Dead of Night df-12

by Randy Wayne White

  It was no surprise I’d appeared in his death dream. He’d been making weird offerings ever since.

  I turned toward the house. Swung open the door as he said, “I want to share the wealth, because I have the feeling it’s going to come true. I’m going to die within a few months.”

  I looked at him, shaking my head. “No, you’re not.”

  “You seem so sure.”

  “I am.”

  There was subtext in Tomlinson’s inflections. Mine, too.

  “Guilt is a patient sword, man. It’s gotta happen.”

  “Maybe. But not this year, not the next. Besides”-I paused to look at the board again-“I don’t think you’re guilty. I haven’t for a long time. When the time’s right, we’ll find out for sure.”

  When he started to protest, I interrupted. “Tomlinson? Thanks for the surfboard.”

  “Pretty cool, huh?”

  “Yep. Very gnarly.”

  “Doc?” I stared at him, hoping my pained expression would tell him I was done with it. “The only friend you don’t take good care of is yourself, and the only friend I think you’re capable of hurting. I want you to know I’m aware of that.”

  “People can consider themselves as friends?” “Lots do. And you should.”

  I remembered a blind carney telling me I’d one day take the life of a friend. Suicide? An unlikely new interpretation.

  “Thanks. I think.”

  The house phone began to ring. I let the door slam behind me, went inside, and checked caller ID.

  It was Frieda Matthews on her cell phone.

  I listened to Frieda say, “I’m still in Kissimmee, but Bob called a few minutes ago. Guess what a UPS truck just delivered to our house?”

  Bob was her husband.

  “Something from your brother?”

  “His laptop computer. The one missing from his home. In the note, Jobe said to keep the computer until he asked for it back. That’s all. ‘Dear 6-6-4, please keep my computer.’ ”

  I waited a couple of seconds. “No mention of why he sent it?”

  “No. I had Bob open the laptop and take a look, but our seven-year-old son knows more about computers than my dear, nonconformist hubby. He even refuses to get cable TV”

  I said, “There’s another reason why I like the guy.”

  “Uh-huh. But he did find a folder on the desktop labeled Tropicane Sugar-slash-EPOC. As in Environmental Protection and Oversight Conservancy. Both names on the same folder.”

  “Same organizations Jobe called the night he died.”

  “Exactly. I walked Bob through how to use a mouse to double-click on an icon. There was only one document that he could open and read. It was a copy of a contract sent to Jobe as an Acrobat file. Tropicane and EPOC had hired him jointly to collect and test water samples over a two-year period in areas where Tropicane diverts water into the Everglades. If I remember right, diverting water to keep their fields dry is a common practice in the sugar industry.”

  I said, “They all do it. Fields would be flooded half the year if they didn’t. But why would a big sugar company hook up with an environmental watchdog group to hire your brother? Organizations like those two, they’re usually at each other’s throats. Unless… unless the sugar company voluntarily invited EPOC to participate. They’d only do that if they were confident test results would be favorable.”

  Frieda said, “That’s what I was thinking. We both know the ecobusiness. Corporate America doesn’t invite independent oversight unless the news is sure to be good.

  “Bob read me some of the contract details. Jobe was making decent cash. Basically, his job was to collect water from various areas, test it, then deliver the results independently to both organizations. Contractually, the data sheets were due every Monday morning.

  “For better or worse,” she said, “each side wanted original data. No chance of doctoring the results, or trying to hide the truth between the lines. So, yeah, Tropicane had to be darn confident that the water they’re pumping into the ’Glades is clean.”

  I was standing, phone to my ear, near my Celestron telescope, and the desk that holds my Transoceanic shortwave radio. As I listened to Frieda, I could also hear Tomlinson in the galley, rummaging through the refrigerator and cupboards.

  I get nervous when the man’s alone in a kitchen. He once used mushrooms as garnish for a snapper he’d baked. I didn’t know the mushrooms were psychedelic until I’d eaten nearly half the damn things. They were psilocybin “ ’shrooms,” as they are known, personally handpicked by him in some Central Florida cattle pasture. We happened to be down on the Florida Keys at the time. My memory still generates brief, strobing colors when I hear someone say, “Key Largo.”

  I interrupted Frieda, saying, “Excuse me a second, okay?” then covered the phone with my palm before calling to Tomlinson, “It’s too early if you’re making lunch. Unless I’m in there watching.”

  Slighted, Tomlinson called back, “Relax, Admiral Paranoia. What I’m trying to do is find some olives for my martini. I have one of those big beakers from the lab filled with Stoli and ice, but I need olives, man. That would seem totally, like, normal to most folks. But you have a way of making whatever I’m doing sound peculiar.”

  I told him that a fresh jar of olives was in the food locker next to the fridge, then returned my attention to the lady. “How long had your brother been under contract?”

  “Nearly eighteen months. He was almost done. Only six months left.”

  “What day did he send the laptop?”

  “The UPS slip said Saturday.”

  The day before he died.

  “Then his weekly report was due yesterday, so the report’s probably still on the laptop. A portion of it, anyway. That might tell us something.”

  Frieda was ahead of me. “I know, I know, I had Bob open files related to the project. But he couldn’t read them because there was nothing to read. No words, anyway. Only numbers. Every document. Like the computer drawings we found upstairs in my brother’s house? Instead of the water symbol, page after page of numbers.”

  “Numbers?”

  “Jobe could remember numbers. Words gave him trouble.”

  I thought about that for a moment, hearing the sound of ice cubes rattling in glass. “Did your husband notice if any of the numbers were larger than twenty-six? Or mention punctuation marks?”

  “Twenty-six…? Oh, you’re thinking it’s some kind of code. Twenty-six numbers, twenty-six letters in the alphabet. Talk about feeling dumb. I didn’t ask.”

  We discussed other explanations. Frieda told me she’d e-mail the Tropicane-EPOC folder to me once she got her hands on the laptop, which would be soon. Her husband and son were arriving in Kissimmee tomorrow, Wednesday, for the funeral, which was to be Thursday morning.

  “It’s going to be a small service, Doc. Jobe didn’t have friends. But do yourself a favor, do us a favor. Stay home. Get some work done. You’ve invested enough time and emotion. I completely understand.”

  Inwardly relieved, I told the lady I’d use the time to do some research on the Florida sugar industry for both of us. Refresh my memory on a few things.

  I said, “You’re going to want to check into the kind of work your brother was doing, who he was working with.”

  Her voice steely, Frieda said, “Oh, you can bet that I will.”

  16

  LOG

  14 Dec. 17:35 (addendum)

  Collected copepods w/plankton net from Bailey Tract. Sample count using Wolffuegel grid: 5,000 specimens +/-. Dominant species, Macro Cyclops.

  Separated undetermined numbers into three 1,000 ml beakers, plus 1 shallow soup bowl. Have introduced Dracunculiasis into beakers #1 amp; 2. Samples hourly.

  Order 2 doz Pyrex beakers 200 ml to 1,000 ml.

  – MDF

  The two of us sitting beneath the helicopter shadows of the ceiling fan, Tomlinson confided, “You’re right. I had the dream. I’d smoked a couple of blimpies around the fire
after surfing. It was the same in every detail but for one. This time, I didn’t die.”

  I said, “See? I told you. It’s all a bunch of baloney.” I was sitting on a lab stool watching the little bull sharks, pleased by their attack displays as they began to feed on the tiny, fast baitfish I’d put into the tank. Backs arched, dorsal fins down, the sharks were doing approach elliptics, then attacking.

  The deformed sharks weren’t as successful.

  “This time when you shot me, it didn’t hurt. Before, it always hurt like hell, even dreaming it-”

  I stopped him with a warning look. I didn’t want to hear it. “Then be happy. Believe it.”

  He was stressed, hyper, but starting to relax-he’d filled another 100-milliliter flask with vodka, and it was down by half. He crunched ice, used his fingers to snare olives as he replied, “Six months ago, sure, I would have been happy. I was convinced I was a goner. Which is the only reason I let that ballbreaker you call a sister turn me into the televangelist of meditation.”

  “Trapped you.”

  “Damn right she did.”

  “It’s her fault that you’re now getting rich by teaching nonmaterialism to the masses.”

  “Exactly. The American way. But only because I believed the dream. Now, as far as karma’s concerned, I think I have seriously screwed the pooch.”

  I said, “I don’t get it.”

  He was shaking his head. I’d missed something that should have been obvious.

  He stood and began to pace in small, distracted circles. “All the cash Ransom’s been laying on me lately! I woulda never bought the new dinghy, my Harley, the stereo system. Your surfboard. All my new clothes-Jesus, I just ordered two new silk suits. Plus my VW van, the Electric Kool-Aid Love Machine.

  “I wouldn’t have any of that stuff if I’d known the dream was bogus. Cling to earthly material possessions? No way. I’m more than just a Buddhist monk, for God’s sake. I’m a fucking boat bum. It’s against everything I stand for.”

  I was smiling. “Then get rid of it all. Go back to being who you really are. Ransom’ll understand, and everyone at the marina will be a lot happier. We’ve been worried. We like the old Tomlinson better.”

  “Ransom won’t understand. Are you kidding-tell her I quit?” He whacked himself on the forehead. “The woman’s a witch, I tell you. She’s cast a spell. I’ve thought and thought and there’s no way out.”

  Ransom is my only living relative, as far as I know, and I love the lady. She’s a lanky, busty, mulatto brown dynamo who wears Obeah beads braided into her hair, and sacrifices chickens, sometimes pigeons, on the full moon.

  She’s the closest thing Sanibel has to a voodoo priestess. Casting a spell is something she could do.

  Her father was my late uncle Tucker Gatrell. She inherited his tunnel-visioned genetics, minus the craftiness he passed off as finesse.

  I would trust her with my life. I hope she feels as confident in me.

  Nearly a year before, we’d been sitting on Ransom’s porch when Tomlinson tried to explain why he’d been in a funky mood. He didn’t mention the dream, not then. He said he knew his days were numbered-“I continue to inhabit this body for strictly sentimental reasons”-and now felt obligated to explore new experiences. So far, though, he wasn’t wild about the options. Maybe we could help.

  “I’ve had this awakening,” he told us. “Heaven is happening. They drink rum there. Even play baseball-which is the good news. The bad news is, God has me scheduled to pitch on Sunday. Or a few months down the road. So I’m in a rush. As a spiritual warrior, I’m duty bound to touch all the experiential bases before I die, like it or not.”

  He didn’t sound as if he liked it.

  Problem was, he said, not many untouched bases remained.

  “I’ve tried damn near everything there is to eat, drink, snort, shoot, seek, try, or experience, with the exception of bestiality, homosexuality, and living as a right-wing conservative dweeb.” He shuddered. “What an ugly trifecta. I don’t think I’m capable of taking a shot at any one of the three. My brain and my gag reflex, both have locked the gates to those particular streets…”

  He drifted away in thought before finishing, “Bestiality, homosexuality, and dweebsville. If that’s all that’s left, and I have to choose…” He shuddered again. “Can you imagine me being gay? With my sex drive?”

  It was Ransom who asked, “What about living as a rich man? You ever done it? That kind of change, it wouldn’t be so bad.”

  Her Bahamian accent strung the words together as music: Whads a‘bot libbin’ as’a reech mon? Daht wooden be so bod!

  Tomlinson brushed off the suggestion. Told her his family had been wealthy. He had no interest.

  “I’m talking about you. You ever felt what it’s like to make your own pile of money? To want expensive things?”

  “Materialism and greed,” he replied. “They’re contrary to Shiku Seigan, my sacred Buddhist vows to live modestly, and root out blind passion. The blind passion deal-I’m not claiming to be perfect, obviously. But living like some starched suit who only thinks about money? No way.”

  The way he said it-his condescending tone-annoyed her. “That’s the way most people live, you dumb stork. You always talking that spiritual garbage. About how you relate to your brothers and sisters around the world. But how can you feel it if you never been in their shoes?

  “Most people love money. Darlin’, you’re lookin’ at a girl who loves money. Work like hell tryin’ to make it big, and it ain’t easy. Most of us, we like to buy nice things. But not you. What you’re really tellin’ me is that you’re too good to live like the rest of us. Sayin’ money’s dirty is the same as sayin’ people like me are dirty. You ain’t spiritual. You a snob.”

  That got to him. He sat there with lips pursed, eyes drifting, twisting a strand of bleached hair. After a moment, he spoke as if talking to himself. “Hmmm, an interesting concept. Learn to empathize with greed and materialism by experiencing it. You gotta live it to understand it. That’s what you’re saying, Rance. I never looked at it that way.”

  “You nothin’ but a boney ol’ stork of a snob,” she repeated, sensing an advantage.

  “Know what? You might have something. Damn it all… I am a snob. I’ll say something like, ‘I want to understand why people love shopping malls.’ Or those big-ass, gas-guzzling cars? What’s it like to touch a hundred-dollar bill and feel emotion? Work nine to five just to buy monogrammed hankies-that’s a weirdy. Pay money to blow snot all over your own initials.

  “I pretend to be interested in what drives materialistic people. But I’m not. Not really. I choose not to understand their behavior because it’s beneath me.” He slapped his knee. “Wow! I see it now. What an asshole I’ve been.”

  Ransom’s expression read, There! You finally admitted it, as she said, “People out there trying to make a buck, buy a fine car, but you talk about ’em like they’re fools. Try it your own self if you want to understand. See what it’s like to risk your butt startin’ a business, knowin’ it might fail, lose everything. On the other hand, you might make it big, too. Maybe you might like it, being rich.”

  “Feel what they feel. Hmmm. I like that.” He was warming to the idea. He stood and began to pace, letting it happen in his brain. “In Buddhism, we have what are called ‘the Three Precepts.’ The Three Precepts of Materialism might be… self-indulgence, self-promotion, and… selfishness? Yeah. Fits. What you’re suggesting, Rance, is that I might come to better understand self-less-ness if I experience the flip side. Selfishness. A very, very heavy approach…”

  “No,” she said, irritated, “what I’m tellin’ you is to stop mopin’ around, get off that dead ass of yours. Find out your own self how hard it is to build a pile of money.”

  Tomlinson had drifted into another world, trying it on. “Self-indulgence. Self-promotion. Selfish desire. The Three Ss. Yes. The symbolic trinity in a nation of gold cards. Perfect. The dollar sign, after all, is
nothing more than the letter S transected by vertical lines-three symbols. Get it?”

  As I said, “Oh, sure. I’m right with you,” my cousin told him, “Tomlinson, you a hopeless fool. I’m talking about money, and you already confused. Talking like you gonna start a new religion or somethin’, not your own business.”

  “I already have my own religion,” he answered, a little sadly. “Not through choice, either. Because of the Internet, there’re people out there devoted to my writings. Thousands. Unfortunately, I was doing my own version of mandatory drug testing at the time, so I don’t recall much of what I wrote. Or why I wrote it.”

  I watched as Ransom began to speak, then did a slow freeze as if she’d been struck by something. The woman sat in silence, pondering. Then, gradually, a shrewd glow came into her eyes-a different sort of awakening.

  “You did start your own religion,” she said softly. “That’s true. It is true. How could my brain not thought of this idea before?”

  Later, Tomlinson would say she had thought of it before. Her trap.

  “We all seen the idiots come around here thinkin’ you’re some sort of religious guru,” Ransom continued. “A spiritual man who can change water into wine, instead of what you are. Which is a donkey dick that turns rum into piss when you ain’t using it to diddle. But those idiots don’t know that. Fools think you’re special. People all over the world. I seen it myself, the stuff they write to you on the computer.”

  Unoffended, Tomlinson said, “Yes, my students say they learn much from the little I have to teach.”

  My cousin replied, “Yeah, mon. But you ever thought of chargin’ them for it?”

  “Charging? You mean, money?”

  “You want a new experience or not? If you got the balls, let me handle it. We’ll both make a pile.”

  Sounding rattled, he said, “I don’t really want to get rich. I was playing with the idea. On the other hand, though… compared to bestiality, or the other two…”

  Ransom said, “Those are three nice options you got there. Think it over. You might look good wearin’ lipstick and shit. Walkin’ like your bum hurt.”