Saving an Innocent Man

by Robert E B Wright

  Chance’s eyes focused past the alligator wrestler to the sunglasses of Detective DiSantis, whose head was now moving behind the heads of the onlookers, moving in the same direction Chance and Kim were walking. DiSantis started to move faster now, carrying the walker off the ground in front of him. Chance didn’t take his eyes off DiSantis as he picked up his stride. So did DiSantis, moving quickly now behind the enthralled group. Chance said something to Kim and she looked in the direction of the hunter. Her face told DiSantis to press the start button.

  DiSantis lunged for the long pouch at the front of the walker. The irises in Chance’s eyes ratcheted down to telescopic power. Between people’s heads, he caught a glimpse of a stainless steel riflescope.

  “Stay back!” Chance yelled to Kim, “Stay back!” Chance stretched out his leg to begin to run.

  DiSantis bellowed at the hypnotized people, “Get out of the way! Police! Outta the way.” They snapped out of their trance and parted into two groups, screaming and running when they saw the rifle. DiSantis snapped the rifle to his shoulder and sighted through the scope. He could see Chance sprinting in the round lens.

  Chance glanced back for an instant, his new backpack fell to the ground, he turned away to run like the devil. DiSantis was statue still, but the pupil in his one eye dilated to a pinpoint against the lens of the riflescope. His trigger finger waited, poised, vibrated with anticipation – then squeezed. The dart hurtled at Chance like a heat-seeking missile. It plunged into his left leg about four inches below the left cheek of his rear end. Chance’s left hand involuntarily moved to the location of the dart. He tried to pull it out as he continued running, but he couldn’t. DiSantis was already building up speed, running after Chance toward the Third Pond. Chance’s body seemed to produce one-hundred gallons of adrenaline in seconds. He ran like a football player for the touchdown. Like a football player running with a severe limp.

  Kim was running too, but far back, not knowing exactly what to do next.

  DiSantis was running fast, carrying the rifle in both hands, never losing sight of Chance.

  Chance looked back for an instant. DiSantis was still a good distance away, trying to overtake Chance’s handicapped speed. Chance was awkwardly racing toward Fourth Pond, the metal fin of the dart sticking out of his leg, wagging up and down as he ran.

  DiSantis now appeared to be closer to Chance. On the run, DiSantis loaded another dart in the rifle.

  Chance was breathing hard now. He was approaching Fourth Pond. Instead of running around the back edge of the pond, Chance headed right for it and dove in leaving almost no wake on the surface. DiSantis was there in seconds, his feet barely stopping him at the grassy edge.

  Everything was eerily quiet, except for a few birds that flapped away.

  DiSantis scanned the surface rapidly. He saw nothing. He held the rifle in front of him, his eyes anxious to view the direction finder built into the rifle. Every light was flashing in unison – the left, the right, the middle. The distance meter displayed zeros. DiSantis put the rifle to his armpit and sighted through the scope, trying to see beneath the surface.

  His face looked disgusted, frustrated.

  From beneath the surface, Chance looked up through three feet of water and saw the shimmering image of Kim standing at the edge. She was trying to use her peripheral vision so she wouldn’t tip-off DiSantis. Kim thought she saw Chance pointing to his left. Kim could see that DiSantis was looking straight at her. She fidgeted, shuffled her feet, uncomfortable in the hunter’s gaze.

  Then she saw Jay take a standing position about ten feet to her left at the edge of the pond. And then Addie Mae, ten feet from Jay. And then another Indian, another ten feet. And another Indian. More and more Indians came, each taking a position all around the pond.

  With what he was witnessing, DiSantis let the rifle droop down in front of him. He pivoted to his right, taking in the sight of the living statues. His attention was diverted. Not for long, but just long enough. He scanned the surface of the pond again, but there wasn’t a ripple. His eyes roamed to the left, and there was Kim spinning the wheel of the valve as if she were driving a bus out of control. It even made a screeching noise and stopped.

  About six-feet below the valve, Chance was like a torpedo entering the drainage culvert. He left a stream of small bubbles in his slipstream as he shot through to freedom on the other side.

  DiSantis actually took a baby step back in shock, his mouth opening slightly. Then he was off and running, the single hound after the fox.

  Chance fell out of the tube in the middle of large trees and thickets. Water was gushing out of the large tube. It was hard for DiSantis to see anything. He stopped and stood perfectly still, listening for anything.

  Chance was on his feet, making his way through the brush. But he staggered every few yards.

  DiSantis looked down at the direction finder that would not work when Chance was under water. Now the left indicator was the only light blinking. The distance-measuring meter indicated 2,219 feet. DiSantis, thrilled to see the meters working, moved quickly.

  Chance was moving fast, but not as fast as before. He was stooped over now and limping much more severely. The large powerful muscle of his left leg had a big chunk of steel in it. The hinged points were cutting deeper and deeper.

  DiSantis was fighting his way through the tight-knit branches and vines. But he had dogged determination. He pressed on. The meters now indicated a direction to the right at 1,804 feet.

  Chance was swaying now, pushing his way through, rather than running his way through the brush. He had slowed down to less than half his speed. His breathing was heavy. Saliva dribbled from the side of his mouth. Mucus ran from his nose. He stumbled into a sapling and it bumped him in the other direction.

  DiSantis was pushing saplings aside with one arm, holding the rifle with the other. Straight-ahead, 603 feet.

  Chance was moving slowly. His head hung low. The tranquilizer was now taking its toll. The miracle of adrenaline could only keep him going to a point. And the point was here. Chance fell. Like a wounded animal, he lay there on the ground, eyes moving slowly as if drunk, pulse weak, energy spent. He heard the crunching steps coming toward him. He rolled over on his back to face the hunter.

  The crunching sounds grew louder and DiSantis was there. He loomed over Chance sprawled out at his feet.

  “Finally,” DiSantis said, tired himself. Chance grabbed at what little strength he had left. His words were an effort in themselves.

  “I didn’t do anything. I just…”

  “Just tell me where the money is. That’s all I want. Then I’ll give you the antidote, you’ll wake up and you’ll be on your way.”

  Chance was trying desperately to use his brain. In his weary stupor, he managed a few more words. “I’ll…I’ll…” DiSantis was hanging on every word, waiting.

  There was a whirling wind sound over the trees behind them. It was a helicopter facing them dead on. It quickly descended and landed in a clearing not sixty feet away. DiSantis was pissed. “Goddamn it! Mulholland and Diaz have to fuck things up right at the end!”

  From the chopper, a man in a dark blue suit ducked down and ran over to DiSantis. It was Joey Esposito.

  DiSantis looked like he saw a ghost. The two men faced each other.

  “What the fuck?!” DiSantis exclaimed.

  “I thought you needed some company, Tony, some assistance.”

  “How did you find me out here?” Tony said in utter disbelief that Esposito just dropped out of the sky.

  “You see that dart gun in your hands there, Tony? You see that receiver built in, that tells you how to track this dumb shit on the ground? It’s not just a receiver. It’s also a transmitter that lets me track you!”

  DiSantis’ eyes could kill.

  Joey continued. “And all these years you always thought you were the smart one, Tony. You thought you were smart enough to get my money. Tell me somethin’, Tony. The truth now. You were gonna kee
p that money for yourself, weren’t you?”

  “What if I was? You don’t think I deserved it? All those years turnin’ my head the other way, ignoring the shit you guys pulled, watching millions go your way. You guys got away with murder, and what did I get? Hardly enough to retire on. That’s what I got, Joey.”

  “Hey, tough shit, Tony. That was your decision, way back in the old days.”

  “Now what?” DiSantis spit the words at Esposito.

  “Now what?” Esposito said in disbelief, “Now what? You know as well as I know! Now what! Now, I don’t need you to find this swamp guy. Now I don’t need you to find the money. I got him.”

  “Fuck you, Joey!” DiSantis remembered that he had loaded a second tranquilizer dart in the rifle. He swung it around from his hip and pulled the trigger. Esposito moved quickly and the dart flew into the chest of the helicopter pilot standing behind Esposito. The pilot went down. In a flash, Esposito pulled out a pistol from inside his jacket and shot DiSantis in his shoulder. A bloody blot oozed onto DiSantis’ Florida shirt. DiSantis’ face was shock and rage together.

  “I coulda given you somethin’, Tony. A finder’s fee maybe. But now, you know what you’re gettin’?” DiSantis took a short step back as Esposito raised his big black pistol at him. His finger began to apply pressure to the trigger.

  A gun blast went off!

  The sound boomed like a cannon!

  But it was not from Esposito’s gun. Joey Esposito’s wrist and hand spouted blood. His gun flew away from his hand and flipped to the ground. Craig Mulholland and Armando Diaz stood near the chopper, pistols at the ends of their extended arms. Kim and Jay stood behind them.

  Mulholland took command. “Don’t move, don’t breathe, anybody. That includes you, DiSantis.”

  “I can explain every…” It was DiSantis, almost pleading.

  “Save it!” Mulholland said, “If these Indians didn’t know how to hunt in these woods without making a sound, we never would have heard every word, DiSantis.”

  While Diaz put handcuffs on Esposito, Mulholland frisked DiSantis. He found the hypodermic antidote. “What’s this, a new hobby? You into drugs too, DiSantis?”

  “It’s the tranquilizer antidote for him,” DiSantis motioned with his head, “He’ll die if he doesn’t get it.”

  “You almost made it, DiSantis,” Mulholland was saying, “but you just weren’t good enough.”

  DiSantis shrugged it off and said, “I’m sick of it. I just can’t do this job anymore.”

  “No, you can’t.” Mulholland had a disgusted look on his face as he handcuffed DiSantis. “Watch these two, Diaz.”

  Mulholland went to where Chance was on the ground. He quickly administered the antidote. In a few minutes Chance was sitting up, breathing easier. “You alright?” Mulholland asked, concerned.

  Chance nodded and said, “I think I’ll survive.”

  “I’m sure you will. You have so far.”

  Chance smiled weakly.

  “Now, I have to ask you something. I’m required to.” There was a pause, “Do you know where the money is?”

  Chance shifted his eyes left, then right. Then he turned his head toward the open Glades. You could see for miles. He answered slowly.

  “I’m sure it’s out there somewhere. And that’s a whole lotta somewhere.”

  Forty-Six

  The flashbulbs from a dozen cameras were going off in Chance’s face.

  A woman news anchor was standing next to Chance with a microphone at the ready, waiting for a cue to start. They were standing in front of a gorgeous sunset overlooking a magnificent panoramic shot of the Everglades. Chance was clean-shaven, groomed and looked like four and a half million bucks. He wore only his breechcloth and necklace of snail shells, rattlesnake tails and stones of black and green.

  “You’re on!” the voice off-camera said.

  The attractive woman news anchor spoke to the camera. “I’m with the modern-day super-hero we’ve all been hearing so much about these past few days. A man who calls himself Chance.” Chance exuded equal amounts of modesty and pride.

  “I understand that you’ve suddenly become quite a celebrity and incredible things are happening for you. We’ve heard that the Miami Police Department has asked for your help in apprehending slippery drug traffickers…” Off-camera, McGuire, Mulholland and Diaz gave Chance a thumbs-up sign. The woman continued, “…the Governor of Florida has asked you to work on special projects…secret ops.” The Governor of Florida, standing next to the detectives, gave Chance a military salute. “…you already have a movie offer…” Kim gave Chance a big smile and blew him a kiss. “…and, in a rare move, the State and Federal Governments agreed to let you build a home in the Everglades and act as some kind of environmental guardian. What do you say to all of this?”

  Chance thought for a moment, trying hard to give the best answer possible. He looked to the sky for the right words.

  Finally, he said…

  “I thought all my adventures were behind me. But it looks like my biggest adventures are just ahead.”

  The crowd cheered.

  Chance smiled.

  Forty-Seven

  The sign on the desk said ASSISTANT PROFESSOR KYLE JOHNSTON. Behind it sat a small young man with curly black hair. He opened an envelope with a letter opener.

  Kyle:

  Long time, no see.

  Remember that $75 you let me borrow?

  Well, I’m paying back.

  With a little interest.

  The check was for $5,075.

  • • •

  The beautiful naked black girl walked across the ocean-view room and got into a big bed of pure white sheets and a puffy comforter. Next to her was none other than Craig Mulholland. He looked like the cat that just ate the canary. She looked like a confection.

  “You’re so bad,” she said with a sly smile.

  “I hope so.”

  Two other luscious creatures – Galvo’s girls minus Lynn from Chicago – paraded into the room and got into the big bed, too.

  • • •

  Through the windows of the old clapboard house in the Glades, an attractive blonde-haired woman was typing, hunt and peck fashion, on an old manual typewriter. You could hear her husband’s voice in the background, “Writin’ a book. You got nothin’ to write about!”

  “It’s just a girl thing,” she said. “Just a girl thing.”

  • • •

  The blue and white Rolls-Royce convertible drove slowly, top down, along Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills on this gorgeous afternoon. The two elderly men in the front seats wore dark sunglasses and big toothy smiles. The one driving was festooned with a bright yellow bow tie with purple polka dots. The other wore a T-Shirt with the words: LOST & FOUND across the chest.

  “I’m sure glad you held onto that lottery ticket, Klempner.”

  “Me too, Stan. Me too!”

  • • •

  Looking down from high above, the peaceful turquoise waters sparkled. The palm trees hung over the shoreline of white sand in this remote paradise. From here, the lush Everglades spread out forever in the distance. In a shady hollow overlooking the vast Gulf of Mexico was a beautiful low-slung home of glass, natural wood and stone. At the water’s edge was a 42-foot sport fishing boat, a seaplane and a tall muscular blond man looking out over the shimmering water. He was dressed only in a breechcloth. The breeze rustled his hair as he looked toward the vast horizon.

  “My biggest adventures are yet to come,” he thought to himself.

  “My biggest adventures are yet to come.”

  The Journey…

  For me, every book is a journey. This book’s journey started when I was just a boy growing up in New York City. Back then, Staten Island was called “the forgotten borough”. And that was fine with me. It was rural, with lots of parks, woods and farms. I would catch dozens of snakes to study, observe baby birds in their nests, see bats hanging in hedges, sneak up and grab turtles sunning
on logs in lakes and catch a ‘possum or two. I even had two adorable pet skunks.

  In my twenties, I joined the Herp Club at the Bronx Zoo and was part of monthly meetings there. I went on snake hunting expeditions in the Pine Barrens of New Jersey with professional herpetologists. And on vacation in Florida, I caught tortoises and large snakes, all released back into the wild or donated to an appreciative zoo.

  When I ran my advertising agency in Miami, I biked and hiked in the Everglades often. One of my clients was The Flamingo Outpost and Resort at the southern tip of Everglades National Park.

  Some years later, I went on safari to Kenya. What an eye-opening, magical trip that was. Full of vivid memories including being charged by a massive bull elephant and a huge male baboon.

  I’ve had many thrilling experiences, and I’ve spent many hours doing research for this novel, but there are many fascinating things that could not be included on the pages of this story. Here are a few that you may find interesting.

  • Florida Was Part of Africa

  There was a time when Florida was attached to northwestern Africa. To put it simply, about 530 million years ago, there was a supercontinent called Gondwana that later merged with Laurasia to form Pangea. And that later split into what is now Africa and South America. What is now called Florida is a remnant of that split.

  • Florida Was Just an Underwater Shelf

  When the glaciers melted during The Great Ice Age, Florida was under 100 feet of water. It was a home to shellfish, mollusks and coral. When the waters receded, dropping as much as 100 feet, the exposed land was much larger. The coastline reached out as much as 100 miles more than what it is now.

  • The Appalachian Mountains Are on Top of Florida