The Mangrove Coast df-6

by Randy Wayne White

  “Thought maybe the air baths would help, that’s what I was hoping. So… what you think, boys? Feeling any better after all that fresh air?”

  He looked up at me for the first time since starting his strange dialogue. “Let them breathe free, that’s my motto. I do my best, but you think it makes a damn bit of difference? Nope. Oxygen and assholes-the two most common elements on earth.”

  I shrugged.

  “They’re still obsessed with Musashi, and I can’t do a damn thing about it. Something about her body, those Japanese knobs of hers. And her voice. Zamboni is crazy about her voice. I’ll tell you something, Doc: Just ‘cause I can aim this bastard doesn’t mean I’m in command.” Then, to himself: “So I’ll tell you what, my stubborn little friend. How does a pair of bikini underwear sound to you? The tight kind without that little fucking escape hatch! No more midnight maneuvers. Think about it!”

  I was stepping out onto the cockpit, looking astern where my flats skiff was cleated. I said, “Call me on the VHF, Tomlinson. About dinner, I mean. Nels just sold them some fresh pompano. I know that for a fact, so even if it’s not on the menu, Matt will make sure we can have it if we want.”

  Speaking a little too loudly, as if he wanted to be overheard, Tomlinson answered, “Oh, I’ll be ready. You can count on it. And if I’m walking a little funny, we’ll all know why.”

  In April, Sanibel and Captiva Islands are as crowded and animated as any Carnival cruise ship, but with a basic difference: People who come to the islands tend to be like-minded, outdoors oriented and energized by a longing for quiet beaches and immersion in the subtropics: wading birds, gators, crocs, manatees, littoral fish, coconut palms, ospreys, you name it. Look at the people who come year after year, who make the islands part of their lives, and you will think of L. L. Bean catalogues. You’ll think of Audubon magazine. Or maybe Outside. The fact that the islands maintain more wild space than hotel space is precisely why they continue to be so widely treasured.

  Which is the reason I don’t mind getting out in the tourist rush occasionally, eating dinner at a favorite restaurant. The people you meet are usually pretty nice. Interesting, too.

  Tomlinson came tapping at my door at twilight, looking dapper in blue jeans and silk Hawaiian shirt, pink flamingos and golden tiki huts thereon, his bony hands offering two cold bottles of beer.

  “Its very important to rehydrate in this hellish spring heat,” he explained. “But if you want to wait for dinner, I’ll drink both bottles. Waste is a terrible thing. As we speak, there are Christian alcoholics absolutely Jonesing for a drink in places like Iraq and Libya. Parts of… somewhere else, too. Arkansas? Yeah, probably Arkansas. I’m telling you just in case you feel like refusing this beverage.”

  I took one of the beers from him. “Nope, I’m thirsty.”

  “Just checking.”

  “Did you go over Gail’s bank slips?”

  “I did indeed. Three, nearly four solid hours of pure cerebral exercise. I made a few phone calls, too. So… I have some ideas on what’s going on. Some very strong opinions, you might say.”

  “I thought you might. Frank Calloway left a message for me at the marina. He wants to get together in Boca Grande on Thursday. Which means I can work all day tomorrow. I hope. I’ve got to call him back.”

  “I don’t know why the hell you just don’t get an answering machine like everyone else. This fucking decade has cut the nuts off every male between here and Fumbuck, Egypt, but it hasn’t even scratched your paint. I think it’s because you haven’t been paying proper attention. Seriously, Doc, you haven’t been playing fair. The damn decade’ll be gone before you even realize it was here.”

  “Spare me, Tomlinson. But… yeah. I may get a recorder. I keep thinking maybe someone important has tried to call and I wasn’t home. That feeling, like I’ve missed something… I don’t deal with it as well as I used to.”

  “I know whose call you’re afraid of missing. Pilar calling from Central America.”

  “Nope. I don’t even think of her much anymore.”

  “ Right. Just like you seldom think of Hannah Smith anymore. I’m going to tell you something you may not like: I still miss Hannah. She was the most sensual woman I’ve ever met in my life.”

  “If you know I don’t want to hear it, why say it?”

  “No disrespect intended.”

  “None assumed. So let’s not discuss her anymore.”

  “The island bookstores, they all say they’ve sold a bunch of her books.”

  “That ought to make you pretty happy. You wrote it”

  “Hannah wrote it. Orally, at least. I just typed it up.”

  I increased my pace. “Is there a reason why we’re still talking about her?”

  We’d crossed the boardwalk, through mangroves, onto the island. Now we were walking the shell drive from the marina that became Tarpon Bay Road. It was an hour after sunset. Dark. I could hear chuck-wills-widows making their whippoorwill sounds. I could hear screech owls and car traffic and Ralph Woodring running his bait shrimper on the grass flat outside the mouth of the bay. When he cranked the nets up or down, the rusty booms screamed like something that should be chained behind bars.

  Through tree limbs overhead I could see the demarcation between night horizon and stars. That line of trees, the muted colors, were as distinctive as a Navaho sand painting. It was a warm night with lots of island smells: jasmine and sulfur and windy beach. It was nice seeing the stars through the trees.

  We crossed Palm Ridge past the gas-pump fluorescence of the Pick Kwik and stayed on Tarpon Bay Road. The Timbers was just off to the left, across from the fire station, a restaurant decorated as if by beachcombers: life rings and mounted fish, bamboo umbrellas, driftwood and shadows.

  After Matt showed us to our corner table and after Lin brought us each another beer, Tomlinson folded the napkin across his lap saying, “The withdrawal slips and the deposit slips. I went over and over them. I even called a banker friend of mine to see what he thought. Well… actually, he’s not a friend, he’s an acquaintance. Bankers, the respectable types, tend to… let’s just say they tend to be very uncomfortable around me. As if I’m widely known as the islander voted most likely to climb the fucking bell tower. With a firearm, I’m talking about, which frankly, Doc, really pisses me off because I’ve never even fired a damn cap pistol… at least, not since that ugly incident in Chicago-”

  “Tomlinson… Tomlinson. You’ve drifted way off the subject.”

  He appeared surprised that I’d interrupted. “What?” Then: “Oh. Right. Okay, what the banker said was, with all that activity, the woman was either investing in something or gradually changing banks. Maybe transferring the money to accounts outside the country. Which can be illegal if you don’t go about it the right way.” He paused. “So that’s one possible explanation we’ve got to consider.”

  “Not just possible,” I said, “but probable. In any circumstance like this, the simplest solution is almost always the correct solution. So that’s your best guess? That she was moving her money?”

  He said, “No. As much as you hate to admit it, Doc, we think so much alike about stuff like this, the serious stuff, I bet you already know what my best guess is.”

  “Tomlinson, we so seldom think alike that I can count the times on one hand. Five times, max.”

  “Oh, is that right?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Well, it’s six times now. Or maybe six dozen.”

  “We’ll see. Tell me why Gail Calloway withdrew so much money before she left the country with Jackie Merlot.”

  He smiled. “You’ve gone over those withdrawal and deposit slips as many times as I have. Why do YOU think she was moving around all that money?” Before I could answer, he chimed in, “Blackmail, that’s my guess. Judging from the deposit slips, it’s blackmail. Same with you, huh? Tell the truth now.”

  I said, “I’ve got blackmail down as one of three possibilities.”


  Tomlinson’s expression said that he wasn’t surprised. “Damn right, blackmail.” He smiled. “You want me to tell you the other two most probable scenarios?”

  “No. I’d rather hear about the deposit slips.”

  I told him that the deposit slips were the only things I couldn’t make fit neatly into a plausible chain of action. I meant it.

  “Don’t feel like the Lone Ranger,” he said. “It took me a solid hour of very intense brainwork to figure out why they’re important. You got any ideas at all about them?”

  I shook my head.

  “But blackmail, you figured blackmail as a possibility. How the feds could miss this one is beyond me. See? We do think alike.”

  “Two peas in a pod, you and I.”

  “Exactly. I meant it when I said you’re starting to come along. That’s great news for the people who think your heart’s about half the size of your brain. No offense, Doc, but you’re working your way up to becoming a real human being.”

  Tomlinson surprised me by ordering the pompano cooked in parchment paper. He’s been an uncompromising vegetarian since the day I met him but, in the last few months, he’d broken form often enough for me to know that he was going through some changes in his life… as we all do.

  “I’ve decided that eating animal flesh is a way of ingesting cellular communion,” he explained when the waitress had finished taking our orders. “And let’s face it, if I dropped dead in a field tomorrow, every goddamn animal for miles would be scrambling to bite a piece out of me. A chunk of biceps, a chunk of my beezer. They wouldn’t give a damn. Protein is protein, when the shit really hits the fan. For those omnivore bastards, it’s any port in a storm.”

  I said, “I never looked at it from an animal’s point of view before.”

  “You’re damn right. The realization about how the food cycle really works flashed into my brain one night. The vegetarians of the world? If animals were in charge, every two legged tofu humper would be gutted, jointed and deep-fried in about the time it takes to watch a couple of episodes of Wild Kingdom. “

  “Wholesale slaughter,” I suggested.

  “Jesus, you know it. Culinary anarchy. And there’s nothing a vegetarian hates more than looking stupid. The way it came to me was, I imagined myself out sailing and what would happen if I fell overboard and couldn’t get back to the boat. The damn fish would think they’d died and gone to heaven, man. We’re talking feeding frenzy. And then I pictured myself visiting a farm, nobody around but me and Mr. Zamboni and the two of us have a heart attack near the hog pen. Jesus Christ, what an ugly scene! The cloven-hoofed scum were on me like red sauce on frijoles.”

  He was shaking his head… yes, he’d given the subject a lot of thought. “Fair’s fair, man, that’s what I say. They’d swallow me down like beer nuts, so what makes me better than them? Not that I plan to eat meat regularly. No. Only when, say, there’s fresh pompano available or a really outstanding piece of beef.”

  “Selective vegetarianism. That actually makes a little bit of sense.”

  “A way of paying tribute to all life forms.”

  “Sure. Why avoid something just because it tastes great?”

  His smile illustrated tolerance. “That’s my point And by the way, I was kidding about the beef. I draw the line at anything they didn’t gather and eat on Gilligan’s Island. Unknowingly, those seven stranded castaways pioneered the recipe for a healthy, happy life.”

  Tomlinson went on to explain that the professor wasn’t the only one who was ahead of his time. I listened and nodded along, saying, “Uh-huh, Uh-huh. Yeah, sure. Ginger and Mary Ann, you bet.” I almost asked, “So what was wrong with the skipper?” but decided screw it, never ask what you don’t really care about knowing.

  When Tomlinson gets on a subject like that, something that’s strange and far off the charted byways, even I sometimes wonder if the man has all his faculties. But then he’ll say something so rock-solid reasonable or so insightful that I’m actually a little ashamed that his oddities continue to give me pause.

  I’d ordered stone crab claws with lime wedges and a brick of garlic toast. As an appetizer I had the waitress bring grilled shrimp and slices of fresh mango. Tomlinson, who knows something about wine, ordered a bottle of cold Riesling from the snow country of southern Australia. He insisted that I try a glass with the shrimp. Not bad. We both peeled shrimp and sipped wine and talked about Gail Calloway while we waited for dinner.

  I told him that, in my mind, three consecutive withdrawals of $40,000 suggested payments. And it was unlikely that any of those payments had been anticipated by Gail. The fact that the withdrawals were made only a couple of weeks apart indicated unconventional circumstances or an unconventional billing source. “If she was going to buy something for $120,000 and had the money, why not write a check for the whole sum?”

  “Plus a big chunk of the money was transferred to other accounts,” he pointed out.

  “Exactly.”

  “That’s one reason I think it’s blackmail. I can just see some asshole deciding, okay, we sent one note or made one call and she sends us forty thousand. Nothing to it. So let’s keep writing notes or making calls until she stops sending money. Which is where the deposit slips come in.”

  That’s what I wanted to hear about.

  “Did you take a close look at all the information on those slips?” he asked. “I described them to my banker friend. What they actually are are receipts from wire transfers. There are ten slips total and the deposits are divided evenly among twelve numbered accounts.”

  “You’re kidding me. I didn’t notice that.”

  He was nodding. “Twelve different accounts for a total transfer of slightly less than one hundred and ninety-eight thousand dollars. The reason you didn’t realize there were so many accounts involved is because there are no individual names listed on the slips. I missed it, too. Just numbers.”

  “I don’t know much about numbered accounts, and I’ve got one. An account in the Caymans. But there’s always a name associated, right?”

  “Nope, I don’t think there has to be. It’s weird to us because American institutions, they’ve got a thing called the Banking Security Act. For someone to open an account, they have to provide creditable identification. In other words, there has to be a name attached to the account. It’s to put a crimp into money-laundering, among other things.”

  “So you’re saying Gail’s money had to have been wired to a foreign bank.”

  “Foreign banks, plural. I know where the money went because each of the wire receipts has a numerical code that corresponds to the bank where the money was sent. It doesn’t mean that the money has to leave the country. Miami’s got plenty of foreign-based banks. Among them are the Banco de Colombia and the National Bank of Panama.” Tomlinson used his fingers to pick up a slice of mango. “That’s where Gail Calloway’s money was wired.”

  “Jackie Merlot spends most of his time outside the country,” I said, “Frank Calloway told me that.”

  “Uh-huh, uh-huh, but wait till you hear the rest of it. After my banker friend translated the numerical codes, the first thing I asked him was why would anyone go to so much trouble? Why divide the money among twelve different accounts? The banker says the obvious: There must be twelve different people or businesses involved. But I don’t think so. You know what I think’s going on?”

  “You’re still operating on the premise that Gail’s being blackmailed.”

  “It’s making sense so far, right? See… the problem with blackmail is how to collect the money. Blackmailers and con men always get nailed when they pick up the ransom. Drop the money at X-spot, throw it out of a moving car, follow directions from phone booth to phone booth, it doesn’t matter. I don’t think anyone’s ever come up with a safe way to make an exchange like that.”

  I said, “So?”

  “So, I think the person who got Gail’s money is smart as hell, because I think they finally did it. Found a safe, untrace
able way to get ransom money. What I think they did was set up these foreign accounts, probably used fake names to do it, but it doesn’t much matter because everything goes by a PIN number and they have no reason to return to those banks ever again.

  “They have Gail wire her payments to the account number they’ve provided her with. Once the money’s been transferred, they can visit any ATM machine in the world and drain the accounts dry. They can tell her they’re in Lauderdale, just around the corner from her house when they’re actually on the other side of the earth. No way she can find out. Same with the feds-not if the blackmailer stays on the move. Pop the card in, punch in the PIN number and the cash comes shooting out in guaranteed unmarked bills. A week, two weeks later, the feds get a black-and-white picture from the ATM camera. Some dude or chick in a floppy hat and glasses and a scarf. What’s that gonna tell them?”

  I said, “You figured all this out from the deposit slips.”

  “No, from the fact that there were twelve numbered accounts on each slip. You’re the logical one. It was unlikely that twelve kidnappers were involved, so why have so many accounts? Answer: Keep the balances low enough so they can wipe out each account fast.”

  “But even with the money in that many fake accounts,” I said, “it would still take awhile to drain it from ATMs.”

  “Not really. Twenty-some days, that’s all. But what do the blackmailers care? There’s no rush, no way the feds can anticipate where they’ll be. Like I said, as long as they stay on the move. The way I figure it, it was so clean and easy, they probably got greedy, which is why Gail’s final transfer was for seventy-five thousand.

  “Maybe their last ransom note or call demanded a hundred grand, but she tells them she only has seventy-five left, an uneven number. Why? She’s trying to be smart for once, make it believable. She’s tired of the whole gig. She doesn’t want to do it anymore. She’s willing to try anything, so she lies and says that’s all I’ve got left, screw you.”