Tampa Burn

TWENTY-THREE

Step by step, we eliminated all of the Gulf Coast states except for one, because only one met all the requirements detailed in Lake’s e-mail: He was being kept on or near a body of freshwater, on a plateau of land or coastline that had an unimpeded view westward. The area had a population of alligators, gray parakeets, reddish egrets, but no coconut palms-which, to me, certainly implied that he was also near saltwater, and on a landmass where coconut palms grew somewhere.

Tomlinson was right. Florida.

That established, we tried to hammer down a more exact area in the state.

It wasn’t easy-but not impossible, either.

Many states have zones of varied flora and fauna-differences often linked to elevation-but few have lines of demarcation as abrupt as those of Florida, a delicate peninsula that is supersensitized to frost, salt, sea wind.

An example: Draw a line across the state. Draw it, roughly, from the northern tip of Key Largo on Florida’s east coast to the state’s southwestern horn, Cape Sable. The region south of that line includes the tip of the peninsula and all of the Florida Keys. This is the only true tropic zone in the United States. Tropical trees, shrubs, flowers, many mammals, mollusks, crustaceans, corals, insects, and birds otherwise found only in the West Indies, and deep in the Caribbean, flourish here.

Another example of Florida’s abrupt demarcations of floral diversity: Draw a second line from Cape Canaveral on the Atlantic Coast to an area south of Sarasota on the Gulf. It will not be a straight line. Because of the Gulf Stream, the line will move inland from Canaveral several dozen miles, then south to Lake Okeechobee and, finally, across the state to approximately fifteen miles or so south of Sarasota. All land and water below that line is considered a subtropical zone. As in the Florida Keys, many tropical plants, animals, birds, and insects thrive here, including key limes, papaya, mangoes, gumbo limbos-and the coconut palm, which is not considered an indigenous plant, but is emblematic of the tropics.

Twenty miles south of Sarasota, coconut palms grow beautifully-tall with slender dinosaur necks, heavy fronds feathering down, almost always leaning toward the strongest intersectings of sun and water. A few miles north of Sarasota, however, coconut palms seldom survive for long, if they grow at all.

Tampa seems to be the final transitional. The weather there is superb, but you don’t find mature coconut palms in Tampa.

The reddish egret is equally emblematic of the American tropics. It is an uncommon, medium-sized wading bird that looks a lot like its relative, the little blue heron. It’s easy to identify on the flats, however, because of its bizarre feeding techniques. Most herons stand motionless, like snipers, or stalk their prey with exaggerated slow giraffe-steps.

Not the reddish egret. It runs and lurches with wings held high, like some drunken kung fu expert, jabbing at fish and shrimp with its stiletto beak.

I wondered if that’s how Lake had identified the bird he saw. If he saw a reddish. Could be he just invented the sighting. Saw it in a book and realized that it was a far more exacting locator than the American alligator.

From the little I’d seen and heard, Prax Lourdes didn’t strike me as the Audubon Society type. He’d be oblivious of wildlife around him. Lake could probably make up any wildlife sighting and get away with it.

Tomlinson seemed pleased for both of us that the Internet was not nearly as informative as my excellent little library. I felt a sharp adrenal charge when I opened my Peterson’s Field Guide to the range map for the reddish egret, illustration 91, and saw that the bird lived and bred almost exclusively along the southwest coast of Florida.

Once again, Tampa was the final transitional. With rare, rare exceptions, the reddish egret did not venture north of there.

The gray parakeet reference was not as instructive. It is more commonly known as the monk parakeet because of its hood of green feathers. The hood is sharply contrasted by the bird’s gray face and golden breast. The rest of the bird, whether male or female, is chartreuse green except for its orange beak and a fringe of blue feathers on tail and wings. Monk parakeets are known for their complicated, chambered nests.

I’ve seen them all over the state-particularly around baseball diamonds-flying in chattering flocks, wobbly in flight as if the ancestral memory of pet stores and cages has made them unsteady.

Like the coconut palm, the monk parakeet’s not a native, but unlike the tree, the hearty animal ranges all over the country.

We wondered if Lake had avoided calling the bird by its more common name because Lourdes, at least occasionally, wore monk’s robes.

The reference in the e-mail that neither of us could decipher was the line that read, “I’ve definitely seen reddish egrets feeding on the mature tadpole.”

A mature tadpole is a frog. Lourdes may not have known that, but my son certainly did. In Florida, we have pig frogs, leopard frogs, barking dog frogs, bullfrogs-all kinds of frogs. And larger wading birds, which are fierce predators, sometimes feed on them, just as they feed on snakes and lizards. Why hadn’t Lake just come right out and used the word “frog”? Why was it to be avoided?

Tomlinson and I discussed the odd wording- feeding on the mature tadpole, singular-and decided it was, most probably, an accidental error in syntax.

If there was additional meaning, we could not grasp it.

“That’s O.K. We’re closing in on them,” Tomlinson said. “The map’s getting smaller and smaller.”

He meant that literally. Because I’ve traveled so much, I have a good collection of maps. We had a map of Gulf Coast states open on my stainless-steel dissecting table. Each time we eliminated an area, we would fold it out of sight. The map was now the size of a thick paper towel, and showed only the Gulf Coast section of Florida between Cedar Key and Englewood.

Now I watched Tomlinson bracket Tampa Bay with thumb and forefinger. He touched Tarpon Springs to the north, Anna Maria Island to the south. “They’re somewhere between here,” he said. “Maybe on some island. Just because Lake didn’t see coconut palms doesn’t mean there might not be a few around, so let’s hedge a little to the south. But more likely they’re in the Tampa-St. Petersburg area. That e-mail message that Lourdes canceled, the one that told us to drive to St. Pete? That’s suggestive. That tells me Lake and the Masked Man are hiding out somewhere close to there.”

I agreed. “When he had us driving around Miami with that tattooed giant, he kept an eye on us from a boat. Do you think it’s reasonable to assume, if he is holed up in the Tampa area, that he has access to a boat? Because if you think he does, I’m going to load my skiff and run up there in the morning. I can poke around and maybe get a lucky break or two while you and Pilar stay in touch on this end.” I glanced at my watch: 11:20 P.M. “Hell, I’m tempted to go tonight.”

Tomlinson said, “Even if he doesn’t have a boat, we know they’re near the water. So, yeah, your fast stinkpot might be just what the doctor ordered. But wait till morning, man. We’ve got too much other stuff to do. Or you know what might make more sense? You trailer your boat, and I sail No Mas up the coast. That way, we have a water base, water transport, and ground transport.”

It was a perfectly reasonable proposal, so I couldn’t refuse, but I found it oddly disappointing. There’s something freeing about stocking a boat with food, drink, and ice, then heading out over unencumbered water. After all the stress I’d been under, it’s what my instincts told me to do.

Which was why it was difficult not to grab the keys to my skiff, just get in the boat, and go. I kept pacing to the lab’s north window and staring out into the moon-bright bay. My son was almost certainly out there. Not so far away in this night. Beyond a few islands, removed by a few bays.

So, to keep my mind occupied, I used Tomlinson to talk a couple of subjects through. A few things were troubling me. They just didn’t add up. Like Lourdes’ motives for coming to the United States. It’d been on my mind since I first began to suspect that Lourdes was in Florida, so it was my turn to pose some question to Tomlinson.

I said, “Why would he take the risk? And how? You saw the photos of what his face looked like. Even if he managed to smuggle Lake into the country on a private plane or boat, how could a man with those kinds of injuries travel around unnoticed, unquestioned, with a kidnapped boy?”

Tomlinson said, “I’ve been thinking about that ever since Pilar first showed us the photos of Lourdes. Since Tuesday when you said you couldn’t understand how a man with a face like his could blend in with the general population and avoid the Nicaraguan cops. Doc, what I keep coming back to is, you’re right. I suppose that, in fact, it’s possible that he could do it. But, in reality, it’s a statistical improbability. There’s a fine difference between the two, which I’m sure you realize. What’s the Arthur Conan Doyle line that you like? Eliminate the impossible, and whatever remains-however improbable-is your answer.”

I was nodding, tracking the logic, because I’d been thinking the same thing. “In the video, he put off a weird, theatrical vibe. He could be dressed up in some kind of costume, something that covers his face. Or he could bandage his face as if his burn scars were still fresh.”

Tomlinson said slowly, “Yeah… I suppose. And, yeah, you’re right about the theatrical business…”

I was listening to a fast boat outside heading in our direction, slowing on its approach, as I added, “Aside from that, I agree with you: It’s highly improbable that a man wearing a mask, or with a face that’s been scarred, can travel around incognito. So a reasonable hypothesis is that either his face has been changed in some way, or. .. or the man we are dealing with is not Praxcedes Lourdes. We haven’t thought about that. What if it’s not the same person?”

Both of us were now listening to the approaching boat when my telephone began to ring-I’d just signed off from the Internet, making the phone line available for the first time in more than an hour.

I walked across the lab to answer the phone as Tomlinson walked to the window to see who was coming up in the boat.

It was Dewey calling.

I listened to my estranged lover say, “Jesus Christ, you talk on the phone for hours. Like some old woman jabbering to Thelma about her damn gall bladder operation or something. Or some old fart rambling on with some dugout buddy about his last woody, it was so many years ago he can barely remember, and how he shoulda blown it a kiss goodbye because that would have been the last action he ever got. The older you get, the more pathetic you are, Ford. I think dumping you may’ve been the smartest decision I’ve ever made in my life.”

I was grinning, but I felt a welling of emotion, too, that made my voice tight. “You’re as sweet-natured as ever, Dew. It’s so good to hear your voice. Where the hell are you? We need to talk. I… I miss you a lot.”

“We are talking, numb-nuts. We’d have been talking an hour ago if you’d shake the moths out of that billfold of yours and pay for a designated computer line. I know you, you hate talking on the phone.” Her voice softened-tough jock act over-and she nearly broke into tears as she added, “So I know the real reason the line was busy. You were tunneled into that computer of yours, doing some kind of research, into your Thoreau act, oblivious to the current century and everything else. And I… I miss you, too, Doc.”

Judging from the poor reception, she was calling long distance from someplace with antiquated service, or she was on a cell phone. The way her words faded in and out, I got the mental image of telephone wires strung across desolate countryside, swaying in the night wind.

So maybe Europe, returned to visit her old lover, Walda. Or the wilds of New York. Or someplace in the Midwest where she’d once said her family had roots. Or maybe, just maybe, calling from a cell phone aboard a boat only a few marinas away. Impossible to tell.

When Tomlinson realized it was Dewey, he’d given me a double thumbs-up and left me alone in the lab. Even so, I walked to the wall of aquaria so that my voice would be muted by the sound of bubbling aerators before I said, “Where are you? I’ll fly to where you are, or I’ll meet you halfway. Or I can-”

I stopped in midsentence. Realized that I couldn’t go anywhere to meet her. I was heading to Tampa in the morning.

She interrupted as if reading my mind, “The thing you need to concentrate on is finding your son. I know that this must be a terrible time for you. He comes first. There’s nothing more important. So maybe the timing’s exactly right for this, you and me taking some time apart. Is there any news?”

I gave her a condensed version of the progress we’d made in narrowing down the search for Lake, ending, “The truth is, the timing couldn’t be worse. I need you here. I miss you, I miss our friendship. I realize how much now. I also realize that the things you overheard me saying to Pilar the other night-they were absolute bullshit. It was ridiculous. It was fantasy. I didn’t mean any of it.”

“Doc, I don’t want to go back over that. It hurts too much. But what I’ve got to wonder is, would you be apologizing to me now if the lady had said yes to you instead of no. It hurts like hell coming in second in the Marion-Ford-picks-a-lifetime-love contest.”

I said, “Give me a chance to prove you wrong. Come home, I’ll show you.” And because I could think of no delicate way into the subject, I added, “We have lots of important things to discuss. Like the pregnancy test. What were the results? I think I have a right to know.”

It was the wrong thing to say.

“ Right? Don’t talk to me about rights, pal. Not after the hell I’ve been through in the last two days. Besides, I told you I wasn’t going to take the test, so what makes you so sure I did?”

My stumbling silence seemed to infuriate her even more. “Stop assuming things about me, Ford, O.K.? Because that really pisses me off! I’ll call you again when I feel like it. That’s my right.”

The phone went dead.

Shit.

I don’t have caller I.D., but I knew that our local service had a feature that makes it possible to dial Star 57 and retrieve the number of the previous caller. I pressed the three digits, got a recording that said I would be charged for the service, then listened to an automated voice tell me that the caller’s number had been blocked.

Shit!

I walked out of the lab and let the screen door slam behind me. Tomlinson was on the lower deck, standing in moonlight near the big wooden fish tank with Jeth Nichols and Captain Alex. The outdoor porch light was on, so he could apparently see my expression, because when I stopped on the deck above them, he said, “Are you O.K.? You don’t look so good, my amigo. Why don’t I trot inside right quick and grab you a beer?”

I said, “I’m fine,” snapping at him without intending to. Then to Jeth, I said, “Are you guys still having problems with that runabout?”

Captain Alex said, “If you and Tomlinson have the time, we need help real bad. We got the stove loaded on Jeth’s old Suncoast, Jacks or Better, but the stove was too much weight, and now his old boat’s out there taking on water, she’s about to go under. The only thing keeping her on the surface is, we’ve got her rafted to the police boat, and you couldn’t sink that son-of-a-bitch with dynamite.”

Jeth put in miserably, “Come the morning, the cops is gonna find my bah-bah-boat tied to theirs. I just know it, I just know it. Find their boat all chopped full of holes, my fingerprints all over the place, and some of my blood, too. I’m gonna get arrested again, and they still hang people for doing this kind of idiotic shit. And it’s all Mack’s fault!”

Sounding serious, but loving it, Tomlinson said to me, “I don’t see how we can refuse. Not if there’s a chance Jeth may be executed.”

Before I changed back into my wet clothes, I told Tomlinson, “We’re not done with our talk yet.”

He told me, “I know.”