Tampa Burn

SIX

I went back to the house, took the keys to my old Chevy pickup truck off the hook over the front door, and went looking for Dewey. I’m not the most compassionate of people, but anyone who hurts a friend and does not swiftly try to make amends ranks, in my book, among the lowest of the low.

There was a second, more selfish consideration. I realized something: I didn’t want to lose the lady. Not like this. Not because of something I said-words I was now already fairly certain I didn’t mean.

I drove toward Captiva Island on SanCap Road, past Sanibel Gardens, past the Sanibel Rum Bar amp; Grille at the intersection of Rabbit Road-Tomlinson’s new favorite hangout. Then past the elementary school where the ball diamond lights were on, a couple of the beer-league softball teams tinging away with aluminum bats.

It looked like Nave Electric was playing the Timber’s staff. I drove faster than normal, windows open, one hand on the wheel, the Gulf of Mexico off to my left, the bay beyond, houses and tree fringe to my right.

A Campeche wind was blowing off the Gulf, stirring the tops of palms. It leached a cumulative heat from the island’s sand face, weighted with the odor of sea grape, palmetto, oak leaves, prickly pear. My truck’s lights created a tunneled, pearl conduit, stars above, vegetation gathered close on this part of the road, traffic sparse.

I looked at my plastic watch: 9:07 P.M.

Dewey had sold her beachfront home because it was impossible to refuse the small fortune a software magnate had offered her. Besides, as she said, the house was never much more than a hotel to her anyway, she’d traveled so much during her years as a tennis pro. There was no vested emotion. In fact, the place had personal baggage and some bad memories.

So she’d banked half the money, and used the rest to buy and remodel a luxury bungalow, bayside, hidden in a coconut grove between Mango Court and Dickey Lane, just past Twin Palms Marina and the Sunshine Cafe on Captiva Island.

At Mango Court, I turned right down the sand drive, her property isolated by high ficus hedges and security warning signs, expecting to see her Lexus parked beneath the open, roofed carport.

It wasn’t.

She hadn’t run home with her tail between her legs, as might have been expected.

Why was I surprised? Dewey almost always does the unexpected. It’s one of the reasons I value her. She is five-ten, 155 pounds or so of pure nonconformist female, highly competitive, though secretly super sensitive despite the fact that her vocabulary has a consistently salty, seagoing flair.

Dewey is different. Maybe it’s because her life has been so different from the lives of most women. Her family is from somewhere in the Midwest-Iowa or Kansas or Ohio, I think. But because her father was a tyrant and a bully, she grew up attending the Nick Bollettieri Tennis Academy in Bradenton, Florida. She got used to living in a dorm, adjusting to a communal society and life on the road because she never got the chance to experience anything else. For a while, she was ranked one of the top twenty tennis players in the world. But then there was an elbow operation, and a knee operation, and she decided to concentrate on golf, a game she loves.

Something else Dewey concentrated on for a time was Walda Bzantovski, the Romanian tennis great and her long-time lover. But things hadn’t worked out.

Which is why she was now living on the islands, splitting her time between this classy, plush bungalow on Captiva, and my spartan stilt house on Sanibel.

Until tonight.

So where do female ex-jocks go when they’re furious? Or when their hearts are broken?

Probably the same place men go, I decided. To seek comfort and counsel in a best friend. Or in a friendly bartender.

I was her best friend. At least, I had been. Which left option number two. So I drove from place to place, checking the parking lots of bars.

I looked for her car at the Mucky Duck, R. C. Otters, ’Tween Waters, and the Green Flash without results. Back on Sanibel Island, though, I got lucky. I drove through the lot of the Sanibel Rum Bar amp; Grille, and her Lexus was there, hood cool to the touch.

I’d driven right past the place on the way to her home.

The Rum Bar is built into a little strip mall that it shares with a health club and a couple of other island businesses. But it’s still got a tropical feel, the way it’s decorated; plus, it attracts all the fishing guides and service industry locals as well as tourists on their way to and from Captiva Island.

I didn’t see many familiar faces on this Tuesday night, though. The bar was packed, two or three deep, ceiling fans swirling overhead, flags and nautical charts from Central America and the Bahamas on the walls, a local band, the Trouble Starters, singing about what they were gonna do when the volcano blew as I walked through the doors.

Dewey was there. She was in the corner of the room next to the Cuban refugee boat that the owner had salvaged in the Florida Keys and had converted into a table. She was playing a game called Ringmaster: Swing the brass ring accurately and it will arc on its string and lock itself onto a hook six feet away.

Dewey wasn’t alone. Not a surprise. Women as attractive as Dewey spend few lonely moments in bars. She was with a group of five men, the central focus of their attention. The men were drinking mixed drinks. They wore bright Hawaiian shirts or polos, a couple of middle-age bellies showing, and neatly pressed khakis on an island where almost everyone wears cargo shorts in May.

So they were tourists, probably down here fishing or golfing or attending some kind of convention. They had the look of money, with their styled hair sprayed in place, waxed Docksiders, and heavy gold watch bracelets and rings. So I made another guess: maybe corporate executives, or attorneys, or members of the same investment team on Sanibel for a meeting, cutting loose a little, showing off for the tall blonde with the bawdy vocabulary.

Dewey saw me the instant I walked in. Without pausing, her eyes swept through me and away as if I were invisible.

For a moment, I thought she might throw an arm over the shoulder of one of her new buddies; do something to try and instigate jealousy. But, no, she was too classy for that. Instead, she shoved one of the men roughly, tossed her head back, laughing, and took her turn with the ring. First, though, she placed her chalice-sized margarita on the refugee boat-Dewey, a woman who seldom drank alcohol.

I thought to myself: Uh-oh. Trouble.

There was that potential.

At the bar, I paid for a Bud Light, told Mark, the bartender, that Tomlinson-a Rum Bar regular-would probably be in later, and strolled over to the little circle of men clustered around Dewey. They greeted me with cool glances, their body language screening me out, telling me it was their little party, go away.

But I didn’t go away. I stood there watching for a quarter of an hour, listening to the kibitzing, trying to assess, evaluate, hoping Dewey would excuse herself and give me a chance to explain.

Her new friends were salesmen from a national sporting goods chain based outside Chicago. There were four underlings, judging from their ingratiating manner, and there was the big boss, Corporate Vice-President in charge of something.

I never heard what.

Corporate V-P was authoritative, but in the chummy way that head coaches use. He wasn’t overtly arrogant, but he did have a CEO’s knack for assuming center stage. He was shorter than I but much broader, with dense black hair and the layered, geometric facial structure that women seem to find attractive.

There were a couple of more details I noted: His underlings were working hard for him, through deference and flattery, helping him make a play for Dewey.

Something else: There was a wedding-band width of sunburned skin on the ring finger of his left hand.

Salesmen get an unfair rap. Their profession is a favorite target of derision, when in fact I know it to be among the most demanding of occupations. I know because, when it comes right down to it, I’m a salesman. I sell marine specimens-and I’m not the world’s best.

If you’re gunning to be a top salesman, you’d better possess all the social skills, and nearly every intellectual gift. The field’s about as competitive as it gets. But there was something about this little group I disliked. Maybe it was the missing wedding band. Maybe it was the way the pack was trying to herd the female stranger into the arms of its alpha male. Or maybe I was deluding myself-I do it regularly-by trying to intellectualize my jealousy.

Whatever the reason, there was no doubt that I overreacted when Corporate V-P caught me staring at Dewey. He glared at me for a moment, and when I refused to break eye contact, he said, “This is a private party, champ. Or maybe you’re just lost and mistook us for friends. Well, we’re not.”

Which received nervous laughter from everyone but Dewey until I replied, “The only thing lost seems to be your wedding ring. I’m willing to make a guess. The ring’s back in your hotel room. Probably hidden under the condoms you bought at the airport.”

Groaning, rolling her eyes, Dewey said, “Smooth, Ford. Jesus. Mister Congeniality,” as Corporate V-P stepped toward me, his underlings moving aside, creating room for us and thus a small stage.

“ What did you just say to me?”

I repeated what I’d said, not budging as he advanced toward me, still looking into his eyes, which made him uneasy, I could tell. But he was committed to it, his employees watching, and he couldn’t back down. Not without confronting me first, establishing for them that he held a higher rung on the machismo ladder, anyway.

He stopped, his nose close to my own, intentionally invading my personal space. “Do you know this guy, Dewey?”

“Yeah, Hal. Unfortunately. He’s one of the local island playboys. A real lady killer.”

“He’s got a big mouth.”

“Not usually. Which is why you should just let it go. Doc’s not the physical type. He likes to look through his telescope. It’d be like taking a poke at your high school principal.”

To Dewey, I said, “Thanks, friend,” as Corporate V-P told her, “I’m tempted to knock those glasses right off his ugly face.”

Now Dewey threw her arm down between us like a toll gate and said, “Stop it. I want both you boys to do me a favor. Quit acting like jerks or I’ll run you both outside, then spank your asses, O.K.? So knock it off!”

Which gave him his out. He grinned, then began to laugh. His underlings laughed along with him, but I noted what may have been an edge of disappointment. They’d wanted it to happen.

“O.K., gorgeous. For you, if he’s a friend of yours. I’ll let it go this time.” Corporate V-P used his index finger to warn me. “But no more smart-ass remarks. Capisc’?”

Before I could answer, though, he made a serious error. He threw his right arm around Dewey, pulled her roughly to him, and kissed her on the side of her mouth-a kidding sort of roughhousing move that was also markedly territorial. Some women endure that behavior with mild, passive smiles. But it’s not the sort of thing Dewey has ever tolerated, or ever will.

“Hey… what the hell do you think you’re doing, you jerk. Get your hands off me!”

I was already moving toward him as Dewey knocked his arm free, then shoved him hard in the chest. She’s a big, strong woman. I’ve spotted her when she’s bench-pressed 160 pounds, sets of ten.

Hal, the Corporate V-P, went backpedaling through his covey of underlings, who, surprisingly, did not catch him. The refugee boat is hip-high. He somersaulted over it backward, knocking off all the drinks that were on it.

From the bar, seeing it, a couple of women whooped, and the band, who’d been playing right along, stopped now, except for the drummer-his unplanned solo creating a hollow, galloping sound as others called, “Whoa, fight. Hey, a fight!”

The bartender, Mark, was immediately there as Hal got to his feet, fists clenched, humiliated, furious. Because he knew us, Mark asked me, “What the hell’s going on here? I’m not going to tolerate any trouble. You know that. Doc, you of all people!”

Dewey was gulping down the rest of her margarita, talking as she did. “Don’t worry about it, Markie. My ex-boyfriend, Professor Dumbass, and I are hitting the bricks. Especially him.”

I could see that Hal and his friends didn’t like it at all when she added to Mark, “If any our local girls come in here, warn them about this group of short-tails. They’re just slimy types on the make.

O.K.?”

Hal, the Corporate V-P, couldn’t let it go. He had to follow us into the parking lot.

“Whoa, whoa, hold on you two. You think I’m going to let you say that kinda crap and get away with it?” Hal’s tone saying he had no choice-he had to stand tall for his team.

All I wanted was to be alone with Dewey, to try and explain why I’d said what I’d said. Not that I was even sure myself. The shock of it all had rattled me. It’d dredged up old feelings and long-gone memories. But Dewey was an integral part of my present. I hoped we were close enough friends that I could tell her about it, and that she’d understand. If she’d just give me a chance.

Which she wasn’t willing to do. Not here, not now.

Car door open, she turned to me and said, “Look, pal, it shouldn’t be such a big deal. You got caught screwin’ around. It happens to people all the time.”

I said, “Not to us, it doesn’t. Dewey, something’s happened I just found out about. I’ll follow you home and explain.”

She was getting in the car. “Yeah, I know, I know. The only woman you’ll ever love is on Sanibel. I heard. So go back to your love shack and tell it to her, Romeo.”

I realized she was feeling the margaritas.

When I touched her elbow, she yanked her arm away… and that’s when Hal, the Corporate V-P, came striding across the parking lot.

Saying, “Stay in the car until I get rid of this guy,” I turned and walked toward Hal to put some distance between him and Dewey. Which, as I should have known, guaranteed that she’d get out of the car.

Hal was saying, “Lady, I think an apology is in order.”

I was holding both hands out- Stop right there -as I said, “She’s not going to apologize to you or anyone else, so just drop it. What you should do, Hal, you and your buddies, is march yourselves back into the bar and have a drink. Because I’m really not in the mood to put up with you and your self-important bullshit.”

Behind me, I heard Dewey say, “Jesus, Ford, you really are in a mood tonight,” as Hal’s voice changed, all pretense of control gone: “Fuck you, champ. Who the fuck do you think you are? You don’t even know who I am. Do you have a clue who you’re talking to?”

Dewey was right. I was in an unusual mood. Whatever it was, I’d had enough. I walked toward Corporate V-P, saying, “I’m the guy who’s going to knock you on your ass in front of all your little playmates if you don’t turn around and leave us alone right now. Go. Get out of here. Leave!”

Which he couldn’t do. Not now. I’d left him no wiggle room, no honorable egress-a stupid choice on my part. So he took two fast steps toward me and tried to take me out with a single, mighty, overhand right fist. I stepped in close, absorbed most of the impact with my shoulder. Then I locked my left arm under his right elbow as I dug the fingers of my right hand into the delicate area behind his jawbone, just below the neck. I tilted his face back toward the stars as I applied pressure to his elbow-already furious with myself that I’d allowed the situation to escalate to this point and eager for a way out.

As I held him, I said, “I’m going to give you one more chance to walk away. The lady’s right. I’m no fighter. You win… O.K.? So let’s stop it now. You go back to the bar, we’ll get in our cars and leave.”

Behind me, I heard Dewey call to him, “He’s wearing glasses, for Christ’s sake! You think that’s fair?”

Talking about me like I was handicapped, yelling to protect me.

Maybe Corporate V-P found encouragement in that, because, despite the hold I had on him, he began to kick wildly, trying to knee me in the groin.

I blocked most of them with my hip, but he got in one shot that nearly connected. Came close enough to make me woof and my lungs spasm.

That did it. He’d had his chance, and I’d had enough. I released his jaw, squatted slightly, then drove my open palm hard up under his chin. I used my thighs to create torque, twisting at the hips.

The blow cracked his teeth together-a sickening sound-and lifted him momentarily off the ground. I caught him in both arms, controlling his body, then pinched the thumb and middle fingers of my left hand around his throat. With my right, I slapped his face once… twice, and then I swung in behind him, threading my forearms under his armpits.

His voiced was an octave higher now: “You son-of-a-bitch. I’ll kill you for this.”

There was enough light in the parking lot to see that his mouth was frothing blood.

Breathing heavily, wrestling him, applying more pressure now, I said into his ear, “No more threats. You’re just making it worse.”

Then I leveraged my arms up through his, locked both hands together, and forced my palms against the back of his head-a dangerous pressure hold called a full nelson.

I was aware that Corporate V-P’s four men were not standing idly by while I humiliated their leader. They were the vocal type, at first calling out encouragement and instruction. Then commanding me to stop, to let him go, or they were going to call the cops or kick my ass. The threats varied. I thought I was keeping careful peripheral track of them-they were banded together off to my left.

But not all of them.

My hands locked behind his head, I walked Corporate V-P toward my truck and slammed his body hard against the fender, then slammed him hard a second time. I increased the pressure on the back of his head as I said, “It’s time for you to go home, Hal. What do you think?”

The pain he was in changed his voice, and his attitude. “Yeah, O.K., O.K., Jesus Christ, that’s enough. It was a misunderstanding. Seriously, no hard feelings… goddamn it! You’re breaking my neck!”

So I let V-P stand, releasing pressure, unthreading my fingers-which is when one of his sales crew jumped me from behind. The guy had a strong arm around my throat, but I got my fingers around his wrists and snapped his hands free without much trouble. Then I ducked under, pivoted, got behind him, and drove his arm up into the middle of his back. Drove it with such force that it certainly dislocated his shoulder, and maybe broke it.

Along with his scream of pain, I heard, “Doc, watch it!”

I turned to see Dewey intercept another of the salesmen-Hawaiian shirt, beer gut-who was charging toward me. She stopped him with a stiff-arm, then dropped him with a single overhand right to his nose. The punch had all the speed and accuracy of her once much-feared tennis serve.

That was the end of it. Hal’s underlings had risked enough for their Corporate V-P. He’d lost, so had they, and I knew they’d never look at him or behave the same around him again.

Something else I knew: Back at corporate headquarters in Chicago, the story about Hal, the fight, and how it started would spread quickly. Either Hal would soon be gone, or he would muster sufficient political muscle to oust his underlings. But there was no way his career could endure them hanging around, because he’d been exposed for what he really was, and they’d witnessed it. Authentic leaders are sustained by the strength of their own character. Sham leaders succeed only because they are passable character actors.

Hal had been unmasked.

The hierarchy of corporations is as complicated-and no less primal-than the hierarchies of pack animals. In such packs-wolves or lions or chimps, for instance-alpha males rise to power, then survive or are banished by jockeying underlings.

I didn’t feel the least bit sorry for the guy.

At her Lexus, rubbing her already swelling knuckles, Dewey told me, “And I tried to help you beg out of it because of your glasses. All these years, I didn’t have a clue. What were you back in school, some kinda hot-shit wrestling champion or something?”

Opening the door for her, I said, “Something like that.”

She didn’t want me to follow her home, but I did. Her bungalow has a Spanish tile roof and conch-pink siding. The house is built on low stilts a couple feet above a quarter-acre of bare limestone gravel, the property landscaped for minimum maintenance.

The moon was three days before full, high overhead-its mountainous polar regions visible where the temperature was 300 degrees below zero out there in space. In the moon’s cold light, I could see papaya and palms planted in ornamental clusters, and a banana thicket, too. The papaya and sugar bananas were good. Some mornings for breakfast, Dewey and I would eat them chilled, fresh lime juice squirted on.

Seeing the fruit trees in moon shadow caused me to realize something. Caused me to realize that I might not awake in bed with her ever again, the two of us lounging around, talking during breakfast, laughing at silly things, sharing small secrets. The end of something was in those shadows. I felt a quaking sense of loss.

I knocked. She refused to allow me in. Finally, though, she came out onto the porch. She had ice in a plastic bag, holding it on the knuckles of her right hand.

Standing in the moonlight, I told her about Lake. What had happened to my son. Her reaction-horror, revulsion-was genuine. She’d had some bad things happen in her life. She knew tragedy and grief.

I had to admire her core toughness when she added, “But that doesn’t change what I heard tonight. The words you said to the boy’s mother. I know you. The way your voice sounded. What I heard really, really hurt because I know you meant everything you said. Didn’t you?”

There was no anger in her tone now. Just pain and grief. I shook my head and made a sound of exasperation. “I have too much respect for you, our friendship, to do anything but tell you the truth. Truth is, I don’t know. It was a shock seeing her. Then finding out about the kidnapping. Hell… the only thing I’m sure of is that it scares me, thinking that I might lose you. Lose us. I don’t want that to happen.”

I put my hands on her shoulders. Listened to her try and repress a sniffle-Jesus, now I’d made her cry.

I said, “Can I come in? I leave for Miami in the morning. I don’t know how long it’ll take for me to find my son. If I can find him. This may be our only night together for a while.”

But she remained steadfast. “Doc, look… what you need to understand is, this not a small deal. If you really are in love with someone else, I’ve got to make some important decisions fast. We’re beyond the dating part. The kid games part. At least, I thought we were.”

There was an intentional, underlying meaning there that I didn’t grasp.

She removed my hands from her shoulders, touched her fingers briefly to my face, her blue eyes gray in the moonlight, as wide and sad as I had ever seen them. “I’m not telling this to hurt you. I know you don’t need any more pressure-not with what’s happened to your son. I’ve got to say it, though. You know how we’ve talked about maybe getting married, maybe one day having kids?”

I nodded.

“Well, pal… I’m more than six weeks late. My period, it’s way late. After work, I stopped at Bailey’s General Store and got one of those little test kits. The kind where you pee on the strip. It changes color if you’re pregnant. I went to your place thinking we could have a little ceremony. We could find out together.

“But there you were with a woman. A woman who’s already been through it. She’s already the mother of your son. I get out of the car kinda mixed up, but with all those hopes about us, marriage and a baby, and that’s when I hear you say those words to her, I’ll always love you. That’s exactly what you said. And meant it.

“You see what I mean? Why something like that would hurt so bad? So I’m not ready to talk about it. Not tonight. Not this week. Probably not for a long while.”

I said, “Oh Jesus… I am so, so sorry…”

She touched her fingers to my cheek again. “I know you are, you big idiot.” Then: “Go on home, pal. I’ll get in touch with you when I’m ready. We’ll talk. Just give me some space.”

I covered her hand with mine. “But, Dew, I want to know. Get the test kit. Go to the bathroom now and find out. You really think you might be pregnant? It’s… that’s kind of exciting. ”

Did I mean that? Maybe. Maybe I did.

But she shook her head.

No.

“Please.”

“Uh-uh, no, I can’t. Because I don’t want to know. Not now. I need to get my emotions under control first. After that, we have to have a serious talk. When it’s time.

“I don’t want the fact that I am or am not pregnant to have any influence. That way, when I find out, we’ll both know how things stand between us. The decision will already have been made about us being together. Do you see why I have to do it this way?”

Yeah, I did. A smart lady.

She let me hug her close to my chest and hold her for a moment before she went inside and locked the door.