Baja Florida

by Bob Morris

  We made a swing by the beach. Its open-air pavilion held a big dining table and some comfy-looking lounge chairs. A catamaran sat under the coconut palms. We passed a small brackish pond surrounded by mangroves before reaching the grass airstrip. The road continued on the other side of the airstrip to the rocky bluff I’d spotted from Radiance.

  At the top of the bluff we got out to soak in the view. Cat Island lay a hundred miles to our east, but it was easy enough to imagine that we were looking out on the wide-open Atlantic. Compared to the flat, glassy water on the lee side of the island, the windward side presented big, frothy breakers that crashed on the rocks below. The wind blew hard and Mickey had to speak loudly to be heard above it.

  “Makes you glad to be alive, doesn’t it, Zack-o?”

  He slapped me on the back and kept a hand on my shoulder.

  “I can see why you like it here.” I draped an arm around him.

  “Just glad you could enjoy it with me. Means a lot, man.”

  I couldn’t think of anything else to say, so I gave his shoulder a squeeze and we stood like that for a moment, taking it all in. As we pulled apart, I caught Jen watching us from the other side of the golf cart, alongside Boggy. Her look was dark, as if she didn’t know quite what to make of me, but brightened instantly as her eyes met mine.

  “Ready to roll?” she chirped, hopping behind the wheel again.

  I was anxious to ask her questions—Where was her boat? Where were her friends? Where had she been all this time?—but I figured it best to feel my way and ease into it. Mickey was so clearly enjoying himself that I didn’t want to do anything that might spoil the moment.

  The house was even more spectacular up close than it had been at a distance. The design was modern, the Sarasota School of Architecture transplanted to the tropics, with wide overhangs, ceiling-to-floor windows and doors, balconies and private niches everywhere you looked. A broad wooden deck off the living room that opened east to the rocky windward side of the island.

  Mickey’s nurse, Octavia, hurried out of the house as we pulled up. She stood at the end of a walkway, fists planted at her waist, a scowl on her face.

  “Where you been, Mr. Mickey? Thirty minutes late for your medicine.”

  “Calm down, woman,” Mickey said. “Thirty minutes isn’t going to kill me.”

  “Yeah, but I just might. You get inside this house right now,” Octavia said, hustling him away.

  Jen smiled as we followed them along the walkway, under a sea grape arbor, to the front door.

  “The two of them act like an old married couple,” she said. “But he sure listens to her.”

  “Your father looks a lot better than when I saw him a few days ago,” I said.

  “That’s the same thing Octavia said.” She shrugged. “I wouldn’t know. I really don’t have anything to compare it to.”

  “How was it to see him after all these years?”

  She spoke to me over a shoulder.

  “Strange,” she said. “For both of us, I guess.”

  We stepped inside and before I could ask her anything else, she pointed us toward a set of spiral stairs.

  “Your rooms are up there,” she said. “I’ll find out from Miss Rose when lunch will be ready and ask her to call you then.”

  35

  Jen Ryser didn’t join us for lunch.

  “I’m afraid she’s all done in,” Mickey said. “I told her to get some rest and be ready to go later this afternoon. I’m planning for all of us to get out on Radiance, maybe turn it into a sunset-dinner cruise.”

  We sat at a free-form cypress table on a patio off the kitchen. Our view was of the tranquil bay and the cays that stretched south to George Town, on Great Exuma.

  Miss Rose, a slender woman in a flowered dress, an apron tied off at her waist, served the stew snapper over rice, sliced tomatoes on the side. She brought out a bottle of pepper sauce.

  “Goes nice if you can take it,” she said. “Curtis grows the peppers.”

  I doused the snapper with pepper sauce and my mouth was still on fire when the guava duff came around. Its sweetness helped calm down the burn. So much so that I asked for seconds, which delighted Miss Rose to no end. She positively beamed when Boggy asked for thirds and followed her into the kitchen, probably to lick the pan.

  “You boys are welcome to stay here as long as you like. Charlie, too,” Mickey said. “I’ve got plenty of room. And I’d enjoy the company.”

  “Thanks, but I don’t want to get in the way of your reunion, Mickey. We’ll be heading out first thing in the morning.”

  He didn’t press the point. I didn’t blame him.

  “So what do you think, Zack?”

  “About what? The house?”

  “Screw the house. It’s just a house. I’m talking about Jen. She’s something, isn’t she?”

  “Oh, she’s something,” I said.

  “Every time I look at her, I see someone different. Sometimes it’s Molly—the way Jen holds herself, her eyes. Sometimes I see me. She’s got a lot of me in her, too, don’t you think, Zack?”

  “A beautiful young lady.”

  “Fashion-model beautiful, if you ask me. But she’s not all ditsy like that. She’s smart, too. Smart as a damn whip. Got a good head on those pretty shoulders. I laid it all out for her.”

  “Laid out all what?”

  “Laid it all out about me and how I don’t have that long and how all this is going to be hers. I had my lawyer do up the papers. Some of it goes to some charities. A little something for Curtis and Miss Rose, a few others. But mostly it goes to her. We cried some, the both of us. And then we had some laughs, too. Me telling her about all the things I remember from when she was a little girl. She used to call me Doo-Dah. I don’t know why, she just did. We both got a kick out of that. And there was this little red wagon I used to pull her around in and I would sing to her and she would giggle. You know what she told me, Zack?”

  “What’s that?”

  “She never got rid of that little red wagon. A couple of times, Molly wanted to pitch it out, but Jen never would let her. She still has it to this day. She told me she always had it to remind her of me. Isn’t that something?”

  “Yeah, it is. It really is.”

  Mickey shook his head. He was tearing up. He grabbed a napkin and dabbed at his eyes.

  “Sorry,” he said.

  “No need to be.”

  “I screwed up, Zack.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Letting it go so long like this, between me and her. I should have reached out before now.”

  “I’m sure you had your reasons, Mickey.”

  “Yeah, I thought I did, too. But looking back on it now, those reasons really didn’t amount to anything. It was all just pride and hurt feelings and getting so wrapped up in myself that I couldn’t look beyond and see the big picture. It was selfish, Zack. It was goddam selfish, that’s all it was. And now look at me. I’m swimming like hell trying to make up for lost time, but knowing I’m bound to drown. It’s a hell of a thing.”

  I didn’t say anything. Mickey looked at me.

  “Wish I’d had a chance to meet that daughter of yours when I was at your place,” he said.

  “She’s a humdinger,” I said.

  “I bet she is. You don’t ever let go of her, you hear?”

  “I don’t intend to.”

  “No matter what happens between you and Barbara…”

  “Nothing’s happening between us.”

  “I’m just saying, no matter what, you can’t let anything come between you and your daughter. You gotta promise me that.”

  “Promise,” I said.

  He stuck his hand across the table and I held on to it.

  I still hadn’t told him about the call from Lynfield Pederson. Right then might not have been the most appropriate time, Mickey being all torn up like he was. But I didn’t know what purpose could be served by not letting him know he was harboring a fugitive fro
m justice. It wasn’t fair.

  Before I could start in on the story, Octavia stepped out on the porch. She tapped her watch.

  “Time for your shot,” she said.

  “Thank you, Dr. Mengele,” Mickey said. He got up from the table. “Sorry, Zack, but these damn shots knock me out. I’ll catch up with you in a couple of hours.”

  36

  A nap would have been nice, especially after the sleepless night before. I stretched out on the bed in my room. I stared at the ceiling. It was a nice ceiling, some kind of tongue-and-groove wood thing. Cedar maybe. I stared at it for fifteen minutes. Then I got up. Sleep can be way overrated.

  I went downstairs and wound up in the kitchen. Boggy was still there. He sat at a table with Miss Rose.

  Curtis stood at the sink, washing dishes. A young man stood beside him, drying the dishes that got washed. Edwin, the grandson, I assumed. He was tall and broad-shouldered and he was training his hair to grow into dreads. They had a long way to go. It made his head look like a picture of the sun drawn by a five-year-old.

  An automatic dishwasher was built into the counter. Lots of good, sensible people prefer not to use them. Even the so-called silent diswashers make too much noise. The noise is a conversation killer. And kitchens are all about conversation. Which stopped when I entered this one.

  Miss Rose got up from the table. She began putting dishes away in cupboards. Curtis and Edwin pretended I wasn’t there.

  Boggy looked at me.

  “Go for a walk, Zachary?”

  “Sure,” I said. “I need to make room for another one of Miss Rose’s fine meals.”

  Miss Rose smiled but didn’t say anything.

  We stepped out the kitchen door and set off down the rutted road, taking the fork that led to the dock. It was midday hot and what breeze there was disappeared as we descended. It was as if the foliage sucked up the breeze and spit it out as heat.

  “So,” I said, “did you finish off that guava duff?”

  “You think that is why I went into the kitchen, Zachary?”

  “There some other reason?”

  “Fact-finding mission.”

  “Taino Super-Sleuth Tip Number One: You want to find out stuff, you talk to the hired help.”

  “Ah so, Guamikeni.”

  “Give it up, Boggy Chan.”

  “The three of them, they are much devoted to Mickey Ryser. He is a good man and they love him.”

  “And this information is valuable to us how?”

  “They do not like the girl.”

  “She’s been here what, a day? And already they don’t like her?”

  “You read Blink by Malcolm Gladwell?”

  “You mean you did?”

  Boggy gave me a long look.

  “First impressions matter,” he said. “Instinct is everything.”

  “And they instinctively didn’t like her, right from the start?”

  “That,” Boggy said. “And there are things she has done.”

  “What things?”

  “Small things, maybe. But together they make a picture of a person. She is very attached to her cell phone.”

  “Lots of people are. A character flaw, maybe, but not a giant one these days. Sadly.”

  “She got very angry when she could not make calls. Apparently there is no coverage on this island.”

  “Knew I liked this place.”

  “Mickey Ryser told her she could use the radio, call anyone she wanted, even patch the radio to the cell phone of whoever she wanted to call.”

  “Expensive. Plus, not very private.”

  “Mickey Ryser he said he would do this for her, but she got mad and said no and went to her room.”

  “Which begs the question: Who is it she needs to call so badly?”

  “Also, Miss Rose came upon her last night in Mickey Ryser’s den. It was late, after midnight, and Miss Rose couldn’t sleep.”

  “Must be going around.”

  “Miss Rose stood in the shadows, away from the door, and watched as the young woman went through Mickey Ryser’s desk and all its drawers. Miss Rose, she is very upset by this.”

  “Understandably. Did she take anything?”

  Boggy shook his head.

  “No, Miss Rose, she does not think so. She had to hurry away before the young woman saw her.”

  “Anything else?”

  Boggy nodded.

  “It is about Mickey Ryser. When he returned here a few days ago, he brought much money with him. Two suitcases of it. Curtis he carried the suitcases for Mickey Ryser and helped him put the money in a safe.”

  “The safe, it’s in his den?”

  “I did not ask and they did not tell me.”

  “And they are worried that the girl is trying to find it?”

  Boggy shook his head.

  “No, it is not that so much. They say it is a very good safe and only Mickey Ryser can open it. Mostly I think they are sad about the money.”

  “Sad? Why?”

  “Because it means Mickey Ryser knows he is going to die and he is getting together all his money so the government cannot find it after he is gone.”

  “A man after my own heart.”

  “And they are sad, too, because after Mickey Ryser is gone they do not know what will happen to them.”

  We walked for a while and didn’t talk. It got even hotter as we moved out of the shade and into the clearing near the foot of the dock.

  I said, “That all you got?”

  “There is one more thing, Zachary.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “It is very bad news for you.”

  “I can handle it.”

  Boggy put a hand on my shoulder and gave me a somber look.

  “That guava duff? I finished it off. And I licked the pan.”

  37

  We were sitting at the end of the dock when we heard the sound of Charlie Callahan’s seaplane. It swooped in low and circled the island. Charlie wiggled the wings, an aerowave, and put the plane down well offshore.

  He motored in, stopped a few yards from where we had anchored Radiance, and threw out anchors of his own.

  Boggy and I took the dinghy out to get him. He stood on one of the pontoons and started barking at me the moment we got there.

  “Exactly what kind of shitstorm have you started, Chasteen?”

  “You tell me.”

  “Got your face on the front page of the Guardian.”

  “They use a good photo?”

  “Old one. In a Dolphins jersey. You had helmet hair.”

  “Damn,” I said. “They need to update the files. I’m way better looking now.”

  “Cut the crap, man. What’s going on?”

  “Wanted for murder, on the run. Same old, same old.”

  “Wanted for a bunch of other things, too, according to that story.”

  “You were there. You know what happened.”

  “Yeah, I was there. Which explains why things are hot for me, too. This little friend of mine on Andros…”

  “How was your entanglement, Charlie?”

  “Fine, thanks. Nice of you to ask. Wish it could have lasted longer,” Charlie said. “Only this little friend of mine, her phone rings this morning, wakes us both up. It’s a girlfriend of hers, works dispatch for the Andros police. She knows about the two of us. She says there’s an all-Bahamas bulletin out, looking for a Maule-MT-7-420. A red one. Owned by none other than me. She asked my friend if she had seen me.”

  “Your friend lie?”

  “Yeah, she lied, but she didn’t like it. Let’s just say I didn’t get the send-off I deserved. Might explain why I’m a little cranky.”

  We pulled up to the dock and tied off the dinghy. Charlie looked around.

  “Hell of a place,” he said. “Leave it to Mickey, huh?”

  “How did you get away from Andros without the police noticing?”

  “I’m one slick son of a bitch, that’s how. My friend lives down at Cargill Cre
ek, but I tucked in up the coast a bit, near Small Hope Bay. Had her drive up and get me. Mostly I was worried about her husband knowing I was on the island. Turns out he was gone to Nassau for the week. So I was feeling good about things. Real good. And then all this happened.”

  “You didn’t have any trouble flying out of there?”

  “Yeah, I had trouble. A world of trouble,” Charlie said. “I got her to drive me up to where I’d tucked away the plane. Only I’d get ready to take off and here would come someone. Fishermen mostly, but I didn’t want anyone to see me if there was any way I could help it. And it was broad daylight, you know? Once it was a police boat came by. Another time it was a search plane flying low.”

  “Think they were looking for you?”

  “Had to think that. They were sure as hell looking for something,” Charlie said. “I have to tell you, Zack, I was sitting there thinking: Screw it, just give yourself up. You didn’t do anything. You’re innocent. You’ll get out of this. Eventually.”

  “It was the eventually part that bothered me.”

  “Yeah, me, too,” Charlie said. “So I saw these thunderheads building in the east. They kept building and building and I kept sitting there waiting on them. A couple-three hours. Sweating my ass off in the cockpit of my plane, thinking all the time someone’s gonna find me. Storm finally got there and, I’m telling you, it cut all-to-hell loose. Lightning and thunder and must have been forty-knot winds. But it by God cleared out the boats from the water. And I flew right into the teeth of it. Couldn’t see shit. Nothing I hate worse than taking off into a squall.”

  “Thanks for coming,” I said. “Appreciate it.”

  “Yeah, so now what? I’m here and”—he pointed out to the plane—“that’s as good as a billboard advertising me. You got any ideas?”

  We wound up enlisting the help of Curtis and Edwin. They took us up to the green house and found a big roll of shade cloth—black plastic with a fine mesh. We cut a half-dozen lengths about a hundred feet each. We didn’t tell Curtis and Edwin why we needed to camouflage the plane and they didn’t ask.