Even mystics have their problems…
Ford hated to interrupt him, but he didn't relish the idea of driving to Mango and seeing Tuck one-on-one. Tomlinson would be just the right buffer. Give the crazy old fool someone to hound while Ford stayed on the periphery and tried to decipher just what kind of scheme he was cooking up now.
Three men missing… well, he'd wondered about it since the first time he saw it in the paper. Christ… Tuck couldn't be involved… But then Ford thought, The hell he couldn't.
He stepped down to the dock and started his flats boat-a skiff with low freeboard and a poling platform over the outboard motor-and idled toward the west side of the bay. At the channel opening to the marina, he heard a hoot and looked over, to see JoAnn Smallwood and Rhonda Lister sitting on the stern of their old Chris-Craft, waving to him. Holding something in their hands for him to see-margaritas, probably, inviting him over for social hour. Maybe they'd broken up with their boyfriends. Or maybe their boyfriends were out of town. Two good-looking working women-one tall with short hair, one small with a body-who lived aboard at the marina, so Ford had not allowed himself to get physically involved. Didn't want to risk emotional discord in the small marina community. But now, knowing he had to go see Tuck, he found them more tempting than ever.
No wonder I don't have any social life…
At the sailboat, Tomlinson said, "Hey, you bet man. Love to meet the old dude, your uncle. But maybe I should change clothes."
Ford said, "Well, yeah… I don't think a sarong's the thing to wear." He could smell incense burning in the cabin below, sandalwood or rosewood, something musky.
Tomlinson said, "Sarongs are nice and cool, though. Perfectly sensible when you think about it. But we're slaves to fashion in this country. You ought to see the looks I get when I wear this thing to town. And it's the best, top of the line, pure silk I bought in Jakarta. The Pierre Cardin of Indonesia, but people just don't appreciate that kind of quality here."
Ford said, "I think I'll run my boat back. I'll wait in the truck for you."
"Hell, I ought to give you a sarong for your birthday, Doc. 'Bout time you wore something that didn't come from Cabelia's catalog. Just the thing for you, out there wading the flats. Except you get kinda weird tan lines."
Ford started the boat. "You could wear a shirt, too. People are old-fashioned down there in Mango."
They drove across the causeway off the island, then turned south onto Highyway 41, the coastal highway that linked Tampa and Naples before crossing the Everglades to Miami-the road that pioneered South Florida's development. Built with a floating dredge, it was also known as the Tamiami Trail.
The Tamiami Trail had become the region's trunk line of growth, a stoplight artery of shopping malls, 7-Elevens, Kentucky Frieds, and shoe outlets, with access roads that led to planned country club communities with their guarded security gates, Bermuda grass vistas, and dredged lakes. Spring Meadow, Royal Hawaiian, Coral Reef-names invented by advertising agencies that had no linkage to reality, to the makeup of the land, but the logos looked great, and sanctuary from the crush of Florida-bound humanity sold big. They scraped the land bare, trucked in the sod, the prefab house frames, the PVC, and plasterboard. Then they built the boundary walls high.
Ford drove along at a steady fifty-five, windows down, taking in the night scenery and smells, listening to Tomlinson, slowing through Estero and Bonita Springs, then took the Naples bypass south and almost missed the narrow road that angled west into Mango. It had been so long, perhaps fifteen years, that he didn't recognize it. But he remembered the twisting mud-flat route well enough. The tide came right up to the road and crossed it in some places. Then the road curved sharply beneath palm trees. Mango Bay rose out of the mangroves to the right and the village was on the left: moon-globe streetlamps and a few old houses on a low ridge of Indian mounds that looked over the water. Tuck's ranch was at the end of the road on the highest mound, a low gray shack with a tin roof and a sand yard cloaked by trees. Lights from the windows glimmered through the leaves.
Tomlinson said, "Does it look smaller? When you go home, the place is supposed to look smaller."
Ford said, "It never seemed that big to begin with."
He turned down the drive and parked beneath a tree beside Tuck's pickup, saying, "Tuck's usually got at least one or two mean dogs around. He always did. So watch your step."
He stepped out into high weeds, walked to the porch, and rapped on the door. No answer. He could hear cattle behind the house, the occasional bawl, as he peeked through the window. Dishes were piled in the sink. Some kind of grease had slopped down the stove, coagulating in midstream. Beer cans and spit cups marched across the kitchen table like figures in some crazy chess game. The house was just as Ford remembered it: comfortable chaos beneath a layer of dirt. Just seeing it irritated him. The mess. The disorderliness of Tuck, his life, the whole damn backwoods Florida lifestyle.
Then he turned a little, not wanting to look, but he looked, anyway. There was Tucker's junk pile out beyond the barn. The rusting, rotting spore of a long and sloppy life. All the random shapes smothered over with vines, and there was the cloaked shape of an old boat's fly bridge, as if the boat were growing out of the ground.
Within him, Ford felt a fluttering hollowness, a bone-deep sense of loss. The fly bridge might have been a tombstone, hunched there in the weeds. Then Ford felt anger.
That pathetic old son of a bitch…
Tomlinson broke into his thoughts, saying, "He couldn't have gone far. His truck's here."
Ford cleared his throat and kicked at a shell. "He's got a horse, so the truck doesn't mean anything. He could be anywhere- Marco Island, Miami. When the mood's on him, he just saddles up and goes."
"You want to wait?"
"No. But I will. I've got to talk to him."
Tomlinson was fanning his hands in front of his face, smacking at his bare legs. "Geeze-mosquitoes! I'm getting eaten up. No wonder this place hasn't been developed yet."
Ford said, "That's the only reason, you're right. But then your body becomes immune to the blood thinner they inject and they don't bother you so much." He was standing with his hands on his hips, trying to see out into the pasture, looking along the water's edge. "I want to get this over as quickly as I can."
"Don't blame you, man. I'm being drained dry."
"Maybe you can take a walk around, check with a couple of the neighbors, ask if they've seen him. I'll stay here in the bugs in case he comes back."
But Tomlinson said he'd rather wait, if Ford didn't mind him standing down by the dock where there was a breeze. So Ford walked down the road and tapped at the door of the first place, a trailer with flower boxes in the windows. He could hear organ music coming from within the trailer, so he banged louder until an elderly woman in a pink housecoat answered. She told Ford, no, she hadn't seen Tucker since that morning when she made him and his big friend breakfast.
Ford said, "Big friend?"
The woman said, "The man who doesn't talk much, the one with long hair. Tuck's partner."
Ford said, "That big friend," thinking, So Joseph's still around. That made him feel better at least. He'd always liked Joseph.
The woman said, "He's such a sweet man, that Tucker. All the problems we've had around here with our things sliding all over the place. One night to the next, I never know which way my furniture is going to roll. I think it's earthquakes. And Tucker's always right there to help. Checks on me a lot better than my son ever did."
Ford said, "Uh… yes ma'am. Things can sure slide around," and hurried on to the next house, a pretty white clapboard cottage with yellow shutters and a Spanish tile roof, a place that he vaguely remembered, only he didn't remember it being so neat. Someone had put a lot of paint and time into renovating the house, getting the yard just right, hanging baskets on the porch, like something out of House Si Garden, with louvered blinds and a little bit of light showing through. Ford pushed the bell, and when the door
opened, he was already saying, "I'm very sorry to bother you, but I'm trying to find-" before he realized he recognized the woman who stood looking through the screen door at him: sizable woman, lean, in T-shirt and running shorts, with copper hair pulled back in some kind of braid, holding a book in one hand. Ford said, "Hey-" because he was surprised. It was the woman from the sailboat, the one photographing birds in Dinkin's Bay.
When she opened the door, there was a nice expression on her face, pleasant, expectant, but the expression faded and her mouth dropped open a little. "It's… you!"
Ford said, "Wait just a second here-"
"How did you… what do you mean by-"
Ford said, "I know this looks bad, but you don't understand."
"You followed me!"
"No, I didn't even know it was you. I mean, your house." He raised his hands, a gesture of innocence, which the woman misinterpreted. She jumped to lock the screen door.
She said, "I'm calling the police! And if I ever see you around here again-" She slammed the wooden door.
Ford could hear her working the lock inside, and he raised his voice. "My uncle lives down the road. I'm trying to find him, Tucker Gatrell."
There was a silence. Then the door cracked against the chain lock, and Ford could see a wedge of hair and one pale eye, probably blue, though it was hard to tell in the porch light. The woman said, "You're lying."
"No, I'm not. Tucker Gatrell's my uncle."
"I don't believe that nice old man could be related to a pervert like you."
"Hey, watch it there."
"Now you're following me around!"
Ford started to say something, then just shook his head. "Believe what you want." He turned to leave, but then he stopped, thinking. He tapped at the door again. "Hey," he said. "Hey, one more thing. Are you listening?"
The door was closed. He waited in silence-maybe she was at the telephone dialing 911-but then her voice said, "Now what do you want?"
"I'm curious about something. How did you happen to anchor in my bay? Dinkin's Bay, I mean."
"I don't see how that-"
"Did Tuck suggest you go there? Maybe he planted the idea somehow-"
"I was on my own schedule, doing my own work…" But the way she paused told Ford she was thinking about it.
He said, "He did, didn't he?"
"No!"
"Are you sure?"
"He told me there were some nice rookeries there, that's all."
Ford said, "That old bastard tried to set me up."
The door cracked open again. "How dare you call him that!" Now she was mad again. "Did Mr. Gatrell make you spy on me through your telescope! That's a crappy thing to do!"
"I wasn't spying. Well, just once, but then I-"
Bang. The door slammed again.
***
Ford jammed his hands into his pockets and walked back along the road, not looking at anything, fuming. No more searching for Tucker. No more trying to help. Let the woman from the Florida Department of Criminal Law show up unexpectedly and hold his feet to the fire-he didn't care. Let them implicate Tuck in the kidnappings and send him off to Raiford Prison. Even if he didn't kidnap anyone, the world would be a safer place with Tucker Gatrell behind bars. Someone should have locked him away twenty years ago, him and his schemes.
Ford stopped walking, his ears alert to an odd noise. He had passed through the gate onto Tuck's property and was standing in the middle of the shell drive, headed up the mound to Tuck's shack, his brain scanning to define the soft swish-swish sound getting louder, closer, perhaps-like someone slapping a scythe through tall grass, plus a rumbling vibration almost like a growl-
"Gezzus!"
It was a dog charging him, hunkered low and running through the tree shadows, teeth bared, not barking until Ford reacted by taking three panicked steps and diving toward the limb of a gumbo-limbo tree, swinging up.
"Good dog, nice dog-get away, damn you!"
The dog was leaping at him, throwing itself into the air, mouth wide: a big-shouldered dog, brindle-striped, with a head the size of an anvil. Some kind of pit bull, or a crossbred catch dog. Yeah, that was it. One of his uncle's cattle dogs, used to take cattle down; grabbed rogue cows by the nose and held tight.
"Tomlinson!"
No answer.
"Tomlinson, you okay?"
Silence.
The damn dog had probably already gotten to Tomlinson; probably ate him up on the spot. Clinging to the tree, Ford had the fleeting vision of Tomlinson rationalizing some kind of karmic intent while being chomped to pieces, perhaps even finding a moment of peace as he was reconstituted and introduced into the food chain.
"Hey, Duke, that you boy?"
It was his uncle's voice.
"Tuck? Tuck, you call this animal off!"
"Don't worry, he won't bite."
"The hell he won't!"
Tuck's voice was getting closer, sounding as if there was no need to hurry, saying, "No reason to get huffy about it. Sounds like somebody got out on the wrong side of the bed this morning." Ford could see him walking down the drive in no big rush, big bandy-legged man in jeans and scoop-brimmed hat, two men coming along behind. Tomlinson and probably Joseph. At least they were hurrying.
"Gator, hoo dog! That ain't no coon you got treed! Back off!"
Tomlinson had caught up to Tuck and he was first to the dog, grabbing his chain collar, cooing, "Now, now, Gator boy, we sort of lost control there, didn't we?" Which sent the dog into convolutions of gratitude, wagging his tail, slopping Tomlinson with kisses, rolling on his back to get his belly scratched. "O-o-o-o, you act so mean, but you're really just a sweety pie. We're just a big scar-faced baby, yeah… yes we are…" Rubbing the dog's ears.
Ford dropped down out of the tree. He'd lost a sandal, and he flapped around looking for it in the darkness, too angry to speak. He heard Tuck's voice. "Looka that, Joe, don't it make you want to kick that damn dog? Goes all fish-eyed over a hippie but tries to bite my own flesh and blood."
Tomlinson said, "Animals love me. I can communicate tele-pathically."
Tuck said, "Well, there ain't been no telegraph in Mango for forty years, so don't get no fancy ideas about my livestock. You ever heard something so crazy, Joe?"
Tomlinson said, "I mean silent communication, mind to mind. The indigenous peoples know about it, isn't that right, Mr. Egret?"
Joseph said, "I don't think I know them people." Then he asked Tuck, "What's he talking about?"
Ford found his sandal about ten feet from the gumbo-limbo tree-he'd made an amazing leap, getting away from the dog. He turned full-faced to his uncle for the first time as Tucker Gatrell said, "Duke, it's my opinion they shoulda gassed your whole generation except for you and Oliver North and maybe about twenty others."
The sandal was broken, damn it-his favorites, which he'd bought in Guatemala, handmade just for him up in the mountains near Chichicastenago. He'd done some work there during the revolution and had had them all those years. Ford picked up the sandal. The leather thong had snapped. He begin to limp up the drive. "Tuck," he said, "for the last time, don't call me Duke."
Christ, Tuck had his photograph hanging on the wall, right where it'd always been, covering the plaster hole above the couch-the bullet hole from the pearl-handled revolver Tuck used to carry like a gunfighter on cattle drives and that had gone off unexpectedly while being cleaned. Or so Tuck said. He'd been drinking whiskey at the time; white liquor, he called it, though it wasn't. He'd bought it at the store, just like anybody else. Jim Beam.
Tomlinson said, "Hey, Doc, you were about the straightest-looking kid I ever saw." He was looking at the photograph: Ford in high school, head and shoulders, crewneck football jersey, green numerals showing. "Man, you had hair like one of those guys who used to go around punching us at the demonstrations. Seriously cold-looking eyes, man. The vibes still jump right out."
Tuck was getting something out of the icebox, bent into it with the door open, so his v
oice had an echo. "So you're hanging out with hippies now." It was his "so it's come to this" tone. He stood up, holding a six-pack of Old Milwaukee, red-and-white cans. "You boys thirsty? Don't got no illegal drugs, we shoot the bastards down this way."
Tomlinson smiled. "Brewskis! I could use a couple of those."
Ford said, "We're not staying. I want to talk with you about something. It won't take long."
"You bet, Duke."
"Tucker, my name-"
"I mean Marion. Gawldamn, why my sister ever named you that-"
"Then call me Ford."
"That don't sound right, neither. You're a lot more Gatrell than Ford. Just like your mama." Now he was talking to Tomlinson. "My sister was real prissy neat, too. The boy here would get so pissed off if I left my boots out or spit on the floor. Even when he was ten, he acted like he was an old man. Couldn't hardly get him to smile. Going around collecting things, bugs and fish, like he was trying to tidy up the world. Locking through those glasses of his."
Tomlinson was nodding, taking it in. "You two even look a lot alike. I can see it now."
Ford had his hand up, rubbing his forehead. "Oh man oh man…" He hadn't wanted to come; had avoided it for precisely this reason. All the years he'd worked to break free, now here he was right back where he'd started, knee-deep in it.
Tuck said, "Tell you what we'll do, Marion. Let's walk out to the pasture and I'll show you boys that little spring we found, the one's gonna make us rich."
"I don't want a beer, I don't want to see the spring. I want to talk with you in private, then I'm leaving."
"It's up this pretty little Indian mound."
"Indian mound?" Tomlinson's attention vectored. "I'd like to see it. Count me in right now. That's one of my main areas of interest, you know. Did Doc tell you?" Then he said, "You got any bug spray I could wear? You got the worst mosquitoes I've ever seen. Some Jungle Off, maybe? Or Cutter's?"
To Joseph, Tucker said, "When he gets to gasoline, let him have all he wants."
Tomlinson reached out and put his hands on Joseph's shoulders and said in a slightly louder voice, "Atsi-na-hufa o pay-hay-okeel"
The Man Who Ivented Florida df-3 Page 9