Everglades (29 page)

“Goddamn it, Thoreau, you stood me up again! We agreed to work out early this morning, remember? You were supposed to meet me at Tarpon Bay Beach at seven, run to Tradewinds and back, then swim. So I stood around like a dumbass, waiting, when I should’a known all along that you’d screwed me over again.”

She made a huffing noise, glaring at me, before she added, “What’s this make? The fifth, sixth time you’ve promised that we’d start working out together? And, every time, you come up with some lame-ass excuse. Or you just don’t show—no call, no nothing. What the hell’s wrong with you, Ford?”

Yawning, I pushed open the screen door so she could enter. “Dew, I’m sorry. I guess the alarm clock didn’t go off. You know how punctual I usually am—”

“That’s bullshit. The old Ford, yeah, he was punctual. You could always count on him. But not now. Not
you.
You’re almost always late, you’ve become undependable as hell, and, as far as I’m concerned, a promise from you doesn’t mean a goddamn thing!”

I was still holding the door open; could smell the good odor of shampoo, fabric softener and girl sweat as she pushed by me. But, when she finished the sentence, I let the door slam shut. Then I stared at her until her cheeks flushed and her eyes flooded. That quickly, she went from fury to near tears.

She said, “Now I’ve hurt your feelings. I’m sorry. I don’t really mean it. I
do
trust, you, Doc. I’ll always
trust
you. But . . . damn it”—she had a rolled newspaper in her hand, and she slapped it into her palm for emphasis—“you’ve got to quit standing me up!”

I motioned her into a chair, and said, “For the second time: Sorry. I mean it. It’s inexcusable.” I walked toward the galley. “Coffee?”

“Why not? I need something to get my heart going. It’s not like I had anyone to push me on my run this morning. Which was boring as hell, not having anyone to talk to.”

Another not-so-subtle cut.

I like big, tomboy women, which is why Dewey remains one of my favorites. She’s a little under six feet tall, 145 pounds or so, blue-blue eyes, blond hair cut boyishly short, and she has the vocabulary of a sailor. She once also had one of the most beautiful faces I’d ever seen: one of those California-beach-girl faces, all cheekbones and chin with deep-set eyes.

Her face is different now—and for heartrending reasons—but she’s still a striking woman. Because Dewey’s had a long and volatile love affair with an internationally known woman tennis star, sex—or the prospect of sex—is no longer a component in our relationship. That it has made us even closer friends is a phenomenon I do not find surprising. The quickest and most common way to end a male-female friendship is to take the friendship into the bedroom.

So she sat in the breakfast booth, reading the paper while I made coffee. The sink was still piled with dishes; the counter was still a greasy mess. Added to the mess was now a single red 12-gauge shell I’d sealed in a plastic Baggie.

There was something about Shiva’s assistant, Izzy, that troubled me on a subliminal level. Watching him, I felt a sense of subconscious threat, but also recognition—of what, I couldn’t say.

But it’d bothered me enough to want to keep something that might carry his fingerprints. Which is why I’d stolen the shell.

I put the shell in a drawer. I switched on the coffeemaker as I listened to Dewey make small talk, seemingly trying to reestablish a comfortable mood, which was a sure sign that she had something more serious on her mind

Finally, she said, “There’s something I need to talk to you about. I’ve been putting it off. But no longer.”

“Is it about Walda? If she’s still jealous of you and me, I can call her if you want. Explain how it is between us. It might help.”

Dewey said, “Yeah, well, that, too. She is such a constant pain in the ass. But that’s not what I want to talk about. I want to talk about you.”

“Okay. What about me?”

“I don’t want to offend you, and I don’t want to hurt your feelings again. We’ve been through a lot together. I love you as one of my best friends.”

I said to her, “I’m fond of you, too. So why do I get the feeling this is preface to some more criticism?”

She rattled the newspaper. “It’s not criticism. What I’m going to tell you is the truth. But you’ve got to remember that sometimes the truth hurts.”

I turned away from the stove. “Then go ahead. I’ve got big shoulders. Fire away.”

Dewey said, “The truth is, Doc . . . you look like hell. If you had a decent-sized mirror in this place, perhaps you’d know. You’ve gained at least fifteen or twenty pounds since we used to be workout partners. But it’s not even the weight. You’re starting to look soft. Puffy. And look at those circles under your eyes! Plus this weird crap about going from one of the most rock-solid men on earth to being undependable as some goofy teenager.”

She stood and held me by both arms, looking into my eyes. “The point is, pal, I’m worried about your health. Maybe something’s wrong with you. Maybe you need to see a doctor; get a physical.
Something.
Or start working out with me again. Probably both. And you need to do it soon, because it’s getting harder and harder to be your friend. ”

I said, “That sounds like an ultimatum.”

“In a way, it is. I care too much. I’ve got too much respect for you to watch you go down the shitter. If you’re dead set on doing it to yourself, don’t expect the people who love you to stand around and watch. It’s too painful.”

I turned and poured coffee into a brace of Navy-issue mugs, then sat across from her in the booth. I felt tired and empty and disgusted with myself. I said, “Read the paper. Tell me if there’s anything interesting going on out there in the real world. After that, let’s jog down Tarpon Bay Road to the beach and go for a swim.”

She sighed, momentarily relieved, her blue eyes brim ming again. “If there’s anything you want to tell me, you can. What’s
wrong
with you?”

“A short run and a short swim,” I said. “That’s enough for starters.”

 

 

Dewey said, “It’s in the paper this morning about the earthquake. I heard the checkout clerk talking about it at Bailey’s when I stopped to get a banana and yogurt.”

She turned the newspaper’s local section toward me so I could read the small headline: EARTHQUAKE? SCIENTISTS INVESTIGATING.

“The clerk said that on Sanibel and Captiva, the only ones who felt it live on the beach. Or on boats. What about you?”

“I felt something. So’d Joann, Rhonda and the rest of the liveaboards. In that way, it makes sense. Water’s a better conductor than air.”

“Well, at my house, I didn’t feel a damn thing—but then, I was on the phone fighting with Walda around six, so pissed off I wouldn’t’a felt it if the ceiling caved in.”

Surprised, and pleased that we’d been provided an interesting diversion, I took the paper from her and read parts of the story aloud.

Yes, I was wrong about earthquakes in Florida.

I stopped reading, took a gulp of my coffee and said to Dewey. “I grew up here and never heard anyone ever mention earthquakes.”

“Live and learn,” she said. “It’s kind of interesting.”

Yeah, it was.

I continued reading:

When I stopped reading, Dewey took the paper from me. Folding it, she seemed subdued and reflective, as she said, “Sooner or later, I guess we all experience an earthquake or two. It’s inevitable.”

I said, “Yeah. Inevitable.” Then I said, “Let’s go run.”

Twenty minutes later, I was standing a little more than two miles from the shell road that leads to Dinkin’s Bay Marina, bent at the waist, hands on knees, my T-shirt soaked with sweat and gasping for oxygen.

Dewey stood beside me patiently, not sweating and not breathing much faster than normal. “Sorry, Doc. Maybe I was pushing a little hard. I’ll slow the pace way down.”

Her kindness hurt me far worse than her characteristic sarcasm.

“How long’s it been since the last time you ran?”

I had to clear my throat to form words. “Eight months,” I croaked. “A year.”

“Oh my God, no wonder. Maybe we should just walk. Have a nice relaxing stroll, then get you back to the house.”

She said it sincerely. Like she was talking to her decrepit old father.

chapter twenty-three

On
Wednesday, April 16th, three days before an associate and friends reported Frank DeAntoni and Sally Carmel Minster as missing, the wide-bodied former wrestler called me on his cell phone just to talk, he said, but also to ask a favor.

Because my answering machine has a recording that suggests callers try me at the marina’s number, that’s where he found me.

I was sitting on the stool behind the glass counter next to the cash register where Mack, the owner and manager of Dinkin’s Bay, holds court and keeps an eye on the money. Mack’s originally from New Zealand; a Kiwi who loves cold cash even more than he loves cold Steinlager.

We’d been discussing the most recent of governmental outrages imposed upon our little boating community. It concerned Captain Felix Blane—all six-feet-five inches and 250 pounds of him—who’d been out in his twenty-four-foot Parker,
Osprey.
He’d had a party aboard when an unmarked flats boat came screaming up alongside, portable blue lights flashing, and forced him to stop.

Two plainclothes U.S. Fish and Wildlife officers then proceeded to accuse him of ignoring the new Manatee Protection Laws that require boaters to travel at idle speed when within five hundred feet of certain mangrove areas.

“One of the Feds had a ponytail,” Mack told me. “The smart-ass undercover-agent type, and he gave Felix a lecture about how he needed to learn basic boating skills, and start caring about wildlife.
In front of
his clients.”

Captain Felix, who’s been guiding around Sanibel for nearly thirty years endured the lecture like the professional he is, then told the officers, “Do you have navigational equipment? Check your GPS. We’re more than half a mile from the mangroves. I’m way outside the manatee zone. I haven’t broken any laws.”