Captiva df-4

by Randy Wayne White

  When you are planning a trip to the other side of the world, it's best to nudge the body clock ahead long before departure.

  One afternoon, Janet confronted me and said, "Look, Doc, I can relate to what you're going through. I've been through it. So I want to give you some advice that I wish somebody had given me: You've got to stay busy. Find something to do. Not big stuff. I think the litde no-brainer stuff is best . . . like maybe help me get this place cleaned up? Or we could start building a new fish tank. I'll help!"

  I had patted her arm affectionately, smiled my bland smile, and said, "But I am staying busy, Janet."

  I was.

  The first thing I had done was box all my important personal items; then rented space at a high-security storage business. The kind of business that gladly accepts cash in advance and isn't too fussy about identification. The kind of business favored by people who realize that a safety deposit box can be sealed and searched by authorities if a judge can be found to sign the right papers.

  Through a much traveled friend, I also drew out a sizable chunk of cash from my account at the Royal Trust Ltd., Seven Mile Beach, Grand Cayman Island. Then I took a tiny piece of that cash around to several local banks and converted it into hefty bags of quarters.

  When you are traveling from pay phone to pay phone, over a large area and over a period of several days, you don't want to be caught short of change, particularly if you are making tough but untraceable trunk calls to places such as Nicaragua, Singapore, Burma, and Medan, Sumatra.

  I also converted a tidy chunk of that cash into two large money orders. I Fed Exed both of the checks, but to different parts of the world. One went to an acquaintance of mine in Miami, along with a passport-size photograph. Pretty nice photograph; didn't wear my glasses.

  The days prior to Hannah's funeral were very busy days indeed.

  On Tuesday afternoon, January 17, Ron Jackson called and invited me to accompany him on a midnight bust he and some A.T.F. agents had planned. Even though I declined, he didn't tell me who they were going to hit, or why. He didn't need to. I had already given him all the information I had collected. After thinking long and hard about it, I had even told him my suspicions about Raymond Tullock. I didn't press the issue too hard. But I told him. If fate—or Tullock's good planning—made him impossible for the law to touch, then fate wanted me to intercede.

  Tomlinson might have called the gesture an attempt to seek karmic approval.

  On Wednesday morning, Jackson showed up at my condo apartment. His clothes were wrinkled; he looked tired. Probably hadn't been to bed all night. When I opened the door, he held up his gym bag. "Run?"

  We ran.

  They had swept the beach at Copper Rim, he told me. They had bagged every man there on probable cause, including one Julian Claypool.

  "Julian?" I said. I had called him Julius—another mistake to add to my list.

  "Claypool may be the strangest man I've ever arrested," Jackson said as we chugged along, the hard sand sponging our waffle tracks. "The whole time, he just beamed and grinned. Not the least bit upset. Hell, Claypool seemed glad to see me. Like he was going to reach out and shake my hand. Yep, he'd beaten Mr. Tomlinson. Yep, he'd dropped him off along the road. Sure, he could tell me who helped—it was this guy and this guy and this guy. Didn't care about the others hearing him. Man, if looks could kill! I'm telling you, Ford, he made me nervous. I tried to get him to shut up. Didn't want him to say another word until we got the court to appoint him a lawyer." Jackson jogged along silently for a time, before adding, "I'm sorry about your friend, by the way. Wiped the smile right off Claypool's face when he found out he was up for murder."

  I said, "I imagine it did. Florida's an electric chair state."

  "Naw-w-w. Second degree maybe, but more likely they'll work it down to manslaughter. Claypool won't get the chair." More silence.

  Something was on his mind. I thought he was going to confront me with it but, instead, he told me about Kemper Waits. How the bust had gone.

  It had gone very well. They had cuffed Waits and read him his rights. Unlike Claypool, Waits had not been cooperative. He had slobbered at the mouth and screamed about government conspiracies. Waits, Jackson told me, was a certifiable freak. Because Waits refused to provide a key, they had battered down the door of his cement shed. Inside, the A.T.F. agents had found wiring and timers and caps and fuses, along with four vacuum-packed sticks of dynamite, plus a tattered counterculture pamphlet with the words "Cook Book" in the title. It was a well-equipped little bomb factory.

  "He wasn't going to stop with two," Jackson told me. "Kemper had a taste for it. He'd declared his own private war. A diet of drugs and whiskey can create paranoia, and that guy has a big-league case of it."

  In the pond behind Waits's house, agents had waded in and confirmed that there were heavy, metal objects in the shallows that were presumably boat engines, but they wouldn't know how many until they started winching them out.

  "The information was all good, Ford. Everything you gave me was dead on." We had run halfway to the Sanibel lighthouse, and now were on our way back. "A clean bust like that, it didn't hurt my reputation with the sheriff. . . or the federal boys, either, for that matter. I appreciate it. I really do. But what I'm worried about is . . . this thing that's been on my mind . . ."

  I sensed what was troubling Jackson and decided to help him out. "The bomb that killed Hannah Smith had nothing to do with me gathering information on Sulphur Wells, Ron."

  "I wish I could be as certain of it as you are. I'm the one who asked you to do it. I'd feel terrible—"

  "I've already told you why that bomb was there. I think Kemper Waits probably made it, but I think Raymond Tullock put it there. You seem reluctant to believe that."

  "Oh bullshit, Ford." He made a noise of friendly exasperation. "It's not that I'm reluctant, we just don't have anything on him. Waits played dumb about him; even Claypool said Tullock wasn't involved—and Claypool was squealing on everybody but his mother. Everything you told me makes sense. Yeah, I believe the guy's a flake. Do we have our suspicions? Damn right. Tullock flies off to Asia the night before the bomb explodes. Did I tell you he cleaned out his bank account?"

  "No, but I'm not surprised." It was true. I wasn't surprised; had, in fact, already anticipated it.

  "He cleans out his bank account, yeah. And his corporate account. Closes up his apartment and gets on a plane to Singapore." Jackson looked at me to emphasize his point. "I'll tell you one thing: The guy screws up in Asia, he'll wish he'd never left home. Some of those places, they still beat you bloody with a cane. Or worse. Like that American brat who spray-painted those cars?"

  "Asians are pretty tough," I agreed.

  "When the right paperwork comes through, the A.T.F. boys and I are going to have a look at Tullock's apartment." Jackson reached over and gave me an amiable slap on the shoulder. "If we find something good, we'll go to work on extradition. A week in one of those rathole dungeons would put a new bounce in Tullock's step. Or we'll be at the airport waiting on him if he's got the balls to come back. The computers show he's got a return ticket out of Singapore for the twenty-fifth."

  I said, "Singapore, huh?" But I was thinking: Raymond Tullock isn't coming back.

  I spread the word around Dinkin's Bay that I was flying off to Nicaragua. Told them I was going to watch a few ball games at Mad Monk Stadium in Managua, then drive clear down to the San Juan River—old Contra country—to do some research on the bull sharks that live in Lake Nicaragua. Or at least had lived in Lake Nicaragua until the Japanese fin merchants exterminated them.

  I told my friends I needed a change of scenery. Told them that a month or so in the jungle would help me adjust. I didn't mention that in a world of tele-linkage and information highways, the only way to travel anonymously anymore is through one of the few remaining outlaw countries.

  Cuba would have been okay, but I couldn't get the direct flight to Mexico City I needed. If I was late t
o Mexico City, I'd miss my Thai Airline connection to Fiji. Which meant that the rest of my itinerary—Fiji to

  Manila, Manila to Singapore, Singapore to Medan, Sumatra—would all fall through.

  But the afternoon Managua—to—Mexico City flight would work out just fine. So I spread the story about Nicaragua. Told it so many times that I was actually beginning to believe it myself. Wide-eyed and a little breathless, Janet had asked me, "Isn't it dangerous in the rain forest? All those animals? You, all by yourself?"

  I wondered if it was her shy way of hinting that she would like to accompany me.

  I shook my head, telling Janet, "The rain forest is the safest place I know."

  My last day in Florida—my last for many years, I suspected—was Friday, January 20. It was the kind of winter-gray day that one associates with snow peaks or midwestern industrial cities. There were heavy rain clouds to the north. The weather added a sarcastic edge to my mood. I looked at the sky and thought: Perfect.

  In the morning, I made the long, long drive to Sulphur Wells. Had to pick the lock at Hannah's house to get in. She and Tomlinson had set up the typewriter on the breakfast table. There was a sheet of paper still rolled into it. The incomplete manuscript—Hannah's book—lay neatly in a box on the table. Tomlinson had finished nearly eight chapters. Not seven, as Hannah had said.

  The last entry was in Hannah's handwriting: "The Yeaters and the Treadwells had a yard sale yesterday, selling out. Mr. Yeater said he might be able to get work in Detroit. Him and my daddy fished together when I was a litde girl, so . . ."

  The note was unfinished. Wondered if Tullock had interrupted her at the writing desk.

  I took the manuscript, and collected Tomlinson's personal effects in his old brown leather suitcase. I then made a slow tour of the house. There were still signs of Tullock's last confrontation with Hannah: the arrangement of dried flowers that had once been on the mantelpiece was now scattered across the floor in front of the fireplace. One of the green glass spheres lay shattered on the floor, though one remained unbroken. One, perhaps two were missing. I remembered Hannah telling me that they were heirlooms; the only thing she had of her Great-Aunt Hannah's. I took the sphere that remained, then searched her bedroom. What I wanted was a photograph of her; something else to remember her by. Could hear Hannah say, He was stealing little pieces of me. I wanted a few pieces for myself.

  I finally found the scrapbook. It was a cheap blue imitation-leather binder. Leafed through it. Saw a tintype of a very tall woman in a long print dress and a white sun hat. She was standing by a team of oxen, holding a coil of rope in her left hand. Written on the back of the photograph in fountain pen was: "Hannah "Big Six" Smith, Homestead, Fla. 1907.

  I removed the print, then selected two photographs of Hannah. One was of her in a basketball uniform: stork legs; black, glittering eyes. The other was of her sitting beneath a tree, holding a book. A more reflective pose. Her hair was longer, parted in the middle and combed straight to her shoulders. She looked young and at ease. Very pretty.

  I took the things, locked the house, and drove to a print business that was on the way to the hospital. It was called Kopy Kat. One of the big chains. I gave the woman at the counter the partial manuscript and two of the photographs. I told her how I wanted it done: printed book form, good quality paper, nice cover. I told her to print enough copies to send to every library in Florida. I paid cash in advance.

  My going-away present.

  When the clerk asked what should go on the cover, I took the order form and wrote: The Hannah Smith Story.

  Since the explosion, I had visited Tomlinson only once. Seeing his shrunken body, hearing the flatline hum of the electroencephalogram was just too unsettling. The man was gone, so why leave the plugs in?

  I had arranged to meet Dr. Corales and two representatives of the hospital's Human Subjects Panel at a private room off the intensive care unit at eleven a.m.—less than an hour before my flight to Miami. She arrived slightly late, her hair and clothes soaked from the rainstorm that had rumbled and threatened all morning. We shook hands as she told me, "I appreciate you tracking down Mr. Tomlinson's brother. We received his telegram yesterday afternoon. It's ... a little strange, but it's sufficient."

  I wasn't surprised in the least. On the phone, from halfway around the world, Norvin Tomlinson had sounded vague, distracted, cynical, and desperately mercenary. Even in Burma, a drug addict's life required some income.

  She handed me the telegram. I read it, then smiled at Dr. Corales. She looked less businesslike, more attractive because of her wet hair. "Isn't it odd," I said, "how siblings can be so different?"

  Norvin Tomlinson's telegram had read: "KILL HIM, KILL THEM ALL!"

  Dr. Corales returned my smile, agreeing, then took the telegram from me before saying, "Are you ready?"

  I was ready. I was holding Tomlinson's hand when they disengaged the respirator. His hand was already cool. His face was the color and texture of a very, very old mushroom. I waited there alone with him for a minute or so while the thunderstorm whoofed and rumbled outside. I sent telepathic messages. I received no messages in reply. Then I exited the room and I handed Dr. Corales a brown paper bag. Tomlinson's sarong was in the bag and I instructed that he be wearing it when he was cremated. I also reminded her that the ashes were to go to Mack at Dinkin's Bay, so that they could be spread by boat following the little Buddhist ceremony I had already arranged.

  The last thing I did before taking a cab to the airport was hand the doctor my truck's registration and keys. I told her to make a present of the truck to Janet Mueller, who would arrive later.

  As I walked away, Dr. Corales said, "Have a good trip. Too bad you have to fly on a day like today." One of those bland comments that professionals sometimes use to gauge the mood and the stability of a patient.

  I told Dr. Corales that any trip that had a layover at the American Eagle terminal in Miami was a bad day to fly.

  A little joke. Just to let her know I was okay.

  Chapter 18

  I was in an ancient Garuda airliner; some recycled transport jet whose fuselage had been polished beer can-thin by all the hours of wind friction, all the years of jungle puddle-jumping, all the days of harsh Indonesian sunlight.

  We banked to starboard and descended through volcanic clouds. Below and ahead was Sumatra. We dropped down over mangrove plains off the Straits of Malacca and I could see a plateau of orange smog that was as vivid as the hot haze of a chemical fire. The smog lay over jungle—a stratum of red gas shimmering over emerald green. Then the jungle began to thin. There was a veinwork of dirt roads and brown rivers that ran through rice paddies. The landscape reminded me of Vietnam. Then I could see the city's outskirts: a coagulated mass of slums; thousands of bamboo shanties, each with a television antenna suspended from a bamboo pole. The city's center was to the north: a hazy, geometric clutter packed onto a delta created by the branching of two muddy rivers.

  The old plane wobbled, creaked; tires yelped before the reverse thrust of engines, and then a throng of tiny, brown shirtless men were wheeling the stairs toward the open cabin door.

  Welcome to Sumatra, the second largest island in the nation of Indonesia. Welcome to Medan, the island's largest city, home to a million or more anonymous souls. Had I attacked the tarmac with a nuclear auger, drilled straight down through the center of the planet, through the thousands of miles of molten core, I would have exited the tunnel somewhere close to Nicaragua, not far from where I had started.

  So, welcome to the back side of the earth. . . .

  I went through customs, no problem. Expected to be met by an old contact of mine, Havildar Singbah. Havildar had been a stafFsergeant in the Duke of Edinburgh's Own Gurkha Rifles. In military communities, the Gurkhas are considered to be the most fearsome infantry fighters on earth. They are also considered to be among the most trustworthy men on earth. Havildar had seen action in Vietnam and the Falklands. He is about five feet six inches tall,
and he is one of the few men I've met in my life who truly frightens me. Not because of the way he looks—the man always had a mellow little smile on his face—but because of the stories I had heard about him while he and his troop served with the Brits.

  Waiting for me with a car, though, was a man named Rengat Ungar. Rengat was maybe thirty years old, maybe fifty. He wore a dirty turban and rubber sandals. He told me Havildar had suddenly been called back to Nepal because his father was very ill. Rengat assured me I could like and trust him one hundred percent. "Just like Havildar, you bet!"

  But I didn't like or trust Rengat. He chattered constantly in his broken English and chain-smoked Indonesian cigarettes that stank of cloves. He drove much too fast and the brakes on his little car were bad. Because Medan has no stoplights or stop signs, it was a dangerous combination.

  I settled back and stared out the window, hoping that my indifference would cause him to concentrate on his driving.

  If there were a million people in Medan, there seemed to be at least that many beat-up minibuses and motorized becak rickshaws on the narrow streets. Few of the vehicles had mufflers, but they all had horns, so the streets were a chaos of noise and exhaust that linked the open markets, filthy restaurants, sleazy bars, teenage prostitutes, swaggering cops, sleeping drunks, women cooking over wood fires, pretty children flirting from doorways, roaming goats, and the few stray dogs that had not yet been eaten.

  "You want nice girl?" Rengat asked me cheerfully. "Very young, very cheap."

  "Not right now," I told him.

  "A nice young boy, then? I can offer you a selection of very clean young boys."