The Heat Islands: A Doc Ford Novel (22 page)

"Christ, they're attacking!" Dewey had collapsed on the deck when the fish jumped; Walda stood frozen, both of them staring wide-eyed at the expanding circle of water where the fish had hit. "I could have ... touched it!"

Ford was shaken but laughing. "We ought to get some baits out before they attack again." He reached down to take rods out of the holders.

But Walda said. "Ford, you crazy man. I'm not going to try and catch one of those." She was measuring the arc of the fish with her eyes; gauging how close it had come to her head: inches. "These fish, they're
too
big."

Dewey said. "Hell no, not me, either. Hey—do they bite?"

"Huh?"

"Do they bite? People, I mean."

"No. Never. Tarpon don't even have teeth. Not the kind of teeth you mean."

"Could we get in and swim around with them? Can you do that?"

"Sure. That might be more fun."

"I don't know..." Walda was looking at the water, thinking it over.

"I've got a pair of swim goggles and a mask in the storage box somewhere. We'll have to trade off."

"What about sharks? Are there sharks around here?"

"Sure. But you're safer swimming with sharks than driving on any highway in Florida."

"That's not saying much."

Ford had found the goggles and the mask, and was already unbuttoning his shirt. "Still want to try it?" Dewey took the mask. "Me first." She spit into the mask expertly and slid over the side in her clothes. A few seconds later, she surfaced, pulled the mask up onto her forehead, and whispered, "It's great; you gotta see! They're all around me!
Everywhere."
Then she made another dive.

Ford held out the goggles to Walda, who was giving him a wry look. "Thank you," she said. Hers was a good face to look into: handsome, with dark eyes that studied him; eyes that had seen a lot.

"Ladies first."

"I don't mean that. I mean her. She needed cheering up."

"Oh. About tennis? Maybe someone should tell her that she doesn't want to play anymore. You, for instance. You could tell her that."

Walda was unbuttoning her blouse. She took it off, folded it neatly, then stood looking at Ford, wearing only a white stretch bra and shorts. She took the goggles and adjusted them on her head. "It wasn't about tennis," she said. "It was about us."

Ford wondered.
Us?

Walda sat on the gunwale and pushed off into the water.

Walda was in the shower, soaping herself, talking through the shower doors to Dewey. "The most amazing thing I've ever seen. Like Jacques Cousteau. We should have had a camera. You know that? People won't believe us. We really should have."

Dewey had finished her shower, and she stood in front of her bedroom mirror, wrapped in a towel, combing the tangles out of her wet hair. "Yeah, that woulda been neat. Film of it. They were so big! It was like—I don't know what it was like. Like swimming with a bunch of bears."

"No—dolphins!"

"Yeah, dolphins!"

"I touched one."

"A dolphin?"

"No, a tarpon, you mullock."

"You told me about a dozen times already. I could have touched one, but I didn't want to scare them again." Walda shut off the water, slid the shower door open, and stood in the tub drying herself, looking out through the doorway at Dewey. "That Doc, he's a nice man."

"Sure. Everybody likes Doc."

"I don't think you could have picked a better guy."

"I didn't pick him, he just sort of showed up. It's not like he won a contest."

"Well, he did, didn't he?"

"Do you have to keep talking about it?"

"I was just saying that I like him."

"A little dull sometimes, but he's easy to be with."

"Doesn't seem like the marrying kind."

"That's fine with me, because I'm not going to marry anybody."

"You say that now."

"You're damn right I say that now."

"And he's not bad-looking."

"Hoo, he looks like a big old water dog who came back to earth as a man."

"Overall, I mean."

Dewey stopped combing her hair long enough to say, "I guess you'd know more about that than I would."

Walda had stepped out of the tub, into the bedroom.

She started to reply but then decided against it. Instead, she said, "At least he's not some overgrown kid. A lot of men are. Almost all of them under thirty, yes? Doc's solid. And he's not pushy. I like being with him."

Dewey said, "That's because you are pushy."

"No I am not."

"Yes you are."

"Am not."

"Are!"

"Am not."

"Bullshit."

"Who shit?" Walda was standing beside Dewey now, and they were both smiling, doing this old routine.

"Says who?"

"Sez me."

"Hah—bitch!"

"Slut!"

"Tramp!"

"Vamp!"

"Whore."

"American ... cow."

Dewey hooted. "American cow? Now you've gone and done it. Hurt my feelings." She used her comb to flip water at Walda, who caught her by the wrists, both of them laughing. They wrestled around the bedroom, swinging each other hard. Walda lost her towel, so she ripped Dewey's off and flung it toward the bathroom.

"Tart!"

"Romanian pig herder!"

They ended up falling on the bed, face to face, laughing uproariously at their old game, but then they weren't laughing, their eyes wide and noses close, staring at each other.

Walda asked softly, "Are you go to see him tonight?" A little more laughter escaped from Dewey. "Pushy bitch."

Walda was touching the hair on Dewey's temples. "Nothing wrong with asking, is there?"

"If that was all you did."

Walda said, "We've already talked about that." Dewey put her hand on top of Walda's and squeezed. "Then I guess I'll stop and see Doc. If it's what you want."

"You owe it to yourself."

Dewey moved her hand, looking hard at Walda. "But not tonight."

Ford worked in his lab Wednesday night without interruption. He played Gregorian chants on the stereo, then Jimmy Buffett when he was in the mood. Using the microscope, he separated fish eggs from raw sea wrack, and he drank three bottles of beer. He roamed around his lab barefoot and shirt-less, burping without apology and talking to the little squid listening from the fish tank outside on the porch. A couple of times, he caught himself thinking of the way Walda looked in her see-through bra, and had to force his attention back to grids and percentages.

"It's not that I don't like women," he told the squid. "It's just that I find biology less complicated."

Ha!

Laughing at his own mild joke. Enjoying this time alone after so much time spent with people.

Tomlinson and Harry didn't return that night, nor was Ford's blue pickup truck in the marina parking lot the next morning when Ford awoke. Standing on his porch and looking at the parking lot, Ford felt a stab of worry. The worry nagged at him all through coffee and the hour he spent getting the nets of his trawl boat ready for the day's work.

Since he had no way of knowing how to get in touch with Tomlinson, he dialed Dewey's number. When Dewey answered, Ford asked. "I don't suppose you've seen my pickup driving around your way?"

"Now you've lost your truck? Ford, if your head wasn't screwed on..."

"Tomlinson has it. Thought he might be out cruising Captiva."

"If you need a car, you can use my Vett. We've got Bets's rental."

Dewey had a candy apple red Corvette, sleek as a spaceship and with elaborate anti-theft sensors that ordered
"Back away from this vehicle—you are too close"
when a stranger approached the car.

"Nope. I'm in the boat today. Did you have fun yesterday?"

"Oh man, you know it. Hey, Bets—it's Doc."

Ford could hear Walda talking in the background, but Dewey covered the phone. Dewey said. "Yeah, yeah, I will." Then into the phone, she said, "You going to be around tonight?"

Ford said, "Sure. You two stopping by?"

"I might. Bets has to get ready to leave for London on Sunday."

"It takes her two days to pack?"

"Naw, but she has to do her stretches, and her meditations. Time-alone stuff. She's got Wimbledon tune-ups."

"I thought you might be leaving with her." Ford had assumed it. but was surprised to hear himself come right out and ask.

"To play? Hell, no."

"Not to play. Just to watch Walda."

"Ah, I don't know. She's got an extra ticket, but there's so much terrorist stuff going on."

Ford thought,
Walda just happens to have an extra ticket, right.
He said. "Did you remember about your windows and doors? Keep them locked."

"Oh boy, that speech again."

"And when you get in your car—"

"When you get in your car, always check the backseat. Which my car doesn't have. Yes. sir."

"As of yesterday, the pressure on Karl Sutter was turned up about threefold, and there's no telling what the guy might do. I don't trust him."

"Which you've told me about a dozen times."

Except for his own illegalities and his information sources. Ford had kept Dewey apprised of his interest in Jeth Nicholes's arrest, Karl Sutter's behavior and Marvin Rios's murder—information, he hoped, that had been passed on to Walda.

"Sutter associates you with me. And he hates me. I just want you on your toes, that's all."

"Well, if the creep's a killer, the cops ought to arrest him and be done with it."

"I don't know if he's a killer or not. I truly don't. But he's a liar and he's on the run from something, and that makes him dangerous. Just humor me, okay?"

"Check all doors and windows. Inspect car before entering. Do not leave house alone." Talking as mechanically as a robot, she was making fun of Ford, and it bothered him that she didn't take him seriously.

"You're coming by tonight."

"I might. Probably, yeah."

"Don't forget—"

He began to warn her again, but Dewey said. "I know, I know, I know."

The later it got, the more Ford worried about Tomlinson. He even cut his trawling time short so he could spend more time at his lab, near the phone.

All day long, though, the phone rang only three times, twice from school purchasing agents who placed orders. The third call came from Elizabeth Harper, the public defender who had been assigned Jeth's case.

After pleasantries, Harper said, "I heard through the grapevine that you came up with enough evidence to get Mr. Nicholes released. My client and I appreciate it." Ford was pleased to hear from her—if for no other reason than to chide her for not trusting him. He said, "And I'm not going to charge the state a cent."

"I guess I deserve that. But I want you to understand. Legally, I just couldn't tell you what you wanted to know. Sorry."

"Call me naive. I thought compromise was the only compelling ethic of legal life."

"So now you've wounded me twice. Feel better?"

"Nope. Feel silly for doing it. You don't deserve it." She was laughing. "Which is not fair, getting all nice and apologetic just when I was working up a good head of indignation."

"My apologies again."

"See! What I think. Dr. Ford, is that you saved me a lot of work, and that I owe you a lunch. Or a drink."

"A drink. I don't eat lunch. When's Jeth get out?"

"I've just received a copy of the formal release papers. By the time they get to everyone who needs to initial them, probably tomorrow afternoon."

"I'll come in and pick him up."

"No. the police will take Mr. Nicholes anywhere he wishes—and be damn glad to do it. That long drive to Sanibel won't hurt them a bit. Come to think of it, it wouldn't hurt me, either. You were right—I don't know a thing about boats or water, and I should learn at least a little bit if I'm going to work in this area."

Thrown out like self-criticism. Ford knew Ms. Harper was hinting for an invitation to go boating—an invitation he would have certainly offered had he not been so preoccupied with Tomlinson.

"I'll call you about that drink, Ms. Harper."

"Liz. Or call me Elizabeth. Then maybe you can tell me why Mr. Nicholes was so concerned with the time lag between conviction and execution. Do you know?"

Ford said, "When we meet for that drink."

On the barrier islands, in summer, dusk is not just a sterile measure of time. Dusk is a ritual, a cool liturgy of shifting mood and movement. Dusk is a turquoise wedge between the heat of the day and the heat of the night; the breathing void that connects what islanders must do with what islanders want to do. Off go the business suits or panty hose, on go the shorts, the thongs and party dresses, the bird-watching binoculars or pink Hawaiian shirts. On Periwinkle Way, Sanibel's main road, dusk replaces one kind of slow traffic with an even slower, less obsessive line of automobiles—though still bumper to bumper. On Captiva Island, at tourist haunts like The Mucky Duck and the Bubble Room, diners gather over drinks to applaud the sunset, while at local hangouts like Will's Landing and Lazy Flamingo, tables begin to fill with part-time real estate agents—which is to say nearly everyone who works or lives on the islands. The bars call it Happy Hour or Attitude Adjustment, but it is really a little vacation in the day; a time when store clerks and hotel employees and city bureaucrats can tell stories over margaritas or Coronas, get a little drunk, and perhaps even find unexpected romance among their fellows.

Dusk on the islands is a soft time of gathering. Sea wind collects in the high palms, and the palm fronds rattle.

Jasmine flowers sense the temperature change, and bloom. Nightfall pivots on the final, orange axis of sunset, and, all up and down the islands, electric lights go on. To people on boats in Pine Island Sound, the pockets of light mark the night strongholds of human occupation in the mangrove darkness. To a man or a woman out alone on a boat, the little islands of light are a friendly thing to see.

Standing on the porch of his stilt house. Marion Ford watched the marina lights click on and, shortly afterward, noted that a few miles away, people were playing softball at Sanibel Elementary School—he could see the glow of the outfield lights above the mangroves. The mercury glow created a stadium effect in the darkness, reminding Ford of baseball, a sport that he admired. And baseball reminded him of Tomlinson because Tomlinson was such a fan.

Tomlinson's sailboat was dark, unoccupied. Ford's blue pickup truck was still missing from the marina parking lot.

To the squid hidden behind soft corals in the fish tank. Ford said, "You'd at least think that damned old hippie would have the good manners to call." Talking as if he was angry because he was worried.

This would be Tomlinson's second night away from the marina.

Ford stood watching the ball-field lights, mosquitoes buzzing around his cars, until a woman's voice hailed him from the wood-rotted Chris-Craft cruiser tied alongside the newer fiberglass boats at the marina. "Hey, Doc. we're in the mood to talk to a man over here! Could you use a free beer?" Rhonda Lister and JoAnn Smallwood sat on deck chairs, looking at him from the stem of their boat: two meaty, independent young women with big smiles that gauged the breadth of their own enthusiasms. Ford had kept them both at arm's length because he didn't want to get involved with a neighbor, plus he had high hopes for Dewey. But now he thought.
What the hell,
and called back. "I'll put on a shirt and be right over...."

... Miles away, but at the same moment, Jeth Nicholes stood at the window of his cell, watching darkness absorb the last golden contrail of sunset. He watched closely, hoping to see the green flash once more, but not really expecting it.

The sun slid into a veil of smog, vaporized, and was gone.

No flash. No green flare. Nothing.

Nicholes turned from the window to find one of the guards looking through the bars at him. The guard was smiling. "Last night with us. Captain Nicholes. Sure hope being jailed wasn't too hard on you."

Nicholes stepped over and took the guard's outstretched hand, shaking it. "No, you boys treated me real fine. I hope we can stay in touch. Maybe get out and beat the bushes some time."

"Wasn't a man among us. Captain Nicholes, thought even once you was really a murderer. At least unless the guy damn well deserved it. But the cops is human; they make mistakes sometimes. I'm just glad things got straightened out. After tonight, you should be able to rest easy, huh?"

Nicholes had become so accustomed to touching his head with his hands, feeling, spreading the hair and searching for tender spots, that he didn't even realize what he was doing. "I hope so," he said to the guard. "But you damn sure never know...."

... At the plush canal home of the late Marvin Rios, Karl Sutter was lighting Candy Rios's cigarette, the two of them sitting at the patio table by the screened pool. Sutter shoved the lighter into his pocket and said, "Christ, let's get some lights on. It's like a damn tomb out here."

Candy reached through the open doors into the kitchen and the pool was illuminated. The pool lights keyed a memory electrode in Sutter: the brief mental picture of those two tennis women swimming naked; Dewey Nye and the dark-haired one, their bodies so hard and full that it made his breath catch.

Candy Rios touched his arm, concerned. "Are you okay, darling? You look a little pale."

Sutter took a deep breath and squeezed the woman's hand. "Just that I have a lot on my mind. And can't stop thinking of you. How good we are together."

"Boy oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy, it's so true, Karl. I can hardly believe it myself, but that's just the way I feel."

"We're going to get married."

"You keep saying it."

" 'Cause that's what we're going to do. No more arguing.

"But I really think we should wait for at least a year, just so people won't talk."

Sutter was rubbing Candy's neck, letting his big hands slide down over her breasts, feeling her shiver beneath his fingers. "I don't care what people think. At least we can live as if we're married. You sign your power of attorney over to me. Legally, then, we've done everything but said 'I do,' and I can take care of business at the marina. I can straighten out that mess Marvin got you into with Senator Griffin, too. Sign the papers, and I will help buy you out of a very shady deal. The senator and I are buddies. He'll negotiate."

Candy took the power-of-attorney instrument and read it again. She inhaled deeply from her cigarette, balanced it on the ashtray, then took up the pen. "Tell me the truth, Karl. Was Marv a crook? He was, wasn't he? That's what this is about. Marv was a crook and Senator Griffin caught him; now you're trying to get me out of it and protect me. That's why I have to sign this paper."

Sutter shrugged, trying not to look at the woman's face.

God. she's even uglier than Greta. If I have to see her naked one more time. I may vomit.

He said. "I hate to say anything bad about a man that's dead. Marvin, I mean."

"But he was a crook. I always knew. Christ, this damn pen!"

Sutter was thinking.
If the cops take even the slightest interest. I cash in this hitch's account and I'm gone. New name, new place.
He said, "Let's just put it this way: signing that paper is the smartest thing you can do...

... Across the bay, in the middle-class residential area of Iona Cove, Javier Castillo stepped out onto the back
porch
of his three-bedroom rental and sipped the hot demitasse his wife had served him. He had worked hard all day, fishing two different parties, and each party had caught tarpon, so he should have been happy, but he was not. He stood on the stoop, watching the sunset, feeling the dusk take him. The dusk carried his mind far, far away.

Javier thought about Cuba, and the way it smelled at dusk: the jasmine flowers and the frangipani, and the old men sitting beneath streetlights, smoking cigars over a last game of dominoes.

I will never know those things again,
he thought.
Nor will my children. I have taken them from their homeland, and they will never know the way it was.

Javier felt bad. He felt sick in the soul and lonely. In some way, he believed, he had hurt his friend Jeth, and he had harmed his family by spiriting them away from their native island.

Everyone I touch.
Javier thought.
I hurt.

Javier was so intent, staring at the last yellow streak of daylight, that he didn't hear Ellfreda, his wife, step out onto the
porch
behind him. He jumped when she touched his shoulder, causing her to smile. "When you think of younger women." she chided, "your ears go deaf."

"I am not thinking of women." Javier replied, his tone no-nonsense and curt. "I am thinking of important things."

Ellfreda sensed the unhappiness in her husband, and stroked his arm. "You are an important man. It is your place to think about important things."

"Important! That makes me laugh. Have you confused me with an American? Should I remind you? I am an illegal immigrant. A wetback. A wetback who has made wetbacks of his whole family."

Ellfreda said gently, "So that is it."

Javier said, "Yes. That is it."

Ellfreda let her hand rest on her husband's shoulder and sat beside him on the
porch,
saying nothing. She waited as Javier sipped his coffee and watched the pearly afterglow. Finally, he said, "I'm tired of being afraid."

"I know," Ellfreda said.

"I'm tired of being afraid of a knock on the door. Of men in uniform. We came to this country to get away from fear! So why am I still afraid?"

Ellfreda continued patting Javier's shoulder.

"I'll tell you why—because I would not help murder the gringo captain and his crew. Had we murdered them, we could have come right into Key West. The authorities would have welcomed us. We would have been citizens by now! But because I did a foolish thing and saved American lives, I have made criminals of my entire family."

"It was not a foolish thing you did that night on the boat," Ellfreda said gently. "It was a brave thing. A very brave thing."

"But look where it has gotten us. Freda, my little dear one—don't you see this thing? I cannot even go to the jail to help my friend Jeth. Jeth is in jail, but he is not the only prisoner."

Ellfreda heard herself saying very softly, "Then you must do something about this."

Javier did not answer for a long time, but then he said,

"Yes. I must."

"What would you do?"

"I would do what the father of good children should do.

I will go to the government and tell them the exact truth. I will go after my morning charter and leave nothing out. Tomorrow. At the government building in Fort Myers. They can do what they wish to me, but I will no longer allow my family to live a lie."

Ellfreda stood, saying, "It is the decision only a truly brave man would make." She kissed her husband on the forehead, then went alone into the house to ready the supper.

... Harry Rinmon could see sunset residue beyond the bathroom window of the cottage she and Tomlinson had rented for the night. The orange afterglow spread like oily paint upon the water, absorbing light from thickets of bamboo and oak.

They were in Gibsonton, sixteen miles south of Tampa, staying in a place called the Big Top Motor Court and Restaurant, a series of peeling white cabins on the Alafia River abutting a steam table cafe.

For decades, Gibsonton had been a wintering place for what were known generally, though unfairly, as circus freaks.
Exhibitors
was the more correct term—and locally preferred. The Gibsonton post office had a special drop box built low for midgets, and at local dances, it was not unusual to see the bearded lady dancing with the Alligator Skin Man.

Weddings in Gibsonton were among the best attended and most interesting in Florida.

During the fifties, in Gibsonton's heyday, a circus giant and his wife, known professionally as the Monkey-Faced Lady, purchased land on the Alafia River and built the cottages, which they rented to friends and travelers. The business flourished not only because Americans had fallen in love with automobile travel (though they had) and not just because Florida was beginning its long, suicidal building boom (though it was). The business prospered because the giant and the Monkey-Faced Lady were an intelligent, popular couple and, after so many years on the road working as "freaks," they put their hearts and souls into their new lives in this new place where, for once, they were accepted for the good people they were.

The giant loved to cook, so a restaurant was soon added to the cottage rentals. His specialty was biscuits and milk gravy—which he made every morning of his life right up until the day he died. His wife carried on for a few more years, but then she, too, faltered and the motor court passed into the hands of an investment conglomerate, which planned to replace the motor court with high-rise singles apartments as soon as the demographics warranted.

The demographics would soon warrant.

Neither Tomlinson nor Harry knew any of this; indeed, the knowledge of the motor court's antecedents was all but lost. Florida's history is a chaotic thing built upon thin layers of human endeavor that are covered or quickly absorbed by more thin layers, then forgotten entirely. Because Florida has always appealed to the provisional and the transitory, what has gone before and what inevitably must come have never been of much interest. Which explains many of Florida's ills, and is also why Florida has always been the nation's tackiest, glitziest state.

Tomlinson and Harry chose the Big Top Motor Court over numerous more modem motels for a couple of reasons. One was that the Art Deco-style motor courts of the fifties were now so rare, the Big Top appealed to Harry's bohemian spirit. Another was that in slowing to look past the bamboo thicket, down the shell drive, Tomlinson received a sensory jolt: the strong impression that this tiny spot had once been a place of great happiness. The final reason was that there was a drugstore nearby, so Harry had said. "You like it?"

"Good vibes." Tomlinson had replied, looking.

"Then it's unanimous." And Harry had pulled in and booked a room.

They were both tired. In two fast days, they had put more than seven hundred miles on the odometer of Ford's old truck. They had been from Sanibel to Mayakkatee County, down dirt roads, along the pretty river, to the county courthouse, then clear north to Tallahassee, poring over newspaper accounts and through public records, assembling data on the proposed development, Mayakkatee River Estates. Tomlinson was certain they had developed precisely the kind of information Ford had requested, and he and Harry both felt good about that. Maybe it would help get Jeth out of jail. And it would certainly help expose a corrupt senator—Robert Griffin.