A False Dawn

TWENTY-FIVE

I knew they’d come with a search warrant. And I knew Slater wanted to find me on Jupiter to make it work. “Nick,” I said, “casually walk down the dock toward Jupiter. Chances are they won’t break in the boat. They may ask you if you know where I am. Tell them I’m due back Sunday for a morning fishing trip.”

“No problem. Where’re you?”

“If you don’t know, you can’t say.”

“Man, you don’t have to worry about me. I don’t say nothin’.”

“I’ll call you later.” I ended the connection and pulled back on Highway 60 heading west. Soon I was turning down the dirt road where the black man urinated.

A quarter mile down the sandy road, I entered a third world country on a few acres in Florida. Dozens of trailers, many dilapidated and supported by cinder blocks and rusted jacks, lined both sides of the road. An old school bus, tires flat, wheels rusted, sat near a trailer. A brown-skin little girl, no more than two, belly swollen, wearing a diaper sagging from urine and feces, stood in the open door of the bus.

A barefoot woman, late twenties, sat on a metal folding chair under an Australian pine and breast-fed a baby. She watched me without reaction and then lifted a hand up to chase flies away from the baby’s face.

An open ditch flowed with liquid that resembled molasses. The bloated body of a black cat was lying on its back in the water. A turkey vulture paid no attention to my Jeep passing as it tore into the dead cat’s belly. The air carried the caustic scent of human waste, farm chemicals, green tomatoes and burning trash.

An underfed dog, part black lab and part unknown, barked and tried to chase my Jeep. It stopped short, the dog’s right hind leg stiff with atrophy and disease. Chickens scattered as I drove slowly through the community.

The place was about the size of a football field. Everything was bordered by rows of tomato plants, rows that were planted into the horizon. The doublewide and singlewide trailers were mixed with a few tarpaper shacks and a graveyard of old pickup trucks, cars, vans, tractors, a backhoe, and other farm equipment.

One trailer, a singlewide, fairly new and maintained, seemed to serve as some kind of store. A dark-skinned man came out of the door with a loaf of white bread and a six-pack of diet Pepsi in his hands. Another farm worker walked up the three steps leading to the open door and went inside.

I drove on slowly, but couldn’t find any sign of the van I’d followed or its driver. When I came to the end of the row, I noticed a lone trailer isolated from the rest of the camp. All the blinds were down and the trailer looked unoccupied. Turning and starting to drive in the direction I’d come, I looked in my rearview mirror and saw a black man stepping out of the trailer. I stopped. As he came closer, I recognized the T-shirt. I turned off the motor and waited for him.

“Don’t like peoples following me,” he said, standing by my car door.

“Didn’t see any ‘no trespassing’ signs. I was trying to find SunState Farms. I guess I made a wrong turn.”

“Guess you did. SunState is on down the road. Only a blind man would miss ‘em.” He braced his big hands on both sides of my door and leaned closer to me. A worn toothpick was in the left side of his mouth. His breath smelled of last night’s beer, onions and decaying beef jerky. “What are doin’ here?”

“I told you, I’m looking for Richard Brennen.”

“Brennen don’t stay here. He don’t even come here. Got the wrong place, dog.”

“I’ll have to expand my search.”

“Don’t expand it ‘round here no more. Get the hell on outta here!”

“You might want to work on your diplomacy, pal.”

“I ain’t your pal. Move your white ass off this property.”

The phone on his hip rang. He picked it up and pressed a speaker button.

“Silo, where you at?” The voice was clipped. Spanish accent.

“Camp. We got us another trespasser.”

“Who?”

“Dude who’s been followin’me.”

“Hold him ‘til we get there.”