The Man Who Ivented Florida (18 page)

"You know, ma'am, I think I heard somethin' about that."

The woman waited for Tuck to say something else, but when he didn't, all she said was, "I'm sure you have."

"Word gets around. Even in these parts."

Joseph felt the woman about to say, "I'm counting on it," but she didn't. Looking around, she said, "This little place is so pretty . . . those old streetlights, the little houses ... so pretty I wouldn't blame anyone for trying to come up with a way to stop the park."

Tuck was right with her. "Stop it, ma'am? Who the heck would want to stop it—forgive my language."

"You mean you like the idea?"

"I think it'll be da ... dar ... awful nice when they get that park built. Maybe they'll kill off these skeeters so they can put out their picnic tables and camping places for trailers. Be nice to have some folks from Michigan and O-hi-ho runnin' around. You think they'll be a swimming pool?" He slapped a mosquito on his arm and flicked it off with his finger.

The woman said, "I wouldn't know about that, Mr. Gatrell. I'm trying to find out what happened to those men."

Tucker started walking toward the woman's car, saying, "Just wish I coulda been more help," handling her so easily that Joseph had to admire him. Tuck had his talents, there was no denying.

But getting into the car, Walker said, "Oh—there was something I forgot to ask."

"You name it, ma'am."

"Are you familiar with Barron Creek Marina just south of here?"

"I should say I am. Used to work for Barron Collier when I was just a sprout. You ever wonder how they figured to build a road right across the saw grass—" "Yes, you told me that story, Mr. Gatrell. The floating dredge. When I called you on the telephone last week."

"I did?" He chuckled as if befuddled. "I gotta tell you, old age is 'bout the most unexpected thing ever happened to me. Now my brain's gotten leaky—"

"What I wanted to ask was, were you at that marina on Thursday, October first, and Monday, October fifth? The Barron Creek Marina?"

Tucker had his hand on his jaw, thinking. "Is this October we're in now?"

"You know Larry Baker, don't you?"

"Larry runs the marina, ma'am. He's a regular peach. I knew his daddy—"

"Mr. Baker told me that you were at the marina those days. The morning, both times. He said he saw Chuck Fleet and Charles Herbott talking with you, going over a map. Nautical chart, I mean. He said you might have been giving them directions."

"Now those two names don't ring a bell. Those men, the two you mentioned, are they from around here?"

"Herbott is an environmental consultant and Fleet is the surveyor you said you met working in your pasture—"

"That's why the names sounded familiar!"

"You talked with each of them the day they disappeared. That's what Larry Baker told me."

Joseph was thinking, Look who's handling who now, watching Tuck smile as if he was a confused old man. Tuck said, "Ma'am, I was a fishing guide in these parts prob'ly before your daddy was borned, so I can't go near a marina without people hauling out their charts, askin' me this or that. Where the snook? Where the tar-pawn? How you get to so and so? Don't want to brag on myself, but I'm kinda famous in these parts as a waterman."

"I realize that, Mr. Gatrell."

"You ever wonder why President Truman come to these islands to fish? He come to see me."

"Last week, on the phone, that was one of your most fascinating stories. But what I need to know now is, what did Charles Herbott and Chuck Fleet ask you?"

"Wish I knew, ma'am. Like I said, there's always so many. But if Larry Baker said I talked to 'em, you can bet it's the truth. If he wasn't drunk."

"Do ybu remember anyone asking you the shortest route to the boundary of Everglades National Park? What is that, about twenty miles from the marina?"

"When people ask that, I always send 'em to the outside, down the coast in open water. They get back in those islands, it's awful tricky and dangerous, ma'am."

"I guess Mr. Fleet and Mr. Herbott found that out." The woman started her car, adding through the open window, "You try to remember, Mr. Gatrell. I'll be talking to you soon. Or perhaps someone from the local Sheriff's Department."

Tucker was waving, smiling. "Look forward to it. Company's better'n cold beer at my age."

As the car pulled away, already going fast along the bay road, Joseph said, "If it was you who messed with those men, I hope you tried to shoot 'em. That way, I'd know they're still alive."

Tucker said, "Joe, sometimes you remind me of a lost ball in tall grass."

"That woman'll be coming back—I ain't lost about that. She sees something in you. Did you do it?"

"Hell no. You think I'd a been seen in public with men I was about to kill?" Then walking up the steps to the porch, Tuck said, "Better get your gear together. We go horse shopping tonight."

SEVEN

Along
with the typical Friday-night procession of telephone complaints about loud drunks, loud parties, domestic squabbles, and burglaries, the Sheriff's Department's Cypress Gate substation, located in a cinder-block annex beside the Toys "R" Us shopping center, also received two unusual calls from one of its solid citizens, Mr. Pendergast, owner of the community's three McDonald's restaurants.

At slightly after 9:00 P.M., Mr. Pendergast notified the department that he had received an anonymous inquiry that had left him uneasy. "A man just called saying he had heard great things about my son's favorite horse and said he was interested in buying it," Mr. Pendergast told the dispatcher.

"What's odd about that?" the dispatcher wanted to know.

"I don't have a son," Mr. Pendergast said. "Then the man who called me said, 'Well, maybe it was your daughter's horse I heard about.'"

The dispatcher said, "And you don't have a daughter?"

"Right," Mr. Pendergast said. "The caller, he sounded like an old man, or I would have hung up on him right then and there. All the cranks out around these days. But he sounded nice. Very polite in a southern sort of way, and I happened to mention that my wife would be very happy if I sold all my horses—horses are a hobby of mine, you see."

"And?" the dispatcher said.

"And then the man said something very strange. He asked me if I was a bird-watcher."

"A bird-watcher?"

Mr. Pendergast said, "Does it sound to you like he might be ah . . . unbalanced? I've been sitting here worrying."

The dispatcher said, "You have no idea who the man was? You didn't recognize the voice?"

"Not at all. Old man, as I've said, southern accent. I have no idea how he knew I had horses or how he knew my name and number. That's what worries me. He asked me if I was a birdwatcher, and when I said no, he thanked me and hung up."

The dispatcher asked, "Do you have your name on your mailbox, Mr. Pendergast?"

"Uh . . . yes."

"And your name's listed in the phone book?"

"Oh right, I see how he could have gotten the number now," Mr. Pendergast said. "That makes sense. But why would anyone ask such strange questions?"

The dispatcher said, "If the old man calls again, I'd try to find out."

At 11:35 P.M., Mr. Pendergast telephoned the Sheriff's Department substation a second time, but this time the call came in through the 911 system, which flashed onto the computer screen the name and address of Donald H. Pendergast, 1861 Old Naples Road. The dispatcher recognized the name, but Mr. Pendergast's voice sounded different because the man was clearly near panic.

"I've called to report there are chickens in my stables!"

"Could you say that again."

"Chickens, for Christ's sake. In my stable!"

"Mr. Pendergast, you need to calm down if I'm to understand—"

"Chickens! Do you understand me now? Someone put chickens in the stalls with my horses. Chickens everywhere! There must be twenty, thirty of them."

The dispatcher had picked up the VHF microphone with his free hand to put on-duty deputies and emergency medical services on alert. But now the dispatcher was beginning to wonder whether Mr. Pendergast, the solid citizen, might also be a little drunk. "Let me get this straight, Mr. Pendergast. You say chickens are harassing your horses?"

"Yes! I mean, no—not harassing, but they were in the stalls and my horses were terrified, trying to kick the place down. I went out to see what all the noise was about, and that's when I found the chickens."

"Your chickens escaped and got in with your horses?" The dispatcher was thinking, Man, I'm glad we've got this one on tape. C shift will love it.

"No, the chickens didn't escape,—my horses did!" "But I thought you said the chickens were in the stalls. I mean, your horses were in the stalls with the chickens—"

"Would you just shut up and listen, for Christ's sake?" Mr. Pendergast was shouting now, thinking about all the taxes he paid and the disrespect he heard in the dispatcher's voice. He had to fight the urge to say, "I pay your salary!" Instead, he said, "About twenty minutes ago, I heard a terrible racket out in the stables. I went outside to take a look. I thought there might be a fire, my horses were so hysterical. I went straight to Wildfire's stall, and that's when I saw them."

"A horse?"

"No—chickens, goddamn it!"

"I mean Wildfire, that's a horse?"

"Of course it's a . . . Listen you—Wildfire is a ten-thousand-dollar jumper. You'd better start paying attention."

"A jumper's a horse? I really am trying to understand here, Mr. Pendergast—"

"Of course it's a horse. I mean it is ... I mean he is, Wildfire. There were chickens in his stall. All the stalls. That's what was making my horses terrified."

"So your chickens did escape and got in with your horses."

"No . . . look, this is the only time I'm going to say this—I DON'T OWN ANY CHICKENS!"

"So where did they come from?"

"That's what I'm trying to tell you. Someone snuck in here and put chickens in the stalls. Horses that aren't used to chickens go nuts when that happens. They were kicking down the doors. That's why I had to let them out."

"I think you did the reasonable thing. So now the chickens are free—"

"The horses! I let the horses out! Seven purebred jumpers. Now they're running loose around the countryside because whoever brought the chickens left the pasture gate open."

"Mr. Pendergast, you're calling nine-one-one to report you've been sabotaged by chickens—"

"Listen, you goddamn dolt, I'm calling to tell you to get some squad cars over here right away to help me catch forty thousand dollars' worth of horses!"

The dispatcher, raising his voice to match Mr. Pendergast's, said, "Hey, buddy, I don't have to put up with the name-calling."

"The hell you don't," Donald Pendergast yelled. "I pay your salary! And if we don't find all those horses by dawn it'll be your ass!"

Joseph
Egret had ridden all kinds of horses in his life, but he'd never been on one so smooth-gaited as this. Big-withered stallion, so black that he looked glossy blue when the light was just right, and man could he fly. The scrawny little cattle ponies he and Tuck had ridden in all the far-off range places, Cuba, Nicaragua, the Pacific coast of Guatemala and Costa Rica, they were knot-hard and knew the business, but they would have looked like terrier dogs compared to this animal. The night before, Friday night, Tuck had stopped at Rigaberto's place, the neighbor who kept the loud chickens, and bought twenty of them, little brown banties. Paid cash and put them in cages.

"If I didn't hate these little bastards so much," Tuck had said, "I coulda never forced myself to eat as many as I did. Now they're finally gonna do something besides stick in my teeth."

Three hours later, about an hour before midnight, they sat in Tuck's old truck with a horse trailer hitched to the back, pulled off on the side of Old Naples Road, and Tuck said, "Looka there at all the horses coming. Running down the road like scared rabbits."

Joseph had said, "We gonna steal all of 'em?"

"Steal?" Tuck snorted "We ain't stealin' nothing. I give away some chickens for free, and now we've found a bunch of horses running wild. This used to be free range, remember. My advice to you is, pick out one of those mustangs and see if you can break it before morning. That's when we saddle up and head east."

Only they hadn't pulled out that morning because Tuck had said he'd thought of some stuff he had to do, mostly contact more television and newspaper people. "Advertising," Tuck kept saying. "Not advertising is the only reason I ain't rich right now." But Joseph guessed Tuck had postponed because he was so tired, the way he looked after being up most of the night catching the tall horse, then getting him into the trailer, then getting him into the same barn with Roscoe without anyone getting kicked or horse-bit.

Tuck didn't look good. Looked like some of the air had seeped °ut of him, he was so worn down.

So now it was Saturday afternoon, late, with thunderstorms building over the Everglades, purple clouds the size of castles drifting toward Mango and the Gulf, which was one of Joseph's favorite times of day if he didn't have to be on the water. Nice breeze and it smelled good, too. The bay smelled salty, like oysters, and there was the lemony smell of key lime trees growing on the shell ridge that crossed the pasture. And the horse—there was that smell; a little lathered up because they'd been riding for about two hours, along the bay road clear to the Tamiami Trail with its fast traffic, then through the melaleuca and oak flats to where the saw grass began.