09-Twelve Mile Limit (26 page)

I laughed as I said, “If I promise not to kiss you, can I get something to eat?”

The woman had a nice smile and the sort of country-girl face that reminded me a little of Janet. “Skipper, you got here just in time ’cause I was getting ready to shut down the grill. There’s the menu. What’ll you have?”

I ordered a dozen oysters, raw, the grouper sandwich, and a beer with ice. I took the beer out to the picnic tables beneath the awning and sat there looking at the line of commercial boats moored to the docks. There were bay shrimpers, purse seiners, crab haulers, deepwater shrimpers, and maybe thirty grouper boats. A couple had just gotten in—sea gulls screamed overhead in a cloud while fish were offloaded. A couple of vessels were getting ready to head back to sea—men in stained T-shirts muled boxes of groceries, cigarettes, and beer aboard. Most of the boats, though, were stolid, empty-looking, as they sat motionless on the black water. A few had been decorated for Christmas: lights in the rigging, reindeer and plastic Santas waving from wheelhouse windows.

One by one, I checked the names of the oceangoing boats.

There was no Nan-Shan.

When the woman brought my food, I invited her to have a seat. She hesitated, then did; she sat down gratefully, as if her feet hurt.

Her name was Stella. An old-timey name that matched her old-timey face. I sat there and ate the good, cold oysters and listened to her tell me about Cortez, the kind of place it was. How it’d changed since they tore down the Albion Inn to build the Coast Guard station, and now there were banks and 7-Elevens sprouting up out east on 648. The village people were still holding it together, trying to save what they could and preserve their own dying history.

Stella said, “They want to put something on the Endangered Species list? They ought to put the independent commercial fishermen. Now there’s something darn near extinct.” She paused and looked toward the docks. “That your Maverick skiff, skipper? It sure is a pretty boat.”

I nodded.

“Hope you don’t take no offense. I know you sport anglers got a different view of things.”

I told her no offense taken, then used that as an opening to say, “Truth is, a couple of friends and I are thinking about investing in a commercial boat, maybe let someone run it as a shrimper. That should come close to making the payments, and we can use it occasionally for long trips to the Tortugas, or maybe even Belize. I hear the fishing’s pretty good over there.”

“Sounds like a pretty smart idea, skipper,” she answered affably.

“That’s one reason I’m in the area. Someone told my partner that a shrimper named the Nan-Shan might be on the market. Owned by a guy named Dexter Money. He’s the friend of a friend, I guess. You know where I can find him? Or maybe get a quick look at the boat?”

Her demeanor changed instantly, and so did the expression on her face. It was as if I had just strung together all the foulest words in the language. “The Nan-Shan,” she said, deadpan. “You say you’re interested in buying the Nan-Shan?”

I said, “Maybe. I haven’t seen her. We’ll be looking at a lot of boats.”

She stood abruptly. “Well, sir, I’m not in the boat-selling business, so I guess I can’t help you.” Her tone was now chilly, formal, and I was no longer “skipper.” I was “sir.”

I held up an index finger, asking her to give me a minute. “Stella, would you please explain something to me. We were getting along great, having a nice conversation, then, suddenly, it’s like I’m poison. Did I say something to offend you?”

“I have no idea what you’re getting at, sir. Is your food okay? I’ve got to get back to work.”

I smiled at her. “Come on, now, somehow I just screwed up. Can’t you give me just a hint about what it was I said?”

She looked at me for a moment, pressed her lips together, thinking. Reluctantly, she said, “Okay, I’m probably being a dope again, but I’ll take a chance. You really do seem like the nice, solid sort, so I’ll risk it. You said you got friends who are friends of Dex Money? Well, mister, you’re keeping the nastiest kind of company, then. And you ain’t got no friends in Cortez if you’re fixing to do business with that kind’a scum. Forgive my French. Or maybe you’re one of the feds after him again, sneaking around trying to get information. Either way, something ain’t right.”

I said softly, “I’ve never met the man, Stella. I meant it when I said I didn’t know where to find him.”

She jerked her head north toward a wooded point on the other side of the bay. “You’ll find him on the far side of Perico Island. He’s got some land there, a couple houses and some docks.”

“I take it you don’t like him. You and the people of Cortez.”

“We don’t claim him, if that’s what you’re asking. Let’s see … it’s Friday night? So at his place tonight he’ll be having dogfights—he raises pit bulls, lets ’em fight ’till their bellies are ripped open. Or snortin’ up coke with his redneck pals, shooting guns. Or that daughter of his, Shanay, she’s only fifteen or sixteen, and the word that describes her, I won’t say. Shanay’s a party girl and she may have her friends over. Which is maybe understandable what with Dex putting her mama in the hospital so many times she finally just run off and disappeared. Do the people of Cortez like Dex Money? No, sir, we do not.”

Her expression became grim when I asked for more detailed information about where the man lived. She said, “Just past Boca del Rio Marina, there’s a mangrove river cuts in. He’s up the river. Got a little boat way, his own docks. You’ll see the warning signs at the mouth. Keep out. Do what you want, you’re a grown man, but if you’re smart, you’ll do what the signs tell you.”

I paid, and took care not to overtip. The woman had described me as solid-looking when, in fact, she was describing what she valued in herself.

I liked her, wished it hadn’t been necessary to lie to her. A woman like this would not react kindly to the slightest suggestion that I was paying her for information.

I got my first look at Dexter Money just after sunset. The soft December light did nothing to soften the man’s features, or his manner. He came swaggering parallel to the docks, shoulders thrown back, belly pushing a black T-shirt away from his skinny hips, sleeves rolled to show his biceps, two bat-eared pit bull dogs trotting along behind, tongues lolling.

His was a territorial display. There was no doubt who the man was, who owned that land.

The guy was gigantic. Closer to seven feet tall than six, he had to weigh more than three hundred pounds, with a shaved, butter-bean head and a florid, alcoholic’s face. As he approached me, his right eye was squinched, a cigarette between his teeth. He carried a green bottle of beer, and there was something else, too: He had a holster clipped to his hip, the butt of a chrome-plated revolver showing. One of the big ones. Maybe a .357.

“Buddy ruff, you either can’t read or you one dumbass Yankee! You didn’t see them signs at the mouth of the river you just come up?” He had a coarse, curiously high-pitched voice, a fried-okra twang; an accent that was intentionally emphasized to communicate his contempt for me, an outsider.

I’d seen the signs. Saw one at the mouth of the deepwater mangrove cut—No Trespassing! This Means You!—and a second sign just before I rounded the bend at dead idle and saw the two CBS houses through the oaks elevated above the river, an airboat and a couple of ATVs, a junked GTO, another GTO gray with Bondo up on blocks, a bunch of new pickup trucks parked in the shade, dog cages in the back, men with ball caps milling around as country music played, and a hulking, rusted shrimper tied adjacent a machine shop, Nan-Shan in white letters on her stern.

He’d been by the house when he noticed me, a foot or more taller than the other men. He turned, then ambled down the hill to intercept me. Now here he was, Dexter Money, a big man and a bigger disappointment—a disappointment because he was not one of the two men in the satellite photos. I would have recognized him. Did he hire people to run his boats?

I fixed a smile on my face as I turned the bow of my skiff toward the riverbank, Money still walking toward me, the two of us separated by only ten or fifteen yards, as I called to him, “I saw the signs. I thought they meant don’t come ashore. What I’m doing is, I’m scouting for snook spots, won’t harm a thing.” When he didn’t respond immediately, I added, “I didn’t know a person could own a river.”

He stopped at the bank, and his tone was without inflection, his eyes were glassy, drug-bright, fierce: “That’s where you wrong, buddy ruff. This river’s mine—and you just had your last warning.”

I started to reply—“In that case, I’ll …”—but didn’t get a chance to finish because Money pivoted, cocked his arm, and rocketed his beer bottle at me. I ducked as it shattered against the console, glass shards everywhere. Heard him scream, “Get the fuck outta here! Now!”

I have dealt with enough Dexter Moneys in my life to know there is no point in dealing with them. But I’m not immune to anger, either. I stared at him for a moment before I jammed the throttle forward as if to run my skiff ashore, then spun the wheel hard so that the stern skidded toward him. The hull of the boat dug deep as it turned, plowing a high, waking wall of water that washed over Money and sent his two pit bulls running.

I stopped the boat, engine still idling, and looked over my shoulder. His clothes were soaked, his cigarette smoldering. Christ—he had his revolver drawn but was pointing it at the ground—a man who could snap that quick. “Motherfucker!” he said, his voice trembling. “I have killed men better than you!”

Before I touched the throttle again, planing away, I said in a voice low enough to force him to listen: “Mister, I hope that’s the only thing we have in common.”

I came back that night just after 3 A.M., the graveyard hour, when even the worst of insomniacs are asleep.

To the west, magnified by the horizon’s curvature, the moon was huge, the size of a setting sun, a disc of platelet orange, a scimitar fragment missing in earth shadow. The river reacted to contact with the moon, becoming a lighted corridor in the darkness, its water red.

I shut the engine down far from the mouth of the river and poled my way in, no noise at all, just the creaking of mangroves and water dripping onto reflected stars. A dog barked somewhere. There were owls conversing in the shadows beyond.

That afternoon, I’d argued it back and forth in my head. Stay or not to stay. How important was it that I got aboard the Nan-Shan and had a look around?

Could be pretty important, I decided. Even the most poorly run vessel keeps some kind of log. And if the operators were too sloppy to maintain records, they were usually sufficiently sloppy to leave behind some form of identifying spore aboard.

Yeah, I needed to have a look around.

With my evening free, I considered finding an open stretch of beach and camping. December’s a good time to be outside in Florida, looking up at the stars. But I was feeling sociable and in need of a hot shower, so I ran across the bay to the backside of Anna Maria Island. The Rod & Reel Marina was booked full, so I found a slip among the liveaboards at Bradenton Beach Marina and walked two blocks to the Pelican Post Inn. A rental cottage was available: a little place on stilts with knotty pine paneling, kitchen, couch, swivel chair and TV, plus an independent bedroom with a mattress that seemed firm enough. I called Amelia on the chance she was free for the evening, and I got lucky.

“Doc?” she said. “You don’t know how great it is to hear your voice! Damn, am I glad you’re here.”

We met for a drink at the Bridge Tender, then walked to the Gulf side for seafood at the Beach House.

I was touched by the fact that Amelia appeared to have taken special care in the way she dressed for the evening. Black dress and stockings, red hair brushed to a sheen, and makeup, too, a touch of eyeliner, peach gloss lipstick. The first time I’d ever seen her wear makeup.

She seemed surprisingly glad to see me. A lot of warm eye contact, a lot of brief nudges and illustrative touching after we’d greeted each other with a long hug.

At first, I thought the most frustrating part of the evening would be that I couldn’t tell the lady about the satellite photos I’d seen, about why I was there. No one was more deserving than Amelia to know there was a slim chance that Grace, Janet, and Michael might still be alive.

Wrong. There was an entirely unexpected source of frustration. When the relationship between a man and a woman changes, or there is a potential for change, there begins a multilevel variety of communication that is unmistakable but not easily pinpointed. Because there is a risk of embarrassment, the form of communication requires that one meaning must necessarily be concealed by another, more innocent meaning. Some of the exchange is verbal, some physical.

At the Bridge Tender, we sat at a table overlooking the bay. The moon was high and bright, and the lady looked very attractive indeed. Once, she used her index finger to tap the back of my hand before she said to me, “I’m so glad you called. I’ve been dating a couple of different people off and on, and just this week, I made the decision, no more, that’s the end of it. Nice guys, but the attraction isn’t there, and I found myself feeling lonelier when we were together than when I was off by myself. Life’s too short to waste it pretending.”

A little later, she said, “Something happened to me those nights when I was stranded. After being on the tower, I don’t even have patience for my own lies. I’m a healthy, physical woman. I’ve finally admitted that to myself, too—not easy for a single Catholic girl.”

Was there a hidden message there?

At the restaurant, she told the waiter she wanted a half-dozen oysters, but the waiter didn’t hear.

“A dozen, miss?” he asked.

Amelia was looking at me when she replied, “No, a half dozen. I just want sex. I mean … six.” Laughing at herself as the waiter walked away, her eyes averted now, blushing, too—maybe the first time I’d ever seen an attorney blush—as she dabbed at her face with a napkin and said to me, “My God, talk about Freudian. I’ve got to start getting more exercise, go for a long run. Something.”