Verses for the Dead

40

I figure there’s a pretty good chance we’ll get shot out here,” said Coldmoon, with a mirthless laugh, as they passed by a shabby trailer with five skeletonized cars out front, surrounded by bedraggled palmettos. “These crackers aren’t likely to pass up the chance to try and jack a Shelby.”

“Perhaps not,” said Pendergast. He’d been paging through the Vance file again, and now he slipped it into the pocket of the passenger door. “But if it eases your mind, I’d lay odds you could outrun them.”

Coldmoon downshifted the confiscated drugmobile as they approached a sharp turn. Beyond the smoked windows, the landscape whizzed past — stands of tall marsh grass, clusters of dense vegetation and trees, an occasional trailer or abandoned roadside attraction. And always, running everywhere, channels of lazy brown water, with the occasional alligator basking in the sun.

The first half hour had been the usual snarl of Miami traffic. But as they continued west, past the racetracks and par-three golf courses and trailer parks, he did his best to relax, forget he’d been the one to suggest this boring field trip, and enjoy the ride. The initial section of road was familiar from his drive to Cape Coral, anyway, and as that little jaunt taught him, the layout of Florida was bizarre: millions of people pressed against the coasts like ants, and in the middle nothing but lakes, orange groves, cattle ranches, and — of course — swamps.

After they made the turn, Okeechobee Road ran arrow-straight through the flat landscape, the asphalt shimmering in the heat, mirages coming and going on the road surface. They entered an area of wetlands, with tall trees rising upward, bulbous root systems extending into the water like a tangle of snakes. They passed a large family of basking alligators, lying in the muck along the verge, black and oily and gleaming in the patchy sun, slitty eyes open. Some were even lying on top of others. Didn’t the bastards ever shut their eyes? Coldmoon shuddered. God, he hated the look of those creatures — and all of a sudden they seemed to be everywhere, roughly corresponding to the abrupt drop-off in human habitation. He had no idea Florida had so many. They were like giant snakes with legs. He wondered why alligator leather was so expensive, when all you had to do was come to the bayous of South Florida and pick off as many as you liked.

“Our turnoff should be in about five miles,” Pendergast said.

Coldmoon checked his iPhone. Thank God it still had a couple of bars — the last time they drove out of town, he’d lost cell reception almost immediately. “Four point four miles to be exact,” Pendergast continued. “Then another ten to Paradise Landing and three more to Canepatch.”

“Great.” Coldmoon, eager to get the interview over with, accelerated again, this time to ninety. The chopped-down Mustang seemed to prefer high rates of speed: the engine settled down to a mild roar, and the laminar airflow kept them low and steady on the road. The biggest indication of speed was the insects now peppering the windshield like hail, once in a while a particularly large specimen leaving a huge yellow splat.

The turnoff came before he expected it. There was no sign, but it was the only one around. He braked smoothly and hard, swinging the Shelby onto the side road. It began as potholed blacktop, but within a few miles turned into a white lane of crushed oyster shells. The trailers and rusting hulks of engines they’d seen before were gone. Instead, they were now passing stands of brackish water, saw grass marshes, and tall, strange-looking plants.

“Is this the Everglades?” Coldmoon asked.

“I imagine we entered the preserve when we left the state highway.”

He looked around. “Can you imagine the drive this guy must make to buy beer?”

“Even longer, I would imagine, for a decent Bordeaux.”

Coldmoon was used to emptiness, but it was the emptiness of the South Dakota prairie. This kind of desolation felt strangely claustrophobic, as if he was hemmed in by the tropical growth that grew wilder with each mile they went. “Why would anyone live out here?” he muttered.

“Here we have a man,” Pendergast said, “who was sure his wife was brutally murdered. Rightly or wrongly, he was convinced it wasn’t suicide, but he couldn’t make anyone else believe him, especially law enforcement. He was dismissed, ignored, humored as if he was crazy. An experience like that can break a man. It’s no surprise he decided to retire from humanity.”

“Okay,” Coldmoon said. “But that was twelve years ago. You think Vance’s still there — or even alive?”

“He was as of two years ago. We shall find out soon enough.”

“Yeah. But did you ever see the movie Deliverance?”

“No.”

“Well, all I can say is, if I start hearing any banjos, I’m turning the hell around.”

Behind them, the car was sending up a corkscrew of white dust. As the road deteriorated, Coldmoon slowed. The wild vegetation gave way to vast, tall grass, so high it felt like they were traveling in a green ditch. After another mile, a dark cypress forest loomed up. It seemed to go on forever, growing darker and darker until they found themselves in a gloomy swamp, the elevated dirt road running among the massive trunks of cypress trees and a thick, brushy understory. The greasy gleam of alligators could be seen again, here and there, in the rare patches of sun.

“Another mile and a half to Paradise Landing,” said Coldmoon, checking his phone. The two bars had dropped to one. After a few more minutes, sunlight could be seen through the cover of trees; then the road made a turn and ran alongside a broad canal. The forest opened up, exposing a burnt-green landscape with several sagging docks extending into the water, a shuttered convenience store, and a couple of rusted gas pumps under a metal awning. Beyond the docks, Coldmoon could see parallel lanes of a once-paved boulevard, with streetlights and rows of half-built homes looming up: concrete shells abandoned before completion. At the close end of the boulevard lay a few kayaks of faded fiberglass, flung together and of questionable seaworthiness. A peeling sign read, WELCOME TO PARADISE LANDING.

Coldmoon brought the Shelby to a stop and they stepped out. He looked warily for alligators, but if any were around they’d submerged themselves in the canal. A pair of egrets took off from the dock posts.

“Looks like one of those failed Florida developments you read about.” Coldmoon glanced again at his phone. “We’re still three miles from Canepatch. But the road seems to end here.”

Pendergast said nothing, just gazed ahead at the brown waterway with distant eyes.

“After you, kemosabe.”

Pendergast, still without answering, walked down to the dock. Coldmoon followed. A small aluminum airboat, not nearly as old as its surroundings, was tied up to one of the moorings.

“Evidently, someone still uses this place,” Pendergast said. He leaned over and examined the boat. “And the keys are in the ignition. How convenient.”

“You’re going to steal it,” Coldmoon said.

“We have the right to requisition it,” Pendergast said. “But that won’t be necessary.” He nodded at a crooked wooden sign, on which had been painted:

“Awfully trusting out here,” Coldmoon said.

“I doubt anyone would come all this way just to hijack such a specialized form of watercraft.”

Coldmoon shouted out a greeting — once, twice — but there was no reply except for the buzz of insects.

Pendergast reached into his black suit — Coldmoon had long since stopped wondering how the man could stand wearing it in all the heat and humidity — slipped out a money clip, removed a hundred-dollar bill, and speared it to a rusty nail sticking out of the sign. He gestured toward the boat. “Be my guest.”