The Heat Islands: A Doc Ford Novel (9 page)

Still bailing and beginning to sweat in the night heat, Ford said again, "I didn't leave the bait pump running," meaning that someone had tried to sink his boat.

Ford was usually out of bed by 6:30 a.m., but the next morning, Sunday morning, the mosquito bombers attacked Sanibel at dawn.

Lying in bed, his eyes opened at the first distant rumble, and he thought the noise was thunder; that they were in for another morning storm.

But then the noise translated itself, that deep engine roar, and he threw the sheet back and walked naked to the window, looking out into the pearly light to see a formation of old DC-3s, World War II prop planes, flying in low over the mangroves, off Pine Island Sound. There were three planes, flying in tight formation, and. one by one. their spotlights burst on as they neared the island, coming in low over Dinkin's Bay, pointing right at his stilt house and the marina, as if on a strafing run.

Damn.

Ford ran to his bed, stripped the sheet off in a single motion, then was out the screen door. The roar of the planes was deafening now—Christ, they couldn't be more than a hundred feet off the water—and the entire framework of the stilt house vibrated beneath his bare feel. He threw the sheet over his fish tank and worked frantically to get it anchored in place, imagining a vague kinship with long-gone sailors on, say, the
Arizona.
December 7, 1941.

He worked and watched at the same time as. within the DC-3s, unseen pilots hit switches, and all three planes began to exhaust massive plumes of gray fog—mosquito spray; malathion.

Ford ducked instinctively as the beams of the spotlights and the planes swept over him, feeling the wind wake trying to draw him along as the DC-3s banked northwest and made their way up the island.

Still pouring fog, all three planes looked as if they had been hit by flak and were about to crash.

He stood fully for the first time and laid a plank across the tank to hold the sheet firmly, feeling oily drops of poison fog landing on his shoulders.

If the inseeticide had gotten into the tank, it would have killed the few delicate squid he kept there, and maybe some of the fish—just as the poison would kill fish larvae in tidal creeks and shallow ponds all up and down the islands, everywhere the bombers sprayed.

There was a thin clapping noise, four or five people applauding, and Ford looked across the water to the marina's docks, to see Captains Felix and Nels, and several of the live-aboards—men and women—laughing at him, giving him a mock standing ovation.

"What time's the next show. Doc? I'll bring my video camera!"

Ford waved regally, not even bothering to cover himself now, and started back inside, but then stopped suddenly, looking at the empty dock below him; stood dumbly for long seeonds.

His skiff, the one that had almost sunk last night, was now gone. That's what he finally realized.

He hurried inside, pulled on nylon running shorts, then walked along the railed platform on which his house was built, casting his eyes back and forth, searching west to east.

Marina docks ... marina basin ... oyster bars Dinkin's Bay, all flat water, no empty boats floating...

distant spoil islands with mangrove trees, wind beaten, solitary; no boat there ... more bay, more water, pelicans skimming... brightening eastern sky, swath of white light ... high bars of pink clouds glowing like the inside of a conch shell ... no boat ... rim of red sun. the slow amphitheater of sunrise as the spinning earth spilled light over Miami, over the Everglades ... more water, old pilings, long sandbar that could catch a boat—and there it was. Ford could see the blue fiberglass glisten of a boat wedged among the mangrove roots beyond the bar—his boat showing itself in the harsh pink light that was already beginning to radiate heat across the Florida peninsula.

Ford went down the steps to his dock and found the lines that had once held the skiff still cleated there. He took one of the lines, inspected it, and saw that it had been cut.

What in the hell was going on here?

He went back inside and pulled on his white rubber boots. He lighted the propane stove and put coffee on to boil before wading down the sandbar to his boat.

Karl Sutter was in the late Marvin Rios's house, sitting at the late Marvin Rios's desk, going through the late Marvin Rios's papers. Behind him, the door of the floor safe was open—he had watched through the window, once, and saw where Marvin kept the combination—and now he had papers stacked everywhere, going through them one by one, putting them in order.

A place for everything, sweetie, and everything in its place.

Karl would look at a sheaf of papers and say, "Bullshit," reach over and put it in the bullshit stack. He'd look at another sheaf and say, "Money on the hoof," and put it in the pile with other deeds and mortgage papers, then make a notation in the notebook he was keeping for himself. He'd open another envelope and say, "Little golden egg." and put the bond or the certificate of stock issue in the pile with the stock portfolio, and make another notation.

Not that he'd try to liquidate any of this stuff himself. No, that would be dumb. Couldn't even think about touching any of it until it went through probate and until Marvin's wife. Candy, received her cut from the lawyers and the government and the rest of the fucking bloodsuckers who always took a little piece of the corpse.

Candy'd be left with, what? Maybe half the gross value of the estate. Naw, more than that. But not much more, because that greedy damn Marvin had kept everything in his name, like maybe he'd someday divorce her. Which he probably would have if Candy'd ever put up a fuss about all the women he was screwing; those barter whores who took their payment in trips or clothes or apartments, because that's the only way that little dwarf Marvin could get a girl.

On the bright side. Candy was Marvin's only heir. Parents dead—probably out of embarrassment from spawning a midget like Marvin. No kids, either, and his only sister, that slut Judy, drowned while on vacation in Mexico—so full of the vodka Sutter'd forced into her that the greaseball mortician down there in Cancun probably didn't even bother to use embalming fluid. What the hell did the mortician care? He'd gotten a free look at a white woman's tits, and him and that beaner coroner probably both diddled her before sending the body back with a certificate that said "death by misadventure."

So Candy would get it all. What was left, anyway. What was left minus the $13,660 in cash Sutter had found in the safe—all sweet fifties and a few twenties—plus nine gold coins, old American double eagles probably worth four grand, maybe more. Plus the note he and Judy had signed, borrowing $37,500 from Marvin; man, was he happy to find
that.
All of it stuffed into the big pockets of the safari jacket he brought for just such an occasion, the cash folded over with the weight and shape of thick paperback books.

If Candy asked him on the way out, he'd just tell her he was going to do some heavy reading.

Sutter was looking at another folder of papers. He gave the papers a quick glance, and when he saw they didn't include a deed or a bond certificate, almost put them in the bullshit pile. But then words midway down the first page jumped out at him
—Mayakkatee River Development. Inc.
—and he stopped his hand above the pile and gave the papers a closer look.

The folder included just three pages stapled together, all original documents, and he skimmed over the first page through a lot of party-of-the-first-parts (some company named Griff Inc.) and party-of-the-seeond-parts (that was Marvin) and saw that the papers comprised a contract concerning Marvin's big development, Mayakkatee Estates.

Sutter knew about Mayakkatee Estates, a twelve-hundred-acre parcel of oaks and mangroves on the Mayakkatee River where Marvin's people were already clearing out trees, planning on putting in high-income housing. Hell, just last week Marvin had sent him up to the construction site to get the plastic explosives he said he knew so damn much about. Sent him up there at night with a note to the watchman saying it was okay to go into the warehouse trailer to get what he needed—which was two five-pound boxes of stuff labeled
primacord.
Two small boxes, heavier than they looked 'cause the stuff was packed real tight, wrapped in cellophane, this coiled plastic cord like yellow clothesline, only it felt like the clay he'd used in grade school. You could mold it.

Marvin had said what pissed him off was he was putting on this big tarpon tournament, eighty-grand-cash first prize, and all he was getting out of it was a little percentage and some free advertising. Letting it dribble right through his fingers, that's what pissed him off. "The trick to making money," Marvin had told him. "is find people smart enough to have money to give you, and dumb enough to think you'll give it back."

So, wondered Marvin, what if his brother-in-law won the tournament instead of one of those schmuck sportsmen? That way, his brother-in-law could pay off the goddamn money he owed him, plus maybe prove to the other fishing guides that he wasn't a complete moron and knew how to catch tarpon.

"Trouble is, Karl," Marvin had said to him, giving him that buggy look, "you couldn't catch the clap in a Harlem whorehouse. But I know how we can fix that, if you'll go along with the deal."

Sutter had said, "Hell, I
like
the idea, Marv," thinking,
You fucking little midget. I bet you got to goose yourself in the ass each morning Just to find your dick.

So he got the explosives Marvin said he knew so much about. Then, the night before the tournament, they each got into one of those shitty little rental boats—they had to have two boats, Marvin had insisted, so they could drop charges at the same time but at different places—and they went fishing. Lightning and raining like hell, the two of them out there on Pine Island Sound bouncing around in separate boats, which Marvin said was perfect. With all the thunder, nobody would ever suspect what they were doing.

Only thing was, the water was so rough, there was no fucking way he was going to try to detonate the Primacord; leave that crazy business to Marvin. Tell him he couldn't get the fucking fuse ignitors to light; make up some excuse like that. It was so damn dark and raining so hard, Marvin probably couldn't even see him from his boat, let alone see what he was doing—sitting in the bottom of that shitty little rental skiff, hating all those black waves.

Well, Marvin was right about one thing: It was perfect. Because that was the end of Marvin. Only now, the police were saying that Marvin had been murdered. At least, the television news last night had said foul play was suspected; that Marvin had been beaten to death. Not blown up. He'd had his neck broken.

Into Sutter's mind came the glittering image of Marvin standing up in that little boat during a lightning blast, holding something in his hand. A weird-looking thing to see across two hundred yards of waves and rain, and then the ocean gave a great belch—an explosion—and he never saw Marvin again. Just found the rental boat about an hour later, the scats broken and everything a mess but empty, so Sutter had taken care of that.

So why in the hell did the police think Marvin had been beaten to death? Shit, the police doctors would know the difference between a guy who got blown to pieces and a guy who'd had his neck broken, right?

So what the hell had happened?

Maybe a boat had followed them out there—Sutter didn't like that thought. Gave him the creeps, the idea of someone following them through all that darkness. But it was possible. With all those clouds over the moon, they never would have known it.

Or maybe the cops
were
wrong, and Marvin had just been blown up and it looked like he'd been beaten. Fucking cops were so stupid, but he knew they'd want to paw through Marvin's things looking for clues
—dumb asses
— so he'd better hurry.

Sutter was reading the last part of the contract, the one concerning Mayakkatee Estates.

It read:

Whereas both parties are in agreement as to the terms of the sale of the described properties known as Mayakkatee Estates, and whereas the terms of this sale have been duly recorded, it is also agreed and entered into willingly by both parties the following, hereby known as addendum clause A: It is agreed that, if the aforementioned properties are sold
in toto.
then a full sixty percent (60%) of realized gross profits revert back to the original seller, or party of the first part (Griff, Inc., or Robert M. Griffin), to be paid upon demand by the original buyer, or party of the seeond part (Mayakkatee River Development, Inc.. or Marvin A. Rios). It is also agreed, willingly and faithfully, that copies of this clause. Addendum Clause A, shall not be publicly filed or duplicated, though it also be agreed that all matters pertaining to this contract and the aforementioned described property shall not violate any custom of the industry....

Sutter pondered over that, wondering:
If Marvin decided to sell the land and not develop it, why the hell would he agree to pay the original owner 60 percent of the profit?

That was weird; didn't sound like Marvin at all. fucking little shyster. But maybe it was the only way he could talk this Robert Griffin guy into selling.

Robert Griffin? Shit, he'd heard that name before ... Robert Griffin ...
Robert Griffin
the goddamn state senator, that's who this guy was!

Sutter banged his big fist on the desk, pleased with himself for remembering.

Hell, he'd met Griffin at one of Marv's famous assholes and high-fliers parties. Tall guy in a suit, with dark hair, like he'd used a whole can of hair spray. Smile like it was painted on by a PR firm, but a lot of nastiness in that weak Florida-southern accent when he didn't think anybody was listening.

"Senator, this is Karl, was married to my late sister. Anything you want, just tell Karl. He's the marina flunky."

Well, fuck you, Marvin. Look who's sitting at your desk now....

Sutter reread the clause, not understanding it all but certain there was something stinky about it. Marvin and the senator had entered into some kind of seeret agreement—that copies "not to be publicly filed or duplicated" said as much. And that business about "shall not violate custom of the industry" was just some kind of legal out. Yeah, that was it. Something to say they had no plans to break the law, but they sure as shit did have plans, because why else would they want to keep it seeret? And why else would a tightwad like Marvin ever agree to give away 60 percent of his company's own profits?