The Man Who Ivented Florida (24 page)

"But he wants you involved. Is that so hard to understand?"

"You're saying that he wants me to help him stop the state from taking Mango and making it into a park. That's what you believe?"

Sally said, "What's wrong with that? I like parks ... I know the land has to be protected. But I think the state has taken enough from people like your uncle. Besides, who are they to say he's not protecting the land? Or me, either, for that matter. My house is there. They may try to take it, too. In fact, your uncle says they will. What gives them the right?"

Taking Tucker Gatrell's side, no doubt about it. Ford would have sighed, but he didn't want to show his frustration. He said, "You're a trusting person; that's a wonderful personality trait. I'm not criticizing—"

"You think it's silly, don't you?" That's what she said, but her tone told Ford she thought he was being an asshole, not wanting to help.

"No, not silly. It's nice, it really is. I admire you for trying to give him a hand. But Tuck sent up some copies of papers for me to look at, data about his property, some copies of newspaper articles—"

"I did that, most of that research for him. All the copying." Her voice was beginning to sound a little chilly. "I got everything I could find on water. The makeup of it, the state's regulations regarding water. He had a stack of books and papers this high." She held her hands far apart, then put them in her lap. No more touching his arm now.

"That's a lot of work. I know. I hope he appreciates it." Ford was thinking, There's no way I can save this. Why am I trying? But he said, "Then you're familiar with the chronology. Do you mind listening while I go through it?"

"If you want. I don't see why—it's getting so late." Looking at her watch.

Ford said quickly, "Wait. . . late last year, the state announced it wanted to build a park adjacent to Everglades National Park, and that it was beginning the preliminary studies. Early this year, Tuck sold off a hundred acres of his property. Why would he do that?"

"Because of taxes," she said. "The state assesses all waterfront property higher. Pricewise, even if you've lived on it for a hundred years. It doesn't matter if you're a poor fisherman. That's put a lot of people out of business. Tuck couldn't afford it."

Ford said, "Okay. That makes sense. But what did he do with the money?"

"Money? . . . Oh, the money he received—"

"The money he got from selling a hundred acres. It had to be a lot of money, right? Even in an undeveloped place like Mango. Hundreds of thousands of dollars. But now Tuck claims to be flat broke. From the papers he gave me, he sold it to some kind of conglomerate. Kamikaze Enterprises, which sounds Japanese—"

"Yes, he told me that. A big Japanese company. When he came down to tell me, he seemed angry about it. He said something like, the Japanese have bought the rest of the country, they might as well have his land, too. I remember that."

Ford leaned forward, sensing he was finally getting somewhere. "That's my first point. Tuck despises the Japanese. He was in the South Pacific during World War Two. It was a favorite topic, the sins of the Japanese. The Bataan Death March, using American prisoners of war for scientific experiments, using Dutch women as sex slaves. Mention the Nazis, he had a whole speech about how the Japanese were just as bad. Tuck would never have sold his land to a Japanese company. No way. Besides, why would an overseas company buy land the state planned to take, anyway?"

That got her thinking. "You're saying he sold the land to someone else?"

Ford said, "I'm saying I doubt if he sold his land at all. He may have had that good old boy lawyer buddy of his, Lemar Flowers, set up some kind of dummy corporation as a front—"

"But why?"

"Tuck's tricky, that's why. It's his nature. Tuck never does things the . . . normal way. He never has and he never will. Hell, look at his house! Everything is jury-rigged, thrown together. That's the way he's lived his life. Anything conventional or orderly offends him."

"A lot of people, old-time people who live out in the country, that's the way they are. Junk in the yard, patched walls. He's no different."

"But Tuck is different
... on purpose.
He sees himself as an inventor, smarter than everybody else, but in fact he's just contrary. Give him the simplest problem and he'll take the most absurd route to solve it. The stranger the better. Tuck confuses convolution with brilliance. He always has. He likes being different because that's the only thing he's ever been successful at." Ford stopped, realizing his voice had risen. In a calmer voice, he said, "I'm trying to get you to see the other side of the man."

Sally said, "I'm starting to understand," in a way that could have meant something else.

Ford started to react to her tone, the knowing sound in her voice, but then decided to let it go. Maybe she'd drop it after she heard the rest. He said, "Why would anyone do that? Sell land to a dummy corporation, I mean. To most people, it's nuts, but Tuck would see all kinds of reasons. For the state to exercise its powers of eminent domain, it first has to do the standard title searches. Find out precisely who owns what land. Selling off to a dummy corporation would murk things up. That's the way Tuck might see it. Particularly a company with a Japanese name. Those people are very tough negotiators, and the state might just throw up its hands and say to hell with it. Scare them off that way. He's trying to buy time."

Another way to buy time was to kill or shanghai a couple of state employees, but Ford didn't say that.

Sally said, "You two are just so different." There was nothing chilly in her voice now. Instead, she sounded troubled. A little hurt, too. Ford found that unsettling, as if he'd explained to someone why there was no Santa Claus. She said, "Then what about the artesian well? He seems so sincere."

"That's one thing Tuck's good at, sounding sincere. But consider this: Even if he sold his land to a dummy corporation, he still had to pay sales tax and capital gains. On a hundred acres, it probably cleaned him out. He's probably telling the truth about being flat broke. He needs the money." Ford could see that hurt her, too, so he added, "Understand, I'm just guessing at all this. I have no proof."

"Yeah, I know but . . ." She was thinking about it.

Ford said, "But here's what I suspect is his real motive. The spring he says he found? Let's say he convinces a bunch of people that water from the spring really is beneficial. That there really are some health benefits. Let's say the water has all the necessary minerals—whatever it is people look for in bottled water. And he proves that by having the water tested. Okay, that makes his property even more valuable. If he can prove the water is a marketable, inexhaustible resource, the state will have to pay him ten, maybe twenty times the current accessed worth of his property. Do you understand?"

"Yes, of course. . . . Well, no, but it makes sense. The way you say it."

"I just want you to see why I don't want to get involved with Tuck. One of his schemes. That it had nothing to do with ... what you were talking about."

Sally stood, putting her hand on Ford's shoulder as he stood to face her. "I think it does."

He could look down right into her eyes, her face softer in the darkness. He put his hand on her waist, not even thinking about it. "You're leaving?"

"I have to. It's late."

"But you're not mad."

As she shook her head, her hair made a wind sound, brushing against her shoulders. "No. Just confused. And sleepy."

Ford wanted to say, "Then why not stay over?" but the words couldn't get past his own reserve. Instead, he said, "I'll wash your clothes and dry them. You can pick them up next time you're here." Looking at her face to see how that was accepted.

Sally touched her finger to his cheek. "You really are a nice man. I wonder if you believe that." Studying his eyes with hers.

"Or I could drive down to Mango tomorrow. Drop them off. If Tomlinson will let me use my truck."

Using his shoulder as a brace, standing on her toes, she leaned slowly, slowly, and pressed her lips to his, eyes open . . . then closed as Ford pulled her to him, feeling the weight of her breasts flatten against him. Then, talking into his chest, she said, "I've wanted to do that for a long, long time, Marion. Kiss you."

Ford didn't know what to say to that, so he said nothing, just held her.

She said, "Maybe I could make dinner for you tomorrow night. At my place."

Ford whispered, "While I'm there, I can take some samples, have the water tested? I'll have to call someone, find out the proper procedures."

She kissed him again, then said, "I'd like that. But I'd make dinner for you, anyway."

NINE

As
Charles Herbott, the thirty-year-old environmental consultant, paused to stretch his back, to rest his arms, he said to Chuck Fleet, the thirty-five-year-old surveyor, "I've finally figured out why you keep lying about what day it is. You're trying to manipulate me, make it seem like it's not as bad as it is."

"What?"

"That's right. So I won't take care of you-know-who." Herbott motioned with his head toward the old man sitting in the shade of a ficus tree, shotgun in his lap. "Because you're so afraid. That's why."

Chuck Fleet didn't bother to look. He was hunched over, holding stalks of sugarcane with his left hand, cutting the stalks with his right. He'd cut for three or four steps, then bundle up the cane in his arms and carry it to the bamboo sled. When the sled was heaped high, he would harness himself into the rope and drag the sled to the old cane press on the other side of the mound. That's where the Captain kept the fire going, a huge black pot suspended over the buttonwood coals, boiling the cane water into syrup. Ten gallons of cane water made one gallon of syrup, after a lot of skimming, stirring, and more skimming to make the syrup clear.

Charles Herbott said, "It's Wednesday, not Monday. You're lying about that. I'll been on this goddamn island two weeks tomorrow. I've been keeping track. I know."

Chuck Fleet said, "Okay, it's Wednesday, not Monday. Whatever you say." Thinking, First Bambridge goes crazy, now Herbott. The difference is, Bambridge isn't dangerous. Herbott is potentially homicidal. . . .

Herbott returned to cutting, hacking at the stalks with the rusty machete the old man issued him each day, then collected each evening. Cut-cut step, cut-cut step. Cut the base of the stalk, then lop off the top. Stalk after stalk after stalk. Christ, he was beginning to feel like an animal, his clothes rotten from sweat, his hair and face caked with the black sand. All the work he'd done, everything by hand. "The way I know you're scared is, you won't even listen to my plans anymore."

Fleet said, "Keep your voice down. The Captain's old, but he's not deaf."

"And quit telling me what to do!"

From the direction of the ficus came the old man's voice. "Yew boys got a job a work to do! Fuss on yer own time."

"Sorry, Captain!"

They chopped in silence for a while before Herbott said, "You're getting bad as Bambridge, the way you kiss that crazy bastard's ass. 'Least Bambridge gets something for it. Living up there in the old man's shack, cooking the meals. That fat asshole's happy as a clam now, acting like he's one of the guards instead of one of the prisoners. But you, hell... he's going to work you to death. Which I don't mind, only you're going to take me down with you!"

Fleet started to respond, but then thought, What's the use? He gathered two cane stalks into his left hand, then cut them at the base with a single swipe of the machete.

"We run off right now, at least we've got the knives. That's what we ought to do, just scatter. Catch him dozing in the shade."

Fleet shook his head, "These old-timers, crackers, they aren't like people today. They say they're going to do something, they do it."

"So?"

"So he'd shoot us. At least one of us. He'd have time for that, to get both barrels off."

"But he's never threatened to shoot us—you're the one who keeps saying that!"

"I know, but he means for us to do this work. He'll do whatever it takes. I think he'd get at least one of us with the gun."

"No way, man. We just dive for the brush, then we've got the whole island. We'd be free."

Chuck Fleet said, "I'm going to say it one more time: Then what? Huh? Then what? We're free on the island. Big deal. Even if we could find our boats, they're broken down. What are we going to do, walk across the water?"

"Couple of nights ago, I heard a powerboat—you did, too. We could flag somebody down. Couple of times, I've heard a boat."

"Twice, maybe three times in almost two weeks. Nobody comes back in here. It's so shallow, nobody in their right mind, anyway. Only novice idiots like us."

"I know, I know, it's shallow enough, we could walk. We could walk a lot of it—"

"Twenty miles back to Barron Creek Marina? All of it mangrove and muck. Just keep on walking and have a nice dinner at the Marco Island Inn. Might as well do that while we're at it. Get serious, Charles."