Captiva

Chapter 13

Hannah insisted on fishing. Said, "I've got house payments to make, and no money comin' in as ofjuly." Also insisted that I go with her. "When you're feeling up to it again, I want somethin' between us besides distance." Bawdy, hungry tone to her voice.

So I went mullet fishing with Hannah. The logistics were tricky. I didn't want to get on her boat and have to spend the night in Gumbo Limbo. I didn't know if Tomlinson could be counted among Hannah's six lovers or not—she was so damn touchy about her independence I was afraid to ask. Whether he was or whether he wasn't, it would have been too weird, all three of us in the same house together, because Hannah was not a subdued and noiseless bed partner. She had whooped and moaned and made my small bed crash like a tambourine. Later, on the floor, she had thumped the walls with her heels. Same thing, later still, out on the deck.

Those are not sounds to be shared through thin walls with a friend.

Also ... I wasn't entirely sure that I had the energy to help her produce those sounds again. Hannah made love without a hint of self-consciousness. She had one of the most spectacular bodies I had ever seen. But we all have our limits. Hannah had pushed me to mine—then helped baby me along until I had exceeded them.

So, what we decided was, Hannah had access to a little fish house off the southern point of Sulphur Wells, not far from the village of Curlew. Arlis Futch owned the house, though he had all but given it to her. By boat, Curlew was about halfway to Gumbo Limbo, only thirty minutes. I would lash Tomlinson's Zodiac onto my Hewes, then follow her to the fish house and tie my boat there. When we were done fishing, she would take the Zodiac in tow, and I would return to Dinkin's Bay.

She kept saying, "I don't know why you don't just come up and stay with me for a few days. Tommy, he wouldn't mind a bit."

I said, "Tommy will understand," wondering if he would—hoping he wouldn't.

Now it was after ten p.m., and we were in Hannah's boat. She stood forward of the engine well, using the PVC pipe to steer. I stood just behind her, right leg braced against the well for balance. When Hannah was at the controls, balance was required because of the way she veered in and out of islands. When we were behind a lee shore, out of the wind, she would twist the throttle open, and the little skiff would seem to gather buoyancy as it flew us across the mud banks. No moon, no running lights, no spotlight. She ran everything from memory. Said she loved speed, the force of the wind on her face.

"You get scared, just grab my shoulder!"

She had to holler above the engine noise to make herself heard.

I put my chin next to her ear. "If I grab your shoulder, it won't be because I'm scared."

Every now and then, she'd lean against my chest so that I could support the weight of her. Let her hair flap in my face, then reach back and squeeze my thigh. Mostly, though, she concentrated on finding fish.

When we were off Pine Island, just southeast on Mondongo Island, she slowed the boat abruptly. We were in slightly more than two feet of water, and I could see the green bioluminescent tracer-streaks of mullet flushing ahead of us. I had already squatted to grab the gunwale when she yelled, "Hang on!" then gunned the engine while, at the same instant, tossing out an anchor that was connected to the gill net.

The net began to peel out behind us as Hannah made a high-speed circle around the fish. She circled them a second time, then a third, using the bailing can to bang on the deck. The noise would spook the fish into the mesh. Finally, she killed the engine, and switched on a bare twelve-volt light bulb that was suspended from a wooden arm above the icebox. Felt our own wake catch us, rolling the boat, as Hannah said, "That's the fun part. Now I'll put you to work."

Hannah called it picking mullet. It wasn't too bad with both of us aboard. But one person alone? No wonder the woman's body was stripped bare of fat, corded with muscle. The hardest part was wrestling the net over the transom. We stood on opposite sides of the stern, pulling the net hand over hand, piling it in the well. When a mullet came thrashing into the boat, she would twist the fish free of the net and lob it into the icebox. I did the same, trying to mimic her smooth motion. It took a while to get the hang of it.

"You still pooped out, Ford?"

"Me? Fresh as a daisy."

With Hannah, facial expressions were a second language. Clearly, she was dubious. "I'll tell you somethin' I've never told nobody. Running this boat by myself at night makes me horny as hell. The way the engine vibrates? It runs through the wood right up my legs. When we get going again, I wouldn't mind you bending me right over the engine well. While I'm still steering, I mean. Never done that in my life, and I would purely love to. In my mind—when I had the vision of you and me being lovers?— that's what I saw you doing to me."

"Jesus, Hannah, I thought you were talking about fishing. Was I too tired to fish—that's what I thought you meant."

Wild whoop of laughter. "I embarrass you? Well. . . get used to it. I'll never say nothing in front of anybody else, but you—you, I'll tell just how I feel." She was untangling a gaffsail catfish that had spun itself in the net. I watched her rotate the fish's lateral barb, remove the fish cleanly, and toss it overboard. "When I was a little girl," she said, "I used to love to ride on a train, only I almost never got the chance. Now that I'm grown, turns out it's the same with men. If a woman's fussy, if she waits till her body and her mind both tell her it's okay, then not very many trains come along. But when one does . . ." More bawdy laughter.

"A train, huh? I guess I'm flattered."

"Damn straight you should be flattered. Your problem is, you lose your sense of humor when you lose your energy. Not that it didn't take a while. Here—" She reached into the icebox and brought out ajar of her tea. "You drink some of this. It'll fix you right up."

I drank her tea—felt the caffeine jolt. I picked fish and nudged the conversation toward safer topics. A few minutes later, she was telling me, "The way it used to work was, we'd take our mullet in and sell them to Arlis. Sell them in what we call the round, meaning the whole fish. Anytime but December and January—the roe season—he'd pay us maybe forty cents a pound. Not much, and Arlis didn't make much either. But roe season, like now, he'd pay us maybe two bucks a pound, then sell them for maybe two-forty to the big wholesale fish plants in Tampa or Cortez. Freezer trucks would come around and pick them up.

"Up there," she said, "the fish go on a conveyor belt. They got women who cut the roe out of them—they use these ball-pointed knives so they won't nick the sacs—and they grade the roe by color and weight. The big plants, like Sigma and Bell, they'll sell the best roe for maybe twenty-two dollars a pound to exporters. The exporters ship it to the Philippines, or Hong Kong—places like that—where they sell it to wholesalers for maybe eighty or a hundred bucks a pound. You can imagine what it sells for on the street."

Hannah twisted a mullet from the net, held it out and squeezed the flesh around the anal fin. Tiny yellow globules began to ooze out: fish eggs. "We call it red roe, but it's really more like gold. Get it? Not just the color, but what it's worth."

I said, "But now you have a better deal because of Raymond Tullock. Didn't you tell me that?"

She was nodding; collected the mullet roe on her index finger before she tossed the fish into the box. Held the gooey finger out to me. "It's not bad. In Asia, they dry it into little cakes and give it as gifts. During the Chinese New Year, it's like the best gift you can give, 'cause it's supposed to be an aphrodisiac. Puts lead in their pencils. Couldn't hurt you to take a taste."

I thought it would surprise her when I licked some off her finger—the tiny eggs burst between my teeth, gelatinous and rich—but she only looked blankly at the roe that remained before putting the finger in her own mouth and slurping it clean.

She said, "Raymond went to Asia—this was a couple of years ago— and hunted around until he made his own contacts. I know he got some Japanese backers for money. But the importer he made friends with is in Indonesia, only sometimes he calls it something else. Where he goes, I mean."

"Jakarta?" I guessed.

"You mean, like a city? No, it wasn't Jakarta. A funny name ... it had a weird sound."

The Republic of Indonesia is comprised of many thousands of islands, but I tried again. "Borneo? New Guinea?"

"No. . . ."

"Sumatra?"

She snapped her fingers. "That's it! How'd you know?"

I reminded her that I had once traveled a lot.

She accepted that, but her expression told me she wanted to ask questions—How were the girls over there?—but instead, she said, "I guess that's the main thing in the international seafood business. Having contacts? Like the guy who runs the big Tampa export business, he's got important family connections in the Philippines. Another guy has Hong Kong all locked up. I'm talking about mullet roe now. You ever go to one of those big fish export places?"

I had, but I wanted to hear Hannah tell it.

"It's like the way you would picture the New York stock market," she said. "Computers and fax machines all over. These huge rooms full of people, everyone yelling into telephones. Only you can't understand them because they're speakin' Japanese or French or some other language that I wouldn't recognize if I heard it. Right up there in Tampa. Somebody in Germany needs swordfish? They arrange it; maybe have one of their brokers ship it out from California that day. Tokyo needs stone crab claws? Same thing. They've got these blast freezers the size of a gymnasium. But even if they don't have the fish in stock, they know someone who does, and they take their cut. People don't realize that the international seafood market is like a multibillion-dollar business. We do the catchin', but everybody else makes the real money. We go down, the other countries will just fish that much harder. And of course, they got no regulations at all."

I said, "That's the business Tullock started after he quit his job working as a marine extension agent?"

"Kind'a, but he just rents space from one of the big export companies. His contacts—where we sell to now?—it's all to Sumatra. He calls it a 'niche' market. They're not as rich as the Philippines, but it still works out pretty good. Raymond handles everything, so Arlis sells to him exclusively. Now, instead of selling fish whole, we butcher them ourselves and end up

makin' five times the profit. See what I mean about contacts in Asia bein' important?"

"I bet Raymond does pretty well too."

"Yeah, but he works for his money. Raymond rents freezer space in Tampa till he gets a container full—that's like a semitrailer that fits on an oceangoing freighter. He's already shipped one container, and in a few days, he's gonna get on a plane so he can fly over and meet it." She locked onto me with her eyes before adding, "He wants me to go along . . . and I plan to."

What she was looking for was an expression of jealousy from me, any indication that I would limit her by trying to possess her. I tossed the last of the mullet into the box, and said, "You ought to go. It's a fascinating island, Sumatra."

"You been there?"

"Once."

"What I want to do is learn everything I can about the business so I. . . so I—"

"So you won't need Raymond anymore? Make your own contacts?"

She was taken aback for a moment. . . slowly recovered . . . then spoke in a tone that I had not heard her use. The tone was resolute, uncompromising—yet not severe. She wasn't defending herself, just telling me how it was. Said, "You know how to make it hurt, don't you? Only it doesn't bother me a bit, 'cause it's the same thing you'd do. Aren't you the independent type? Damn right I'll try to steal Raymond's contacts. It's business, and in business, that's part of the game—or so the menfolk tell me." Gave that a homey, ladylike twist before adding: "Raymond's tried plenty of times to use me—hell, using me is about all that poor bastard has on his mind."

"You mean as in—"

"I mean as in fuckin' me. Yeah." Looked hard at me to see how that was accepted. "That's part of it. I haven't given him the first taste, which just makes him crazier for it, but it also makes him easier to handle."

I said, "Maybe the other part is that you know Raymond was never against the net ban. A buddy of mine told me Raymond lobbied for the ban behind your back."

A thin, noncommittal smile. "Maybe."

"But if he makes his money selling mullet roe, why would he—"

"Don't you worry about my business, Ford. I know all about Raymond . . . but Raymond, he doesn't know all about me. That's just the way I want it." She was tromping the last of the net down, getting the boat ready to go. Stopped for a moment and stared toward the southwest. A pale, luminescent cloud marked the night strongholds of the barrier islands: Captiva Island, its lights twinkling; Sanibel, a gray bloom beyond. She put her hand on my shoulder and said, "See that?" She meant the lights. "When I was little, my daddy would fish so close to that island that I could smell the fresh-cut grass. All those big, rich houses, and the golf course—Yankee millionaires, that's what Daddy called everybody who lived there."

"A lot different than Sulphur Wells," I agreed.

"We lived on Cedar Key then, but yeah, about the same thing. Daddy always said if I was smart, I'd marry one of them. He'd pick out some good-looking man on the golf course, or some guy sweating on the tennis courts, and he'd say, 'There ya go, Hannah. Marry him, you'll never have to worry about another thing all your life.' Being a little girl, I'd always think, yeah, right, some rich man would marry me?

"About the time I turned seventeen, though, those rich men started staring back. Started giving me that little smile—like, hello, young lady. That's when I knew. I knew I could hunt around, play it right, and pick just about any one of them golfers or tennis players I wanted. Let them pay for me while I laid around in a bikini. I'd be one of their pretty ornaments and they'd let me pretend to be their partner." Hannah squeezed my shoulder; gave me a little shake. "You may not believe it, but if I put a dress and stockings on, I could walk into the fanciest restaurant on that island, and no man inside would think I was a mullet fisherman. Even if they thought it, they wouldn't much care." She kissed me on the cheek. "Maybe I'll do that for you sometime. Get all dressed up."

I said, "So why didn't you? Tell me the rest of it."

"Why I didn't snag a rich guy? I coulda. Hell, I thought about it. Have a real nice car, somebody to do the housework. Plan out dinner parties for my husband's clients—" She laughed. "Can't you just see me doin' that?"

"Yes, I can," I said softly. "I think you'd be good at whatever you chose to do."

"Well, what I've chosen is the life I'm meant to have. Tommy says it's my karma. Build my own business, live with my own kind of people. Net ban or not, that's exactly what I'm goin' to do. Whenever I get restless,

whenever I'm on the water alone and the lights of those big houses start winking at me, I just remind myself what happened to Big Six when she messed with outsiders."

It took me a moment to cross-reference that—she was talking about her great-aunt.

Hannah waved off my reply—subject closed—and leaned over the engine well to start the Yamaha. As she jumped the boat onto plane, she yelled above the noise, "You feel it? That's the vibration I'm talking about."

Close to midnight, both of us naked, tangled together on a bare mattress in a dilapidated stilt house near the village of Curlew, some portion of my subconscious kept nagging at me; would yank me back through the film of awareness each time I drifted downward, downward into the gauzy gray world of sleep.

Then, gradually, the subconscious found an unworn brain conduit, and the question that was nagging at me finally burst to the surface. I sat upright in the darkness . . . felt around for Hannah's shoulder and shook her. "Hannah, are you awake? Hey—wake up." She stirred. "What the hell's in your tea?"

Heard her soft murmur of laughter.

"Damn it, there's something strange about it. The way it affects me."

Enough light came through the window that I could see the charcoal shape of her: long panels of flesh tone ... a segment of cheek ... a wedge of matted pubic hair . . . one dark eye blinking up at me.

"Go to sleep. You worry too much."

Shook her again. "No, there's something strange about it. Makes me feel about half drunk. The same thing happened at Gumbo Limbo."

Her hand explored around until it found my chest, then patted its way downward along ribs, stomach . . . groin. When she found me, her fingers began to gently massage. "Um-m-m-m," she said lazily. "You don't feel drunk. More like warm wood."

"That's another thing. It's not normal. It's not. . . it's not even human. It won't go away. I could get gangrene"

She rolled over onto me, then used her teeth to pull at my chest hair; her tongue to trace the abdominal expanse. Said, "I'm no doctor, but I do know a little first aid," before ingesting me. I felt the siphoning draw of her lips, her tongue ... lay back momentarily . . . then fought my way upright again. Took her hair in my hands and lifted her head. "No you don't. First tell me what's in the tea."

She hesitated, staring at me in the darkness, then scooched her way up and kissed me on the lips. "Is it real important?"

"Then I'm right?"

"I'll show you, but I want you to remember somethin'—you didn't have a drop before the first time. Tonight at your place, I mean. That's what I want you to remember. It was just you and me, both of us feelin' the way we felt. My tea didn't have a thing to do with it."

I was thinking: Jesus, the woman has drugged me. But said agreeably, "Nothing's going to change that. Just the two of us. Our own free will. Exactly."

"We're lovers?" She seemed worried; vulnerable for the first time, which I found touching.

Kissed her on the forehead, then on the lips. "Yep, lovers."

She got to her feet; moved around carefully in the darkness. "I'd like that. You and me; neither of us the marrying kind. I'll have my house at Gumbo Limbo, you'll be over on Sanibel, and when either one of us gets the urge to be together ..." There was the flare of a kitchen match, a sulfur stink. I watched Hannah's face, bathed in gold, as she lit an oil lamp. ". . . you call me, or I'll call you. We can have our own lives, but we can have each other, too. We'll be like . . . secret partners."

I stood behind her, put my hands on her shoulders. "You don't need to get me drunk to have that."

"You sure? I'm gonna tell you, but I want to be sure."

Turned her to me and kissed her. "I'm sure. Now tell me what's in the tea."

She smiled, moved away—naked; comfortable with it—and began to lift away boards from what I thought was a solid wall. "This is Arlis's old hidey-hole. For a time there, he never trusted banks, so he built this himself way back in the thirties. When he was young." From the wall, she carefully removed a black duffel and held it open to me. Inside were a dozen or so small brown bottles, a nub of white candle, a leather-bound book, and an opaque sphere made of green glass. I remembered seeing similar glass balls on the mantel over her fireplace.

She took out one of the bottles and the glass ball. Held up the glass ball and said, "This one's a powder made from the bark of an African tree. It's called yohimbe. It's supposed to grow hair, but it's also supposed to be about the only aphrodisiac that really works." She looked down at me. "By golly, it seems to!" Was still laughing at that as she indicated the bottle. "In here, I've got a combination of what they call blue stone from Haiti and oil from a leaf they call iron tree. Mix the two, plus a drop of turpentine, and you've got a love potion. That's what I put in the tea."

I took the glass ball from her and held it up to the lamp. It appeared to be hand-blown glass, very old, with air bubbles frozen within. It had an ingenious fluted stopper.

Hannah said, "Pretty, isn't it? It used to be my great-aunt's. Hannah's? This one and a couple of more, that's all I've got of hers."

I handed the ball back. "You sure you didn't put something else in the tea?"

"If I wanted to lie to you, I wouldn't've shown you this much."

I was relieved. No amphetamines or amphetamine-tranquilizer mix. Even so, it made me angry. Why pull such a stunt? I said, "No more potions, okay? Ever. You really believe in that stuff? Voodoo?"

She seemed suddenly uneasy. "I can't tell you about it. Sorry, I can't."

I sat her down and made her tell me. It took a while. She had once taken an oath—back when she was in Louisiana—and I had to take an oath in turn. Hannah was very serious about it. I pretended I was, too. When she was convinced I would never share her secret—I was honest about that, at least—she told me that Jimmy Darroux's mother had indoctrinated her. The reason was, the mother so distrusted her own son that she didn't want to see Hannah get hurt. Jimmy's mother was certain that he had fed Hannah a "love potion." To prove it, the mother had demonstrated exactly what Jimmy used to make it. Hannah had such a natural fervor for folk medicines that the mother spent the next several days instructing her. "She wouldn't let me write anything down," Hannah told me. We were on the mattress again, lying naked, my arms around her. "There were some things she wouldn't tell me—some of the real important religious stuff. But it explained why I got so hot for Jimmy so quick."

I said, "Yeah, but why do it to me? You just happened to have the stuff there waiting, and I show up—"

"I recognized you at the door, that's why, I knew we'd be lovers"—she made a sound of self-deprecation—"but you, you took some convincing. You showed up at the door, and I just thought. . . looked in the 'frigerator and all the Cokes were gone, so I just did it. I didn't make the tea planning on you coming. But I knew we would meet someday."

"Then why did you make it?"

"I . . . keep it in the house for Arlis."

"For Arlis? For Arlis . . . and you?"

"That's right. Arlis and me."

I fought off the twinge ofjealousy I felt; said in a tone of manufactured indifference: "I knew you were close."

She rolled over so that we were face-to-face. "That don't bother you?"

"Why should it?"

Hannah snuggled up close to me, very pleased. "That's what I think! Arlis, he's an old man. He's sweet as he can be, and . . . he's one of us. One of the old Cracker people. Like, him and me are part of the same tribe."

I guessed that she was parroting some past remark by Tomlinson, but did not comment.

"Arlis, his wife died more than two years ago. There's no other women on the island he gives a damn about, so . . . sometimes, when he's in a wanting mood, I help him feel like a man again. At his age, he needs the tea to help him. I don't do it out of pity. I care about the old bastard, and he cares about me. It's . . . private . . . and it's real sweet."

"That's why Arlis was glad when Jimmy died."

"Arlis hated Jimmy; he'd tell you the same himself. Arlis was so mad at me when I married him that he wouldn't even talk to me for a week. But he came around when he realized it was just me bein' . . . bein' me. I'm . . . kind'a a different sort of woman. I told you that before."

I kissed her cheek, then her lips; told her I was finally beginning to believe that. Then I asked, "Did Arlis hate Jimmy enough to kill him?"

She got up on one elbow, chin braced in hand. "The bomb, you mean?" She shook her head. "Arlis was glad about it. Real glad. But no, Arlis didn't have nothing to do with it." She paused for a moment, looking into my eyes, then said, "I'm the one that fixed it. I'm the one that killed Jimmy."

She said it so matter-of-factly that it took a moment for it to register. "You what?"

"About three weeks ago, he broke in the house and he hit me again. I told him what I was gonna do, and I did it."

"But how? Jimmy was alone. He brought the bomb to my marina—"

"I'll show you how," she said. Reached over and dragged the black duffel within reach, and took out the leather-bound book. "Jimmy's mama sent this to me just before she died. She was a good woman, but sometimes . . ." Hannah had the book open; was leafing through it. "Sometimes good women produce assholes for sons. I guess she knew that and thought maybe I needed protection. So she wanted me to have this."

The book was very old; had the nutty, musty smell of autumn leaves. It was written in French, a language I cannot read.

"What this is, it's the lost books of the Bible," Hannah said. "The eighth, ninth, and tenth books of Moses. You can't find it anywhere anymore—I checked around after I got it. Some people don't even believe that the books exist, but here they are." She had found what she was looking for and showed me. An entire page had been crossed out with black tape. "I used this to put what they call an 'assault obeah' on Jimmy. This and a ceremony his mama had told me about. Wrote his name on Chipman paper, then burned it with a candle. The thing with Chipman paper is, it'll burn, but the writing on it won't. The writing shows right through the ashes. I called Jimmy up to the house three days before he died and showed him this Bible, showed him the ashes. He acted like it didn't scare him a bit, but it did. His face went sort of funny; kind of twitchin'."

"That's all you did?" I suspected she could hear the relief in my voice. "You didn't have anything to do with the bomb?"

She said, "Nope, you can relax about that," and closed the book. "Whether you believe in this stuff or not—Jimmy, he believed. Maybe he was carryin' that bomb and got jumpy, knowing he didn't have long to live no matter what. Probably hit the wrong switch—drunk as usual. Or maybe nobody explained exactly how it worked. When he told Tommy to 'take care of Hannah'? The asshole meant take care of me. Like Jimmy was always gonna 'take care' of so-and-so; that's the way he always said it. You know— beat the hell out of them."

I didn't want to press her, but I had to. "Who didn't explain to Jimmy how the bomb worked? You need to tell me, Hannah. Who built the bomb?"

She stared at me a moment, then returned the book to the duffel bag and pushed it away. "I don't know who did it and I don't want to know."

"But you have some ideas."

"That's right, I've got some ideas. If I told you, would it be the same as telling the cops?"

I thought about lying to her; looked into those eyes and realized that she would know the truth anyway. "Yeah," I said, finally, "I'd pass the information along."

Which, for some reason, made her smile. "Let me think about it. Give me some time. Why don't the two of us just . . . relax a little before we do any more talking?" She had her hands on me, massaging my chest with strong fingers, her breasts hanging pendulously, brushing my face. Heard her say, "Hoo! Looky there—the big guy's finally gone back to the barn!"

. I was about to make some reply to that—tell her no, I wanted to talk now—when the door of the house crashed open. I heard a man's voice yell, "Jesus Christ, what are you doing?" Jumped to my feet to see Raymond Tullock filling the low doorway, his expression grotesque, a combination of outrage and shock. The beam of the flashlight in his hand was brighter than the oil lamp. He shone it on Hannah, then on me. Heard him say, "This guy? You're fucking this guy?"

My voice was surprisingly calm considering how hard my heart was beating. I said, "Get the light out of my eyes, Raymond, or this guy thinks you'll be eating that flashlight." The whole time, I was fishing around for pants, shirt—anything to use as a covering.

Tullock lowered the flashlight, but he still wore the grotesque expression. "Do you realize what you're doing to me, Hannah? Do you have any idea?" As he stared at her, I had the strong impression that he had never seen her naked before . . . that he was feeling both pain and wonder.

Hannah made no effort to cover herself. Said, "Raymond, you've got a special talent for acting like a dumb ass."

"Don't you dare lecture me! Don't you dare!" As he stepped toward her, I moved between them, ready to shove him away. But he stepped back immediately. Seemed to gather himself, and said in a cold, controlled voice, "I've been looking for you all night. Trying to call you on the radio, driving all over the island. There're men out in boats trying to find you."

"You serious, Raymond? You damn well better not be joking—"

"No joke. Arlis is the one who finally told me to check here." Raymond bent down, picked up Hannah's T-shirt, seeming to take perverse delight in what he said next: "That long-haired boyfriend of yours? A couple hours ago, some tourist found him out on the road, beaten nearly to death. Probably is dead by now." He tossed the T-shirt in her face. "They took him to the hospital, in case you're interested."

Chapter 14

To see Tomlinson, I had to look through a wall of Plexiglas. He was lying on a stainless steel table, a sheet over his bare hips, his body a nexus of tubes and wires and monitoring equipment. The most troubling linkage was a fogged green hose—it was segmented like a worm—that arched away from the concrete wall, then snaked through his mouth, down his throat. The hose, the table were all part of the respirator that was now doing his breathing. When the table contracted, Tomlinson's body inflated, then deflated rhythmically, like a metronome. The ventilator machine made a cold, hydraulic keesh-ah-h . . . keesh-ah-h . . . keesh-ah-h whisper, steady as a mechanical heartbeat, and Tomlinson's limp body jolted with each breath like a skinny bellows.

It was after two a.m. Around me, in a tight little group, were all of the regulars from Dinkin's Bay: Mack, Jeth, Rhonda, JoAnn, Harry Burdock and wife Wendy, Big Nick S Clements, Javier Castillo, and some others, plus Janet Mueller as well. Felix and Nels didn't live at the marina, but they had been contacted and were on their way.

Jeth moved up close to me, fighting hard to control his emotions. Said, "Why. . . why would some bastard hurt a sweet guy like . . . like ... He was such a guh-good man. . . ."Then lost it; didn't try to go on anymore. Sniffed loudly . . . covered his mouth and made a coughing noise as he shoved his way toward the back of the little room that the hospital had set up for us in the intensive care unit. Which set off the others... a lot of throat clearing and sniffing and the soft siren sound of restrained sobbing.

Tomlinson had made a lot of friends, touched a lot of people, in his years at Dinkin's Bay.

"Goddamn it," Mack said fiercely, "the buggers went too far this time! I'm going down to the sheriff's department in the morning. Tell them if they can't protect my people, I'll find a way to bloody well do it myself."

Something Tomlinson had once told me—Anger is the concession to fear—floated to mind as I said to Mack, "Now, now—I'm sure the police are doing everything they can." Said it in a tone that seemed to originate from some other person; a tone so cheerfully indifferent that it surprised even me.

Mack gave me an odd, troubled look and moved away.

That Tomlinson was on a respirator was bad enough. But worse was the uneven, broken shape of his head and face. Even through the bandages, I could tell that all the delicate bonework of chin and cheeks had been pounded askew. Also, his face and head had been shaved for the emergency surgery the doctors had already done . . . and for the surgery they had yet to do.

Janet came up and slipped under my arm, hugging herself to me. "He's got a chance," she sniffed. "When the doctor comes, I bet that's what he tells us. Have you talked to anybody?"

"The doctor, you mean? Not yet—she'll be up in a little bit." I patted Janet's shoulder. "It's not as bad as it looks. Tomlinson can't feel anything; doesn't have any pain at all." I pointed through the Plexiglas. "Notice his hands?"

Tomlinson's hands were folded across his stomach. Janet was confused. "What about his hands, Doc?"

"No broken fingers. No swelling. Do you understand the implications of that?" I smiled at her. "No defensive wounds. He made no attempt to defend himself. See? Tomlinson preached passive resistance all his life." The blank expression on Janet's face told me that she still didn't get it. "This is the way he wanted it." I pressed. "Don't you understand? He wanted to end up like a slab of meat on a table. It was his choice! That's why he wouldn't fight back."

Janet had me by both arms, looking up into my face. "Are you okay, Doc? Maybe you need to sit down."

I waved her away. "I'm fine, Janet. You worry too much."

"Doc . . . ?"

"Yes, Janet?"

"I think you need to go home and get some sleep. I'll be over in the morning to take care of the tarpon, okay? I'll feed them, then start the procedure. You just sleep in."

I smiled at Janet and nodded agreeably . . . which, for some reason, caused her to break down in tears.

More people were in the little room now . . . people I had never seen before. Mostly men and a few women. The men wore T-shirts and ball caps; the women wore plain-looking blouses, inexpensive slacks. Couldn't figure out what all these strangers were doing in the room, until I finally recognized one of the men: Tootsie Cribbs, who ran a small fish house in Curlew on Sulphur Wells. Hadn't seen him since high school. Went over and shook hands. Listened to Tootsie tell me that he hoped we didn't mind, but he and his church group had driven over in a caravan to see if they could help. "I only met Tommy a couple days ago," he said, "but he struck me as being . . . well, a nice fella. Different, but nice. Honestly interested in what we are going through with this net ban business, and . . ." Tootsie shrugged. "Truth is, I feel sick about it, Doc. We all do. We've got good people on our island. We work hard, raise our kids the right way. But we also got a few bad ones. Scum, that's all they are . . . anybody who'd—" He glanced through the Plexiglas at Tomlinson. "Anybody who'd beat a person like Tommy so bad, that's what they are. Just scum."

Tootsie, I decided, could be an interesting source of information. I began to ask a few questions. The tourist who had found Tomlinson, Tootsie told me, was on his way back to a Sulphur Wells mobile home park when he saw, in his headlights, what he thought was a big animal crawling along beside the road. The animal turned out to be Tomlinson, who kept right on crawling despite the pleas of the tourist to stop. When an ambulance finally arrived, the EMT's first guess was that Tomlinson had been hit by a car—he was that badly hurt. But then after they cut Tomlinson's clothes off him, sponged off the wounds, they found the word SPY sliced into his forehead.

"Spy?" I said—at least they hadn't cut his nose off. "I didn't know that, Tootsie. No way to tell with all those bandages on his head." Then I added, in an offhand, disinterested way, "Any idea who did it?"

Tootsie was silent for a time, looking at the floor, before he said, "Everything I know, anyone I suspect, I'll tell the cops. You can be sure of that. Hannah Smith's down talking to the detective now, and when she's done, I'll volunteer everything I've got. After that, my group is gonna hold a prayer meeting in the hospital chapel. You're welcome to come."

"Come on, Tootsie," I said easily, "just for my own information."

Tootsie was shaking his head. "I'm not like the others, Doc. I knew you ... I knew you before you moved away; went off to do whatever it is you did. I'd like to tell you, but I won't." Then he added, "I've seen that look in your eyes before."

The doctor's name was Maria Corales. I found her name heartening because I know how smart and tough Hispanic-American professionals tend to be. She used phrases such as "bad head injury" and "lung problems" until I demonstrated enough familiarity with human physiology to force her into specifics.

She said, "Okay, Mr. Ford, it's like this. The ER people did a good job-with him. They got enough Ringer's lactate into him, fed him enough antibiotics empirically, enough Ancef to get him stabilized. But he was still having respiratory problems, and the routine blood tests showed his electrolytes were way down. He was comatose by that time—obviously had a severe concussion—so they got him prepped for a CAT scan and had him all ready by the time I arrived."

Dr. Corales paused—she had the bedrock steadiness but slightly distracted, haunted look I have come to associate with neurosurgeons. Said, "Are you still with me?"

"What did the CAT scan show?" I asked.

"It wasn't good. Intraabdominal injuries, some signs of hemopneu-mothorax—bleeding in the chest cavity because of a broken rib—and some obvious swelling of the brain. I decided we had to go right in and have a look. I found a severe subdural hematoma. Again, not good. I did what I could, but I want my full team with me before I go back in and try to do any more. Also, we're still having trouble getting his electrolytes stabilized. For now, we're hyperventilating him, trying to lower the C0₂; get the brain swelling down. A general surgeon will be in to look after the internal injuries—they're all manageable. Actually, they're rather minor in comparison. The head injury is the real problem. I want to keep him under close observation. But if things don't improve very quickly, we'll have to go back in. Before the weekend, probably."

"The prognosis?" I asked.

Dr. Corales hesitated before answering. "Are you related to Mr. Tomlinson?"

"A close friend," I said. "A very old, close friend."

"Do you know if Mr. Tomlinson has family living in the area?"

"No, he doesn't. He has a daughter in Boston, but she's very young. The girl's mother is a friend of Tomlinson's—I can notify her. Tomlinson's mother passed away many years ago, but he still stays in touch with his father . . . and a brother, too."

"Was he ever married to the mother of his daughter?"

"No."

"Would you know how we can contact either the father or the brother?"

I didn't like the sound of that. I said, "The father is a paleontologist. I think he's doing fieldwork somewhere in Bolivia. But he's way back in; been living in the bush for years. He and Tomlinson stayed in touch through the mail. But only occasionally. Like once or twice a year."

"Do you have an address?"

"I can try to find one. The brother, he'll be difficult to contact as well. He lives in Burma. In Rangoon, I believe. I'm sure I can find an address, but it's my understanding that he's ... a heroin addict."

Dr. Corales's expression remained bland. Physicians have to work hard at being nonjudgmental. I said, "You were about to tell me the prognosis, Doctor."

The woman looked at the clipboard in her hand, looked at me, then hunched her shoulders into a long, weary sigh. "I'm afraid I just did, Mr. Ford. But we'll do what we can."

I was looking for Hannah—had been given directions to a downstairs conference room—and was striding down the hallway, glancing at numbers on doors as I hurried along, when Hannah and Detective Ron Jackson stepped out into the hall. They were still talking; didn't notice me until I was only a few yards away. Hannah glanced up, focused, seemed to refocus, then held her arms out so that I could take her into mine. Into my ear, she whispered, "I'm so sorry. Please believe me, if I'd known anything about it, I'da stopped it."

I held her away from me. Said, "I'm sure of that, Hannah," as Jackson cleared his throat and said, "I take it you two know each other."

I manufactured a weary but congenial smile. "They got you up early for this one, Ron."

"Early? I never got to bed. As I was telling Mrs. Darroux, I've been assigned to this . . . particular community problem." He made an open-palmed so-here-I-am gesture.

"Any idea who did it?"

"Not a lot to go on, I'm afraid. Still trying to assemble what I can, and we'll take it from there." I could tell he didn't want to talk about it in front of Hannah. He asked, "How's your buddy?"

I told them both what the doctor told me, but I tried to make it sound better than it was. I'm not sure why. Tomlinson was the one who believed in the power of positive thought waves, not me. Tomlinson, I said, would remain in intensive care under observation, and if need be, he would go back into surgery in a day or so. The doctors had high hopes. Judging from the way Hannah was looking at me, she knew I was lying. Maybe Jackson knew it too, but he played along. When I had the chance, I said to Hannah, "Would you excuse us just for a minute?" She stood there, obviously confused, as I took Jackson by the arm and walked with him a little way down the hall. When we were far enough, I said in a hoarse whisper, "They tried to kill him, Ron. Did you talk to the doctor? They did everything but run over him with a truck."

Jackson had already considered that; was shaking his head. "No ... if they wanted to kill him, they would have used the knife to cut his throat instead of cutting letters into his head. I don't think they cared if he died. I think what happened was, somehow they got the idea your buddy was spying on them, and they beat the living shit out of him because of it. Left him out along the roadside, like: Don't come over here and screw with us."

I glanced back at Hannah. I hadn't seen her since I'd jumped into my boat and blasted full speed back to Dinkin's Bay to alert the locals and then drive to the hospital. She had her hair tied back in a blue and white kerchief. She had changed into jeans and a black turtleneck sweater. It was the first time I'd ever seen her in shoes. Brown leather deck shoes. She gave me a troubled, quizzical look—Don't you trust me?

To Jackson, I said, "Maybe that's what happened. Maybe some outlaw netters thought Tomlinson was spying on them, but it could also be just a ruse. Somebody smart enough to lay a false trail."

He said, "What? What are you talking about, Ford?"

"There's a guy I want you to check out. A guy named Raymond Tullock."

"Never heard of him. He's one of the commercial guys?"

I told Jackson what I knew about Tullock's background. I didn't know where the man lived, but his business number could be found in the yellow pages. I asked him not to mention Tullock's name to Hannah—why risk tipping him off? Jackson said, "You have some solid reason to believe that he's involved?"

"Nope. Nothing solid. But I think the guy's a flake. I saw him in action tonight. I think he's obsessive-compulsive when it comes to Mrs. Darroux. First Jimmy Darroux gets blown up. Now the guy who's living with her— Tomlinson—ends up comatose in a hospital. Maybe there's a connection, maybe there isn't. I don't know if Tullock had the opportunity, and I don't know if he's twisted enough to do it. But the motive is there."

Jackson thought that over. "Mrs. Darroux, the way she looks . . . she packs a wallop. Funny thing is, I didn't notice it at first. But just now, when we were alone in the room . . . whew. Yeah, I can see it." He glanced up at me. "That's all you've got? A hunch?"

Tomlinson would have found that amusing—me functioning on instinct rather than reason. "That's all," I said. "A hunch."

"I don't know. That other name you gave me is looking pretty good. Kemper Waits? The guy's been in and out of prison. Cocaine trafficking, assault and battery. He was up on a manslaughter charge, but it was dropped. I went to work on it this afternoon after talking to you. But it's all computer stuff. I need more before I try to nail him."

I said, "How about if I drive up to Sulphur Wells tomorrow, do some poking around? See if I can come up with some information on Waits and Raymond Tullock."

"I don't know. . . ."Jackson was studying me, a severe cop-expression on his face. "I think it might be getting too personal for you, Ford. I don't like the tone in your voice. It's a little too light and breezy. You know what they say: Don't try to bullshit a bullshitter."

"I'm just trying to help, Ron—"

"You've already helped. You gave me a good lead." He was still staring at me. "Yeah, I think that's how we'll leave it. You get some rest; go home and have a beer. Let me and my partner work on things. We'll find whoever did it, and I'll let you know. If you want, maybe even let you tag along on the bust."

I smiled amiably. "Geez, Ron. That would be nice."

I was walking with Hannah. Had my left arm over her shoulder. She had her fingers knotted into my left hand. Ahead of us, far down the hall, Detective Jackson stood impatiently at the elevator. I wanted to time it right so that he would have to take the elevator without us. When the doors opened, he looked at us, glanced at his watch. I called, "Go ahead, Ron. We'll catch the next one." He stepped aboard; the elevator doors closed.

Ahead of us, down the hall, was an open, darkened room. When Hannah and I were abreast of the doorway, I swung her into the room. Held her there, my face inches from hers, and said, "Who did it? You know, and you're going to tell me: Who jumped Tomlinson?"

"Hey . . . Ford! You're hurting me!"

"Tell me, goddamn it. No more games. No more secrets. Talk to me!"

She wrestled out of my grip and stepped back, rubbing her arms. "I already told him everything I know," she said stubbornly. Meaningjackson.

"Yeah? So now you're going to tell me."

"You don't believe me?"

"That's right. I don't believe you. The bad publicity might stall that precious money you're counting on from Tallahassee."

Enough light came through the doorway that I could see the expression on her face: astonishment, a touch of disappointment, mostly anguish. She touched a hand to her forehead, stood poised for a moment . . . then stumbled forward and fell into my arms. I felt a convulsive tremor move through her body that exited as a sob. "He's going to die," she whispered. "You know that, don't you? I . . . should have seen it comin'. Maybe Tommy did see it—his powers were stronger than mine. But I didn't see it, and now he's going to die."

I stood there holding her, feeling her tears hot on my face . . . but felt no emotion of my own, nothing, except for a mild surprise that a woman so strong could shatter so completely . . . and that she trusted me enough to allow me to see it happen.

There was a leather couch against one wall—it was some kind of consulting room—and I steered her toward it, then sat, still holding her tightly. "If Tomlinson dies, he dies," I said. "Either way, I'm going to find out who did it—and you're going to help me."

"I don't know who did it. You wouldn't believe me anyway!"

"Maybe I will, maybe I won't. You're going to sit right here until you've told me everything. More than you told Jackson. With me, you're not going to leave out a single, self-interested detail."

She sat up on her own, stripped the kerchief from her hair and used it to dry her eyes. Took her time, seemed very tired. I expected anger. Instead, her face only registered pain. Watched her take a deep breath, hesitate, then breathe out through her mouth. "Okay. I'm not sayin' they did it, but there are . . . some guys camped north of Gumbo Limbo. A little stretch of beach—we call it Copper Rim, but you won't find it on the chart. They're netters, but mostly outsiders: Georgia, a few from Texas, North Florida . . . like that. Friends ofjimmy's. His drinkin' buddies."

"What makes you think it was them?"

"Give me a chance, I'll tell you. The last few years, they've come down for the roe season and camped there. Copper Rim's got enough water for their boats, plus there's a little footpath through the mangroves out to the main road. I know they got in thick with a local man, Kemper Waits, and I think it's them that's been stealin' boats and stuff. Maybe Kemper was behind the bombing, I don't know—he talks real mean and he's about half crazy. But the boat stealin', I'm pretty sure about. They strip the engines off, hide them somewhere—I don't know where—then somehow ship them north to sell for parts."

"Did you tell Jackson this?"

She sat silently for a time, then said in a small voice, "No. Not the part about the boat stealing."

"Where the tourist found Tomlinson—was it near the footpath that leads to Copper Rim?"

She had her face in her hands. "That's why I'm not sure. They found Tommy way, way south. A lot closer to Curlew than Gumbo Limbo or Rancho."

"But you suspect them."

She looked up, made a helpless gesture. "I don't know. Yesterday, Tommy, he said something about how it sure would help our cause if we could stop them boys from stealin' boats, stringing cables. That kind of business. He said maybe somebody ought to go up and talk with them. Try to reason with 'em."

I could hear Tomlinson on the telephone saying, Should the scientific observer ever allow himself to intercede?

"Is that all he said?"

"Yeah, that's all he said. He had my truck if he wanted to use it. That's the way he spent his days—writing away on my book, driving around and talkin' to the fishermen. He was . . . happy. Everybody he met on the island liked him. Nobody I ever talked to even hinted about him maybe bein' there to spy on us."

I said, "When you went home and changed clothes tonight, was your truck still there?"

"Uh-huh, that's how I got into town, but. . ." She paused for a moment, reflecting. "Now that I think about it, the truck wasn't parked the way we usually park it. We always back it in. I guess I didn't even notice, I was so upset about Tommy."

"Someone involved with the attack on Tomlinson could have brought the truck back."

"I guess . . . yeah. The keys were in the ignition. I looked all over the house, and that's where I finally found them."

I said, "Do you think there's any chance that Raymond Tullock was behind it?"

That surprised her. "Raymond? Why would he . . . ?"

"Come on, Hannah. Tonight can't be the first time Tullock's behaved like some jealous freak."

"Well, no . . . he's always jealous of me. Every man he ever sees me talkin' to, he's jealous. He's in love with me. He says he wants to marry me. But I don't think he could do something like—"

"Was he jealous of Tomlinson?"

"Course he was. He hated the idea of Tommy sleeping there under the same roof. Tommy and me were never lovers. Not that I would've told Raymond. What business was it of his? But aside from some real sweet. . . stuff, Tommy and I never—"

I didn't want to hear it. "What about Arlis Futch? Was Tullock jealous of Arlis?"

She was shaking her head. "Raymond never knew about Arlis. You're the only one I ever told about that. He knew Arlis and I were close. He didn't trust Arlis, but he had no reason to be jealous."

I thought: Arlis Futch is still alive. "So why do you keep Raymond around, Hannah? That's the part you're leaving out. Because he found a better market for your fish? Because it's a chance for you to meet some contacts in Asia? That's bullshit. Tell me why."

"Because I was using him, that's why!" Hannah yelled it, as she yanked her arm away, then stood. "I was using him just the way he planned to use me! Is that so hard to understand?" She crossed the room, felt around on the wall . . . and the shadows were suddenly flooded out by a sterile glare of neon light. She closed the door and turned before saying in a calmer, more controlled voice: "Raymond wants the land, Ford. Him and some of his Tallahassee buddies. They want Arlis's fish house and his pasture acreage so they can build a marina and a condominium village to go with it. They knew the net ban would put us out of business. That's the only reason Raymond ever came sniffm' around Gumbo Limbo. Yeah, he's been makin' money brokering our fish. But he'll make a hell of a lot more brokering our land."

"Does he know you realize that?"

She made a fluttering sound with her lips. "Raymond's too busy bein' tricky to worry about what anyone else knows. Now the poor bastard wants me as much as he wants the land. Hell, me and the land, we've come to be 'bout the same thing in his mind. So Raymond's been real careful about what he says. He kind'a hinted around to Arlis and me that yeah, since we had to give up mullet fishin' anyway, why not let him handle things? See if he could sweet-talk some investors into taking all that property off our hands. Or maybe the investors would let Arlis and me keep a little percentage. Like he's doing us a big favor." Hannah smiled—not a very nice smile. "So Arlis and me, we played along with it. Raymond says, 'I fought hard against that net ban,' we say, 'Sure you did, Raymond. You're a good ol' boy, just like one of us.' "

I said, "I don't see how that's using him."

"The men Raymond's got as backers? They're what he calls 'professional environmentalists.' What they really do is all the surveys and studies so developers can get their state permits. They're old buddies of his from the Fisheries Conservation Board. We told Raymond we might be willing to include them in some kind of corporation, but first we wanted them to go ahead and get the zoning changed on our land from agricultural to commercial. Like about seven or eight thousand dollars' worth of work—just to show their heart's in the right place."

"But Arlis's fish house is already zoned commercial. It has to be—"

"The cattle pasture across the road isn't," she said. "Arlis's fifteen acres and my three acres. Where they want their condominium project to go."

"Did you sign any sort of contract?"

"You keep thinking I'm dumb, Ford. I'm a lot of things, but dumb is not one of them. Besides, the only contract Raymond's interested in is the one I keep between my legs. Nope, no contract. I want the zoning changed so I can get my fish farm goin'. That and maybe a little marina. Just Arlis and me. We couldn't afford to get it changed on our own—even if we do get our money from the state." She was shaking out the bandanna, retying it in her hair. "So now I guess you think I'm a sneaky little bitch, using Raymond the way I am." She was looking at me, expecting an answer.

"Would it matter to you if I did?"

She made a small noise of exasperation as she opened the door, then stood in the doorway, studying me with her dark eyes. "Know what, Ford? It would matter to me. It'd matter a lot." As she turned to leave, I heard her say, "But you probably wouldn't believe that, either."

Chapter 15

That morning—a winter-bright early Wednesday morning—I bolted the door after entering my house, and I hunted around through the desk until I found two small stainless steel keys. One key fit the bottom drawer of my fireproof clothes locker. I used the key to open the drawer, then removed the neat stacks of clothing therein. Also unlocked and removed the drawer's false bottom—which revealed equally neat stacks of folders, two bogus passports, some clothing, and other detritus from a life I thought I had abandoned long ago.

I took out a manila envelope that had OPERATION PHOENIX stamped on the cover. Took out another envelope that had the words "Direccion: Blanca Managua" written on a label in red felt-tip pen. Fought the urge, once again, to burn the envelopes—and some similar files—in a private little fire. I lingered over the image of that, enjoying the freedom those imaginary flames produced . . . before reminding myself how unwise it would be to destroy my only wedge against potential legal problems from which no statute of limitations would ever protect me.

Set the envelopes aside. Squatted there staring, for a time, at the nine-millimeter Sig Sauer P-226 semiautomatic handgun that lay, in its shoulder holster, atop a black navy watch sweater that I had not worn in years. Removed the Sig Sauer from the holster, feeling the weight of it. Popped the clip, flipped the slide lock, and removed the barrel. The weapon had an industrial-black finish ... the spring and metalwork still mirror-clean beneath a layer of oil.

I lifted up the sweater and found the leather case within which was a six-inch custom-built sound arrestor. Screwed the silencer onto the barrel, admiring the precise machining . . . swung the weapon in a fast arc, retesting the once familiar balance of it. . . recalled the amplified blowgun noise it made when fired: THOOP-ah. Then paused, considering the wisdom of carrying it. I had no intention of using the Sig as an offensive weapon, but everyone in America was carrying firearms these days, from frightened housewives to feral children gone wild in ghettos . . . and probably itinerant mullet fishermen, too. What if they heard me and were idiotic enough to start plinking away at unidentified sounds?

Then I thought: But they'll never hear me.

I sprayed another coat of oil onto the Sig and its sound arrestor before putting them away.

Ultimately, the only articles I removed from the drawer were the watch sweater, some well-worn Australian S.A.S. field pants in dark battle pattern, a black silk balaclava face hood, leather gloves, a thin-bladed knife in a plastic scabbard that had been given to me by a Israeli friend assigned to the Mossad, and finally, a small, weighty waterproof bag. I opened the bag and removed a set of Starlite goggles and placed them on my bed. With its twin monoculars and padded face frame, the Starlite unit resembled a gadget that might be used by a mad scientist more than the sophisticated—but outdated—second-generation night-vision system that it was.

I had to go into the lab to find the double-A batteries I needed. Unscrewed the power tube, mounted the batteries, then checked to make sure the rubber lens covers were tightly in place before switching the Starlite goggles on. I held the goggles to my face, then strapped them tight. Even with the lens caps on, the photo cathode within the Starlite's optical tube reassembled the light electrons efficiently. The room became a stage of green and eerie, sparkling elements—bed . . . stove . . . Crunch & Des, the black cat, peering at me . . . the bolted door.

I took the goggles off, relieved that they still worked.

When I was finished, I neatened the drawer—I am compulsive about such things—then placed the articles under my bed. Finally, I unlocked the door, went to my outside storage locker. My ancient jungle boots were there in a box. A spider had built her home in them. I shooed the spider away. Found my old Rocket swim fins, a good dive mask plus snorkel. . . and assembled a few other bits of hardware that I might need. Also got my hated contact lenses out of the medicine cabinet, and put them with the other things.

I wouldn't be able to wear my glasses tonight.

When I had everything ready, I stripped down to my underwear and lay down to sleep . . . and had just started to doze when I felt the vibration of someone walking up my dock. I glanced out the window—it was Janet. Checked the clock: 6:30 a.m. sharp.

The woman was punctual. She had stayed with Tomlinson at the hospital only a few hours less than I.

Lay back down and gauged Janet's movements by sounds that came through the screen door. Heard her stop at the fish tank. Heard her struggle momentarily as she opened the heavy lid. Then: "How we doin' this morning, Green Flag? Where's . . . where's. . . ? There you are. You're looking handsome this morning. Ready for breakfast?"

I guessed she was talking to the tarpon she called Red Threat.

Heard her coming up the steps to my house. Thought about getting up to greet her . . . but decided I didn't feel like talking to someone as nice as Janet Mueller. Didn't want to risk softening the cold, cold mood I was in—a mood I would need to keep and protect through the day and well into the night.

Heard her stop at the screen door. I kept my eyes closed. Knew that she could look in and see me lying there, a blanket pulled across my hips. Hoped she would see that I was asleep and return to her work with the tarpon. Instead, I heard the door creak open . . . felt her pad across the room . . . sensed her standing next to the bed, close to me.

"Sweet dreams." Words whispered so softly that I barely heard them. Felt warm lips touch my forehead . . . nothing else for several seconds . . . then felt her fingers on my chest, a touch so light, so hesitant that it seemed experimental. . . then felt her lips On mine . . . briefly, very briefly . . . and then she was gone, out the door.

I waited awhile before opening my eyes and to look through the window. Janet was out there in khaki slacks and the same brown sweatshirt, feeding my fish. She was making a cheerful little whistling noise, lips pursed, while she worked.

I awoke just after one p.m., dreaming of Hannah. It was a restless, troubled dream, rife with frustration. I sat up grcggily. The details had already faded. Something that had to do with chasing a bus that roared away each time I drew near. Maybe Hannah was on the bus. Or maybe she was chugging right along behind me. I couldn't remember.

The phone rang. I got up, a little surprised to realize that I hoped it was Hannah calling. Give me a chance to make amends—I'd been way too rough on her. But surely she would understand. . . .

It wasn't Hannah. It was a Dr. Wesley Evans calling from the University of Minnesota, wondering if I could ship four dozen fresh cannonball jellyfish to the biology department. I told Dr. Evans that come August, I could ship him four thousand fresh cannonball jellyfish, but none at all in January.

Tried to sleep a little more, but kept thinking of Hannah. Her voice drifted in and out of my mind: I like the way you look, the way you move. I like the way your brain works.

Lay there and admitted to myself that the feelings were reciprocal. I did, indeed, like the way Hannah Smith looked, the way she moved. . . and was intrigued, at least, by the way her mind worked. Also admitted that the feelings were real. They had nothing to do with that herbal tea concoction she had fed me—a stunt that still made me mad when I thought about it. Hannah was . . . different. No doubt about that. But . . . damn if I didn't like her anyway. In fact, that was precisely why I liked her. A big, strong woman who was wild and hard-tethered with confidence; a woman who didn't hesitate to tell you exactly what she wanted and when she wanted it. The kind who would keep things . . . private. Heard her say: I'll have my place, you '11 have yours . . . like secret partners.

Heard Tomlinson's voice say: You and Hannah are both extreme people.

Which is when I threw the covers back and dialed Hannah's number. On the push-button phone, her number sounded like an abbreviated stanza of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star."

I let it ring and ring. No answer. There was another thing I liked about her: She was one of the two or three people remaining in America who did not use an answering machine.

I dressed and went outside. I used my mooring pulley-system to haul my flats skiff close enough, then mounted the White Shark trolling motor on the bow—just in case I needed to move quickly and silently through the night. Afterward, I idled over to the marina to top off the fuel tank; then I got in my truck and drove into town to visit Tomlinson.

Something new had been added to Tomlinson's retinue of tubes and wires: an electroencephalogram monitoring system. While I listened to the respirator do his breathing—keesh-ah . . . keesh-ah—and listened to the heart monitor echo the pulse of his heart—bleep . . . bleep . . . bleep—I could now watch Tomlinson's brain waves track across a green CRT screen. They had wheeled him over beneath an oblong window. Light from the window washed over him, and he looked very tiny, paper-thin, and frail.

I stood there for an hour or more watching the screen, eyes fixed to the monotonous flow of oscillations. For long stretches of time, the waves drifted along incrementally. Small, even bumps that were widely spaced. But every now and then the man would reward me with a fast series of snow-cone shaped peaks, letting me know that he was still in there, still alive beneath all the gauze and damaged skull bone.

Hang in there, Tomlinson. Fight your ass off and dream good dreams.

Dr. Corales wasn't around, but I ingratiated myself with a pretty little red-haired nurse who had runner's legs and killer green eyes. Her name was Debbie. Debbie checked the chart for me, and her reluctance to pass along information told me that the prognosis still wasn't good. She told me, "You never know with head injuries. People can recover in a few weeks, or . . ."

I finished her sentence without speaking it: Or a few years... or they never recover, ever.

She said, "Please don't tell anyone I told you, but I think Dr. Corales is planning another surgery for him tonight, or maybe early Thursday morning. She believes head injury patients do better if she operates at midnight or later. Some people say she's cold, not very emotional—not much of a spiritual side, I guess—but she's still about the best around, so you don't have to worry about that."

I told Nurse Debbie that I was certain Tomlinson was getting excellent care.

Rhonda Lister arrived. The Dinkin's Bay people were visiting Tomlinson in shifts now. I went off and tried to call Hannah again—still no answer—before returning to the intensive care unit, where Rhonda and I stood and watched the EEG screen, not saying much. Rhonda left and Nels showed up. He was doing his charters in an old Suncoast that he was renting. The deck was trampoline-soft with age, but it had good bait wells and he was making money again. We made no mention of the explosion that had ruined his new boat, but neither was there any awkwardness between us. Tomlinson—his condition—had leached away any lingering and private bitterness that remained.

Jeth showed up at five. Took one look at Tomlinson and got weepy again. We took the elevator down to the cafeteria. One of life's great ironies is that hospitals, despite their staffs of professional nutritionists, produce the world's worst food.

I didn't care. I didn't want to eat. I wanted to remain lean and light. I didn't want digestion to slow my thinking processes.

As Jeth wolfed down pasty mashed potatoes, he looked at me and said, "You're gettin' those black things under your eyes, Doc. Like circles? You don't need to stay here no more. Mack's gonna be in around suh-suh-suh-six.

I told Jeth I'd stay a little longer. What I didn't tell him was that I wanted to keep my mind occupied until well after dark.

Hannah was right. The nautical charts did not show Copper Rim. But I knew it was north of Gumbo Limbo, some vacant stretch of mangrove fringe, and that was all I needed to know.

At just after ten p.m., I left the wooden channel markers at the mouth of Dinkin's Bay and pointed my skiff into a thumping, blustery northwest wind that seemed to blow down out of the stars. Dark night with scudding clouds and rolling black seas. I banged along at half throttle, bow trimmed high, trying to sense a rhythm to the waves so that I could find the driest, most effective speed.

But there was no rhythm, no order. Just the ice-gray combing of breakers that I could not see until they were on me. Each time I miscalculated, my boat would slam belly-hard into the trough and the hull would vibrate like a wounded animal. I thought about using the Starlite goggles, but didn't want to risk getting them soaked. So I took it easy. Pounded along, taking the occasional wave over the bow-quarter. Considering the conditions, the skiff powered me comfortably enough. Sweet-riding boat on a nasty, nasty night. There was no rush. None at all. I wanted to give the squatters at Copper Rim plenty of time to finish the night's fishing— or the night's drinking—and get back to camp. The more men there, the better my chances of singling out the ones who had attacked Tomlinson.

When I was below Blind Pass, I angled in close to shore. With the exception of Sanibel, the barrier islands of Florida's west coast run north and south. Now those islands provided an effective windbreak. I got the engine trimmed high and fast. There was still some chop, but not enough to soak me. Reached beneath the console, removed the night-vision goggles and strapped them over my eyes. Darkness was transformed into pale green dusk. The charcoal smear of islands became hedges of mangrove trees, singular and distinct. South of Redfish Pass, there were unlit mooring buoys. Picked them up well in advance, no problem. Using the goggles was like viewing the world through a jade tunnel that was hazed with glitter. Off to my left, the house lights of Captiva ascended star-bright into view. To each incandescent bulb, the goggles added the illusion of a streaking meteor's tail; created a glowing arc of fire that shocked the eye and penetrated to the brain.

I looked away.

Thought about Hannah; the story she had told me. Prior to leaving my house, I'd tried to call her once more. Still no answer. She was probably out in her boat, maybe not far from where I was now. Maybe working in the lee of some nearby island, picking mullet, alone.

The thought of that created an odd surge of emotion within me, the sensation of the heart being squeezed. But it was not useful to linger over such thoughts or feelings, so I turned my mind to other things.

It took more than two hours to get to the northern tip of Sulphur Wells. I'd taken off the night-vision goggles by then—didn't need them in open water—and resealed them in their case. I did an experimental run along the perimeter of the island, standing a mile or so off shore. To the south was Gumbo Limbo. Inland and to the north was the village of Rancho: a glimmer of yellow windows. Between lay the unbroken darkness of mangrove swamp . . . and then I saw what I knew had to be Copper Rim: a golden swash of campfire light.

I took my time. Didn't want anyone there to suspect a boat was approaching. An ideal night water insertion reauires that at least two people be aboard. One drives past the point of insertion at full speed while the other lies on the gunwale . . . does a quick push-up . . . then rolls into the water holding his mask in place. The method is silent and also strategically advantageous: A boat sped past in the night. Big deal.

But I didn't want anyone with me; couldn't risk it. And I had done this sort of thing, alone, before.

I ran a mile or more upwind, then shoreward before switching off my engine. Then I set about collecting my gear as I let the wind drift me down, down, ever closer to Copper Rim. Twice I had to use the trolling motor to maintain the driftline I wanted. Then, when I was slightly downwind but still at least a quarter-mile from the beach, I dropped anchor.

The campfire threw a halo of light over what appeared to be a tiny stretch of marl beach. There were half a dozen mullet skiffs pulled up onto the beach, and I could see the dark shapes of men moving around the fire. There were tents in the background; a radio was blaring. The wind swept the jarring heavy-metal racket past me. I checked behind me to make certain I wasn't silhouetted by a marker light—there were none—then I pulled on the balaclava face hood, the gloves, and gathered the A.L.I.C.E. pack in which I had stashed my emergency gear. Finally, I strapped fins over my jungle boots and slid, fully clothed, into the water.

The water was cold and as salty as the open sea. I stayed otter-deep in the water, fins working silently beneath the surface. Found myself counting each leg kick out of old habit. But there was no need for that. Swam nearly to the beach, then had to walk myself hand over hand, belly-down, through the shallows.

There were seven men lounging near the fire, passing a bottle around. The only one I recognized was Julie, the tall fisherman with the biceps who'd given Tomlinson and me a hard time at Arlis Futch's fish house. His buddy J.D. was nowhere to be seen. They didn't see me as I went from boat to boat, slithering over the gunwales to cut each and every fuel hose. I had to do it. One thing I wanted to avoid was a boat chase. My skiff was undoubtedly faster and it ran very shallow indeed. But no boat can run as shallow as a mullet boat. A mullet boat can jump sandbars and travel across flats where shorebirds can stand. It is because a mullet boat's engine is mounted forward near the bow in its own well. To catch me, all they had to do was spread out and run cross-country until they cut me off. Even if I did manage to dodge them, they might have weapons, and a bullet will win a boat race every time.

When I had their fuel systems disabled, I hugged myself down against one of the boats to listen. But because of the music and the wind, I could only decipher snatches of random conversation. Once I heard Julie shout, "An' if you ever tell a living soul what I jes' said . . ." but the rest of his words were indistinguishable. Tried to get a little closer, but couldn't get close enough to hear if there was any discussion of what had happened to Tomlinson.

It wasn't good. My original plan, conceived in rage, was to identify the guilty parties, wait until they were asleep, slice through the tent walls, and then punish them, one by one. Nothing bloody or brutal—using my Israeli knife to carve SPY into their foreheads was never a consideration. But there were ways, several subtle and perfectly quiet ways, to make the guilty men regret for the rest of their lives what they had done to my friend.

Yet I had abandoned that plan for a couple of reasons. One was that Ron Jackson was no fool. He would know who had done it and why it had been done. But the second reason was more compelling: After I had cooled down, I was reluctant to believe—didn't want to believe—that I was capable of such behavior. I was a legitimate biologist, for Christ's sake!

So I had settled upon a simpler plan: gather all the information I could surreptitiously, then take it back to Ron Jackson. By eavesdropping, I might be able to assemble data that was key to the assault on Tomlinson . . . maybe on the bombing and the boat theft ring as well. I'd give Jackson names, dates, and places. Wouldn't be able to tell him how I'd gotten the information, of course, but I would hand him the solutions on a platter, and leave the rest up to him. Everything nice and legal. . . relatively legal. The oudaw netters wouldn't even know that I had been there.

But there was too much wind, too much loud music.

I lay there in the water for more than an hour, hoping they'd shut that damn radio off. They never did. The only time they moved away from the fire—or the bottle—was to wander off into the mangroves. Because this was a two-month base camp, I guessed they'd had the good sense to designate a latrine area.

When I realized that, I realized my plan could still work—but with some tough modifications.

For some reason, that pleased me very much.

I reached into one of the boats and stole a coil of nylon rope. Then crawled out into water deep enough to float me, before swimming log-slow southward from their camp, toward the mangrove fringe. When I was shielded by the trees, I sat up, took off my fins, and wedged them tight into the A.L.I.C.E. pack. Then I put on the night-vision goggles and began to work my way carefully, quietly over the monkey-bar conduit of tree roots. January or not, mosquitoes found me. Cold or not, I was sweating by the time I finally found the little clearing. There was a wooden bench. A roll of toilet paper had been fitted onto a broken limb.

Through instinct and long conditioning, a human being knows that if there is enough light to see, then there is enough light to be seen. That instinct must be ignored while wearing Starlite goggles, particularly if you are hunched down in a swamp, lying stump-still . . . and on the hunt for other humans.

I decided to wait for Julie. I didn't like the bastard anyway, and he, at least, had a motive for attacking Tomlinson. I could picture the wolfish look he had given me while calmly lying to Arlis Futch. And I was still curious about the fragment of sentence I had heard: If you ever tell another living soul what I just said . . .

But Julie apparently had a plumbing system of iron. Or he was too lazy to leave the beach. Over the space of the next hour, four men stumbled through the bushes, did their business, and left. I was close enough to each man to reach out and grab him had I wanted. One of them carried a flashlight, which almost caused me to jump up into sprint position. But I remained frozen . . . closed my eyes as the light panned across the roots within which I lay . . . and he did not notice.

Tomlinson had once told me that too many people see only what they expect to see. It was true.

Finally, I heard the by now familiar rattle of bushes, and Julie came down the path. He was fiddling with his belt, already unzipping his pants. A cigarette hung from his lips. Through the Starlite goggles, the ash of the cigarette glowed like an infrared eye. I watched him drop his pants and take a seat on the bench.

I waited until he was done. Waited until he reached down for his underwear, and then I jumped him. Clapped my hand over his mouth as he went down, jammed my elbow hard into the base of his skull. When he made a meek effort to struggle, I whispered into his ear, "Make a sound . . . try to fight me . . . I'll cut your throat." Then I sapped him with my elbow again.

I felt his body go limp beneath me. Maybe he was unconscious, maybe he wasn't. Fear is the most powerful tranquilizer there is. I used electrical tape on him: hands, ankles, eyes, and mouth.

Then I hoisted Julie onto my shoulder, carried him to the water, and swam him out to my boat.

Chapter 16

I didn't remove the tape from Julie's mouth until we were fifteen miles or so away, on a deserted island named Patricio. Patricio had once been home to a couple of hardscrabble, turn-of-the-century farming families. All that remained of those long-gone lives were a couple of shell-mortar water cisterns and contours of high mounds the farmers had once plowed.

In South Florida, jungle is quick to reclaim the transgressions of man.

I'd used the stolen rope to tie Julie by the ankles. Tossed the rope over the thick limb of a ficus tree, then hauled him high, suspending him like a trophy fish. Let him swing helplessly for a few minutes, hands bound behind his back, before I walked over and stripped the tape away.

His voice had a shrill energy. "Goddamn, this is a joke? This better be a joke! Untie me, take this damn tape off my eyes!"

Listened to him rattle on for a while; recognized the sound of fear in him—an overoxygenated breath-lessness. Finally, in a low voice, I silenced him, saying, "Nope. No joke." Gave it a Deep South inflection: Nawp. No-o-o joke.

"Then what? Why? Who the hell are you!"

On the ride to Patricio, I'd decided how I was going to work it. Now I let Julie hear the voice of my imaginary accomplice—cupped my hands around my mouth, turned my back to him, and spoke a few sentences of cold, nasal Spanish.

"You guys Cubans? Jesus, what is this?"

I said, "I ain't no Cuban. And it ain't none of your business what my boss is. He says he wants you to talk. I was you, I'd start talkin'."

"About what? Shit! Cut me down. Hell, whatever you want to know, I'll tell you. I can't think like this. Feels like my head's 'bout to explode."

"We listened to you boys on the beach. That's what he wants to know about."

"Huh?"

"My boss and me heard you tell that real interestin' story. The guy you beat."

"The hippie, you mean? That's why—because of what we did to the hippie?"

I thought: Got you, you bastard.

More Spanish. I pretended to translate: "The hippie don't mean nothin' to my boss, but he says maybe we should hear you tell it again anyway. See if you tell it twice the same way. My boss, I guess he thinks you might try an' lie to us. That wouldn't be good, you lied to us."

Through the night-vision goggles, Julie's face had begun to resemble an engorged green grape. His breathing had become so rapid that I wondered if he would pass out. Snatch a person out of familiar surroundings, tape him, soak him, then short-circuit his equilibrium, and an existential terror will erase all the familiar groundings of self. I took no joy in his reaction . . . and was relieved that I didn't—only the truly twisted find pleasure in wielding dominance over another human life. Yet neither did I feel much pity.

"He's not gonna . . . kill me, is he?"

He was asking about my boss.

"You talk, probably not. That's up to him."

"I mean it, I'll tell you anything you boys want to know. Hell, you and me . . . the way you sound, we prob'ly got some of the same friends. You from around here? I know lots'a people from around here. You cut me down, I'll answer all the questions you got. Man, I'll help you."

I said, "Nope. The man pays me, so I do what he says. I hear what you're sayin', but these Colombians, they ain't like us, buddy-row." Listened to a sound of pure anguish escape from Julie—Colombians—before continuing. "My advice is, you start talkin' straight. My boss, he listens to me sometimes. You help us, I'll try to help you. You give us the information he wants and I don't see no particular need to kill you. I'll tell him that. But if he does give me the order, partner, I promise you this: A coupl'a country boys like you and me, well. . . I'll make it so you won't feel a thing. That's not somethin' I do for ever'body."

"Oh God . . ."

Julie began to talk. He talked nonstop. What had happened, he said, was Tomlinson had walked right into their camp. Julie, of course, recognized him—"He an' this big dude jumped me a while back"—and there was a rumor being spread around the island that Tomlinson was a spy. To them, it made sense. Some of the other men in the camp knew that Tomlinson had been talking to commercial fishermen on Sulphur Wells, asking lots of questions. What Tomlinson was, said Julie, was an informer sent to snoop around by some government agency. So they had slapped him around a little, trying to make him confess, but Tomlinson wouldn't talk.

"You should've made him talk," I said encouragingly.

"Man, we tried! But he just kept sayin' weird shit, not at all what we was askin' him. Like this stupid poetry crap and Bible verses. And was too scared to fight back a'tall. So what you gonna do? I made an example out of him. Hell, we had plans to track that hippie down and nail him anyway. So I thumped him pretty good. We dumped him off on the road, and we dropped his girlfriend's truck back where he was livin'. How else you gonna deal with somebody like that?"

I was feeling no pity at all for Julie now. But I said, "Sounds like the pure damn truth to me."

"Hell yes, it's the truth. I'll be straight with you guys. I'll work with you."

I told Julie that I appreciated that. Told him I was going to try and convince my boss that Julie was actually a pretty good guy. I moved off through the bushes and had a whispered conversation, South American Spanish, then slow Spanish with a Deep South accent. Returned to Julie's side—his body convulsed at my touch—and said, "Thing is, now my boss wants me to ask you some other questions . . ."

"If I know the answer, you got it!"

Julie didn't realize how much he knew. It took a long, long while to scrape pieces of information out of him. It wasn't that he wasn't willing to talk—"I'll tell you anything I know, man!"—but what he might think was some mundane, unimportant incident might, to me, be a key bit of data.

So I took my time with him. Showed a lot of patience. I became his buddy. Played good cop to my Colombian boss's bad cop. I didn't want Julie so desperate that he would begin inventing information just to please us. I comforted him, I complimented his memory when he reached down deep and brought out a name or some other forgotten fact. Gradually, very gradually, I pieced together the information I wanted.

Julie knew a lot about a lot of things. He told me how the boat-theft ring worked. They trucked the stolen engines to a little house Kemper Waits had back in the palmetto flats. There was a shallow freshwater pond behind the house. They dumped the engines in the pond—no one would ever think to look there—and then waited until it was safe to truck them north to Georgia where Waits had connections with a professional chop shop. The fresh water didn't hurt the engine components, and the chop shop paid off in cash, or in cocaine. Waits preferred cocaine. It was a lot more valuable to him—particularly now, since the local netters were going to have so much more time in their hands. Waits believed the net ban would help open up a whole new market. Give the younger ones enough free cocaine to get them interested, then get them involved in the stolen outboard motor business. Waits didn't like or trust the Sulphur Wells locals, and they didn't like or trust him. For Waits, it was just one more way to even the score.

Julie knew less about the bomb that had killed Jimmy Darroux, but he knew enough. Once again, Waits had played a central role. Julie didn't know for certain, but he thought Waits had built the bomb in a little concrete block shed near his house. Only he had heard that maybe, just maybe, Waits had botched the bomb intentionally as a favor to a friend. "Jimmy Darroux, hell, he was a pretty good buddy of mine," Julie said. "But I think he may'a stepped on the wrong toes, probably over that bitch of a wife he had."

I didn't want to press the issue too hard. I wanted Julie to leave the island with an entirely different impression about why he was being questioned. I nudged the conversation off the topic, then nudged it back again. Then I listened very carefully, as Julie said, "There's this guy used to work for the state. Him an' Kemper, they're pretty tight. Might go into business together. This guy used to come around an' inspect Kemper's boats an' stuff, give him advice about how he could fish better. He's the one says we can't take this net ban bullshit laying down. He told us he didn't recommend breaking any laws, but the only way to get Tallahassee's attention is to do like a white man's riot. You know, like burn baby burn. Hell, those people always get their way. The man's been up there in Tallahassee working; part of it all. So he'd know. I think it was him that give Kemper some book on how to make a bomb. I heard he told Kemper he prob'ly shouldn't do it, but Kemper, he went ahead and did it anyway."

I wondered if Raymond Tullock had also told them they probably shouldn't beat Tomlinson senseless—after confiding that his Tallahassee contacts had confirmed that Tomlinson had been sent to Sulphur Wells as an informant.

Didn't ask. Didn't need to ask. Instead, I got Julie talking about the cocaine trade. I didn't care about it, but I wanted him to think that I did. He kept asking for water—his throat was so dry. I told him he could have all the water when we were done. He tried to ingratiate himself—"Only a coupl'a good ol' boys like you an' me'd understand that!"—and through his abject eagerness to cooperate, he begged for his life.

I grew sick of him. I was sickened by the whole situation. One of the locker room maxims of hydrology is that shit never flows uphill. The maxim applies to human social dynamics as well. When the good ones, the hardworking hill climbers, are displaced for any reason—bad legislation, ghetto diffusion, or political leveraging—social sewage will flood in to fill the void. It was too damn bad. I wondered if the paper Tomlinson had intended to write on Sulphur Wells would have touched on that dynamic. Decided that Tomlinson's paper would have addressed that, along with subtleties that were beyond my power to understand.

I looked at Julie hanging there. He looked lifeless and mummified, like a mounted fish. Allowed myself to picture, for a moment, this big, loose-limbed goon pounding Tomlinson's face . . . quickly forced the image out of my mind because I didn't know if I could tolerate the cold and calculating rage that filled me.

I said, "Tuck your chin up against your chest," and I cut him down. The shock of the landing knocked the wind out of him. I rolled him over onto his belly, and as I sliced through the tape on his wrists, I said, "My boss says I can let you live, but there're a couple of conditions—Get your damn hands away from that tape on your eyes!"

Julie dropped his hands immediately. "Anything, man. Name it." He was sitting up, rubbing his wrists, massaging his cheeks.

"My boss's got what you might call an import-export business of his own. Only it's no piddly-shit operation like you're used to. He was thinkin' about usin' that guy Kemper Waits to expand into the area, only, after what you told us, Waits sounds like some dumb ass hick."

"He is! Kemper . . . Kemper, he's about half crazy."

"My boss is thinkin' maybe you might be a better choice. Set you up here, let you work into it slow. Rules are simple: We supply the product, you find your own distributors. Screw up and we kill you."

I could see Julie shiver at the thought of that. "I'd ... I'd get paid, right?"

"Make more money'n you ever made in your life. Move down here full-time, Julius. Buy yourself a nice place—that's right, we know who ya are, where you're from. First thing we got to do, though, is knock Kemper Waits away from the trough."

"You want me to kill—"

"I want you to keep your damn mouth shut till I'm done. The way were gonna work it is, we got a man on our payroll in the area. A local cop by the name'a Jackson. Now, Julius, you ever so much as hint to Jackson or anybody else that you know he's on our payroll, you're gonna be one of those ones I told you about. The ones I'm not always so nice to?" I waited for Julie to nod his head eagerly before continuing. "We're gonna have Jackson come down hard on Waits. You're gonna cooperate. Tell him everything you know. Might even have him arrest you on some piddly-ass little thing just to make it look good. Don't worry about it. Jackson'll be told you're one of us when the time's right. When Kemper Waits is out of the way, that's when you'll take over."

I patted him on the head; felt him flinch. Said, "It'll be light in another hour or so. You flag yourself down a ride. Wait for us to get in touch. You handled yourself pretty good tonight, Julius. Most times, they bawl like babies. That's how we know you'll fit right in. My boss, he's pretty impressed."

Julie wasn't sure he was allowed to speak. "You mean this was like a sort of. . . test?"

I was already walking away, making enough noise for two people. "My boss runs a class operation. Can't just let any shit-stomper in."

I was almost to the water when I heard Julie call through the trees, "Hey—fellas? FELLAS? You boys . . . you boys made the right decision. Thanks!"

As I took my time running back to Dinkin's Bay, the first smear of daylight hung foglike over Sulphur Wells. . . then expanded out of the Pine Island tree line: a stratum of gray membrane that, gradually, was streaked with conch pink and violet. Somewhere—over Bimini, maybe; someplace in the Bahamas chain—the sun was wheeling hard around the rim of earth, moving incrementally across the Gulf Stream toward Florida.

I was thinking about Raymond Tullock. I had seen him only twice, yet the image of him was picture-sharp in my brain: Not as tall as Hannah, but still a big man. Six feet, six one maybe. Tight muscularity. Hundred and eighty pounds, maybe one-ninety. The kind who worked out, stayed fit. Probably had a NordicTrack at home or a weight machine. Maybe a membership to a good health and tennis club. Early to mid thirties, and very careful about his appearance. The night he had surprised Hannah and me, he had arrived wild-eyed but well groomed. Dusty blond hair styled neatly. Wearing the carefully pressed travel-adventure khakis of a kind favored by the affluent armchair traveler. The Banana Republic style of outfit that is worn to make a statement. Tullock had a bony, angular face of a type that I associated with country club tennis players: athletic but articulate. With his face and hair, he resembled one of the doctors on the television show M*A*S*H. Hawkeye's second sidekick? Yeah, that was the one.

I wondered what motivated the guy. It was not surprising that he had become obsessive about Hannah Smith. A case could be made that I was also guilty of that. Nor was it surprising that he and others were working behind the scenes, plotting ways to turn the net ban into a personal windfall. Tullock was an ex—state employee, so he knew the ins and outs of the bureaucracy. It was not unusual that he and his cohorts would use that knowledge to their own advantage. What was unusual was that Tullock didn't hesitate to cross dangerous lines. He had told desperate commercial fishermen that they had to riot to get Tallahassee's attention. He had provided Kemper Waits—an unstable man, by all accounts—with a book on how to build a bomb. And it was Tullock, I was certain, who had seeded the rumor that Tomlinson was an informant. But the man was shrewd. Each time, he had tacked on just the right addendum to absolve himself of responsibility. I could hear him giving a deposition, telling some assistant district attorney that the only advice he remembered ever giving anybody was not to riot, not to burn, and not to retaliate. Could also picture the commercial fishermen that he had manipulated sitting there, handcuffed, admitting, yeah, Tullock had told them they shouldn't.

I wondered how that would play with Ron Jackson. I didn't know enough about the law to guess. Suspected that Tullock was operating in the gray fringe areas, and it depended on just how hard the DA's office wanted to go after him—if they went after him. What hard evidence was there, after all? Some black market book on terrorism? If Tullock was shrewd enough to remain safely in the background, pulling all the little puppet strings, then he was shrewd enough to buy a book in a way that was difficult to trace.

I was certain of one thing: Raymond Tullock had some dangerous kinks in his brain. He was fixated on having Hannah. The expression on his face the night he found us together had been grotesque. I could hear Hannah saying that in Tullock's mind, she and the land had become one. Tullock was determined to have them both, and somehow, that determination had grown into an obsession; an irrational craving that had nudged him toward the edge. It would be difficult to prove—perhaps impossible to prove—but I was convinced that Jimmy Darroux had been killed because of that craving . . . and perhaps Tomlinson, too.

When I was off Captiva Pass, I had to begin angling eastward into unprotected water. There was not so much wind now, but it was still gusting briskly out of the northwest. The wind had a bite to it; an Arctic Sea edge. My clothes had the leaden feel of dried salt and dampness. But the sweater and the good S.A.S. field pants were both made of wool, and I had also gotten my foul-weather jacket out of the stern locker and zipped it on. So I was soggy but warm. Surfed along with a following sea, thinking about Tullock, trying to determine the best way to smoke him out. No way was I going to let the bastard remain aloof from all the damage he had done . . . and would continue to do through surrogates. He was one of the behind-the-scenes guys; one of the cool manipulators. Well... I had some experience in that arena myself.

I was his next logical target, of course. Quite literally, he had caught Hannah and me with our pants down. For Tomlinson, Tullock had only required suspicion to act. The question was, how would he come after me?

Tullock wasn't the one-on-one type—he'd had his opportunity that night at the Curlew fish house. And after I told Ron Jackson what I knew, neither the Copper Rim netters nor Kemper Waits would be in a position to do Tullock's dirty work.

That left Tullock powerless against me ... for a while anyway. At least until he found another stooge.

I took some pleasure in that. I'd already stuck Tullock pretty good— the man didn't even know it. Then Hannah would stick him again when she broke the news about her fish farm. But I wanted to nail him in a way that hurt, really hurt, and I needed some time to do that. Time was something I would have. Tullock might be obsessive, but his each and every act was, at least, logical. Again, that was to my advantage. Logic dictated that he wait a good safe period before risking an attack on me. Too many dead men in too short a period and the full mass of state law enforcement would come snooping around his litde island.

I took pleasure in that, too; the pure reasonableness of it.

I was still musing over ways to trap Tullock as I ran through the old Mail Boat Channel—a couple of markers made of broken limbs and Clorox botdes—and happened to notice a fast mullet skiff angling down on me. It was a green plywood boat slapping along, throwing high spray. One person aboard dressed in a full yellow rain suit. Watched the boat jump a sandbar, coming closer. . . saw the driver morion for me to stop. . . and realized it was Hannah.

What the hell was she doing out here?

I levered the throttle back; waited.

Hannah was idling toward me, her skiff rolling and bucking as waves slid beneath the hull. She had to holler to make herself heard. Couldn't understand her, at first. Then: "Ford! Have you been home yet? Don't go home!"

I began to reply, but did not. There was something strange about the look of her face. . . .

"I've been trying to find you all night! I called and kept calling!"

She had the rain hood up. I was squinting, trying to see her clearly. My damn contact lenses. . . .

"They told me at the hospital you didn't come back last night. So then I decided . . . Ford? Ford! Are you hearing me okay?"

She was close enough now. What I was hoping would turn out to be only a shadow or a grease mark was not a shadow or a grease mark. Her left eye was swollen nearly shut, her cheek a blush of eggplant purple.

I whispered a groaning sound before I yelled, "What happened to your face?"

Her boat was alongside mine now; we had to jockey our engines to keep the boats from slamming into each other. She touched her fingers experimentally to her cheek. It was as if she had forgotten that she was injured ... or as if she had not had time to look in the mirror. Said, "It don't even hurt. It's somethin' we don't need to worry about right now—"

"Did somebody hit you?"

"Would you listen for a second—"

"Who hit you?" I shouted. "Was it Raymond? Goddamn it, I warned you about that guy—"

"That's what I'm tryin' to tell you!" There was a frenetic quality to her tone that demanded I shut up and let her speak. I did. She called, "Yesterday I started thinking about Raymond. Went down and talked to Arlis. He agreed. What you said about Raymond started makin' sense once we fit all the little pieces together. Then last night, after I got back from the hospital, it was pretty late and Raymond, he just opened the door and walked right into my house. It made me so mad that I... I probably shouldn't have, but I asked him about it. About what happened to Tommy . . . and Jimmy. Then I told him about my fish farm, too."

I looked at her; could see in her expression—her poor face—that she knew how foolish that had been. I said, "I don't care what you said, he had no right to hit you—"

"That's not why he hit me. He hit me 'cause I refused to stop seeing you. Then he hit me again because I wouldn't take off to Asia with him. He had my ticket, all the papers, everything all set to go. The midnight flight to Los Angeles. It was like he'd gone crazy. Started rummaging around my house, taking photographs of me, stuff off the mantlepiece, jamming it all into a briefcase. Like he was stealin' little pieces of me to take along. But that's not what I'm talking about, Ford."

"You called the police. Tell me you called the police."

"Yeah, but I called them because I was worried. Listen to what I'm telling you! I think Raymond musta knocked me out or something. I woke up on the floor and I had this terrible ... I don't know . . .feeling. It had to do with the last thing I remember him sayin' to me. What he said was something about 'after your boyfriend gets home . . .' Or, 'Don't expect your boyfriend to call after he gets home.' Something like that."

I nodded agreeably. Hannah didn't seem to be tracking well. Tullock had probably given her a slight concussion. Why was that happening lately to all the people I cared about? I wished the wind weren't rolling our boats around so badly. I wanted to take her into my arms and hold her . . . wanted to apologize to her for my suspicions, for my coldness. I wanted to make her believe that not all angry men used their fists.

"Don't you see what I'm saying? By then it was almost three in the morning. I called your house and kept callin'. Called the hospital, and then I finally called the Sanibel police. They didn't want to listen to some hicky-voiced girl like me, but I made one of them drive to your place and have a look. It took him about forever to call back. All he said was your house was fine, and your truck was there, but your boat was gone."

"My place—that's where we're going right now. I'm going to put you in bed and have a doctor buddy of mine—"

"No!" Her tone said: Why are you being so slow? "Listen to me! 'After your boyfriend gets home.' That's what Raymond said. Don't you get it? How did he know you weren't home, Ford?"

I thought about that. For a moment, it threw a chilly little shadow over the shiny-bright chain of logic that I had constructed to predict Raymond Tullock's next move. But it didn't make sense. Moving so quickly against me just wasn't reasonable.

I explained that to Hannah. Added, "I think he was trying to scare you. Or maybe you misunderstood. We've both been up all night." I glanced at my watch: 6:30 a.m. "I want a doctor to look at you, then we'll get some sleep."

For a moment, our boats were close enough, and I reached out and grasped Hannah's extended hand. Felt her long, cool fingers . . . felt the private little squeeze. An apology offered; an apology accepted.

She pushed the rain hood off her head and ran those same fingers through her Navajo hair. "You really do think it's okay?"

"Yes." I looked at my watch again: 6:30.

"I had this awful feeling, Ford. I can't describe it. This feeling that some-thin' really. . . bad was going to happen. I had the same feeling the night my mama died, so I got in my boat, scared to death, lookin' for you . . ."

She paused as she noticed me stare at my watch a third time: 6:30.

"What's wrong, Ford?"

"It's . . . nothing."

"There's something wrong. Don't lie to me. I can see it in your face."

I kept my voice calm—told myself there was nothing to worry about. "I just remembered that there's a woman due at my house right now. A friend of mine named Janet Mueller. She's been taking care of my fish."

"Doc . . . we've got to warn her. Even if you're right about Raymond."

I began to think out loud. "The police officer you called, he's already been there. . . . He had to walk out on the dock, maybe even knocked on the door." I was picturing it in my head: The cop walking out, shining his flashlight around. Walking up the steps to the breezeway that separated the lab from my house entrance, then peering over the rail to check my boats. I knew most of the Sanibel cops. If my truck was parked out front but my Hewes was gone, the cop would assume I was on the water. Pictured the cop turning, maybe shining the flashlight into a window or two before returning to his car.

Finally had to admit to myself that a brief inspection by a policeman did not mean that my house was safe. Also admitted that I was already thinking in terms of a bomb. If Tullock wanted to target me, he would make it very personal; rig it in a way that wouldn't be prematurely triggered by some idle visitor. He'd select some element of the house that was used by me and me alone. That's where he would put it. With all the marina contacts he had through his government work it was possible—hell, likely—that he knew far more about my lifestyle than I knew about his.

I thought about the door to my house ... I thought about the door to my lab . . . then I thought about the heavy lid that covered my fish tank. Thought about Janet Mueller, always so punctual.

Six-thirty. . . .

Don't worry, I'll take care of your fish.

I looked into Hannah's face and felt a contagious panic sweep through me. Said, "Follow me in!" and gunned my boat. Heard Hannah yell something in reply—something, I realized later, that I should have already known: In Hannah's boat, the trip would have been quicker.

In Hannah's boat, there was a chance ... a slim, slim chance . . . that I would arrive at my dock before Janet did.

Chapter 17

Dinkin's Bay is a lopsided lake of brackish water that is enclosed by mangroves. There are only two narrow holes through the mangroves into that lake. One opening is to the northeast—slightly more than two miles from the marina and my stilt house. Because the water there is deep, it is known as the mouth to Dinkin's Bay. Channel markers create a twisting, navigable road to and from the mouth.

The other opening is to the northwest. It is much closer to the marina—a quarter-mile away, maybe less. That cut is also deep, but there are sandbars on either side which seal it closed. Because of its configuration, the cut is known to the fishing guides as Auger Hole. The Auger Hole is not considered navigable, unless you are in a canoe, or unless you are in a thin-draft boat like mine and it is a very, very high tide.

That morning, the tide was not very, very high. In § fact, it was closer to low tide because the dynamics of a northwest wind push water out of the sound, then hold it off shore. As I raced away from Hannah, I pointed my bow directly at the mouth of Dinkin's Bay. From the corner of my eye, I noticed Hannah also speeding away, but she was steering much farther toward the south; she appeared to be heading into another bay, which the guides call Horseshoe.

That made no sense . . . until I realized what she was doing. She was going to attempt to lop offa couple of miles; shorten the distance between herself and the marina. She was going to try and jump the bars and cross through Auger Hole into Dinkin's Bay.

I thought: Not on this tide. Not even in a mullet boat.

I watched her for a while: she and her skiff getting smaller and smaller, our angles of passage expanding the distance. Then the outside wall of Dinkin's Bay interceded, and she disappeared.

At Woodring Point, I turned hard to the south into the mouth of the bay. I ignored the channel markers and trimmed the engine high. The mangroves provided a break from the wind, so the water was much calmer. I jammed the throttle forward and watched the tachometer needle jump to six thousand RPM—sixty miles an hour, maybe faster. The speed made my lips flutter and teared my eyes. I used the nose on my boat like a rifle sight: kept it pointed on my tiny gray house, two miles away.

As I drove, I fished beneath the console and pulled out my portable VHF radio. I tried to call the fishing guides on channel 8.

No reply. If they were at the docks this early, they hadn't yet turned their radios on.

Hit a button and tried to call the marina on channel 16.

No reply. The marina didn't open until seven. Mack usually didn't get around to turning the radio on until later.

Put the radio away and made a ridiculous attempt to try one of Tomlinson's tricks, a telepathic message to Janet Mueller: Sleep late . . . sleep late . . . sleep late. . . . Stay away from the aquarium. . . .

Pictured Janet's face: the pudgy face with steady, steady eyes that had already seen way too much pain. Pictured her in her baggy pants and sweatshirt . . . saw her expression of astonishment as she marveled at the behavior of the tarpon . . . saw her in her gaudy peach ball gown before Perbcot: a shy, private girl in a grown-up's party clothes.

Felt the panic in me grow stronger; attempted to use logic like an antidote: Raymond Tullock wouldn't do it. Not now. Not this damn soon!

Heard a small voice say: You're wrong.

I was so fixated on my fish house, straining so hard to will Janet away from it, that I didn't notice Hannah until she came sweeping across the channel a mile or so ahead of me, her plywood boat throwing a funneling wake. Felt shock close to disbelief—She made it?—followed by pure admiration. There are people in this world who are so strong, who possess such power of character, that the very attributes that set them apart also make the validity of their character suspect.

Heard the small voice say: You were wrong again.

It was true. Wrong about many things. Very wrong about Hannah.

I was gaining on her small green boat. Now I was close enough to see the empty porch that encircles my house . . . and the empty platform below it on which sat my big wooden fish tank. Was close enough to see the rambling, rickety yards of empty boardwalk which lead from my house to the mangrove shore. Was close enough to see ... to see Janet Mueller come through the mangroves and step up onto the boardwalk, walking swiftly. New outfit on this chilly morning: furry red miracle-fabric jacket and green shorts.

It seemed, then, that I could not make my boat go fast enough . . . seemed as if everything was being was dragged down by a leaden gravity created by my own anxiety . . . seemed as if time and movement were being dilated into a terrible slow motion. I leaned over the windshield of my boat, my weight full on the throttle, as if, by urging my boat along, I might free the both of us from gravity's grip. It did not help.

I watched Hannah standing at the throttle of her boat, going fast, waving frantically, trying to get Janet's attention. . . .

Watched Janet, as if lost in her own thoughts, walk obliviously to the end of the boardwalk and step up onto the platform below my house. Realized that she was headed for the fish tank. . . .

Saw Hannah, now no more than a hundred yards away, raise both hands over her head and flag her arms back and forth. . . .

Watched Janet stop at the fish tank, look up at the windows of my house, then reach for the lid of the fish tank. Couldn't she hear the boat bearing down on her? . . .

Saw Hannah cup both hands to her mouth—she was shouting now— as her boat dolphined closer and closer to the house, still going full speed. . . .

Watched Janet lifting the lid . . . lifting it up on its hinges . . . pushing the weight of the lid higher. . . .

Then saw Janet suddenly look at the approaching boat and jump back as if in surprise. Saw the lid slap shut just as Hannah's boat slid to a fast stop below my house, the chines of her boat plowing up a curtain of bright spray that soaked the platform and Janet, too. . . .

Hannah was now talking to Janet, hands motioning animatedly. Janet hesitated. Said something back to Hannah . . . listened for another moment. Then Janet turned and hurried off the platform, jogging along the boardwalk toward shore. . . .

Thank God.

I was a little more than fifty yards away now, already backing off on the throttle, slowing down. Hannah turned to look at me and grinned—a tall, gawky, handsome woman in a cheap yellow rain suit. Her grin so bright that her swollen eye seemed insignificant; did not detract at all from her beauty. She made a clownish show of wiping the sweat off her brow and slinging it away. Mouthed the words: "I told her."

I raised a fist over my head and shook it—Good job!—and motioned her toward the pilings where she could tie up while I checked the place out. She idled around the corner of the house . . . caught the only available line of my mooring pulley system, and pulled it. But the counterweight didn't budge.

I thought: That's odd, as I watched Hannah give the rope another yank. And yet another.

My brain took its time; scanned dumbly for an explanation; neuron conduits began the electrochemical process of deduction . . . and suddenly, the message relays were seared by the acid shock of a single, numbing thought: Trip wire!

But I realized it much, much too late to stop Hannah from pulling the rope a final time. Much, much too late to scream a warning, though I tried. And much too late to stab my hand out to stop her—an absurd gesture because I was still forty or more yards away. Yet I attempted to do that, too.

Later, Ron Jackson would tell me the A.T.F. guys calculated that the radiant power of the bomb was no more than that of a quarter-stick of dynamite. It was a small and personalized little bomb, created for just one person; placed against a piling and triggered off the mooring rope so that a returning boater—me—could not possibly avoid it.

So Hannah could not have avoided what happened to her. When she pulled the rope free, I saw a bloom of thermal energy shoot skyward, and in the same instant, I was knocked to the deck by the shock of the noise and rifled debris. When I got to my feet again, I saw that the platform and the back wall of my lab were on fire . . . saw Hannah facedown in the water, blown far from her listing, burning boat.

Days afterward, Janet Mueller, who saw it all, would tell me that I gunned my boat toward Hannah, and when I was close enough, I jumped into the water beside her without pulling the throttle back or switching off the engine. Janet told me that, because I couldn't remember how I had gotten Hannah to shore, or how and why my boat had ended up high and dry, wrecked in the mangroves.

What I could remember was the look of Hannah s face as I held her head in my lap. A pretty face, and peaceful, but her dark eyes were . . . wrong. . . because of the force of the explosion. Could remember the hoarse and strangely amused quality in Hannahs voice trying to ask me something ... or trying to tell me something. . . trying to make me understand.

Leaned to touch my lips to hers. "Don't try to talk, love."

But she was stubborn; wouldn't be silent. In a final effort to be heard, she lurched her face up toward mine and whispered words that, for a long time, made no sense: "Ford? Like before, I . . . didn't . . . sink!'

Though her eyes remained open, Hannah Smith did not speak again.

I remembered that. And I remembered threatening to punch one of the paramedics if he did not allow me sit at Hannah's side as they flew us to the hospital—"What's the big deal about a bruise on my forehead!"—and I remember the expression on the emergency room doctor when he turned to me . . . after pulling the sheet up over Hannah's face.

The only other thing I remember clearly about that morning was standing alone, in an empty hospital corridor—I don't know how I got there—and watching Dr. Maria Corales walking toward me. She was wearing soiled surgical scrubs. She looked very tired. The way she put her hand on my shoulder communicated genuine concern. She told me, "We'll keep the respirator going until we hear from the family, or until the hospital's Human Subjects Panel meets. But the surgery didn't go well. I'm afraid I lost him this morning."

It took me a long, dull moment to realize what she meant. She was talking about Tomlinson.

They buried Hannah four days later, January 16, a Monday, one day after the official close of Florida's last mullet roe season. I couldn't decide whether it was good timing or cruel irony. Buried her in an incongruously modern cemetery on the mainland—one of those fairway-neat memorial parks that use standardized brass markers to make it easier on the mowing crews. The cemetery was close enough to the main highway so that all the tourist traffic made it difficult to hear the minister's words.

I don't know how many hundreds of people attended. Enough to render the island of Sulphur Wells nearly empty that afternoon. Enough to illustrate Tomlinson's theory about Hannah's position in the community. When a chieftain dies, the whole tribe turns out. I stood and talked with Tootsie Cribbs for a while. Met his nice wife and three children. His kids looked so uncomfortable in their Sunday clothes that I guessed they would have preferred to be in school.

I didn't blame them.

Also met Hannah's two brothers. There was Bob, who'd flown in from Atlanta, and Cletus, who now lived in Orlando. They weren't at all what I had expected them to be. Both were huge, hulking men, but their expressions were mild, faintly bovine; they didn't have Hannah's wild eyes. Nor were they fishermen. Bob was an attorney; Cletus worked in administration for Disney. It was Bob who told me, "Hannah was a romantic. With her grades and with her talent—all-state basketball; class president three years in a row—she could have gotten a scholarship, no problem. Florida State wanted her, one of those ritzy Ivy League women's schools, too. But she'd get her mind set on something and nobody could talk sense into her. Our dad fished day and night so his kids wouldn't have to fish. So what's Hannah do? She becomes one of those back-to-the-roots people. I loved her dearly; she was one of my favorite people in the world, but Hannah was . . . different."

I could not argue.

Mostly, I looked after Arlis Futch. The man was miserable. He looked as if the last few days had aged him twenty years. He walked around in a fog, too tough to cry, in too much pain not to. Looked up at me more than once and said, "I sure 'nuff hope they catch the ones that kilt her."

More than once, I answered, "You can count on it, Arlis."

The fire department had done a superb job of saving my stilt house. Even so, much of the lower decking had been destroyed and most of my lab, too. My optical equipment had either cracked or fogged because of the heat. Many of my slides were ruined and whole rows of specimen jars had exploded. Because my one-room house is under the same tin roof, heat-saturated smoke had invaded the place, ruining my telescope, melting some of my record albums, and the stink of the smoke was on everything I owned.

The only bright spot was that Crunch & Des, the black cat, had been panhandling around the marina at the time of the explosion, so he was still his lazy, healthy, indifferent self.

For several days after Hannah's death, I was led to believe that the explosion and fire had also somehow killed all the specimens in my fish tank. But Janet Mueller finally told me the truth: The reason she had dropped the lid so abruptly that Thursday morning was not because she heard Hannah calling to her, but because she had been shocked to find all the fish, including our six tarpon, swirling around in a green chemical foam. She decided that my raw-water pump had somehow sucked in some kind of pollutant, but didn't want to tell me right away. Wanted to give me time to recover from the concussion she insisted that I had suffered. "A big chunk of wood hit you right in the head, Doc. I saw it. That's why I still think you need to see a doctor."

I didn't want to see a doctor. It was my own stupidity that had allowed the explosion to occur. A mild concussion didn't seem penalty enough for the harm I had caused. Nor did I tell Janet what I suspected was the truth: A couple of drunk sportfishermen in a pickup truck had poisoned my fish as punishment for my traitorous association with the netters. Didn't mention my suspicions to Nels Esterline, either. Why reopen old wounds?

Everyone from the marina community joined together in an attempt to help me. No one worked harder at that than Janet. A change had come over her since the explosion. She was no longer the weepy, nerve-shattered woman she had been when she arrived at Dinkin's Bay. Maybe it was because she had finally come to terms with what had happened in her life. Or maybe it was because the explosion required that she refocus her energies on the needs of others. Every day, I would find her picking through the wreckage of my lab, sorting and boxing and scrubbing.

Not that I was staying at my stilt house. No. I couldn't stand the smoky stink of the place; the images that flashed into my brain caused by just standing on the charred dock. I had spent the first night sleeping on Tomlinson's sailboat, but there were too many ghosts there, too. Finally, I rented a one-bedroom condo unit down on the beach. I moved in enough personal items to be comfortable—my shortwave radio; a few books—and had my telephone forwarded. It was a pretty tourist place called Casa Ybel. Each morning, I'd sleep just as late as I possibly could, then do a very long beach run, a very long surf swim. Each night, I'd force myself to stay awake just as late as I possibly could, my brain whirring away with devious little ideas; nasty, nasty scenarios.

When you are planning a trip to the other side of the world, it's best to nudge the body clock ahead long before departure.

One afternoon, Janet confronted me and said, "Look, Doc, I can relate to what you're going through. I've been through it. So I want to give you some advice that I wish somebody had given me: You've got to stay busy. Find something to do. Not big stuff. I think the litde no-brainer stuff is best . . . like maybe help me get this place cleaned up? Or we could start building a new fish tank. I'll help!"

I had patted her arm affectionately, smiled my bland smile, and said, "But I am staying busy, Janet."

I was.

The first thing I had done was box all my important personal items; then rented space at a high-security storage business. The kind of business that gladly accepts cash in advance and isn't too fussy about identification. The kind of business favored by people who realize that a safety deposit box can be sealed and searched by authorities if a judge can be found to sign the right papers.

Through a much traveled friend, I also drew out a sizable chunk of cash from my account at the Royal Trust Ltd., Seven Mile Beach, Grand Cayman Island. Then I took a tiny piece of that cash around to several local banks and converted it into hefty bags of quarters.

When you are traveling from pay phone to pay phone, over a large area and over a period of several days, you don't want to be caught short of change, particularly if you are making tough but untraceable trunk calls to places such as Nicaragua, Singapore, Burma, and Medan, Sumatra.

I also converted a tidy chunk of that cash into two large money orders. I Fed Exed both of the checks, but to different parts of the world. One went to an acquaintance of mine in Miami, along with a passport-size photograph. Pretty nice photograph; didn't wear my glasses.

The days prior to Hannah's funeral were very busy days indeed.

On Tuesday afternoon, January 17, Ron Jackson called and invited me to accompany him on a midnight bust he and some A.T.F. agents had planned. Even though I declined, he didn't tell me who they were going to hit, or why. He didn't need to. I had already given him all the information I had collected. After thinking long and hard about it, I had even told him my suspicions about Raymond Tullock. I didn't press the issue too hard. But I told him. If fate—or Tullock's good planning—made him impossible for the law to touch, then fate wanted me to intercede.

Tomlinson might have called the gesture an attempt to seek karmic approval.

On Wednesday morning, Jackson showed up at my condo apartment. His clothes were wrinkled; he looked tired. Probably hadn't been to bed all night. When I opened the door, he held up his gym bag. "Run?"

We ran.

They had swept the beach at Copper Rim, he told me. They had bagged every man there on probable cause, including one Julian Claypool.

"Julian?" I said. I had called him Julius—another mistake to add to my list.

"Claypool may be the strangest man I've ever arrested," Jackson said as we chugged along, the hard sand sponging our waffle tracks. "The whole time, he just beamed and grinned. Not the least bit upset. Hell, Claypool seemed glad to see me. Like he was going to reach out and shake my hand. Yep, he'd beaten Mr. Tomlinson. Yep, he'd dropped him off along the road. Sure, he could tell me who helped—it was this guy and this guy and this guy. Didn't care about the others hearing him. Man, if looks could kill! I'm telling you, Ford, he made me nervous. I tried to get him to shut up. Didn't want him to say another word until we got the court to appoint him a lawyer." Jackson jogged along silently for a time, before adding, "I'm sorry about your friend, by the way. Wiped the smile right off Claypool's face when he found out he was up for murder."

I said, "I imagine it did. Florida's an electric chair state."

"Naw-w-w. Second degree maybe, but more likely they'll work it down to manslaughter. Claypool won't get the chair." More silence.

Something was on his mind. I thought he was going to confront me with it but, instead, he told me about Kemper Waits. How the bust had gone.

It had gone very well. They had cuffed Waits and read him his rights. Unlike Claypool, Waits had not been cooperative. He had slobbered at the mouth and screamed about government conspiracies. Waits, Jackson told me, was a certifiable freak. Because Waits refused to provide a key, they had battered down the door of his cement shed. Inside, the A.T.F. agents had found wiring and timers and caps and fuses, along with four vacuum-packed sticks of dynamite, plus a tattered counterculture pamphlet with the words "Cook Book" in the title. It was a well-equipped little bomb factory.

"He wasn't going to stop with two," Jackson told me. "Kemper had a taste for it. He'd declared his own private war. A diet of drugs and whiskey can create paranoia, and that guy has a big-league case of it."

In the pond behind Waits's house, agents had waded in and confirmed that there were heavy, metal objects in the shallows that were presumably boat engines, but they wouldn't know how many until they started winching them out.

"The information was all good, Ford. Everything you gave me was dead on." We had run halfway to the Sanibel lighthouse, and now were on our way back. "A clean bust like that, it didn't hurt my reputation with the sheriff. . . or the federal boys, either, for that matter. I appreciate it. I really do. But what I'm worried about is . . . this thing that's been on my mind . . ."

I sensed what was troubling Jackson and decided to help him out. "The bomb that killed Hannah Smith had nothing to do with me gathering information on Sulphur Wells, Ron."

"I wish I could be as certain of it as you are. I'm the one who asked you to do it. I'd feel terrible—"

"I've already told you why that bomb was there. I think Kemper Waits probably made it, but I think Raymond Tullock put it there. You seem reluctant to believe that."

"Oh bullshit, Ford." He made a noise of friendly exasperation. "It's not that I'm reluctant, we just don't have anything on him. Waits played dumb about him; even Claypool said Tullock wasn't involved—and Claypool was squealing on everybody but his mother. Everything you told me makes sense. Yeah, I believe the guy's a flake. Do we have our suspicions? Damn right. Tullock flies off to Asia the night before the bomb explodes. Did I tell you he cleaned out his bank account?"

"No, but I'm not surprised." It was true. I wasn't surprised; had, in fact, already anticipated it.

"He cleans out his bank account, yeah. And his corporate account. Closes up his apartment and gets on a plane to Singapore." Jackson looked at me to emphasize his point. "I'll tell you one thing: The guy screws up in Asia, he'll wish he'd never left home. Some of those places, they still beat you bloody with a cane. Or worse. Like that American brat who spray-painted those cars?"

"Asians are pretty tough," I agreed.

"When the right paperwork comes through, the A.T.F. boys and I are going to have a look at Tullock's apartment." Jackson reached over and gave me an amiable slap on the shoulder. "If we find something good, we'll go to work on extradition. A week in one of those rathole dungeons would put a new bounce in Tullock's step. Or we'll be at the airport waiting on him if he's got the balls to come back. The computers show he's got a return ticket out of Singapore for the twenty-fifth."

I said, "Singapore, huh?" But I was thinking: Raymond Tullock isn't coming back.

I spread the word around Dinkin's Bay that I was flying off to Nicaragua. Told them I was going to watch a few ball games at Mad Monk Stadium in Managua, then drive clear down to the San Juan River—old Contra country—to do some research on the bull sharks that live in Lake Nicaragua. Or at least had lived in Lake Nicaragua until the Japanese fin merchants exterminated them.

I told my friends I needed a change of scenery. Told them that a month or so in the jungle would help me adjust. I didn't mention that in a world of tele-linkage and information highways, the only way to travel anonymously anymore is through one of the few remaining outlaw countries.

Cuba would have been okay, but I couldn't get the direct flight to Mexico City I needed. If I was late to Mexico City, I'd miss my Thai Airline connection to Fiji. Which meant that the rest of my itinerary—Fiji to

Manila, Manila to Singapore, Singapore to Medan, Sumatra—would all fall through.

But the afternoon Managua—to—Mexico City flight would work out just fine. So I spread the story about Nicaragua. Told it so many times that I was actually beginning to believe it myself. Wide-eyed and a little breathless, Janet had asked me, "Isn't it dangerous in the rain forest? All those animals? You, all by yourself?"

I wondered if it was her shy way of hinting that she would like to accompany me.

I shook my head, telling Janet, "The rain forest is the safest place I know."

My last day in Florida—my last for many years, I suspected—was Friday, January 20. It was the kind of winter-gray day that one associates with snow peaks or midwestern industrial cities. There were heavy rain clouds to the north. The weather added a sarcastic edge to my mood. I looked at the sky and thought: Perfect.

In the morning, I made the long, long drive to Sulphur Wells. Had to pick the lock at Hannah's house to get in. She and Tomlinson had set up the typewriter on the breakfast table. There was a sheet of paper still rolled into it. The incomplete manuscript—Hannah's book—lay neatly in a box on the table. Tomlinson had finished nearly eight chapters. Not seven, as Hannah had said.

The last entry was in Hannah's handwriting: "The Yeaters and the Treadwells had a yard sale yesterday, selling out. Mr. Yeater said he might be able to get work in Detroit. Him and my daddy fished together when I was a litde girl, so . . ."

The note was unfinished. Wondered if Tullock had interrupted her at the writing desk.

I took the manuscript, and collected Tomlinson's personal effects in his old brown leather suitcase. I then made a slow tour of the house. There were still signs of Tullock's last confrontation with Hannah: the arrangement of dried flowers that had once been on the mantelpiece was now scattered across the floor in front of the fireplace. One of the green glass spheres lay shattered on the floor, though one remained unbroken. One, perhaps two were missing. I remembered Hannah telling me that they were heirlooms; the only thing she had of her Great-Aunt Hannah's. I took the sphere that remained, then searched her bedroom. What I wanted was a photograph of her; something else to remember her by. Could hear Hannah say, He was stealing little pieces of me. I wanted a few pieces for myself.

I finally found the scrapbook. It was a cheap blue imitation-leather binder. Leafed through it. Saw a tintype of a very tall woman in a long print dress and a white sun hat. She was standing by a team of oxen, holding a coil of rope in her left hand. Written on the back of the photograph in fountain pen was: "Hannah "Big Six" Smith, Homestead, Fla. 1907.

I removed the print, then selected two photographs of Hannah. One was of her in a basketball uniform: stork legs; black, glittering eyes. The other was of her sitting beneath a tree, holding a book. A more reflective pose. Her hair was longer, parted in the middle and combed straight to her shoulders. She looked young and at ease. Very pretty.

I took the things, locked the house, and drove to a print business that was on the way to the hospital. It was called Kopy Kat. One of the big chains. I gave the woman at the counter the partial manuscript and two of the photographs. I told her how I wanted it done: printed book form, good quality paper, nice cover. I told her to print enough copies to send to every library in Florida. I paid cash in advance.

My going-away present.

When the clerk asked what should go on the cover, I took the order form and wrote: The Hannah Smith Story.

Since the explosion, I had visited Tomlinson only once. Seeing his shrunken body, hearing the flatline hum of the electroencephalogram was just too unsettling. The man was gone, so why leave the plugs in?

I had arranged to meet Dr. Corales and two representatives of the hospital's Human Subjects Panel at a private room off the intensive care unit at eleven a.m.—less than an hour before my flight to Miami. She arrived slightly late, her hair and clothes soaked from the rainstorm that had rumbled and threatened all morning. We shook hands as she told me, "I appreciate you tracking down Mr. Tomlinson's brother. We received his telegram yesterday afternoon. It's ... a little strange, but it's sufficient."

I wasn't surprised in the least. On the phone, from halfway around the world, Norvin Tomlinson had sounded vague, distracted, cynical, and desperately mercenary. Even in Burma, a drug addict's life required some income.

She handed me the telegram. I read it, then smiled at Dr. Corales. She looked less businesslike, more attractive because of her wet hair. "Isn't it odd," I said, "how siblings can be so different?"

Norvin Tomlinson's telegram had read: "KILL HIM, KILL THEM ALL!"

Dr. Corales returned my smile, agreeing, then took the telegram from me before saying, "Are you ready?"

I was ready. I was holding Tomlinson's hand when they disengaged the respirator. His hand was already cool. His face was the color and texture of a very, very old mushroom. I waited there alone with him for a minute or so while the thunderstorm whoofed and rumbled outside. I sent telepathic messages. I received no messages in reply. Then I exited the room and I handed Dr. Corales a brown paper bag. Tomlinson's sarong was in the bag and I instructed that he be wearing it when he was cremated. I also reminded her that the ashes were to go to Mack at Dinkin's Bay, so that they could be spread by boat following the little Buddhist ceremony I had already arranged.

The last thing I did before taking a cab to the airport was hand the doctor my truck's registration and keys. I told her to make a present of the truck to Janet Mueller, who would arrive later.

As I walked away, Dr. Corales said, "Have a good trip. Too bad you have to fly on a day like today." One of those bland comments that professionals sometimes use to gauge the mood and the stability of a patient.

I told Dr. Corales that any trip that had a layover at the American Eagle terminal in Miami was a bad day to fly.

A little joke. Just to let her know I was okay.

Chapter 18

I was in an ancient Garuda airliner; some recycled transport jet whose fuselage had been polished beer can-thin by all the hours of wind friction, all the years of jungle puddle-jumping, all the days of harsh Indonesian sunlight.

We banked to starboard and descended through volcanic clouds. Below and ahead was Sumatra. We dropped down over mangrove plains off the Straits of Malacca and I could see a plateau of orange smog that was as vivid as the hot haze of a chemical fire. The smog lay over jungle—a stratum of red gas shimmering over emerald green. Then the jungle began to thin. There was a veinwork of dirt roads and brown rivers that ran through rice paddies. The landscape reminded me of Vietnam. Then I could see the city's outskirts: a coagulated mass of slums; thousands of bamboo shanties, each with a television antenna suspended from a bamboo pole. The city's center was to the north: a hazy, geometric clutter packed onto a delta created by the branching of two muddy rivers.

The old plane wobbled, creaked; tires yelped before the reverse thrust of engines, and then a throng of tiny, brown shirtless men were wheeling the stairs toward the open cabin door.

Welcome to Sumatra, the second largest island in the nation of Indonesia. Welcome to Medan, the island's largest city, home to a million or more anonymous souls. Had I attacked the tarmac with a nuclear auger, drilled straight down through the center of the planet, through the thousands of miles of molten core, I would have exited the tunnel somewhere close to Nicaragua, not far from where I had started.

So, welcome to the back side of the earth. . . .

I went through customs, no problem. Expected to be met by an old contact of mine, Havildar Singbah. Havildar had been a stafFsergeant in the Duke of Edinburgh's Own Gurkha Rifles. In military communities, the Gurkhas are considered to be the most fearsome infantry fighters on earth. They are also considered to be among the most trustworthy men on earth. Havildar had seen action in Vietnam and the Falklands. He is about five feet six inches tall, and he is one of the few men I've met in my life who truly frightens me. Not because of the way he looks—the man always had a mellow little smile on his face—but because of the stories I had heard about him while he and his troop served with the Brits.

Waiting for me with a car, though, was a man named Rengat Ungar. Rengat was maybe thirty years old, maybe fifty. He wore a dirty turban and rubber sandals. He told me Havildar had suddenly been called back to Nepal because his father was very ill. Rengat assured me I could like and trust him one hundred percent. "Just like Havildar, you bet!"

But I didn't like or trust Rengat. He chattered constantly in his broken English and chain-smoked Indonesian cigarettes that stank of cloves. He drove much too fast and the brakes on his little car were bad. Because Medan has no stoplights or stop signs, it was a dangerous combination.

I settled back and stared out the window, hoping that my indifference would cause him to concentrate on his driving.

If there were a million people in Medan, there seemed to be at least that many beat-up minibuses and motorized becak rickshaws on the narrow streets. Few of the vehicles had mufflers, but they all had horns, so the streets were a chaos of noise and exhaust that linked the open markets, filthy restaurants, sleazy bars, teenage prostitutes, swaggering cops, sleeping drunks, women cooking over wood fires, pretty children flirting from doorways, roaming goats, and the few stray dogs that had not yet been eaten.

"You want nice girl?" Rengat asked me cheerfully. "Very young, very cheap."

"Not right now," I told him.

"A nice young boy, then? I can offer you a selection of very clean young boys."

It is one of the great ironies of Indonesia that its Islamic communities are brutally strict about some laws, yet totally indifferent to others. Were I found guilty of stealing in Medan, my left hand would be chopped off. Were I caught with narcotics in my possession, I would be condemned to some hellhole prison for a year or more, then shot. No appeals considered, no questions asked, no concessions offered even to a well-moneyed American. But for a few thousand rupiah—the equivalent of about two dollars— I could purchase the innocence of any wandering child, and the local cops would turn their backs.

The few tourists who came to Sumatra—there weren't many—came for the lively sex trade. The only other draw was the timber trade. The Japanese, I knew, were logging the rain forests day and night. The industry had attracted a sizable enclave of Japanese—which explained the niche market Raymond Tullock had found for his mullet roe. That Sumatra was sexually lawless also explained the Japanese's need for it.

I told Rengat, "No children today, thanks."

Before he dropped me at my hotel, I had Rengat drive me through town and out toward the port of Belawan. It took me more than an hour of roaming around the docks, using Rengat as an interpreter, to find the boat I was to meet. It was a small brown-sailed junk made of red teak. The junk had a dragon's head carved into the bow, and golden Chinese characters on the stern. Beneath the characters was a word in English: Rangoon.

The captain of the vessel was a dour little man whose teeth were black from chewing betel nuts. He made a show of being angry at me. I was days late! He was now off schedule! Which was all bullshit—they had only just arrived, according to the junk's customs sheet, and had to stay in Sumatra for at least several days, as we both well knew. But I palmed him several twenties, and three evenly ripped halves of hundred-dollar bills to make him happy.

At customs, I showed the inspector one of my three false passports. I also showed him my international collector's permit. All the embossed lettering and stamps seemed to impress him. So did the innocuous ten-dollar bill I slipped him. The customs inspector opened the small Styrofoam box I had taken from the junk. Inside were three frozen ox-eyed tarpon, a species that is found only in Asia and is very common around the river mouths of Burma. To an American biologist such as myself, they were rare creatures indeed.

I raised my eyebrows at the inspector to illustrate my question, then made a sawing motion with my hand. Did he want me to cut the fish open?

The man shook his head, already bored with me, and waved me through.

I carried my package back to the little car and got in beside Rengat. As we neared the city, I suggested he make a quick stop at his home so that I might meet his wife and children. Rengat was reluctant. I pressed the issue, telling him I wanted to make small gifts of money to his children.

Ultimately, greed got the best of him. His tiny block house was just off a side street named Madong Lubis. I bowed to Rengat's wife and dipped a cup of kava from the wooden bowl in the tiny living room. In Asia, loud slurping is the sound of polite approval. I patted Rengat s children and gave them crisp greenbacks. As I held the bills out, only I seemed to notice that my hands were shaking.

Once we were back in the car, Rengat was not so talkative, and he seemed less eager for me to approve of him. Familiarity diminishes authority while increasing dependency. My visit had accomplished both. As he drove me to my hotel, I was aware that Rengat was aware that the price of any sort of betrayal had increased exponentially.

I now knew where the man lived.

A sealed note from Havildar apologized for his absence and told me that Raymond Tullock was staying at the H otel Tiara, third floor, room 217.

The strange numbering system, I knew, was a holdover from the old Dutch colonial days when Sumatra was one of the thriving dark corners of the rubber trade.

The Hotel Tiara was the best hotel in Medan—which is to say that it was about as plush, but not as clean, as the average Motel 6. It was a tall, squarish salmon-colored building on busy, potholed Cut Mutiah Street. Small men with rickshaws and pedicabs stood in a line outside the hotel, waiting for fares.

The room Havildar had arranged for me was opposite the Hotel Tiara and down less than a block. It was a native place named Selamat Sian— "Good day!" in Indonesian. The little rooming house was as dark and narrow-staired as a New York tenement building. It smelled of curry and rotting durian fruit and Indonesian cigarettes. My room overlooked the street, so I could watch Tullock coming and going.

Havildar's note also told me that I should not trust Rengat, but not to fear him either. The note included the names I needed of a few local men, and it concluded by reminding me that Havildar and I still had unfinished business on the nearby island of Timor. In 1975, the Indonesian government had staged a brutal military takeover of East Timor. Military rule there—enforced by Indonesian death squads—continues even today.

Years ago, I had used Sumatra as a staging area for a surveillance operation that had accomplished absolutely nothing but earn me the friendship of the little Gurkha sergeant. I was sorry about Havildar's father, but I wished to hell Havildar were still in Medan, and not working his way up to his native village in the Himalayas. It did more than change my plan. I would now have to completely abandon certain elements of it.

There was one thing I didn't want to do, couldn't do: spend much time in Medan. It was possible that the Indonesian government had learned about my earlier work. If I was caught—particularly with three false passports in my possession—I would be summarily jailed. Maybe the American Embassy in Jakarta would be notified, but that was unlikely. A more probable scenario was that I would be locked anonymously away until an appropriate time when I might be used as a bargaining tool. If that opportunity never materialized—I could think of no reason that it would—then I would be left to die in the local prison.

I had once driven past that prison—the Simpang Alas it was called, named for a local river. Alas Prison was a monstrous old fortress of rotting cement and concertina wire built north of town. It had reminded me of Hoa Lo prison in Hanoi, because the outside walls were painted the same damp, mustard-yellow color. Its few windows were as black and narrow as gunports; the yellow walls were high. Two elements dominated the prison grounds: the silence . . . and the smell. Simpang Alas possessed the eerie silence of an abandoned city; the kind of silence that fills the void after someone has abruptly ceased screaming. The wind that blew over the prison carried the defecant odors of humans who have been reduced to cave animals. That smell was the stench of nightmares.

Even local travelers who passed Simpang Alas averted their eyes, as if a dark vacuum radiated out beyond the prison walls and to look upon it put them at risk of being sucked into that darkness.

What I needed to do was hit Raymond Tullock quickly, then get the hell out. I would have preferred anything to even a year in Simpang Alas—a firing squad, a knife . . . anything.

But with Havildar gone, it would not be so easy.

For three straight days, I watched Tullock from my window, or tagged along after him in a car, with Rengat driving. I watched him and made cryptic notes.

He was never hard to find. In the alleyways of Sumatra, a tall, blond American stands out in any crowd.

Tullock had three Japanese business associates. The four of them spent two mornings at the huge fish market in Belawan, not far from the port where I had met the junk days earlier. They also spent a day traveling around the foothills of the western mountains. I got the impression that Tullock was thinking about expanding into the timber business. Also got the impression that he was looking for an estate to buy or rent.

In Indonesia, a man with a monthly income of a couple thousand U.S. dollars could live like a sultan. Maids, gardeners, a chauffeur, cooks, and all the wives and mistresses he wanted.

I wondered if Tullock was afraid of the murder charge that might await him back in the states. He had cleaned out his bank accounts. So maybe that had been his plan all along. Hannah had made it plain that he would never have her, so why go back?

I also wondered if Tullock, through phone calls back to the States, had discovered that he had killed Hannah, not me.

I found it oddly irritating that I did not know.

Tullock was a punctual man of habit. Each day he returned to his hotel just after five and drank bottled Pellegrino water on the patio that overlooked the hotel garden. He would sit there in his catalogue-new safari clothes and listen to the eerie wail of the muezzin calling the Muslim faithful to prayer. Would sit there as the whole city came to a stop around him; as passersby threw prayer carpets onto the dirt walkways and bowed toward Mecca. He would continue to sip water and write in his ledger book, indifferent to it all. Then Tullock would return to his room and reappear an hour later, right at dusk, and go for a jog. His route was always the same: down the crowded streets, then north along the Deli River. His route followed dirt footpaths that wound through several patches of park that were as dark and wooded as jungle.

My original plan was to have Havildar sneak into Tullock's room while he was out. It would have been so simple, so damn easy. I could have chosen any time I wanted to confront Tullock—I wanted to confront him—then left the rest to Havildar and the men he had named in his note.

That wouldn't work now. Rengat couldn't be trusted, and like Tullock, I stood out in a crowd. People would notice me in his hotel. People would notice me on his floor.

I couldn't risk that... yet it seemed mad to proceed without knowing what was in the man's room.

I could hear Tomlinson's voice saying, I take it on faith, man. On faith. Could hear Hannah's voice saying, I knew . . . I just knew.

But I took little on faith, and I knew nothing instinctively.

What I did know was that revenge included risk, and risk had a price.

One night, I stood in my room and looked at myself in the flaked mirror that was nailed to the wall. I was a little drunk—I'd had a couple of liters of Tiger beer. In the mirror was the face of a stranger. It was like standing behind a wall, looking through a two-way mirror. If I moved my mouth, the stranger moved his mouth. If I rubbed a hand over the beard stubble on my chin, the stranger did the same. But the stranger's eyes were not my eyes. His were predator-bright. Mine felt bleary. It was as if the stranger were mocking me: So just snatch the guy, bag him, and kill him!

It seemed so easy to the stranger; everything clear-cut and neatly defined. And it would have been easy: Follow Tullock out on one of his runs, then hide along the river, in the trees. Crouch there watching the great hornbill birds fly over, their wings creaking; watch the giant fruit bats drop down out of the trees and cup the darkness with their five-foot wing spans. Wait for Tullock to jog back . . . then take him.

It was so easy that, each day at dusk, as I watched Tullock trot off, I had to fight the temptation ... a temptation so strong that I found myself procrastinating, getting the man's patterns down for no other reason than to underline the simplicity of that stranger's simple solution.

Yet I didn't want it to end that way. Not for Raymond Tullock. More important, not for me.

I decided to proceed with a variation of my original plan. I had taken risks before—not many, but a few. Now, at least, it seemed that I had much less to lose. . . .

Friday is a Muslim holy day, so I spent it transferring my belongings into two canvas duffel bags that I had purchased at the Central Market which was just off Sutomo Street.

Into my old bags—which included my favorite Loomis travel rod satchel—I placed rags and chunks of wood that I had pilfered from the back of my boarding house. When the bags looked and felt about right, I used duct tape to seal them tight.

Then I dressed myself in a favorite pair of baggy Egyptian cotton slacks; the kind with the big cargo pockets. Into the right pocket, I stuffed a big bandanna and the opaque green glass orb I had taken from Hannah's house.

The little ball had a nice weight to it. It was granite-smooth except for the ingenious flanged stopper.

I spent half an hour practicing, but just couldn't seem to get it right. My hands were too big, my fingers too long and blunt. Once upon a time I had spent a deadly boring week in a boat off the coast of Cambodia. One of my companions had three small baggies filled with sand, and he had tried to teach me to juggle. I never did get it. My hands are fine for focusing a microscope, or for using a scalpel, but they are not clever in a way that I now needed.

Once I almost dropped the glass ball, and I thought: You're insane to try this without Havildar's help.

But I ignored the small, destructive internal voice. Blotted out the images of me squatting in some cell in Simpang Alas Prison. I kept at it. Kept practicing. Tried to picture the way it would be: Me in the room, Raymond Tullock in the room, plus two, maybe three others. I had to point at something—anything to shift their attention—then draw the bandanna out of my pocket smoothly, very, very smoothly. . . .

When I thought I had it pretty good, I played around with my portable shortwave radio, then took up the bandanna again and practiced for another half an hour. I wanted to embed the move into the muscle memory; wanted to be able to do it mechanically, like it was second nature, without having to think.

In the early evening, while the city's bullhorns told the faithful that it was time to bow to Mecca, I decided that I had had enough. I put everything away, changed into different clothes. Then I took my three ox-eyed tarpon into the bathroom to dissect.

Later that night, I ate satay beef and rice, sitting across a restaurant table from Rengat. I told him that I would be leaving Medan the next evening. I told him to come by my boarding house promptly at sunset, so that he could take my luggage to Polonia Airport. I told him that because of a business engagement, I would arrive separately by private cab and might be a little late.

I watched the little man's eyes shift around as he projected great sadness that I had to leave Sumatra so soon. "Has something happened to displease you?" he asked.

I handed Rengat my Garuda Airline ticket so that he could check my luggage. "I'm afraid something very bad has happened," I told him. "I've been robbed."

When Raymond Tullock returned from his run the next evening, two Indonesian policemen and I were standing in the hallway, outside his room, waiting on him. For days, I had been looking forward to this moment; had anticipated, with great pleasure, the shock that seeing me would cause the man . . . had anticipated, with greater pleasure, the terror that would drain his face pale.

So I stood there, arms folded, a uniformed cop on either side of me. I could hear the squeak-squeaking of Tullock's rubber-soled shoes as he came up the linoleum steps, two at a time. Could see his head and shoulders come into view, and I fixed my eyes on his face. As Tullock got to the top of the stairs, he hesitated when he saw us. I watched closely as his eyes registered consternation and minor surprise; but nothing that communicated shock, nothing close to terror.

Not a good reaction. . . .

He paused at the top of the stairs, collecting himself. He was wearing black spandex beneath burgundy running shorts. The rubber skin of his sweat pullover was shiny but dry—a vaguely reptilian touch. Tullock stared at me for a moment . . . then at the two cops . . . then back to me. Favored me with a thin, nervous smile before he said, "Well, well—long time no see. The name's Ford, isn't it? How's our girl Hannah doing, Ford?"

At least he doesn't know.

I said, "My girl Hannah is just fine. Me, too. We're all just fine."

Which seemed to cause him momentary discomfort. But he recovered quickly, showing me he didn't much care. Said, "Always good to see another American in these Third World countries," as he continued down the hall toward us. Then: "Is it true? I hear you've been robbed."

I thought: Rengat, you son of a bitch!

Tullock brushed past me just close enough so that his shoulder collided with mine—a gesture designed to stake out territory—and he produced a key, then swung his door wide. "You're welcome to have a seat while I change, gentlemen. But I'm afraid I can't give you much time. I have a dinner appointment in less than an hour." Turned his head to give me a private, searing look. "So let's make it quick."

In Indonesia, law enforcement has an informal aspect. Visitors or individual citizens can seek out the help of specific cops. Havildar had given me the names of two who spoke English. One was Lieutenant Suradi, the other was Officer Prajurit. Both were small, dark men who wore navy-blue slacks and shirts that were brightened with red trim. Because I had used Havildar's name, they had come with me to the Hotel Tiara willingly enough—not that I could expect any favors from them. Already I could sense that Tullock's self-assurance had made Lieutenant Suradi, for one, dubious.

"This a very serious charge, sahr," he said to me as we entered the room. "You must be certain. You not very certain, sahr, maybe this man ask we arrest you!" Said it loud enough for Tullock to hear, letting him know that he was not taking sides in this squabble between two Americans.

Tullock was stripping off the rubber pullover, handling himself pretty well. Showing just the right mix of tolerance and indignation. "It's a damn serious charge, Ford. If you've never been to Indonesia before, maybe you don't know, but—over here?—they cut a man's hand off for stealing."

I gave a soft whistle, trying to play it just as cool. "Maybe you can get the doctors to fix you up with a hook, Ray. A man with your hobbies wouldn't want to get caught shorthanded."

"Oh? What hobbies are those?"

"Wires and things. Timers? Things that can blow up in your face."

Tullock was toweling himself down. Gave me a pained expression— Fuck you—before saying to Suradi, "I suppose you're here to search my room."

"Yes. If this man want."

"You mind showing me the search warrant?"

Suradi was puzzled for a moment. "Oh! No need warrant. This man want, we search."

I got the impression that Tullock didn't care if we searched his room or not; was just playing a role. I wondered what kind of deal Rengat had worked with him. The little bastard had picked up my luggage right on time. Had probably reasoned that since I was flying out tonight, he no longer had a cause to fear me. So why not make some extra money? Could picture him telling Tullock, "All week, this big man follow you! You pay, I tell you more!"

Obviously, Tullock had paid. The question was: When had Rengat told him, and how much could he know?

To Lieutenant Suradi, Tullock said, "Tell me something. How are people who make false accusations treated in Sumatra? I'll cooperate, but I'll be damned if I'm going to let this guy get away with calling me a thief. I've got business interests in this country." Letting the cops know that he was an important man; a man with connections.

Suradi said, "It very serious, sahr. Yes, very serious. Mr. Ford wrong, maybe we take him to jail. You charge him, we do it, yes sahr." The little man was glaring at me, giving me one last chance to back down.

Tullock made a sweeping motion with his hand. "In that case," he said, "search all you want."

Suradi was still looking at me. I thought it over. Thought: What the hell. I nodded at the lieutenant. Said, "The man's a thief. Search his room."

Tullock had pulled on a dry T-shirt. He took a chair across from me, dabbing at his face with a towel as Suradi and Prajurit began to politely lift and poke their way through drawers and luggage. It was a large, sparsely furnished room. Hard brown linoleum floor, an open window that looked out over the city, off-white walls decorated only with two small paintings done in the gaudy colors of a cheap valentine card. Both paintings were weirdly abstract—one of a dark-faced girl, her hands extended in an Egyptian-like pose; the other was of a cart pulled by water buffalo. Cart and oxen—it caused the image of Hannah's face to flash into my mind.

"You tell me what you're looking for, maybe I can help." Tullock was sitting there, projecting indifference. His chair was against the open window. There was a floor lamp and a closet door to his left.

I told him, "You'll know when they find it," but I was thinking: If it starts to unravel, I'll shove him through the window.

"Ah-h-h," he said. "So it's going to be like that. I don't suppose you'd tell me when this supposed theft occurred?"

Suradi and Prajurit were leaving the conversation to us, just doing their jobs, not very happy about it.

"Yesterday," I said. "Late afternoon—just after the muezzin called the prayer."

"You mean that noise they blast over the streets?" Tullock had his legs crossed. He was a foot tapper—the only symptom of nervousness in the otherwise shielded demeanor of a bureaucrat who was probably seasoned by years of long meetings and public hearings. His foot continued to tap as he said, "In that case, I couldn't have done it, because that's when I take my daily run."

"Your running partner can confirm that?"

His foot slowed momentarily . . . then resumed its normal pace. "I had thousands of partners. Out there on the streets. They remember men who look like you and me, Ford. We all probably look alike to them."

Little did he know.

I said, "You were never alone, Ray? I seldom see anyone in the parks along the Deli River."

Tullock's foot began to lose speed . . . then stopped. He leaned toward me slightly and for a moment, just a moment, I could see the craziness that was in him. "You've made a terrible mistake, buddy. You have no idea just how deep the hole is you're digging—you should have done some reading before you came. I know about this country."

I said, "Ray, I've made mistakes that were a hell of a lot bigger than this. Mistakes I'm going to regret for the rest of my life. Like that bomb you left for me? I made a mistake and it ended up killing Hannah."

Slowly, very slowly, the color of his face changed from brown to red, and then to gray: Hawkeye's sidekick after hearing some shocking news. "You're . . . you're lying," he whispered.

"I wish I were. The mistake I made was not realizing just how scrambled your brain really is."

He had both feet on the linoleum now, both hands on the armrest. "She's not dead, she can't be dead. I put that thing—" He caught himself in time; realized that the two Indonesian cops had stopped their search and were listening. He sat back. "I don't know what the hell you're talking about."

"What I'm talking about, Ray, is what you stole from me." I used my head to gesture toward Lieutenant Suradi. In his hand he was holding the small opaque green ball that I had already described to him . . . and which I had just watched him remove from the open drawer of a dresser. To the lieutenant, I said, "That's it. He must have taken it from my room when I was out. It's extremely valuable."

"That's not his, it's mine! Don't you see what he's doing?" Tullock was on his feet now, beginning to lose it. Also getting some very hard looks from the cops. He forced himself to pause . . . took a very deep breath, fighting hard to recover. Actually managed to give Suradi a little smile as he said, "What if I prove that glass ball belongs to me? Will that make you happy?"

Lieutenant Suradi said in a chilly, formal voice, "He tell us it's here. We find it."

"But it was in my room all along! He's trying to make fools of you. I'll show you—" Tullock hustled over to his briefcase and pulled out a sheet of long pinkish paper, the color of a legal document in Sumatra. "I was expecting him to pull something like this. At the suggestion of my Japanese associates, I had their secretary list everything that I brought into the country. Everything I have in this room. See?" Tullock was showing them the paper. "It's listed right here. See this? 'Green glass ornament.' I carry it as a good luck charm." Gave the tone just the right inflection—an innocent admission of silliness made by an innocent man.

Now Suradi and Prajurit had turned their cold stares on me. My expression said, Oh, shit. . . .

Tullock pressed the advantage. "The man's trying to frame me. Look at his face! He's trying to set me up—"

"What's the date on that list?" I asked Suradi.

He checked it. "Dated . . . two . . . no, three days ago." I watched his eyes shift from the paper to me. "You robbed yesterday, sahr. That's what you say."

I thought about how nice it would be to shake Rengat by the neck.

"They could have postdated it. The date on that paper means nothing."

Tullock had made a full recovery now. "I'm afraid it's your word against mine, sport. My word and the word of my business associates. All very respectable Japanese businessmen." He slapped the paper. "Listed right here in black and white."

I stood, took the bandanna from my pocket and wiped the sweat from my forehead. "May I see the glass ball?"

Suradi hesitated, then handed it to me.

"I guess I could have made a mistake, but it's very similar." I motioned to the floor lamp. "Can you pull that over so I can see a little better?" I stuffed the bandanna back in my pocket as I held the sphere up to the light. The glass was so old and fogged that the light succeeded only in changing its color from black green to jade green. I pushed my glasses up on my head, inspecting more closely. Cleared my throat—couldn't hide my nervousness—then, after a long pause, I said, "I'm afraid I owe Mr. Tullock an apology. This definitely isn't the object that was stolen from me."

"You can stick that apology right up your ass." Tullock had taken his seat, legs crossed, foot tapping. "Of course it's mine. You knew all along it was mine. Don't try to play coy now."

To Lieutenant Suradi, I said, "I'm very sorry. I heard a rumor that he had a similar object—an innocent mistake."

I crossed to the window, held the glass ball out to Tullock—a deferential gesture. "I admit it. You said it was yours and it is yours. You've proven it. Hope there are no hard feelings."

Tullock was reaching for the ball, saying, "Lieutenant? I want to press charges. This was a vicious attempt on Mr. Ford's part to create legal problems for me in my new home," as I allowed the ball to roll off my fingers much too soon . . . saw Tullock bat at it, trying to stop the sphere's fall. . . watched the sphere hit the floor and explode into shards of glass and plume of heavy gray dust.

"You clumsy bastard!" Tullock was on his feet, hands balled into fists. For a moment, I thought he was going to take a swing at me. I would have liked that. He shouted, "You can pay me for this right now. Pay me in cash!" But then he seemed to have a better idea. "Wait—" He turned to the two Indonesian policemen. "I want you to charge him with this, too. The intentional destruction of my private . . ." He allowed the sentence to trail off as he noticed that neither Suradi or Prajurit was listening to him. Both were too intent on the mess at Tullock's feet to hear.

Among the shards of glass was a substantial mound of grayish powder, fine as talcum.

"What's that?" Tullock asked—the voice of a confused adolescent.

I had backed against the open chest of drawers when the ball shattered, the bandanna once again in my hands. Now I stepped away from the chest of drawers, shrugged, and said, "I wouldn't know. Like you said, Ray: it's not mine."

Lieutenant Suradi was on one knee, studying the powder. Sumatra, apparently, was one of the few remaining places in the world where police officers actually touched and tasted unidentified chemicals. I wondered if it tasted offish.

Maybe it did. Suradi tasted his finger once more, then spat. He looked from Officer Prajurit to Raymond Tullock, then back to Officer Prajurit. Then he spoke in very fast Bahasa Indonesian; long, involved directive sentences that had the ring of discovery.

Tullock's confusion began to overwhelm him. "What are they saying? What the hell's going on here!"

Prajurit had a portable radio out and was talking into it. He banged the radio a few times, trying to get it to work. It wouldn't work, so he used the telephone. Suradi stood, felt around for the handcuffs on his belt as he tried to take Tullock by the left wrist. Tullock yanked his wrist away. "Goddamn it, what is that stuff?"

I watched his face very closely as I said, "I think I heard them say the word 'heroin.' "

"Heroin?" The expression on his face reminded me of the night he had caught Hannah and me together: bug-eyed crazy . . . wild with rage . . . grotesque. He said, "Do you know how they deal with that? What. . . what the punishment is for that?"

I wanted to ask, Have you ever seen Simpang Alas Prison? Instead, I gave him a private little wink. Said, "You crossed the borders, Ray. That's always risky."

What happened next was not pretty. Tullock lunged at me, screaming, "He did this! Search him!" as Suradi tried to get a wrist handcuffed. Suradi interpreted the movement as an attempt to escape. He went to work on Tullock with a wooden baton. Suradi was a tough and determined little man, but Raymond Tullock had a wild tenacity that one associates with the truly insane ... or with those who have absolutely nothing left to lose. When Tullock went down for the fourth time, he lay on the linoleum, alternately cursing me and pleading for my help. We're both Americans, for God's sake.

I watched his face closely, enjoying it, as I said, "Ray, you're only half right."

When the backup cops arrived, Suradi did search me. He was no fool and, by now, he was also in a fighting mood. I cooperated fully in what was a very thorough search. In my pockets, he found a clip full of American money. In my zippered leather belt, he found more money. He also found a single passport and tourist card, on which the money had been accurately declared. Aside from a few shiny-bright tarpon scales—he puzzled over those—he found nothing more.

Later, when Suradi and the others did an equally thorough search of Tullock's room, they would certainly find a second ball of opaque green glass in the chest of drawers . . . where, minutes earlier, I had placed it. . . and what remained of a bag of Burmese heroin—heroin for which a Rangoon bank draft, wired to Norvin Tomlinson, still awaited my final approval.

But that was Raymond Tullock's problem, not mine.

Still . . . Lieutenant Suradi didn't like it. Like all cops, he was cynical and suspicious. Coincidence and drug smugglers were two things he did not suffer gladly. Before releasing me, he took my passport—my real passport—along with my tourist card. "When you leave Medan?" he asked.

I told him truthfully that my plane was due to leave in less than an hour. Pictured Rengat waiting at the airport with my ticket and luggage— luggage full of wood scraps, taped tight—although it was more likely that Rengat had dropped both ticket and luggage at the Garuda counter before taking his family into the mountains for a convenient vacation.

Suradi shook my passport meaningfully. "You no go to airport tonight. You no go to airport till I say."

I promised him that I would not go to the airport.

Outside, on the busy night streets of Medan, the cab I had hired was waiting, my new duffel bags locked in the trunk. I opened the trunk and took out one of my false passports . . . not the passport I had recently had made; not the one that listed my name as Raymond Alan Walley; not the one I had used to clean out Tullock's bank account earlier that afternoon. Could hear Tullock saying, We all look alike to them. Could hear the teller at the Dutch East Indian Bank tell me, "Have nice day, sahr!" as I walked away with a briefcase full of 50,000-denomination rupiah notes—about 1110,000 worth.

I put the false passport in my pocket, swung into the back seat with the briefcase. Told the driver, "Port of Belawan," as I checked to make sure that I still had the torn halves of the hundred-dollar bills so that I could pay my passage to the captain of the red teak junk out of Rangoon.

Epilogue

Here is why I decided, and how I decided, to return to my home at Dinkin's Bay, on Sanibel Island:

Because I did not trust the betel nut-chewing captain of the Burmese junk, and because I became convinced that he and his crew of Bougie pirates planned to rob me, I jumped ship at the island of Phuket on the Isthmus of Thailand, and spent the next few weeks traveling around Indochina. I needed the time; felt I had rooted myself too deeply in the community that was South Florida, and now was an opportunity to sever those roots. Why had I stayed on Sanibel so long? The accoutrements of a modern life—and the obligations they imply—grow as slowly but as surely as a strangler fig. They also suffocate just as completely.

One night, at Raffles Hotel in Singapore, I sat outside in the tropical garden and realized, with some surprise, just how completely I had allowed myself to become entwined by the bonds of my island home. I was on committees, I was on boards, I paid electric, water, phone, and insurance. I had become a convenient source of advice and comfort and conversation for the dozens of friends who had come to depend on me almost as much as I had come to depend on them. I had a schedule; I had a routine. I had become one of the regulars, for God's sake. But all human interrelationships exact a price, and for me, that price was the lost look in Hannah's eyes just before she died, and the chill limpness of Tomlinson's hand.

I wanted to cut free. Revolted at the idea of ever risking it again. Tomlinson believed, he truly believed, in the symmetry of life and in a Creator's universe that was warmed by what he called sentient consciousness. Hannah had possessed the same mystic instincts. She knew. . . .

But the only thing I knew or believed was that all life—my life included—was a definable, weighable process. That process was brief indeed. For a while at least, I wanted to be free of the tethers. I wanted to be wild and alone and on the loose. So what I did was buy a big-frame backpack and a jungle tent from another one of my Gurkha friends—this was in Kuala Lumpur—and I set off on foot, and by public bus, on my tour of Indochina. What I found was what I expected to find: Asia was on the move. It was chopping, building, and bulldozing its way out of the oxcart world, directly into the world of computer chips. It was financing the transition with the bounty paid—usually by the Japanese—on rain forest timber and increasingly rare sea products. Denotations on maps such as "national park" were euphemisms meaningful only in that they marked regions that bulldozers had not yet reached. The term "net ban" was meaningful only in that it symbolized the increased value of Asia's own unregulated and desperately overused fishery.

I roamed around, observing, taking notes. Americans who call themselves environmentalists would have found the wholesale destruction I saw shocking. I did not. It was tragic, yes. But not shocking. When stray dogs become a part of the citizenry's menu, professorial speeches about the long-term benefits of virgin forests and sea conservation won't turn a single head—particularly when those speeches come from people who have never had to stalk their neighborhood's pets.

I loved the people, but ultimately, I grew tired of Indochina. The people I met were as smart as they were kind; they were as generous as they were tough. The reason I left was trivial: I yearned to hear English spoken. It happens sometimes, when you have been away too long in a foreign land. I had my portable shortwave radio, true. And in places such as Thailand and Cambodia, the V.O.A.—Voice of America—came in fairly strong. But it wasn't enough, so I caught a Qantas flight in Phnom Penh and flew to Darwin.

Australia and its Northern Territory are the English-speaking world's future . . . just as Asia is currently designing the rest of the world's future. After Cambodia, I was unprepared for the horizon of wild space and pure sea light that rims Darwin. The land has a hot, primeval aspect. Tendrils of steam seep upward, as if the process of chemical genesis still continues. Darwin is an outback town; a frontier town, despite its parks and modern architecture. In too many cities around the world, sidewalk travelers wear expressions of introspective rage. Not in Darwin. In Darwin, people had a blue-collar glow, as if they were just damn glad to live in a world that had electricity and indoor plumbing. Strangers grinned at me on the street, tipped their Akubra cowboy hats and said, "Ga'day!" or, "How ya goin', mate?"

It was from Darwin that I mailed—via a buddy of mine in Managua— the second of my only two letters to Mack at Dinkin's Bay. The first had included a brief note explaining that I had decided to do some traveling and would be back in about a month. The second letter, sent seven weeks later, explained that I might be gone for six months, maybe more. It included private notes to Janet Mueller, Jeth, and Rhonda and JoAnn aboard the Tiger Lilly. I offered no return address. Still felt the need to be on the loose, untethered.

East of Darwin, I had a friend who owned six hundred square kilometers of land. It was grazing land and eucalyptus forest that fronted the Timor Sea. My friend was reluctant—didn't think it was hospitable—but he finally agreed to chopper me out to the most desolate stretch of beach on his property, and leave me there. I told him I wanted to spend a few weeks living off the land, collecting specimens from the mud flats. My friend told me that I was bloody nuts, unloaded my gear, and flew off.

That is where I decided to return to Dinkin's Bay. But here is how and why: I had built a sapling hut that was close enough to the sea so that I could feel the rumbling surf, but far enough away from the beach so that the giant estuarine crocodiles wouldn't crawl up and eat me in the night. I had covered the hut with a tight palm-frond thatching to keep out the monsoon rains, and I had constructed what I thought was a very ingenious all-weather fire pit. Made myself a nice little jungle camp, complete with everything but a sign outside that read: Beware the Big Dumb Shit.

For food, there were plenty of mud crabs, plus the occasional snare-dumb feral hog. I also caught barramundi—a fish which looks and behaves remarkably like a snook. For water, I had the monsoons, as well as a Pur hand-pump water filter. It was a good life. I loved the solitude of it... all the potential that the sea and that wild country offered. Some days, just for the hell of it, I'd pull out the little mirror in my toilet kit and take a look at myself: long tangle of salt-bleached hair ... red beard . . . sea-gray eyes that gradually, very gradually and over several weeks, lost the predator's gleam.

I told myself I was a hermit. I told myself that I had become the captive of my own wild instincts. But we are all creatures of habit, and soon I had carved out a new routine that was very similar to my old routine. I ran along the beach each morning, collected specimens and took notes during the day; then I'd lie in my palm shack at night, listening to my shortwave radio.

It was something I heard on the shortwave that caused me to finally return to Florida. I was lying by the fire, using what remained of my clothes as a pillow. I had the radio's antenna extended as far as it would go, and I was tinkering with the slide tuner. I was trying to pick up something— anything—in Spanish, when I happened to come across a medical talk program on Voice of America. There was a lot of static, a lot of whiny electronic garble, but I listened because there seemed to be something very familiar about the voice of the woman being interviewed.

Heard her say: ". . . always considered myself to be a logical woman who is well grounded in the sciences, but I have no explanation for . . ."

Static.

I stood naked beside the fire and held the radio up in the air, turning slowly, trying to vector in on the signal.

Heard the woman's voice say, ". . . lightning strike, perhaps . . . filled the room with a brilliant white light. . . . May explain it, although . . . yes, there were a number of wires still attached . . ."

Static.

"... still talks about an alien presence in space, which he insists . . . never dead, only traveling . . . The man still describes his body as a spaceship. . . ."

Static.

Pulled the radio down to my ear because I was certain that I recognized the woman's voice. Heard Dr. Maria Corales say, "... only one other known case of such a recovery. Even so, for my own peace of mind as a surgeon . . . for my own spiritual peace of mind . . . doing more tests . . . Odd thing is? He believes, and I'm beginning to believe too. . . . Yes . . . God . . . I'm talking about God. . . ."

It took me all the next day to hike out to a dirt road, where I caught a lift into Darwin. The following morning—it was March 24, a Friday—I caught a Qantas flight home to see my friend Tomlinson.