Tampa Burn Read online

  I wondered if she’d switched tense accidentally, or if it was because she no longer believed that I possessed those qualities.

  I asked, “Is he with you? I’d love to see him.”

  She shook her head quickly and then, for no apparent reason, rushed to me on tiptoes and squeezed my arm briefly. It was spontaneous, emotional—an involuntary action linked to the boy we’d made together. The temptation was to hold her there, to kiss her, and then carry her off to some private place.

  I might have tried, but just as quickly, she backed away and put her face in her hands. It took me a moment to realize that she was crying.

  Tomlinson cleared his throat—a rare moment of awkwardness for a man who is at home in the most bizarre situations— and said, “Wish I could stick around, but I’ve got to get back to my . . . to my gardening.”

  Staring dumbly at Pilar—I’ve never known how to behave when a woman begins to cry—I asked him, “Gardening? What’re you talking about? You live on a sailboat, for God’s sake.”

  His expression told me, I’m just trying to help, which I should have realized.

  As I finally moved to put my hands on Pilar’s shoulders, I listened to him use words to blanket the sound of her crying. He was using them to provide her with a private space. “Hey, man, I’ve been growing chili peppers for years, you know that. Plus, I’ve been planting some very special flora on islands near here. The magic herb, if you must know, though it’s always been my impression mum’s the word, far as you’re concerned.”

  Seeming to speak to Pilar, he added, “I’ve been target-farming deserted islands, the few with enough high ground to cultivate. Small Indian shell middens are the best. They seem to add a spiritual kick to my special crop.”

  Pilar had allowed me to hold her for a moment, but now she disentangled herself, crossed the room, and found a tissue in her purse. “I’m sorry. It’s not like me to lose control like that. Marion will tell you.”

  Not quite true. I’d seen her explode into rages a couple of times. Not often, but her temper could get out of control. And in bed, she had zero control—happily. Her abandon was unforgettable. That was especially true when she’d been through situations of intense stress. Get a couple of glasses of wine in Pilar, and sex became a vent without taboo. With some women, sex is more of a physical event than a coupling. Pilar was one of those.

  Tomlinson replied, “Doc can tell you just as honestly that I am almost never in control. So rest easy. You’re among friends.”

  That earned a tiny smile. “You really weren’t talking about hot peppers, were you? Ajís, that’s what they’re called in my language.”

  Tomlinson nodded at her perceptiveness. “No, my dear, I am not talking about peppers. I think you know exactly what I’m talking about. One of the nights we were together in Central America, the night Doc was feverish, still unconscious. Didn’t we—?” He hesitated, unsure if he should continue.

  Pilar wasn’t uncomfortable with the subject. “Yes. Yes, we did. It was very relaxing, and we laughed.”

  Tomlinson smiled, tugging at his hair, his expression saying, I thought so. “If you’re still interested, I have plenty of flora to share. Our friend here does not partake.”

  I was surprised, even shocked, when she replied, “I know. In the years I knew him, I never even offered.”

  My Pilar?

  He said, “You gotta love the big palooka anyway, though, huh?” The two of them simpatico, him standing shirtless at my galley stove in his diaper-style sarong, stork legs sticking out, his skeletal frame visible beneath black sailor’s skin, muscle and tendons traced with veins, one shock of samurai hair arcing unicornlike from the top of his head.

  “The moment we started talking,” he continued, “I knew that, spiritually, you were an interesting soul. You got lots of stuff going on inside there, don’t you, my dear lady?”

  He eyed her intensely for a moment. I found his tone and manner unusual when he added, “Some people live at the top of a whole pyramid of shishos. I had an instant . . . awareness of who you are, what you are. Same the first time we met in Masagua. You’ve got a complicated chemistry going on. You’re what we in the mojo business call a complicated spirit. Still evolving.”

  She said slowly, “I have the same strong feeling about you, Tomlinson.”

  I didn’t interpret what he said as much of a compliment. Even so, he placed his hands together palm-to-palm in front of his face, and bowed slightly at the waist.

  Her expression focused, she turned to me. “Marion, do you trust this man?”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Yes. It’s important.”

  “I’ve known him for a long time. I trust him with anything but my female friends. When he’s sober, anyway.”

  “I can tell you’re joking.”

  I was joking. Kind of.

  I listened to her say, “I like him. There’s a quality about him. I get a sense of goodness and strength. I remember how kind he was to you when you were in the jungle, so badly injured.”

  Turning her attention once again to Tomlinson, she added, “I made a decision while we were talking. It surprised me. I didn’t expect it to happen. I came here to tell Marion something important. I need his help. Perhaps you can help, too.”

  Tomlinson said, “I’m trying to imagine how any man on earth could refuse to do anything you asked. Seriously—has anyone ever tried?”

  Again this was said with an odd, insightful tone.

  Pilar didn’t smile when she answered, “You may regret agreeing before you’ve heard what it is I’m asking. Let me tell you about it first. Then decide.”

  Tomlinson said, “O.K., I’ll listen. But I already know what my answer’s going to be.”

  TWO

  PILAR said, “They’ve taken our son, Marion. He’s been kidnapped.”

  Her words seemed to bang around, echoing inside my auditory canal. I had to wait for a moment until my brain translated the noise.

  “Kidnapped. When?”

  “Five days ago. Slightly less.”

  “Who? Who did it?’

  “Balserio.”

  As Tomlinson said, “Oh God,” I banged my fist on my thigh and said, “Why didn’t you tell me right away? On the phone.”

  “I’ll explain why. Now’s not the time to second-guess my decisions. Please.”

  I said, “Wherever he is, we’ll find him. Don’t worry. I’ll find him.” My head snapped around. “Do you think they hurt him? Do you have any information at all?”

  I watched her battle to hold the tears in check. “That’s the worst. I think they may have hurt him, but I don’t know how badly. Laken is so strong-willed. In his room, there was a struggle. Some furniture was broken. Some glass. Plus”—she paused for another moment—“plus, when you hear about the man who took him. Who did the kidnapping. He’s . . . he’s horrible. Sick. A monster. Everyone in Masagua is afraid of him.”

  When I began to press for details—Who was the man? Had federal investigators been assigned to the case?—she shushed me with a warning finger. “I’ll explain it all. We don’t have enough time to waste it by rushing.”

  From her reaction, though, I got the strong impression that it disturbed her to linger on the subject of Lake’s abductor. It scared me, her reaction. Gave me a chill.

  The three of us were outside, sitting in cane-backed bar stools on the northeastern side of my porch. It’s the portion of porch that hangs over my shark pen and looks out over the bay.

  On the teak table between Pilar and myself were Ball jars filled with iced tea. Tomlinson held a tumbler of dark Guyana rum cloaked in his big bony hands, as if trying to warm it. Unseen below us, beneath dark water, two bull sharks and a smaller, 70-pound hammerhead shark circled. Like ocean currents, sharks are always moving.

  It was a little before eight P.M. on a Tuesday night so humid that the air had a steam-bath weight. I could feel water molecules settling upon my skin. It was ten minutes or so until s
unset, and a couple hours past low tide, so the tidal lake that is Dinkin’s Bay was refilling.

  I rose from my chair and began to pace.

  Pilar said, “It happened Wednesday night or early Thursday morning. We live in a place you’ll remember—the Claustro la Concepción. The old nunnery right across from the presidential palace.”

  Yes, I remembered. Stone walls, high ceilings, lots of wood and shadow. It smelled of canvas and heavy furniture, like a museum. In the city, it had been the only safe meeting place for Pilar and me, our one refuge. A convent where lovers rendezvoused. Ironic.

  “Safety,” she said. “That’s why Laken and I lived there. When I was involved with the government, Masagua had a period of stability. Brief stability—I’m not taking credit, understand. The first in its history, but that’s changed. It’s become a political nightmare again.”

  From news reports on my shortwave radio, that was true. I knew generalities, not the details.

  Masagua is the smallest country in Central America. It’s on the Pacific Coast, between Costa Rica and Nicaragua. It’s made up of rural islands, mountains, active volcanoes, and rainforest. It’s also the poorest country in the region. Unemployment and infant mortality rates are high, the median income low.

  Nothing catalyzes political unrest like a failed economy. I knew there were two rebel armies vying to take control. Jorge Balserio was the head of the most powerful rebel force—the F.L.N., or National Liberation Front. I’d heard he’d formed a government in exile based somewhere in Florida. Miami, probably.

  The fact that he’d faked his assassination—killing some of his own men in the process—just to save his own skin had apparently been forgotten.

  “Our rooms,” Pilar said, “are on the second floor of the convent. Laken’s room is down the hall from mine. Because I still work as a government consultant, the military provides armed guards. See? I thought we were safe.”

  I interrupted. “Is General Rivera still the head of the military?”

  Juan Rivera was an old political enemy but also my old friend. He’s a baseball freak—a left-handed pitcher who carried his fantasy of playing pro ball into middle age. Picture Fidel Castro: the fatigues, the beard, but bigger and without the psychosis.

  “No, the general’s been gone for more than a year. After he lost his command, he disappeared—to avoid a firing squad, some say. Which was a terrible loss for me. Juan was one of the few people in the government I could still trust.

  “That’s something you need to know. Our government’s close to collapse. There are so many traitors and rebel insiders now, there’s almost no one—I’m not exaggerating—no one that I can speak to in confidence. I trusted Juan, but almost no one else. No longer. That’s why I couldn’t speak openly on the telephone.

  “The armed guards I mentioned? I thought our son’s personal guard, Gilberto, was devoted. But the night of the kidnapping, Gilberto went home, saying he was sick. I’ve been told he’s joined the rebels.”

  Because I hoped it would nudge her into telling us more about the kidnapper, I asked, “What makes you think Balserio’s involved?”

  “Because they delivered a video and he’s mentioned in a way that implicates him. I brought it so you can see for yourself. The man who abducted Laken”—she stopped, visibly pained—“I can’t call him a man. I won’t. Jorge Balserio, he’s responsible for what’s happened, and he’ll burn in hell for what he’s done. Bringing that terrible person into Masagua.”

  It took Tomlinson’s gentle questioning to get the story out of her. Less than three years before, Balserio’s rebel army had been so ineffective that it had become the butt of jokes. No respect from the general population meant no support. Desperate for power, Balserio had taken desperate military risks—one was a stab at psychological warfare.

  Using political connections and bribes, he bought the freedom of a hundred or so of the most dangerous criminals in Nicaragua and Colombia. In exchange for their freedom and other perks, the criminals agreed to fight for Balserio as mercenaries.

  I was explaining to Tomlinson that such bartering wasn’t uncommon among guerrilla armies, when Pilar interrupted. “Letting men out of prison, that’s one thing. I’ve heard of that. But Jorge, he took inmates from asylums, too. Insane asylums. And animals who should have been in insane asylums. He wanted the sickest kind of men. Men who’d do things so brutal that people would support him out of fear.

  “It worked,” she added. “He’s winning the war. People are afraid to leave their homes at night. They’re flying his flag, and they’ll vote for his party because they don’t want one of his monsters to come knocking on their door.”

  I clubbed my thigh with my fist again as I listened to her describe how frantic she’d been when she found the door to the boy’s room forced open, his bed empty, plus this odd discovery: All the fish in his main aquarium were dead.

  I said, “Dead? How?”

  She shrugged. “It was as if they’d exploded.”

  That made no sense. My brain started to consider the possibilities, but then swung back to task. I had to ask again, “What makes you think they hurt Lake?”

  Pilar had brought a simple straw purse. It was the type they sell in the open markets of Central America, and that are used by peasant women. From the purse she took a CD.

  “Judge for yourself. On Thursday morning, a brown paper package was found outside the compound gate. It makes me nauseous to watch it. Do you have a computer that plays DVDs?”

  I didn’t, but Tomlinson did.

  “My laptop’s in the marina office,” he said. “I’ll be right back.”

  ASIDE from exchanging e-mail photos, I hadn’t seen my son in nearly four years. Now here he was on a computer screen, his pale eyes staring out into mine, looking so lost and alone that his fear seemed directly proportional to the dread I now felt.

  He was lying on a bare mattress in a poorly lighted room. They’d used duct tape. His wrists and mouth were taped, and a section of rope tied around his waist suggested they’d used it to pull him along, leading him to this dingy-looking place.

  There was a window, Venetian blinds drawn, pale light leaking through, and a floor lamp. A moth was beating itself against the lamp’s nicotine shade. It could have been a cheap motel. It could have been a cabin in the woods.

  The video began with a close-up of the boy’s face, his eyes blinking into the lens. There is something heartbreakingly vulnerable about people who have been bound and gagged. The physical debasement is implicit. It is something that might be done to animals before they are thrown over the hoods of hunting vehicles.

  Looking at my son’s face, I wondered how long he would be scarred by this violation. I wondered if he would live long enough to suffer through it and heal.

  My son.

  Those two words had once seemed a foreign combination. But I’d come to like the sound.

  Maybe we’re all trapped, to a degree, by our own self-image. I’m an anti-gizmo snob. I’d once had Internet service because I’d needed it for research, but canceled it when I was done. Bringing another computer into the lab had taken some convoluted rationalizing.

  Tomlinson hadn’t helped matters when he told me, “Buy it, man. Hell, I just got a cellular phone and a beeper. So my Zen students—when they’re panicked, or in trouble with the cops—I’m just ten digits away. I’m thinking about getting one of those infrared laser pointers, too. From my boat, I can screw with the guides at night. Hell, I’m a Buddhist monk, but I’ve come to the conclusion we’re all destined to be microchip whores.”

  I bought the desk PC anyway, and so it was through the Internet that I got to know Lake. In the last year or so, we’d been e-mailing almost daily. Sometimes we wrote in Spanish, sometimes in English. The early letters had been strained, but they’d gotten to be friendly and often funny. They’d certainly become far more familiar. He’d started out addressing me as “Father,” then as “Dad” when he wrote in English. He seemed most comf
ortable, though, calling me “Doc”—two friendly equals exchanging thoughts and news—and that’s the way it had stayed.

  Fact was, I’d been fretting about why I hadn’t heard from him in nearly a week.

  Now I knew.

  He was a smart kid; loved natural history. He knew his birds, reptiles, and plants. He asked a lot of questions about my work in the marine sciences. Lately, he’d been setting up several of his own saltwater aquaria. I’d been helping.

  I saved his letters. Sometimes, alone at night, I’d reread my favorites.

  Science is its own language. Lake already knew that. Science was the language we shared.

  So credit the Internet for changing the way I felt about my boy. He went from being the child I’d fathered, to an individual. He became the articulate young man whose sense of humor and intellect exceeded my own. I began to think of him not just as our son, but as my son. Laken Fuentes—the name “Laken” taken from some obscure Mayan legend. He didn’t seem to mind when I shortened the name to Lake.

  I liked that. People who get pissy about their names being shortened make me uneasy.

  MY house is actually two small wooden houses built under a single tin roof. The houses are separated by a breezeway, or what used to be called a “dog trot.”

  I live in one of the houses. The other is a small but well-equipped laboratory from which I run my company, Sanibel Biological Supply. Collecting marine specimens to sell to schools and research labs around the country is not a booming enterprise, but it’s what I do, and I do it to the best of my abilities.

  We were in the lab now. In the center of the room, I’ve installed a university-style science work station: an island of oaken drawers and cupboards beneath a black epoxy table, complete with a sink, faucets, electrical outlets, and double gas cocks for attaching Bunsen burners.

  We were standing at the work station. Tomlinson’s white Apple laptop was open before us. To my right, beneath the east windows, on a similar table, was a row of working aquaria, octopi and fish therein. There were additional glass aquaria above on shelves.