Bone Deep

by Randy Wayne White

  I said, “I’m the wrong one to ask for advice about women, but isn’t it odd for daughters to side with a new wife?”

  Albright started to answer, then reconsidered, aware that his second vodka, or maybe his fourth or fifth, was causing him to open up to a stranger. We were sitting in a room of tile and coral rock, which had probably been mined in the Keys way back, an elegant space with maharajah accents—Persian rugs, carved elephants—but the furniture was 1960s bamboo, glass tables, and floral prints more commonly found at yard sales. The chairs were positioned to offer a panoramic view, on this moonless night, of the village lights of distant Boca Grande, miles of black water between. To the left, beneath trees, we could see the ceremonial fire where two angelic-haired blondes were thumping away on a log while Tomlinson shuffled to the rhythm. Albright put his drink on the table and decided to find out more about me. “You said you run a marine supply business? A boat like yours isn’t cheap.”

  I replied, “A small business,” and got a few sentences into describing my lab, and what I do, when I was stopped by the stricken look on his face. “Is something wrong?”

  “You’re a biologist?”

  “Yeah . . . ?”

  “I thought you meant marine supply as in selling yachting hardware.”

  “More like selling sea horses to schools,” I said. “I do consulting work, too.”

  Leland Albright, who was six-six but had the delicate hands and face of a pianist, stood. “Goddamn it, that’s why you’re here. Ava and the twins want you to work on me, don’t they?”

  “They what?”

  “You heard me. And there’s not a damn thing you can tell me about our Peace River holdings I haven’t already heard.”

  I said, “Sorry, are you talking about the Peace River as in Central Florida?”

  “As if you didn’t know. You’re leaving. You gave me a bullshit line, pretending you only came to see the island.”

  “Leland,” I said, “I’ve never met your wife or your daughters. Calm down, and tell me what you have against biologists.”

  People who inherit wealth assume everyone wants something, so they construct shields, and Albright was embarrassed to have been caught with his down. “You just admitted you live on Dinkin’s Bay. I know Ava took the twins to a party there last night. They didn’t get back until almost sunrise. Now you expect me to believe you’ve never met? That’s a tiny little podunk marina. I’ve seen it. How dumb do you think I am?”

  I said, “Okay, I understand now. I thought it was my charm that got me in the door.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “You want to pump me for details about the party last night, isn’t that why I’m drinking your beer? But you got the wrong guy. I wasn’t there. If your wife and daughters met somebody at the party, it wasn’t me.”

  Albright tried to hang on to his anger but couldn’t convince himself I was lying. His eyes moved to the fire, where a third woman had joined Tomlinson, a taller blonde. She was standing close enough to drape an arm over my pal’s shoulder.

  I asked, “Your wife’s name is Ava?”

  Albright, staring at the two of them, said, “Not if I catch her screwing around again. I know how she is when she gets a few drinks in her. Fashion models are experts at getting what they want.”

  “I’ve heard the rumor,” I said.

  “Me, too, but I married her anyway. You should see her in a bikini—when she bothers to wear one. That party last night, I figured it was okay as long as the twins were along. Tricia has a wild streak, though, plus they’re suddenly like the Three Musketeers—the same fitness teacher, the same interests. So who the hell knows?” Albright watched his wife move her hand to Tomlinson’s hip. He made a faint grunting sound as if suffering a stomach cramp.

  “They can really set the hook deep,” I said. For an instant, Hannah popped into my mind, and the sleek runabout owned by the Brazilian.

  “If we’re dumb enough to swallow it,” he responded, and reached for his glass but decided against it. “You’re divorced?”

  I shook my head. “Only because I’ve never been married. I have a son and a daughter, so I understand that part.”

  “Do you get along?”

  It was an awkward subject. My young daughter lives in Europe with her golf pro mother and female lover—a tennis star who doesn’t need a racket to break balls. My teenage son attends boarding school in South America. He and I had argued during our last few phone conversations. Recent e-mails had gone unanswered. I was concerned by rumors he was smoking grass and hanging out with counterculture college types, but my son has a mulish contempt for advice. So, for Albright, I put a cheery spin on the truth. “My kids are great, but their mothers are the independent types—in other words, they don’t want me around. The woman I had dinner with last night says I’m not ready to settle down.”

  My host began to loosen up. “She was using reverse psychology. Women are experts on everything but themselves.”

  I didn’t agree with his cynical tone, but said, “Sounds like you’re going through a rough patch. Your third marriage?”

  “Third and last,” Albright replied. “Manipulation is their specialty. Ava, she and the twins sit around giggling until I walk into the room. My own daughters. Last month they maxed out a credit card at some meditation retreat in Asheville, then gave me the silent treatment when I asked Ava, What the hell?” He looked out the window. “Now she shows up with two . . . guru types. See how she’s hanging all over your long-haired friend? What do you expect me to think?”

  I said, “She can’t be much older than your daughters. I’m surprised they get along.”

  Albright, eyes fixed on his wife, didn’t seem to hear. There were long seconds of silence, then he asked, “Is your friend screwing her? I know how fast gossip spreads at a small marina.”

  I said, “Nope. He is definitely not.”

  Surprised I didn’t dodge the question, Albright sat back. “You sound pretty damn sure for someone who wasn’t at the party.”

  “The one with the hair is Tomlinson. He told me they all had some fun last night, but as a group. Nothing physical. Not with your wife or daughters.”

  “You actually asked him?”

  “We’re old friends.”

  “He could have lied.”

  “It wouldn’t be the first time,” I agreed. “He knew I wouldn’t come if that’s what was going on. But I believe him. The other guy I just met, but I don’t think you have anything to worry about. His name’s Duncan Fallsdown—a Crow Indian from Montana.”

  I expected skepticism and got it. “Are you the religious type? Or just have higher moral standards?”

  “I’m careful. I wanted to know what I was walking into. I’ve got no interest in showing up on some private island owned by a pissed-off husband.”

  There was a hole in my story. Albright sensed it and looked at me over the rim of his glass. “Ava said he’s not charging for this drum nonsense. But I’ve got to ask myself why an Indian from Montana puts on his tom-tom act for free . . . and why a biologist decides to tag along.”

  It was time to level.

  I told him about the stolen carvings, then shared what Fallsdown had explained to me in the lab. “Tomlinson met your daughters a month ago. They mentioned your family has owned phosphate mines for a long time, so he invented a reason to come here. Apparently, people in your industry keep track of artifact collectors because they’re a pain in the ass—always trespassing and digging without permission. The serious ones, according to my Indian friend, will do damn-near anything, even apply for jobs, so they can hunt after hours. It was a long shot, but Tomlinson operates on instinct. Fallsdown asked me to talk to you, find out what I can, while he does his show. That’s the real reason I’m here.”

  Albright said, “I knew you were working some kind of angle.”r />
  “There’s nothing tricky about the truth,” I replied.

  He was still watching his wife through the window. “Shamanic drum ceremony, my ass. I figured those two for dopers, guru freaks, who want to get into my wife’s pants. Or my daughters’. Now you tell me this crazy story.”

  “A cold trail, you’ve got to start somewhere,” I said.

  “Cold is right. My family got out of the phosphate business twenty years ago.” The man confirmed my surprise with a glance.

  “I didn’t know.”

  “My father thought Johnnie Walker Black was a better investment. Second generation, just like the book says.”

  I said, “Now I understand why you’re reading it, to get the Albright legacy back on track.”

  “Out of the toilet, more like it.”

  “Sorry to hear that,” I said, “but maybe you still have access to someone’s list of artifact hunters. That could help.”

  “I doubt it. Tell me more about these carvings. What makes your friend think they’re in Florida?” Albright was interested but didn’t want to show too much.

  “I asked the same thing,” I said. “They were stolen from tribal land back in the nineteen seventies.”

  “That’s fifty . . . almost sixty years ago.”

  “I know, it sounds like a wild-goose chase,” I said. “But not when you think it through. Collectors network, and they tend to hold on to their best stuff. They also know what other collectors have or what buyers want. What’s the point if you can’t make someone in your peer group envious? A list of names, especially collectors from twenty years ago, could put Fallsdown on the right track. Why not?” I placed my beer on a woven elephant doily. “It might be fun to help a tribe in Montana solve an old mystery.”

  I smiled, Albright didn’t. He retreated into his drink—yes, a troubled man. A crumbling marriage, financial problems, and now he was sitting with a stranger, fielding questions. It was an uncomfortable situation, and I understood why. Even twenty years ago, phosphate mining was reviled by environmentalists. Those in the industry have learned to tread carefully when it comes to dealing with the public—especially nosy biologists.

  Finally, he said, “People don’t realize how much work goes into making it in the phosphate industry. My grandfather started Mammoth Ridge Mines back when they dug the stuff with shovels, not draglines. Nineteen seventeen.”

  Mammoth Ridge—maybe that explained the maharajah-and-elephant décor.

  I said, “He had to be a very smart, tough guy. Obviously successful if he bought an island and built a house like this.”

  Albright motioned across an expanse of tile toward a hall. “There’s a whole room full of photos and old records, if you really are interested. You’ll have to dust them off. The twins won’t go in there. They say the photos make them nauseated. And the only history Ava cares about is the kind that makeup won’t cover.”

  “Your daughters are thirty-some years old?” I asked.

  My tone gave me away.

  “Kids mature slower these days, I agree. The year after they graduated, they married brothers who’d inherited a bundle. An Oregon family, Apple software. They both divorced about the same time, too—eighteen months later—and came home to Dad. Not literally, of course. They bought a beach house on Siesta Key. Esther is good with money.”

  “I wasn’t criticizing,” I said.

  “Of course you were, and you’re right. Thank god, my stepson is starting to come around. If it wasn’t for him, I think I’d just say to hell with it. Let all the spinning plates come crashing down and move to Costa Rica. I hear it’s nice down there, maids and a staff for next to nothing.”

  I knew the answer before I asked him, “Is Ava your stepson’s mother?”

  Disdain confirmed that she was not. “My second wife, Madison. Her husband was killed in a skiing accident. Owen, my stepson, was four when Madison and I married, then she got pregnant with the twins. She was unusual . . . the finest person I’ve ever met. Mattie, everyone called her.”

  Albright’s reflective tone, the way he withdrew into his head, told me his second wife was dead. I said, “Sounds like quite a woman.”

  “Not beautiful in the regular way, but it didn’t matter. We liked the same music, and she read the classics to me at night. Mattie loved this island—went clear to Morocco to furnish the place. Could hang with the boys when we went tarpon fishing, too. You ever been to the Temptation on Boca Grande? She’d sit right there at the bar and hold her own with the fishing guides.”

  Albright’s eyes found a rectangle on the wall, where, for a time, paint had been shielded from sunlight. “Her portrait used to hang there. The older Owen gets, the more he reminds me of Mattie.”

  Photos from a previous marriage seldom survive a new wife, but I had to say something. “It’s good that you and your stepson are close.”

  “We’re not, but we at least get along,” Albright said. “It’s not easy on kids when their mother remarries, especially when new babies show up. Owen and I hardly spoke once he hit adolescence. And we had a hell of an argument when he insisted on taking back his father’s name. About a year ago, though, I helped him out of some trouble, now he’s working for me on a new project that could—” Albright blinked at the glass in his hand and decided he’d said enough.

  I took a chance. “You can stop worrying. I’m not interested in your Peace River property. No . . . you said ‘Peace River holdings,’ so maybe you’re thinking of developing, or going back into the mining business. If you are, good luck to you and Owen. That’s not why I’m here.”

  Albright wanted to believe me but used a wry tone to test further. “A biologist who doesn’t think the phosphate industry and Big Sugar are part of the Evil Empire? Come on, Ford, be honest.”

  “What does one have to do with the other?” I asked. “The only thing sugar produces in Florida is pollution and political hacks.”

  “Most people group them,” he countered. “I wanted to see your reaction.”

  “I’m not most people. I’m not up on the latest studies, but I’ve read that phosphate is doing a better job of containing wastewater and reclamation. Personally, I think the mines look like hell, and they’ve probably done more damage than anyone realizes. But I also know there’s a need for phosphate. No, more than a need—phosphorus is essential. Every life-form has to have it or it dies. The stuff can’t be reproduced artificially, so mining is a necessary option.” I stood. “If you’re done testing me, I’d like to see that room with your grandfather’s photos.”

  Albright, for the first time, appeared interested in what I had to say. “Do you mean that?”

  “Sure. I like history.”

  “No, about phosphate mining.”

  I said, “Of course. Phosphate depletion in the soil is the main cause of crop failure worldwide. A lot of people would be starving if Florida didn’t export it as fertilizer.”

  He asked a few more questions before he said, “When I tell my daughters that half this nation would go hungry—other countries, too—they just roll their eyes.” He hesitated. “Are you really a biologist? They might listen if you told them what you just told me.”

  I said, “Mostly, I’m a realist who believes that idealists have more fun, so why bother your daughters with the facts? But if you think it would help, sure, I’ll talk to them.”

  The man seemed relieved our sparring was over. “Then I guess I wouldn’t mind looking for a list of old artifact collectors—but, I’m warning you, it’s a waste of time. A couple of carvings stolen years ago? That’s as pointless as . . . well, looking for ghosts or buried gold.” Albright said it in an offhanded way but awaited my response.

  I said, “You sound like a man who’s dealt with treasure hunters before.”

  “I have.”

  “Is this another test? Why would treasure hunters bother
someone in the phosphate business?”

  “Stories, legends,” Albright said, still feeling me out.

  “Like what?”

  “Name it. Back when I was in college, they’d come to the mine with some BS story about fossil hunting, but they were really after anything left behind by the first Spaniards. Ponce de León’s sword—that was popular for a while.”

  “A five-hundred-year-old sword?” I said. “That’s stretching things.”

  “Or De Soto’s gold crucifix—crazy stuff. I’m not making this up. A couple times a week, I’d get a phone call, or we’d catch someone trespassing.”

  “Why? Your draglines had to dig down thirty or forty feet to get to the phosphate beds. People actually believed pirates or Indians would bury something that deep?”

  Albright studied me for a moment. “Have you ever toured a mining operation?”

  “No, but that’s what I’ve read.”

  “You should. I can arrange it. Then you’d understand the attraction. Sometimes these guys would claim to be after treasure but really wanted high-end fossils—a pristine saber cat’s skull or mastodon tusks. Blue ivory is worth more than gold—damn near anyway.” He saw my confusion. “Because it’s so rare. That’s the color it turns, bluish black. Think of it as Ice Age ivory. Tusks taken from live elephants are called blood ivory. It’s been banned worldwide. But that hasn’t stopped the Africans and Chinese, of course. Ice Age ivory is still legal if it’s found on private property.”

  On the mantel was a carved elephant; elephants were embroidered in the rug. “You know a lot about this. Is it because of the company name—Mammoth Mines?”

  Albright laughed. “You have no idea . . .”

  Apparently not. “Did I miss something?”

  “Forget it. Sort of a family thing, and it’s a long story. Back to what I was saying . . . When our mines were operational, we got all kinds of stories about why people wanted to dig. Fossil clubs could be fun—kids, the look on their faces when they found something. The real pro bone hunters, though, they were a whole different animal.”