How Arlis managed not to respond, I don’t know. His only reaction was a soft, sleepy moan.
I yelled, “Knock it off!,” and started toward King. The man palmed the pistol, waiting for me, his face registering an exaggerated indifference until I got within ten yards.
“You can stop right there, Jock-o,” King said, lifting the gun to chest level. “Perry? Am I allowed to offer you another little piece of advice? With your permission, of course.”
Perry said, “Goddamn it, King, all I want is a chunk of that money and to get the hell out of here. I don’t want any trouble between us.”
“We don’t have any trouble, partner.” King smiled. “Everyone pisses on their own boots occasionally. Mr. Smart-ass here, he’s the one to blame.”
Perry said, “But why not at least give it a try, man? Let this asshole go down and swim around on the bottom while we fix the truck. Those cops ain’t gonna give up looking for us and you know it. We need money, man!”
King nodded, thinking about it. He said, “That’s right, we do. I can’t argue with that one.”
“He says it’ll take half an hour? What’s a half hour matter? It’ll give us time to change that tire.”
King leaned his head back, squinting as he smiled at me, and said, “Okay—Jock-o, looks like you win,” but his expression said just the opposite. King was back in charge now and he stared at me until he was sure I knew it.
“So how about we handle it like this,” King said to Perry. He backed away from me until he was next to Arlis, then swung the pistol toward Arlis’s head. “How about we make Professor Smart-ass get down on his belly so we can tie him up nice and tight? Just until we get the truck working. How’s that sound to you, Per?”
Perry replied, “Wait, you mean? I don’t know.”
“The darker it is, the better it is for us. Unless you’d rather listen to Dr. Wise-ass here.”
“I don’t give a shit about him. Whatever you say, man.”
“Good,” King said. “I wouldn’t feel comfortable with Jock-a-mo swimming around in that lake all by himself while we fix a tire.”
The last thing I wanted was to be tie-wrapped. Those flexible plastic-and-metal straps were what police used in lieu of handcuffs. Impossible to break, tough to cut.
I said, “There’s no need for that. I have to rig fresh bottles. I’m not going anywhere.”
“Jock-o, we’re not asking you, we’re telling you. Get down on your belly.”
When I hesitated, King leaned the gun toward Arlis and yelled, “I didn’t stutter! Do it now—but not here, dumb-ass! Over there by the lake!” He motioned toward the water, a safe distance from Arlis and the truck.
As Perry bound my wrists, then my ankles, pulling the straps tight, King said to me, “After we get that tire changed, you’re going for a swim. Not me, just you. And you’re coming back with a bunch more of those coins or I’ll put a bullet in the old man’s head.”
I said, “I already told you, I need help with the hose.”
“Sorry, Jock-o. That’s the way it is.”
“But the hose on the jet dredge busted when you—”
“No more of your damn excuses!” he shouted. “If you don’t come out of that lake with a sackful of coins, you’re better off not coming back at all.” King looked at Perry, his tone confident, as he offered, “Sound fair to you, Per?”
Perry was pacing, eyes wary as he studied the darkening sky. “Whatever,” he replied.
SIXTEEN
IN FEBRUARY, IN FLORIDA, BECAUSE OF DAYLIGHT
savings time, it’s already dark by the time most people get home from work. It was dark now as I listened to something large in the distance, crushing its way through bushes, moving toward the lake. It was an animal of some type, I guessed—maybe the gator Arlis had been hunting. The sound came from the cypress swamp, beyond the cattails at the water’s edge, several hundred yards away.
It had to be big for the sound to carry that far.
I had plenty of other things to worry about, but I was tied, lying immobile on the ground. There was no way to run if I needed to run, so maybe that’s why the noise captured my attention.
Initially, the first thing that flashed into my mind was an image of Tomlinson and Will slogging their way back through the swamp from . . .
somewhere.
But the rhythms didn’t mesh. Plus, it was an absurd hope. I couldn’t see my watch, but the sun had set, it was now full dark, so I knew that at least two hours had passed since Tomlinson, Will and I had gone into the water. It would have required a miracle for them still to be alive, and I don’t believe in miracles.
A gator? I strained to listen. Maybe . . . but maybe not. I couldn’t be sure of what I was hearing. I’ve spent more time than most people in Florida’s wetlands at night, but the methodical crackle of breaking tree limbs and the strange plodding continuity of movement were unfamiliar.
Arlis would have known. The man was a master bushwhacker, a pro when it came to tracking and hunting, but Arlis was thirty yards away, lying in silence. I had seen him stir only three times—twice to gulp down water, and once to give me a brief, private thumbs-up.
I managed to roll onto my stomach and lift my head off the ground. My hands and feet were numb because I was tied so tight. The strictures caused my pulse to thud in my ears. The auditory senses are easily confused when there is interference from within, so I gave the animal my full attention.
Whatever the thing was, it moved slowly, which implied bulk, and with a grinding familiarity with the area. Then abruptly the thing stopped and produced a new sound—a rhythmic, ratcheting noise, like metal claws scraping on rock.
Strange. What I was hearing wasn’t human, that was for sure. Sane people don’t hike around Florida’s swamps at night. It had to be an animal. The list of possibilities was long, though, so I finally decided yes, it was probably an alligator—and a very, very large one.
In a way, having something new to think about was a relief.
Prior to focusing on the strange noise, I had spent thirty miserable minutes unable to move my arms or legs because King, with Perry’s help, had strapped my hands to the band around my ankles. They’d pulled the wraps so taut that my back was bowed, as I rolled from one shoulder to the other in an attempt to keep blood circulating.
“Hog-tied,” King had termed it, taking obvious pleasure in my pain. He’d also given me a private elbow to the kidneys or my ear whenever I winced or grunted in protest. As a final gesture of contempt, he had tossed a couple of packs of MRE crackers close enough for me to get to—if I was willing to chew open the wrappers with my teeth and eat off the ground.
I was willing. I needed fuel and I knew it.
When the two men left to work on the truck, I had inchwormed closer to the lake, trying to find a more comfortable spot, a place where limestone didn’t jab my bare legs and arms. Such a place didn’t exist, however, so I had willed myself to relax as best I could and then comforted myself by devising violent strategies.
Sooner or later, Perry and King would have to cut me loose. Sooner or later, I would look into King’s eyes. I would remind him of the games he’d played while my best friend and a teenage boy died. Ideally, it would happen after I had dealt with Perry. Perry was the killer. But it was King who controlled Perry’s trigger finger.
After a while, as I lay there, my mind shifted to my laboratory on Sanibel Island and to the little community of Dinkin’s Bay. If I survived, I would have to return and share the news that Tomlinson and Will weren’t coming home. It was among the most painful obligations I’d ever had to consider.
Death is difficult only for the living, and news about Tomlinson would shake the island. It would reverberate up and down the coastline, casting a wide gray wake. The news would, I believed, cause many of our friends to inspect their own frail realities. Even the strongest of them would question the inevitable losses, the pointless tragedies, that we all endure. The saddest of human refrains is also an imminently rational question: What is the
point
of it all?
Tomlinson was one of those rare people who, by virtue of his own contradictions, made peace with that question even though he was unable to provide a sensible answer. Tomlinson had bridged absurdity and reason. He was a neurotic oddball, brilliantly naïve, a spiritual beacon and a respected teacher, even though he possessed the morals of a rabbit and the sensibilities of a blue-water bum. The man was blissfully independent yet a hopeless addict—addicted less to recreational chemicals than to a relentless hunger for life, and to friends, parties, women, salt water and all things that floated.
Our marina, like all families, has weathered its share of tough times. There had been murder and miscarriages. There had been loves won only to be lost, bullies endured, bullets dodged and too many near tragedies at sea. But life at Dinkin’s Bay
without
Tomlinson? It was only because of the man’s absurd existence that it made sense for the rest of us to live on an island at a marina
in
the mangroves.
And Will Chaser? He was sixteen years old—what else was there to say? Allowing Will to join us on this dive was among the most irresponsible things I had ever done. Some mistakes you never stop paying for, and this was one.
As I lay there, watching the sky orbit into darkness, the winter stars emphasized the finality of this day’s events. There is no peace in a night sky, only the indifferent physics of astronomy. Space and motion both refuse definition if there are no reference points, yet our planet does not wobble after the death of one man or after the deaths of ten million.
Inversely, nothing would change if I killed King and Perry. The balance of the universe had not been compromised, so there was nothing to set right. But I would do it. I would kill both men if I got the chance. In the astronomy of human consciousness, all points of reference are subjective. They are the inventions of our own brief orbit. Righteousness does not exist in an atmosphere of pure reason, so it was not a question of justice or morality or revenge. I wanted Perry and King gone from the space I inhabited. I wanted them dead.
It was that simple, and reason enough for me.
It was while sorting through these dark thoughts that I first heard the sound of the creature plodding through the swamp toward the lake. Instantly, my survival instincts took charge. Was it a predator? A meat eater? What I had told Will the night before about the number of escaped exotics in Florida was, in fact, an understatement. Out there in the darkness could be almost any variety of creature from anywhere in the world: reptile, feline, canine or primate.
It is a reality that Floridians don’t take seriously when we are safely behind closed doors in the comfort of our own homes. Even those of us who venture into the backcountry at night don’t give it much thought because we have been conditioned to believe that we sit rightfully atop the food chain.
It’s not true, as I understood better than most.
My legs and hands were tied. There was no escape. Even so, I wasn’t panicky. There were two men nearby whom I feared far more than any foraging animal.
Even so, I was interested.
What the hell was it?
Whatever was coming toward me,
the animal had my full attention, and I wasn’t the only one who heard it.
I lay back and closed my eyes—an attempt to spare my night vision—when King switched on one of my good flashlights and called, “That better not be you trying to sneak off, Professor Jock-o!”
The man probed the edge of the lake with the light until he found me, then said, “Good! For a second, I thought you were trying to crawl out of here on your belly—like a snake.” He laughed.
A snake
. King was joking, but he had made an atavistic association that I found interesting.
Because King and Perry were closer to the cypress grove than to the lake, I raised my voice to be heard. “You’re not making much progress with that truck. Why don’t you let me help?”
I was even more eager for them to untie me now. It was ridiculous, but at that moment I would have preferred their company to being staked out like a sacrificial lamb.
King switched off the light and said, “When I want something from you, Jock-o, I’ll rattle my zipper.” His phlegmy laughter was as repugnant as his sense of humor.
For the last hour, the two men had been hammering and bickering as they worked at bending out the fender before changing the tire. Because they didn’t want to risk damaging the rim, they hadn’t babied the truck far enough to find solid ground so the jack kept slipping.
Sloppy. It was typical of those two.
It had taken them twice the time it should have to get the tire on, but they obviously weren’t in any rush. Sunrise was their only deadline, so they had ten hours to waste. I was the only person in a hurry, which gave King all the more reason to delay.
Once, when the two men had stopped to share an MRE, their careful whispering told me they were discussing what to do with me after I had returned from my dive, with or without more gold coins.
There was no mystery about their decision. Arlis and I were liabilities. Even if I returned with what they wanted, they would kill us. They’d probably try to sink our bodies in the lake or drag us into the swamp.
No . . . they wouldn’t risk venturing into the swamp now. Not after what we were now hearing.
I knew it for certain when their bickering stopped long enough for Perry to say, “What the hell is that thing? It sounds like”—he had to think it through—“sounds like the sort of hissing a subway train makes when it stops. Like steam brakes—you know?” He paused for several seconds. “Hear it? Christ Aw-mighty!”
The creature was making yet another unfamiliar noise. It was a distant
Hawww
ing hiss that echoed through the trees. It reminded me of a kid with a microphone trying to imitate a crowd’s roar in a baseball stadium. The call was brief, and then the thing began to move again.