Night Moves (38 page)

That’s why I was restless and I finally admitted it.

Like it or not, a formal date with someone like Hannah Smith implied a commitment, however minor, that caused a claustrophobic twinge. But Hannah wasn’t the cause. By three a.m. I’d convinced myself it was true so celebrated by pulling on running shorts and shoes, then jogging to the beach while my brain thought it through.

What I felt was more accurately linked to a combination of recent events and elements, I decided: the haunted look in Angel Sampedro’s face, dried flowers in the family album, the
POP-POP
of a silencer, the resonance of human bone beneath my own mortal feet.

Is it time to . . . make a change?

Unfortunately, I’d made the mistake of asking Tomlinson that question on the long boat trip home from Lostman’s River.

“First off, Doc, your entire premise is totally bullshit! Same with the question ‘What time is it?’ Try this: start counting in your head, one-two-three-four-five, and keep counting until your attention swerves to something else. Something
interesting
, man, and there’s your answer! Why? Because time stops the
instant
we release the bullshit concept that time actually exists. Understand? Let go of all the illusionary crap on the outside and we become timeless beings, man.
Inside
, you know? Where it counts.”

There are those rare occasions when I envy Tomlinson’s drug-buffered view of life, but I still could not let go of the question and it continued to pester me all day Thursday and into the night. Had I reached a period in my life when it was time to . . .

Do what? Be specific, for christ’s sakes!

Okay. Time to settle down . . . buy a van for the kiddies, take up golf, attend functions, be home by ten, pay bills on time, discuss insurance policies, endure lunch dates, smile blandly at parties, vote the straight ticket, mow the lawn, wave cheerfully at a neighbor when, in fact, you want to stick that leaf blower right up said neighbor’s ass.

That’s what you’re thinking about doing, Ford? Oh . . . then at least be honest and project ahead: might as well burn the false passports, the old logbooks, clean out the secret hidey-holes, and notify your overseas friends—via Facebook, maybe!—that your traveling days are over. Why? Because you have met a long-legged, independent woman who, while not wildly attractive by Hollywood standards, jabs a hole in your chest when you imagine how she might look stepping out of the shower or signaling to you from beneath the sheets. If that’s your problem, remember what the Brazilian said about relationships: Impossible!

I was driving myself crazy.

“Crazier,” Tomlinson informed me Friday morning when I sought out his wise counsel as a Zen Buddhist master. Which sent me back to the lab, thinking:

Make a list, Ford, it’s what you always do. Pros on one side, cons on the other. Then measure the list with a micrometer. Note the weight of every loaded word on the con side, compare those weights with loftier words in the pro column. Finally, subtract smallest number from largest number and then . . . and then divide the goddamn results by your total IQ of late, which shouldn’t reduce the sum by one goddamn digit!

My cell phone chirped before I began this idiocy with a pen and legal pad. Hannah texting,
See you at 8?

It was 6:30, almost dark outside. Thank god, she didn’t add one of those idiotic smiley faces or I would have hurled the phone across the room, then booked the next flight for Cartagena.

Looking forward to it!
I replied, then sat at the computer because I had thirty-five long minutes to kill before showering for our date. Fortunately, and surprisingly, there was an interesting e-mail awaiting to blot up the time. Dr. Arlis Milton of Atlanta writing with answers, as promised, but also to say things weren’t going well with the retriever’s reintroduction to civilization, although the man did his best to hide the truth among seven careful paragraphs.

The most interesting graph revealed much about the dog—Sam was the unfortunate name—and his late owner, Bill, no last name offered:

By now you’ve probably done your homework and discovered my wife’s maiden name so know that my father-in-law was among the most respected field trial breeder/hobbyists in the country. Are you the biologist Marion Ford who has published in various Florida journals? If so, you may appreciate that Bill was also a noted geneticist and wealthy enough to fund his own research as well as his hobby. Bill had great hopes for Sam, and his sire who was a Grand National champion . . .

Geneticist? That was intriguing. So the owner had been William-something, Ph.D. who, the letter informed me, had died in an Alligator Alley car crash on his way to a field trial near Miami. Three paragraphs later, Dr. Milton got to his real reason for e-mailing:

Naturally, we assumed both dogs also died because of the fire. It is for this reason that our attorneys wrongly settled Bill’s estate without addressing a codicil that required my wife to provide for his animals. This was more than a year ago . . .

One year?
The physician was telling me that, legally, he and his wife had been spending money that shouldn’t have been disbursed, but all I could think was,
Twelve months alone in the Everglades, but that damn dog survived!

Sam had issues, though, the letter continued. He wasn’t “show-worthy” (
saleable
, I translated) because of physical injuries. But was still “very trainable” (
out of control
, was the inference) despite the “expected behavioral changes” required of a dog to survive in the wild—even one with “national champion bloodlines.”

In short, by taking possession of the dog, Dr. Milton and his wife had touched a legal base, as required by their inheritance, and now the dog was for sale. I had done a good deed, so was being offered the right of first refusal, but the price—$1,500—was
probably
firm. If interested, call ASAP.

There was also a P.S. so saccharine sweet it made me wince:
Bill loved the movie Old Yeller and the sequel about Old Yeller’s son. Savage Sam. Silly movie but thought his new owner might like to know!

Funny.
I was laughing as I skimmed through the letter again, picturing Dr. Milton’s elegant Georgia home and the dog’s swath of destruction that had surely motivated the letter. No time to reply, though, let alone call, because it was almost seven. Time to shower up, shave close, and get ready for my long anticipated date.

That’s when I heard it. A strange
Hoo . . . Hoo . . . Hoo . . .
sound coming from outside. Reminded me of the hoot-owl call boys sometimes make by blowing through their hands. Whatever the source, it didn’t belong on the walkway or in the mangroves where it was coming from. Had I been in South America, Indonesia, some far-flung place on an assignment—anywhere but in my own home—I would have taken the fifteen seconds required to grab a flashlight. Probably would had slipped a pistol into my pocket, too.

I didn’t. Another mistake—and it might have killed me.

33

BAREFOOT, WEARING ONLY RUNNING SHORTS AND A
tank top, I walked out on the deck and heard it again:
Hoo . . . Hoo . . . Hoo
 . . . Then my eyes followed my ears shoreward, where, in an instant, all seemed to be explained: someone had set a paper bag ablaze at the entrance of my walkway near the gate.

Idiots,
I muttered. The oldest of adolescent pranks: scoop animal poop into a grocery bag, light said bag on fire, then laugh from the shadows while an outraged neighbor stomps the fire out, then has to clean excrement off his shoes.

I looked to my right: Friday night is party night at Dinkin’s Bay. The marina’s traditional Pig Roast and Beer Cotillion—acronym, PERBCOT, but is often referred to as PERV-COT because the hilarity sometimes gets out of hand. Music was thrumming, the docks crowded. Now, apparently, one or more of my playful neighbors were challenging my absence with an ingenious practical joke.

Through cupped hands, I called toward the mangroves, “Put it out before you set the dock on fire! I’m late for a date.”

Hoo . . . Hoo . . . Hoo . . .
was the reply.

“Goddamn it, I don’t have time for this!”

Silence while the bag continued to burn, sparks thermaling starward.

I hollered, “
Tomlinson!
If it’s you, I swear to god I’ll . . .” but left the threat unfinished because now I could smell burning wood. My walkway has been braced and redecked in the patchwork tradition of most old docks and some of the planking is vintage Florida pine—highly combustible. If a plank caught fire, a stringer would go next. Time to act or I’d have a mess to deal with. Worse, I’d be late for my date!

Because I was barefoot, I couldn’t kick the bag off the dock, so I looked for the first thing handy. The bamboo shaft I’d snatched from Bambi’s hands was still leaning against the house where I’d left it. Above it, though, hanging from a beam, was an old gaff hook I seldom used but kept around because it was lashed to a fish billy that had once been my father’s—a chunk of mahogany two feet long. Use the hook to yank the bag away or use the disposable bamboo?

I chose the gaff because I hadn’t felt its heft for a while, then trotted down the steps, onto the walkway, the burning bag so bright it fired the lucidum eyes of something feeding in the shallows. I slowed to look—yep, a couple of big stingrays suctioned to the bottom—then had to wait while my eyes readjusted before I continued on. Which is why I didn’t notice a man’s mud black face protruding from the water nearby. Nor the red laser beam I tripped as I approached the walkway gate, which would have told me there was a camera nearby videoing the whole scene.

Instead of excrement, the bag contained only balled-up newspaper—not that I inspected it closely. I used the steel hook to fling the thing into the bay, turned to watch flames create steam . . . then froze, confused by what I was seeing:

White eye sockets blinked at me from a face of black marble, the statue of a man standing in water, ten paces away, his shoulders glistening as the statue pivoted—a throwing motion.

What the hell . . . ?

A shaft of light launched itself toward me, impossible to dodge it traveled so swiftly, a harmless trick of moon and shadows that split my chest with the impact of a sledgehammer and the crunch of splintering bone.

“I got him!”

A man’s voice conveying a reality while a primal voice—my voice—screamed,
“Goddamn it!”
Then I was on my back, perplexed by the crushing weight on my chest, a sensation levered by all that was above me, the weight of mangrove darkness and stars. No pain, but I couldn’t breathe. Could I crawl? Yes . . . two feet of water helped float me to my knees. My glasses were around my neck on fishing line, lenses streaked but usable. Floating nearby was a frail shaft of wood: the spear that had hit me and broken away from my body.

“Got him in the heart, I think! Check him, Luke, check him!” Then a boyish howl:
“YES!”

Sound of footsteps . . . a red bead of light was leading a man’s silhouette toward me, then over me, the man wary, taking his time, as if approaching a snake. The red light blinking with mechanical precision as my brain linked the image with events and I realized Bambi was approaching, Luke Smith, a camera around his neck.

Jesus Christ . . . the lunatics are making a video.

Yes, they were. Bambi on the Sony while Deano, out on bail, but now standing in water, awaited a damage report from his coproducer. Something else: Deano had another spear in his hand, ready, while his cameraman kept rolling, getting it all down. Deano impatient, too, demanding, “Where’d I hit ’em, goddamn it? Close to the heart? Knocked him right off the damn dock, you see it!”

Bambi, with his Boston accent, telling him, “Hold your horses!” Then asking me, “Are you okay?” without taking the camera away from his face.

Stupid question! Something, a sliver of bone, I guessed, was protruding from my sternum—embarrassing—so I covered the boney stub with my hands, safe from the lens, while I sucked in air so hot it burned my teeth.

“Help . . . me . . . up!” I managed to say. It was the voice of a stranger, but my lungs were gradually filling, my brain was eager to clear—if I could just get to my feet, I’d be okay!

No deal, not just yet, Bambi was busy. Zoom in tight on the fallen quarry: Marion D. Ford, the biologist who had damaged their failed careers. Focus . . . zoom closer, hold the camera steady. Night optics blur so easily! Suddenly, though, Bambi didn’t like what he was seeing. Camera was lowered, allowed to hang from a neck strap, while he said, “Jesus Christ, Deano, he’s bleeding.”

“No
shit
. But did I get him in the heart?”

Bambi began to back away. “I mean, he’s really
bleeding.
You didn’t use a blunt tip? Goddamn it, you promised you’d use rubber!”

“No! I said I wouldn’t use
metal
!”

“He’s hurt bad, Dean. Shit, man, the point’s sticking out of his fucking chest!”

“It was a clean hit and I didn’t use metal!”

“His fucking chest, you hear me! I never agreed to this bullshit.”

Bambi was ready to run, but I knew I couldn’t let that happen. Leave me alone with the crazy spear hunter before I was able to move? My lungs were starting to function, my brain was rebooting, assembling details faster and faster, but that all had to remain a secret and hiding secrets is something else I’m good at. So I did my best to appear calm when I wheezed, “It was an . . . accident. I’ll be okay.”

Was that true? I believed I’d recover even if Bambi didn’t. The sliver buried in my sternum couldn’t have gone very deep, but if it had I was screwed. My heart lay against that boney plate. My lungs there, too, which explained the burning sensation. Or was I in shock, lying to myself?—minimizing the damage, which badly wounded men sometimes do? I’d witnessed that reaction on the other side of the Earth. Central America, South America, too. Men who’d groaned “We’ll joke about this one day” while their life’s blood was sumped into the jungle.