Shark River

10

The first thing I did after securing my skiff and the trawler was check the shark pen, which is on the deepwater, sunrise side of my piling house. I stood on the top deck and watched three bull sharks, all thick as small ponies, swim a slow clockwise perimeter along the heavy netting.

Usually, they swam in just the opposite direction. Lately, though, it was clockwise. I’ve never understood why.

I checked their feeding chart-Jeth had fed them twenty fresh mullet that morning. That was the most difficult thing about keeping sharks in captivity-getting them to eat. They could be very fussy. But these three seemed to be doing okay. They looked healthy. One, a female, had a very deep mating scar on her back, which I’d treated with antibiotics. It looked to be nearly healed.

Standing at my shoulder, Ransom said, “Man, the way you look at them scary animals, I bet you got names for all three of ’em.”

I answered, “Why would anyone name a fish?” and moved on.

Then I checked my fish tank, which is the primary storage unit for the plants and animals I catch and collect and keep alive.

The tank is actually a thousand-gallon wooden cistern, built like a whiskey barrel, that I’d cut in two, mounted on the widest part of the dock and then added a sub-sand filter and a hundred-gallon upper reservoir to improve water clarity. PVC pipe and a Briggs raw water pump kept it oxygenated.

The tank is so large that it’s a miniature, self-contained sea biota, its own little saltwater universe, and so heavy that I’d had to have extra pilings jetted in beneath it for support.

In the tank are local flora and fauna: turtle grass, tunicates, sea hydroids, and several common vertebrates, such as killifish, small snappers, immature groupers, several immature tarpon and snook, plus plenty of shrimp so the fish don’t eat each other. There are also sea horses, whelks, and tulip shells, and as many reef squid as I can keep alive and uneaten. I like to keep squid in the tank because they are delicate, and good indicators of an aquarium’s integrity.

Ransom followed me around like a shadow as I checked the filters and water flow. She seemed amused that I would keep fish as what she perceived to be pets, names or no names. She was also very comfortable with my house-surprising, because it’s a simple place. Not all women like it. It’s two weather-bleached cottages, really, under one tin roof, built at the turn of the previous century on a plank platform over the water, and connected to the mangrove shoreline by ninety feet of boardwalk.

She looked at the cypress planking, the peeling gray paint and the outdoor, rain cistern shower. Looked at the Franklin fireplace, which is my only source of heat. Considered the little gas stove where I cook and the simple ship’s refrigerator. Noted the single bed, the sparse furnishings, the worn throw rugs, and completely misinterpreted what it all meant.

“Man,” she said, “I thought I was poor, living in my lil’ house on Cat Island. At least I got me a portable heater for when the northers blow and a television set that gets two Miami stations and one outta Nassau. When we find that six thousand dollars, my brother, you keep it all. You need the money a lot more than this girl.”

She didn’t seem to understand or believe why I was amused by that. “Why you smilin’ at me? You think I’m joking? No, I mean what I’m saying-we use the money, buy you some decent furniture, then I take what’s left over if there some money remaining.”

Perhaps there is a sense of subconscious linkage due to familial genetics. More likely, it was because it was absolutely impossible not to like and trust this woman even though I’d tried to remain disinterested, indifferent. Didn’t matter. She’d won me over and there was nothing I could do about it. Whatever the reason, I decided to give her a vague idea-a very vague idea-of what my income is per year.

After I told her, she said, incredulously, “You got to be kiddin’!”

No, I wasn’t kidding.

“You got all that money, why you live so poor?”

I looked around my house, trying to see it through her eyes. “Money’s got nothing to do with the way I choose to live.”

She found that funny. “Man, money got everything to do with how a person live. You got money, you should show it off a little. Get a little flashy, man. Let people know.”

I said to her, “Once they know, then what?” Meaning that, like giving a name to a shark, it made no sense.

I don’t believe people who say they don’t care about money and I don’t trust people who care too much.

The acquisition of money is necessary to living a life of acceptable independence. The question, of course, is what is acceptable? And how much will it cost?

A couple of years back, after a beery night of philosophical discussion, Tomlinson and I had both decided to take an active interest in acquiring money. I saw it as a clinical exercise. He saw it as a spiritual experiment.

We both succeeded way beyond our expectations, but I feel no pride in what has been the steady accumulation of paper wealth because I had no emotional interest in it to begin with.

The same is probably true for Tomlinson.

Reason’s simple: The credit belongs entirely to Mack. Mack, who owns and operates Dinkin’s Bay, has a New Zealander’s appreciation for thriftiness and a genius for the American stock market. Coincidental to that discussion, I’d just separated a very evil man from a sizable chunk of money, and I’d asked Mack to invest it all for me. I didn’t care if I lost the entire bundle-indifference can also work as a very effective cleanser of ethics.

By the end of that fiscal year, had I not reinvested my dividend payments, profits would have far exceeded what I make collecting and selling marine specimens.

I already had a sizable cache of cash hidden away in foreign accounts, so I’d taken ten percent of what I estimated to be the total and had Mack invest that, too. Tomlinson did the same with his own sizable inheritance after the untimely death of his father. Without even trying or really caring very much, we’d both become men of means and perhaps even wealthy, depending on how the market went and whose standards of wealth you used.

I was checking a recent and already much regretted acquisition-a telephone answering machine-as I explained this to her.

She said, “You tellin’ me you make all that money and don’t even do no work for it?”

On a pad of paper, I noted that a Professor Steven Dougherty had called from Grinnell University in Iowa with an order for three hundred small horseshoe crabs preserved in formalin, as I said, “There’s risk involved. Not as much now because the guy who does the investing for me-you’ll meet him tonight, a man named Mack. This guy, Mack, he handles my investments, and he’s done what they call diversify. What that means is, he’s spread the money out into more dependable stocks, which are supposed to be safer. The marina has a big party every Friday night. In just a couple hours, right at sunset. Mack’ll be there.”

She was very interested, I could tell by her expression. “This man you talking about. This Mack? A man with brains like that, I bet he’s married.”

“No, but he’s got a very complicated love life. If you’re suggesting… if you’re even considering the idea, what I should tell you is, if you want to marry a man with money, choose someone else. Marina people don’t date each other. Not at this marina, anyway. Because of me, or because you’re close to Tomlinson-either one of us-it’s like you’re living here. So drop the idea.”

Staring at me, her nose flared. “Hey, man! Let’s have us a little understanding here, okay? I won’t give you no orders if you don’t try to order me around. How’s that sound? Besides, I ain’t gonna marry no man anyway. If I do, it going to be for the size of his heart, not the size of his wallet.”

She had Tuck’s quick temper, too.

“Sorry,” I said. “That was unfair. I could tell you’re interested in Mack, though. I’m not wrong about that.”

“I’m interested ’cause you think you’re the only one who’d like to be rich? If I give this man a big chunk a’ money, maybe he can make me rich, too.”

Listening to the answering machine, I noted that a Dr. Picking had called from Waldron College in Michigan and wanted to place an order for a hundred medium sea anemones, fifty preserved octopi, and up to two hundred live goose barnacles if I could find them. A pretty good order, because all those things are easy to get in February.

As I wrote the order on a pad, I said to Ransom, “You can ask Mack at the party tonight. What you need to keep in mind, though, it’s like I already told you: Six thousand dollars isn’t a lot of money even if it does exist. Which I doubt. Invest a small amount like that and it’s going to be a long wait until you can consider yourself wealthy.”

“There you go doin’ it again. Speaking mean about Daddy Gatrell. Besides, who knows? Maybe I be able to let this man invest more than just six thousand dollars. Maybe I saved up some big money from my waitressing. I’m a hard worker, man, make no mistake about that. A very hard worker. So, yes, maybe I have more money to invest than you thinkin’, my brother. How about I had… and I’m just throwin’ out a figure here… but what if I had, say, seventeen thousand dollars to invest. Or say that seventeen thousand dollars plus another three thousand? Your friend Mack, if he put that money in stocks, how long it take me to have enough money to buy me a nice house on Sanibel plus a pool, maybe? And a car? I want me a nice red car, one that’s got power windows.”

There was something in her tone-a duplicity of meaning-that made me uneasy. A specific figure spoken offhandedly, as if it were invented. The addition of $3,000-half the money she hoped we would find. There was something she wasn’t telling me. The tone was too familiar, and so was the impression of divisiveness.

Where had I heard that tone before?

Why’d I even have to think about it? Tucker Gatrell, that’s where I’d heard it before. Many times before. The same manipulative chord that signaled an unwillingness to trust a lesser human being with his actual plan. She was parroting Tucker’s old trick. Holding back information because knowledge truly is power. Intentionally keeping her own agenda secret, which I found offensive as hell.

I was about to tell her exactly that. But then the final message on my machine caught my interest… then it captured my attention. I was surprised to hear the formal, diplomatic voice of Hal Harrington say, “Doctor Ford, I’m afraid I have some distressing news. The Latin gentleman injured on the dock yesterday? I’ve just received a report from a reliable source who’s informed me that a man by the name of Amador Cordero was admitted to All Saints Hospital in Cartagena late yesterday evening. He was brought into the county via private plane, and rushed to the hospital. He was unconscious by the time they got him to the emergency room where it was determined that he had a severe spinal cord injury.

“Cordero is currently on a life-support system. The prognosis is not good. At best, he’ll be a functioning paraplegic. Amador Cordero is the oldest son of Edgar Cordero. I’ve already told you about Edgar, and I can assure you that he is extremely interested in any information relating to you. I suggest you be alert, and be aware. Very alert. Very aware. If I learn anything else, I’ll contact you immediately.” He added, “My best to Mister Tomlinson,” and hung up.

I deleted the message and took the notepad across the room and out the door, Ransom following along, talking behind me. “He referrin’ to the person in the mask you hurt yesterday, that’s what that all about, ain’t it? He telling you it worse than you think, he warning you. Something scary ’bout his voice, too, it so deep. Who was that? Maybe you better call the po-lice, my brother. Let them handle it.”

It was an unsettling thing to contemplate a person connected to tubes, being inhalated by a machine, frozen in his own immobile body because of something I’d done. I had to stand there and think about it for a moment. Had to remind myself of Amador Cordero’s behavior, his assault on two innocent women, before I answered, “I’m not calling anybody. Neither are you.”

By now, she’d followed me through the door into my lab, with its odor of chemicals and alcohol, old wood and ozone from aerators oxygenating the aquariums along the south wall. The aerators made comforting, burbling, Flubber-like sounds. She continued to press me to seek help from the police until I told her knock it off; I wasn’t discussing it anymore. That what I wanted to discuss was her cryptic interest in investing a large sum of money in the stock market.

“You think I’m going to introduce you to Mack? No way. You’re not talking to Mack until you give me the whole story. That figure you mentioned-seventeen thousand dollars? Where’d that come from? You pull a figure like that out of the blue?”

“It just a number that come into my head.”

“Don’t do that to me, Ransom. I’m telling you right now. Tell me everything or I’m not going to waste my time talking with you.”

“Just because I lied for you don’t give you the right to call me a liar.”

“See? That’s exactly the sort of thing you do that really pisses me off. It’s another one of your devices. I know you lied for me, but please don’t try and use it to manufacture guilt. I asked you a simple question.”

“You don’t believe I could make that much money waitressing?”

“On Cat Island? Absolutely not. I’m not stupid. So tell me-if you really do have that much money, where’d you get it?”

Ransom was looking out the window, suddenly not so interested in what I was saying. Heard her say, “Uh-oh!” but very soft, like she didn’t want me to hear.

I looked out the same window to see two large black men, one of them wearing a red, black, and green Rastafarian headnet, the other with dreadlocks matted long and hanging down like a mane. The two of them were walking along the boardwalk toward my house. On their faces were forced expressions of neighborly confidence and familiarity-contrived since they certainly were not my neighbors. One of them used an ebony-handled walking stick. He wasn’t limping. A walking stick in the hands of a healthy man is a weapon, not a cane.

“Do you know those men?”

“What men you talking about?”

I put my hand on the back of her head and forced her to look through the window that her eyes were suddenly now trying to avoid. “ Those men. Tell me the truth. There’s a reason I’m in a hurry, so don’t screw around.”

The reason was that if the two men had been sent so soon by Edgar Cordero, I needed to open the old locker from beneath my bed and dig out a firearm. I’ve dealt with enough drug people, and more than enough Colombians, to know that if men came all that way to take revenge, they’d fire without hesitating and shoot to kill.

Ransom was frightened. There was no mistaking the involuntary muscular tremor. She said, “Goddamn, man! What them two no-account Jamaican boys doin’ here on this fancy island?”

Yeah, she knew them alright. I said, “Then tell me. Who are they? Why’re they here?”

“That mean man I tell you about, the witch man. Sinclair Benton? He like the Jamaicans ’cause they so smart and they work so hard. Those two, one named Izzy, the bigger man, he named Clare. They worked for Mr. Benton. They at the restaurant that day he call me a cow, the day they all laughed.”

The men were looking at the house now as they walked. Heard one of them call, “Yoohoo, Ransom girl? You got ol’ friends come here to lay the visit on you. You in there, Ransom girl?”

I had her elbow now and gave it a squeeze. “But why are they here? Tell me.”

She really was scared now. It was in her voice. “I’m sorry, my brother. If I’d known they’d come this far looking for me, I wouldn’t a done what I did. Them Rastamans, they ain’t supposed to like to leave the islands, man. They call a plane an iron bird, like it something bad.”

Before I could ask again, she turned her face to me and said, “Could be, they think I stole something from Sinclair Benton. From his house after the man died. Could be that the reason they come to Florida looking for me.”

I said, “Seventeen thousand dollars? Is that what they think you stole?”

She smiled, her blue eyes looking into mine. “Man, Daddy Gatrell, he were sure right about how smart he say you are. How you know that?”

Outside, the two men were coming up the steps to the top deck. I heard the same voice call, “Come out and see your friends, Ransom girl. Or we come in and see you.”

As I went toward the door, she said behind me, nearly whispering now. “And a ring. They maybe think I stole a ring from that bad man, too.”

I looked at the gold ring on her right hand. I’d noticed the ring because of its unusual size but hadn’t taken a close look. “That one?”

She was twisting it off, in a hurry now to slide the ring into her pocket. “Could be,” she said.

Izzy was the talker, standing there with his big smile, golden stars on front incisors, his dreadlocks matted and waxed like combed wool hanging to the small of his back. Loose blue drawstring pants, white tank top that showed muscles and cordage and veins when he moved his arms, his skin very black except for his palms, which he showed often because he was a showman. He used big hand gestures. The palms of his hands, they were salmon-colored, nearly pink.

Clare stood beside Izzy, a step behind, his silence making him seem bigger, a man who filled his own space and spilled out into the space of everyone else. It was impossible not to be aware of him. He stood there listening in his knit Rasta cap, red, green and black, which was huge on his head, holding all the hair we could not see, Clare with his tiny black eyes set deep beneath his forehead, the frontal plate of his skull wide and very flat, leaning his weight on the ebony-handled walking stick. I noted that the handle was a death’s head, another skull, this one polished bright, jaws thrown open, laughing. Or screaming.

What was Sinclair Benton’s Obeah nickname? Ransom had told me. Mr. Bones.

Izzy said, “So that how we find you, my sister! It not so hard. We know you fly Air Bahamas to Lauderdale, and the Greyhound bus people, they very helpful. And you a girl who like to talk! You talk to the ticket lady, you talk to the bus driver, tellin’ ev’body your plans. What Clare and me, what we don’t understand is, we come all this way to see you, why you not happy to see some your old island friends?”

His speech pattern and delivery were much faster than Ransom’s, his accent a rounder, Jamaican lilt. I heard, Wha-we dawn unerstan-eeze, we cawm all dese way… as I sat, leaning my hip against the railing, close to the front door of my house. Ransom was standing in front of them, face to face. She’d stepped out to meet them as if dealing with guests from the instant I said, “You fellas have a reason to be here?” preparing to tell them to leave. But Ransom had told me, “I’ll handle this mess,” and left me there to watch and listen.

Now she said, “First thing you should know, Izzy? I ain’t your friend. Man, I careful about who I be calling my friends. And you two ain’t among them.”

It was the second or third time she’d skewered them with a barb. Now, as before, Izzy just laughed, turning to share the fun with an unsmiling Clare. He flicked his hands at Ransom as if to flick the insult away. “Girl, you spirited! That much I always know. Maybe you unhappy because we two island men, we remind you of the old times back at New Bight.” For the first time, he directed his attention to me. “Mister? You maybe not believe it, but this fine-looking woman, she not always so fine-looking! No sir! Back on the island, she used to be what we call a cushion girl. A cushion girl, she someone who easy to lay on the floor and make for very easy pushin’. This girl, my sister Ransom, she had lots and lots of cushion and always ready to get down on the floor with ’bout any ol’ bush boy that come along. Yes, she was!”

I didn’t like the shrill laughter he used as a rim shot to his poor jokes. Didn’t like the condescending way he called me sir, not meaning it, letting me know with his inflection that it was a veil for contempt. To Ransom, I said, “How well you know these two guys?”

She said, “It took me a day to know they both idiots, and took fifteen years to try and find a way to ignore ’em.” I was heartened by her tone, her combativeness. She was right there with me.

I said, “Then I think I’m going to ask your island visitors to leave. This guy-” I swung my chin toward Izzy. “He’s either very stupid, or he’s very rude.”

Clare spoke for the first time, opening his eyes slightly, as if I’d just awakened him. “What you just say, my man? You call my brotheren stupid? Man, that a very stupid thing for you to do. You insult my brother, you insult the Lion of Judah, you insult the Holy Piby. Man, you insult me.”

Rasta talk? Apparently.

I told him, “The only one I was trying to insult was Izzy. But if I nailed you and a couple of others, that’s just fine. Ask Izzy to explain that as you leave. Which you’re going to do right now, by the way.”

Izzy held his hands up-hold it, hold it! Said, “Ransom girl, now I understand why you come to this rich Sanibel Island place. You make yourself so beautiful, you find you a nice big white gentleman to look after you. Protect you when you need it. That a very good thing. And sir? You got you a very good woman here. Nice woman who know how to work hard, treat her man right. I make you angry with what I say about my old friend, sister Ransom? Then I apologize. Yes I do. Clare and me, sir, we come from a lil’ island far away. Don’t know nothin’ about behaving in a rich man’s world like this. So please forgive me. Forgive us.”

I said nothing, looking at his golden smile, at Clare’s fuming glare, not certain if I was disappointed I had a bum arm or not. Clare had the look of muscle density and lots of fast twitch quickness. Maybe it was better to have an excuse. A reason to call the cops and ask someone else to make them leave.

Yep. Not much doubt about it. In a way, I was glad my arm was in a sling.

When I still made no reply, Izzy said, “Whether you accept our ’pology or not, sir, we got us a problem. Yes, we do. I very sad to say that. But it not a big problem if Ransom agree to cooperate. Thing is, Ransom, she went into the home of my former employer-his name Sinclair Benton-she go into Mr. Benton’s home after the man die, and she helped herself to a pile of money there, and a ring. That ring, it very valuable, man.”

“It not just any ring,” Clare added, looking at Ransom. “You so ignorant in the ways of the Lord, you probably don’t even know what it was you took. That ring, it a holy ring, girl. It the royal ring of Haile Selassie, the one made a present to him by the Ethiopian Church. That ring, it belonged to King Solomon, who give it to the Queen of Sheba, who give it to her son, Prince Menelik of Ethiopia. And that the way the ring be passed along for three thousand years ’til our Saint, Bob Marley, he lost it somehow on one of the small islands. But our employer, Mr. Benton, he get it back ’cause he know the proper way of certain words and herbs.”

Ransom said, “You mean he a witch. That what you sayin’. Or Benton stole that ring from Bob Marley his own self.”

“Don’t you be talking about Mr. Benton, you know what’s good for you girl. He dead but he still got power on Cat Island.”

“I ain’t on Cat Island no more. Big ol’ fat witch man! He treat me dirty all my life.”

Izzy was still using his peacemaker’s tone. “We all know why that is, Ransom girl. It ’cause your white daddy steal a bunch’a gold coins from him long ago in the back years and Mr. Benton, he not a man to forgive a person easily.”

“He call me a cow! You two boys right there to hear his words. Laughed right along with everybody at New Bight.”

“That give you no right to rob him!” Clare banged his walking stick on the deck for emphasis, then said to me, “She take a stack of cash money, too. American money. Ten thousand dollars was in that box, girl. Izzy, he just happen to count it before she come that night and get his brother so drunk on the cane rum and strip him naked offering to give him the womanly present.”

Izzy cleared his throat uneasily. “Could’a been a little more than ten thousand dollars, my brotheren. I tell you, I count it very quickly ’cause I know it not my money to be touching. Maybe she stole more than ten thousand. That I not so sure about.”

I smiled, seeing it now, understanding Izzy and Clare’s interest. I said, “You’re calling the lady a thief. What I wonder is, why don’t you contact the police? Have her arrested if you’re so sure it was her.”

The reason they hadn’t called the cops was obvious. It was because they planned on stealing the money and the ring for themselves. Not only that, something else was now clear: Izzy had lied to his partner about how much cash there was. Told him there was ten thousand when, apparently, there was nearly twice that. Lied to get a bigger split. But Izzy was staying calm, playing it cool. I listened to him say, “The reason we don’t contact the magistrate, man, it ’cause we care about our island sister. Ransom a good girl. She a hard worker, don’t make no trouble for nobody on the island.” The dazzling golden grin returned. “Man, if’n I knew how beautiful she gonna turn out to be in her old age, I’d taken this woman into my bed years ago. So why should I get her in trouble with the authorities, man? You think I want to see this good woman in jail? That where they sure gonna put her if she choose not to cooperate with us today.”

I said, “That’s very kind of you, Izzy. You, too, Clare.” “Your white gentleman friend, Ransom, he a very reasonable man.”

I said quickly, “I wasn’t finished. Thing is, when your employer died, I’m sure an attorney had to be involved in settling the estate.”

“Oh yes, you exactly right about that. Mr. Benton, he a very wealthy man. Had him two attorneys and they make everything go real smooth. One of them come clear from Nassau.”

“They handled Mr. Benton’s estate.”

“Of course they did. Everything fine and legal.”

“Then they had to know about the missing cash, right? And the missing ring. Which means that the police are going to be after whoever stole it, no matter if you turn them in or not, Izzy. It’s out of your hands.”

Izzy puffed up a little, confident, very pleased with himself. “That where you all wrong, sir. What you don’t know is, Mr. Benton, he a smart man. The way he get the ring and all that money, it his own business. So why should he pay the tax magistrate in Nassau for the fruit of his own labors?” There was the big grin, again. “Understand my meaning? There no official paper record of them things that was stolen. Which is why, if Ransom cooperate, the magistrate got no cause to arrest her.”

I’d taken a few steps forward. Now I put my right hand on the girl’s shoulder. “There’s no record of Benton owning the ring or the money?”

“No, man! That’s why your girl safe with only me and Clare knowing what she did.”

“Really? Then I’m very confused now. If there’s no official record of the ring and the cash being part of Benton’s estate, how can you or anyone else prove the ring or the cash exists?”

I watched the smile fade slowly from his face as he began to understand my meaning.

“If you or the magistrate can’t prove they existed, how are you going to prove Ransom or anyone else stole them? That’s the part I don’t understand. The cops can’t touch her. So how’re you doing her a favor not turning her in?”

The patronizing tone, the jollyness, were suddenly gone from his voice. “The favor we doing her, my man, is not treatin’ her like the thief she is. The way we’d do it down in the islands.”

“Oh? How do you treat thieves down in the islands?”

I was paying careful attention to the body language of both men, to the signals they gave off. Noticed that they began to move imperceptibly apart-the first feral indicator of attack formation. Noticed that Clare changed his grip on the walking stick, not even thinking about it. Noticed the jerky movements of Izzy’s head, his eyes moving in fast surveillance-was anyone way over there at the marina watching?-as his feet moved him a few inches at a time to my left. Noticed his eyes freeze for a moment, looking down into the water beyond the railing of the deck. I saw the moment of recognition when he realized what those dark shapes were, swimming in slow circles below, and he said, “You got some big biters in there, man!”

“Bull sharks. That’s right.”

“Down in the islands, we catch a thief, what we might do is take ’em out to the deep water, where the color change, and chum up some them biters. Let the thief hang over the water while the frenzy goin’ on. Maybe drop him in among the sharks a few times ’til they get smart and tell us where to find what they stole.”

Which is when he lunged toward Ransom, his mouth telling his brain what to do as it came to him.

He had her by the hair, pushing her toward the railing by the time I got to him with my one good arm.