The Mangrove Coast df-6

by Randy Wayne White

  “You mean he didn’t show up?”

  “No, we rode in together, like always. But bottom of the first inning, he hit this shot into the gap, and he just kept running: From second base, he veered off into the bullpen, then ran out of the stadium. Never changed stride. We didn’t see him again until just after the game.”

  The other photo was on the table now, and I glanced at it-my first look at Jackie Merlot.

  Felix said, “That Tomlinson, he’s a weird one. But a good guy.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Sometimes he says stuff, I don’t have a clue what he’s talking about. The other guides, it’s the same with them, too. Was he drunk?”

  I said, “Huh?” I was looking at this hugely overweight man, spray-hardened hair on a head the size of a pumpkin, his haunch of an arm wrapped around Gail Calloway’s waist.

  Felix said, “Tomlinson. Why would he do something like that? Get to second, then run off the field. Was he drunk?”

  I looked up from the photo, but my eyes drifted back. There was something compelling about a combination so… grotesque? Yes, grotesque. No other word fit. Bobby Richardson’s widow, healthy, fit and breasty in designer jeans and dark sweater, dwarfed by a man who had to weigh three-eighty, close to four hundred pounds. He might have been a sumo wrestler or an NFL offensive lineman but for his face. Amanda had described it accurately. It was the face of a prepubescent boy; a strangely feminine face, hairless, very pale, with tiny, tiny dark eyes.

  Something about his expression made me uneasy, set me on edge. It was the expression of a man who was working hard to project personality. Big smile, lots of teeth, big dimples above the folds of double chin. Hair combed perfectly and gelled in place… or maybe a toupee. Yeah, probably a wig.

  But that’s not what troubled me. It took a moment; I couldn’t figure it out, but then I knew. Part of it, anyway. There is the certain rare child, because of chemical imbalance or neurosis or freak genetics, who is so genuinely manipulative and evil that he or she must necessarily learn to communicate an air of perfect innocence. It’s more than an expression, it’s an attitude, it’s body language… and it is a totally contrived act. They perfect that act quickly because their survival depends on it… and they feel nothing but contempt for those gullible enough to mistake the act for honesty.

  Merlot’s expression reminded me of that… but there was more, too. There was something in his eyes, those tiny dark eyes. They were not much bigger than black pinholes in the folds of white flesh, but there was an intensity in them that misrepresented their size and that seemed vaguely reptilian.

  I had to think hard to remember, and then it came to me: A monitor lizard, that’s what I thought about when I looked at his eyes. Komodo dragon: another name.

  I’d seen monitors on the islands off Sumatra that were the size of rottweilers; animals that wind-scented carrion with their viper tongues.

  Their eyes had that same black, bottomless glare. With the huge face, the massive folds of fat and those obsidian eyes, Jackie Merlot was a strange-looking man indeed.

  “Doc? Hey, Doc! You okay?”

  Realizing that Felix was all but yelling at me, I jumped slightly. I said, “Huh?”

  “I asked if you’re all right. You look like somebody just walked over your grave, man.”

  I said, “Sorry… wasn’t paying attention. You were asking me something…?”

  Felix was giving me a very odd look. “About Tomlinson. Why he ran off like that, left the game.”

  I forced myself to look away from the photograph of Jackie Merlot, his massive arm locked around the waist of my dead friend’s wife. “Why Tomlinson did what? Oh! The baseball game. Yeah, he said the feeling was so good, hitting a ball into the gap like that and running, he just didn’t want the feeling to end right away.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Nope. So he kept running. He said he ran clear to the Cape Coral bridge and back. Stretched a double into a ten-K jog.”

  “Good Lord.”

  “Because in baseball, he said, the good feelings don’t last long enough and the bad feelings, when you screw up, they last way too long. He told me the same with life. So why stop running?”

  Felix was quiet for a moment, then he said, “Know what? I used to play baseball back in high school and the man is absolutely right. It’s pretty weird what he did, but, when you think about it, yeah, hit one in the gap and just don’t stop. You think he’s a dope, a real goofball, until you think a little more and then he seems like the smartest guy around. Not normal. No one would say that. But smart.”

  I said, “Yeah. I know what you mean.” I was putting the photos, the bank statements back into the envelope. I looked beyond the docks to where No Mas, Tomlinson’s old Morgan sailboat-white hull, green canvas-sat bow-tethered on a strand of anchor line two hundred yards off the channel that led to Woodring’s Point and the mouth of the bay.

  Sailboat out there all by itself, fusiform shape on a blue-green plain, mangroves in the background… the water-space where the man had lived for the last nine years.

  His new Avon dingy, a bright orange husk, was tied off the stern.

  The man was home.

  I told Felix I had to go.

  I needed to speak with Tomlinson.

  9

  Tomlinson said, “I’m surprised at you, man. Thinking viscerally like this. Gathering information with your instincts, finally letting yourself cut across the meadow instead of taking that long-ass linear road. Yep, I think you’re making progress. Becoming an actual human being.”

  We were face-to-face at the dining booth in the cabin of his boat. I could smell kerosene and wood oil, hemp rope, old books and diesel fuel. There was something else… soy sauce maybe, and cold rice. Yeah, and incense, too. Sandalwood, that burned-musk smell. He must have just finished lunch. Or meditating.

  I was sitting with my back to the cockpit. Up the varnished steps, through the open hatch, if I turned, I could see the binnacle, the boat’s big stainless steering wheel, the folded steering vane, a black plastic bag with black tube hanging from the boom: a solar shower.

  On the table to my left was a paper tube unevenly scrolled: a chart of the Dry Tortugas, an anchorage off Garden Key marked in pencil.

  Tomlinson was planning a trip. I’d looked. A straightedge course, Sanibel lighthouse to Tortuga’s Channel, with compass headings and the piddly little amount of deviation figured in.

  And the man chided me for being obsessive?

  I said, “I didn’t come here to discuss my heart or my brain. I came to get your advice. So let’s try to stick to the topic.”

  But he wasn’t done with it. “Nope. Sorry. No can do. This is what my first sensei, Jasper Freeberg, would have called a minor breakthrough. You said the guy seemed dangerous from the way he looked in his picture. That was your strong first impression, the way you felt. Don’t deny it.”

  “Freeberg? Jasper Freeberg? You’re telling me that you learned Zen Buddhism from a guy named… Jesus, I don’t want to hear it. I was asking what you thought about the bank statements. Here… you haven’t even read them yet. The bank statements and the photographs.”

  He wouldn’t relent “Any other time in your life, you take a look at the photograph of a first rate maloojink like… like this oddity, this dude Jackie Merlot, you’d say, ‘The human eye can’t communicate emotion.’ You’d say, ‘Some of the most prolific killers in history had faces like choir boys.’ You’d say, ‘I don’t judge people by the way they look,’ when, in fact, we all do. You’ve never admitted any interest at all in letting your senses interpret what your eyes see. Until now.”

  “Mal-what? Mal-oo-jink? What the hell does that mean?”

  “It’s Tahitian. Or maybe from the lost language of the Easter Islanders. It means evil man. No… that’s not a precise translation. It means evil being. I look at this guy, the first thing I see is something… unhealthy in there hiding behind that smile. You felt the same way when yo
u saw his picture, I’d bet on it The intuitive knowledge, go ahead and ‘fess up. This person is… different. I’ll tell you something else”-Tomlinson’s iridescent blue eyes seemed amused-“this person scares you. The first man I could ever say that about. Not that you’re some asshole macho kind of guy, Doc, no. It’s just that you’re always in control, the way you size men up, like in two seconds, because you’ve met about every kind of man there is. You know what they’re like, so what’s there to fear? But you’ve never met a guy like Jackie Merlot, because he’s not really a man. He’s a being and that scares you. You want to know something else?”

  I waited.

  “He scares me, too.”

  I said, “Oh?” wondering if it was true. Was I frightened of the man in the photograph?

  Tomlinson said, “He scares me because he’s empty. Like a pit. That kind of emptiness.”

  When Tomlinson takes off on a tangent, the best course is to play along. In the long run, it saves time. I said, “You can tell all that just from looking at his picture?”

  “Can’t you?”

  “No. You’re taking the few facts we have and dramatizing the guy’s negatives. His powers, too. What I think is-and I’m not judging him by his appearance, understand-but what I think is, he’s a user. A small-time con man, that’s my guess. Nothing more.”

  “So you don’t think you need to be in a big rush to find your old buddy’s wife?”

  He had me there. Since seeing the photograph I had, for the first time, felt a pressing urgency. Gail Richardson Calloway was in trouble. How I knew, I wasn’t sure, but I was now convinced that it was true. “Seeing the guy’s picture has had an effect on me,” I said. “I’m willing to admit that.”

  “I thought so. All things in nature are repetition on a theme, man.”

  “So you’ve said many times,” I replied dryly.

  “Make fun of me if you want, but you’ve heard of what the astronomers called ‘dark anomalies’? They are these extraordinarily dense… I forget the name for them… uhh-h-h, these things in space. Not planets, not suns, nothing that’s orderly and normal. They are energized globs created by negative energy. Anti-matter. Black holes. You’ve heard of them, haven’t you?”

  I sat there listening.

  “Mark my word, amigo, certain people have that same kind of anti-matter energy. Strictly negative. You’ve met women like that. Destructive bitches unrelated to their sex. Same with men. A very, very heavy counterproductive gig that gauges success by the amount of chaos and pain they can cause. You don’t believe me, take another look at this photograph. Not just at his face, but what the dude is doing.”

  Tomlinson slid the photo of Merlot across the table. Looked once more at Gail’s mild, expectant smile; saw the shape and richness and warmth of her, plus something else. Uncertainty? Maybe. She appeared uncertain and there was a curious glaze to her eyes, an expression that I associate with people in shock. Then I turned my attention to Merlot. Studied him for a while before I said, “The way he’s got his arm around her, it’s a possessive gesture. Is that what you’re talking about? Merlot’s hand is on her ribs, but his thumb has been elevated just high enough so that it touches the underside of her left breast. He’s making a statement. Familiarity. Intimacy. Ownership. He could be saying any of the three.”

  Tomlinson was leaning across the table, head tilted to see, twisting a strand of his shoulder-length hair, a familiar gesture. “Right, right, that’s exactly what he’s doing. But he’s claiming more than intimacy. You’re trying too hard, man… which is so typical of you. Relax, soften your senses, look at the picture and just let it happen.” Tomlinson waited impatiently for a few seconds before he added, “Don’t you see what he’s doing with his fingers, man?”

  Once he said it, I wondered how I’d missed it before. The middle finger of the hand Merlot had placed around the woman’s waist was extended ever so slightly, as was the middle finger of his right hand, the hand he had folded on his bloated marshmallow stomach.

  Tomlinson said, “He’s looking at the camera, flipping everyone the bird. Merlot picked out this photo. I’d bet anything on it. The daughter said she found it framed on her mother’s mantelpiece? Guaranteed, Merlot’s the one who had it framed and maybe even placed it over the fireplace where it was easy to find. See how the lens caught the woman’s eyes? A flash was used and it created a glare. She wouldn’t’ve had a picture like this framed, because she doesn’t look her best. That’s how I know Merlot did it. He had it framed because he’s telling the ex-husband, his old business partner, fuck you. Using finger-a-grams to do it. Probably got a big kick out of imagining this rich guy, the guy who helped put him in jail. Calloway? What’s his name, imagining Frank Calloway walk into the room, finding the picture and going ballistic. Saying to him, I’m screwing your wife, asshole! Like that. You see it now?”

  Yeah, I could see it.

  “The guy is evil, Doc. Slimy. One look and I knew. Your instincts are right, so why bother to be so intellectual about it? He’s sneaky evil but a force, so it’s no wonder he scares you.”

  No… that wasn’t true, I decided. I wasn’t frightened of Merlot; not just from looking at his photo, anyway. That he used his middle fingers to send a message seemed idiotically adolescent, not evil. What else? I didn’t like him… okay, that much I was willing to concede. And partly because of the way he looked. I could understand now why Calloway had reacted the way he did when he learned that Merlot was sleeping with his ex-wife.

  Revulsion, yes. There was something about Merlot’s expression, his appearance, that triggered the gag reflex. Another admission: The fact that Merlot was apparently manipulating Gail infuriated me on a visceral level. The worth of a man or a woman is established wholly by the worthiness of the people who are devoted to him or her. Gail had been the lifetime love of a good, good man, Bobby Richardson. That a person like Jackie Merlot could defile that bond seemed to illustrate the tragic potential of all life.

  What I knew of Merlot didn’t frighten me, though. Indeed, what I knew gave me confidence. Yeah, the guy was gigantic, but he was prissy huge, all fat. Something else: Demonstrations of ego-like pyromania-were strictly for amateurs. Clearly, the guy was an amateur.

  No, I was not frightened of Jackie Merlot.

  When I explained that to Tomlinson, he shook his head, refusing to believe me. “You fight your own instincts, man. You always have. Already you’re intellectualizing, telling yourself there’s no good reason to feel what you really feel.”

  “I’m afraid of a lot of stuff, Tomlinson. More things than you realize. But not of photographs. And I’ve got no fear of a tub like that.”

  Tomlinson’s expression said, You should, man. You should.

  He put the photograph away-end of subject-and began to inspect Gail’s withdrawal and deposit slips. Abruptly, then, he stood, removed the wooden hatch to the ice locker and began to paw around, searching for something.

  “Good God,” I said. He’d been sitting shirtless across from me. I’d assumed he was wearing shorts. Or maybe the sarong he favored. But I was mistaken on both counts.

  I said, “You mind putting some pants on, Tomlinson?”

  He was now holding a bottle of Hatuey, that fine Cuban beer, in hand, blinking at me, bare-ass naked. Seemed surprised that I’d noticed or that he’d forgotten, one or the other. Said, “Whoops. Sorry. Gets to be a habit living out here all alone. I was up on the bow taking an air bath. You know, letting oxygen molecules cleanse my pores. Refurbish all the little shadowy places that don’t get much sun.” He looked down and spoke in the direction of his waist. “Isn’t that right, boys?”

  I stood to leave. “I’m going. Take a look at the bank slips when you get a chance. You want, we can have dinner tonight and talk about it. I’ll call for reservations at the Timbers or maybe drive to the mainland and try the University Grill. I hear it’s pretty good.”

  Tomlinson’s chin was still on his chest. “Know something, Doc? Every
problem I’ve ever had in my life started with this little bastard. Hey-y-y-y… I’m talking to you. Hello, hello!” Tomlinson chuckled, as if not the least bit surprised. “See that? The little son-of-a-bitch is listening to every word. And things haven’t much changed ‘cause he’s still causing problems.”

  I was standing on the top step of the ladder. “The Timbers would be good if it’s not too crowded. We can walk there and have a few beers, don’t have to worry about driving. I’d like to get this thing with Amanda’s mother in better focus. That’s why I want you to look at those bank slips, give me an opinion. Some behavior-and-cause scenarios.”

  “You want me to just look at the withdrawal slips? Or do you want me to get down and dirty, really try to figure out what the hell’s going on? We’ve got like five or six hours till dinnertime. I can do some serious kick-ass research on the subject by then.”

  “Then do it. It’s just possible I may have to fly down to Colombia and shake her loose from the guy. You could be right: She really could be in trouble.”

  But Tomlinson was once again lost in his own thoughts, alternately speaking to me and his own male member. He said, “You’re the only one I’ve confided in, the only one who knows I’ve been trying to get back together with Musashi.”

  “Me, you mean?”

  “Of course. Who you think I’m talking to? I invited her down from Boston to go on a cruise this week. The Dry Tortugas in spring, catch some dolphin, maybe see some sooty terns. Told myself it was to spend time with the mother of my sweet little daughter, but I’m afraid the truth is that Mr. Zamboni and the Hat Trick Twins are up to their old tricks.”

  “Mr. Who?”

  “Yes, they’re aching to win that little Japanese vixen back again. Musashi I mean. Set her free from the asshole politician she’s been sleeping with. And don’t mistake that for some kind of racial slur.”

  “Right, of course not. Not from an enlightened person like you.”

  “Little Japanese scum.”

  I was still lost. “Mr. Zamboni and the Hat Trick Twins? Who the hell are… oh. Okay, okay, a reference to your hockey days at Harvard. Now I know what you’re talking about. Yep… I’ve really got to run.”