by G L Rockey
No. She smiled and stepped to the cabin door, her back turned to him she pulled off her T-shirt and dropped her denim shorts, then turned to him. Come on, chicken.
The ocean became Mary.
Zack swam free with fleeting glimpses of her soft lips smothering his face. Swimming in her saltwater warmth, her skin white satin, he touched it, pressed it, caressed it…riding dolphins, Mary raced ahead and around him, then slid off her dolphin and swam to his side, sunlight rippled across the watery surface, he reached to touch her hair and it all became a clanging buoy
Zack opened his eyes to his video phone ringing. He sat up and looked at his wristwatch—7:45 a.m.
Yawning, he maneuvered to the ringing phone and flipped it on.
Mary, much awake, perky, asked, “Nice dream?”
Paused, he was about to say how did you know? but stopped. “Good morning.”
“How’s your ear?”
“Fine.”
“We still on for eleven?”
“I’m certain.”
“See our special edition?”
“Not yet, I”
“Get a copy, its good.”
“Before or after coffee?”
“Before. Did you put iodine on that ear?”
“Bye.”
Potent images of the spent dream still in him, he sat at the bar. Fogged thoughts moved through yesterday, last night, the news. His weekend plans shot, he pushed the port window’s orange drape aside and—sure enough—sun, green water, blue sky, puffy white clouds.
“Nuts,” he said.
Since christening Veracity three years before, his cherished Saturday routine had been to rise early, pack ham sandwiches, ice a case of Bohemia, get out on the water, fish, drink, think, commune, talk, write anything down that made sense. Come in around five, hot shower, shave, dinner at The Bimini Road, talk with Joe Case—even that was now gone. The Tea Company was okay but just not the same.
And this particular weekend, this special Labor Day weekend, he had planned to think a thing through. Namely, his relationship with Ms. O’Brien—past, present and/or future.
“Butsome things are not to be,” he said.
He sighed, stepped to the galley, started the coffee maker, picked up his TV remote and clicked on the TV.
Same news channel still on from last night—he watched video of a reporter standing in front of the Miami Beach Ocean Resort. He turned up the sound.
A petite Latino lady reported “a homicide at the Miami Beach Ocean Resort. Victim is a male Caucasian, found by house cleaners this morning. It appears he was murdered sometime last evening. The police are investigating what they called ‘peculiar circumstances’. Back to you”
He click to another channel—Road Runner cartoon.
“It’s all a cartoon, makes more sense that way.”
While stripping his clothes off, commenting along the way, he surfed TV channels: [Click] “FOX—Detroit, nice fire.” [Click] “NBC—L.A., good crowd control.” [Click] “CBS—Philadelphia, demonstrations.” [Click] “MSNBC—there’s that Channel 10 tape again.” [Click] PBS—Sesame Street.
He clicked off.
Nude, silence strong, wiping his face with his palm, he felt that uncanniness he had experienced last night, driving home. The morbid feeling moved over him like a giant hump back whale at the water’s surface, eclipsing sunlight below. Strange how reality ends, fear begins, he thought. He caught a whiff of that familiar dank smell that associated itself with the anxiety.
“You! You magnificent bastard, you.” He looked around, paused, sniffed. Nothing. “It’s all in your mind,” he said.
He retrieved a mug of coffee, poured, sipped, thought about taking a shower, shaving but chucking the idea, pulled on a fresh outfit—black T-shirt and Wrangler jeans—and slipped into his deck shoes.
At the “head’s” mirror, he pulled the Band-Aid off his ear and studied the nick. I heal quick, he thought, and decided to let the world see his badge of
Of what? he wondered. “Courage? Close, but no cigar.”
Leaving, he caressed the mahogany of Veracity. “Don’t blame me for not going out today.”
He ambled up the three steps that led to the aft deck, sniffed the balmy, humid air. Deceivingly serene, he thought then looked out at the green-blue water of the bay.
The calm surface reflected the sun in a million directions; further out the sea breathed. He paused then stepped to the dock and made the familiar trek to the end of the wharf and the metal newspaper dispensers. He kicked The Boca machine just below the money slot. The front dropped and he retrieved a paper. My paper, he rationalized. No guilt whatsoever.
He scanned The Boca’s front page headline: CHIEF DENIES IT
“Not bad, Jimbo, not bad, Mary even liked it.”
Chapter Twenty Seven
9:15 a.m. EST
In the Pompano Marina parking lot, Zack did a quick walk-around of his Subaru. Inspected where the rear window once was, feeling violated, he got in and headed north toward The Boca offices. The muggy outside air sucking at the back of his head, maxed air-conditioner screaming, he lit a Camel and snapped on the radio. A familiar female talk show host’s voice shrilled through the turbulent air.
Zack turned the sound up.
Talk show host: “…all you toilet-head liberals are alike. The cops were doing their job, stopping that dope head broad.”
Male caller: “All I’m saying is did they have a right to stop her in the first place.”
Talk show host: “She was drunk as a skunk, you could see that, staggering all over the place, whatta ya want them to do?”
Male caller: “You’re a dumb bigoted jerk.”
Talk show host: “You dip head, next time you get in trouble call a drug dealer.”
Male caller: “I was just asking why the police had stopped that driver in the first place, if they had sufficient cause.”
Talk show host: “You dumb dip head, if they had sufficient cause, she was high on something, you could see that, dope all over the place…”
Zack snapped the radio off and glanced up. “They call it AM radio down here.” He paused. “But You knew that, right?”
Weaving thru traffic, he pursued on a thought he had been contemplating for some time, possibly an essay, maybe that never ending editorial: The colors black and white—white being the presence of all color, black being the absence of all color—why black awaiting the lighta candle in blackness? Why not light instead of the blacknesswinding up rather than downprogress rather than degeneration?
He heard a voice in his head: But look how far we have comethe progress we have madewhere we are todayevolved from beasts into caring, compassionate creatures…
He rubbed his sprouting beard. “Hummm.”
A verse from his prior life’s training occurred to him. Buy the truth and sell it not.
“Proverbs twenty-three something,” he mumbled. “What is truth? What is a lie? Do the concepts go only for we finely developed higher-ups?” He paused. “But of courselying is a fine art reserved to more eclectic thinkerstruth, eh.”
He thought of Joe Case, and something came to mind from somewhere: Freedom to choose is reserved in the universe but to you.
Then the words of Lewis Carrol’s Tweedledee came to him: “Contrariwise, if it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn’t, it ain’t. That’s logic.”
He wiped his brow. “Right, Jocko, keep that thought. I don’t have time to mess with you right now.”
He pulled to the familiar newsstand where he got his New York Times and rolled down his window. “Morning, Gus.”
“Morning, Mr. Zackary, beautiful morning.” Gus handed him the Times. “How are you this fine morning?”
“Confused.”
“Everybody is confused these days,” Gus said.
“You can say that again.” He paid for the newspaper and read the headline: PRESIDENT GUARANTEES LAW AND ORDER. H
e looked at Gus.
“Wonder if Benny will sign that guarantee.” Zack smiled.
“Ah, that Benny, Mr. Zackary.” Gus smiled back.
“Have a good day.”
“Yes, sir.”
Zack pulled away. “Gus knows more about truth than I, Benny and the U.N. put together.”
He turned the radio on again. Same station, same shrill host, different caller.
Talk show host: “Ah, you’re a dumb, puke head jack-off. The only mistake the cops made is they should have dumped the evidence in Biscayne Bay.”
Female caller: “You complete imbecile.”
Talk show host: “You air head. Get a job. Probably on welfare.”
Female caller: “I’m tellin’ you, you better watch yourself, ’cause we’re gonna get you, baby.”
Talk show host: “You dumb scumbag, you just try. I’ll have the cops on you like stink on the homeless.”
Female: “Oh, yeah, you…”
Zack snapped the radio off.
Chapter Twenty Eight
10:00 a.m. EST
After calling to see if Chief Manny was in, he was, asking if he would see her, Mary turned at the next street. In seconds, she pulled into the parking lot of Miami Police Department headquarters. She had landed an interview with the Chief.
Chapter Twenty Nine
10:35 a.m. EST
Contemplating what he had been listening to on the radio, Zack kicked open his office door, slammed the Times and The Boca on his desk, and looked at Ted sprawled on the couch. “You sleeping?”
“Was.” Ted sat up.
“It’s unbelievable.”
“What now?” Ted, still dressed in yesterday’s basic brown, yawned.
“I can’t believe these radio talk show jerks. They thrive on stirring it up.”
“Which one now?”
“That what’s-her-nameWOW-AM.”
“Shock jock, Rhoda Ray.”
“She’s challenging a caller who asked if the police had sufficient cause to stop that driver.”
“What driver?”
“What driver? The video. The female that Miami’s finest allegedly”
“Oh.”
Zack mimicked the talk show host. “The only mistake the cops made is they should have dumped the evidence in Biscayne Bay.”
“She’s just hyping her show, ratings, everybody does it.”
“Everybody does it.” He sat behind his desk. “I hate that line.”
“Twenty-first century, way it is.”
“Way it is—what is that?”
“Bill of Rights, Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech…”
“Freedom of speech…can’t say girl/boy but through cyber marvels of modern communication you can mainline geeks biting foreskin; watch Tommy Lee and what’s-her-name’s doing a hole-in-one.”
“How you know about Tommy Lee’s hole-in-one?”
“Research.”
“Or the press.”
“Or the press. You think Jefferson and the boys thought about TV, cable news, the Internet when, quill in hand, sitting around a table at Ye Old Boar Room tavern; they penned that freedom of the press thing?” He straightened a few items on his desk. “You know, I think sometime the press gets that freedom of the press mixed up with inalienable rights. People have those, not the press—that’s the premise anyway.”
“Beware, dear friend. If you say that anathema too loud some press people will have you singing soprano in the boys’ choir.”
“Meantime, you learn anything new or otherwise…what’s going on with the darling Channel 10 news video, Manny’s office…all that other sweetness from the Capital of D.C. where resides Benny and his house guest, God.”
“Wanna look at TV?” Ted reached for the remote control. “Or did you want to kick a hole in it?”
“Don’t turn it on. I want to think for a minute.” Zack nodded at the empty coffer maker carafe. “We need some water.”
Ted frowned.
Zack tilted his head. “Please. You need to comb your hair anyway.”
“I could use a shower, too.” Ted took the empty carafe. “So could you.” He left.
“Thanks.” Zack studied The New York Times headline: PRESIDENT GUARANTEES LAW AND ORDER. He looked at The Boca’s headline for the tenth time: CHIEF DENIES IT and scanned Jimbo’s column that Mary had read to him last night, ‘…questions remain unanswered regarding the already infamous Channel 10 video’
“They sure do,” Zack mumbled and read on:
‘the incident allegedly took place this past Thursday evening on Key Largo. WSUN-TV, Channel 10, was the first TV station to broadcast the video of the homicide’
“Woopee” Zack said and continued:
‘deputy Police Chief Glenda Bruno staunchly denies that any Miami police were involved in any wayshe held firm to her story that none of her patrol cars were anywhere near Key Largo the night of the incidentIf Glenda and the chief are accurate, the million-dollar question looms big as a Mack truck: who were the alleged officers on the tape? One thing is certain: an African-American woman was murderedher identity remains a mystery.’
Zack paused, looked up, “Are You seeing all of this?”
Chapter Thirty
10:45 a.m. EST
Having returned to Zack’s office, Ted began preparing coffee for brewing.
“Something stinks,” Zack said.
“I think it’s us.”
Zack strained to observe Ted’s coffee preparation. “You okay on that?”
“Yep-purr.”
“Seven scoops.”
“How could anyone forget?”
“Heaping.”
“Why not eight?”
“I tried eight. Seven, heaping, is best.” Zack held The Boca up and pointed to the headline. “I like our headline, Ted.”
“I knew you would.” Coffee brewing, Ted took the clicker and turned the TV on.
“Thought we weren’t going to turn that on,” Zack said.
“Habit-forming.” Ted clicked to FOX. “There’s that distinguished Channel 10 video again.”
“At least.”
Ted clicked to ABC and recognized Tony Nastase, local black advocate of street people and general rabble-rouser, standing with a large crowd of demonstrators.
“Well, now, look here. Tony Nastase is being interviewed,” Ted said.
“Turn that up.” Zack said.
Ted increased the volume, threw the remote on Zack’s desk and sat on the sofa.
A fair-haired female reporter holding a Channel 6 microphone asked, “But, Mr. Nastase, how can you condone all this local rioting?”
Tall and skinny, dressed in black cloth, Nastase held a large white sign with RAGE printed in dripping red. He ranted: “You call it riot. We choose to call it freedom of expression. How else can the people speak? We are being oppressed. Not only the street’s people but all people; white peoples, red peoples, black peoples. They don’t get a chance at the big pie in the sky. It sucks.”
Reporter: “Do you think perhaps that possibly this thing could soon blow out of proportion?”
Nastase: “What proportion? Your rich-man proportion? What is proportion? A sister has been raped. Murdered. And now official Miami is denying it. Rage on, I tell you, rage on.”
Chants in the background: “Rage on, rage, rage”
Zack turned the volume down and rubbed his chin. “Ted, maybe our ‘denying it’ headline wasn’t such a good idea after all.”
“Like Mary said, could have second-guessed the thing all night.”
Zack walked to the coffee maker, replaced the glass carafe with his stein, watched the stein fill, replaced the carafe, took a taste and frowned. “Did you heap the scoops?”
“Yes.”
“Doesn’t taste right.”
Ted shrugged. “I tried.”
“Could have used more heaps in your scoops.” Zack returned to his desk and sat. “Did you get t
he message to Jimbo, our meeting this morning?”
“Mary said she would.” Ted went to the finished brewing coffee and filled a cup.
Zack punched Jim’s number into his video phone. “Let’s see if hotshot is up.”
Ted sat on the sofa.
After five rings Jim answered to a blank video screen. “Roberts.”
Zack leaned into his phone’s camera. “Turn your camera on.”
“Zackaryjust a minute.”
Waiting, Zack sniffed his coffee and thought he should have measured the coffee himself. Then he thought how good coffee tasted on board Veracity, five miles out in the Atlanticair clean, sky pristine blue. “The red snapper will be biting good today, Ted.”
“Yep-purr.”
Zack’s phone displayed a picture of Jim snugging his bathrobe belt. He sat in front of his phone’s camera.
“Zackary, what’s going on?”
“Nice bathrobe.”
“Thanks. Renato Balestra, devóre silk, gift. What’s going on?”
“From Renato?”
“Renato is the designer, a lady friend bought it. What’s going on?”
“Say good morning to Ted.” Zack sipped.
“Morning, TedI can’t see you.”
“Hearing me is enough. Morning,” Ted said.
Zack said, “I read your story. Short but good, Mr. Roberts.”
“Thank you, Bwana.”
“What did Chief Manny say?”
“Thought you said you read my story.”
“I did. I wanted to hear it from the pony’s mouth.”
“I didn’t talk to Mannytalked to his deputy, Glenda.”
“Why?” Zack said.
“Manny won’t talk to methink he likes to talk to O’Brien, has a crush on her.”
“Yep-purr.” Ted picked a tooth.
Zack paused then said, “And Glenda is denying everything.”
Jim said, “Yep. They have no record of or reason for any of their people being out in Monroe County, no written reports, no two-way radio reports—nothing. And they record everything. One thing Glenda said, though, off the record, is puzzling.”