“Not as hard as the others. I spent a lot of my time making sure I didn’t get snakebit.”
She chuckled. “I don’t blame you.”
There was an awkward pause while I scanned for a way to ask tactfully about her husband. She seemed to sense it. The smile left her handsome face.
“You’re wondering what happened to the pickup truck?”
“I hadn’t noticed that it was gone.”
“You’re a very bad liar, Dusky MacMorgan. All basically honest people are.”
“Then I should be an expert.”
“I think we both know better.”
“Then maybe I should come right out and ask about your husband. Hervey told you about Gator tearing a chunk out of the Swamp Ape’s costume. We’re both wondering why the dogs didn’t bark.”
I could see that it was an unpleasant subject. She turned to look at the other women working. She nodded toward her little house.
“I think we should talk inside.”
I nodded and followed her up to the house. She brought me a glass of cool well water, and we sat on the sparse furniture.
“He was here this morning?”
“Yes,” she said. “He was here. I told him about Papa. He seemed anxious to leave when he heard.” There was a resigned look of sadness in her face. “It is very hard for me to accept the possibility that he has something to do with all . . . this. But I think I suspected him all along. Maybe that is why I wanted so very much to believe there really was a swamp monster. My own husband . . .”
“But why? Why in the world would he go to such lengths? Wouldn’t the property become his after your father’s death anyway?”
She shook her head. “It’s clan land—and he’s a Cougar, remember. He’s not really Tequesta at all. The land would become mine. Mine and Eisa’s.” Her voice broke, and she took a moment to get hold of herself. She said, “This next thing is very hard for me to say. You will be the first person I have told. We have not been a happy husband and wife,” she said. “Our people blame it on Billy’s drinking and gambling. But I know that I am just as much to blame.”
I started to say something, but she cut me off. “No,” she said. “Let me finish. If that was Billy in the swamp-creature costume, you would not expect a father to frighten his own child so badly.”
“That’s the main thing in his defense.”
“Then he has no defense,” she said flatly. “You see, Dusky, Eisa is not his child.”
I said nothing, waiting for her to finish.
“Today you met Angus Egret, one of Johnny Egret’s two sons. Angus has a fine wife. She is working outside now. Seven years ago I fell in love with Angus. And he was in love with me. In other times, he would have moved his things out of their chickee and would have come to live with me, because that was the old way—and we were very much in love. But ways have changed. Instead, he seeded me with child. But could not become my husband. He was already with a wife, you see?”
“Did Billy Cougar know?”
She shook her head. “Not at first. I knew that it was necessary that I marry quickly. Billy was available. I knew that he drank and that he gambled. I did not know that he would beat me—and beat my child,” she added bitterly. “Like I said—it has not been a happy marriage.”
“No one knew but you and Angus?”
“Papa knew. He told me one day after Eisa was born. He saw it in a dream. I expected him to be upset. He wasn’t. He was very glad that Eisa was pure Tequesta. He liked Angus very much. Later, I think Billy began to suspect. There was nothing of him in Eisa. A parent would know. It made him that much meaner. We had no . . . relations after he began to suspect. He began to drink heavier. He spent all the money he made at the racetracks in Miami. In the last year or so, he’s been acting even stranger. He keeps talking about moving. He never wanted to leave before. I think he has been on drugs. He is rarely home, and Eisa hardly ever sees him—and for that I am glad.”
“What did he say when you saw him this morning, Myrtle?”
She shrugged. “Very little. His face was bandaged. He said that he had been in a fight. That’s when I knew. Hervey had told me about his dog attacking the creature. Like I said, when he learned of Papa’s death, he seemed very anxious to get away.”
“Do you know where he went?”
“Not for sure. He has been working for a construction company near here.”
“Do you know the name of it?”
She thought for a moment. “It’s a new place. Like a sales station or something. It’s called the Mickey Rather Development Corporation.”
“Can you tell me how to get there?”
She could. He had about a half-hour head start on me. Rather than bother Hervey—and take the chance of his missing his grandfather’s burial ceremony—I found the keys to the rental Ford and headed off alone through the cypress swamp toward the Tamiami Trail.
I felt bad for Myrtle James Cougar. Pick any race, any civilization, and the problems remain basically the same. People still struggle with the demands of the day-to-day—and a social structure in which love is too readily labeled as an infidelity.
Everything was beginning to add up.
Billy Cougar had always been a drinker and a gambler. And then he had fallen in with some construction company. You didn’t have to be an Einstein to guess who ran the company. I pictured the four drunken businessmen in their safari suits at Flamingo.
Fate had given us an early shot at them. And we had blown it.
Now the scenerio demanded a final encounter; a last act. And I was more than ready.
In Florida—perhaps more than anyplace else—the leisure-suit types carry too much weight. You get sick of their pushing and their wheeling-dealing and their own peculiar brand of development pornography.
People read their newspapers and worry out loud about the threat of destruction from nuclear-wielding countries. In truth, we face far more imminent danger from within. Steadily, inexorably, they sound our death knell with the roar of their dozers and their draglines, butchering our delicate land. They don’t build. They embalm.
I held my breath while crossing the rickety bridge and turned left toward Naples. It was Sunday, and the traffic on the Tamiami Trail was heavier than before. Buggish Japanese cars and the shiny American gas hogs roared through the space and isolation of the ’glades, leaving cypress trees fluttering in their windwake.
I held the rental Ford on the narrow asphalt, trying to keep pace with the traffic. A Standard station that promised cold beer and cigarettes, a cluster of small houses, and a post office the size and shape of an outhouse heralded the little settlement of Ochopee.
I followed Myrtle’s directions on past the Golden Lion Motor Inn—looking distinctly out of place in this wilderness of cypress and grass—and the Wooten Airboat ride concession with its red-white-and-blue streamers.
The dirt road I was looking for was just before the turnoff to Everglades City, and the Seminole-style Highway Patrol station there.
A bright metal sign screamed at me:MICKEY RATHER CONSTRUCTION/SALES
BUILDING FOR A BETTER FLORIDA
And don’t they all?
I made the turn, worrying about the haze of dust the car trailed behind.
Myrtle had told me the construction office was about five miles inland. I decided to drive all but the last mile, then hide the car as best I could.
My plan was simple: just get a look at the layout so Hervey and I could return that night.
There was still the unanswered question: Why had Rather, the big boss man, gone to such bizarre lengths to make Panther James abandon his land?
If Hervey and I could break in that night and get a look at his records, we might be able to find out.
I kept a close eye on the car’s odometer. After three miles, I slowed to an idle. The place was closer than Myrtle had guessed. Beyond the bend, above a crop of Australian pines, I could see a protruding television antenna.
I had passed a l
ittle clearing, so I stuck the car in reverse and backed up. The red car was easily seen behind the circle of oaks, but it couldn’t be helped.
I wouldn’t be long.
I made my way through the brush toward the antenna. Sandspurs grabbed at my pants, and mosquitoes whined in the shade of trees, away from the September heat.
The Mickey Rather construction and sales site was nothing more than a mobile home on cement blocks. It had a take-the-money-and-run look to it.
The trailer sat in the middle of a large shell drive. There was a mound of building material under a tarp beside it, and a big yellow Bucyrus bulldozer. Beyond that, near the edge of a cypress head, sat two jeeps. One was new, the other World War II vintage. They both had big balloon wheels with chains belted to the tread.
In front of the mobile home was the dark-blue Cadillac. And the pickup truck I had seen at Panther James’s camp.
I was about two hundred yards away, peering through the brush. Occasionally a dim shape would cross the curtained windows.
I was trying to decide whether to try and get a closer look or just wait until I came back that night with Hervey when I heard the shot.
It was not the crack of a small-caliber weapon. It was the deep thrump of something big, like abbreviated thunder.
I ducked back into the bushes, wondering how in the hell they had seen me.
And then I realized they hadn’t.
The door of the trailer swung open, and one of Mickey Rather’s yes-men I recognized from Flamingo came running outside. There was a chunk of canvas covering the older jeep. He grabbed it and went running back into the mobile home.
I wasn’t anxious to leave now. I was going to stay and see just what in the hell was going on.
After about five minutes, the door opened again. Rather’s two yes-men were carrying something in the tarp. They had their jackets off and their ties loosened. They tried to hold the tarp away from their bodies as if it was distasteful—the way some people carry garbage.
Halfway to the jeep, one of them stumbled. The tarp buckled and a body came spilling out.
I had never seen Billy Cougar before, but there was little doubt that it was him. His face had been shot away, and the black Indian hair was matted with blood.
When they dropped him, Mickey Rather came charging out of the trailer. He looked this way and that anxiously, then yelled something at his two men. He held a long-barreled revolver in his hand. There was a chunk of gauze on his neck where the dog had gotten him.
So Billy Cougar had gone to report the news of Panther James’s death to his new boss.
And something had gone wrong. Deathly wrong.
Billy Cougar had been a drunk and a gambler and had fallen in with the enemies of his people—and his land.
And he had paid the ultimate price for it. His life.
I watched them load the corpse into the newer of the jeeps, then cover the whole thing with a tarp.
Mickey Rather handed the revolver to one of his men, who trotted off toward the cypress head—probably to bury it.
And still the chunky boss man scanned the brush around the parking lot, as if looking for someone—or as if worried the law would come swooping down, sirens screaming, to catch them in the act.
I had seen enough.
Had the circumstances been different—had I been on an assignment—I would have begun planning a way to crack this construction ace and his men into a bunch of little pieces.
Instead, as I walked back to my car, I tried to think of ways to convince Hervey that this was now a matter for the law.
Until now, they hadn’t really done anything illegal. A man can’t kidnap his own daughter—even if he is dressed up in a gorilla suit.
And trying to scare people off their property—for whatever reasons—isn’t right, but it’s not the sort of thing that lasts long in court.
But now they had made the big jump. They had killed a man in cold blood.
And I was more than willing to be an eyewitness.
Mockingbirds chattered in the oaks above my car. I gave it a minute or two before stepping into the clearing.
In the process of loading the body and disposing the weapon, one of Rather’s men had not made himself seen. And it was no time to take chances.
When I was sure no one was around, I walked quickly to the car, fired it up, and backed out onto the dirt road.
But that’s as far as I got.
Because that’s when I felt the cold steel of a revolver pressed against the veeing where spinal cord enters the cranium.
The fourth man had hidden himself in my backseat.
“My, my, my, if it isn’t Mr. Rough and Tough from Flamingo—no, don’t turn around. I’ll shoot you where you sit if you turn around. We’re going to kill you anyway, but I’d like the boss to get a few cracks at you first. He was upset about the Flamingo episode, buster boy. Real upset. But your dying will make him feel a whole lot better. . . .”
15
He made me drive around the bend to the mobile home.
He kept his left hand wrapped around my throat so I couldn’t hit the accelerator, duck, and hope for the best.
Back in Flamingo, they had all looked doughy and overweight. But this guy knew how to handle a weapon—and a prisoner.
When we pulled up at the trailer, Mickey Rather’s other two men jumped out from either side of the aluminum monstrosity. They both held revolvers. Obviously, they weren’t expecting me. So this fourth guy’s finding me had been a fluke. Or maybe just a reward for the boss man’s vigilance. He had posted a guard—just in case.
The guy in the backseat kicked his door open and slowly climbed out. The revolver didn’t waver for a moment. He was proud of his find—like a kid who’s just found the prize Easter egg.
“Mickey—hey, Mickey! Look what I’ve got here. You remember this guy, don’t you?”
He jerked me out of the car and shoved me back up against the fender. Mickey Rather came out of the trailer. He wore a white golf shirt that accented the size of his watermelon belly and his hammy biceps. A long black cigar was stuck in the middle of his mouth.
He didn’t look any too happy.
He said to the guy who had caught me, “Anybody else with him, Benny?”
“No. No one. Just him, boss. I was keeping an eye on the road like you said. He parked his car a few hundred yards up. I got in the back and waited. The goddamn mosquitoes about ate my butt off.”
“Shut up, Benny.” Mickey Rather had pale piggish blue eyes. He kept them pinned on me as he approached. He had a nervous mannerism—clenching and unclenching his fist. As before, he was slow. I saw the big roundhouse punch coming, and I had plenty of time to catch it in my own right hand. I squeezed just enough to let him know I could break his hand if I wanted, then shoved him away.
Mickey Rather didn’t like being made a fool of in front of his men. His face turned crimson, and he clenched the cigar between his teeth.
“That was a stupid move, buster boy.”
“I majored in stupid. But it saves on busted noses.”
He looked at Benny. “If he so much as blinks an eye, shoot him.”
“Glad to, boss.”
So Mickey Rather got his next punch in. And his next. And his next. He was slow—but he hit like a sledgehammer. I had to fight to keep my feet.
“That’s just to soften you up, buster boy.” He was wheezing softly with effort. “Now, for openers, just who in the hell are you?”
“Just a good samaritan trying to help a friend.”
His next punch caught me in the short ribs, knocking the wind out of me. “And I’ve had about enough of your smart-ass answers. I killed that goddamn dog of yours last night, and we killed the Indian boy this morning. I’m not in the waiting line for heaven, so you better not cross me again, buster boy. Now, who are you?”
I have found that in some tight situations the truth is often as good as a lie.
But not in this tight situation.
&
nbsp; If I told him I was just some private snoop he would have had my carcass packed in the jeep alongside Billy Cougar’s within the hour.
I had to give him something to think about; some reason to worry.
I gave it a few moments, as if struggling with my better judgment. I sighed and said finally, “You’ll find out soon enough, Rather. So I guess there’s no harm in telling you. I’m part of a federal investigative unit sent down here to check up on you.”
He eyed me closely for a moment, trying to decide if I was telling the truth. I didn’t doubt that he would. All crooks pay for their illegal profit with an unrelenting paranoia. They think everyone is after them.
“And just what put them onto an honest businessman like me?”
I shrugged. “What else? The IRS boys got suspicious. They’ve had their eye on you for a few years now.”
He swore softly. “When I get my hands on that goddamn bookkeeper . . .” His voice trailed off. All three of his men had their revolvers trained on me. He motioned with his head. “Tie him up, gag him, and lock him inside. I’m going to check out his story.”
“You ain’t going to let him go, are you, boss?” Benny seemed disappointed someone might steal his prize.
Mickey Rather sneered at me. “Let him go? Don’t be silly, Benny. Tonight Billy the Indian is gonna have some company. I just want to do things nice and neat, see. When I’m sure things are square, you’ll take buster boy here out to the swamp, put a bullet through that pretty blond head, and feed him to the alligators.”
“Does that mean the scam ain’t gonna work, boss?” asked one of the others.
Rather looked at him as if he were an idiot. “Sure, Louie. We’re gonna stay right here while every fed in the world comes looking for us. No, you stupid bastard, the scam ain’t gonna work. The Indian boy blew it for us. He could’ve been setting pretty, but instead he had to try getting tough. So now we head for the islands until this thing blows over.” He looked at me meaningfully. “And they can’t prove no murder if they can’t find no corpses. Tonight this trailer is going to catch on fire. And we’re going to disappear in the smoke. . . .”
Everglades Assault Page 13