Tampa Burn (42 page)

I stared at the marquee, thinking about it as Harris said, “Don't let these old trailers fool you. The carnies don't live here, most of them. They make a lot of money in the business. They've got a lot nicer places on up.”

He was right about that. We crossed under the U.S. 41 bridge, fast traffic passing overhead, Bullfrog Marina alongside, and motored another mile up the creek and into a pretty lagoon. There were palms and oaks, Spanish moss hanging like fog in the shadows, expensive houses set back, a couple of gators drifting, eyes periscoping above the mirror skein of water.

It was a beautiful area. Backcountry Florida idyllic.

Seeing a place so pretty caused me to recall something that a tattooed giant had recently said into the phone while he was directing us around Miami. He was saying to some woman that the reason she needed to come visit him was because he lived in a part of Florida that still looked the way people dreamed it should.

Here was that little chunk of Florida.

My association between the two was not random or coincidental: There he was, the tattooed Mediator. From the boat, I could see him jogging along the street, beneath shading oaks, unmistakable with his head the size and color of a bleached basketball, skull shaved clean and trapezoid muscles that pyramided to his ears, his skin dyed in Easter egg hues, reds, greens, blues.

So now he also had a name and a title. He was Kong, the World's Strongest Tattooed Giant.

To Harris Lilly, I said, “Commander, I'm going to ask you to dump me off here, then bug out and take my boat back alone. Do you think the Tampa Yacht Club will let you moor it there for the afternoon? Maybe the night?”

He looked from the jogging giant to me, then back to the giant, concerned. “Are you sure? You know, old buddy, I have just about every kind of security clearance there is. I can tag along, watch your six, and never tell a soul. Promise.”

I was pointing toward a section of seawall where I could step off as I gathered my gear back out of the forward locker. “I wish I could. I really do. But I can't.”

As I stepped off, I told him, “I'll let you know how it goes.”

 

 

I got the impression that the tattooed giant had seldom been surprised in his life.

He was surprised now. His eyes went wide, and he jumped a little, startled, when I jogged quietly up behind him, tapped him on the shoulder, and said, “Hey, Kong, I think it's time we had a little talk.”

He liked the Everlast muscle shirts. This one was blue. He wore a belly pack and red shorts, but they didn't seem as colorful as the fire-bright tattoos that covered his legs: dragons, snakes, and gargoyles.

I jogged alone for a few steps as he stopped, jamming hands on hips, getting himself under control before he said, sounding cheery, “Well, well, well, if it ain't Mr. Booky-Boy. Where's your long-haired hippie pal, Mr. Freaky Creepy?” Then he added, not the least bit cheerfully, “It is very uncool of you to track me down, buster. Very uncool. It ain't gonna help your cause one bit.”

As he started to jog away, I reached out and put my right hand on his chest, stopping him.

He wasn't used to that, either. Being touched. Being told what to do. His face reddened as I told him, “You're not going anywhere. Not until we have our talk.”

Kong said, “The only place you're goin', Booky-Boy, is the hospital to get ya a new arm if you don't take your paw off me right now. I done told you: I got nothing to say 'cause I don't know nothin'. People hire me for middle-man work.”

Before I could reply, he pivoted, swatted my hand away as if it were nothing, then lunged, grabbed me beneath the arms, and lifted me without much effort until I was nose to nose with him.

My options were to go for his eyes . . . or maybe pop his eardrums, then go for his throat . . . or to let it play out and just listen.

I decided to listen.

The guy was
strong.

Holding me there, nearly a foot off the ground, he told me, “I don't want to know what business it is you got going down. Not listening is how Mr. Kong keeps his pretty ass out of trouble. Like I told you, my brain ain't the biggest, but it do got some torque. So why don't you just run along—and leave
me
alone.”

He'd just told me the only way I could involve him.
If
he was telling me the truth.
If
he wasn't part of the deal already.

If he was lying? It wouldn't matter anyway.

Talking fast, I said, “The guy who hired you kidnapped my son. A guy named Praxcedes Lourdes, but he's probably going by something else. I think they're hiding out somewhere here. Somewhere around Gibsonton, and he's going to kill my son if I don't find him.”

I continued before he could interrupt, “Maybe you're being straight with me. Maybe you
don't
know who you're working for. But Lourdes knows you. Which means you probably know who he is even if you don't realize it.”

Kong shook his head, expression pained, and dropped me to the ground. He seemed to rub at a knot behind his ear, saying, “
Kidnapping?
You're kidding.”

“No. It's the truth. That's who you're helping.”

“Jesus Christ, I don't get involved in anything heavy like that. The guy hinted around it was some kind of extortion deal. Like maybe he had naked pictures of the pretty lady or something. Or blackmail. Dope deals and bribery. That's mostly what I do. But kidnapping someone's kid? Jesus Christ!”

“He's Pilar's son and mine.”

Kong was still shaking his head, a little dazed by what he was hearing. “You just had to tell me, didn't you? Not only that, you just cost me like ten, maybe fifteen grand. 'Cause now I got to walk. Wash my hands of the whole deal, both sides. I can't listen to another word, because if the story gets around, I'm out of the mediator business. Which is not a good thing, asshole. Not good at all because this late in the spring, a guy like me, a guy who works carnivals, I'm not exactly rolling in cash.”

I said, “My son's life's on the line. So don't expect any sympathy. I'll pay you, if that's the only problem. I'll pay you what Lourdes was going to pay if you'll help.”

Kong made a face, thinking about it, then sighed. “If I was to double-cross a client, cut a private deal, that really would screw me.”

I said, “I'll pay you double. If you find a way to help me, I'll pay you cash.”

The World's Strongest Tattooed Giant said, “Double, huh?” He looked at his watch, mulling it over. “I guess, we can at least walk up the street and have a drink. We can talk her over. But
kidnapping.
Goddamn!”

 

KONG
said he'd missed lunch and would have preferred to go to the Giant's Camp Restaurant because they had such good collard greens, but a car had smashed through the place recently, and temporarily shut it down.

“The giant,” he told me, “was Big Al Tomaini. He was 'bout eight-four, a lot bigger giant than me, and his wife, Jeanie, was less than three feet tall. Nice lady. And great collards.”

Kong, I could tell, enjoyed the carney business.

Instead, we walked along U.S. 41 to the Showtown Bar & Grill, with painted clowns on the door, a jukebox on a cement floor inside, and lots of circus posters and murals on the walls. There were a dozen or so people inside, and I stood in Kong's shadow while he said hello to Peti, the fire-eating midget; Chuck, the owner; and some other show people. I listened to them talk about the latest controversy: Land developers wanted the county to revoke Gibsonton's special show-business zoning so they could put in big-ticket subdivisions and not have to worry about rubbing elbows with cotton candy wagons, Ferris wheels, and sideshow exhibits.

“That'll be the end of us show people,” one of them said.

I heard another say in reply what sounded like, “Giz-iz-bye ciz-iz-arney tiz-iz-own . . . ,” speaking in what seemed to be a kind of pig Latin that I couldn't understand.

Talking their own secret language, maybe, because I was there.

Then Kong ordered a beer from Rocky the bartender, nothing for me, and I followed him to a corner table. First thing, he said, before he'd talk about anything else, he wanted to know how I'd found him.

“Coincidence, “I said. “That's the truth. I saw a banner about Kong the Tattooed Giant, then saw you jogging. But it's no coincidence that I think my son's in the area. I have some pretty good sources.”

Kong was nodding. “So what I could do is, contact the guy who's paying me, tell him you're closing in. The boy dies, but I still get paid. What's to stop me?”

I said, “A prison sentence. If you help Lourdes, or anyone who's working with him, you become an accessory. If you aren't already, legally speaking.”

Because he knew I was right, Kong said,
“Shit,”
the way guys say it when they're in a corner.

Then he said, “O.K., Booky-Boy, the truth is, I don't know who hired me. It's a voice on the phone. The caller I.D. number's always blocked. But, yeah, it's probably someone who's in on it. In on it—that's carney talk for being part of the carnival business. 'Cause he left my first payment—two grand, cash—in my box at the Showman's Club, our private place just across the river.”

“Was the voice familiar?”

“Never heard it before.”

“The guy I'm talking about was badly burned as a teen. Maybe terrible scars. Or always wears something to cover his face.” Looking at the posters on the wall of the Showtown Bar gave me an idea. “A clown maybe. Always in costume. He might try to pull something like that.”

That made Kong smile. “Buster, there are about ten thousand circus people, sideshow exhibitors, and show business folks who spend winters in this little town. We don't make a habit of talking about each other to outsiders. But I
will
tell you this is the best place in the country for a person who looks bad, or scary, or dresses weird to live, because nobody asks him any questions, and he'd never get a second look.”

As I said, “Yeah, that's just what I've been thinking,” the cell phone inside Kong's belly pack began to ring. The calliope music that seemed so odd in Miami fit here.

He looked at the caller I.D., raised his eyebrows. When Kong answered—“Talk to me”—he listened for a moment before looking across the table, then pointing at the phone.

I watched Kong mouth the words:
It's him.

I
listened to Kong say into the phone, “Uh-huh. I can give them the message. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. You've sent the e-mail, so then I follow up by phone. Hey, hold on a sec. Let me get something so I can write this down.”

It felt weird hurrying across the bar to find paper so the tattooed giant could take a message from my son's kidnapper that was intended for me.

A minute later, Kong shut off his phone, cleared it, and said, “The guy's a fucking weirdo, man. That's the only bad thing about being a mediator—some of the scum I've got to deal with. People think carnies are bad? In sideshows, all we do is stick a spotlight on things that you rubes, the townies, dream about doin' in the dark. It's people outside of the gates that're the scary ones.”

I said, “The person you just spoke with burns people because he enjoys it. Kills them by setting them on fire. He's a serial killer from Central America.”

That got Kong's attention. “You're shitting me. For real?”

I nodded. “And he's got my son.”

Kong said, “There was a freak act a while back. Sideshow geek stuff. A guy would shoot fire out of his butt, his tallywhacker, then blow himself up. But this dude really sets people on fire?”

“Yeah. He really does. What's the message you're supposed to give me?”

Kong had written on the back of a lunch menu. He looked at the menu as he said, “The big bridge that crosses over from the mainland to St. Petersburg, the Sunshine Skyway. On the St. Pete end, there's a little place called Maximo Park. Do you know it? He wants you and your pals there by seven-thirty tonight with the money and—this is him talking—‘with the money and the other stuff.' That's a little before sunset.”

Sunset, I knew, was a few minutes after eight.

Kong spun the menu across the table toward me. “As long as you're fucking up my mediator business, you might as well tell me the rest. How much money, and what's he mean, ‘other stuff'?”

I told him about the money and the medicine, adding, “I've got both with me, but Pilar and Tomlinson can't make it. They're under sail, on their way here by boat. I can't let Lourdes know that, of course. But why should he care who makes the delivery?”

Kong said, “That's a good point.” Back in his role as mediator again.

“Do you have a way to contact him?”

“Yeah, I call a number that has a Nicaraguan country code. But he's not going to like it. He sounded very hyper. Pissed off; almost like someone sounds when they've got a hell of a headache. Know what I mean?”

Yes, I knew what he meant.

Checking my watch, I said, “He was supposed to give us until Sunday to get the medicine together. Now all of a sudden, he's in a rush. It's twenty till five now. It's a two-and-a-half-hour drive from Sanibel to St. Pete, yet he expects you to get his message to us, then for us to pack and get on the road in time to be at the Skyway by sunset? That's cutting it damn close.”

Kong had a huge, dumb-looking face, but he had perceptive amber eyes that didn't miss much. “You think he knows that you're here? That we're together?”