by Various
The phone rang in the next room. Cheeta hooted twice and flopped into a swivel chair, crossing his over-long arms over his chest.
“Yes, I know. It’s my turn,” Mort said, crossing to the door. He looked back at Isbel. “Hold that thought.”
Half of Mort’s baggy khaki backside was still visible as he picked up the receiver and shouted into the phone, “Hermie! You bastard! You got some nerve, calling me. Fuck me or pay me. What? No. Have I seen a check? Is it the arthritis? You can’t hold a pen anymore? Just a sec.”
His toupeed head peeked around the doorframe. “Sorry, sweetheart, but I got business. It’ll only be a few minutes.”
“Wait. What about my interview?” asked Isbel, both alarmed and insulted.
Mort shrugged. “Cheeta’s the one you came to see, right? So talk to him. Don’t worry. He likes company. Just don’t make any loud noises.” He disappeared behind a sliding accordion door made of wood-grained plastic. “Hermie? Yeah, I’m back. What? How much? I am hanging up this phone. Ah, okay. Now that’s a number grown men can discuss. That shit you said before, I am like a dog. I cannot hear numbers that low. They are below my fucking threshold. So tell me news!” Mort pulled the door shut.
Isbel heard the flimsy plastic latch with a sucking sound, that felt like God had pressed down a Tupperware lid sealing off the cluttered, smelly room from the rest of the world, leaving her alone with Cheeta.
The chimp eyed her over the rim of his glass, as if daring her to make the first move. Isbel thought of all the questions she had prepared, all that work. She slumped into her chair with a sigh that bordered precariously on tears. If Mr. Gleckman wasn’t off the phone in two minutes, she would ask—no, demand—the “fee” back and would leave. This was beyond ridiculous.
She watched Cheeta take another puff on his cigar, then lay it in an ashtray and move the paintbrush from foot to hand again. She wrote Hand? Paw? in her notebook and felt a headache coming on. The chimp slathered blue paint onto the canvas, plucked something off his cheek, gazed at it, and put it in his mouth.
“Oh, great,” she said. “Movie star cooties. What’s next?” She closed her eyes against the throb in her temples and sank into the soft chintz. “Some interview.”
“You haven’t asked any questions yet.”
The gravelly voice sounded far away and muffled, but seemed to be coming from the direction of the easel.
“You might ask, for example,” the voice continued, “about my experiences in show business. Because Mort knows nothing. He wasn’t there, wasn’t part of the magic. And I was, although you’d never know it from the posters. The jungle man, his woman, his child. Where’s his best friend? I got no respect from those Hollywood types. Day after day, I watched those overpriced actors play-acting as heroes, but who was it that always saved the day, driving out the invaders, seeing through their schemes, thwarting their greed? Cheeta! But they never wrote a single line for me. When I was paid at all, it was as if I was one of the extras, some local yokel hired to be a native for a day. And I was from Africa! But here’s how good an actor I was. I warned my friends without words, playacting on my own, hooting and miming as if I really was a creature of the dark jungles and the swamps. And I saved them. Saved Tarzan, Jane, Boy, the whole lot of them. But more importantly, kid—I saved the picture. I was the one who got the laughs. I was the one the audience came to see. And what happens? Weissmuller gets two grand a week and I get bananas and a scritch on the head as if I’m nothing but a dumb beast. But off-camera? You’ve read the tabloids. The humans were the ones who acted like animals. Sure, times were different then. But has anything changed? That’s up to you. I’ll never get the back pay I’m due, but at least you can help me set the record straight. I want my legacy. I want everyone in Hollywood—in the whole world—to remember this: I stood upright among the best of them. Cheeta was a star.”
Mort slid the accordion door open. “Sorry, sweetheart. That took longer than I thought.”
Isbel opened her eyes and looked around. Had she fallen asleep? It should be later than it was. But the yellow stripes of dust-filled afternoon light reached no higher up the flimsy, fussy walls than they had when she arrived.
“Well, will you look at that!” Mort said. “He did a painting of you. Ain’t that something?”
On the canvas was a set of orange loops against a dark blue background, like a Hot Wheels track in the sky.
Cheeta looked at Isbel, raised a hairy eyebrow, and hooted softly.
“Sometimes, it almost seems like he can talk, doesn’t it?” Mort smiled and sat on the couch. “Okay, now. Whad’ya wanna know?”
Isbel looked down at the open page of her notebook, which was completely filled with scribbles. She stared at the words I stood upright among the best of them.
“Sweetheart, you okay? You look, excuse me for saying it, the same color as a lime at the bottom of a Mai Tai.” He peered at her. “You’re not on something, are you?”
“No.” Isbel shook her head, which throbbed with the motion. “But I’m really not feeling well. I think it would be better if I, um—rescheduled.”
“Sure, sure. Anytime. Me and Cheeta, we’re always here. Except Thursdays. I play pinochle on Thursdays.”
“Another time, then.” Isbel stood, using the arm of the chair for balance, and took a step toward the door before she remembered her money. “The—fee—Mr. Gleckman?” She held out her hand.
“Consider it an advance.”
“I don’t think so.”
Man and chimp both stared at her for a minute. Then Mort sighed and reached for his wallet. “You sure? It might be more, next time.”
“I’ll take my chances.” Isbel returned the bills to the pocket of her jeans.
Outside, walking through the array of aluminum housing, Isbel felt on the verge of what she was afraid might be hysteria. Not only had she hallucinated a soliloquy by a chimpanzee, she had taken notes. With a shudder, she shoved the notebook deep inside her knapsack. She’d read whatever was in it tomorrow, after she’d had some sleep. A lot of sleep. Then she’d probably burn it.
She mustered a smile and a nod for a not-so-young woman in capri pants who walked past, giving her an odd look. Was she talking out loud, too? Isbel bit her lip and walked with careful attention, footstep by footstep, her shoulders pageant-perfect, as if she could will herself to remain upright long enough to get to the bus. But when she reached the pool and spotted a deck chair, a comfortable-looking arrangement of blue-and-white plastic mesh, a few minutes’ rest seemed like an excellent idea. The bus stop was still a block away.
The pool guy’s hoses had been rolled into neat coils, and he was in the water, doing laps with long, easy strokes. He looked like he was half fish, a dark streak gliding just under the surface, only coming up for air once in two lengths. Isbel flopped down onto the deck chair as if her bones had turned to Jell-O.
A few minutes later, she felt a coolness as something blocked the sun.
“Are you okay?” the pool guy asked. He had a bit of a southern-sounding drawl.
“A little tired,” she replied sleepily. “Other than that, I’m just peachy. How about you?”
“Right as rain.” She heard the sound of feet shuffling, the clink of an aluminum pole on concrete. The man cleared his throat. “Ma’am? You sure you’re okay?”
Ma’am? With enormous effort, Isbel opened her eyes. Jesus, he was gorgeous, copper-cocoa skin and a smoothly muscled body as sleek and lithe as an animal’s, poured into a pair of blue Speedos. She looked down at the ground so she wouldn’t stare and swung her feet to the concrete. “Sorry. I’m fine. I pulled a couple of all-nighters, that’s all.”
“Ah.” He put on a pair of sweat pants, then picked up a skimmer pole and dismantled it into three sections, laying it down by a jug of chlorine. “You’re in school?”
“UCLA.”
“Encino’s a long drive. What brings you to Shady Glen?”
“I had an interview with a movie
star.” She thought of her notebook, filled with the sage musings of Tarzan’s simian sidekick.
He looked around. “Somebody famous lives here?”
“I thought so, but it didn’t work out quite like I expected.” She shook her head—which had stopped throbbing quite so much once she got out into fresh air—and changed the subject. “You’re a hell of a swimmer.”
“Thanks.” He busied himself with the screw-top for the gallon jug.
“Do you compete?”
“Not really. After high school I was hoping to go pro—stunt work for the movies. That’s why I moved out here.” He tugged on his T-shirt.
“What happened?”
“Turns out there aren’t many swimming movies these days, and even if there were, not a lot of brothers in them, know what I mean? So I got a job lifeguarding at the Y, started learning about the pool equipment and filters and such. It was all new to me. Back home in Florida, I just swam in the river, or the springs, or the sink.”
Isbel laughed. “You must have been pretty little, to swim in a sink.”
“Not that kind. A sinkhole. Natural limestone formation. Lots a’those where I’m from. You might have heard of it. Wakulla Springs? They filmed a couple of movies there.”
“Really? Which ones?” Isbel sat up straighter. “Creature from the Black Lagoon?” He looked at her as if hoping for some reaction, then shrugged. “And a couple of the Tarzans, back before I was born.”
“Weissmuller Tarzans?”
“Yep. You should hear my Aunt Vergie go on about the mischief that man got up to. Lots of stories.”
“Do you remember any of them?”
“Bits and pieces.”
“Could I interview you?” Suddenly Isbel wasn’t as tired.
He smiled. “I don’t know if I’ve got much worth telling, but sure.” He looked down at the equipment by his feet. “Let me get all this back into the truck, and I’ll give you a ride home.” He picked up a bucket stenciled WAKULLA JOE’S POOLS. “The office is in Santa Monica, so it’s almost on the way.”
She looked at him and shook her head. “Thanks, but—”
“But I’m a total stranger?” He smiled. “Don’t worry, I didn’t kill Sharon Tate or anything. And I’m not just the pool guy. I’m the owner. Stand-up citizen. I got five crews working all over LA. I’m usually in the office, but Carl had Guard duty this week.” He shook his head. “Lord knows where Governor Reagan might send him. Here.” He dug through his toolbox and handed her a wicked-looking long-handled trowel with a narrow blade.
“What’s that for?” “Well, I use it to dig moss out of cracks in pools, but you have my permission to run me through like a gigged frog if you feel threatened anywhere between here and Westwood. Okay?”
“I guess.” Isbel still wasn’t sure, but the lure of truly original material—unpublished, never-before-heard Tarzan stories!—was too much to resist.
“Great.” He smiled. “Then allow me to introduce myself proper. I’m Levi Williams.”
“Isbel Hartsoe.” She hefted the tool and smiled back. “You’re taking a big risk. Suppose I’m a killer on the loose?”
“Well,” Levi said, “then I reckon I’m just shit out of luck. But my mama’s got a custom for just about every kind of luck there is, and she gave me one of her Indian head pennies to watch over my van, so I reckon I’ll be safe.” He picked up a coil of hose.
“Do you believe everything your Mama tells you?”
He chuckled. “Not by half. But she did raise me to have respect for the traditions other folks hold store in.”
“Your mama sounds a lot like my abuela. My grandmother. She’s from Cuba. Lots of superstitions.” Isbel picked up her knapsack. “I think most of them are tall tales, but then there are days…” Her voice trailed off as she thought again about the scribbles in her notebook.
“I hear you.” Levi laughed. “I was raised in Florida, and let me tell you, I’ve spent so much time on the river, in the woods, in the swamps—hell, I believe in everything.”
4.
Waters of Mystery
Paddling slowly down the Wakulla River felt like coming home for Dr. Anna Williams. Although she had grown up in Southern California, her family had alternated holidays—spending Christmas one year with Abuela Cecelia in Michigan, the next with Granny Mayola in Florida. And although she adored both her grandmothers, she always felt like she belonged here. Saginaw just couldn’t hold a candle to the natural wonders of the springs.
On a hot, humid August afternoon she sat motionless in the bow of her fifteen-foot jon boat, a catch-pole at the ready in her double-gloved right hand, a hook in her left. Her paddle lay athwart the second bench, dripping into the flat bottom, unneeded. The lazy current drew the boat forward as easily and quietly as that azalea blossom spiraling past, toward the island.
She scanned the vegetation, and caught her breath. Trouble. Possible trouble, she reminded herself. The snake coiled amid the palmetto thicket might be a native. She couldn’t discern the patterning from this distance; only a forearm’s length of brown-and-tan scales was visible through the sawblade leaves. So instead of steering around the island as she had umpteen times before, Anna eased bow-first into the surrounding hydrilla fronds, which hissed along the aluminum hull as the boat’s snub nose thumped ashore.
The snake didn’t budge until Anna prodded it with the hook. Then it flexed like a strongman’s arm and threw itself to the left, but Anna’s reflexes were just as quick. She tightened the noose of the catchpole around its head, planted her feet squarely in the bilge of the forgiving flat-hulled boat, and lifted the writhing creature free of the vegetation.
Almost four feet, she estimated, and unusually thick. Possibly a pregnant female. She eased it up a few more inches and saw that the scale pattern was clearly a checkerboard. Just a brown water snake. Her students would laugh if they’d seen her. Professor Williams mistaking a common water snake for a Burmese python?
She released the annoyed reptile and sighed with relief. Although it would have been exciting to be the wildlife biologist who bagged the Panhandle’s first confirmed python—more than four hundred miles north of the Everglades, their documented adopted habitat—it would have been very bad news for this environment.
Anna swished the pole through the water to remove any scales, and looked around at a landscape that had not changed much in thousands of years. It was a state park now, protected from development, and past the hotel and the springs, there was almost no sign of human habitation. But she knew that civilization was closing in. It was why she was here, spending her sabbatical documenting the changes, hoping she could find a way to turn back time.
Divers had explored the limestone caves beneath the springs, discovering more than fifteen miles of branching channels that ran unseen beneath pavement and pastures, all the way to the Apalachicola National Forest. The aquifer was being tainted by wastewater from Tallahassee and nitrate fertilizers from farmlands, turning stretches of the formerly crystal-clear waters as dark as iced tea. It was on its way to becoming a real black lagoon.
She was just as worried about the creatures that had invaded her childhood playground. Florida was home to more non-native species than anywhere else, the promised land for escapees: the hydrilla weed that choked off the surface, introduced as an aquarium decoration; pythons, boas, and anacondas brought up from South America and set free from amusement parks and tiny zoos; armadillos released from monkey jungles; and countless more former pets left behind by tourists since the 1920s.
It was still the most amazing place Anna had ever seen.
She plucked a fistful of beautyberries—a natural mosquito repellent—crushed them and rubbed the lavender juice into her forearms and neck and face. She pushed away from the island, wiping the sweat from her forehead with a bandana. She’d survey for another hour, then head back to the springs for a swim, work off a day of sitting and paddling. She was an excellent swimmer with her share of collegiate trophies, but
she couldn’t hold a candle to her dad. Levi Williams must have been born in the water; even at seventy he could hold his breath a full minute longer than she could.
She picked up the paddle and steered the boat past the gentle curve where Dad used to point out Old Joe basking in the sun—before a poacher downgraded the huge gator from a riverbank guardian to a relic in a glass display case in the lobby of the Lodge—and nosed into a trio of mangrove knees. She slipped her sweaty hands out of the gloves, waving them in the air to dry before she took her tablet out of the waterproof rucksack, opened the database app and added the water snake to the afternoon’s tally of gators, tortoises, pelicans, anhingas, herons, and ibis. She was glad that the Wildlife Commission had given her an intern to count fish.
Anna had been happy when the Commission invited her to join the Wakulla research project. It gave her an excuse to spend one more summer at her grandmother’s little house in Shadeville. At 86, Granny was a tough old bird who sat on her porch from sun-up to sundown drinking lemonade and waiting for the bookmobile. She said she didn’t need any looking after, but Anna knew she was glad to have the company.
And the project also gave her the possibility for furthering an ambition of her own. Officially, she was making a count of the wildlife whose habitat was the two-and-a-half miles of the Wakulla River between its origin at the springs and the chain-link fence that marked the boundary of the state park. Unofficially, she was hoping to sight some creatures that didn’t exist, at least not any more—a black panther, a Carolina parakeet, or an ivory-billed woodpecker. Maybe even a Skunk Ape.
Common sense and professional dignity dictated that she keep her cryptozoological tendencies to herself. But Anna had been raised on the combination of tall tales and midnight monster movies that so delighted her father. He took her and her brothers on field trips to the La Brea Tar Pits, bought them Ben Cooper creature masks for Halloween, and lulled them to an uneasy sleep with stories about the swamp creatures of his own childhood. Every time she’d visited Granny, Anna had laid awake listening to every cypress branch scraping the tin roof at night, sure it was a Skunk Ape trying to peel the house open like a can. Part of her was terrified, but another part had always been thrilled by the idea that some of the tales could be true. She cherished discoveries like the coelacanth and the Javan elephant, and hoped one day to add to that list. Not myth. Not extinct. Here’s proof.