Deep Blue

by Randy Wayne White

  “Haven’t you noticed? Everyone thought it would kill tourism, but it was just the opposite. The guides were booked solid just on the chance customers might get a look. Same with the hotels and restaurants. Now they all miss her.

  “On the other hand,” Mack added in a kinder tone, “I have a pretty good idea who’s giving away those stacks of hundred-dollar bills. Our mysterious Father Christmas deserves a pass, I suppose, to say any damn thing he wants. For a while anyway.”

  Tomlinson didn’t understand that either, nor the wink in Mack’s voice. “Has to be a very generous citizen. Who is it?”

  Mack chuckled.

  “Seriously. Tell me his name. Or her. Who are you talking about?”

  More laughter.

  Tomlinson, looking at Mack, shrugged, and said, “I need to start paying attention.”

  They were approaching the bait tank. It was a wooden reservoir covered by screens on hinges, all connected by white PVC to a pump that chugged and hissed and filled the air with ozone.

  Behind the tanks, near a picnic table, was the ice maker where the guides stashed their beer. Tomlinson opened the lid, dug around, and pulled out two green bottles of Steinlager. “Anyway, the dog—I hid what he took in there.” He indicated the tackle shed. “Want one?”

  “Nope,” Mack replied but accepted a bottle by rote, then leaned his bulk against the wall. “Well, open the blinkin’ door and show me.”

  It was five p.m. The sun was low in the west, a bland hole in the sky that meant the cold front was nearly gone. It was breezy; a bite of autumn in the air, to Tomlinson, who was the unlikely progeny of Long Island industrialists. He stepped out of the shed carrying two figurines, both of them plastic cows. Not life-sized, but big enough.

  “What the bloody hell?”

  Tomlinson placed the figurines side by side on the deck. “Until I checked, I figured the dog snatched them from that restaurant on Periwinkle.”

  “The Island Cow?”

  “But I was wrong. I talked to one of the managers. All their cows are where they belong.”

  Mack was relieved—sort of. “Who else around here has plastic animals?” He hefted one off the ground. “Feels like pretty good quality; commercial-grade, I’d say. What’s this, a Holstein? Holsteins are black and white. Back home in New Zealand, folks raised them for milk in the Southland.” He turned the figurine upside down. “Yep . . . must be a Holstein.”

  Tomlinson had a theory, but his attention had swung to the mouth of Dinkin’s Bay, where a vessel was entering. Elegant lines, a bone-white hull, and a flybridge taller than the palms that grew in clusters on Woodring Point. It was the Brazilian, Vargas Diemer, on his million-dollar yacht.

  “There he comes,” Tomlinson said.

  Mack misunderstood and checked the parking lot, where, coincidentally, outside the gate, an old Chevy pickup was backing into its usual place. “I’ll be damned,” he said. “Doc’s finally home from Orlando.”

  “No way.”

  “Yeah. There’s his truck.”

  Tomlinson perked up a little when he saw the familiar blue Chevy, but he’d meant there was no way Ford would spend a week in Orlando. But he played along. “Goofy World is a heck of a place to hold a conference on jellyfish. Some find that hard to believe.”

  “I don’t put much stock in what anyone says around here,” Mack said. “Bunch’a gossips, talking about how he packs his bags and disappears. Doc, I’m sayin’, like, he deals in marijuana or something.”

  Tomlinson mouthed the question, Marijuana?

  “Or he has a wife and family somewhere. You know how these stories get started. Or he’s doing volunteer work for some church. Goes off on retreats or service missions.”

  Tomlinson was shaking his head now. “Our Doc?”

  “Personally—I know we’ve talked about this—I think it has something to do with the way he behaves toward women. Doc’s a good man; he’s got a chivalrous streak, so he keeps the details to himself. Plus, he’s still got a bad case for Hannah, so he doesn’t want her to know he’s screwing around.” He was inspecting the other figurine, a brown plastic cow with white patches. “Jersey, you think?”

  “Naw,” Tomlinson said. “The only friend he has from Jersey is Fast Eddie.” He was watching Ford shoulder two khaki bags from the truck, limping a little like he was tired. “Let’s give him some time to settle in before we hit him with downers about the dog.”

  “Downers? Oh. The dog’s not a problem unless he leaves you in charge. She’d be a better choice.” Mack pointed to the docks and gave a little wave. “Animals have a sixth sense about who they should mind and who they shouldn’t. No offense.”

  “Totally out of sync, the two of us,” Tomlinson agreed. “Most animals, I have like a telekinetic link, but that curly-coated bastard has the sensitivity of two buckets.” He looked to where Mack had waved.

  Moored midway down A dock between a gleaming Grand Banks trawler and a soggy old Chris-Craft was a small houseboat, with curtained windows and wash hanging on a line. A little girl, with black braids and jeans, stood at the railing. She acknowledged the men with a dismissive wave, then returned to watching the dog swim in what appeared to be pointless circles. It was Sabina, Marta Estéban’s younger daughter, the ten-year-old who’d found a pile of cash in a boat that wasn’t worth what had been hidden there.

  Tomlinson checked on Ford’s progress. The man had disappeared down the path to his stilthouse but had left a truck door open. “Think I’ll go say Buenos días,” he said.

  “Tell him welcome back for me. Oh—the fishing guides radioed in and they’re bringing a couple of buckets of oysters. And pen shells. I know Doc likes pen shells. I’m going to start the grill now.”

  Tomlinson replied, “Sure,” even though he’d meant to say Buenos días to the girl, Sabina, not Ford. Without her help, there wasn’t much chance of getting that damn dog hosed, washed, and dried.

  Plus, the girl’s mother, Marta, might be home.

  • • •

  Tomlinson liked Marta. Everyone at Dinkin’s Bay liked Marta, even the women, which was approval of the highest sort. Marta, late thirties, had labored in Cuba’s tobacco fields before her husband ran off—a survive-or-wither life that was visible in her rough hands and the depth of her eyes. Yet she exuded a smoky vitality that, in Tomlinson’s mind, promised a lushness of flesh akin to tropical fruit. Mangoes came to mind.

  “Would you mind calling the dog?” he asked the girl when he got to A dock.

  “I don’t speak English,” she replied in English. “Call him yourself. You’re lazy.”

  Tomlinson stroked his goatee to cover his amusement. He was fond of Sabina, too. Like most difficult children, the wisdom she possessed was at war with the lack of wisdom in others. Especially adults.

  “I’ll give you a dollar. Two dollars, if you’ll help me wash and dry him before Doc comes out.”

  “Profiteers,” she said. “Is everything about money with you?” She paused to study Ford’s house, which was an old house with a tin roof built on stilts a hundred yards down the mangrove shore. “Marion has”—she had to search for the right word in English—“is delivered?”

  “Returned, delivered. Yeah, he’s back. And you couldn’t be more right about the money thing. Sabina—” Tomlinson waited for the girl to look at him, but she didn’t.

  “How about five dollars?” the girl countered and flung a bony hand in the direction of the stilthouse. “I was rich until Marion interfered. A thousand U.S. dollars; piles too big to carry. Then he made me share with my idiot sister, but what he really did was give it to Mama, because I haven’t seen that money since. Now I’m poor and want five dollars.”

  “Deal,” Tomlinson said, while the girl talked on in a mix of English and Spanish: “I will call the dog and make him sit. But you’ll do all the work and pay for my shampoo.
And if he growls when I tie ribbons around his ears, you have to hold his mouth closed. Promise?”

  This was asking a little much. “Uhh . . . I should probably speak to your mom before we make any legally binding agreements. Is she around?”

  “Marta is none of your business, so stay away from her. You make Mama nervous. When she’s nervous, she changes into her new dress or takes a shower.”

  “Marta?”

  “I’m old enough to call my mother by her name.” Sabina turned an ear to the houseboat, which was old and motorless, but had a fresh coat of blue paint. “Yes . . . showering, like she’s doing now. I’m surprised there’s water left because Maribel spent an hour primping before her rude friends came with bicycles.”

  Maribel was the older sister who shared her mother’s beauty but not Sabina’s sharp edge.

  “Marta gets nervous, huh?” Tomlinson tried to conceal his interest by feigning interest in the bay, where the dog was chasing the shadows of birds that soared above. “I suppose it’s only natural she gets a little flustered when a man comes calling. That’s probably true no matter who it is. Some tall, handsome hombre, or—”

  “Not handsome,” Sabina said. “I’m talking about you. And Marion, of course.” She peeked up at the sun, fought off a sneeze, then looked at the water and made a circular motion. “Round and round and round,” she said. “He’s chasing an airplane that he thinks is a fish. That dog is no smarter than certain adults I’ve met.”

  This close to sunset, all the rental boats were in, and the guides would be back soon to fillet sea trout and mackerel and whatever else their clients had iced for dinner. Already a cloud of gulls and terns battled for air supremacy above the docks and the panting dog.

  “He’s chasing bird shadows,” Tomlinson said, “not airplanes.”

  “I’m not a child. I know what a bird is. Perhaps I can teach you.” She pointed at the sky. “Birds flap their wings and have feathers. But that’s an airplane. See? No feathers.”

  Tomlinson shielded his eyes from the sun. It took him a moment to locate an object that flew higher than the gulls, but still low enough to cast a shadow on the water. It wasn’t an airplane. It was round and flat, about the size of a coffee table. “I’ll be go to hell,” he said. “What the . . . it’s a freakin’ flying saucer.”

  “Stop your swearing,” the girl warned, “and admit you were wrong. It’s been flying in circles above our boat for the longest time. What I’ve been wondering is where they found a pilot small enough to drive such an airplane.”

  “Not your boat. It looks like it’s hovering over—” Tomlinson pointed to Figgy, who was still fishing from a canoe midway between the marina and Ford’s house. “But that doesn’t make sense, so it’s probably—” He got his bearings so he wouldn’t fall off the dock, then strode toward the object, hands shielding his eyes. “Hey . . . it’s a drone. A goddamn drone.”

  The girl pirouetted onto the dock, and followed. “It makes no noise,” she said. “That’s why only the dog and I saw it. How can an airplane fly without an engine?”

  “Damn thing’s no toy,” Tomlinson remarked. “It’s circling the marina, probably shooting video.” He took another few steps. “Sonuvabitch, yeah. Sending video to some narc hidden around here someplace. Goddamn feds, I bet. They’ve had their noses on my act for years.”

  Sabina’s good instincts told her it was a bad time to scold the man again for profanity.

  “Unless . . .” Tomlinson was thinking out loud. He thrust his hands out, a signal for the girl to stop. “Whoa. Don’t say a word for a second. Just watch.”

  Sabina followed the man’s gaze and understood. Down the shoreline, partially screened by trees, the back window of Marion Ford’s lab opened, but not wide. Ford’s face filled the space long enough for him to adjust his glasses, then only his hands were there, a small dark object in one of them.

  “What’s he doing?”

  “Quiet.”

  “Is that a . . . ? What’s he holding, a flashlight?”

  Tomlinson pivoted and shooed the girl away. “We’re going back to your houseboat.”

  “But I want to see!”

  “Call the dog,” he told her. “The dog will stay with you until I talk to Doc and see what’s up.” He spoke in a tone Sabina had never heard him use before. Not mean, not bossy, but serious, like one adult speaking to another.

  Sabina started to reply when one of the tourists hollered, “Oh my god . . . look at that!”

  She turned; Tomlinson turned, too, and they both watched the flying saucer tumble down, down, down until it smacked the water with the sound of sheet metal falling from the sky.

  It hit close, very close, to the little Cuban, Figueroa, who, surprised by the sound—or the sudden wake—tumbled backwards out of the canoe.

  The dog saw it all, and took off through the water. He cut a beeline wake, only the animal’s head and rudder-tail showing until he had crossed forty yards of open bay. By then, the drone had sunk, but Figueroa was still fighting to keep his nose above water.

  For a second, it looked like the dog was going to rescue the Cuban. Instead, he ignored Figgy and went after the drone, which had gone under a couple of canoe lengths beyond, where there were bubbles. The dog tilted his butt high and clawed toward the bottom. Three times he dived to search for the thing, spouting water from his nose like a dragon when he resurfaced.

  The fourth dive, the dog went down and didn’t come up.

  “This is bad,” Tomlinson said, kicking off his Birkenstocks.

  Down shore, Marion Ford hit the water, and was swimming before his face cleared the surface.

  Ford knew the dog was alive, struggling on the bottom, because the surface boiled where he’d gone down. Trouble was, not far away, the Cuban was struggling, too, slapping water the way children do when they can’t swim. He was trying to get to the canoe, which had drifted just out of his reach.

  Ford knew Tomlinson was behind him, swimming hard but not fast. His pal had too much hair, and those baggy shorts created drag for the elegant windmill strokes of someone who’d participated in water ballet until it got too competitive. He would have to let the dog drown unless he could yell some sense into the Cuban.

  Ford yelled in Spanish, “Figgy. Stand up, for christ’s sake, it’s shallow!”

  The Cuban made panicky gurgling sounds and managed the word shark a couple of times, even though the great white was too big to enter Dinkin’s Bay, or most other bays in Southwest Florida.

  “Goddamn it, take a deep breath . . . use your feet.” To demonstrate, Ford speared his legs down in what was maybe five feet of water, stood for a microsecond, then used the bottom to dolphin forward, almost to the dog. When he looked up, Figgy had done it; was staggering like a drunk in water up to his chest.

  Ford eyeballed the spot where the dog had gone under—only remnants of a surface boil left—and did another dolphin dive. He used his hands to feel along the bottom, which was sandy, spiked with sea grasses and tunicates. Visibility was never great in the bay, but it was better in winter, which was the dry season. Even without a mask, he could make out blurry images.

  Finally, there was the dog: a black shadow on a plain of gray marl. Ford’s hands found fur; got his arms around a bony chest, but the dog’s body resisted when he tried to lift. He got his feet under him and used his legs to heft what felt like a great weight, which was mystifying because the dog weighed less than eighty pounds. All bone and muscle, true, but why the hell . . . ?

  When he got the animal to the surface, he understood. The dog’s collar had looped around something, the landing gear of what looked like an aircraft. The object was not heavy, but wide and round and solid, which had turned it into an anchor.

  He yanked the aircraft free and let it sink, then took stock. The dog lay limp with his mouth open, long tongue dangling; eyes closed, and he wasn�
��t breathing. Warm, however, the animal’s furred weight, and dense with muscle. He cradled the dog, tilted his head, then squeezed but not so hard that ribs broke. Water and bubbles vomited from the mouth. He repeated that until there was nothing more to jettison.

  “Come on—wake up.” Talking in the stern way of a trainer giving commands while he thumbed open one eye, then the other. No gleam of consciousness looked back.

  Ford knew CPR. But on a dog? He tried anyway: mouth and airway appeared to be clear. A bear hug allowed several quick chest compressions . . . then he cupped his hands around the retriever’s snout and exhaled mightily.

  The furry chest inflated a little, but not much. He checked for a heartbeat. None.

  Several times, he repeated the process while the dog sagged in his arms, warm, dense, and still. So close to life, yet not alive. Many a night, that warmth had caused irritation when the dog demanded bed space, particularly on summer nights—a breach of conduct to which Ford provided stern words, but ignored when the lights went out, or the temperature dropped.

  He’d lost track of time. How many minutes had gone by? Four . . . six?

  More time passed before he finally told himself, Stop.

  As he knew better than most, the demarcation between life and death is a fragile veneer; a thread parted by a single breath. On one side lay the present; on the other the past, irreversible.

  “Is he okay?”

  With all Tomlinson’s splashing, Ford shouldn’t have been startled, but he was. “Not breathing.”

  “What?”

  Ford realized he hadn’t actually spoken those words. He’d tried, but they hadn’t made it past his lips. “He’s, uhh . . . he’s not . . . his respiration stopped.”

  “Give him to me, I’ll do it.”

  He thrust out the dog so Tomlinson could take him, then busied himself using his feet to relocate the sunken drone.

  Tomlinson was near tears. “Cripes! This is like Batman drowning . . . he couldn’t . . . Damn it. Wake up, boy, come on now. He’ll be okay, Doc, you just wait.” The man was silent for several seconds, then yelled, “Figgy, get your ass over here!” He went silent again.