The Man Who Ivented Florida (7 page)

The Gasparilla Festival at Tampa. All sorts of places, and I always said no.

He patted the baking soda beneath his shirt and around. Homemade talcum powder. Pathetic!

Going out the door, he stopped to pet Crunch & Des, thinking, About time I started getting out and meeting people. Unless I want to end up all by myself, crazy as Tucker Gatrell. Which was a connection he preferred not to ponder: the genetic nexus,- the cellular linkage between himself and his wild relatives, disorderly people of balmy humor and mad blue eyes. Antecedents from which he'd been trying to distance himself all his professional life.

Stepping down into his flats skiff and starting the big outboard motor, he thought, Show a little courage. Go out and meet her. Then you can get some work done, get back to the routine. As he threw off the lines and idled toward the sailboat at the mouth of the bay, Ford said aloud, "Next thing you know, I'll be talking to myself."

Every
day for a week, Sally Carmel returned to her sailboat around noon to clean and store her camera gear, then pack the day's film, carefully dated and catalogued, in the cool plastic lock box she always carried. The light was bad from late morning to early afternoon. Way too bright in Florida, it burned great shards of shadow into the film, so it was a good time to get organized—to soup the film when she was shooting black and white, or to do the daily back-cracking, knuckle-barking maintenance work all saltwater boats required. There was always something to scrape or polish or sew or paint, and she'd been having problems with the engine, too, a normally dependable little Atomic 4 inboard that lately had been having fuel-line problems. Or fuel-filter problems; it was difficult to tell on a diesel. What that meant was, after the engine sat idle for a time, she had to tap all the lines, bleed them, then reprime them—a hell of a job that she normally would have hated but now, oddly, enjoyed.

Well, not so odd, really. Working on the engine focused her attention, blotting out all other worries or personal hurts, so it was a pleasant thing to do while recovering from a divorce. A tough divorce, though not violent. Just cold and disappointing and empty, like her two-year marriage to Geoff. Geoff, who had grown up rich and made a show of living simply, though part of his >charm was money. She could admit that to herself now. Money was a part of the reason she had married him, that and the chance to be a part of the things he wanted to build. That's what he was, partner in a firm of consulting contractors and architects—builders who specialized in the big, mirrored high rises and modern malls. Creators of beautiful places with indoor gardens and fountains, and she had convinced herself that she could be a part of that by marrying him. After all, she had minored in design and interior decoration in college.

But Geoff had also been funny and serious and shrewd, a modern-day hero, or so she had thought. Which appealed to a small-town girl like her. And it wasn't until they were married that she began to see him for what he really was: a spoiled little boy who'd had his own way his whole life and who would not tolerate a partner with independent ideas and her own way of doing things. So he had bullied and denigrated and tried to undermine her confidence, taking her apart piece by piece. Which worked the first year, because she loved him—she truly did—but didn't work at all in the final year. Or at least that's the way she saw it. She could be a headstrong bully herself. A ball breaker, that's what Geoff had called her. That and a lot of other things. And he was probably right in some ways.

She had sorted out a lot on this sailing trip; had had some startling insights and revelations while she gave Geoff the month she'd promised to get his stuff out of their little house and find a new place to live. Her house, really. She'd inherited it from her mother and they'd redone the whole house together. Yet even though they'd been separated for more than a year, he was just now getting around to hiring movers to crate his things—the television, some of the furniture. That was fine with her. Lazy child, that's what he was. Lazy but shrewd, and he scared her a little bit. She could admit that now, too.

Which was why she was on this trip—to give him time to get his stuff out. She'd been cruising for more than a month, clear up Florida's west coast to Panama City, now nearly all the way back home, taking photographs for an assignment she'd received from the Audubon Society. Making a photographic record of the progress of immature pelicans on seventeen island rookeries along the coast where ornithologists had counted nests and eggs ten months before. Actually, sixteen rookeries that had been counted, and this seventeenth in Sanibel Island's Dinkin's Bay, which her crazy old neighbor had told her about. Except he called it Tarpon Bay, which was how the old-timers knew it. He had told her it was one of the prettiest little mangrove bays in Florida, and he was right, plus there were five tiny island rookeries in the middle of the bay, trees sagging with pelicans and cormorants and great blue herons. So she'd stayed here nearly a week, taking photographs, working on the boat, and swimming each day at sunset. Swimming nude because she liked the feel of the water on her body; the skin and marrow intimacy of being naked in dark water. Swam nude until, one morning, sitting with her powerful binoculars watching birds, she noticed that pervert who lived in the stilt shack futzing with a telescope. Saw him steering the barrel toward her boat, and she'd ducked out of sight just in time. If he watched her in the morning, he probably watched her at sunset, too, so that was the end of the nude swimming. The creep. A couple of times, he'd come puttering around in his boat, pretending that he was fishing. Didn't even have the courage to pull up and introduce himself.

But there would be no swimming today. Today she was packing, getting things squared away because she was leaving. Would pull the anchor about noon and catch the outgoing tide, headed home. Probably have to anchor off Marco Island for the night, find a lee shore in the Ten Thousand Islands, then motor on in through the islands to the long dock near her little house. Not her dock, but it was her house,- now it was. It was Tucker Gatrell's dock. Her crazy old neighbor. Down there in Mango, where she'd grown up.

By
noon, Sally Carmel had everything packed and lashed and stowed, but she couldn't get the engine started. It had fired perfectly that morning; she'd started it and let it run. But then, with the tide just right, the motor had gulped, spit, and quit. So now she was wedged into the stern pulpit, half her body in the engine hold, upside down and hair dangling. Up to her shoulders in grease and diesel fuel, bleeding air out of the fuel filters.

She had a 7/16-inch wrench in her hand, trying to loosen the purge nut. To do it, she had to put her left hand in the bilge to balance herself, which made it tough to put any torque on the bolt. Now she mounted the wrench on the nut, took a deep breath . . . applied pressure . . . but the wrench slipped and her fist smashed into the exhaust manifold.

"Ouch!"

Sally righted herself. Oil was dripping off her from somewhere—darn it, from her hair. It must have swung down into the bilge when she slipped. Oil was trickling down her face. Her arms were already a slick black mess, and now her hand was bleeding. She studied the white crease on her knuckle,- could see blood beading from the tiny capillaries.

She put her knuckle to her lips and sucked. Feeling frustrated and thinking, I ought just to sail this thing out. Which she would have done, but she had to run the narrow channel out of the bay, then take the Intracoastal beneath the Sanibel Causeway in a running tide. She pictured her pretty twenty-seven-foot Erickson smacking into the cement pilings. Pictured the keel plowing into a turtle-grass bank on this falling tide. Nope. She had to get the air out of the lines and get the engine going.

She couldn't work with this goop all over her. She rose to get a towel, which was when she noticed the green flats boat flying toward her. Coming out the marina channel, dolphining across the water-slick bay until the guy standing at the wheel got it trimmed out.

Oh no, the pervert from the stilt house.

That's all she needed now. Him plowing around gawking at her.

Well, she would ignore him. Pretend as if he just wasn't there. She cleaned off her face, toweled off the wrench, and leaned into the engine hold again, turning her attention to the purge nut. But she could hear the boat getting closer and closer; heard the pelicans in the nearby mangroves drop down off the limbs, laboring to flight on creaking wings. Could hear the boat slowing to idle, could feel her own boat rise and roll in the skiff's wake, then heard the skiff's motor shut down.

The bastard was stopping.

Then she heard, "Hello the boat. Anyone home?"

She blew through her lips, a fluttering noise of irritation, and sat up.

"I'm home. What do you want?" Which sounded even sterner than she'd planned, but what the hell. She didn't have time, and this guy had ruined her sunset swims.

There he was, standing at the wheel, drifting along in his boat, and she could see that her tone had taken him aback. Could hear it in his stammer when he answered, "Uh—I thought— Well, I just stopped... stopped to say hello. Being neighborly. I live in the stilt house." He motioned with his head. "Off the south mangrove bank—"

Sally interrupted. "I know, I know. By the marina—" But then she stopped herself. What in the world was wrong with this man's face? Splotches of white on it, like clown makeup. Or like he'd been baking and sneezed into the flour. She didn't want to stare, but gad.

He said, "You need some help working on your engine?" He smiled a little. "Looks like you're up to your elbows in it," meaning the grease.

Kind of an interesting-looking guy, really—healthy, with muscles and wire glasses, but he had that gook on his cheeks. Maybe he had poison ivy or something. But then she thought about him looking at her through the telescope and got mad again.

"You think you know more about my own engine than I do?"

"Not at all, I—"

"You think women can't work on engines?"

It took a moment, but his smile disappeared. On the skiff, Ford was thinking, Her face isn't as pretty as I thought. Eyes too sunken, cheeks too narrow. What is that, grease in her hair? as he said, "I think you're overreacting just a tad to a—"

"Or maybe you were studying my engine. Back there in your little house with the telescope." She made an airy gesture with a black hand. "Maybe you weren't peeping at me."

The man said, "Ahem," as if he'd been stuck with a needle but didn't want to show it.

Sally said, "That's right. And I don't have much time for sneaky people."

The man said, "You assume too much," in a flat way that surprised her a little. She expected him to be defensive. She sat looking at him as he started his skiff and touched it into gear, idling away. Then over his shoulder, he said, "If you need help with the engine, give me a call on the radio."

Not wanting to let him off so easy, Sally answered with heat, "I won't. Don't you worry."

The man leaned on the throttle of his fast skiff. He didn't look back.

It was late afternoon before Sally Carmel got her own boat running properly. And she didn't raise Mango until late afternoon the next day.

FOUR

By
Wednesday, October 21, Joseph Egret felt good enough to make his escape. His joints didn't ache as badly, and he didn't feel medicine-crazy anymore. He thought about trying to contact Tuck, maybe ask him to come up and keep the orderlies busy while he sneaked out. But that wasn't smart because Tuck always had to do things his own way. Had to do it with a lot of style and tricks just to let people know just how fancy-minded he could be.

Naw, he'd escape by himself. Be a lot quieter that way. Hell, if he was real quiet, the nurses might not even notice and, after a week or two, they'd forget he was ever there.

That's what he'd do. Be real-1-1-1 sneaky quiet like them TV Indians. Maybe lift a few scalps on the way out. That made Joseph smile, lying in his bed, looking at the ceiling. Lift the television set, more like it. Be nice to have down there in the Glades. Be nicer if he had electricity, too, but who could say he wouldn't stumble upon a nice little generator some day? And it was best to be prepared. Besides, Tuck had electricity at his place, and that's where he'd be living. Tuck hadn't invited him, but they both knew that's what was going to happen if Joseph made it out.

Joseph snuck into the room across the hall to watch another eerie sunset—he'd never seen the sky so strange, and he was convinced it was one of those earth signs his grandfather had told him about. Maybe the sky was telling him not to linger. The fiery clouds could mean it was getting late. Or maybe it was telling him to take that television set. Hard to say. Joseph returned to his bed to wait for darkness, but he drifted off to sleep. He would probably have slept right through if it wasn't for a dream he had, a strange dream in a world of burning sky and white celestial light in which his grandfather smiled at him, sitting behind the wheel of a shiny convertible, maybe a Cadillac. Which made no sense—his grandfather had preferred Chevys. What made less sense was that the passenger door was open, as if he expected Joseph to get in with him.