Bone Deep (17 page)

“Sanford,” I said. I was hoping to catch Mick off guard. I did.

Instead of showing surprise, though, Mick had to think back. “Sanford . . . Yeah, I’ve heard of them. There were some Sanfords involved with mining way back. Harris Sanford, huh? Makes sense—a spoiled rich brat whose daddy made a bundle off raping the land. But what was he doing on Mammoth Ridge property?”

“Harris and Albright’s stepson were college buddies,” I said. “That’s why I apologized.”

Mick accepted that. “Screw him. Passive resistance is part of yoga discipline, but I would’ve broken the sucker’s nose if he’d said one more word.” He crouched, as if sitting on a chair, palms out, then did a kung fu sort of thing with his hands. “It’s not like you lied to me. A biologist. You were right up front about that. And so what?” His brain switched gears. “Hey . . . Since we’re here, let’s crunch some bones anyway. That’s why you’re paying me. And don’t worry—I’m still willing to help out on that Mammoth Ridge project.”

I said, “Thanks for being so understanding.”

Fallsdown gave me another cautioning look and slipped between me and Mick.

That was okay. My mind was on an envelope I had left in the rental car, doors unlocked. I had studied a map and knew the closest boat ramp was five miles downriver. If someone robbed the car, I wanted to know where to intercept them. But Harris had come by Jet Ski. Skis didn’t require a full ramp.

When I asked Mick about it, he said, “There’re a couple of put-ins close to here that FWC cops hardly ever patrol. Why?”

I said, “Just curious,” then told Dunk, “Stay here and spot for Mick. I forgot something.”

Jogging, I returned to the car.

Older motorcycles at idle make a respiratory rumble, a sleeping dragon rhythm, almost stalling, then snorting when the carburetor revives itself with a gulp of air.

I knew our car was being robbed before I exited the trees.

I carried a stainless .32 caliber Seecamp—a miniature pistol, four inches long, but loaded with Hornady hollow-points, 60 grain. I slid the weapon into my front pocket and parted the bushes. One man, his butt in the air, was leaning into the backseat, where I had placed an envelope containing photos of the mastodon tusk. Not the magnified shots of the petroglyph, just wide-angle shots that showed forty pounds of black ivory.

The photos were bait—give the blood feud collector a reason to negotiate for the owl stones but not reason enough to murder me in my sleep.

The robber wore jeans, boots, a tattered black shirt, and a motorcycle helmet. But I couldn’t see his arms until he stood, his back to
me, an envelope in his bare right hand and an oversize glove on his left hand. I suspected who it was but knew for certain when he removed the helmet and turned to open the envelope in better light.

The Harley gangbanger wasn’t as disfigured as I’d imagined. Asphalt had taken his left ear and scraped flesh from his skull, but surgeons had done a good job. They had pulled the skin together into a hairless sheen that showed only on his cheek and as a bald patch above the left temple. Scars that warranted a second look but not the instant horror, say, of third-degree burns.

Facial scarring, however, is not a reliable index of brain damage. Psychological scars are phantoms. An angry, legless man had recently proved it. Around the biker’s neck was a tubular scarf—an emergency mask—which suggested his ego had yet to accept his injuries. I watched for a while before making a move.

The biker had lost teeth, too. With incisors of white resin, he snared the glove off to reveal two stainless hooks that were spring-operated pincers. He extended his arm, the pincers opened. The inside edge of one hook was sharp and he used it to slice the envelope. Then he closed the pincers by retracting his arm.

A shoulder harness, which I should have noticed, became visible beneath the shirt. The pincers were adjoined to his wrist by a quick-release socket of stainless steel. Like a rechargeable drill, maybe other tools could be attached.

I watched him go through the photos, biting his tongue as he concentrated. A bland, bony face, curly hair, and sharp, mean eyes. Not an athlete, but not much body fat either. A loser since birth, I decided, who had to do something to make a living.

I also decided,
What the hell
.

Walking toward the car, I spoke. “Can I help you?” It is a
question commonly asked by robbery victims. Otherwise, the noise of the motorcycle would have cloaked my approach.

Or maybe not. The Harley gangbanger didn’t lift his eyes from the photos when he said, “I was beginning to think you was just one more scared civilian. How long you been there?” Jaw damage caused him to speak from the side of his mouth; distinctive, like a hick farmer chewing a straw and discussing the weather.

“Long enough to call police,” I answered.

“Go ahead. I’ll tell my side, then listen while you explain about owning pictures of a stolen mastodon tusk. I want that shit back, by the way—the ivory—all of it.” Head down, the pincers moved to the scarf and squared it over his nose before he looked at me.

“Sun cancer’s a bitch,” I said.

“Then you die,” he answered, a smirking tone. He slid the envelope under his shirt, turned and faced me, a bandito sizing me up from behind a mask of red. It was a while before he spoke. “The way Deon talked, I expected some great big dude who was born-again hard. Them glasses—you remind me of a pharmacist I had to visit for personal reasons. I figured him for a dick smoker, not the type would leave a man offshore to drown. Did you?”

“Did I what?”

“You know, really do that? Deon, he said three or four miles from the beach, you left him out there to drown. Didn’t even look back. That there were sharks everywhere, but you didn’t give a shit.”

Brain-damaged—a glassy look in the man’s eyes; mean but not stupid. And he sounded eager to confirm the petty thief’s story. Hopeful, even. I pictured him breaking Deon’s ribs, kicking Deon while he was down, to extract the truth about a story he wanted to believe was true. Now the biker was asking me.

I stopped five paces away, a safe distance between us while I humored him. “I thought he’d shot two friends of mine. Turns out it was you with the pistol. Were you in the Army or Marines?”

“No kidding?”

“About Deon, you mean?”

“Come on, pard.
Tell.
”

“You really expect me to admit it?”

The biker made a cackling noise from behind the scarf. “Hell, man, you’re safe with me. I love a good story. You ever watch that Mel Gibson flick about them Aztec Indians, the way they’d cut people’s heads off? Which is cool if you’ve got a big audience, but not as cool as leaving a whining piece of shit out there to drown. That shows creativity on your part.”

He used his good hand to make a beckoning motion:
Tell me the details, man
.

I said, “Let’s put it this way: If I did something like that, it would’ve been less than two miles offshore. And I didn’t see any sharks. But then went back for the guy when I found out he wasn’t the shooter.”

The biker said, “You
would’ve
left him, though.” That hopeful tone again.

I said yes because he wanted to hear it.

Laughter; threw his head back and had to restraighten his mask. “That is so goddamn outlaw, man. Just left the dude. I figured the asshole made it up. Last Friday, right? Just before the old ladies saw you in that fancy boat, you and your hippie friend.”

“The afternoon you showed up wearing a ski mask,” I added, “but the house had already been robbed.”

“Ski Mask?” He was a pretty good actor, the way he shrugged it off. “That don’t compare with the way you handled your situation.
You in a hot rod boat; Deon so far offshore, he can’t even see the damn beach.” The biker coughed and cackled but showed some manners by touching the pincers to his mouth. “Okay . . . what about the sweatsuit part? Deon claims—”

I said, “Over a beer sometime, I’ll tell you the whole story. Right now, I’m more interested in why you’re robbing my car.”

“Come on, I gotta know. Deon says the guy—you, I’m starting to believe—Deon says he’s drowning, he’s begging, but you look down and say, ‘Dude, your choice, I can shoot you in the head—or lose the sweatsuit, maybe you’ll make the beach.’” The biker sobered. “Did you really say that?”

A scene from a movie was running in his head, I realized. Brain-damaged. Or maybe he’d always been a man-child who saw Hollywood’s stone-cold killers as heroes.

I was done playing along. “On the boat, I wasn’t carrying a gun.” I touched a hand to my pocket to indicate I was now. “How about we save the war stories for later?”

Snap.
The biker’s eyes changed. He extended his left arm to open the pincers and clacked the steel tines like teeth. “I ain’t Deon, cowboy. I admire your style, but don’t push your luck.”

“Then let’s talk about you,” I said. “You threatened my friend on the phone but didn’t show up Sunday night. Or tell me about the woman who died in the house fire.”

“I did
what
?”

“Did you stick a rag in her mouth?”

I was fishing. He knew it but let the truth slip anyway. “Hell, man—now you’re blaming me for some old woman who fell asleep smoking weed.” His indignation was an admission—that’s the way he’d done it, gotten Lillian to smoke something—but then dismissed it all, saying, “The hippie—yeah, I know who you mean.
Thompson . . . Tomlinson . . . something like that. The gas-rag-in-the-mouth thing really got to the ol’ boy. About wet his panties.”

The biker’s snorting laughter caused something in me to snap
.
The temptation was to put him on the ground, tag him, bag him, then leave him for the vultures in some high, distant tree.

The biker sensed it, was spooked for an instant. But then fed off what I was feeling and piped it back at me. “Know why your hippie pal was so scared? ’Cause I love watching people’s face light up. You can’t fake love—
can you
, hoss?”

I had to take a slow breath. “I waited for you off Cayo Pelado until one. If you don’t know how to run a boat, I’ll be happy to give you a private lesson.”

The biker enjoyed that, understood it was a threat. “And leave my ass offshore, I bet.” He wagged his steel hooks at me—
Behave yourself, man
—and walked toward his motorcycle, saying, “Style! That’s what I’m talkin’ about.” Then stopped, as if he’d left out a detail. “Oh . . . I meant to ask: What do you think of that elephant?”

The man’s brain jumped around, but how did he know I had been to the Albright ranch? Or maybe he had heard the elephant’s trumpeting. Either way, I wasn’t going to buy into it. I said, “No idea what you mean.”

“Really? You will, hoss, you will. Black ivory’s worth a shitpotful. But blood ivory’s worth more—even if it takes ten or twelve rounds in that big ugly bastard’s head. What I’m asking is, do you have any good contacts in China?”

When I didn’t respond, he laughed at what he read as my confusion, but, in fact, it was contempt.

“When you see Mick,” he said, turning toward the Harley, “give him your phone number. We’ll order some pitchers, just you and me. Be a honor to face a man with style, then see who walks away.”

He was leaving? I didn’t believe it. I palmed the pistol while he opened a saddlebag and stuffed the envelope inside; expected him to turn, a weapon in his hand. Instead, he donned glove and helmet, straddled the bike, and booted the kickstand free.

“¡Vaya con dios!”

He actually yelled that, riding away.

I memorized the license number and dialed my cop friend in Tallahassee. No answer, so I left a message saying I had information on a woman who had died in a house fire. Then added a description of the Harley.

•   •   •

TWO OF THE THREE JET SKIS HAD RETURNED,
the woman in her yellow shorty neoprene standing with Fallsdown, Mick in the water, while the man who’d worn a helmet waded his ski toward the opposite bank.

“Shelly, meet Doc Ford,” Fallsdown said, after he’d asked me in private, “Is everything okay?”

When I extended my hand, the woman ignored me by scowling at Mick, only his fins showing on the water’s surface. So I said, “Are we keeping you from something?”

She didn’t appreciate that. “How obvious does it have to be? I have only two weeks a year off. I was just telling your friend that I paid Harris in cash for this trip. Now he’s gone off and left me with his assistant.”

“I didn’t know he was a guide,” I said.

“Harris is the best. In April, we did the Myakka River—unbelievable. This is my third trip. But he has a thing about outsiders. So now, of course, he’s too mad to work.”

“Because of me,” I said.

“I don’t tolerate men with a temper,” she warned, meaning Harris had told her about me splashing his rifle. Then she banished me by speaking only to Duncan, saying, “I’ve been looking forward to this dive since May, now I’ve got to share the water with three strangers. You seem like a nice guy, but we’ve got to be careful because of the idiotic laws when it comes to fossils.”

“Only two divers, not three,” Dunk replied, and managed to sound both wise and empathetic. “I’m not going in.”

“Really?”

“Nope. I live in the Rockies, and Florida is a whole different deal. The water here isn’t comfortable. It’s . . . earth-colored, not clear like in the Rockies.”

Earth-colored?
My god, he was playing a role, the noble red Indian. I was tempted to explain to the woman
He can’t swim
, but I had been dismissed from the conversation.

“That’s thoughtful,” Shelly said to him, “but not necessary. Why don’t we buddy up?”

Arms folded, the man from Montana studied the river, which was an amber gel making a slow glide seaward. “I’ll stay here as your spotter. Not far is a golf course. We passed it. There was a sign that warned about alligators.”

The woman laughed. “You are so sweet. But that was Arcadia or Venice—thirty miles from here at least. Look, I was being bitchy. Sorry, or . . . Hey, are you worried about me?”

Fallsdown used his wise-old-Indian smile and said, “Women who travel alone are hard to come by. While you swim, I’ll stand watch.”

Oh brother.
But it was working. Shelly excluded me by moving closer to Duncan so they could talk. Fine, I was all for it. Dunk liked what he saw in this thirtyish woman who was athletic, thin as
a marathoner but attractive, a nice face framed by short brown hair, her shorty wet suit promising good things if Shelly unzipped it and stepped into the shower.

“I’ll find a nice meg tooth for you,” she told Duncan. “It’s so rare to get a chance to dive a spot like this.”

“That would be
perfect
,” the man from Montana replied, then pointed. “Hey . . . look.”

Mick, wearing a mask, was standing, water up to his chest. He spit the snorkel from his mouth and held up something long, black as a tree limb but curved delicately as a scythe. “Rib bone,” he hollered to Fallsdown. “Mastodon or mammoth—this is in our blood, man. Didn’t I say I heard the bones calling?”

Harris’s partner, on his Jet Ski, shook his head, disgusted, then turned an ear skyward—Toby, a mile or more away, trumpeting again.

Dunk looked at me, his expression asking,
Wouldn’t Tomlinson love the timing?

But not Harris’s partner, who’d heard elephants before. Toby, or the elephant rescue facility, both of them close enough. He had used ropes to secure the stern of his Jet Ski to the opposite bank and was just finishing. Downstream, chunks of earth had been gouged from the bank. Now I understood: Harris’s group used the skis to dredge soil away and expose fossils buried beneath tree roots. The man’s vehicle was tatted NASCAR-like,
Sea-Doo GTX
, a muscle machine propelled by impellers that jetted water with the force of a fire hose. I wondered how effective it was as a cutting tool.