The Man Who Ivented Florida df-3 Read online

  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 answe
red 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.

  You telling me to go ahead and die, Grandpa?

  Nope. Tellin' you to get in the damn car. You already dead.

  Joseph sat up with a start, breathing heavily in the darkness. He'd had a dream… then he couldn't quite remember what had happened in the dream. Something about dying, and there had been a lot of white light. There was a nice car in the dream, too. But then Joseph remembered he planned to escape that night, and he didn't think about the dream anymore. He swung out of bed.

  He got down on his hands and knees and found the bottle of water Tuck had given him, and he emptied it with a long drink.

  Tastes good, he thought. Sulphury, like a bay smells.

  He also found his deerskin boats and black roper's hat. He put them on, feeling the soft leather, grinning at the weight of his old hat. But that was all he had to wear. They'd taken his clothes, and now he wished he'd asked that nice aide, Marjorie, for clothes rather than snuff and chocolate. Should have asked her to bring a pair of her gentleman friend's golfing trousers and one of those sweaters with baggy arms like Arnold Palmer wore. That woulda been nice, but it was too late now. And he couldn't hitchhike to Mango wearing a damn gown that flopped open and showed his butt.

  Joseph stood in the darkness, thinking. Then suddenly it came to him. He knew where to find clothes. Well, sort of. The orderlies had locked him in the rest home's big storage locker once, and he knew just where to go. He slid out into the hall, looking this way and that, moving quietly through the shadows. He could hear lone voices coming from some of the rooms, crazy babbling. Could hear the television turned up loud downstairs, which meant the fat nurse was probably sitting there eating candy. Could also hear the bong-bong that meant someone had pressed their call button, wanting help from the orderlies. Which was bad. Joseph swung around and saw the light flashing over the door of his own room- that damn little bright-eyed bastard trying to get him in trouble again. He considered going back; maybe wrap the IV tube around the little jerk's throat. But no, he didn't have time. He had to hurry.

  Joseph shuffled along, almost running. The storage room was behind the double doors at the end of the hall, and he pulled them open. Inside were boxes of all sorts of stuff, Christmas decorations and mops and a box of donated Halloween costumes, kept for the party they had each year so the television people could take pictures and prove how happy everybody at the rest home was. Joseph started opening boxes, throwing Christmas stockings and plastic pumpkins onto the floor. There was a suit in there somewhere. He'd seen it-a gray suit. Then he found the jacket and tried to pull it on over his shoulders, but it was way too small. Couldn't even get it over his arms. He found a dress, a red one with frills, big as a tent.

  I'd hitchhike back to Mango buck-naked first.

  He threw the dress on the floor with the suit coat. He kept pawing through the box, holding costumes up to his chest, then tossing them over his shoulder.

  People get to this place, the crummy food must make 'em shrink.

  He held a black costume up, almost threw it into the heap, but then reconsidered. It was bigger than the rest, so he ripped off his gown and tried it on.

  "Hum…" Looking down at himself: black costume with a black hood and white bars across the chest and a single white band down the front of each leg.

  White stork costume maybel No-o-o…

  Joseph thought for a moment. Nope, it was a skeleton costume. That's what he was wearing, a skeleton suit, only his boots and calves stuck way out of it, and so did his wrists. But that didn't matter. He liked the way it felt, nice and soft, plus black was a good color for him. Set off his eyes-a woman had told him that once.

  Joseph put his hat on and turned to the door… then stopped, listening: footsteps coming down the hall, squeaking along on the linoleum. Quickly, Joseph flipped off the lights and stepped back against the wall just as the storage room doors were pulled open. One of the orderlies stood there, looking right at Joseph, it seemed, blinking into the darkness. The thick orderly with the chubby face and the tattoo on his wrist. The one who'd whacked him with surgical tubing that time, then tied him up. Joseph pulled his fists to his sides and was just about to leap on the man when the orderly turned on his heels and let the doors swing shut, calling out, "The Injun ain't in here, Hank!"

  Joseph relaxed and waited. Amazing. How could the orderly have missed him? It was a good omen-Joseph knew that. A very good sign for a pursuer to look right at him but not see him.

  Joseph crouched a little, listening. He could hear the rubber-shoe noises of the two orderlies going room to room. When he could no longer hear them, he peeked his head out and took a look. All clear, so he shuffled past the elevator to the stairs and clomped on down. The fire door at the first floor had no window, so he had to crack it open to look, and there sat the fat nurse and the two orderlies, backs to him, watching television. That quick, they'd given up the search. Maybe a dozen old people beyond the staff, sitting at tables playing cards. An old woman yelling, "Play me a spade, goddamn it! Either bid or get off the can!" Her thin voice rising over the noise of the television.

  So how was he going to get past them? He thought about maybe pulling the upstairs fire alarm, sneaking out in the panic. But no, that'd bring the police, and he didn't want the cops after him. He was thinking about it, standing there in the stairwell, when, unexpectedly, the doorknob was pulled from his hand, the door was yanked wide open, and an old man tottered past him without saying a word.

  Joseph didn't hesitate. He stood in plain view of the whole room, and there was no other option. He tipped his hat to the orderlies and the nurse, as if he was going for an evening stroll, then walked right out through the front doors.

  The nurse and the orderlies never budged. Never said a word.

  It was almost as if he were invisible.

  As Jose
ph moved along the night streets, he began to assemble a plan in his head. It was about thirty miles to Mango, where Tuck lived-thirty miles of busy streets and fast traffic. And the orderlies might come looking for him, once their TV show was over. Which meant he couldn't stay out in the open; couldn't risk hitchhiking because, if they caught him, they might put him jail. A boat was the best way to go, run right down the coast and cut in through the Ten Thousand Islands. But he didn't have a boat. Didn't have a dime to call Tuck, either. Or maybe it cost more now. It'd been a long time since Joseph had used a pay phone.

  I could steal a car…

  That was an idea. Joseph was not a thief by nature, but if some one left their keys in their car, they deserved to be reminded that it was a dangerous world. But that would mean the police. And Joseph didn't like or trust the police. It was a natural distrust, one built up over long years of living just outside the law. As Tuck was fond of saying, "A cop and an undertaker got a lot in common. Neither one of them buggers wants to talk to a man when things is going smooth."

  No, Joseph decided, he would not steal a car. But if he found some coins on the floor of an unlocked car, that was another story. Then he could call Tuck and get a ride. Until then, he'd have to walk. Find a way to head south and stay out of sight in case the orderlies came cruising for him.

  Joseph hurried away from the rest home, keeping the three-story concrete hulk at his back. He walked past car lots and Burger Kings, then turned into the first residential section he came to. But damn, there was traffic here, too-Florida had become one big car lot. Then he saw a car coming that looked official-had lights on top-so he began to cut across back portions of lawn, ducking under clotheslines and skirting bright windows. For the first time, he began to relax. He traveled quietly, enjoying his new freedom and the scent of the October night. He hummed a little tune, too-a tune he remembered as an old Indian song, the birth song, perhaps, but that was actually the big band hit "Tangerine."