The Heat Islands: A Doc Ford Novel (4 page)

At 6 p.m., stretched out on a lawn chair on his porch, writing in his notebook, Ford watched across the water as the guide boats filed back into the marina. Jeth Nicholes's boat was not among them.

He wrote: "T = tide; W -= wind; R = resistance; L = lag; U = unknowns. TW, - TW
₂
+
- 2[L]+
-U x R = X."

He puzzled over the formula for several minutes, then carefully erased it, as unsure that resistance factors could be computed as he was certain there were too many unknowns.

He knew that drowning victims sink for a period of time, which varied with water temperature and salinity, but certainly the victim's own body composition must play a role. But did people sink who entered the water already dead? Probably. If so, though, the tidal current near the bottom would be different from the surface current, and the body mass would change as body gases contracted at depth, and then expanded with decomposition. And in South Florida, in June heat, decomposition would begin the moment a man's last breath was taken.

It was a complicated problem; gruesome, too, though that did not bother Ford. But the fact that the problem was composed of factors that could not be calculated did.

Aw, screw it....

Closing his notebook, he settled back to watch the guides, Felix Haynes and Nels Langford, begin the evening wash-down, stowing their gear, popping their first beers beneath the giant sea-grape tree beside the office, talking matter-of-factly but not laughing much, and Ford knew they had not won the tarpon tournament.

It was Friday night, official end of the workweek at marinas all up and down the Florida coast. Saturday and Sunday were the busiest days of the week, but Friday night was still the traditional gathering time for the live-aboards and marina employees. It was the brief quiet time before the weekend rush, when they came together as a community. When they drank and laughed and complained and lied, with no one around to hear, just them, and the marina became a private thing, like a seeret.

Music already echoed inside Noel Yarbrough's forty-foot Grand Banks. Rhonda Lister and JoAnn Smallwood had hung Japanese lanterns on the stem of their wood-rotted Chris-Craft cruiser, and had changed into sarongs— an unspoken party invitation underlined by the bright pink hibiscus blossoms each woman wore behind her ear. Men in sandals and shorts roamed the docks with women in coral-bright blouses, their hair freshly washed, laughing, with drinks in hand, their elongated reflections like oil on the water, blending with the darker reflections of coco palms, which feathered over the seawall behind them. All the boats floated motionless in their slips—the Makos, Aquasports, the larger cruisers and trawlers and candy-colored fiberglass sailboats—stirring only when someone stepped aboard to fetch bottles of beer from the ice.

Graeme MacKinley, the New Zealander who managed the marina, came out of the office wearing a long-billed fishing cap and flip-flops, carrying his ring of keys, and began to padlock the bait tanks and the rod-rental closet, closing shop. He looked over toward Ford's stilt house and waved briefly, then held up an invisible glass, meaning cocktail time. Ford had had no alcohol for three months, yet be held up his hand in acquiescence. A cold beer would be good right now. And after his workout with Dewey, he had earned it.

Stiff, leg-sore, Ford forced himself out of the lounge chair to change clothes, but then saw Tomlinson heading across the bay in his little wooden dinghy. So he sat down to wait, and soon there was Tomlinson wearing a hot pink Hawaiian shirt, blond scraggly hair down to his shoulders, black beard cut short, hopping up onto his dock and grinning: "Dr. Ford, I presume."

Ford said, "And you're no Stanley. What time's your date?"

Tomlinson straightened himself, gazing around with that dreamy look, saying, "How you know that, man? Only the seeond date I've had in ... a year? Yeah, like ten months."

"Seeond time I've seen that shirt. Nice, too." Tomlinson pulled the shirt away from his jeans, as if seeing it for the first time. "Hey, this is pretty, isn't it?" he said. "Imported." He was fingering the material, studying it, his psychedelic eyes softened by experience and years and the objective inspection he now made. "Yep. imported ... I'm pretty sure. I don't think they make shirts like this in America." He looked up. "Colorful, huh? I'm having dinner with a woman."

"Someone you met today at the Zen lecture?" Tomlinson said. "Not a lecture. An oral sharing," holding up a long, bony finger, the kindly teacher correcting the reluctant student.

Ford said. "Ah."

"She was there, but I've known her since college. She still lives in Cambridge; teaches at the university—the one I went up to visit last month. Clear to Boston on a plane." Tomlinson had returned after a week, his behavior even more esoteric and preoccupied than usual—which was saying something for Tomlinson.

"The one who wanted to marry you, you mean?"

"Not marry me, just use me," Tomlinson said miserably. "That's right—she's the one. I'd forgotten. Now she shows up on my doorstep—what the hell's got into women?"

"That's quite a thing to forget."

"I was busy with the Zen retreat. You should have come. Very ... cleansing. About fourteen of us in a little room. Did a short sesshin—about two hours of meditation."

"Two hours of sitting on the floor," Ford said. "And I missed it."

"A good group. No breakthroughs, but a nice stillness; a nice clarity. Dr. Rocky Kaplan-
sensei
was the guest. Very damn spiritual. Then I went to Line Drive and used the pitching machine." Tomlinson was swinging an imaginary bat, head down, throwing his hands. "Finally got my stroke back. Really beat piss out of the ball."

Dr. Rocky Kaplan-
sensei
? Ford was tempted to ask, but didn't want to risk a lengthy explanation. Instead, he said, "I'm going to the marina for a beer. You have time?"

"You? A beer? Sure. I never understood why you quit in the first place."

Ford said, "Let me get some clothes and we'll go." Tomlinson followed him up into the house, talking right along, saying Ford was starting to look a little gaunt; a little flushed; concerned until he heard about the workout with Dewey Nye: four-mile run, mile swim in the bay, plus the other stuff.

Tomlinson said, "I thought she had a boyfriend. What's-his-name, the rich kid."

Ford said, "As of yesterday, she doesn't. As of today, she still doesn't. I just want to get back into shape, and she's helping. Besides, I'm at least ten, twelve years older than her. And she's pushy."

"You were always running, swimming—everything before you met her."

Ford said. "So?"

Nodding, smiling, twisting his hair with his fingers, Tomlinson said, "Three months ago. maybe less, you meet this pretty woman—on a golf course or something, right? Dewey."

"She was golfing, I was fishing one of the lakes, trying to get a baby tarpon. Right. 'Bout three months."

"Within a week of meeting her, you quit drinking beer. You never drank more than three a day, but you gave it up. Every night, I sit there on my boat, I look over here, and you're doing pull-ups. You're doing sit-ups. Now you take a breath. I can see your ribs. You've lost weight. There's a reason. And you're letting your hair grow longer. High time, I might add."

Ford owned five shirts, three pairs of long pants, and a half dozen sets of T-shirts and shorts. He said, "All this logic, Tomlinson—doesn't it make you thirsty?" as he searched through the neat stack of clothes.

He selected faded gray shorts and a blue denim shirt washed until it felt like silk, then slid on a pair of worn leather sandals from Guatemala as he said, "I quit beer because it was getting to feel like a habit. And I work out because I feel like crap if I don't. There are all kinds of ways the human body adapts to its role in an industrialized society—none good. So I choose not to adapt. A conscious decision."

"Industrialized society—
right.
Human adaptation." Tomlinson was shaking his head, accepting none of it, making Ford grin when he said, "Plumage, man. That's what you're doing. Brightening up the colors. Toning up the package for a mating display. And I've seen the way that girl looks at you."

"Oh, Lordy."

Tomlinson said, "If you ever need to borrow this pretty shirt of mine—"

Ford said. "I know, I know."

On the docks. Captain Nels was saying. "That jerk, that's who won the tarpon tournament. Captain Goof. The psycho liar. You know the guy. Everybody's buddy." Captain Nels was hosing out his boat, standing on the bow, not looking at Ford, who was leaning against a piling, swatting at mosquitoes, having just asked who won. Nels stopped long enough to pack a pinch of snuff in his lower front lip, and said. "Karl Sutter won the eighty grand. Eighty frigging thousand dollars. Most fish, biggest fish. Out there all alone with his fat girlfriend," sliding the snuff tin into his shorts. Copenhagen.

Captain Felix was on his boat in the adjoining slip, dipping out pinfish, putting them in a floating cage, talking to Nels and Ford both, saying, "Don't ask how he did it, man. Landed five fish. All that rain. All that wind. Like God was telling us that idiots shall inherit our chosen field of occupation." Felix, a big man, six five and wide, but reserved, was shaking his head as if amused with his own disgust.

"In-frigging-credible."

"There—that sums it up."

Nels said, "We work our butts off, using all the tricks. Dalbert and Javier, the guys from Parrot Bight, land five tarpon between 'em. My anglers got two. Felix's got two. Most everybody got two—released them all. Even the amateur boats. Sutter hasn't landed two tarpon in his career, but he comes in with five dead ones strung up. Hanging off the bow. Strung from the fly bridge: a damn funeral parlor for tarpon. Man, I couldn't stay down there at Parrot Bight and watch it. Someone says, 'Hey, Sutter, you're breaking the game laws. Only allowed to keep two.' Sutter says, 'I got the tags.' We tell 'im, 'Hell, doesn't matter. Still only allowed to keep two.' He says, 'So you guys are going to be bad sports about this? That's childish.' "

Felix said. "That's just what he said. 'Childish.' "

Nels said, "Felix and me just said adios to our clients and left. They were pissed at us anyway, wasting so much time with Rios's corpse. Shoulda just let the crabs eat him. No tip, cither, and those people all had plenty of money." Ford asked. "Sutter killed all the fish?" He was surprised. Tarpon were a game fish, not a food fish. These days, even novice fishermen knew it was bad form to kill a tarpon.

"Sure he did. But had tags for all of them, like he said. Fifty-buck tags from the state. Came in saying he was going to have 'em all mounted with the prize money. 'Nice profit,' he says. 'Cover my whole den.' The mounts will cost him maybe two grand, but that's not the reason he brought them in."

Felix said, " 'Cause no one woulda believed he caught that many fish, that's why he killed them. He was out fishing so deep, he says, he couldn't reach any of the committee boats on the radio..."

Nels said.
"Right."

"... but won't say where, like he's got a seeret fishing hole. The tournament party they wore supposed to have was canceled. Rios spoiled it. dying and all. And I just couldn't stand another minute of watching Sutter trying to act sad about his brother-in-law dying, but happy about winning all that money. Like watching a guy trying to rub his belly and load his pants at the same time." Felix was still smiling at himself. "Understand—it's not like we're
bitter
or anything. Doc."

Ford said, "Of course not," smiling with him.

Tomlinson was standing at the head of the dock near the marina office talking to MacKinley: MacKinley, thick, with short legs, looking up at the tall man with long hair.

As Ford walked up, MacKinley was saying. "... so I reckon Jeth threatened to kick Marvin's butt right there. On the docks in front of all these people down there at Parrot Bight. Said I'll put your midget ass in the hospital. Clever, like that. Pretty quick, for Jeth. Of course, he was stuttering, and that just made it worse."

Ford said, "Jeth, huh?"

"You heard about the argument he had with Rios? I was just telling Tomlinson."

Ford said. "A little."

MacKinley said. "Yesterday afternoon. Jeth pulled into Parrot Bight with clients. They wanted lunch. I guess Rios yelled at him for tripping over a gas hose; spilled some gas. Something of that sort. You know how clumsy Jeth's been lately. If all he does around here in a full day is spill some gas, I feel lucky.

"Jeth tries to explain it was an accident, but Rios chides him about stuttering so badly he can't understand anything; write it down—like a joke—and Jeth snaps. Embarrassed and all in front of his clients, plus the guides have a thing for Rios, anyway. Really loses it, like he's going to deck Rios right there, but Rios grabs a ball bat. Very ugly scene. I guess Jeth decided he'd had enough."

"Bad karma." said Tomlinson. "That whole place. Two Parrot Bight, has such a bad feel to it, I won't even go there. Sanibel Marina's okay; Jensen's great. But not Parrot Bight. Went once, but never again. Rios was a nasty little predator."

MacKinley was giving Tomlinson a familiar look, like standing in a zoo, looking through bars.

Ford was looking at him, too; strong words for Tomlinson.

Ford said, "Where's Jeth now?"

MacKinley shrugged. "Stormed off last night in his boat. Haven't seen him since. I guess he called his clients last night and said he wouldn't fish the tournament. They showed up here bright and early, seriously pissed off. Reckon I made ten, twelve calls finding them another guide. I like Jeth, but he'd better not ever put me in a spot like that again. He's been acting very strange lately."

"Did his clients say what time he called?"

"Yeah. They said late. They were asleep. They had to get up for the tournament." MacKinley was looking at

Ford, both of them thinking the same thing. "I don't think Jeth could've killed Rios," MacKinley said. "I really don't see him as a killer, no matter how mad he got."