Basket Case (39 page)

I follow him to his office, the same room where I bonded so warmly with Race Maggad III. Abkazion, however, is a different species of animal. He has no poses or pretensions; he fits comfortably in the newsroom, and his word is usually final. If he knows—and how he would, I can't imagine—that Emma has been kidnapped, it will be damn near impossible to make him back off.

The assertion that I alone can devise her safe return would strike Abkazion as preposterous. Yet that's the pitch I'm preparing to make when he says something startling:

"MacArthur Polk died this morning."

"No way."

"At home," Abkazion says.

"For real?"

"Oh yes."

"How? In his sleep?" I ask pointlessly.

"More or less. You ready to rock and roll?"

The irony, ruinous as it may be, is exquisite.

"I can't do the obit," I inform the managing editor of the Union-Register,

"What're you talking about?"

"I can't miss this meeting today. The source says it's now or never."

Abkazion peers at me as if he's examining for factory defects. "This would be a front-page story, Jack. Your first front-page story in about a thousand years."

"Yes, I'm painfully aware."

"Then you're also aware," he says, "there's a high level of corporate interest in Mr. Polk receiving a first-rate obituary. Not that I'm happy about the meddling but, hey, we learn to pick our battles."

I tell him I'm sorry. "This really sucks, I know."

"For reasons I don't pretend to understand, Mr. Maggad himself has been calling in advance of this story. He is emphatic, Jack, that you should be the one to write it."

"So he told me."

"Which makes it all the more baffling," Abkazion says, the cords of his neck going taut, "as to why you're refusing such an important assignment."

"I told you why."

It's Emma, I want to tell him. I've got to save Emma.

"For Christ's sake, talk to this source of yours. Explain the situation. Tell him to meet you tomorrow instead."

"That's impossible," I say.

"This is for that Slut Puppy story, right? The man's been dead two weeks and your source can't wait one more lousy day to spill his guts? Who is it?" Abkazion is shouting like a hypertensive Little League coach. "What's so goddamn important?"

But I can't tell him. Not about Emma or Cleo, or even about the song. Certainly I can't tell him about Maggad's covert quest to obtain MacArthur Polk's stock holdings, or about my perverse deathbed deal with the old buzzard.

Charles Chickle, Esq., was unequivocal: The trust agreement is contingent on my writing Polk's obituary. By dumping the story, I'm surrendering not just a hundred grand in estate fees but the opportunity of a lifetime—a chance to coerce Race Maggad III into reviving the Union-Register.

Abkazion might be pissed off, but I'm the one who's sick at heart.

"I've gotta go," I tell him.

"You're serious, aren't you?"

"Tell Mr. Maggad… know what? Tell him I threatened to dismember you with needle-nosed pliers. Tell him I went delirious and started quoting from Milton. 'Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughtered saints, whose bones lie scattered on Alpine mountains cold… '"

"Jack," Abkazion says, "I'm late for the one o'clock."

"Of course."

"You've been waiting for a chance to dig yourself out of this hole. Now take it."

"Yes, chief," I say, exiting with a crisp salute.

It's all here on my desk—the stack of printouts of old stories, the notes from my hospital interview with Polk, the tepid background paragraphs I banged out a few days ago, even the fatuously reverential quote from Race Maggad III.

When I present this armful to Evan, he rolls back his chair and looks up at me guardedly.

"Congratulations, champ," I say. "You're going to be the star of the front page tomorrow."

"I'm sure."

He's a sharp kid. He'll do fine with the story.

"Have a blast," I tell him. "Write your balls off."

"What is this stuff?"

"Listen, the boss'll be asking for me. Tell him I vanished in a blur."

"Jack, wait a minute. Hey, Jack!"

But I'm already gone.

28

The drive to Lake Okeechobee takes about three hours. Emma likes Sting, so I brought along Synchronicity for the ride home. For now, though, Juan and I are sticking with the Stones. He's stretched out in the backseat, skimming the instructions for the hand-held GPS we bought at a sporting-goods outlet in Fort Pierce. Included in the purchase were a Q-beam spotlight, a waterproof tote, a yellow plastic tarpaulin, a bait bucket and two cheap spinning rods. I will be posing as a fisherman.

When Juan insisted on coming along, I didn't argue. If events take an unpromising turn, levelheaded assistance will be welcome. Also: cojones of steel. We're proceeding on the assumption that Jerry will have somebody in place, watching, when we arrive at the lake. Juan is keeping low, out of sight. Along the way he has confided that he broke off his relationship with Miriam, the beautiful orthopedic surgeon. "The others, too," he said, meaning the figure skater and the halftime dancer for the basketball team. "I've got to buckle down. I've got to focus on the book."

"You're confused," I told him. "It's prizefighters who give up sex. Not writers."

"The sex is the least of it," he said, most seriously.

Clewiston is on the southern rim of the lake, in the heart of sugarcane country. The land is as flat as plywood. As instructed, we seek out a garishly appointed facility called Ernie Bo Tump's Bass Camp. Ernie Bo is an internationally famous conqueror of largemouth bass. He has his own syndicated television program, and a product-endorsement package that would be the envy of an NBA all-star. Ernie Bo's fish camp, however, has fallen on tough times. Farms and cattle ranches have dumped so much shit-fouled runoff into the lake that miles of prime bass habitat have been transformed into impenetrable cattail bogs. The decline in sportfishing commerce has been exacerbated by water levels so treacherously low as to discourage navigation by highspeed fanatics with 175-horsepower outboards—Ernie Bo's bread-and-butter clientele.

This glum tale is related by a young dock hand named Tucker, with whom I am negotiating the rental of a bare fourteen-foot johnboat. While Tucker is gladdened by the sight of a paying customer, he's concerned that I'm launching so late in the afternoon. He advises that the craft must be returned no later than one hour after sunset. I hope he doesn't intend to wait.

"Dusk is when they bite the best!" I say, which is what my mother always told me.

"There's thunder boomers out to the west. We sure as hell need the rain," Tucker says, "but you better keep an eye out. The lightning gets hairy, this time a year."

"Thanks, I'll be careful. How much?"

"Fifty bucks, plus the deposit." He snatches my credit card. "You need some shiners?"

I ask him to scoop me a dozen. "Did anybody else head out of here this afternoon? I was supposed to meet a couple of friends who were driving over from the west coast."

"Naw, you're it," says Tucker. "Maybe they put in at Moore Haven instead."

"Maybe so."

So far I haven't spotted anyone at the marina who is behaving like a lookout, but I'll take no chances. I stow Jimmy Stoma's hard drive, the compact discs and the Lady Colt in the waterproof tote before loading it with the rest of the gear on the johnboat. The engine is a Merc 25, which barks to life after a few yanks on the cord. With one hand on the tiller, I putter innocently from the docks, heading out toward the big water. If someone is watching, he will report to Cleo's bodyguard that I am en route to the rendezvous, and that I'm alone.

Juan is waiting at a pre-arranged location a half mile away, by a drainage culvert below the levee. He slips into the bow and conceals himself beneath the yellow tarp. Without a breeze the August heat is strangling; the lake steams like a vast tub of gumbo. It's not so bad after I goose the throttle and the boat planes off, creating its own breeze. Soon no other fishermen are in sight. Juan partially emerges from under the tarpaulin and intently begins working the keypad of the GPS, talking to satellites high in space. Flawlessly they divulge our latitude, longitude, ground speed and direction, as well as our lengthening distance from the marina. The only drawback of this astounding technology is that it enables virtually any knucklehead to blunder into the deepest wilderness, with little or no chance of getting lost. So much for natural selection.

Jerry's directions have put us on a course of almost due north, with deviations around flats and grass islets. Using the satellite readouts, I am to fix my speed at precisely twenty-two miles an hour. After passing Observation Island, I'm supposed to run for forty-five minutes, then shut the engine down and wait. Only one-eyed Jerry and the amazing GPS will know where we are.

Young Tucker was correct about the weather. A colossal thunderhead blooms over the lake's western shore, cooling the air but robbing us of a sunset. Later the wind kicks up and a fresh chop spanks rhythmically against the aluminum hull. Juan's gaze is locked apprehensively on the purple-rimmed clouds spilling our way. I'm trying to push Emma out of my mind, trying not to imagine her on a boat out here with Cleo's brutish bodyguard.

The first misting rush of rain is cold on the skin, and I envision Emma soaked and shivering and afraid. A spear of lightning flickers and I'm counting one thousand, two thousand and so on, until the thunder breaks. This, too, I learned from my mother. Four beats, four miles—that's the distance to the face of the storm.

My mother has a reckless lack of respect for weather. If the fish are biting, she refuses to budge. I recall one scary morning, hauling in lane snappers on a patch reef off Duck Key, when a squall rumbled across from the Gulf. The rain arrived in sheets and the waves started pitching the boat, and I begged my mother to let me free the anchor so we could make a run for shore. She told me to quit griping and start bailing. "Be quiet about it, too," she said. "Don't you spook my fish."

What a character. I think of her whenever I'm out on the water; those summer trips together. If she were here now, instead of golfing with Dave in Naples, she'd probably tell me to stop the boat so she could cast a bait into the lily pads. To hell with the storm, Jack.

And actually I'd be delighted to stop the damn boat if I wasn't worried that it would put us off schedule. Jerry is holding Emma somewhere out here, and he's waiting for me. But Sweet Holy Jesus, lightning is starting to crash around us and the air smells burnt, hissing between thunderclaps. Juan has withdrawn, turtle-style, beneath the plastic tarpaulin. Now and then a hand snakes out to signal for a slight adjustment of course. The raindrops feel like needles on my cheeks—it's impossible to see more than forty feet beyond the bow.

But I can't slow down. Every so often I swerve sharply to avoid a snake or a big gator. The lake is so low, the critters have moved out to the middle. That fucking Jerry, he's going to get an earful if I make it through this storm alive.

A bolt strikes so close to the boat that Juan lets out a yell. Instinctively I slide to my knees, hunkering between the bench seats while keeping a grip on the tiller. Now we're running blind, and it's only moments before we plow into something—either a log or an alligator. The boat jolts and the lower unit kicks out of the water, the propeller spitting duckweed and muck. I twist back on the throttle to kill the motor.

Rocking in the sudden silence, Juan peers doubtfully at me from beneath the tarp. Tiny rain bubbles sparkle in his eyelashes.

"Iceberg," I say.

"You gotta take it easy, Jack. I'm not kidding."

A ding in the skeg is the only visible damage to the engine, which re-starts on the first pull. There's about three inches of rainwater in the boat, so Juan dumps the shiners and employs the bait bucket as a bailer. Meanwhile I check the tote bag to make sure that Jimmy's music and Carla's gun are still dry. Then, working quickly, I attach the wires of the portable spotlight to the posts of the twelve-volt battery mounted in the stern.

Juan reports that the GPS still works splendidly and that the mishap has cost us only seven minutes, which can be made up with extra speed. Darkness is rolling in but the worst of the weather has passed. We take a northbound heading and set off again in a muggy drizzle. The time is five past eight. As the storm leaves the lake, clouds high to the east pulse with bright jagged veins of orange and blue. The bursts are so regular I can steer by the light. Thirty-one minutes later, Juan's hand shoots from under the tarp and makes a slashing motion.

We're there.

No sooner do I turn off the engine than the mosquitoes find us. They are famished and unbashful. "That's what we forgot—the damn bug juice," the lump in the tarpaulin mutters.

Five minutes pass. Then five more. I begin to sweep the spotlight back and forth through the blackness. Insects scatter and minnows skip away from the stabbing glare. I count six different pairs of gator eyes, glowing like hot rubies in the marsh grass.

"Where the hell are they?"