The Mangrove Coast

by Randy Wayne White

  I said, “I never looked at it from an animal’s point of view before.”

  “You’re damn right. The realization about how the food cycle really works flashed into my brain one night. The vegetarians of the world? If animals were in charge, every two legged tofu humper would be gutted, jointed and deep-fried in about the time it takes to watch a couple of episodes of Wild Kingdom.“

  “Wholesale slaughter,” I suggested.

  “Jesus, you know it. Culinary anarchy. And there’s nothing a vegetarian hates more than looking stupid. The way it came to me was, I imagined myself out sailing and what would happen if I fell overboard and couldn’t get back to the boat. The damn fish would think they’d died and gone to heaven, man. We’re talking feeding frenzy. And then I pictured myself visiting a farm, nobody around but me and Mr. Zamboni and the two of us have a heart attack near the hog pen. Jesus Christ, what an ugly scene! The cloven-hoofed scum were on me like red sauce on frijoles.”

  He was shaking his head … yes, he’d given the subject a lot of thought. “Fair’s fair, man, that’s what I say. They’d swallow me down like beer nuts, so what makes me better than them? Not that I plan to eat meat regularly. No. Only when, say, there’s fresh pompano available or a really outstanding piece of beef.”

  “Selective vegetarianism. That actually makes a little bit of sense.”

  “A way of paying tribute to all life forms.”

  “Sure. Why avoid something just because it tastes great?”

  His smile illustrated tolerance. “That’s my point And by the way, I was kidding about the beef. I draw the line at anything they didn’t gather and eat on Gilligan’s Island. Unknowingly, those seven stranded castaways pioneered the recipe for a healthy, happy life.”

  Tomlinson went on to explain that the professor wasn’t the only one who was ahead of his time. I listened and nodded along, saying, “Uh-huh, Uh-huh. Yeah, sure. Ginger and Mary Ann, you bet.” I almost asked, “So what was wrong with the skipper?” but decided screw it, never ask what you don’t really care about knowing.

  When Tomlinson gets on a subject like that, something that’s strange and far off the charted byways, even I sometimes wonder if the man has all his faculties. But then he’ll say something so rock-solid reasonable or so insightful that I’m actually a little ashamed that his oddities continue to give me pause.

  I’d ordered stone crab claws with lime wedges and a brick of garlic toast. As an appetizer I had the waitress bring grilled shrimp and slices of fresh mango. Tomlinson, who knows something about wine, ordered a bottle of cold Riesling from the snow country of southern Australia. He insisted that I try a glass with the shrimp. Not bad. We both peeled shrimp and sipped wine and talked about Gail Calloway while we waited for dinner.

  I told him that, in my mind, three consecutive withdrawals of $40,000 suggested payments. And it was unlikely that any of those payments had been anticipated by Gail. The fact that the withdrawals were made only a couple of weeks apart indicated unconventional circumstances or an unconventional billing source. “If she was going to buy something for $120,000 and had the money, why not write a check for the whole sum?”

  “Plus a big chunk of the money was transferred to other accounts,” he pointed out.

  “Exactly.”

  “That’s one reason I think it’s blackmail. I can just see some asshole deciding, okay, we sent one note or made one call and she sends us forty thousand. Nothing to it. So let’s keep writing notes or making calls until she stops sending money. Which is where the deposit slips come in.”

  That’s what I wanted to hear about.

  “Did you take a close look at all the information on those slips?” he asked. “I described them to my banker friend. What they actually are are receipts from wire transfers. There are ten slips total and the deposits are divided evenly among twelve numbered accounts.”

  “You’re kidding me. I didn’t notice that.”

  He was nodding. “Twelve different accounts for a total transfer of slightly less than one hundred and ninety-eight thousand dollars. The reason you didn’t realize there were so many accounts involved is because there are no individual names listed on the slips. I missed it, too. Just numbers.”

  “I don’t know much about numbered accounts, and I’ve got one. An account in the Caymans. But there’s always a name associated, right?”

  “Nope, I don’t think there has to be. It’s weird to us because American institutions, they’ve got a thing called the Banking Security Act. For someone to open an account, they have to provide creditable identification. In other words, there has to be a name attached to the account. It’s to put a crimp into money-laundering, among other things.”

  “So you’re saying Gail’s money had to have been wired to a foreign bank.”

  “Foreign banks, plural. I know where the money went because each of the wire receipts has a numerical code that corresponds to the bank where the money was sent. It doesn’t mean that the money has to leave the country. Miami’s got plenty of foreign-based banks. Among them are the Banco de Colombia and the National Bank of Panama.” Tomlinson used his fingers to pick up a slice of mango. “That’s where Gail Calloway’s money was wired.”

  “Jackie Merlot spends most of his time outside the country,” I said, “Frank Calloway told me that.”

  “Uh-huh, uh-huh, but wait till you hear the rest of it. After my banker friend translated the numerical codes, the first thing I asked him was why would anyone go to so much trouble? Why divide the money among twelve different accounts? The banker says the obvious: There must be twelve different people or businesses involved. But I don’t think so. You know what I think’s going on?”

  “You’re still operating on the premise that Gail’s being blackmailed.”

  “It’s making sense so far, right? See … the problem with blackmail is how to collect the money. Blackmailers and con men always get nailed when they pick up the ransom. Drop the money at X-spot, throw it out of a moving car, follow directions from phone booth to phone booth, it doesn’t matter. I don’t think anyone’s ever come up with a safe way to make an exchange like that.”

  I said, “So?”

  “So, I think the person who got Gail’s money is smart as hell, because I think they finally did it. Found a safe, untraceable way to get ransom money. What I think they did was set up these foreign accounts, probably used fake names to do it, but it doesn’t much matter because everything goes by a PIN number and they have no reason to return to those banks ever again.

  “They have Gail wire her payments to the account number they’ve provided her with. Once the money’s been transferred, they can visit any ATM machine in the world and drain the accounts dry. They can tell her they’re in Lauderdale, just around the corner from her house when they’re actually on the other side of the earth. No way she can find out. Same with the feds—not if the blackmailer stays on the move. Pop the card in, punch in the PIN number and the cash comes shooting out in guaranteed unmarked bills. A week, two weeks later, the feds get a black-and-white picture from the ATM camera. Some dude or chick in a floppy hat and glasses and a scarf. What’s that gonna tell them?”

  I said, “You figured all this out from the deposit slips.”

  “No, from the fact that there were twelve numbered accounts on each slip. You’re the logical one. It was unlikely that twelve kidnappers were involved, so why have so many accounts? Answer: Keep the balances low enough so they can wipe out each account fast.”

  “But even with the money in that many fake accounts,” I said, “it would still take awhile to drain it from ATMs.”

  “Not really. Twenty-some days, that’s all. But what do the blackmailers care? There’s no rush, no way the feds can anticipate where they’ll be. Like I said, as long as they stay on the move. The way I figure it, it was so clean and easy, they probably got greedy, which is why Gail’s final transfer was for seventy-five thousand.

  “Maybe their last ransom note or call d
emanded a hundred grand, but she tells them she only has seventy-five left, an uneven number. Why? She’s trying to be smart for once, make it believable. She’s tired of the whole gig. She doesn’t want to do it anymore. She’s willing to try anything, so she lies and says that’s all I’ve got left, screw you.”

  I said, “It’s plausible. It really is. But think about this finesse: Merlot’s right there with her the whole time she’s being blackmailed. He’s offering her advice, pretending to be her friend when, from the very beginning, he’s the one behind it. It’s his idea, he’s coordinating the whole thing.”

  “That picture of him, man, that picture really got to you, didn’t it? Admit it.”

  “I’ll admit I think the guy’s a user. I already said that. I think it’s possible that he had something to do with Gail’s withdrawing so much money.”

  “Sure … I can see something like that happening. But if he’s behind it all, why didn’t he clean her out completely? He hates the ex-husband, so why not go for the kill?” Tomlinson came up with the answer before I could reply. “Okay, okay, he lets her keep a little money so he’s entirely above suspicion. He not only doesn’t want the cops to catch on, he doesn’t want the woman to doubt him even for a second.”

  I was nodding. “Right, I thought of that. It’s one of the things that really bothers me. If he’s doing this crap for revenge, he’ll ultimately want her and Frank to know that he’s the one who conned them. It’s his final move, the way he wins. As in checkmate. The act isn’t over till he sees the hurt in Gail’s face and he hears the anger in Frank’s voice. So, if he’s taken precautions against Gail finding out, it means he’s not done with her yet. He has other ways he can use her.”

  Tomlinson’s expression was grim. “The word checkmate in chess,” he said, “I hope it’s not appropriate.”

  “What?”

  “Checkmate, the word: It comes from the Persian phrase Shah mat, which means ‘The king is dead.’ Jesus. That’s just so sick. He takes her money and he still wants to take more.”

  Where did Tomlinson come up with this stuff?

  I said, “Yeah, it’s a bad deal … if we’re right about the blackmail angle. But neither one of us knows for sure if we’re right.”

  I told him there were other possibilities. We talked about them, batting them back and forth. I described two different cons that weren’t much better than blackmail. One, Merlot weasels his way into her confidence. She’s emotionally damaged, very vulnerable. Sleeping with her’s not enough. To get back at the ex-husband, he wants the woman’s money, too. That old saying that you can’t cheat an honest man is baloney. Honest, caring people are the easiest marks in the world and, according to Amanda, her mother was sensitive and caring to a fault.

  “The guy knows she has money,” Tomlinson added. “All he’s got to do is find the right approach.”

  Exactly. I kept going, thinking out loud, trying to put myself in Merlot’s place. With a woman like Gail, my guess was he either played on her sympathy or he leveraged the trust he’d very carefully built in her. One possibility? He goes to her and says he’s sick. Or a friend of his is sick. Or there’s a sick child and the only surgeon who can help has to be paid up front because it’s South America and insurance doesn’t cover it. Merlot’s not sure how much it’s going to cost, but she can start by sending forty grand.

  Tomlinson was following along. “Yeah, I can see how that would get to her. One of the scenarios I came up with had her making these huge payments to keep some Colombian orphanage from being repossessed. Or an old persons’ home. A hospital maybe, it’s the same angle. Any variation would work. The big lie, man, the big lie. Honest people always fall for the big lie.”

  I said, “I know. It’s infuriating, because it speaks so badly about how we’ve progressed as a species. Except for the predators among us. They’ve gotten better. They’ve gotten smoother. The predatory types, they’ve got an instinct. Frank Calloway said that about Merlot. They realize that emotionally troubled people are very pure in their motives. People who’ve been hurt want the hurting to stop. It’s as simple as that. People who are damaged want to be whole again. They tend to be very kind and without device and ready to give anything they have if it will help take the pain away. That’s what’s so damn sad about someone like Gail being nailed by a jerk like Merlot.”

  Tomlinson looked at me for a moment. “You don’t even know the guy. Isn’t that what you told me earlier?”

  “Okay, I hate the way he looks. His picture gives me the creeps. You satisfied?”

  “Now you’re showing an empathetic side, too, man.”

  “I’m just parroting you,” I said.

  “Bullshit. You’re growing as a person, but you’re too damn stubborn to admit it. Hey … you know what we really need to do? To get a handle on this whole thing?”

  Tomlinson said what we needed to do was read Gail Richardson Calloway’s E-mail. If I’d been right when I told him that their affair started through E-mail, then we needed to read the letters, get a feel for how he played her.

  He said, “I guarantee you, if they wrote much, every trick he pulled is right there in black and white. I’ve been involved with E-mail for mucho years, man. People will say shit in E-mail that you seriously would not believe.”

  I told him that Amanda had promised to go to her mom’s house tonight and track down the correspondence if she could. “We can call her cell phone number when we get back to my place, see how it went.”

  The waitress was bringing the food on heavy platters. It looked good. The aroma of baked pompano is meant to mingle with beach air.

  Tomlinson said, “I’m surprised she has her mom’s password, man. People don’t give out their passwords.”

  I had the first stone crab claw off the plate and was tapping it with a spoon, creating fault lines in the heavy shell. The claw was shaped like a boxing glove, orange and white.

  When I’d explained to him about Gail’s password, he told me “Yeah, well … if Merlot had the kind of control over her that we both think, he didn’t let her leave Florida without covering his tracks. You know that as well as I do. He would’ve made her change the password. Or dump the whole account.”

  He had a point. “If the password’s been changed, does that mean we’ve lost all that information?”

  “Nope. Just access. There’ve been whole civilizations lost out there in cyberspace, so the words of two little people don’t amount to a hill of beans. Poof! All gone.”

  What the hell did that mean?

  I looked across the table at Tomlinson. He’d brought his own chopsticks and was using them to pinch off the tentative first chunks of steaming pompano. I said, “You’re the only computer expert I know. If Amanda can’t get into her mom’s files, do you think you could do it?”

  “Try to figure out some random password? I wouldn’t get your hopes up on that one. We’ve got a better chance of finding pearls in those claws you’re eating.” He continued using his chopsticks, but his eyes never wavered from mine. After a time, he said, “But there ARE people who’ve got access to software that can find passwords, track activity, recover just about any file that hasn’t been drowned or gobbled by some badass virus. Get on the horn to one of your old CIA buddies and they’ll know just what we need. They can send the program to my computer or Gail Calloway’s computer as an E-mail attachment; won’t even have to put it on a disk.”

  I poured myself another glass of the Riesling. Why was I drinking wine when I wanted a beer? I connected with his eyes as I sipped the wine. “Some things you just won’t let drop. I’ll tell you again: I never worked for the CIA.”

  His smile was not entirely sympathetic. “Well, if Amanda calls tonight and tells you she can’t access her mom’s account, my advice is get on the phone and contact whatever hot-shit-right-wing-deep-spook agency you DID work for and tell them what you need. If the bastards aren’t too busy fucking around, destroying some small country, I mean. Personally, I’d
rather spend my day watching the weather channel and whacking off in a hanky than trying to guess someone’s password.”

  Gail Calloway’s password hadn’t been changed, though. That’s what Amanda told me over the phone when we got back to my stilthouse.

  “But there’s nothing in her letter files,” she added. “Not a word. So I guess it’s like one of those good news, bad news things.”

  When I told Tomlinson, he said, “Same difference. If you’re serious about getting all the information you can about this weird love affair, you better seek help from one of your warmonger compatriots. Also, I think we better drive to Lauderdale tomorrow or Thursday. Better use me while you can, man. Musashi arrives Friday. After that, we’re aboard No Más and out of here.”

  I told him fine, then he needed to give me some privacy.

  I had a couple of calls to make.

  When I heard the outboard on Tomlinson’s little inflatable clatter to life, I picked up the phone and dialed a two-one-two area code, plus a number which, as fewer than a hundred Americans and well-placed Israelis knew, actually rang at a secluded, nondescript but beautifully tended farm on the border of Virginia and West Virginia.

  When a woman’s voice answered, “Malabar Grain and Silo,” I spoke a four-digit identification number and was immediately transferred to a computerized security system which, I knew, was searching its own memory banks, attempting to match a graph of my recently-recorded voice with the vocal prints of men and women who had sufficient security clearance to speak with an actual human being.

  I did not have to wait long. From this fastidious place, this picture-perfect farm with its forest of grain silos (and a forest of complex transglobal listening systems, passive and invasive, housed therein) came a voice on a screechy, scratchy answering machine that told me, “Sorry, neighbor, you’ve reached Malabar Grain and Silo and we’re probably uptown shopping. If you think you got the right place, leave your name and number and we’ll catch you on the comeback!”