Everglades df-10

by Randy Wayne White

  She startled him. Made him jump. He didn’t expect anyone to come walking up out of the sawgrass the way we did. Ninety-nine percent of the people, they’ll look around when surprised.

  Not this guy.

  He was about fifty yards away and slightly below us. He stiffened at the sound of her voice. Paused as if thinking about what to do. Then he turned away from us, his face partially hidden by an open hand as he waved, maybe trying to appear friendly, but maybe trying to shield himself, too.

  Still waving, he called back a gruff, “Howdy!”

  My second assessment: He was trying to disguise his voice.

  I watched the man duck slightly, keeping the truck between us and himself. He didn’t rush, kept it calm, but he didn’t waste any time opening the driver’s-side door and getting in.

  Billie was walking fast toward the access road. Then she began to trot as the truck pulled away. I jogged along with her, for no other reason than the man’s behavior did not seem appropriate for the situation.

  She was motioning at the driver, calling for him to stop. But he didn’t. When he passed within fifteen yards or so of us, he waved again, palm open-shielding his face once more.

  “Asshole,” Billie said. She was looking at the truck as it bounced away. “And wouldn’t you know: There’s mud on his license plate.”

  A few minutes later, the four of us were going over the area where the truck had been parked.

  Yes, it was an abandoned limestone quarry, or “barrow pit”; limestone dredged to built roads. The pit was rocky, honeycombed with holes.

  I know enough about Florida geology to recognize that this area would be described as a karst formation. A karst is a limestone area that consists of sinkholes and abrupt ridges-some as high as fifteen or twenty feet above sea level.

  For millions of years, naturally acidic rain and groundwater flowed through these limestone karsts, dissolving conduits and caverns out of rock. Some plates of limestone fell, some rose. Thus the unusual elevation.

  This quarry had been dug into the side of a high ridge. Searching around at the bottom of it, we found a couple of daubs of white goo that smelled like fuel oil-insecticide, DeAntoni suggested. Nothing more until Billie held up a large, empty fertilizer bag, and said, “Look at this. He must be one of the golf course maintenance guys. Probably came out here to get away from his supervisor, sneaking in a nap.”

  She told us her primary worry was that the guy had been dumping trash. She said the Sawgrass staff did that a lot-dumped their junk on Indian property. Old refrigerators, air conditioners, broken bedding and wallboard-anything too bulky or heavy to drive to the county dump.

  She said she’d complained to Jerry Singh, but got a sense of indifference behind his promise to speak with his staff. Plus, it didn’t stop. They kept right on dumping.

  She told us she thought Singh was secretly encouraging the dumping for the same reason he was encouraging his staff to bully the local Indians. If the Egret Seminoles agreed to Shiva’s terms, the Seminole corporate board would have the power to hire and fire. It would be a way for the Indians to rid the area of the Ashram’s thugs.

  Tomlinson asked, “Then why would you want to go into the casino business with someone like Shiva? I’ve got to be right up front with you. I think the guy’s a slime.”

  She answered. “I don’t want to go into the casino business with him. With Geoff involved, it might’ve been a different story. I doubt it, but at least there was a possibility. Now there’s not a chance-as far as I’m concerned, anyway.”

  “Then why deal with him?”

  She thought for a moment, perhaps calculating how honest she should be. Finally, she said, “I’m dealing with him for a real simple reason. We want his land. I want his land. Not for a housing development or anything like that. I want to replant it. Make it part of our home again. But just because I was elected tribal chair, that doesn’t mean I make the final decision.”

  She explained that the Egret Seminoles as a tribe were still considering the casino proposal because Shiva had, in her opinion, conned her five older aunts and uncles. Billie said that, as chairman, she could vote only in the event of a tie. So Shiva had effectively captured the interests of a majority of corporate members on a voting board of eight.

  She told us, “A year back, Singh sent a limo and drove us all to his Palm Beach Ashram. He gave us the red-carpet treatment; anything we wanted. What impressed my aunts and uncles, though, was his office. On his office walls, he’s got these carvings of pre-Columbian masks and totems. They were copies of Calusa masks. Masks that almost no one knows about.

  “Singh acted surprised when my uncle identified them. It was like Jerry had no idea what they were. He claimed to have carved the masks himself because the images kept coming to him night after night in his dreams. Jerry told us he was a mystic, and sometimes received messages that he didn’t always understand right away. Then he told my aunts and uncles that maybe the masks-the fact that he saw them in his dreams-were a positive sign about the casino. ”

  DeAntoni said, “Did they believe him?”

  “I think they’d like to believe him. I love my relatives, but they grew up in poverty. I think they’d like a reason to justify voting for the casinos, and have some money for once. So, they’re still waiting to decide.”

  “Waiting for what?”

  “Shiva promised them another sign. A more powerful sign. Maybe someday I’ll tell you what he promised them he’d do-it’s actually kind of funny. It’ll never happen, of course. So what I’ve got to do is figure out how to get Shiva’s land without agreeing to let him build casinos.”

  As she said that, she handed the bag she’d found to Tomlinson, and he held it up for me to see. It was the industrial variety; triple-thick brown paper. Printing on the outside said that it had contained fifty pounds of ammonium nitrate commercial-grade fertilizer, manufactured by Chem-A-World Products, Bucyrus, Ohio.

  As I looked at the bag, I said, “Is anyone doing any blasting around here?”

  She said, “No. In the Everglades? They’d never allow it. They used to back when they were digging barrow pits, but not now.”

  As I asked Billie if ammonium nitrate was a fertilizer commonly used by golf courses, DeAntoni’s cell phone began to ring.

  She shrugged- I don’t know -as Frank put the phone to his ear and, after listening a moment, said, “Speak of the devil.”

  A minute later, he closed the phone, putting it away, and said, “That was our Scotch-drinking pal, Eugene McRae. Jerry Singh already contacted him and asked about our little visit. He’s there right now. The Bhagwan, I mean. Mr. McRae said that Singh would be happy to answer any questions we had about Geoff Minster.”

  chapter twenty

  Why did I get the impression that the black-haired man with the dimpled chin and scar beneath his right eye had come into the room for no other reason than to initiate visual contact with us?

  In the world of espionage fieldcraft, an individual who is a target for any reason is “made” when the assigned agent contrives a reason to view the target in the flesh. Even a brief, firsthand visual confirmation is more reliable than a photograph.

  I had the feeling dimple-chin wanted to be able to recognize us down the road.

  Or maybe he did it because he wanted to see if we’d recognize him.

  The image of the man in coveralls climbing into the pickup truck, hiding his face behind an open palm, came to mind. The hair was similar. The size was about right.

  But why go to such extremes?

  He was a lean man, medium height, dressed in expensive slacks and a black, short-sleeved Polo sweater, patent-leather shoes, his hair razor cut, stylish. He carried himself with a kind of easy grace; had the looks and athleticism that most women find attractive. Something else I noticed: He had a pale, quarter-sized scar on his right arm that had probably once been a tattoo.

  I found the diminutive size of the tattoo interesting.

  We were i
n the Sawgrass corporate office, which was not far from the main gate, where, this time, security guards waited in golf carts, expecting us. They did a poor job of cloaking their hostility-word that we’d hurt a couple of their brethren had obviously gotten around-but they followed orders. They offered us bottled water, and drove us to meet their leader.

  Now we were sitting in an empty conference room, waiting, when the door was opened suddenly. In walked the man with the dimpled chin and scar. He made quick eye contact with each of us, plucked a book off a shelf and left again without a word.

  Because I’ve spent many years in dangerous places, dealing with covert foreign-service types, I have a bad case of the overlies. I am overly suspicious. I am overly cautious. And I am overly aware that 99.9 percent of Americans are easy targets for anyone who wants to take advantage of them for any reason. Why? Because we never expect it. Not really.

  So when the man closed the door, I stood and made a quick survey of the room, pretending to look at the same bookshelf, then through a window that opened onto a courtyard where a statue of a happy Buddha served as a fountain, pouring water onto a garden of stone.

  On the wall, beneath a modernistic Darryl Pottorf painting, was a minicamera lens.

  When I dropped the book I’d taken from the case, I knelt to retrieve it. Beneath the conference table, I saw at least one pen-sized microphone. Presumably, there were others.

  Trying to communicate with Tomlinson and DeAntoni, using intense eye contact- We’re being recorded -I said, “It’s nice of Bhagwan Shiva to be so cooperative. He must be a decent sort of man.”

  Tomlinson picked right up on it. “Oh, for sure, man, for sure. You read so much negative stuff these days about the religious types, it’s kind of refreshing to have the critics proven wrong.”

  DeAntoni wasn’t so quick. “Hey… are you two guys out of your gourds? Shiva sounds like a fucking snake-oil salesman to me-and you know how I feel about snakes.”

  My warning look stopped him. There were just the three of us now. When I’d asked Billie Egret if she wanted to listen to what Shiva had to say, she’d declined. “After five minutes alone with that man, I feel like I need a shower. We don’t have a shower on Chekika’s Hammock, and I’m not going back to my condo in Coral Gables until Monday afternoon. So thanks, but no thanks.”

  Carter McRae wasn’t with us, either, because he had to drive to Naples Community Hospital to visit his wife.

  So now the three of us sat, waiting. I had a strong suspicion that the man with the dimpled chin was now waiting, too. Probably in a separate office, eavesdropping, listening to what we had to say.

  To Tomlinson, I said, “Tell Frank and me your theory about how earth energy works. Power places-the whole vortex philosophy. I really enjoy your insights.”

  Tomlinson’s expression was one of surprise, then delight. “Are you serious? Man, I’d love to.”

  I sat back, smiling at DeAntoni’s expression: Oh, God, here we go again…

  I checked my watch, wondering how long dimple-chin could bear listening to Tomlinson’s philosophical rambling.

  It wasn’t long.

  The man who called himself Bhagwan Shiva was a sportsman. An outdoorsman-he told us that. A regular sort. He liked getting outside, hitting the ball around on the tennis court, or playing eighteen. He particularly liked shooting trap-which he was scheduled to do right now.

  We were in an elongated golf cart that had a Rolls-Royce grille. Dimple-chin was driving. Smiling, not saying much. He’d yet to introduce himself, deferential in the same way a chauffeur would not presume to introduce himself to people he was being paid to drive.

  Shiva was wearing a collarless Nehru shooting jacket, khaki slacks tucked into snake boots, and a purple safa-a turban made from a single, colorful strip of cloth. Several shotguns, in aluminum cases, were stacked at angles on the seat beside him. He might have been a rajah on his way to a tiger hunt on the Punjab.

  His tone personable, upbeat, Shiva said, “I’m sure you’ve known priests, other clergymen-political leaders. There’s an example-men who’ve had a strong calling to serve. Underneath it all, though, we’re people. I’m just a man. Just like anyone else. With certain gifts, of course.” He looked at Tomlinson, who was seated beside him, when he added, “We all have our own peculiar gifts, don’t you agree?”

  Tomlinson answered, “Oh, for sure, for sure. Some more peculiar than others.”

  Which made DeAntoni chuckle.

  There was a perceptible tension between Tomlinson and the Bhagwan, which I found interesting. There was an instant animus, like opposite poles meeting. When Shiva introduced himself, Tomlinson pretended as if he did not see the man’s outstretched hand-a subtle refusal that caused Shiva momentary embarrassment.

  This was a stubborn, confrontational Tomlinson I’d never seen before.

  Now they were trading far more subtle barbs.

  “My point,” Shiva continued, “is that I want you gentlemen to feel at ease during our visit. I suspect you’re aware of who I am, what I’ve tried to accomplish for the world as a spiritual leader. It… it intimidates some people. What I’m telling you is, there’s no need to treat me any differently. We’re all on the same level here.”

  In the same veiled tone, Tomlinson replied, “Don’t sell yourself short, Mr. Singh. You’re on a much different level.”

  Which irked the man. Even sitting on the rear bench of the golf cart, I could see the skin of Shiva’s face tighten into a forced smile. “Perhaps you have a point, Mr. Tomlinson. It’s true that I have-and this is just a rough estimate-but I have more than a quarter-million followers around the world.”

  Tomlinson replied, “Really? I’m curious. What happens when your followers catch up? Do they still cling to the initial delusion?”

  Shiva started to say something, but then reacted with a forced laugh. “Are you trying to insult me, Mr. Tomlinson?”

  “No-o-o-o, man, of course not. I wouldn’t try to insult you. I wouldn’t want to risk being misunderstood.”

  “I see.” Shiva was still smiling, showing us he was under control once again. “You seem so sure of yourself; so quick to judge. That’s such an endearing… childlike quality. I bet… I bet that you’re the kind of man who still plays children’s games.”

  Tomlinson patted the cased shotguns. “You mean the kind of games that don’t involve metaphorical penis symbols?”

  “Oh, now, now, now, please. I bet that, secretly, you like things that go boom. What child doesn’t like an explosion?”

  He meant something by that. Which caused Tomlinson to stumble. It set me back a beat, too.

  Shiva continued smoothly, “I don’t claim always to be accurate, but clairvoyance is one of my peculiar gifts. Give me a moment to concentrate…” Shiva had both of his palms pressed to his temples. After a few seconds, he said, “… the children’s game you play is baseball. Yes, baseball. And the position you play… I don’t know the American equivalent, but in the sport of cricket, you’d be called a ‘bowler.’”

  Dimple-chin said, “A pitcher. That’s the same thing.”

  DeAntoni said, “Is that true, he’s a pitcher? Come to think of it, he does look like a pitcher. I’ll be damned. How do you people do that?”

  I was thinking: They did a computer search while we were waiting, as Shiva continued, “I perceive that you feel you are an excellent pitcher. In fact, I perceive that you feel superior in a number of ways. Ego-that’s a character flaw you should address, Mr. Tomlinson. In a book, I once wrote, ‘A large ego is the favorite habitat of a small mind.’”

  Tomlinson replied, “Interesting. So tell me, what’s it like, having all that room for your brain to move around in?”

  Shiva fired back, “You must be speaking of my Palm Beach Ashram. You should come and visit one day, experience it for yourself. You’d have a chance to understand that there’s a far more satisfying world waiting for someone like you. Many drug addicts-even unconvicted murderers -have f
ound peace and health there. What would you say if I challenged you to come and sit through my Basic Auditing lecture?”

  Pulling at his scraggly hair, not smiling and as troubled as I’ve ever seen him, Tomlinson replied, “I’d probably tell you the truth, Jerry: I’m just too fucking busy. Or vice versa.”

  On our way to the skeet range, dimple-chin drove past the private airstrip, the Sawgrass minimall where trams were shuttling vacationing members, then into what Shiva called, “our nature preserve and the Cypress Ashram Center.”

  The nature preserve consisted of several dozen Everglades animals caged in fiberglass dioramas that were constructed to resemble natural habitat. The zoo was on a boardwalk. The boardwalk was part of a self-guided nature tour. There were birds, mammals, gators and snakes. In one of the larger cages, an oversized male Florida panther watched us with glowing yellow eyes as we rolled past.

  What Shiva called his “Cypress Ashram” was really an outdoor amphitheater. It was a stage attached to an acoustic dome that was elevated above concentric levels of seating. The place was big; had to seat a thousand or so people. The theater was built at the edge of what must have been a cypress stand, though only a few cypress trees remained growing knee-deep in red water.

  At what was the equivalent of a ticket house, a life-sized bronze statue of a bearded and smiling Bhagwan Shiva welcomed visitors. In one hand, he held a lantern, in the other a globe. The statue stood along the cart trail entrance, and Shiva ignored it with a practiced and bored disinterest as we rolled past.

  To Shiva, Tomlinson said, “Hey, Jerry! Has there ever been a time in your life when, just once, you’d love to be a bird?”

  Shiva reacted as if it were a good-natured joke; played right along. “Do you like birds? Then you’ll enjoy our next stop.”

  Which made no sense until dimple-chin steered us down a gravel service path where a wooden sign read COMMUNAL FARM.

  It was an oversized garden, really, laid out in an odd shape-a pentagon, I finally realized. Two acres or so of tomatoes, beans, squash, corn and other vegetables planted in rows. There were compost bins, equipment lockers and a shed for a small John Deere tractor. There was also a long hutch screened with chicken wire.