by Carl Hiassen
"Not here, it's way too dangerous," he said. "I'm curious—why'd you stop by the office today?"
"Just lonely," Jenna said. "And I was worried sick about Skip ... I thought you might know something."
Keyes glanced at her and said, "Your little chore was to keep me company, right?"
"That's the dumbest thing I ever heard."
"You were in on the whole thing."
"I hate you like this," Jenna said angrily. "So damn smug, you think you've got it all figured out. Well, you don't ... there's one thing you never figured out: why I left you for Skip."
"That's true," Keyes said, remembering how nasty she could get. She sat ramrod straight in the seat, chin out, a portrait of defiance.
"The choice was easy, Brian. You're a totally passive person, an incurable knothole peeper, a spy."
Keyes thought: This is going to be a beaut.
Jenna said, "You're a follower and a chaser and chronicler of other human lives, but you will not fucking participate.I wanted somebody who would. Skip isn't afraid to dance on the big stage. He's the sort of person you love to watch but would hate to be, because he takes chances. He's a leader, and leaders don't just get followed—they get chased. That's not your style, Brian, getting chased. The thing about Skip, he makes things happen."
"So did Juan Corona. You two would make a swell couple."
Keyes found himself strangely unperturbed by Jenna's emasculatory harangue; maybe there was hope for him yet. He hit the brakes and the MG skidded off the road into some gravel. He backed up to the gate of the Virginia Key marina.
"I believe that's your car," he said to Jenna.
"Where?"
He pointed. "Next to the boat ramp. The white Mercury."
"My car's in the shop," Jenna snapped.
"Really? Shall we go check the license tag?"
Jenna turned away.
"Skip borrowed it," she said almost inaudibly.
Keyes saw her hand move to the door handle. He reached across the seat and slapped the lock down.
"Not yet," he warned her. "You're not going anywhere."
"Hey, what is this?"
"It's called deep trouble, and you're in the middle, Miss Granola Bar."
"All I ever knew were bits and pieces, that's all," she insisted. "Skip didn't tell me everything. He was always dropping little hints but I was scared to ask for more. I didn't know about the new boat and I sure don't know where he is right now. Honest, Brian, I thought the stunt with the ocean liner was it; his big plan. I didn't know anything about tonight, I swear. I wasn't even sure he was still alive."
Her eyes couldn't get more liquid, her voice more beseeching. A metamorphosis in thirty seconds.
Keyes said, "You promised he wasn't going to hurt Kara Lynn."
"Maybe he's not," Jenna said ingenuously. "Maybe he's already let her go."
"Yeah, and maybe I'm the Prince of Wales."
Keyes drove past the Miami Marine Stadium and turned down a winding two-lane macadam. The shrimper's dock was at the dead end of the road, on a teardrop-shaped lagoon.
The shrimper's name was Joey and he owned three small trawlers that harvested Biscayne Bay by night. He worked out of a plywood shack lighted by bare bulbs and guarded by a pair of friendly mutts.
Joey was dipping shrimp when Keyes drove up.
"I don't know if you remember me," Keyes said. "I interviewed you a few years back for a newspaper story."
"Sure," said Joey, peering past the end of his cigar. "You were askin' about pollution, some damn thing."
"Right. Look, I need a boat. It's sort of an emergency."
Joey glanced over at Jenna sitting in the car.
"Damn fine emergency," he said. "But you don't need a boat, you need a water bed."
"Please," Keyes said. "We need a ride to Osprey Island."
"You and the girl?"
"That's right. It's worth a hundred bucks."
Joey hung the net on a nail over the shrimp tank. "That island's private property, son."
"I know."
"It's black as a bear's asshole and fulla bugs. Why the hell you wanna go over there on a night like this?"
"Like I said, it's an emergency," Keyes said. "Life and death."
"Naturally," Joey muttered. He took the hundred dollars and struggled into his oilskin raingear. "There's more weather on the way," he said. "Go fetch your ladyfriend. We'll take the Tina Marie."
Osprey Island was a paddle-shaped outcrop in east Biscayne Bay, about five miles south of the Cape Florida lighthouse. There were no sandy beaches, for the island was mostly hard coral and oolite rock—a long-dead reef, thrust barely above sea level. The shores were collared with thick red mangrove; farther inland, young buttonwoods, gumbo-limbo, sea grape, and mahogany. An old man who had lived there for thirty years had planted a row of royal palms and a stand of pines, and these rose majestically from the elevated plot that had been his homestead, before he fell ill and moved back to the mainland. All that remained of the house was a concrete slab and four cypress pilings and a carpet of broken pink stucco; a bare fifty-foot flagpole stood as a salt-eaten legacy to the old man's patriotism and also to his indelible fear that someday the Russians would invade Florida, starting with Osprey Island.
Like almost everything else in South Florida, the islet was dishonestly named. There were no white-hooded ospreys, or fish eagles, living on Osprey Island because the nesting trees were not of sufficient height or maturity. A few of the regal birds lived on Sand Key or Elliott, farther south, and occasionally they could be seen diving the channel and marl flats around the island bearing their name. But if it had been left up to the Calusa Indians, who had first settled the place, the island probably would have been called Mosquito or Crab, because these were the predominant life forms infesting its fifty-three acres.
There was no dock—Hurricane Betsy had washed it away in 1965—but a shallow mooring big enough for one boat had been blasted out of the dead coral on the lee side. With some difficulty of navigation, and considerable paint loss to the outboard's hull, Skip Wiley managed to locate the anchorage in pitch dark. He waded ashore with Kara Lynn deadweight in his arms. The trail to the campsite was fresh and Wiley had no trouble following it, although the sharp branches snagged his clothes and scratched his scalp. Every few steps came a new lashing insult and he bellowed appropriate curses to the firmament.
At the campsite, not far from the old cabin rubble, Wiley placed Kara Lynn on a bed of pine needles and covered her with a thin woolen blanket. Both of them were soaked from the crossing.
Wiley swatted no-see-'ems in the darkness for three hours until he heard the hum of a passing motorboat. Finally! he groused. The Marine Patrol on its nightly route. Wiley had been waiting for the bastard to go by; now it was safe.
When the police boat was gone he built a small fire from dry tinder he had stored under a sheet of industrial plastic. The wind was due east and unbelievably strong, scattering sparks from the campfire like swarms of tipsy fireflies. Wiley was grateful that the woods were wet.
He was fixing a mug of instant bouillon when Kara Lynn woke up, surprising him.
"Hello, there," Skip Wiley said, thinking it was a good thing he'd tied her wrists and ankles—she looked like a strong girl.
"I know this is a dumb question—" Kara Lynn began.
"Osprey Island," Wiley said.
"Where's that?"
"Out in the bay. Care for some soup?"
Wiley helped her sit up and pulled the blanket around to cover her back and shoulders, which were bare in the parade gown. He held the cup while she drank.
"I know who you are," Kara Lynn said. "I read the big story in the paper today—was it today?"
Wiley looked at his wristwatch. It was half-past three in the morning. "Yesterday," he said. "So what did you think?"
"About the story?"
"No, the column."
"You've done better," Kara Lynn said.
"What do you mea
n?"
"Can I have another sip? Thanks." She drank a little more and said: "You're sharper when you don't write in the first person."
Wiley plucked at his beard.
"Now, don't get mad," Kara Lynn said. "It's just that some of the transitions seemed contrived, like you were reaching."
"It was a damn tough piece to write," Wiley said thoughtfully.
"I'm sure it was."
"I mean, I couldn't see another way to do it. The first-person approach seemed inescapable."
"Maybe you're right," Kara Lynn said. "I just don't think it was as effective as the hurricane column."
Wiley brightened. "You liked that one?"
"A real scorcher," Kara Lynn said. "We talked about it in class."
"No kidding!" Skip Wiley was delighted. Then his smile ebbed and he sat in silence for several minutes. The girl was not what he expected, and he felt a troubling ambivalence about what was to come. He wished the Seminole sleeping drink had lasted longer; now that Kara Lynn was awake, he sensed a formidable undercurrent. She was a composed and resourceful person—he'd have to watch himself.
"What's the matter?" Kara Lynn asked.
"Why aren't you crying or something?" Wiley grumbled.
Kara Lynn looked around the campsite. "What would be the point?"
Wiley spread more tinder on the fire and held his hands over the flame. The warmth was comforting. He thought: Actually, there's nothing to stop me from leaving now. The job is done.
"Do you know Brian Keyes?"
"Sure," Wiley said, "we worked together."
"Was he a good reporter?"
"Brian's a good man," Wiley said, "but I'm not so sure if he was a good reporter. He wasn't really suited for the business."
"Apparently neither were you."
"No comparison," he scoffed. "Absolutely no comparison."
"Oh, I'm not sure," Kara Lynn said. "I think you're two sides to the same coin, you and Brian."
"And I think you read too much Cosmo."Wiley wondered why she was so damned interested in Keyes.
"What about Jenna?" Kara Lynn asked. "You serious about her?"
"What is this, the Merv show?" Wiley ground his teeth. "Look," he said, "I'd love to sit and chat but it's time to be on my way."
"You're going to leave me out here in the rain? With no food or water?"
"You won't need any," he said. " 'Fraid I'm going to have to douse the fire, too."
"A real gentleman," Kara Lynn said acerbically. She was already testing the rope on her wrist.
Wiley was about to pour some tea on the flames when he straightened up and cocked his head. "Did you hear something?" he asked.
"No," Kara Lynn lied.
"It's a goddamn boat."
"It's the wind, that's all."
Wiley set down the kettle, took off his baseball cap, and went crashing off, his bare bright egg of a head vanishing into the hardwoods. Thinking he had fled, Kara Lynn squirmed to the campfire and turned herself around. She held her wrists over the bluest flame, until she smelled flesh. With a cry she pulled away; the rope held fast.
When she looked up, he was standing there. He folded his arms and said, "See what you did, you hurt yourself." He carried her back to the bed of pine needles and examined the burns. "Christ, I didn't even bring a Band-Aid," he said.
"I'm all right," said Kara Lynn. Her eyes teared from the pain. "What about that noise?"
"It was nothing," Wiley said, "just a shrimper trolling offshore." He tore a strip of orange silk from the hem of her gown. He soaked it in salt water and wound it around the burn. Then be cut another length of rope and retied her wrists, tighter than before.
The rain started again. It came in slashing horizontal sheets. Wiley covered his eyes and said, "Shit, I can't run the boat in this mess."
"Why don't you wait till it lets up?" Kara Lynn suggested.
Her composure was aggravating. Wiley glared down at her and said, "Hey, Pollyanna, you're awfully calm for a kidnap victim. You overdosed on Midol or what?"
Kara Lynn's ocelot eyes stared back in a way that made him shiver slightly. She wasn't afraid. She was not afraid.What a great kid, Wiley thought. What a damn shame.
They huddled under a sheet of opaque plastic, the raindrops popping at their heads. Wiley tied Tommy's red kerchief around the dome of his head to blot the rain from his eyes.
"Tell me about Osprey Island," Kara Lynn said, as if they were rocking on a front porch waiting for the ice-cream truck.
"A special place," he said, melancholic. "A gem of nature. There's a freshwater spring down the trail, can you believe it? Miles off the mainland and the aquifer still bubbles up. You can see coons, opossums, wood rats drinking there, but mostly birds. Wood storks, blue herons. There's a bald eagle on the island, a young male. Wingspan is ten feet if it's an inch, just a glorious bird. He stays up in the tallest pines, fishes only at dawn and dusk. He's up there now, in the trees." Wiley's ancient-looking eyes went to the pine stand. "It's too windy to fly, so I'm sure he's up there now."
"I've never seen a wild eagle," Kara Lynn remarked. "I was born down here and I've never seen one."
"That's too bad," Skip Wiley said sincerely. His head was bowed. Tiny bubbles of water hung in his rusty beard. It didn't make it any easier that she was born here, he thought.
"It'll be gone soon, this place," he said. "A year from now a sixteen-story monster will stand right where we're sitting." He got to his knees and fumbled in the pocket of his trousers. He pulled out some damp gray newspaper clippings, folded into a square. "Let me give you the full picture," he said, unfolding them, starting to read. Kara Lynn looked over his shoulder.
"Welcome to the Osprey Club ... Fine living, for the discriminating Floridian.Makes you want to puke."
"Pretty tacky," Kara Lynn agreed.
"A hundred and two units from two-fifty all the way up to a million-six. Friendly financing available. Vaulted ceilings, marble archways, sunken living rooms, Roman tubs, atrium patios with real cedar trellises, boy oh boy." Wiley looked up from the newspaper advertisement and gazed out at the woodsy shadows.
"Can't someone try to block it?" Kara Lynn suggested. "The Audubon people. Or maybe the National Park Service."
"Too late," Wiley said. "See, it's a private island. After old man Bradshaw died, his scumball kids put it up for sale. Puerco Development picks it up for three mil and wham, next thing you know it's rezoned for multi-family high-rise."
"Didn't you do a column on this?" she asked.
"I sure did." One of Wiley's many pending lawsuits: a gratuitous and unprovable reference to Mafia connections.
"Back to the blandishments," he said, "there'll be four air-conditioned racketball courts, a spa, a bike trail, a tennis complex, a piazza,two fountains, and even a waterfall. Think about that: they're going to bury the natural spring and build a fiberglass waterfall! Progress, my darling. It says here they're also planting something called a lush green-belt,which is basically a place for rich people to let their poodles take a shit."
Kara Lynn said: "How will people get out here?"
"Ferry," Wiley answered. "See here: Take a quaint ferry to your very own island where the Mediterranean meets Miami!See, Kara Lynn, the bastards can't sell Florida anymore, they've got to sell the bloody Riviera."
"It sounds a bit overdone," she said.
"Twenty-four hundred square feet of overdone," Wiley said, "with a view."
"But no ospreys," said Kara Lynn, sensing the downward spiral of his emotions.
"And no eagle," Wiley said glumly.
He acted as if he were ready to leave, and Kara Lynn knew that if he did, it would be over.
"Why did you pick me?" she asked.
Wiley turned to look at her. "Because you're perfect," he said. "Or at least you represent perfection. Beauty. Chastity. Innocence. All tanned and blond, the golden American dream. That's all they really promise with their damn parade and their unctuous tourist advertising. Come see Miam
i, come see the girls! But it's a cheap tease, darling. Florida's nothing but an adman's wet dream."
"That's enough," Kara Lynn said, reddening.
"I take it you don't think of yourself as a precious piece of ass."
"Not really, no."
"Me, neither," Wiley said, "but we are definitely in the minority. And that's why we're out here now—an object lesson for all those bootlicking shills and hustlers."
Wiley crawled out from under the plastic tent and rose to his full height, declaring, "The only way to teach the greedy blind pagans is to strike at their meager principles." He pointed toward the treetops. "To the creators of the Osprey Club, that precious eagle up there is not life, it has no real value. Same goes for the wood rats and the herons. Weighed against the depreciated net worth of a sixteen-story condominium after sellout, the natural inhabitants of this island do not represent life—they have no fucking value. You with me?"
Kara Lynn nodded. She still couldn't see the big bird.
"Now," Wiley said, "if you're the CEO of Puerco Development, what has worth to you, besides money? What is a life? Among all creatures, what is the one that cannot legally be extinguished for the sake of progress?" Wiley arched his eyebrows and pointed a dripping finger at Kara Lynn's nose. "You," he said. "You are, presumably, inviolate."
For the first time in the conversation, it occurred to Kara Lynn that this fellow might truly be insane.
Wiley blinked at her. "I'll be right back," he said.
This time she didn't move. Wet and cold, she had come to cherish the meager protection of the plastic shelter. Wiley returned carrying a short wooden stake. An orange plastic streamer was attached to the blunt end.
"Survey markers," Kara Lynn said.
"Very good. So you know what it means—construction is imminent."
"How imminent?" she asked.
"Like tomorrow."
"Tomorrow's the groundbreaking?"
"Naw, that was Christmas Eve. Purely ceremonial," Wiley said. "Tomorrow is much more significant. Tomorrow's the day they start terrain modification."