A False Dawn

TWENTY-FOUR

I was soon driving through the farm community of Lake Placid. The marquee on the Lake Placid Theater read: Ret rn of the Jed

As I pumped the gas at the Circle K, I watched a dozen or so farm workers in the parking lot. Jeans and T-shirts stained dark green from harvesting tomatoes and peppers. They sipped Mountain Dews, Dr. Peppers, ate sausage biscuits and microwave enchiladas while attempting to avoid my eyes.

At the register, a large black man was buying cases of cheap wine. MD 50–50, Thunderbird, enough of the stuff to give a platoon a hangover for a month. He glanced across his shoulder at me, black irises floating in twin pools of yellowish white, spattered with tiny specks of bloodshot veins. There was a half second look of suspicion, and then he turned away from me to face the female clerk who had finished ringing up the wine.

A scratchy voice came through vocal cords worn thin from years of cigarette smoke and nicotine. She said, “Comes to a hundred twenty nine dollars and two cents.”

The man reached in his pants pockets and pulled out a thick wad of bills. He peeled off two one hundred dollar notes and handed them to the woman.

“Where’s the dolly at?” he asked.

She snorted, clearing mucus deep in her throat. “Where it’s always at, in the corner, behind the mop, next to the ice machine.”

She looked at me. “You payin’ for gas?”

“Yes. The Jeep.”

“Be anything else?”

“No thanks.”

“Forty nine, fifty.”

I waited for change, watching the black man load cases of wine on the dolly. His biceps strained the T-shirt, which read: O-Rock 107 — The Christian Alternative.

The clerk handed me the change, and she reached for a smoldering cigarette.

“Can you tell me how far I am from SunState Farms?” I asked her. The black man stopped loading the last case of wine for a second, listening, breathing heavy.

The woman exhaled smoke through her leathery, pitted nostrils. “No more than nine or ten miles east on Highway 60.” She looked at the black man. “Silas, why don’t you have him follow you, if you’re goin’ to the farm?”

He leaned the dolly toward his gut. “I ain’t goin’ there.”

“No problem,” I said. “Wherever you’re going, it looks like it’ll be quite a party.”

“Somethin’ like that.” His tone had a challenge. “Who you want at SunState?”

“Richard Brennen. I understand he’s running for office.”

“So I hear.”

“You know where I can find him?”

“Depends. If you’re sellin’ stuff, he ain’t the man to see. He got people for that.”

“Maybe I want to make a campaign contribution.”

He looked at me through eyes cold as black lava rock that had turned to stone a lifetime ago. His disdain soaked into my skin like a coffee spill inching through a paper towel. I noticed a two-inch scratch on his left cheek. He gripped the dolly with both of his large hands and backed out the door.

I wanted to give him time to load the wine and beer. I bought bottled water and then walked to my Jeep while he finished stowing his cargo in a decade-old Ford van. I watched the van head east on Highway 60. I let him get a good distance down the road before pulling out to follow.

The first SunState Farms sign appeared sooner than I anticipated. The sign was not large, but its message was:

I drove another half mile and saw a second SunState Farm’s sign. I was beginning to appreciate the size of the operation when I drove nearly a mile further before coming to the entrance. A truck, loaded with tomatoes, came out of the gate.

I thought the man driving the van would pull into the main entrance to SunState. He passed the gate and picked up a little speed. Another mile and the van turned off the road. I slowed just enough to see that the van had stopped about 100 feet down the dirt road. The man the clerk had called Silas was urinating in the bushes.

I kept driving. I’d let a few miles pass before turning around and going back to the dirt road. As I made a u-turn, my cell rang. It was Nick. “Sean, the cops are here.”

“What?”

“The onion head dude. He’s got two real cops with him. And they’re walking to your boat.”