Night Moves (8 page)

“A dog’s a good sign, man. My morale was drooping. But finding a dog in the middle of fumbuck . . .
Whoa . . .
What’s he got in his mouth?” As Tomlinson asked the question, his eyes swerved to the Cessna, which was disappearing toward the west.

I felt a cold nose nudge my hand, so I scratched the dog’s ears. “A snake. But he won’t let me have it. The thing’s been dead a couple of days, from the smell, and part of it’s still wrapped around his neck. He either bit the thing in half or he ate it. So he had a hell of a battle with a boa or a python, maybe a small anaconda. I won’t know until he lets me take a closer look.”

Tomlinson grimaced like he’d just eaten something foul. “A serpent is never a good omen, man. It’s the worst sort of juju—Christ, a boa
constrictor
,
you mean?”

I shrugged and said, “Dan might have mentioned seeing a few in the area.”

“A snake cancels out the good dog mojo. Which makes sense after what just happened. The guy in that plane, he shot at me, man! You didn’t hear me yelling?”

I looked up. “Baloney.”

“No, he had a what’s-you-call-it on a small gun. A scope. You know . . . like with crosshairs? Fired once on his first pass, then he shot maybe twice on the second. I remained motionless, that’s the only reason he missed. You know, like a chameleon blending into the grass.”

“Your powers of psychic cloaking saved you,” I suggested.

“Sarcasm—the shield of the unenlightened,” Tomlinson replied and tugged at his safari shirt. “It’s because of my desert khaki. Same color as the sawgrass.”

Even sober, my friend had a vivid imagination. “If someone had been shooting at you,” I said, “I would’ve heard the shots. A gunshot is a hell of a lot louder than a Cessna passing at two hundred feet. It was someone taking pictures. Now, toss me that first-aid kit. But keep the stuff you need for your feet.”

He was still tracking the plane, which was no bigger than a vulture against the Gulf blue sky. Finally, though, he lobbed the kit to me, saying, “I’m surprised they gave up so easy. Someone’s out to get me, man. I told you.” He nodded at the retriever, which had yet to leave my side. “Like I said, snake’s bad juju.”

My pal was making no sense whatsoever, so I knelt and inspected the dog’s ears and neck, ignoring the carrion stench of the snake in his mouth. He was a fully grown retriever, medium height, a hedge of curly charcoal hair along his back, still a young dog, from his looks, but now oddly stoic after the excitement of being found. I removed several ticks, probed an infected wound above the left leg . . . then discovered why the dog refused to release the snake.

“You’re not going to believe this,” I told Tomlinson.

The man was concentrating on his shoelaces. “Hah! I’m the fool who believes
everything
, remember?”

Constrictors aren’t poisonous, but their jaws are lined with recurved teeth that angle inward toward the throat. The teeth provide a secure loading system for muscles that convey food to the stomach. Once a boa, python, or an anaconda latches onto its prey, the only escape is to forfeit a chunk of flesh or to kill the snake. The retriever had killed this snake, but the head and fangs were still anchored deep in the baggy fur around his neck, the snake’s upper and lower jaws spread wide. Dragging six feet of boa would have been painful, so the dog was carrying the thing in its mouth. Smart.

“Get over here. You need to keep him calm while I do this. Once you see, you’ll understand.” I had the first-aid bag open, laying out gauze, disinfectant, tweezers, and salve.

“One more shoe. If the bastards come back, I want to be ready.”

I stood to grab a bite of clean air. “You sold drugs too many years, that’s your problem. Guilt isn’t as easy to quit, is it?” Several seconds went by. I looked at him and said, “You did stop selling marijuana . . . right? That’s what you told me six months ago.”

“And it was true—six months ago,” Tomlinson said, getting to his feet, then he looked toward the horizon. “Life is a fluid, not a solid. I probably should have told you and Danny, but it’s something I can’t admit to the cops. That’s why I didn’t say anything.”

“Admit what?”

Tomlinson cleared his throat. “Well . . . two weeks ago, I found out I’ve seriously pissed off a Caribbean importer.”

“I knew it, here we go,” I muttered.

“I wasn’t looking for trouble! How was I to know I was undercutting his prices? We’re only talking a dozen
veinte
baggies to a few trusted clients. But this particular dealer is very territorial. Turns out we have a customer or two in common.”

“A Colombian,” I said.

“Haitian,” he replied. “A voodoo sacerdotal with zero tolerance when it comes to competitors. Even boutique operators like me, connoisseurs with big hearts and low prices. When a Haitian turns capitalist, trust me, the gloves come off.”

I wasn’t going to ask what
sacerdotal
meant. It would only encourage more esoteric gibberish.

Tomlinson provided it anyway, adding, “His name’s Kondo Ogbay, which is Swahili—you don’t even want to know what it means. The night you left for Tampa, one of Kondo’s people put an assault fetish on my dinghy. Blue stone and turpentine on a bundle of dried grass, which is obvious enough—the man’s a damn witch doctor. That’s sort of why I almost got electrocuted in your—”

“I don’t want to hear it,” I said. “No more talk until we get the dog fixed up.”

I waited while Tomlinson, making soothing sounds, got down on his knees on the opposite side of the retriever. His confession hadn’t convinced me, and I wanted time to think it through. The gunshots from the Cessna were imaginary. Had to be—how would anyone have known we were out here in the first place? And my friend had missed the significance of the wire used to sabotage Futch’s plane. Tarpon guides in Boca Grande have used Malin’s leader for a century. As do other discerning anglers, including the so-called jig fishermen—but only when
not
fishing for tarpon.

There was something else Tomlinson didn’t know. I hadn’t gone to Tampa, as I’d told my marina neighbors. I had spent three days in a Central American city where I had added a new enemy to my list. Not just one man. It was an emerging terrorist cell founded by a Muslim cleric.

The cleric had recently disappeared. The bandage on my forearm covered the last evidence of the man’s final moments—a bite wound that was less severe because of the cleric’s missing teeth.

“Good god, the snake bit him and wouldn’t let go!” Tomlinson whispered, when he finally figured out what he was seeing. “Damn head’s the size of my fist.” Then cooed, “Brave doggie . . . yes you are,” before saying to me, “This guy’s a hardass, huh? The snake, too. Neither one would quit—you’ve got to love that.”

“He’s a survivor,” I said, then looked at Tomlinson. “We both have enemies, and we both have reasons not to involve the police. So let’s keep all this to ourselves when we get back. Okay?”

“About Kondo, you mean. Sure.”

“All of it,” I told him, and should have added
especially about the plane
but didn’t, which would turn out to be a mistake.

We’d be home before sunset, hopefully. Dan Futch was to call Dinkin’s Bay Marina from the air, so, once we made it to the road, our ride would be nearby, only a text away—if we could get a signal.

Tomlinson nodded in agreement, then dismissed it all, looking into the retriever’s eyes. “You’re gonna love living at Doc’s place . . . aren’t you, big fella? Sharks to swim with, pissing in the mangroves . . . and maybe help us find our missing cat—”

“I’m not keeping him,” I interrupted. “I travel too much. And so do you.” I wiped the tweezers with an alcohol pad, then slowly, slowly slid my glove toward the snake’s head. The skull was coffin-shaped and solid on the retriever’s pliant skin, fangs buried at an angle. The pain caused the dog to drop the snake long enough to slap my cheek with his tongue, but he remained steady.

Tomlinson watched, a familiar knowing expression on his face that I find particularly irritating. “Don’t worry, we’ll find a home for him,” I added after backing the skull free. “Maybe use some of your illegal drug money to pay the vet bills first. How’s that sound?”

When a wet tongue whapped me a second time, Tomlinson gave me a
What a crazy day!
sort of look, then confided to the dog, “He can be an asshole . . . yes he can! Prudish as a damn arrow . . . and jealous. But that’s not going to stop us from picking out a good name!”

6

DAN HAD BEEN TRUE TO HIS WORD AND OUR RIDE WAS
waiting for us when we got to the Tamiami—thankfully, just before the rain hit.

The next two days, I had plenty to do in the lab, so I really didn’t spend much time thinking about the near plane crash or the many theories about who might be trying to kill us.

Until I met one of the theories in person at Dinkin’s Bay.

—

I
T
HAD
BEEN
A
STRANGE
NIGHT
to begin with. I’d been standing by a fire near the marina docks with my friend JoAnn Smallwood, a chunky, busty woman with big bones and a handsome face, who’d just had a fight with her boat partner, business partner, and on-again off-again bedmate, Rhonda Lister, and so was feeling weepy and fragile.

Then she looked at A-Dock, where the deepwater boats are moored.

“That’s something else that’s making me crabby,” she said, staring.

“What?”

“That.”

I followed the lady’s gaze to a neat and incremental line of oceangoing sailboats, sails rolled, portholes dark, trawlers, cruisers, and blue-water sports fishermen, most cabins buttoned tight. But a few of the regulars were alive with light: Mike Westhoff’s Sea Ray
Playmaker
, Dieter Rasmussen’s Grand Banks, Geno Lamont’s
Birdsong,
a classic Hinckley, and JoAnn’s boat,
Tiger Lilly
.

Because it was two weeks before Easter, a lull in high season, there were a few open slips, but not many. Two spaces down from
Tiger Lilly
was a new arrival, a sleek powerboat, thirty-plus feet of Kevlar Stiletto that looked more like a futuristic spaceship. Dark hull, low black flybridge that tapered aft toward a transom compartment which hid two or three mega-horsepower engines. The engine space was decked with plush cushions, roomy enough for a dozen starlets in bikinis. Oval ports showed lights inside. A string of LEDs mounted under the hull transformed the water beneath to lime Jell-O. No name on the stern, either. Unusual.

I said, “In showrooms, boats like that are missing only two options: an ego big enough to buy it and a lackey to start the engines.”

“It showed up last week. Came in at night, the engines so loud it shook the windows. I should’ve got up and taken a look, but I didn’t. You were away on one of your mysterious trips.”

“Tampa,” I replied automatically.

“Whatever,” JoAnn said, giving it a mall-girl inflection. “Sure, you expect some bigmouthed real estate tycoon or a trust fund brat. But we’re two slips down, and Rhonda and I haven’t met the owner or even seen him. Woke up next morning and there it was.”

I was thinking,
Mysterious.
Just like Tomlinson’s mistress,
as my neighbor continued talking.

“At a marina this small, you expect people to be friendly . . . or at least sociable. I’m telling you, Doc, Dinkin’s Bay is changing. This place used to be more of a crazy little family, but now the rich ones come and go, and Mack doesn’t give a damn as long as they bring cash or euros. That, plus Rhonda’s crazy mood swings, I’m starting to feel too old and tired to put up with this bullshit much longer.”

Just then, I saw headlights of a luxury car illuminate the parking lot, then a man get out and open the gate. It was Tomlinson, with his married mistress, returning from South Trail Animal Clinic, where he’d taken the dog.

JoAnn nudged me and said, “Looks like your dog’s home.”

In the two days since we’d returned from the Everglades I’d repeated “I’m not keeping the dog” too many times to count, so I didn’t bother. Instead, I switched the subject to the married mistress by nodding toward the car. “Has anyone seen her? I know she’s been in the lab. There was blond hair in the shower drain, and someone refolded my kitchen towels. Then she neatened up the drawers.”

JoAnn replied, “Except for the towels, it could’ve been Tomlinson.”

“Not a chance. There was still a quart of beer left in the fridge.”

That was enough to convince her. “So he admitted using your bedroom?”

“Why ask?” I replied. “After I’ve been away, I change the sheets and soak my toothbrush in alcohol no matter what. Laboratory grade.”

JoAnn said, “I saw her once . . . at Bailey’s grocery. Just a quick glance, though—I recognized her Mercedes SUV. She’s everything I’ll never be: tall, Nordic, rich, wears tailored clothes—even to grocery-shop—and too damn skinny for tits the size of hers. Plus, she’s
married
. Not happily, which is obvious, thank god. Otherwise, I don’t think I could bear it. It’s women like her who make me want to curl up in a ball and cry myself into a puddle.”

As if on cue, she appeared with Tomlinson, he laughing at some punch line, full of life and the awareness of a burning fuse in his backside. She was a tall, vertical presence softened by estrogen contours and a halo of golden hair. The two walked up to his dinghy. The dog, at heel, walked with mechanical care—maybe because of the leash clipped to a new collar—but didn’t hesitate to follow the two into the little boat.

That was the first time I saw Cressa Arturo. It would be far from the last.

—

J
ANET
N
ICHOLES,
the wife of one of our guides, Jeth Nicholes, had come racing onto the dock saying she’d spotted Crunch & Des in a nearby wilderness preserve being chased up a tree by a panther. We’d gone tearassing out of there, and the whole thing had been a farce—no Crunch & Des, and I’d ended up with cuts, scrapes, and bruises for my trouble.