The Heat Islands: A Doc Ford Novel (3 page)

From the boardwalk, the voice said. "No excuses, you coward. Get out here or I'll come in and drag your ass out."

Ford put down his magazine, went inside to get his shoes, and looked up when the screen door creaked open. Dewey Nye. all five feet ten inches of her, probably 140 pounds, stood with a humorous expression of mock challenge on her face, blond hair pulled back in a loosely braided rope and wreathed with a blue sun visor above gray-blue eyes, saying, "Shit, you're not even ready yet. I told you two p.m." Looking at the stereo, she let the screen door slam behind her. "What kind of music is that? Rich widow bait? Whew, like Lawrence Welk." She lifted the phonograph arm as if touching a soiled diaper, and mimicked Ford's wince. "Your fish are out there trying to fight off sleep; I'm getting dozy myself. This is a personal favor I'm doing here." She found a contemporary rock station, all synthesizers and tribal howls, and turned it up a half dozen notches, yelling, "Buy a calendar. Ford. They've got a thing now called rock 'n' roll. Which they play on CDs. not phonographs. This is your personal invitation into the current decade."

Ford reached over and turned down the noise. "Nice to see you. too, Dewey."

She said. "You big sweetie." mussing his hair, then straightening his glasses for him before stepping back. "About ready?"

"Tomlinson says Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young produced some of the most articulate rock and roll of our time."

She tapped her watch, hurrying him. "I've heard. I've heard; Tomlinson the old hippie. Like 'American Bandstand'; Dick Clark. The Fab Four. Back when 'Saturday Night Live' was funny. The good old days. Get your ass in gear."

Dewey Nye had one of those California beach faces, but without the vacuous leer; all cheekbones and chin with deep-set eyes that missed nothing; a face formed by generations of European farm stock sailing among the New World's gene pool. But Ford liked her face not for what it said about her forebears but for what it said about her: the crooked nose, broken in a field hockey game; the stubborn. jutting jaw; the tiny scar at the corner of her right eye—maybe she'd been hit by a swing when she was a kid. Or, more likely, someone's fist. She had a good smile and a catalog of gawky expressions and a vocabulary more commonly associated with sailors than with one of the country's best tennis players—which she happened to be.

Ford said, "What I don't understand is why we have to run when it's so hot. Why at two p.m.?"

"You're not going to whine your way out of this. Doc."

"I've never whined in my life."

"So now I've got two things on my shopping list: a calendar and something to record your whining with. Because I like the heat. Why else? I like to sweat. Hurry up." Ford was tying his Etonic running shoes, looking up at her: all legs and muscle cordage beneath Day-Glo orange running shorts. The shorts were pulled over a silver latex body stocking stretched taut from lean waist to shoulders. It emphasized the anatomy, streamlining all the soft curves and heavy swell of breasts; a high-tech look, as if she had been created in a wind tunnel. Ford said, "If you run in that, cars will be going off the road. Guys will be hooting and honking."

"No one's going to bother me with you along."

"It's nice you have confidence—''

"I mean with that belly, you look like a pro wrestler." She was braced against the wall, stretching her calves. "Who's going to mess with a guy who has Hulk-a-mania?" Ford said, "Belly? Where?" He was looking down at his own chest, seeing a navy-blue T-shirt that had gone gray from years of washing. Small gold letters above the breast read b.u.d.s./s.e.a.l.s.

Dewey said, "The belly of the future. I'm looking at what happens when a guy your age doesn't work out." Ford said,
"That
belly," walking past her out the door, snapping the elastic of her shorts. "Four miles?"

"Four-point-eight. But you need to stretch first. I'm not slowing down if you pull a hamstring."

Ford said, "Then maybe I should track down my cane."

They ran among the mangroves along the marina's shell road to the interseetion of Tarpon Bay and SanCap Road, then turned west onto the bike path, picking up the pace in the sunlight and the heat.

Dewey said. "Let your arms relax. Relax your shoulders a little. My God, you run like a weight lifter."

Ford said, "You're telling me how to run now. too?" She said. "I'm starting to sound bossy, aren't I? Jeez. I hate bossy people. Don't let me boss you. Doc."

Ford said wryly, "I'll try my darnedest."

She said. "Let your hands relax. You look like you're going to punch somebody."

Ford said, "There's an idea."

From long habit. Ford ran four or five times a week, usually a total of about twenty miles, but seldom fast. He liked running at dusk, when it was cool and the island's animals were foraging, or late at night, especially in August during the Perseid meteor showers. But now, after only half a mile of trying to keep up with Dewey, his lungs burned, his thigh muscles itched from oxygen debt, and his whole body poured sweat in a frantic effort to cool itself.

Without looking at her, he said. "Let's slow down. I'll never make it at this pace."

"Sure you will. Push yourself. Whatever happened to male pride?"

"Male pride was invented by women. Slow down, goddamn it." His wire-rimmed glasses were a blur of sweat; the bike path, a dark vacuum before him.

"Another half mile at this pace, then we'll slow down."

"No."

"Don't pout. Talk to me. It'll take your mind off it. What did you do after I saw you this morning?"

Talking in spurts as he exhaled. Ford said. "Some of the guides found a body. The guy who owned Two Parrot Bight Marina. I stayed with the body until the Coast Guard picked it up. That's what I did. Out in the bay."

"A dead body."

"Yeah."

"Yuck."

"Exactly. Yuck."

"Did you know—hey, wait a minute!" The woman stopped running for a moment, looking at Ford, then jogged to catch up. both of them going slower. "The guy who ran Two Parrot Bight—you don't mean Rios? Marvin Rios?"

"Yeah. Dead."

"Marvin Rios?"

"Yes."

"But how? You're serious."

"Heart attack, maybe. They couldn't tell. Maybe a stroke."

"God. I can't believe it."

"I didn't even know you knew him."

"Holy shit, he's really dead?"

"Yes!"

"I knew him."

"You never mentioned it."

Dewey said. "That's because you don't talk about people you hate. At least I don't."

"Wait a minute—"

"No, no. no, I do. I mean I did. I did hate him. Probably the only man I've ever hated. Well, him and my seeond tennis coach. Now he's dead? It's like being a balloon and having the air let out." Her voice had a contemplative quality, both horrified and wondrous.

"But why?"

She quickened the pace a little, saying, "It's something I don't talk about."

The island's municipal pool, lime green in its cement basin, was nearly empty. The pool was almost always empty, but there were kids on the playground making a nice noise among the cabbage palms and live oaks. In the training room, Dewey went to work on the weight machine, throwing herself into the stations, losing herself in the dull labor, blowing and heaving, sweat dripping off her crooked nose, whispering... thirteen ... fourteen ...
fifteen. "

Her attention, focused on the weights, drifted once when a hawk screamed from a gumbo tree outside, then again when the lifeguard banged up the volume on some song Ford had heard before but did not recognize. Dewey danced alone for a moment, tall blond girl in the deserted weight room, mouthing the words until she seemed to remember something, then stared at Ford: "Christ, you're just sitting there playing with—what is that, a lizard?
Gawd!"

"Key West anole. See the markings?"

She was pulling at his arm but staying far from the anole. "Off your butt, Thoreau. Just let it go
—not in here!
Then it's sit-ups. And pull-ups."

He went to the pull-up bar, and when he finished, she was looking at him. smiling. "Not bad. Doc. not too bad. Almost impressive. Eighteen pull-ups."

"Nineteen. You lost count."

"That's
good.
I've never been able to do more than twelve. Shit, you're
strong.
"

There was a time in Ford's life when he'd had to do twenty-six pull-ups before each meal. He said, "And at my age, too."

She threw an arm over his shoulder, hugging him briefly, sweat like hot oil on her arms and face. "I'm too rough on you."

"Naw...."

"I'm sorry. It's just the way I am."

"The way you are what?"

She was fiddling with her watch, one of those plastic computers on a black plastic band. "We ran up here at a seven-fifteen pace. Let's try to get back in under sevens." Ford said, "I thought we were going to swim."

"We are. But not in the pool. In the bay, when we get back."

"But look at the pool. All to ourselves. Nice and cool; nice lane markers—" But she was already out the door.

Halfway back to Dinkin's Marina, with Ford fighting for what seemed to be his very life, the woman said, "About two years ago, my fifth year on the circuit, I went to a party. One of those grand-opening kind of deals, I forget what, but they wanted celebrities, and that was back when I still liked the idea of being recognized."

Ford said, "Uh-huh," not realizing, for a moment, that she had decided to tell him about Marvin Rios.

She said, "I was—what?—twenty-two and getting my picture in magazines. Getting interviewed. For a girl who'd spent her life like a hermit, always on the tennis court or studying, it was hot stuff. So I went to this party, and Rios was one of the main guys. Like a host. It was on island, and the local big shots were there. Everybody getting drunk and trying not to show it. All the usual bullshit, but I was too naive to realize what a crock it was. No, not naive. I don't think I've ever been naive. Probably just full of myself, and a little too polite, too."

Ford said, "Uh-huh." thinking,
how can she run so fast and still talk?

Dewey said, "He must have followed me out into the garden or something, because somehow we ended up alone. I knew he'd been eyeing me all night, and I had to get away from all that smoke, and there we were. He starts off asking me about my tennis sponsors, and were they treating me okay. Very authoritative, as if he could underwrite the whole bill himself. Talking like he could do me favors.

"He's standing there talking about money and tax breaks, speaking to me like a child, and the whole time I'm thinking. How in the hell can I get away from this chubby little nerd? I make a move to get past him, and he takes me by the arm—not hard, but holding me. He's looking up at me with those piggy little blue eyes of his. I go to pull my arm away, but he just moves with me, looking in my eyes. Then he pulls his other hand on my breast. It still gives me the shivers, thinking about that. Not hard, but moving it around and staring at me.

"If that sort of thing happened in the movies, the girl'd smack the guy in the face. Or scream maybe. But it's different when it happens for real. I froze. You know how a mouse freezes when a cat has it? Like that. Like an animal feeling. Like shock. My ears were ringing and I couldn't look at anything but his eyes. Then he takes his hand away, but I feel it fiddling with my skirt. I'm backing away real slow, and he says, 'I can help you a lot. You know that.' He says, 'What you need is a man.' That's exactly what he said. 'A man.' "

Listening, Ford wasn't thinking about the pain in his chest now, or his legs.

Dewey said, "And I stood there. Makes me sick. now. I let him do that. He
touched
me. You know for how long I couldn't sleep at night, thinking what I should have done, what I should have said?"

Ford croaked, "Not your fault."

"I was an idiot for letting him get me alone like that. A jerk."

Ford wanted to say that victims always blame themselves. but he couldn't. He said, "Unh-uh."

Dewey said, "Then I hear like a zipping sound. Maybe he's unzipping my dress, but I don't have a zipper on my dress. I can't look at anything but his eyes, and I feel him take my arm and try to move my hand down, and then I know what zipper. But I wouldn't let him do that. I yanked my arm away and, at the same moment, the glass doors slide open and some other people come out, talking loud. Well, that did it. That snapped me out of it. When he tried to pull my hand back, I let him pull me, then gave him a hell of a shove. I must have screamed at the same time, too; yelled something, because the people heard me. We were behind some trees, but they came running. Rios was lying there trying to get his zipper up, and I wanted to kill him, and I was crying, and people were asking, 'What's wrong?' and all I could think to say was, 'Take a look at this twerp's dong. Wouldn't make a meal for a bird!' and I left the party."

His mouth open, scooping oxygen, Ford grinned. Dewey said. "I should have hit him. Hit him right in his goddamn fat face, then called the cops. But I didn't. I figured just let it go. I mean, it was
humiliating.
Then ... Christ, this is the worst part...
then,
a few months later, my friends begin to hear rumors. It's getting spread around that I'm gay."

Ford said, "Oh?"

"None of the people I know would've started anything like that. My personal life is strictly nobody's business.
Nobody's."

Ford wondered just what that meant.

She ran in silence for a time, then said, "Then one of the investigators from the tennis association calls me and says she has information that suggests I've been using steroids. Damn! So I submit to more tests than they already make us do. Then a reporter from a sports magazine calls, very polite, and hints around at it, but finally comes right out and asks if it's true I've tested positive for AIDS. He's gotten an anonymous tip. Then my mother calls from Chicago, practically hysterical. She's
crying
because she's gotten a call. too. Someone's asked her about this crap."

"Rios," Ford said.

"I think so; can't think of anybody else who'd do that ... that sort of garbage. But my lawyer said there was nothing we could do unless we found someone who would testify he was starting all this stuff. We hired an investigative firm. Cost me like five grand. All they came up with was it was maybe Marvin Rios or a male accomplice, but nothing solid enough for a suit." She said, "I'd hurt the little schmuck's ego in front of some Sanibel hotshots. He was out to plow me under. I mean, a purely evil little son of a bitch."

Finally, they were at the shell road into Dinkin's Marina, and Ford came clomping to a stop at the entrance to his stilt house, bending at the waist, hands interlaced over his head, sucking air.

Dewey said. "Seven-ten miles. Not bad. old man." Sweating, but not breathing that hard, studying her watch.

Ford said, "Why haven't I heard any of this stuff... this stuff about you and Rios?"

Dewey said, "I told you: I don't talk about it. Besides, you're the kind of guy people tell their problems to, but not the real creepy stuff, the real dirty stuff. Be like trying to tell their chemistry professor; someone who's above that sort of crap."

Ford said, "Oh," looking at her to see if she really believed that.

She said, "Plus, between you and me. I didn't want anyone but my attorney to know."

"I guess that makes sense."

"Yeah. I'd have never done it. but I couldn't help thinking of ways to have that bastard killed."

Going up the walkway to Ford's house, stripping off her running shorts and throwing them over the railing, she said, "But now, it doesn't matter. Like freedom." Dewey said, "Ding dong, the witch is dead."