Shark River

3

T omlinson’s bungalow was down the pink path past the old fishing lodge, a white clapboard duplex built at the turn of the century and named after a nearby island, Gasparilla.

It was gray dusk now, just past the pearly interlude after sunset. I alternately walked and jogged on the shell road behind the houses, not wanting to be seen. Came up the back way beside his bungalow, and stepped onto the porch.

As usual, the French doors and windows were wide open, music playing on the stereo. Jim Morrison and the Doors, the thunder-and-rain passage from “Riders on the Storm.”

The volume was uncharacteristically low, low enough that I could hear Tomlinson making strange noises, speaking strange phrases from inside.

Heard him say what sounded like, “Doin’ the hokiepokie-okee-dokie-Doctor-Billyboombah.” Heard him say, “You white desert wench, you’re the princess of my harem! Make me bark like the hound I am!”

I stepped through the French doors onto the wood floor of the living room; I could look past bookshelves into the next room where Nimba Dimbokro knelt at Tomlinson’s feet, both of them naked, glistening beneath the ceiling fan, the woman’s black hair screening the focus of her oral attentions.

I entertained more depressed thoughts about the continuation of my bad timing. I felt almost lucky to have lost my glasses.

I averted my eyes and stepped back as I heard, “Ali Baba and the forty thieves, yes-s-s-s-s!…” Then, in an accelerating cadence: “I think I can-I think I can-I think I can-I think I can-I think I can, ” as if reciting the children’s story about some little red train.

After a silence, I heard the woman whisper, “Shuuush. Someone’s in the living room, Tommy. I heard the door make that sound it makes. The spooky sound?” Very Americanized syntax with a Middle Eastern accent.

Tomlinson was already talking: “Dear Jesus, you’re stopping now, doctor? The patient was just beginning to respond. A little more oxygen, that’s all he needs, a little more oxygen and, damn it, he needs it now. ”

“Tomlinson, please. Someone came in the house. You know why I’m worried. If he knew… honest, I heard footsteps.”

“Footsteps?” He chuckled his relief. “Oh hell, that’s just Doc. I heard the same noise. Unmistakable. When he walks, he sounds just like a great big Labrador retriever. Anything you can do in front of me, you can do in front of him. We’re compadres, for Christ’s sake!” Then he called out, “Hey, Doc, you there? Come on in. Honest, it’s okay. Nimba, you mind Doc sitting for a spell? Let him give me some moral support. Knowing I got a buddy right here pullin’ for me just might be the little extra edge I’m looking for.”

I heard her ask, “Your large friend with the wire glasses?”

There was the sound of bedsprings and a woman’s soft laughter before she crossed the door space, showing her body, flushed and swollen, hair swinging across buttocks, taking her time, certain that I was watching, but not turning to look at me. Her voice took on an added silkiness. “I’ve never done such a thing, but if you would like your friend to watch, I will say nothing. Or join us if you wish. Does he like to play the game you showed me, the silk scarf game? Three could play very easily if you’d like me to teach him.”

The silk scarf game-apparently, another one of Tomlinson’s strange pastimes, the details of which I did not care to hear.

But the woman seemed very willing. Years of repression had, apparently, expanded her boundaries of sexual interest.

I heard Tomlinson call to her, “He’s the one says it’s not your fault that Zamboni has the wilting disorder. Says it happens to every woman. Says you shouldn’t feel the least bit responsible. Doc says that-” Tomlinson poked his head around the corner, tangled blond hair and black goatee showing. “Doc says that-” He stopped and gave a soft whistle, looking at me, and said in a strained voice, “Holy shitzkee! What the hell happened to you?”

I was still holding my arm, trying to stem the bleeding. “You’ve gotta get rid of the girl. Sorry.”

He stepped out, holding a towel around him. “Doc… sit your ass down right now. You’re white as a sheet. You cut a vein or what?”

I said, “Make the girl leave and I’ll tell you. We have a lot to do, and I don’t have a lot of time.”

“I can see that,” he said, turning to find his clothes.

Before representatives from the FBI, Florida Marine Patrol, and the local Sheriff’s Department crowded into my little rental bungalow, I sat in a wicker chair looking out onto a bay glazed with tendrils of blue light-reflections of a winter moon through palms.

We’d moved to my place so I could get fresh clothes and spare glasses, and because I didn’t want anyone to get the impression I had a reason to hide or be evasive.

Tomlinson was still working on my arm, cleaning the wound. At his side was a basin of hot water and a white washcloth that was already rusty with blood. He’d washed the wound with water and Betadine, then had to go door-to-door to find a roll of gauze, antibacterial creme, and surgical tape for a dressing.

He’d returned with the first-aid supplies and some information, too. “The two women, they’ve already talked to the cops by phone, so it’s probably not a good idea for you to ask them to change their story. Vince up at the Inn told me. They’re sending a boat over to pick them up. Bring the cops out to the island, I mean.”

“You didn’t mention to Vince that-”

“Hey man, you don’t need to tell me; I’ve been breaking laws all my life. I know how to keep my mouth shut. Something else he told me, the woman you saved? The blonde. She was probably the main target. Turns out she’s some rich guy’s daughter. Lindsey Harrington, that’s her name. The other woman, the dark-haired one, she’s either a friend of the family or works for the family, Vince wasn’t sure. Maybe a bodyguard. He’s wondered about that before. But lots and lots of new money.”

It was no surprise that at least one of the women came from money. Everyone on the island had money. The thing that struck me about the attempted kidnapping, though, was that it had an administrative feel to it, the way it was set up, the two-boat backup plan, they way they’d obviously invested some time and tracked her movements before trying to snatch her. Money, of course that would be a part of it. Always is. But it seemed probable that there was more to it than that.

To Tomlinson, I said, “I didn’t hear them say much, but one of them had a Colombian accent. That I’m sure of. If all you’re after is ransom money, why make it more complicated by picking a target outside your native country?”

“Maybe they live in the States now. Were looking to score big and decided on Guava Key. This place is very famous, man-for the same reason you didn’t want to come in the first place. The guys from AC/DC, Mick Jagger, that former vice president-lots of very heavy hitters come here.”

“I know, I know, but it still doesn’t seem like a natural fit. People tend to choose crimes the same way they choose a place to live. The surroundings need to be comfortable, well known, usually in an area where it’s easy to interact without standing out. The desperate ones rob the restaurants where they used to work, kidnap the children of people they know. See what I mean? What happened this afternoon was more like international politics.”

He said, “See? Now that makes sense. Politics, that’s just what Vince told me. He knows the girl’s father. They play tennis together, fish occasionally when he comes to the island, which isn’t often. He’s got some kind of government appointment, like an ambassador’s deputy or something. One of those things that takes a big political donation to buy. Only Vince thought it was Peru, not Colombia.”

“Both countries have their problems,” I said, “so the political component, that’s a possibility.”

“But that’s not where the girl lives. He said she’s always been sort of on her own, allowed to run wild, ’cause her mother was killed in an accident way, way back, and she’s spent most of her life at boarding schools. Last couple of years, though, Vince says she’s been driving her dad nuts, some of the stuff she’s been doing. Drinking, speeding tickets, political protests, that sort of thing. Whatever her dad’s for, she’s against. Kids, huh? Then she got involved in drugs, cocaine, crack. The serious amateur shit. Ended up in rehab, dropped off the screen for nearly a year. They sent her here as a kind of halfway-house deal.”

Something else that the island’s manager told Tomlinson was that the media were already calling. Already sending reporters and TV trucks to the ferry landing on the mainland. Not good news for me, but not unexpected from the way local law enforcement was reacting. For the last hour, I’d been hearing choppers, seeing their spotlights pan through trees in tubular columns of white.

Old familiar sounds. An old, familiar sight.

Tomlinson patted more blood away; tossed the gauze into the trash. Said, “Move your arm a little closer to the light. I need to get some more Betadine in there or you’re going to end up with an infection.”

The wounds weren’t too bad. Just barnacle scratches on my face. The bullet had skinned a neat little ruby furrow off the underside of my arm. A black-and-green hematoma had already begun to radiate outward toward my biceps.

A very close call, indeed.

Two inches more or less to the left and I’d have been shot through the chest. Maybe through the heart.

It’s something I’ve learned: No matter how secure our lives may seem, day after day, we live by degrees and survive by inches.

Tomlinson asked me, “So how you feeling now? I’ve got those pain pills if you want ’em.”

“Kind of weak and shaky. All that adrenaline, all the emotion-it leaves you feeling like hell. Sick and depressed.”

“Hum-m-m-m. It’s not like you to feel much emotion about anything. Maybe you’re beginning to evolve spiritually. Play your cards right, you could be more like me-an elevated being.”

“If this is what it’s like, you can have it. I feel like I might vomit.”

“Then this is your lucky day,” he said. “I got just the herb for that one, too.”

The man in the gray suit, the one asking most of the questions, said to me, “Do you know anything about the drug cartels in South America? Colombia, I’m talking about. Or maybe a group called the Shining Path?”

He meant Sendero Luminoso, a terrorist organization founded by a Maoist university professor, Abimael Guzman, in Peru’s mountain state of Ayacucho. Sendero had exported murder and mindless violence throughout Latin America. Over the years, in a previous line of work, and in what now seems to be a former life, I’d had more than one run-in with Guzman’s unfortunate prophets.

I said, “The drug cartels, sure. They made a couple of movies about them awhile back, didn’t they? They’re like gangsters, lots of shooting. The other thing you mentioned, though, the Shining something? I don’t think I’ve heard of that, but maybe it’s because I don’t have a TV and I don’t read the papers.”

I was still sitting in the same wicker chair, feet propped up, in the main room of my rental bungalow. Behind me, at the lunch bar, Tomlinson sat listening. Lined before me, on the couch and in a kitchen chair, were two men and a woman, all of them staring at me as if from a panel or court bench. The woman wore a green deputy’s uniform, her leather gunbelt creaking each time she moved. Same with the guy from Florida Marine Patrol, only his uniform was black on gray.

The man in the gray suit said, “The reason I mention the cartels and the Shining Path is because the men who tried to kidnap Ms. Harrington this afternoon could’ve been from either one of those two groups. Or from a half-dozen other terrorist organizations that operate in South America. Tupac Amaru, there’s another example. There’re lots of them.

“We’re not sure yet who they are, but we’ll find out. The point being that Ms. Harrington’s father apparently does have some political influence in that region, so he’s bound to have powerful enemies. They’re not going to like the idea of someone like you screwing up their plans, which is why you need to cooperate with us. You need to tell us the truth, then let us help you.”

To Gray Suit, I said, “I don’t doubt that you mean it-offer me protection, whatever it is you think I need, I believe you. I understand. You don’t have an easy job, I understand that, too. But how can I make it any plainer? I don’t want your help. I didn’t do anything to need it. Or earn it.”

“You keep telling us that, Doctor Ford. So I’m going to try one more time. Maybe speak a little more plainly, lay it all out. Here’s the deal, doctor: You need to drop the act, come clean, and tell us what really happened out there. You don’t have anything to fear from us. We’re on your side, not theirs. I don’t care what you did. You’re the good guy, like the cowboy who came riding in on the white horse. You may have saved a couple of lives today. They’re the bad guys. The kidnappers. Four or five punks against you, and you ran them off. Hell, we’ll try to get you a reward, if you want. Why is that so hard to understand?”

I glanced at Tomlinson. “I guess he has to keep pushing, huh? Like those interrogators in the movies. Thing is, I’m getting tired of him implying I’m lying. It’s not my imagination, is it? That is what he’s doing.”

Tomlinson was right with me. “Big time, man. Absofucking-lutely.”

To the officer, I added, “The irritating thing is, you’ve done it several times in the last hour. We invite you in here, agree to cooperate in any way we can, and you keep pressing me to make up a story. Sorry. I’m not going to let you manipulate me into saying something that’s not true. You either believe me or you don’t.”

I watched him purse his lips, glancing at the others. Gray Suit’s ID badge, which I’d read carefully, said he was Doug Waldman, Special Agent for the FBI and a liaison to the U.S. State Department’s Office of Counterterrorism. The badge was clipped to his breast pocket, displaying a fingerprint, a voice/larynx print and a complicated hologram.

The woman deputy leaned forward, her belt making a saddle leather sound, and said, “Just for the record, what I’m going to write in my report is the individual in question, this gentleman I’m talking about, he may or may not have given a truthful account. But I get the impression he’s, you know, intentionally giving us an incomplete statement, which my captain in Major Crimes Division isn’t going to like. What I can’t figure out is, Why? Here he is, Joe Citizen, got a chance to be the big hero, get his picture in all the papers, see himself on TV, maybe even get paid by some magazine to tell how he beat off the perpetrators and saved the victim. But he refuses to submit full cooperation.”

Cop words and sterile cop sentence patters-“perpetrators,” “statements,” the “individual in question”-speaking as if I wasn’t in the room.

She turned to Waldman. “This individual’s behavior seems kinda suspicious to me.”

He nodded. “Very odd. That’s my point.” Showing his respect by listening to her.

The deputy said, “What I’m thinking is, maybe the interviewee had some trouble with the law before. Maybe doesn’t want his picture spread around, worried someone will recognize him, or it’s like a child support thing. I think we need to hold him ’til all our computer checks come back. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement is going to get involved.”

The Florida Marine Patrol had changed its name into the more complicated and meaningless bureauspeak: The Florida Fish and Conservation Commission, which almost no one acknowledges. Neither, apparently, did the officer investigating from that agency, a man named McRae, since he was wearing his Marine Patrol uniform. He hadn’t said much, but now he spoke. “Doctor Ford’s got a pretty solid reputation around the islands, almost anyone who works on the water can vouch for that. But look, I’ve got to agree with Deputy Walker, Doc, I think you’re leaving out big chunks in your story. You jog out onto the dock and see men wearing ski masks, at least one of them armed, and you just happen to knock the two women into the water and help them get away? That’s not easy to believe. I’m sorry.”

They were pressing pretty hard, but I had no choice but to keep stonewalling. Like I said, I couldn’t afford the scrutiny that would come with admitting my involvement.

I let them see how exasperated I was becoming. “Isn’t that what I’ve been telling you all along? I didn’t save anyone. I’ve described what happened over and over. When I saw the guy fire his pistol, I panicked. Somehow, I knocked the women into the water when I tried to jump over the railing. Hell, maybe I did grab them. But it wasn’t intentional. I was trying to save my own life, not theirs. So then those guys keep shooting and the only thing I can think to do is climb in their boat and get the hell out of there. Which is just what I did.”

Waldman’s cell phone began to ring, and he left the room to answer it as I added, “I told the women to run to the mangroves, and I would’ve done the same thing if I could’ve. They were still shooting and it was scary as hell.”

“How many shots?”

“A couple. Several. Lots. I didn’t count.”

“All those rounds fired and you managed to dodge every one of them. You must be quick as hell.”

“I’ve already answered that question too many times.”

McRae said, “When you got in the boat, was there anyone else in it? How’d you get control?”

I said, “I just climbed in and hit the throttle and their guy went flying off the stern. I was in a panic. You ever have anyone shoot at you before?”

“And one of the rounds hit you in the arm.”

“No. Absolutely not. I’m not going to explain it again.”

“Um-huh. Your arm and your face, they both got cut up on the dock when you fell?”

I nodded. “Maybe I need to write it down so you’ll remember. I keep repeating myself, but you don’t seem to hear. The whole thing’s a blur. I’m not sure what happened when. I must have sliced my arm open when I crashed through the railing on the dock. Banging into the pilings with my face, that much I do remember. I was probably in shock. Probably still am in shock. Men in ski masks shooting guns like out of some crazy movie. It’s not the sort of thing I’m used to seeing.”

McRae now wore a soft smile. “Then I’ve got to ask you one more time-mind if we take a look at that cut on your arm?”

“Nope. I unwrap it, it might start bleeding again.”

“That’s what I figured. One phone call to the right judge, and we can have a deputy bring a court order out and place it in your hands. A piece of paper that says you’ve got no choice. We can make you take that bandage off and show us. Isn’t that right, Officer Walker?”

As the woman nodded, Tomlinson interrupted, not bothering to disguise his outrage. “Hold on there, Dirty Harry. First you call him a hero, then you threaten him like he’s a criminal? Very uncool, man, very, very uncool. That is a very serious conflict of vibes.”

McRae looked at him for a moment before he said, “What did you call me?”

Tomlinson has a longstanding and irrational dislike of people in law enforcement that’s gotten him into trouble more than once. He does not share my belief that most people in the emergency services tend to be better at their jobs than most others.

I cringed a little as he said, “Dirty Harry. That’s what I called you. As in ‘Dirty Harry, you can kiss my ass on the county fucking square.’ ”

McRae’s expression changed, became a flat mask. “In my notebook, I’ve got you down as”-he flipped through a few pages-“I’ve got your occupation down as a Zen Buddhist monk and sociologist consultant. That’s pretty foul language for a monk, isn’t it, sir?”

“Well… normally, yes-when I’m on duty, I mean. So… consider this like a spiritual coffee break. I’m taking a little time off from being the Buddha incarnate to tell you that you’re coming off like an asshole. Accidental or not, my buddy here just saved two women. Give him a little respect. Catch where I’m coming from? Can you relate?”

“No, I don’t relate and I don’t want to relate. But here’s some advice: Drop the Dirty Harry references, sir, or maybe Doctor Ford won’t be the only one we check out. Lots of times, you counterculture types have something old and interesting in the files. Outstanding warrants, possession charges from other states.”

I thought that would make Tomlinson uneasy, but it didn’t. He turned his palms outward, as if amazed. “First the guy threatens you, then he threatens me. Right here in our own private whatcha-call-it, our own private domicile. What’s the use of staying on an exclusive island if it’s not exclusive?”

I was deciding whether to reply or not when Waldman reentered the room. He said, “You folks mind if I speak to Doctor Ford alone? It’ll take just a few minutes. I’m going to try one more time to convince him that he should cooperate. Tell us what really happened, then let us talk to the U.S. marshals, see what we can do about protection.”

Tomlinson was still angry. “There he goes, calling you a liar again.”

Waldman looked at him, no emotion. “A few minutes with Doctor Ford alone. Then I think we’re done here.”