Tampa Burn (48 page)

The list of drugs Lourdes had demanded popped into my mind, and I thought,
What the hell is he up to?

Baxter interrupted, pressing, “You don't see my posters no more? Them posters still up there, ain't they?”

Once again leafing through the
Audubon Guide,
now searching for page 296, the American alligator, I looked in the direction the old man was staring.

There was Baxter Glapion. His likeness was depicted on two posters that were mounted side by side.

In one, he was dressed in a straw skirt, gnawing on a human skull, and billed as Kiki, the Cannibal Dwarf. On the other, he was wearing a similar grass skirt. But he also had a turban on his head, and was holding a crystal ball and a magic wand. He was sitting on a cushion, head thrown back, arms outstretched as if in a trance. He was billed as Mystivo, the Pygmy Fortune Teller.

The smile still there, he said, “The fortune-teller bit, I can still do it. Let me think on you a moment now, and I'll tell you something about yourself. Somethin' nobody else ever knowed. It's not a lie, man, it
real.
I'm from the New Orleans Glapions—our family descendants of Priestess Marie Laveau. I've got the
voudon
blood in me.”

Concentrating on the book, I said, “Voodoo, huh? I've got a sister you'd love. But unless you can tell me where my son is, I'm not interested.”

The old man had his head back, arms out, palms up, just like the poster. I heard him tell me my correct age, a figure close to my weight, and the month in which I was born.

Still leafing through pages, I said, “You're good, Baxter. You really are. I've always wondered how you carnival people did that.”

I'd found alligators in the reptile section and was squinting, searching hard for my son's tiny writing, as he said, “I only know how it is
I
do it, man. Back when my eyes was workin', they seen so much ugliness, all the light leaked outta me. My real vision, my good vision, didn't come back until I lost my sight.”

He was silent for a moment before he added, “I see you had a bad time these last couple years. You and some a your friends, too. You were in the shadow time a your life. But better times here now. Your luck, and all the luck a those around you, done changed for the better. You got bright times ahead. Lots a laughin' and bed-happy-makin' love, and party times are ahead for you.”

“Great,” I said, absently. “Good to hear it.”

On the page opposite two photographs of gators, I discovered that Lake had written something, but the letters were so tiny that it was very difficult to read. I stood and held the book next to the light, my face close to the page, as Baxter said in a more somber tone, “But you got you a little bit more trouble comin', too. I can see that. You got you some trouble comin' with somethin' that might happen to one of your two children. You maybe gonna lose one of them.”

He moaned the next words very softly: “Ah Lordy, I sure hope that what I see ain't true.”

Irritated, I said, “I don't have two children. I only have the one son, the boy you met. And a crazy man's got him, so, yeah, he's in trouble.”

“No sir! I see two children!”

I said, “Well, you're wrong. Baxter—could you please be quiet for a while?”

Squinting at the book, I could now make out the words “LOURDES WANTS . . .” as Baxter ignored me and continued anyway, “I see only one more thing in your future that's bad, man. What I see is, I see that, one day . . . oh, this
is
a dark 'un . . . I see that you gonna have to kill a man who's been a good friend to you. Whoo-whee—”

That moan again, but this time the sound contained pain and surprise.

“Ye-e-eah, oh Lord, I see this event very clearly. You be an unusual creature, Doc Ford! Yes, you are! That day gonna come. The day gonna come when you kill your friend, that be the darkest time of all.”

I let him push on without comment—uneasy, though, with what I was hearing—and let him finish, saying, “But mostly . . . yes, I see . . . you got happy times and good feelin's ahead. You gonna be a smilin' man comin' up very soon—if you help that child of yours that's in so much trouble.”

I looked at him sharply, wishing he'd shut up so I could concentrate. I said, “That's exactly what I'm trying to do,” then turned away from him and hurried down the hall to the cage where they'd kept Lake.

From the desk, I took up the magnifying glass and found some decent light. The magnifying glass made his tiny block letters swell off the page.

When I read what he'd written, the photos of surgery patients tacked to the wall, and the drugs Lourdes had demanded now all gathered in my brain with terrible clarity, and I finally understood the intent of my son's abductor.

Lake had written: LOURDES WANTS MY FACE. HELP ME!

I dropped the magnifying glass and book, and jogged back to the living room, feeling the wagon tremble beneath my weight. I had to force myself to appear calm as I said to the old man, “Did Lourdes—the guy you call Mean Jimmy—did he ever mention a local plastic surgeon, a woman by the name of—”

I stopped because I was blanking on her name—probably because I was so scared, so adrenaline charged. Harris had said her name a couple of times. Finally, it came to me, and I continued, “Did Lourdes ever mention a Dr. Valerie Santos? Or did he show any interest in Tampa General Hospital? Particularly, the burn unit there?”

The old man was staring over my shoulder, not looking at me, but seeing me, shaking his head as he said, “No, Mean Jimmy never tell me nothing like that. But I heard what happened on the news. I know what you talkin' about. The pretty woman doctor who got stolen off the street. But he never say anything, and I don't know nothin' 'bout it.

“Understand—Mean Jimmy, he not like other people. His brain different. It never speak to my eyes. What he thinkin', his thoughts, they never did come into my head like your'n do, or other people's do. His thoughts is all scrambled. Inside Mean Jimmy's head, all my old eyes ever saw were gibberish. Lots of swearin', and a bright red anger. It like an outsider comin' to Gib'town and hearing our carney talk.”

I stood for a moment, my lungs struggling against panic. Considering the drugs Lourdes had demanded, what were the odds that he was not involved with the abduction of the famous plastic surgeon?

Without speaking again to Baxter Glapion, I charged out the wagon's front door. I didn't slow until I reached my boat.

I
touched a button on my plastic watch and saw that it was 9:40 P.M.

I also saw that my hands were trembling.

I'm supposed to be the icy one. The cold professional. I've been in so many tight spots, in so many places and circumstances in which my life or someone else's life was at risk, that I should know by now how my brain and body will react.

I've come to expect this response: The pressure to think and perform seems to banish emotion, and a kind of predatory chill moves in to fill that emotional void. My concentration becomes intense, as does my sensory awareness, although, oddly, color perception diminishes—as if color is an unnecessary frill.

This time, however, that's not how I reacted. Maybe it was because my son was involved. But I certainly didn't stay cool and collected. In fact, never in my life had I felt so frightened, so panic-stricken.

As I stood at the wheel of my skiff, steering at fast idle down Bullfrog Creek, I had to fight to keep from hyperventilating. My body trembled uncontrollably each time I exhaled. My hands shook when I took the cell phone and dialed Harris Lilly's number.

I've seldom used a cellular phone, but I discovered that, thanks to the little headphone unit, even while running a boat at speed, I could hear pretty well if I turned the ear containing the receiver into the wind.

When my friend answered, that's what I did.

Harris was alone, in his own vehicle now, he told me. Then he listened in stunned silence as I told him that I had reason to believe that Prax Lourdes, my son, and the abducted surgeon were aboard a commercial vessel somewhere in or around Tampa Bay.

When I was finished, he made a sneezing sound, then sputtered, “Jesus Christ, you're shittin' me! You think Dr. Santos is being held captive aboard a ship that checked out of our port? In that case, our agreement is off, Doc. Sorry, but I've got to call in the cops. It's not a private matter anymore.”

I told him that I'd expected exactly that reaction. I understood that he had to do his duty, but added, “What scares the hell out of me is that local law enforcement is going to figure out which ship they're on, and then try to go storming in with choppers and SWAT teams and a fleet of boats. This guy Lourdes is a freak. He'll kill my son before they take him. That doctor, too. He'll set them both on fire just to watch them burn before they cart him off to the insane asylum. I know, because he's done it before.”

“Then what do you want me to do, Doc?”

“I don't know. I don't
know.
I understand your position. I don't see any other alternatives. But you're right, we have to notify the professionals and get a search started.”

I felt like sobbing.

Harris said, “O.K., O.K., we will. In the meantime, though, there's no reason you and I can't be sniffing around on our own. I can call our Tampa pilot dispatcher. There may not be a long list of night transits, and I can get the list of vessels that have been cleared to leave. We're figuring our bad guy's on a ship scheduled to spook out soon, right? I can get those names to you in five or ten minutes. But, Doc, we're not going to have a lot of time before the big search sweeps start. This woman is an internationally respected surgeon. She's
international
news.”

If Harris could narrow the list of ships, then I might have a shot at finding my son. For the first time, I felt a slight surge of optimism. “We'll work with what we've got,” I said. “I'm under way now—”

As I spoke, my phone began to make an odd chiming sound. It took me a moment to figure out that it was the Call Waiting option. I had another call coming in.

I said, “Hold it a second,” and looked at the phone. The little face plate was flashing, showing caller I.D. information. I read:
Elmase Baretto.

It was Jorge Balserio's thug, the husky little Nicaraguan, calling from the Miami area code.

I said, “Hey, this could be important. Do you mind checking on the names of those ships while I answer this? I'll call you right back.”

I touched the Talk button, then said in Spanish, “You'd better not be calling to talk about clothes.”

Elmase said, “Even when you not tryin' to be funny, you sound so very funny. I could teach you something about clothes.
Somebody
needs to.”

Then he said, “Hey . . . what's all that noise, dude? You sound like you in a hurricane that's going on.”

Trying to talk on the phone and navigate an unfamiliar creek, I was still traveling at fast idle. Because the boat was quieter on plane, traveling at much faster speed, I considered punching the throttle, but decided it was too risky while I was preoccupied.

I told him, “I'm in a boat, so you've got to speak loud. I don't have time to explain.”

He said, “In a boat, man? That's perfect, man. 'Cause that's what I'm calling to tell you. General Balserio, he wants that crazy bastard stopped so bad. We want to help you, just like we say. The General, he's going to lose the Revolution 'cause of that crazy goat-fucker if he hurts your boy. So here's what we found out—you got something to write with?”

What Elmase told me, I didn't have to write down. Balserio, or his people, had discovered that Lourdes had some kind of connection with a tramp freighter that made regular runs from Nicaragua and Masagua to Havana, then on to Tampa and back. It often carried fertilizer, although the ship was such a wreck that the company was known to be willing to haul just about anything.

Balserio's people had it from a reliable source that Lourdes had made a cash deal with the captain and crew of this phosphate freighter to give him safe passage out of Florida, and that the boat would be leaving for Central America soon.

Elmase told me, “Here's the part you gotta write, dude, so you don't forget. If you find this boat, you gonna find the crazy Man-Burner aboard her. Maybe your son, too.”

The name of the freighter was
Repatriate,
and it was registered out of Monrovia, Liberia.

It was the same decrepit ship, covered with rust and fertilizer dust, that I'd seen headed to sea, probably an hour or so outbound from the phosphate plant at Gibsonton as I was headed inbound.

I told Elmase, “I'm not going to forget.”

 

 

I dialed Harris immediately, but before I could speak, he said, “Hey, ol' buddy, I just noticed there's some old bastard in a cowboy hat tailing me in a white unmarked Ford. It's a damn old cop! If he was driving a Jag and wearing a beret, I'd still know he's a cop just because of the way he looks. What's the deal? Do you know anything about this?”

I told Harris to calm down, there was something I needed to ask him before I answered. I said, “Did you call your dispatcher and get the list of ships that are transiting tonight?”

“I haven't had time. When I figured out this was the third or fourth time I've seen Dick Tracy, I started a game of bumper tag just to make sure. The guy can drive for an old fart, I'll give him that much.”

“Did you notify anyone that Dr. Santos, and my son, might be out here somewhere being held aboard a ship?”