"Stop it! You're going to kill him!" Tisha had gone from cheerleader to protector.
No, I wasn't going to kill him. But I was going to get some information out of him.
To Nora, I said, "I'm really getting tired of her noise."
I liked her quick reaction. She seemed to know instantly what I wanted her to do-stay between the hysterical girl and myself. I didn't want to be put in the position of having to light her off.
She gave Tisha a warning look. "I'm getting kind of sick of her myself."
Just like that, Tisha became very, very quiet.
Tony wasn't being cooperative. He was hurt and furious and he had a very nasty mouth. His attitude was as foul as his language. I was getting sick of both. Now I nudged him with the stick and said, "You need to answer my questions, little man, or I'm going to get mad. You don't want me to get mad, do you?"
He told me to go do something to myself-a physical impossibility.
He was still on the ground. I was standing over him. I said, "Did I mention that was your last warning?"
"Get away from me, asshole!"
"See? A perfect example. You don't seem to have any concern for my feelings." I knelt, put a knee in his side, slapped him twice in the face when he tried to fight me off, then I reached and got a good grip on his earrings, left hand and right hand. They became very effective steering devices. I turned his head until he was facing the ground, neck bent upward, toward me.
"That hurts, damn it!"
"I bet it does. But know what's gonna hurt worse? From now on, every time you don't answer a question, I'm going to rip a pretty little ring out of your nasty little head. First one that goes is that nose ring. That's going to hurt."
"Ford."
I turned to see Nora's quizzical, worried expression-I wasn't really going to torture the man, was I? I gave her the slightest nod in answer. It changed her face; changed the way she looked at me.
I said, "Okay, let's try it again: tell me why you dug up Dorothy Copeland."
"I didn't!"
I changed my grip on his head so fast that I had the nose ring in my fist before he could react. I gave it a sharp tug, hard enough for him to feel it, but not hard enough to rip it away.
"Shit!"
"I don't think you heard the question: Why'd you open her grave?"
"Honest, I didn't! I swear to Christ I didn't! I don't know who did, either. Some sicko, man, but it wasn't us."
"Then why were you at the funeral? And don't give me that crap about nothing better to do."
"To see what was in the coffin. People on the island knew there was something buried with her. That was always the story. I grew up hearing it, man, and I wanted to see for myself. Derrick and the two chicks, they were just tagging along."
"You have no idea who did it?"
"Not a clue. Honest to God. Yeah, we've been digging out here, but we haven't found shit. Some bones, that's all. Some pottery. But digging up the girl's grave, no way, man. I had absolutely nothing to do with that."
"Your dad's such a nice guy, he loaned you all this expensive equipment. He must be big on hobbies."
"When he sees what you did to his shit, you're going to find out how big my dad is, asshole!"
"There's that mouth of yours again." I twisted the nose ring until he made a squeaking noise. "Sneaking onto an island, digging up an important archaeological site. I hope you're nicer to the cop who arrests you."
"We ain't sneaking, man. We don't got to sneak. My dad's general contractor for the dude who owns the whole fucking island, man. They're gonna start clearing and building in a couple of months anyway. What we done here, shit, this ain't nothing compared with what my old man's gonna do when he gets the rest of his permits."
I said, "See how easy it is? I ask a question, you give me an answer." I released the nose ring. "Who does your dad work for?"
His eyes were watering; he had the sniffles, too. "The old man who was at the funeral today. The rich dude, Ivan Bauerstock."
Tony was Tony Rossi, son of Frank Rossi, the big man with the florid face and the T-shirt I'd seen at the funeral. He'd been working for Bauerstock for nearly fifteen years, according to his son, and both men had a passion for Indian artifacts.
"It's like their thing, you know? They collect the shit, trade it back and forth. It's what they got in common. Mr. Bauerstock, he's into all kinds of stuff. Artifacts, that's just one of the things. So when they get a construction deal going, and it's at a place that might have something to find, they make it a point to get in a little early. Dig and sift; no big deal. Which is my whole point, man. You think we're gonna get arrested? Shit, dude, you're the one who's gonna get arrested. My dad's boss owns the fucking place."
I thought I was going to have to restrain Nora when he said that. I waited patiendy while she lectured him. I saw at least one point hit home-"We'll have Ivan Bauerstock arrested and make you testify!" — before I asked him a few more questions. We were both standing now; me leaning on my stave, him limping around when he moved, nursing an elbow that had already swollen to the size of a baseball. Whenever he balked at a question, all I had to do was take the stave in both hands. It kept him talking.
It wasn't unusual for his dad to pay him and some of his buddies to do that hard, hot labor. He'd been doing it off and on for years. The difference this time was, his dad had been so insistent that they put in a lot of hours and make a very, very careful search. Tony was vague about what he hoped they'd uncover.
"Stuff like the girl found, that's what my old man said. I'd seen those pictures a thousand times. Wooden masks, Spanish beads. That thing you took out of the girl's coffin, they'd love to have that, man. They're big on carvings or anything made of gold. Something major, Mr. Bauerstock is gonna pay me a big bonus. Two thousand bucks cash plus a thousand each for my friends."
"Plus he was paying you to dig."
"Hell yes, he was paying us. Lot more than I'd make at Wendy's."
I asked him, "Does that make any sense to you? To pay so much for a carving?"
"A rich man doesn't have to make sense. He just has to be rich. Know what you might try, dude? When my old man figures out where you're hiding and comes to beat your ass, you might try offering him that carving in trade. Get yourself off the hook."
Before I turned him loose, I told Tony his old man wouldn't have to look hard. I'd be on Key Largo.
We were nearly to the long bar off Lostman's River before Nora spoke. We'd ridden all that way in silence, past Panther Key and Jack Daniels and Pavilion Key; the Ten Thousand Islands off to our left, mangroves so dense that they absorbed sunlight; they seemed to create a dark dome beneath the bright blue October sky. I saw only two other skiffs the whole way, plus a sailboat on the far horizon probably outward bound from Key West or the Dry Tortugas. The two of us sat side by side but alone, as silent and remote, it seemed, as the dark islands touched one after another by my skiff's trailing wake.
Violence releases a potent chemical cocktail into the muscles and the brain. The aftereffects can be a little like a hangover. It produced a gloom in us both. I had drifted so deeply into my own thoughts that I actually jumped a little when she spoke.
"Ford? You really would have done it. Why's it so hard for me to believe that?"
It took me a moment to understand the question. "The rings, you mean."
"Yes. You'd have torn them out to make him talk. You really would've."
I thought about lying, then decided to hell with it. "Probably. A couple of them, at least, just to let him know I was serious. Until he convinced me that he wasn't the one who dug up Dorothy, it seemed like the thing to do."
"It was so… brutal."
"He wasn't all that nice to me, if you think about it."
She touched her fingers to my arm, a signal of some type. "I wasn't criticizing you. It was an observation. I've never seen anything like that. The whole scene keeps going through my mind over and over. Wasn't that girl awful?"
I n
odded.
She touched my arm again and looked at me. "Some puppy dog. Delia called you that. You're no puppy dog."
We cut in close to the beach at Cape Sable where mangroves grow a hundred feet high, then ran Tin Can Channel past Flamingo. Had I been alone, I might have stopped and placed a wild flower on a little marker that commemorates the passing of someone who was once very near and dear. Instead, I accelerated over a shoaling bottom, feeling the skiff gather buoyancy as the bottom pressure created lift.
Doing an easy fifty, we flew through the narrow cut at Dump Keys, then past Samphire Key where the water changed from gray to iridescent green over a coral bottom that showed a blur of sea fans and sponges. To the east was Key Largo. The big micro tower there punctured a cumulous cloud that was feeding on exhaust fumes and asphalt thermals.
The water continued to clear until it had the density of bright air. The eye told the brain that to fall from the skiff meant a drop of ten or twenty feet. I waited until I found a perfect basin of clear water, then backed the throttle and switched off the key.
"Why are you stopping?"
"Water like this, I've got to swim. The starboard locker, beneath all the ice, you'll find botdes of beer. There are a couple of Cuban sandwiches, too. Help yourself. All I've got is underwear, so turn the other way if you want."
"My God! Look at your side."
I had my shirt off. I looked where she was pointing and saw a tubular bruise where Derrick had hit me. A very serious hematoma that appeared as if it might still be bleeding. The bruise was black in the middle, green and red at the edges.
"If he'd hit you in the head, he'd have killed you."
I said, "I don't doubt it," and dived in, feeling the cleanness of water cover me. I swam out another twenty yards, letting my muscles stretch, my hands feeling the weight of water, and then I dived to the bottom once again. I surfaced to see Nora standing on the casting deck, ready to dive. She'd stripped down to bra and panties; a tall, flat-chested woman with ribs showing beneath dark skin. Bony hips and very long, smooth legs with a firm muscularity.
It was a nice image: dark, lean woman, lucent water, green horizon. Seeing her brought some light back into me and brightened my thoughts.
She did a pretty good dive, had a very nice, long-distance stroke.
Back in the boat, her black hair dripping, unselfconscious about her body showing through wet bra and bikini panties, she said to me, "I know what you mean. Water like this, you've got to get in."
Sixteen
Speaking from inside the little tiki bar at Mandalay Marina, Delia hung up the phone as she said, "That was him. That was Teddy. He'll be here around sunset and answer all your questions. You just wait. He's a sweetheart."
Tomlinson and I were standing outside on the tile floor beneath ceiling fans and a blue-and-white waterproof canopy that provided shade for a half-dozen picnic tables. Behind us was the marina basin: a row of docks and sun-bleached fiberglass hulls, No Mas, moored bow-out at the last slip, twenty or more sailboats afloat in the anchorage a few hundred yards off the rock jetty.
My pretty yellow Maverick was tied in the charter slip next to the bar.
On the other side of the basin, on white coral rock, were a few palm trees and a row of trailers. Delia lived in the beige Holiday Rambler with the screened porch, the tiki torches, the shrimp net curtains and the Conch Republic sticker on the front door. She'd made it a homey place with aloe plants on the porch and candles in the windows., Mandalay was really a fish camp and bar. All the regulars had nicknames: Conch Jerry, Queenie, Little John, Donald Duck, Lucky John. Twenty or thirty people called the place home or used it as a second home. They'd work on their boats barefooted on the coral, or sit at the bar drinking beer in their Mandalite T-shirts.
Everyone there called themselves Mandalites, as if they were a separate tribe. It reminded me a little bit of Dinkin's Bay, only the architecture was Tropical Transitory, had a more Keysy feel.
Keysy is a word you hear a lot down there.
It was Sunday afternoon. Nora Chung had been very busy on the phone. Sunday or not, she'd tracked down the director of her museum and several of the museum's most powerful board members. She'd told them it was imperative that they get together on a conference call and decide whether or not they should issue a formal complaint to Ivan Bauerstock and his son, the candidate. The result was a telegram which read: We insist that you immediately cease the illegal destruction of burial sites on Cayo de Marco and we intend to hold a press conference on this matter if you refuse.
To Nora, I'd said, "They still have telegrams?"
"Yep, and this one will stop the bastards in their tracks. If we hold a press conference, tell reporters about the big man's hobby, his son can say goodbye to the state senate. He's aware of that, which means he'll be ready to jump through hoops. You know the only thing I'm uncomfortable about? I like Ted Bauerstock. Just from the little bit I talked with him. I hate to drag him into this because of something his dad's doing."
Nora was now upstairs in the Mandalay's two-bedroom rental apartment making more phone calls. I had a few calls to make myself. I wanted to speak with Detective Parrish, see if he'd found out anything new or if maybe he'd received a complaint from a couple of punk rockers about a big man with glasses attacking them. I also wanted to speak to the funeral rep, Caldwell.
But Sunday wasn't the day to do it. I'd actually forgotten what day it was until I walked downstairs to the outdoor tiki bar to find locals already gathering there, popping beers while a man in a dark suit preached a sermon. The Church of Hawk's Channel, the outdoor service was called, with a congregation composed of live-aboards and ocean wanderers. It was maybe the only church in America where men and women could drink a Budweiser, watch the sunrise and pray. Keysy, real Keysy.
Key Largo-one small planet in a solar system of islands all connected by orbiting blue water.
Now Tomlinson lifted my wrist so that he could see my watch. "Yep, just like I thought. Beer time. Delia? I'll have a Hat-uey, and my politically insensitive friend will have a Coors."
Delia handed out two botdes already mounted in Styro-foam coolie cups. She was wearing a pink tank top and cutoff jean shorts and had a hawk's feather in her hair. All the waitresses dressed like that.
"He said he'd be here sooner, but he's bringing the boat up from Marathon."
She was still talking about Ted Bauerstock. She was smiling, the first time I'd seen her smile since I'd met her. With her narrow chin and black hair, she reminded me of a country-western singer. She had the underfed look of coal mines and sawgrass. "You know how politicians used to go by train and make what they called 'whistle-stops'? Teddy, he's doing the same thing by boat. He started in Key West and he's gonna work his way up the coast. Stops at marinas, talks to the fishermen, the real people, then meets with reporters. He said he ^was actually thinking about dumping the whole plan and have his boat taken out of the water. But he's so upset about what you say his daddy's doing, he's on his way right now."
I said, "The marina stops aren't getting enough publicity?"
"No, they're going just fine. It's not that at all. Haven't you listened to the weather this morning? There's another couple tropical storms forming. One's down off South America someplace, the other's off Africa. Weather people say they probably won't head this way, but they could. Teddy, he's bringing the boat anyway."
Since there is only one road that links the Florida Keys-Highway AlA-and since the road effectively divides the Atlantic from Florida Bay, all directions are given in relationship to the mile marker nearest the destination and to the body of water it sides. Mandalay Marina, Tiki Bar 8c Restaurant (rental apartments available, according to the plywood sign out front) was on the ocean side at mile marker 97.5, meaning it was ninety-seven and a half miles from Key West, the geographical and social equivalent of Florida's Ground Zero.
The Mandalay was next door to Road Hog Harley Service, both businesses squeezed in between two trailer pa
rks off 2nd Avenue, which intersected Marina Street near Calusa Campground and Shell World, two miles south of the Kmart Plaza on A1A.
I knew about the Kmart because Tomlinson and I drove there in my truck. I carried the wooden totem with me in a black canvas briefcase. Everywhere I went, the totem went.
I carried the thing around Kmart, where I bought duct tape, electrical tape, clothesline, a spool of cheap six-pound-test fishing line and a small cassette tape recorder plus several tapes.
I had fishing gear on my skiff, but I didn't want to waste it. This cheap line wasn't going to be used for fishing.
Tomlinson gave me a very odd look when I picked up the package of clothesline. I am fussy about the kind of line I buy for my boats, and he knows it.
"Planning on doing some laundry, are we?" he asked wryly. When I didn't reply, he said, "Oh Lordy, you've got that look. That ifT-told-youTd-have-to-staple-your-tongue-look. Alcohol. I need alcohol!"
His way of reminding me what he'd already mentioned a half-dozen times: he was in a mood to go barhopping. "We need to get out, trade a few lies and meet the locals. Absorb some local color. Maybe absorb a few mojitos while we're at it. Frankly, my friend, I'm tired of the company of the same familiar women."
I said that was fine with me, but first I wanted to stop at the police station, introduce myself and try to set them straight on Delia Copeland. She wasn't crazy. She was having real problems and they needed to keep an eye on her. But give it a few days. Couch it so they'd wait until I was gone.
The woman cop at the desk told me I'd have to stop back, the man I needed to see wasn't there.
"It's Sunday," she said. "In the Keys, not much gets done on Sundays."
Tomlinson said, "When you drift off like that, the way your eyes lose focus, I can tell you're thinking of her." Meaning Dorothy.
"Enough, enough," I said. "You're wrong, as usual."
Actually, he was right. The girl's image would flash like a camera strobe, then vanish.
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