, eager to get the hell away. Probably convinced we really were going to call the police.

I looked at my left arm. The bandage had been ripped away and I was bleeding again. “You go inside. Over the sink, there’s a little first-aid kit. You get that, and I’ll be right in.”

“Where you goin’?”

“Is that ring really worth something?”

She shrugged and made a noncommittal face. “Man, I just thought it somethin’ pretty ’til Clare tell me. But them Rasta people, they sit around at their reasonins, smokin’ their herb and talkin’ shit, I don’t think they know what’s real, what isn’t. Haile Selassie, he the king of all the Rastas, they think he God. So, yeah, it could be worth some money.” She looked from me to the water. “What about them big sharks, though?”

I said, “I’ll get the ring; you get the first-aid kit.”

 

 

Tomlinson was looking at the ring, holding it up to the light. I listened to him say, “What we might have here . . . what you need to understand first is, Rastafarianism has two important symbols. One’s the Rastafarian bible, the Holy Piby. The other’s the royal ring of Haile Selassie. Wait, make that three important symbols. There’s also the Rasta colors, black, red, and green, or red, black, and gold. It varies. The red stands for the church triumphant, which is the church of the Rastas. Black as in black Africans. Green represents the beauty and vegetation of Ethiopia. The gold, it might have something to do with this ring. I did a research paper on the sect, back when Rasta was just beginning to spread from Jamaica to the other islands. I spent a couple months down there. Love the people, man. The kids jumped right into Rasta because it was a way of saying screw you to the establishment, particularly the white establishment. And let’s face it, who can blame them?”

I have no politics, though I seldom share Tomlinson’s indulgent view of human behavior, but made no comment. I listened to him say, “The story behind the ring is, the Ethiopian Orthodox Church gave it to Selassie out of gratitude when he pledged loyalty to the church. This was back in the 1930s. Supposedly it belonged to King Solomon, who’d given it to the Queen of Sheba so that she, in turn, could give it to their son, Prince someone of Ethiopia. Menelik. That’s the name. Menelik was the first Ethiopian king in a dynasty that Rastas believe lasted for more than three thousand years. It ended in 1975 with Selassie’s death. Selassie wasn’t much of a leader—his people starved, lived in filth, and he didn’t much care. He liked to dress up in uniforms and get his picture taken with young girls. Didn’t matter. I don’t know why it is, but failed kings make the best gods, which is what happened. The Rastas think of him as the second Christ.”

“The Lion of Judah,” Ransom said. “That what they call him. The way they paste their hair and rub it out, it supposed to look like a lion’s mane. I grew up dealin’ with the Rastas, that how I know. But how you know so much about them, man? Down there writing your paper.”

I said, “When it comes to religion and illegal drugs, Tomlinson’s IQ jumps about fifty points.”

We were in the lab. My arm newly bandaged, I was sitting on the wooden roller chair by the Cabisco binocular scope. The marina’s black cat, Crunch & Des, was in his familiar spot on the stainless steel dissecting table by the window, tail thumping. Every now and again, the cat would lift his head, reconfirm our presence with yellow eyes, then flop his head down, immediately asleep again.

Ransom said, “You think that really is the famous ring?”

I didn’t. I’d already studied the ring under low magnification. I have no interest in nor appreciation for jewelry, but I don’t think it would have impressed me anyway. It was made of gold that was worn and smoothed from handling. Inset onto the face of the ring, in oynx, was the head of a lion, the design of which I associate with British royalty. The lion had two tiny diamonds for eyes.

Stamped into the bottom of the band was a jeweler’s hallmark: 18K. Inside the band at the top, just to the side of the setting, was the apparent place of manufacture: NEW YORK.

It wasn’t three thousand years old, that much was certain. Had never been worn by King Solomon or the Queen of Sheba. It also seemed very unlikely that an Ethiopian church would have given their new king a ring made in America.

“You never know, though,” Tomlinson said. “It’s possible. For instance, say one of the archbishops or an Abun—one of the church’s patriarchs—happened to be visiting New York and got the idea that a ring might ingratiate him with the new king. So he finds one with a lion’s head or maybe had it made. Waited around spending church money in the Big Apple then sailed back on the Queen Mary. I can see it happening.”

I said, “He plans to tell Selassie the ring’s a couple thousand years old, but lets the jeweler stamp New York on it? That’s a stretch.”

Tomlinson made an open-handed gesture—
Who knows?
—and handed the ring to me. It had some weight to it. He said, “I can make a few calls, do some research. The important thing is, it doesn’t matter what we think. The two Jamaicans think it’s the real ring. Maybe there’re others who think the same. Maybe hundreds of others, which makes it very dangerous, man. Screwing with people’s religious icons is a no-no.” To Ransom, he said, “The guy you stole it from, what was his name?”

“His name Sinclair Benton, but I never saw it as stealin’. That man call me names and treat me mean. Worse, though, he call Daddy Gatrell names. Probably made it hard for Daddy come see me sometimes. The way it happened was, I walkin’ past the house of that ol’ dead witch, and one of his boys grabbed me and tried to make me to do the jiggy thing. I let him get drunked up good on cane rum, got his clothes off him, and let him pass out thinkin’ happy times was comin’.

“That how I got the whole house to myself, but it spooky, man, ’cause of the feeling that old witch still around. I found me a box full of money and that ring laying on the desk, right out in the open. So I didn’t see it as stealin’. It more like a payment to me from the good Lord, cause that devil-man Benton, he so evil. Besides, how can you steal from a thief?”

“Do you think Benton had the kind of power or the connections to get his hands on something so valuable? The ring, I’m talking about.”

“Everyone through the islands know Sinclair Benton. Even the voodoo people in Haiti afraid of that man. And he rich. He charge people for the spells he cast. The more desperate a person be, the more he charge them. I know a woman in Arthur’s Town who give Sinclair her house to drive the demons outta her sick son.”

Tomlinson looked at me. “See, then it is possible. When Selassie died in 1975, the ring disappeared. Somehow it ended up in London a couple of years later, where, supposedly Selassie’s grandson, Crown Prince Asfa Wossen, gave it to Bob Marley as a present. When Marley died... that was around 1981, I think. Anyway, it disappeared again. Some say it was stolen, some believe it was handed down to the next Rasta prince. What I’m saying is, even if no one else wore it or owned it but Bob Marley, it would still be valuable... and dangerous.”

When I didn’t respond after a few seconds, Tomlinson said, “You’re not taking this seriously, are you?” Then to Ransom, he added, “Doc lives in his own little hermit world. Fish and test tubes and microscopes. I wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t even know who Bob Marley was.”

I knew. But I sat and listened to Tomlinson tell me the story anyway, tell me that Rastafarianism was never really popular in the islands until 1966, when His Imperial Majesty Haile Selassie visited Jamaica and converted Rita Anderson, who was Bob Marley’s wife. That day came to be called by the brotherens as “Groundation Day,” perhaps the most important day in Rasta history. Later, Anderson convinced Marley to convert to Rastafarianism and he and his reggae band, the Wailers, spread the teachings of Rastafarianism throughout the world with his music and lyrics. Everywhere, from Central America to Australia and the South Pacific, people listened. Not an insignificant number of the world’s population took the lyrics seriously and were converted to Marley’s religion. Selassie was the God, Bob Marley the psalmist and prophet.