“Of course. He deserved an explanation.”
“Then he’s someone else to consider. Maybe he’s a talker. Maybe he told a friend. Or a dozen friends.”
Oh yeah, she was offended.
“Kahlil is one of the most decent and generous men I know. A moral man. We are… Kahlil and I are close. Please don’t suggest that he has something to do with this.”
Turning to look out the window, she added, “Not coming from you.”
NINE
I was varying my speed, still watching our rear. There were plenty of Chevrolets, some black Chevys, but none that seemed to be tailing us. If they had an electronic fix on us, though, I knew there was no need for them to maintain visual contact. All they had to do was stay close.
I wondered how they were going to work it. How they planned on separating a briefcase full of cash from Pilar.
I tried to project back: They could’ve come in from Central America legally by commercial jet. But entering illegally-easy to do by boat, less so by plane, but still doable-would be preferred. It left no tracks to cover later.
Assuming they arrived within the last forty-eight hours, that didn’t give them a lot of time to organize, so they’d be winging a lot of it, playing it by ear. They’d come expecting to deal with a lone woman. But now she’d shown up traveling with two, maybe three men.
Maybe they knew Tattoo was a hired middle man, maybe they didn’t. That depended on if they had connections with the kidnappers-and they almost had to be associated in some way… or at least with someone who was leaking good data. Unless I was wrong about the satellite phone, they were well enough informed to secure a GPS receiver that was locked on the right frequency.
But if they weren’t connected with the kidnappers, or if their source of information had changed, it would then appear to them that the woman had a carload of friends-one of them a formidable giant.
That would make them step back and reconsider.
The question was, would they apply light cover until they got a shot at the woman when she was alone? Or would they try to take us down the first chance they got?
I decided they wouldn’t hesitate. For one thing, it seemed likely they’d staked out the Masaguan consul general’s office, waiting for us. The Masaguan feds and kidnappers both knew we had to go there to get the money, so it was the logical place to pick up our trail. They saw us exit with the briefcase. They knew we had the money with us in the car. So why give us time to hide it, or lock it away, or deposit it?
They wouldn’t, I decided. Not if they saw an opening.
To Pilar, I said, “Where’s the satellite phone?”
“In my purse.”
“I want you to take it out and leave it on the seat.”
“Leave it? I’m not going anywhere.”
I’d been watching the green Interstate signs and knew that the East-West Expressway was ahead. I was improvising as I went, following my instincts, heading west toward the wilder, more familiar Everglades.
I said, “Yes, you are leaving. I’m going to try and put some distance between us and whoever’s back there. Then I’m going to find an exit that looks good, and we’ll make a fuel stop. Maybe we’ll get a look at the car tailing us. Maybe we won’t. Either way, we’ll make a show of it, all of us out of the car.”
Tomlinson said, “I love the way your brain works, man. Now, all of a sudden, you want them to catch us. I don’t understand it. But I dig the whole opposites thing.”
“I want them to see for themselves that we’re an easier target than they think. That Tattoo Man isn’t with us. I’ll be looking for a gas station near a hotel, because the moment the Chevy’s out of sight, you two are checking in, getting a room.
“I’m going to leave you in Miami and drive back to Sanibel alone. You can take a cab or a limo if you want. Or I can come back and get you tomorrow. Your decision. And Tomlinson? I’m going to borrow your cell phone.”
Pilar said, “I don’t think separating is smart. If you confront them, what are you going to do?”
I told her honestly, “I don’t know. Whatever it takes to make them stop following us, I guess. I’ll have to make it up as I go along.”
“Stop following us?”
“That’s right. You heard the big man. I have to find a way to stop them. If the kidnappers see someone tailing us again, they’ll make the wrong assumption. They’ll kill Lake.”
“By stop them, you mean… well, I know exactly what you mean.”
I found her tone and her manner infuriating. Did she have a better plan?
Trying to reassure her, or maybe to get her off the subject, Tomlinson interrupted, saying, “We’ve got to trust Doc on this one. Let’s just let the big horse run, O.K.? He’s good at this sort of thing.”
Pilar’s tone remained severe as she said, “That’s true. Now that I’ve found out, why do I keep forgetting?”
I took the ramp onto 836 west across the Miami River, past Miami International, jumbo jets ascending and descending at mild angles over the highway, flaps flared. I dodged in and out of traffic, accelerating aggressively when I could-which was seldom because it was now a little before four p.m., approaching the rush hour.
Because traffic was heavy, I pushed west, driving hard. I didn’t want to risk taking an off ramp, searching for a hotel only to get stuck in some kind of rush-hour jam.
On the outskirts of Miami, though, traffic lightened. I took the Palmetto Expressway ramp and then continued to exit when I saw a billboard advertising a Radisson half a mile away. Only a block or so from the hotel was a Circle K.
It would do.
I swung alongside the gas pumps, and all three of us got out. Tomlinson went inside and returned with bottles of water and Snickers bars. Then we loitered for what seemed a long time before the car finally appeared: a new full-sized Chevrolet with windows too heavily tinted to be a rental.
Thus I knew the people pursuing us also had local friends, local knowledge.
I got the feeling that we surprised them. The car came racing down NW Seventh Street, but braked hard when, apparently, the driver saw us. Then the car accelerated onward. The impression was that they feared they’d lost us, were speeding to catch up, and then were startled when they overran us.
The car had a Florida plate, but it was at the wrong angle, and the car was traveling too fast for me to read.
I looked at Pilar then at Tomlinson before I said, “Get moving. Enjoy the hotel. Lock your doors. If someone knocks, don’t answer, no matter what.”
As an aside to Tomlinson, I added, “One more thing, old buddy. Don’t try to enjoy your little minivacation too much. She’d slap your nose off.”
I wondered if that was true or not.
Handing me his cell phone, he sounded frazzled-but also oddly uneasy-when he replied, “I know, man. I’m hopeless. I don’t trust myself, either. Mr. Zamboni and the Hat Trick Twins, they won’t touch my Zen students. But the bastards are shameless when it comes to all other women. Those three don’t listen to me anymore.”
I told him, “Just a friendly warning,” as I got in the car. Then I sat for a moment and watched Tomlinson and Pilar speed-walk toward the covered entrance of the hotel.
Pilar, in her starched white blouse and blue skirt, could have been a coed at some parochial university, sophisticated in her uniform, late for class. Visually and from strong past memory, I noted that she walked with a feline elegance, hips, hair, and breasts moving in countersync cadence, rotating, bouncing, springing.
There were three men standing outside the Radisson’s glass doors, luggage at their feet. They’d been talking, but stopped when they noticed her. The men remained silent as she neared, eyes locked on her, seeming to retreat into themselves the closer she got, back-stepping involuntarily from the doorway as if she pushed an energy field ahead of her, or because she merited a deference that common women did not.
I’d seen men behave that way before around her.
I’d reacted
that way myself.
Perhaps she still affected me that way. I wondered.
Something else I noted: Pilar carried the photographer’s case.
Only two roads cross the Everglades, connecting Florida’s Gulf Coast with the Atlantic. We’d come to Miami via Alligator Alley, the newest, fastest, and northernmost highway. Now I was returning homeward on the narrow, more southern Tamiami Trail, a less traveled two-lane road that augers through ninety miles of sawgrass and cypress swamp.
The highways travel similar topography, but they are unlike in most other ways. Alligator Alley is a modern freeway, buffered by public land on both sides. There are no homes, no businesses, and only one service station along the way. The Trail, in comparison, is old-time Florida. It is a remote and isolated country road that is interrupted by an occasional cluster of Indian chikee huts, or a lone trailer set back in, or a bait stand. The Alley is six lanes. The Trail is seldom more than two. The Alley is faster, busier. The Trail is slower, shadier, more remote.
I drove westward on the Trail, past tacky Deco roadside attractions at Coppertown and Frog City, eyes shifting from the highway to the road behind. I had to stay far enough ahead of the Chevy to keep them from seeing that I was now alone, but I didn’t want to get so far ahead that I gave the impression of flight. Didn’t want to tip them that I was aware I was being pursued.
So I drove at a consistent ten miles an hour over the speed limit. Fast enough to keep some distance between us, but not fast enough to attract the attention of the highway patrol.
Getting stopped by the cops now would be disastrous. I pictured myself on the highway shoulder, a squad car parked behind, lights flashing as the black Chevy slowed just enough to confirm that I was alone. I imagined the Chevy driving for another quarter-mile or so before making a U-turn, then heading back to the Radisson exit-the logical starting place to resume their search for Pilar. I pictured the Chevy passing again as an officer handed me a ticket.
Yes, disastrous…
Or… would it be?
As I sped along, passing slower cars and pickups with bass boats in tow, camper trucks and the occasional semi, I mulled over the possibilities and the potential.
What were the options if law enforcement came between me and the Chevy…?
I considered different scenarios, weighing risks.
Beyond the levee at Chekika’s Hammock, the road straightened through a dome of cypress trees, water and lily pads on both sides. I slowed for another Indian village.
There were thatched huts around a gravel parking lot and a sign that read JAMES TIGER’S FAMOUS REPTILE SHOW AND AIRBOAT RIDES.
James is a friend of mine-and there he was, using a wrench on an airboat engine, the sleeves of his rainbow-colored Seminole shirt rolled high, his old black cowboy hat battling the sun.
I was tempted to stop. If a man lives a long and lucky life, he may meet a handful of people he can trust under any circumstance, in any situation, life or death. James Tiger is one of those rare men.
Still slowing, looking at James, my mind flashed on a different plan, and on how I could work it. I could slide into the parking lot, stuff the satellite phone in one pocket, the Sig Sauer pistol in another, and tell James that the bad guys were after me. Tell him I needed to borrow an airboat, or ask to hitch a ride on his boat to some remote island a couple of miles out in the swamp.
He’d do it. No questions.
Then I’d wait for my pursuers to find me. It might take a while. A couple of hours. Maybe a couple of days. But they’d track me. For half-a-million dollars, they’d figure a way.
I’d be waiting out there with the Sig Sauer, and I’d take them. Put the bodies in a gator hole, never to be found.
It could work… if I was willing to do something so extreme.
Which I was. If I had to. I’ve taken similar action before in my life. Hated doing it; loathed myself at the time and for a long while afterward. Despised myself because I was capable of such action, and also because it scared me to the core.
Something inside me is capable of that?
When those memories come slipping back, they produce a sickening and sweaty unpleasantness-which is why I make every effort to live in the present, not the past.
But I’ve now come to terms with who I am, and what I am. Occasionally for better, often for worse, I have come to terms with that truth.
I sometimes wonder if focusing on marine biology as a life’s work isn’t a way of justifying, or at least validating, a specific and unsentimental view of existence. From biology’s elemental view, human beings, like all species, are not only guided by the tenets of natural selection, we are mandated. In such a world, eliminating enemies, or behavioral anomalies, isn’t a decision to be made. It is a necessary process.
I’ve participated in that process. I can do it again if required. Of that there is no doubt.
Something else, though, was necessary to make my airboat escape work. I also had to be willing to involve my friend James Tiger in what amounted to cold-blooded murder.
That was something I would not do.
I touched my foot to the accelerator and sped on.
Once, on a long and open stretch of highway, I got a glimpse of the Chevy way, way back there, still on my tail. I wondered if they’d decided to try and catch me.
To find out, I reduced my speed from 75 to 65. The dark car closed briefly, then dropped back.
No. I guessed they’d decided there was still too much traffic. Too many passing witnesses. They were content to stay close. Were probably waiting, hoping there’d be a reason for me to stop in this rural region.
I’d been thinking about doing exactly that, my brain scanning furiously, continuing to inspect variations of what might be a plausible plan, defining, rejecting, then refining.
I could hear Tattoo saying, If my people catch them tailing you again, the deal’s off. Could hear him saying, It’s your problem, not ours.
I had to come up with a way not just to shake them, but to lose them. I didn’t have to get rid of them permanently, but I did have to make them disappear for a sizeable block of time-several days, and probably longer.
Finally, I settled upon something that might work. I thought about it some more, then finally committed myself to putting the plan into action.
Decision made, I began anticipating details, which presented me with a whole other stack of problems. Not the least of which was, I didn’t know how many people were in the car.
So I chose a figure. I chose five because that was the worst-case scenario. It gave me something to work with.
Another troubling possibility was, assuming they had entered the country illegally, they could’ve smuggled in some heavy firepower with them. The prospect of facing a carload of men carrying automatic weapons made my stomach roll.
No matter how many there were, though, and whatever they were packing, I needed to get it right the first time. I needed to pick the ideal place, make a good guess at the timing, and then keep the timing tight.
Ahead, road signs now warned, was an abrupt right curve in what is otherwise a straight road-Forty Mile Bend.
Forty Mile Bend is part of Everglades mythos. It is said that back in the early 1900s, when construction crews were using floating dredges to build the Tamiami Trail across the great sawgrass river, one team started from Miami, to the east. Another started building from below Naples, in the west. The plan called for the two construction crews to meet in the swamp’s middle-but the engineering was way off and they missed by many, many miles. Thus a great bend was required to join the two sections of road.
Traveling from east to west, where Forty Mile Bend angles northward, Dade County, which is home to Miami, becomes Collier County, which is home to Naples. Just as Miami and Naples are polar opposites in style and population, so are the two counties. The same is true of the infrastructures that keeps them operating.
Dade County sheriff’s deputies, I knew, tend to be metropolitan, even international
in demographic. A fair percentage of Collier County deputies, however, are still multigenerational Floridians, proud of their heritage.
Both departments have good reputations, are staffed by competent professionals, according to what I’ve read and heard. Most law enforcement agencies are competent. They must be, because they receive daily, critical public scrutiny of an intensity that few professions would tolerate or could weather.
But between the two agencies, and for my purposes, I favored the cops from Collier County. We had more in common. Our antecedents were similar. I had a better shot at predicting how they thought, how they would react under certain circumstances.
So I took the big curve at Forty Mile Bend, tires squealing, and drove fast across the Collier County line. I kept the accelerator down until, in what seemed to be a horizon of sawgrass and swamp, I came to an old abandoned two-story house built of clapboard, its white paint peeling. The house sat back on a gravel parking lot on the south side of the road, windows boarded.
Because as a teen I’d spent a few years living near the area with my crazed old uncle, Tucker Gatrell, I knew that the place was called Monroe Station. I knew it was built originally to house highway construction crews, then troopers who patrolled the Tamiami Trail, and that finally it was purchased by a family named Lord who operated it for years as a barbecue restaurant.
I’d eaten there many times.
I also knew about the single-lane gravel road just beyond the old house. Known by locals as the Loop Road, it cut deep, southward, into the ’Glades, then circled out twenty-seven miles later.
There were a lot of dead-end trails that exited from the Loop; plenty of remote land eddies that were weighted in silence and shadow.
I was headed for the Loop Road. I knew just the spot where I hoped to stand face to face, alone with the men who were after me. If that place still existed… and if I could find it.
After checking my watch and noting the time, I slowed and turned left down the road. It was 6:05 P.M.-plenty of daylight before sunset.
Then I picked up Tomlinson’s cell phone. I began to dial…
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