Eddie had learned to dive off the New Jersey coast; was a member of an outlaw group, the Hell Divers, who pirated deep-water wrecks. Crazy deep, sometimes, all for trophies and the beer parties afterward. He had too many shark stories to allow the Brazilian to have the last word.
Ford listened, thinking, It’s good to be back. Didn’t say much, which was typical, until Eddie asked, “What was a great white doing in the Gulf, you think?”
“Vargas has a point—she was after food. But it could be more of a genetic memory thing. When the Spaniards arrived—fourteen, fifteen hundreds—this coast had a big population of monk and blue tip seals. That’s what great whites eat. It’s been a hundred years since a seal was sighted off the Florida Keys, but maybe—I’m theorizing here—maybe in the mind of a female great white the memory is still fresh. Not her memory, but inherited; a feeding route passed down through who knows how many generations.”
There was more he could have added. Throughout central Florida, the fossilized teeth of Megalodon, a massive prehistoric shark, were commonly found, some larger than a man’s hand. The peninsula had contained a shallow inland sea that flowed into the Gulf south of what is now Tampa—a primary feeding transect for sharks the size of a Greyhound bus.
The connection was tenuous but made sense. In the 1960s, when biologist Eugenie Clark started what is now Mote Marine Laboratory, her team caught several great whites on shark lines set off Boca Grande Pass near Fort Myers. They weren’t common, but they were out there.
Another seldom seen animal was out there, too—a swimming predator even larger than a great white, but Ford, who had seen blurry video, kept that to himself.
“Food and sex,” Vargas said again. He started toward the marina, where there was music and Christmas lights. Gave Fast Eddie time to get ahead of them before saying to Ford, “Whose was it, sport?” No accent, now that it was just the two of them. And no need to explain he was talking about the UAV.
Vargas was too good-looking, too wealthy, and too dangerous not to have enemies and too cautious to have friends. That’s precisely why Ford trusted him enough to dispense with the bullshit. “You saw it happen?”
“I’d just rounded the marker into the bay, but I saw enough. What did you use? Not a rifle. Even with a suppressor, a guy like you wouldn’t risk hitting someone he didn’t want to shoot.”
Ford shrugged that away. “Let’s say it crashed and leave it at that. It’s still out there. If I wasn’t so tired, I’d go out and look tonight.”
“Need help?”
Maybe, but the Brazilian wasn’t the help-his-neighbor type.
“What do you get, these days?” Ford asked. “A couple thousand an hour?”
The Brazilian shook his head, amused. “I have the occasional Christmas special,” he said, meaning I get a lot more than that.
When Mack saw Ford and the Brazilian coming, he felt a tension not unfamiliar to a businessman who owned a small marina where people with big personalities, and sometimes big egos, lived hull-to-hull in boats. Mix in alcohol and love affairs, there were bound to be conflicts.
For Mack, that meant doing his best to defuse issues or get the hell out of the way so he didn’t share the blame later. It meant pretending to be cheerful when he wasn’t and likable to a few—a very few—residents he didn’t like or trust.
Vargas Diemer topped the list.
There was something about the Brazilian.
Ford, on the other hand, was a local favorite. Not Mack’s personal favorite, but among the general population. The biologist was a bit too aloof, as if shielding something, and his disappearances were a source of unease. More than once, Ford had returned with blood wounds that did not mesh with a science symposium or a lecture on jellyfish, as he’d claimed.
Running a successful business also meant keeping your damn mouth shut.
Mack had seen the drone tumble from the sky. He’d seen Ford aim something from the window of his stilthouse—not that he would bring it up. Violent history was implied, like now: the biologist was limping a little when he and the Brazilian passed the bait tank, where decorations were swagged above the purloined plastic cows, each cow aglow with a lightbulb in its belly.
Tomlinson’s idea, no doubt.
Mack stood over a grill piled with oysters. He put down the tongs and surveyed people socializing on the docks. A couple of dozen; plastic beer cups and laughter, Cuban music clattering from speakers; rows of boats decorated like Christmas trees.
But no Tomlinson.
This added to the tension, which was unusual since Tomlinson’s presence usually caused more problems than anyone in Dinkin’s Bay. The man was a boat bum hipster, an avowed pacifist, and a shameless womanizer. This made him a lightning rod for political arguments, jealousy, pissed-off husbands, and at least two fistfights.
Tomlinson never participated, of course. As an ordained Rienzi Buddhist monk (supposedly), violence was beneath him. Instead, the troublemaking bugger vanished like smoke from a spent bullet.
He was a good egg, however. Mack couldn’t deny that. The strange bastard was decent and funny but could not be trusted with another man’s girlfriend, wife, or daughter—hell, a man’s grandmother, for that matter.
The same was true of Vargas Diemer.
That’s why Mack was concerned. While Ford had been away, his most recent love interest, Hannah Smith, had had sunset cocktails and dinner aboard the Brazilian’s yacht. Twice, Mack had seen Tomlinson climb into her little fishing skiff, and they’d been gone all day.
Hannah was not a promiscuous person, but she was a tall, healthy woman in her thirties and she was human.
Morality wasn’t the issue. No one was more aware than Mack that people led secret lives, and that those secrets were guarded for a reason. He himself was having affairs with three women simultaneously, one who lived aboard Tiger Lilly, another from Cleveland, Ohio—an Internet match that required a camera and an imagination, but she would be visiting Florida soon.
The third woman, a widow, owned rental cottages off West Gulf Drive, a nice little property that she’d agreed to sell to Mack—if she and the other two ladies didn’t somehow meet up.
Talk about an old fool asking for trouble.
Get through Christmas without a blowup, that was his goal. Timing was all-important. Recently, he had been diagnosed with prostate cancer. Surgery was scheduled for the day after New Year’s, which gave him only a couple of weeks to live it up and enjoy the pleasures of his stupidity. Peacefully, though. That’s why he hadn’t told anyone about the diagnosis.
Love was love and friends were friends, but, damn it, Mack had a marina to run, and important things to accomplish, before he ran out of time.
• • •
Ford loaded a toolbox into his pickup truck because Mack asked him to do it, then made room for Tomlinson, who was returning from somewhere on his bike.
“This island is a floating candelabra,” he said, slamming the door. “Sometimes, I’m sorry I swore off acid. Beautiful out there, man. Like riding through stars. All the way from Blind Pass, I just sort of let my eyes blur.”
“Swore it off, when, an hour ago?” Ford asked, then said, “Oh.”
Brown bags aglow with candles lined Tarpon Bay Road clear to West Gulf, about a mile, including Lilly’s Jewelry, the parking lot at Bailey’s General Store, and the new rum bar across the street. Christmas Luminary. He’d forgotten.
“You missed the oyster roast,” Ford said. “The guides brought in some pen shells and I made ceviche.”
They talked about that; mentioned the dog and the pretty veterinarian, then their plans to dive the Captiva Blue Hole, Ford saying, “Let’s give the wind a few days to die down. The viz will be better.” He glanced over at Tomlinson. “Where were you?”
“On my bike? I bought a farm not far from here.” Tomlinson was fiddling with the truck’s ancient AM radio: r
ight-wing talk shows, Mexican accordion music. “You don’t actually listen to this crap?”
“That’s what you call them now? Farms?” Ford asked. His pal grew marijuana on a couple of backcountry islands where there were shell middens high enough to plant. For a decade, he’d sold boutique weed, but had recently claimed he was leaving the business because legalization had taken the fun out of it.
“A real farm where I can plant things legally. Almost four acres. Wait ’til you see it—just this side of Blind Pass Bridge. There’s an old rain cistern there, built, I don’t know, late eighteen hundreds, maybe. You know that old kind of concrete they made using seashells? It’s big. Big as a small swimming pool and five feet deep. Plenty of high ground. I was told Thomas Edison paid islanders to grow goldenrod on the acreage. Either for synthetic rubber or some kind of weird-ass experiment. You know, kill it and study it. The white man’s way.”
This was news to Ford. “You already closed on the property or made an offer?”
“Dude, believe it or not, time doesn’t stop when you leave the island. You were gone for, what, a week? It came on the market, so I snapped it up. Hannah thought it was a good deal. Her mother, Loretta, she’s a master gardener. She’s been giving me advice. The Smith family’s been farming these islands for more than a hundred years.”
Ford told himself, Don’t react, but couldn’t stop himself from asking, “How’s she doing?”
“Full of piss and ginger, that woman. People think she’s nuts after they cut that clot out of her brain, but I think she’s been elevated to a whole new level of consciousness. It happens that way sometimes. When I stop by, Loretta will smoke the occasional doobie and tell me about conversations she has with a chieftain. A big guy, really handsome, Loretta says. He lived on the islands more than a thousand years ago.” Tomlinson waited, anticipating a reply, then realized, “Oh . . . you meant Hannah, not her mom.”
Still no response. Tomlinson cut to the chase. “I haven’t gotten Hannah’s knickers off, if that’s what you’re asking. She’s made it clear: don’t even try.” He snapped off the radio. “How can you live without music, man? You could buy a tape player cheap at Goodwill. Or skip ahead a few decades and install a CD player.” Tomlinson folded his arms.
Ford, looking at rows of glowing paper bags, said, “Yeah, Luminary is kind of pretty.”
End of subject.
Ahead in the lights of the truck, Mack’s beat-up Lincoln Continental turned left onto West Gulf at the beach access and drove past the Island Inn, almost to Shalimar, where they turned left again into a shell drive shielded by palms.
A wooden sign, not visible from the road, read
GRIN N BARE IT
BEACH COTTAGES
“Where we headed?” Tomlinson asked.
Ford put the truck in park. “We’re already here. Mack’s thinking about buying this place.” He got out, the night dense with salt mist and jasmine, and spoke over the truck’s roof. “I must’ve jogged past this driveway a thousand times but never noticed the sign. You ever hear of it?”
“How much they asking?” Tomlinson, using his fingers, combed his hair back while he got oriented. “Love, love, love the name. A nudist colony, I bet. But”—his eyes took in six mini-cabins, windows dark beneath an awning of coconut palms—“doesn’t look like it’s been open for a while. Hell . . . hasn’t been open since the sixties, maybe. Wow.” He tilted his head and sniffed. “Time warp, man. I bet this is where Elvis lives.”
“Mack didn’t mention a price,” Ford replied. “If it’s more than a couple of acres, the land alone’s worth a bunch. So maybe he wants us to invest. Hey”—he was thinking about the UAV, worried someone might come looking, plus he was tired—“I’m not going to stick around. Do you mind catching a ride back?”
“Shallow up a tad, man. Why you so jumpy? Never mind—I don’t know why I bother asking. You’re always warp speed when you get back from one of your lecture tours.” It was mild sarcasm to preface what came next: “Want to talk about the flying saucer that buzzed your lab? If someone’s after your ass, you can tell me. Or are we just gonna pretend it’s business as usual?”
Ford, looking toward the cottages, said, “I didn’t know he was bringing them.”
In a shell parking area, the Lincoln’s dome light showed Mack and two passengers getting out—the ladies from Tiger Lilly, Rhonda and JoAnn. Middle-aged; JoAnn thick and busty, Rhonda the opposite. They’d been partners, business and romantically, for a long, long time. A few months ago, Rhonda had begun slipping out to meet Mack when JoAnn was away.
Tomlinson lowered his voice. “The big guy’s been dipping his willy in the family fun pool. Think she knows?”
“You’re the expert on double-dipping,” Ford said and checked his watch. It was a little after nine. “Better yet, I’ll jog back to the marina and leave the keys in the truck.”
• • •
The property consisted of six tiny cabins built around a commons area—gas grill, a shuffleboard court, orange trees heavy with fruit—and a large one-story clubhouse, CBS brick and stucco, with linoleum floors and tables for potlucks and bingo. Plenty of room to seat fifty or more people. Mack needed a flashlight to find the breaker box because the power had been switched off.
They toured the cabins one by one, the doors padlocked. Kitchenettes, dusty bamboo furniture, outdated TVs. Single beds, unmade, in a space so small that they took turns having a look.
Mack led them to a tiny swimming pool, which had been drained. There was a tiki bar on an artificial beach where weeds had battled their way through a foot of white sand. Then back to the clubhouse, which smelled of Pine-Sol, where they sat at a folding table while Mack stood as if calling a meeting to order.
“Remember a few years back when the feds tried to close Dinkin’s Bay to powerboat traffic?” he said. “It didn’t happen. Still hasn’t, but the day’s coming. You can delay the feds, but you can’t win if they want something. And they want control of that bay.”
Tomlinson’s eyes took in the space around them. “A last lifeboat. Yeah, I get it, man. Is there deeded beach access?”
Mack continued, “Almost five acres, this building, the cottages, and there’s a small house at the end of the drive. The owner—she’s a widow—she lives there part-time and is desperate to sell. Well . . . she’s willing. The property’s been through the foreclosure process half a dozen times and she’s always managed to keep the dogs away. Old-time repeat clients who’ve been holing up here since her husband—he was a lot older than her—since he built the place back in the sixties. He died a few years back; now most of her repeat business is either dead or dying, so she closed the place to save on utilities. That was almost two years ago.”
JoAnn, sitting next to Rhonda, asked some of the right questions—price, zoning, taxes—then added, “Are you out of your goddamn mind? So’s the seller at the price she’s asking. With a name as tacky as Grin N Bare It? That would have to go, but why even bother? This place is a teardown. Developers will pay twenty, thirty percent more and build condos.” She focused on Mack. “What’s the catch?”
Rhonda, oddly subdued, opened her purse, took out a packet of tissues, then put the tissues away.
Tomlinson exchanged looks with Ford while Mack explained, “Cash, that’s all. She wants a clean deal, and keep it simple. What I’m thinking is, we fix the place up and run it at a profit.”
He motioned vaguely to include the concrete walls, beige paint peeling, and a tiny kitchen, where there was a counter piled with old phone books still in plastic. “If someone at the marina has friends visiting, or their boat’s being hauled, we’ll book them here instead of a hotel. Hire a manager and a handyman—Figgy is just the guy, I think. We can do the work ourselves in our spare time. I know, I know, the cottages are tiny, but think about it. Who knows more about living in cramped spaces than people who live on boats? We’r
e all set as far as zoning.” He craned his head back. “A little patch and polish . . . probably redo the wiring; the right furniture and an entertainment system would really liven up this place. And it comes with a license to sell wine and beer.”
Tomlinson, wearing shorts and a tank top, stood and walked barefoot to the stack of phone books, and began shuffling through them. “Beer—rehydration’s important in the tropics, but why not buy a liquor license, too? I picture a seafaring motif: antique charts, serving wenches in low-cut dresses. And over there”—he pointed—“big-ass speakers for bands we can hire. I say we run the place as a private club. No suits or pinheads allowed . . . But seriously, ladies, you really want to change the name?”
JoAnn was asking Mack if he needed investors, or had the cash, while Tomlinson continued with his thread. “How about we call this”—he had to think for a moment—“call it the Float On Bar. Or . . . the Déjà Vu Inn—yeah, the little hideaway so friendly, you could swear you’ve been here before. But to change a classic name like Grin and”—he plucked a magazine from the stack, saying, “Aha! Here’s proof. What did I tell you, Doc?” He held up the magazine. “This is why we never heard of the place. Nudists don’t advertise for the same reason they don’t need pockets.”
International Naturists, the publication’s name; lead story, Ford didn’t bother to look when it was passed around.
Mack answered a few more questions before getting down to it. “None of us are getting any younger. Down the road, five or six years, if the feds kick us out, we’ll have a place to go. A sort of a—what do you call it?—family compound. That’s a perk. What I didn’t tell you is the owner has accepted my offer. I want to get this place up and running before the season’s done. With me, it’s strictly business. If the buildings are structurally sound, if there’s no mold, and if the title’s clear, I’ll sign the contract. Mold is a hell of a lawsuit risk. Doc? That’s why I asked you to bring your tools. Let’s check behind some of the drywall and have a look inside the vents.”
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