The rumbling turned into the opening notes of a song as the warm-up band, a group of veteran British rockers who called themselves the Rolling Stones, ran onto the stage for a solid two hours of polished classics and lively new material.
After three encores, and a few minutes for the crowd to catch their breath after the incredible set that would be made into a movie and multi-platinum CD, the governor came on stage again.
He was greeted with loud boos that turned to cheers when it became apparent that his mic still wasn’t working. Another low rumble started as the governor dejectedly walked off the stage and down the ramp.
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Sara
Sara didn’t have any trouble slipping past the security people and getting under the stage. The tremendous noise from the band stopped and was replaced by applause and cheering as they left the stage.
It was hard to concentrate, but Sara eventually managed to get her thoughts to quiet. She crawled around in the dark under the stage until she could feel she was in the right place. She took out the Chacmools.
Lying on her back with a Chacmool at each ear, she held the Idol with its eyes open in her left hand, and the gold scarf from the bottom of the bag in her right. Simultaneously she set the Chacmool over her eyes and the scarf over her mouth. There was a low rumbling, and then she was no longer under the stage.
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Marty the Manatee
The rumble got louder and all the lights on the towers above the stage went off. After a few seconds, a single white spotlight came on the ramp leading to the stage. This was what everyone had been waiting for – this was why they were there.
The rumbling had been coming from offstage, but now it was coming out of the speakers too. Just as the rumbling and suspense were becoming unbearable, a gold Harley came flying up the ramp with the single spotlight on it. The bike came to the end of the ramp and flew through the air for a good twenty feet before hitting the stage on its side. Just as it landed, hundreds of fireworks went off and lasers and strobes came from everywhere. The rider jumped off the bike at the same instant it hit the stage and the big gray figure stood in the spotlight on the smoky stage with his arms above his head as the bike skidded into a stack of speakers and burst into flames. Pyrotechnics continued to explode overhead as the rest of the band rode up the ramp on Harleys and circled around Marty.
The next day, several people said that was when they saw a small, naked, gray-haired man standing in the smoke on the edge of the stage. The man smiled and held up his arms to the thousands of cheering people just as someone tackled him hard and dragged him off the stage.
The band parked their Harley’s behind Marty as the smoke started to clear and dozens of roadies ran out on the stage and set up equipment like they were doing an Indy Car pitstop. They put out the burning motorcycle and drove the bikes back down the ramp as the last of the fireworks stopped and all the lights went out again.
The crowd was wired but quieted down quickly. The single spot came back on the man dressed like a manatee standing center stage with his guitar. The crowd held its breath. Marty strummed his first cord of the night.
“Tired of the snow, but I know which way to go.”
The crowd lost it. People fell out of boats, out of trees, and off rooftops. There was a collective sigh from the crowd that could be heard for miles.
♦
Marty and his band played every one of his old songs at least twice. The crowd knew most of the words and sang along. They wouldn’t let Marty leave, so he sang a few new songs after he made the crowd promise to let him go before dawn. He played his last song just as the first light of day could be seen in the eastern sky.
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Sara
Sara missed the concert. While thousands cheered and sang along, she slipped out unnoticed carrying an unconscious naked man over her shoulder. Poor Charlie hit his head when he went down on the stage and had been out since.
She trudged down the deserted streets to Mr. Willie’s, where the bag of Chacmools went on the front porch for Taco Bob. Then she headed for the marina.
The boat was hers, paid for with a few of the gold treasure coins as soon as she’d come back to Key West. She’d had to give the man more than she suspected was fair, but he did throw in some extra tanks of gas. She wasn’t worried though, she had plenty more gold hidden back at the garden up Lost Man’s River.
She knew that was where they would go before she ever came back to Key West. No one to bother her or her lover out there. She was sure Charlie would learn to love the Everglades, and she would be there to take care of him always.
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Saul
Saul woke with a terrible headache. It was early morning and he was hurting. Riding in the back of a pickup with his back against the cab. Hands tied behind him.
Weren’t in the Keys anymore, must be up around the Everglades somewhere. He wasn’t alone either. Sitting between two of the biggest bikers he had ever seen. The one sitting on his left poked him in a sore rib.
“Gum?”
Big piece of garbage was grinning and holding out a stick of gum. Didn’t feel like gum, teeth didn’t feel right.
Guy driving started banging on the back window. Two dirtbags stood up and pulled him to his feet. Showed him a concrete truck coming the other way. Big guys picked him up by the arms.
“Now!”
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Carol and Jeremy
When the police got to Carol’s room they thought Jeremy had shot her. Jeremy spent several hours in a makeshift cell at the high school before someone interviewed Carol at the hospital ship and decided he wasn’t the perp.
The bullet was small caliber and made a clean wound in her thigh. Carol was released on crutches a couple of days later. After being questioned by the police about the dog collar on Jeremy and transmitter they found in her bag, she booked a flight back to California swearing she would never set foot in Florida again.
Jeremy was down to his last dollar by the time Carol got out of the hospital, so she told him to meet her at the airport. Then she took an earlier flight.
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Taco Bob’s New Home
“Not sure about the yellow couch, though.”
I got to see most of the concert from the roof of a friend of Mr. Willie’s. Me and the two Willie’s stayed up there with his friend most of the night enjoying the show.
We went dragging back over to Casa de Willie at dawn, all blurry-eyed but happy. I found my little statue and two more by the front door. No note or any sign of Sara.
Three days later I was moving into my new place. A really nice old houseboat that the owner had just restored to its original condition. The fella had come up on a problem involving a gambling debt and was needing cash in a hurry. It took all the insurance money I’d been living on and the gold dagger with the jeweled handle, but the “Sandy-Bottomed Girl” was signed over to me along with the remaining nine and a half years of a ten-year lease on a choice boat slip in the marina.
Mary Ann and me had been staying at a motel in a little tiny room the last couple days while she was doing paperwork and having meetings with other security people and the police to get everything wrapped up. I’d showed her the gold treasure I’d come back from the Everglades with, then did the deal on the houseboat secret-like to surprise her.
She fell in love with the place just like I’d done, and I was proud to show it off to her before she had to go back to Orlando the next day. We sat around on the back deck of my new home and had a drink and talked about treasure and musicians some more. I told her I figured that houseboat would be a good place to try my hand at writing about trout fishing in the weeks to come.
We’d heard that a Saul Thorpe had died in a bizarre head-on collision with a concrete truck a couple
days earlier, so it didn’t look like we were going to have to worry about him anymore. While Mary Ann was telling me more of what went on backstage at the concert, I was noticing a little shelf up in one corner that might be a nice place to set the little statues. I needed to dig ’em out and show ‘em to Mary Ann sometime. She said the Sara I met there in the swamp sure sounded an awful lot like the one she knew from the Spider Cult.
Mary Ann finished her drink and announced that she was ready to try out the fancy bathroom on my new boat. After the big concert Mary Ann had got Marty to sign her chest with a black marker just before he got in his helicopter. Much to Mary Ann’s chagrin, the autograph was wearing off, but we’d got a few interesting photos for the scrapbook she said she was going to start for my new coffee table.
In between going to historic concerts and closing deals on vintage houseboats, I’d managed to get in a little trout fishing around Key West. So while Mary Ann was getting cleaned up, I cooked a nice dinner of salad and fried trout with grits.
We had our fill of dinner, then took a stroll over to the video store so the lady could pick herself out a movie for us to watch on the houseboat. Though romantic French movies with subtitles weren’t exactly my favorite, I knew if I behaved during the movie I’d have a good time later.
Later, after we’d thoroughly broke-in the new king-size bed, I laid there with Mary Ann asleep beside me and drifted off looking forward to the next day, and the rest of my life.
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