The Mangrove Coast df-6 Read online

  No argument there.

  It was that way with most men who were involved in that peculiar and dangerous line of work. They had talent, brains-name a field, they would have probably excelled in it. And Bobby seemed to have more going for him than most. He had looks, taste, style… and that peculiar light that one associates with certain politicians who have the knack of inspiring affection rather than creating envy.

  Bobby Richardson had it all; seemed to have been born under a lucky guardian star. Until one night, 100 klicks north of Phnom Penh, he was vaporized by a mortar round and was sent back to the States in a sack not much bigger than a cigar box which contained a hand, a foot, bits and pieces of hair and bone, with no space at all left over for ego or hopes or vanity…

  Bobby’s only child, however, was very plain in comparison to the way he had looked…

  I was on the lower deck of my stilthouse working on the fish tank when they arrived. Felt the familiar wooden tremor that told me someone had mounted the walkway that connects my house to the mainland.

  Looked up to see a woman wearing pleated white shorts and baggy gray-blue T-shirt striding toward me, the female variation of the Generation X look. It was a style that implied limited body-piercing, maybe a small tattoo or two, an affection for MTV. The anachronism, Tucker Gatrell, walked behind, western hat in hand… clomping along in cowboy boots, for God’s sake. A man who was always on stage, always in costume.

  Saw that the woman was a rust-blonde redhead with one of those boxy haircuts so that her large brown eyes looked out at me from beneath a shield of bangs, hair squared heavily over hunched bookworm shoulders.

  The way she walked, the way she carried herself, she reminded me of that: the type who escaped into books. Athletic-looking; she had a rangy, cattish quality, but also bookish. Or maybe it was computers these days. The studious variety of loner, isolated by self, maybe a little self-conscious, judging from the way she moved, knowing I was watching her; aware of it and not comfortable being the center of attention.

  It tightened her movements. Added a mechanical stiffness. She had the gauntness, that hollowed quality, of the ultra-long-distance runner.

  But no glasses. Not like the little girl I’d seen in the photograph. And… as she drew closer, I could see that the wandering eye had been straightened.

  The disappointment I felt was surprising. I’d liked the face on that child from long ago.

  Had Bobby’s eyes been brown? I couldn’t remember… more likely, I’d never paid enough attention to know. But there was something familiar in her eyes… could see it as we shook hands-“It’s nice of you to meet with me, Dr. Ford”-as she held my face with her gaze, then allowed it to wander.

  Got a glimpse of something tougher than suggested by her averted eyes. A little bit of Bobby in there peering out. Then could hear that toughness in her voice when she said, “You’re the man in my father’s letters, right? You knew my father.”

  I thought, Letters? but answered her by saying, “Years ago, I knew a man named Bobby Richardson. If he was your father, then you have a lot to be proud of. He was a fine man.”

  Her expression softened momentarily. “Then I’m glad I found you. I don’t know if you can… can help me. But I know it’s what my father would have wanted. My real father. Talking to you, I mean. It’s what he told me to do in his letters, so that’s why I’m here.”

  Letters again.

  Turning to Tucker, she added, “So, if it’s okay with you, Mr. Gatrell, I won’t waste any more of your time. I can talk to your nephew alone.”

  Not asking permission, but telling both of us where she stood, just what she wanted.

  But she obviously didn’t know Tuck very well. Not if she expected to get rid of him so easily. He touched his hand to her back, steering her onto the deck and then up the stairs toward my house, saying, “Miz Richardson, I come this far with you, I kinda hate to let you sail solo now. Besides, Duke here’s not the quickest on the draw, if you know what I mean. I’m not talking ’bout brain power, understand. Let’s just say he’s not the type to let sympathy get in the way.” Maybe joking but maybe not; hard to tell from his tone. Then he replied to the look I gave him as he brushed past me, saying, “Excuse me. I meant Marion.”

  Wearing Levi’s and a rodeo shirt, he smelled of rank hay and whiskey and chewing tobacco. Like horse, too. An old horse.

  The man did not change.

  I watched Amanda watching Tuck as he rambled on and on, dominating space and conversation as he always did, Tuck and the woman sitting with glasses of iced tea at the galley booth, me leaning against the door frame in the small room, taking it in.

  The night before, on the phone, Tuck had tried to tell me what her problem was, but he had it so convoluted, so confused, that I’d finally told him to keep quiet, let her tell me and I’d judge for myself.

  So now I stood there listening, waiting, looking at her. What I was thinking was: Not attractive, yet something solid about her and… troubled. Yes, a troubled young woman.

  It gave me a pang. How would it make Bobby feel, seeing that his little girl had apparently grown up to be gawky, lacking confidence and seemed to be unhappy?

  She was what? Twenty-four, maybe twenty-five years old. About the same age as Bobby when I knew him. But gaunt as she was, she did not have the look of health, only endurance. Had dull, brittle-looking hair-it didn’t get much attention-and long wading-bird legs with calves traced by varicose veins. Runner’s legs. And the way she dressed: everything baggy; clothes that were chosen not to look good but because she could hide in them. Shirt and shorts were feminine and casual like “Who cares?” but also vaguely defensive, with maybe a hint of aggressiveness. A T-shirt that read: Thirty-Second Rule Strictly Enforced.

  What the hell did that mean?

  But a good face. Strong nose, but a little too much of it; solid jawline but flat cheeks that made her lips seem thin, pale. Bits and pieces of her mother and father bonded together, no doubt about it, but the proportions were just a tad off. It was hard to believe that two people as attractive as Bobby and Gail Richardson had produced someone as plain as this girl who now sat in my house. Gail was Latina by birth, mother and father both from… South America? Maybe Mexico or Central America, I couldn’t remember. Bobby had bragged to me more than once that his wife was a direct descendant of pure Castilian royalty. Her great beauty, he claimed, had been handed down through the blood.

  There didn’t seem to be a hint of Latin blood in Amanda. Well… perhaps a touch in her dark eyes. No place else, though. But the vagaries of genetics are ever-surprising and cannot be predicted.

  Or maybe… maybe it’s just the way that Amanda Richardson chose to look.

  Some makeup, maybe. A decent haircut. Some clothes chosen to set off her lean lines; better posture.

  I wondered…

  Every now and again she’d glance up and catch my eye-a searching look of appraisal-then return her attention to Tuck.

  Tuck had been talking about his years shipping and working cattle in Central America with his old partner Joseph Egret: “But the Indian bastard up and got hit by a car. Killed him deader than two smoked hams, which taught me once and for all, no more Injuns for partners. The poor fools got no brain for modern times. Took me fifty years with Joe to learn that an Injun can’t be trusted, but I finally did. These days, ma’am, I work strictly alone.”

  Which is when I finally made a move toward the table, planning to tell Tuck, enough, for God’s sake, take a walk so the woman and I could talk.

  But Amanda intercepted me. First, it was with a look- Don’t hurt his feelings — and then by touching her fingers to the back of my hand- Let him talk for a little longer.

  So I did. Listened to the old man ramble for another fifteen or twenty minutes before she finally cut him off. Asked him for half an hour alone with me so she could share the contents of a letter-“It’s confidential,” she explained-and Tuck left as meekly and amenably as I had ever seen him,
charmed by her or manipulated by her, it was difficult to say which.

  I studied the girl’s face, thinking maybe she wasn’t as troubled or as defenseless as I’d believed.

  “The rule has to do with this idea some friends and I came up with. The thirty-second rule. The way it goes is, a guy comes up-this is usually at a bar, a concert maybe, someplace like that. Nothing to do with business, but like at a party or something. So a guy comes up and he’s got exactly thirty seconds to prove he’s not plastic or full of crap or a fake. If he doesn’t say something honest or worthwhile in thirty seconds, what’s the sense of wasting your time?”

  Trying to keep things relaxed, trying to ease her into what she’d come to talk about, I’d asked her about her T-shirt: Thirty-Second Rule Strictly Enforced.

  I said, “And the guys know there’s this time limit? It’s a new thing now… or-?”

  “You mean do a lot of women use it?”

  I was nodding. “Yeah, that’s what I’m asking.” There were enough years between us that this might have been some generational fad. If it’s not on shortwave radio or on the VHF weather stations, I have no way of keeping up.

  She said, “I just told you, some friends and I, it’s our idea. But yeah, it’s getting around. Like the university towns. Gainesville, Tallahassee, Miami. I heard some girls down on spring break took it back to Michigan, University of Iowa. Some other places, too. But it was all our idea.”

  Proud of that.

  I had taken Tucker’s seat at the galley booth facing her until she scooched a little closer to the wall to create an extra couple of inches of distance between us. That slight movement stirred the air enough so that she left a few scent molecules lingering. Body powder. Shampoo. Woman. The thirty-second rule, I guessed, was like her baggy clothes, her hair: a place of her own creation in which to hide.

  I said, “I’ve been talking to you for a couple of minutes and I don’t feel like I know very much at all about you. A lot longer than thirty seconds, but I wouldn’t presume to make any judgments.”

  “But this isn’t social. So the rule doesn’t apply, see?”

  I said, “It’s not business either, though. Or is it?”

  Amanda was sipping her tea, hands very steady, eyes and eyebrows showing just above the rim of her glass. “It’s neither,” she said. “What it is is personal.”

  She had handed me a sheaf of letters, all of them getting brittle and yellow, they were that old. Written on airmail onion-skin paper, so they were slightly brittle to begin with.

  As I leafed through them, she said, “He wrote my mom almost every day. That’s how much in love they were. The whole time he was in Asia or wherever he was. Those APO return addresses, you’ve got no way of knowing. But he mentioned Bangkok quite a bit, so that’s what Mom figured. And he mentioned you. Your name’s in there a lot.” Amanda looked at me, let her eyes linger for a moment, then looked away before adding, “One of the reasons I wanted to talk with you was so you could maybe tell me more about my dad. About where you two were when he was killed, what you were doing. It’s weird, but, my own father, I know almost nothing about him”

  I said, “I’ll tell you what I can.”

  “I’d appreciate that. Maybe more than you realize.”

  “My pleasure. And Tuck said something about you having a problem. Maybe a favor to ask.”

  “That’s why I brought the letters, because I wanted you to see how I came to know about you. So… what I’d like you to do now is read this-” She carefully unfolded another letter, placed it in front of me and tapped a paragraph midway down, knowing the letter so well she didn’t have to read it again because she knew where the paragraph was. “This will tell you why I’m imposing on you. Why I went to the trouble of finding you. Because, well, I had to. It was like it was an order from my father or something. Go ahead, take the letter and you’ll understand.”

  It was very strange reading words written by a friend who had been dead for nearly twenty years. About the dead we often say that their spirit remains in our hearts. But that’s seldom true. Not really. We abandon the dead as quickly as our emotions will allow, and Bobby had been dead for a long, long time. Now here he was speaking to me from paper that his hands had touched, through ink that was a direct conduit to what he had been thinking and feeling at that time.

  I could picture him hunched beneath a gas lantern, jungle moths fluttering around, writing. I’d probably been there when he’d put it on paper. Yeah, I probably had. Now his words created a voice that resonated as if it came from his own mouth:… Gail, darling, there’s something else that’s been on my mind. I don’t know why, but it’s something I’ve been thinking about. I’ve mentioned my buddy Doc a couple of times in these crazy letters of mine, but what I want you to have is his whole name and how to get in touch with him just in case. I’ve been asking him for a week, but the stubborn bastard only just now told me where he can be contacted back there in the world. Here it is, I think it’s the phone number and address of some relative-

  What followed was the address of Tucker Gatrell, Mango, Florida, just south of Marco.

  I looked up from the letter and turned to Amanda, who was staring at me, watching me read. “I remember your father bugging me about it now. He wanted a permanent address. A hometown address, he called it. So he could always get in touch. I’d completely forgotten that he’d asked. This is really weird.”

  “Keep reading,” she said. “It’ll seem weirder.”… Don’t go getting superstitious on me, babe. That’s not why I’m telling you about Doc. I’m not going to die over here. I don’t know why I’m so sure, but I am. But what I’m thinking is what happens if you or Mandy ever get in trouble when I’m not around? Like you always say, I’m a worrier. But that’s why I want you to know about Doc. This letter makes it official. You get in trouble, Doc’s the guy to call. I’m talking about the kind of trouble where the police or a lawyer can’t or won’t get involved. Like a spot where someone’s giving you problems or scaring you or taking advantage of you-something I’d normally handle. Or maybe someone’s trying to take advantage of Mandy, like some asshole boy. That’s when I want you to contact Doc. Maybe I’m being silly, but you two are the only girls I got, and I always want someone nearby you can count on. So no screwing around, you talk to him. You can trust him, take my word for it. Let’s just say the man has special skills. If he can’t handle it, then he’ll know someone who can. And when Little Miss Mandy’s old enough, I want you to tell her the same thing. It doesn’t matter how many years have passed, not to guys like Doc and me. After what we’ve been through, a couple of decades or so don’t mean a damn thing…

  I removed my glasses, cleaned them with a paper napkin, then fitted them back over my nose. “I see what you mean,” I said.

  She was leaning toward me, voice lower, intense. “It’s like he knows. Like he’s talking to us. I found these letters not quite two weeks ago, and that’s just the way it seemed.

  Like he knew exactly what was going on.”

  “He called you Mandy. A nickname.”

  “I guess. I don’t know. I don’t remember anything about him. I used to pretend I did; made stuff up, but it’s because I wanted to believe I’d known him at least for a little bit. Daddy.”

  “It’s been nearly two decades,” I said.

  “That’s why it’s so weird.”

  “Because he mentions it in the letter-that time won’t make any difference to me? Or because you’re in some kind of trouble?”

  Amanda thought for a moment, not looking at me before she said, “All of the above.”

  “The problem is, I think something’s happened to my mother. She took off with a guy and now she’s disappeared.”

  I said, “What?”

  “Gail, the woman in my father’s letters, my mom. She’s been gone for nearly three months.”

  “Do you mean that she went away on a trip and you haven’t heard from her? Or do you mean she’s vanished?”

>   “I’m not sure. That’s why I came looking for you. Maybe both.”

  “Then you should be talking to police, not me. Or the FBI.”

  “I already have.”

  “Then you are serious.”

  “Of course I’m serious. Why would I say such a thing? I haven’t seen her or spoken with her since early February. And it’s been more than a month since I got a postcard from her. My mom would never do that. She wouldn’t drop out of sight like that unless something was really wrong. When I explain it you’ll understand. Coming to you is about the only thing I haven’t tried. I mean, who else am I going to ask?”

  After I’d listened for a while, I thought: Who else, indeed?

  Amanda had trouble telling a story sequentially-most people do-so I interrupted occasionally to keep her on track or nudge her off lengthy asides. Mostly, though, I just listened. You have to let people tell stories in their own way. Take all the pieces apart, rearrange them neatly, and here’s what happened: After Bobby’s death, Gail Richardson was so devastated by grief that she sought professional counseling. “This was in Lauderdale,” Amanda explained, “and Mom had to find a counselor that was approved by the VA. They’ll only pay for certain ones and Mom ended up with Frank Calloway. I was so young at the time I really don’t know for sure what happened, but what they told me later was that Frank treated her for the next year or so… nearly two years, I think, and he gradually fell in love with her. When he realized his interest in Mom wasn’t just professional, he sat her down to explain why, ethically, he could no longer be her psychologist, but ended up asking her to marry him instead.”

  Gail, widow and the mother of a very young daughter, did not accept right away. But Frank persisted and, slightly more than two years after the death of her husband, Gail became Mrs. Frank Calloway. Within months after that, Amanda was legally adopted.

  “I don’t think that Mom was ever in love with Frank. Not like she’d been in love with my real father, anyway. Read the letters and you’ll see the kind of passion they had for each other. That’s pretty rare.” Amanda allowed a reflective, cynical beat before adding, “These days, in fact, it’s almost nonexistent. But I think my mom’s a realist. She knew how tough it’d be raising me on her own, and I think she came to feel real affection for Frank. She certainly came to be dependent on him. She looked to Frank for everything. Financial security, emotional approval, the whole works. With some men, I think they’d rather have that than love.”