Everglades df-10 Read online

  I’ve never spent enough time in the Everglades to claim to know it well, but it was nice to believe that the region was still wild enough to create fear in outsiders.

  So I went to the Everglades with Tomlinson. He planned on spending a couple of weeks. Four days turned out to be my emotional limit. For one thing, I have my business to take care of. Providing marine specimens to schools and research facilities around the country is not a booming industry, but it’s what I do, and I try to do it as professionally and expeditiously as I can.

  The second reason I bailed out early was more subtle, more personal. I found out that my tolerance for paranormal, lunatic-fringe society is far lower than I expected. Tomlinson is an exception, and will always be an exception.

  By virtue of his intellect and purity of intent, I find him an interesting character, an entertaining conversationalist, a dependable travel partner. As a friend, he is as loyal and as thoughtful as they come. Even at his weirdest-and that crosses almost all boundaries-he is, at least, out of the ordinary, and always good-hearted. That wasn’t true of the two women and three men he invited to join him in his quest to find the Swamp Ape. Four of the five were academics: college professors in a variety of fields. The fifth had her own cable television show: Connections with Karlita.

  The alliteration was as impossible to forget as the tune of some inane song.

  When the academics weren’t talking about applying for government grants or tenure, or discussing convention free bies, they were listening to Karlita ramble on and on about what roles they’d each played together in their past lives.

  They seemed offended that I chose not to join them in meditation, or to sit, holding hands in a circle, sending out psychic messages to what they called the “Great Alien Being.”

  “Doc isn’t much of a joiner,” Tomlinson explained to them one evening. “You know how the right side of the brain controls all nonlinear, intuitive and artistic thought? Doc doesn’t seem to have one. A right side to his brain, I mean. Which means he’s not exactly what you’d call aura-driven. The man’s no social butterfly.”

  Possibly true, though it didn’t seem to mitigate their uneasiness with my behavior.

  Not that it mattered to me. There are lots of interesting animals in the ’Glades, land, water and reptilian. I was content to wander off on my own, jotting careful descriptions in my field book, and drawing diagrams when necessary.

  There was a canoe available. I used it to paddle sawgrass tributaries deep into the swamp, sometimes as far as the mangrove fringe that marks where Florida’s jungle meets the sea.

  My nights in camp, though, were not as enjoyable. Their little group would sit around the fire, passing a joint or a pipe, and my consistent refusal was awkward for us all-a situation I’ve experienced too many times, and so try hard to avoid.

  Because the stars in the ’Glades are remarkably bright, and because it’s what I preferred to do, I’d return to the canoe carrying a bottle of rum and ice in a little cooler, then paddle far enough away to ensure silence.

  I would drift alone, staring upward at the old way points familiar since childhood: Cassiopeia, Ursa Minor with its Polaris handle, Orion, Jupiter and others, all ice-bright, solitary and set apart in the chill of deep space. After that, it was a race between the rum and the depression.

  My feelings of guilt and failure are sometimes so power-charged that there seems to be a chemical source, as if some valve in my brain has ruptured, and is leaking acid.

  Certain memories flashed so vividly, with such impact, that, floating in the canoe, isolated and insulated by wilderness, I’d groan aloud until the images passed.

  The alcohol helped, even though I knew the folly of it.

  Being in the ’Glades seemed to help as well.

  Tomlinson’s correct. There’s no need to say Florida’s Everglades, because there is no other. Just as California cannot lay claim to the Pacific, the Everglades is beyond the claim of one state.

  The Everglades region has its own feel, its own good odor. The odor is created by a fusion of freshwater flowing slowly over limestone, the wheat-stubble odor of sawgrass, the lichen scent of Spanish moss, tannin, wild citrus, and of tropic sun heating cypress shadow.

  To fight the depression, I was also doing something else: I was using my brain, exercising the cells, learning something. I was making an effort to use all the senses so to patch together a neophyte’s understanding of a complicated ecological system.

  My last night in the ’Glades, Karlita insisted on joining me on my evening paddle. Despite Tomlinson’s claims, I am not an antisocial person. I didn’t know her well enough to have a reason to say no, so I said yes.

  Physically, she is an attractive woman by the standards of most: long legged, lean, with a glossy, healthy cowling of Irish-black hair, and the kind of face that looks good on a television screen, or when reproduced on the covers of magazines.

  When it comes to the human female face, researchers have identified the five most important components that define our standards of beauty. The male brain, apparently, has been encoded to react both physically and emotionally.

  Features include sexual maturity balanced with neonate, or childlike, qualities. Also important are facial expression, the shape of a woman’s mouth and lips, plus a measurable ratio between cheek and chin that is similar to the proportional difference in bust size and waist that keys sexual arousal in most men.

  Karlita had all of the above. But I found her decidedly unattractive. I appreciate woman as people, so I tend to evaluate them by the same criteria I use to select male friends.

  As we paddled into the darkness, she began a nonstop monologue (“I think it’s so valuable to invite oneness with nature…”).

  It was the kind of introspective discourse that is the hall-mark of the self-obsessed. It forbids any attempt at conversation. Her insistence on telling me about my “former incarnations” was a subtle device. It was a way of establishing authority. Her passionate commitment to “spiritual open-mindedness” was a cloaked condemnation of anyone who thought differently than she.

  What irritated me most, though, was that she claimed to be an expert canoeist, yet was a sloppy paddler.

  I can tolerate pompous assholes in short doses. Fakes and pretenders are a different story.

  Even so, I was on my best behavior. Tomlinson’s my friend. To confront her would have been to embarrass him.

  When we got back to camp, though, I took him aside. I told him I’d had enough. I’d be leaving the next day. “That woman’s a phony, old buddy. Your instincts used to be better. I’m surprised you didn’t see through her act.”

  He laughed, and said that he’d invited her along less because of her paranormal powers than for her paranormal body.

  I said, “You’re trying to get the famous TV psychic in the sack? Just when I think it’s impossible for you to shock me, you find a way.”

  “I know, I know, I’m terrible. But I comfort myself by believing that shallowness is a key part of being a complicated male. At least, that’s what I tell myself. There are times when my testicles are nothing more than ventriloquists suspended from one big dummy. Absolutely unconscionable. But it does seem to add a little spice to life.”

  He added, “I take no pride in admitting that, with the exception of my Zen students, I’ve never been with a healthy, adult woman in my life when I didn’t secretly calculate the chances of getting her in the sack.” He shrugged, disgusted. “As long as she wasn’t damaged, wasn’t vulnerable, it never mattered. Not to me-and usually not to them.”

  I had to ask. “Do you think Karlita would stop talking long enough to make love?”

  “ No. Play-by-play, the whole time. That’s my guess. It’d be kind’a entertaining. Like playing baseball with earphones on, listening to someone describe how you’re doing.”

  I thought that was the end of my days in the Everglades.

  I was wrong.

  chapter nine

  When y
ou shower in the rain, getting dry is not a pressing consideration. The storm cell had spread itself over Sanibel, diffusing intensity, so the downpour had slowed to a steady drizzle and was finally stopping. Big soft drops, the air much cooler now in the tropical moonlight.

  I wrapped a towel around my waist, walked to the front door, then paused. I could see Sally through the window, staring at the fire, mug of tea in hand. Across the water, at the marina, there were Japanese lanterns glowing red, green and orange, a bunch of people out there on the docks listening to music, still having fun despite the passing storm.

  I tapped on the window to get Sally’s attention, then held up an index finger- Give me a minute, I’ll be back -then clomped barefooted down the steps to the wooden cistern that is my main fish tank. I switched on the overhead lights.

  Every morning of my life, my first few waking minutes are filled with mild dread because, more than once, I’ve lifted the lid of that tank to find a soupy mess of decomposing specimens, the filter fouled, or the raw-water intake plugged. Keeping sea creatures alive is a time consuming, demanding job, and I had yet to check on my collection since returning.

  Relief. The system was working just fine. The pumps were sucking in raw water, spilling overflow out. The hundred-gallon upper reservoir, with its subsand filter, was cleaning the water, then spraying it as a mist into the main tank where sea squirts and tunicates continued to filter, which is why the water therein is too clear to slow the human eye.

  Through the water lens, I could see small snappers, sea anemones, swaying blades of turtle grass, sea horses, horseshoe crabs, whelk shells, the whole small world alive. There were five immature tarpon stacked beneath the exhaust of the upper reservoir, as motionless as bright bars of chrome. There were immature snook, as well, heads turned into the artificial current, a few sea trout, grunts and cowfish, too-strange little animals that look like something dreamed up at Disney World.

  My reef squid were the hardest to find because their chro matophores allow them to blend with the sand bottom. But there they were, the entire miniature sea system healthy and well, indifferent to the world of primates going on above and around them.

  As I stood looking into the tank, a voice called from the mangroves, across the water: “In that white dress, you look like some fuckin’ Fiji warrior. Or a guy in one of them old Tarzan movies. Put some clothes on or I ain’t crossing over.”

  I’d installed shepherd’s-crook lamps along my boardwalk, and so I turned to see Frank DeAntoni in the distance, standing ashore in a circle of light.

  Smiling, I said, “She’s agreed to talk to you, Frank. Come on aboard.”

  Sally said to DeAntoni, “Before I answer any of your questions, would you mind answering a couple of mine?”

  Frank said, “Sure, absolutely. Ask me anything.”

  The three of us were on the porch, DeAntoni sitting close to Sally, giving her his full attention. He’d been watching the woman for a while, but this was the first time they’d met face-to-face. It put an unexpected touch of shyness in his voice; seemed to make him eager to please.

  “I was telling Doc that a lot of weird, bad things have been happening to me lately. Maybe you know something about it, maybe you don’t, but I’ve got to ask. How long have you been following me?”

  He said, “’Bout two weeks. I guess maybe a little more since the company called. Asked if I’d take the case.”

  “Everglades Home and Life?”

  “Yes. Your husband’s insurance company.”

  “Did you ever break into my house? Someone’s been coming in when I’m gone, going through my personal things.”

  DeAntoni’s face demonstrated concern. “It wasn’t me. My right hand on the Bible. I’ve got no reason. You don’t have a security system?”

  “Yes. Supposedly, a very good one. So whoever’s breaking in is no amateur. That’s why I’m asking.”

  DeAntoni said, “Do they steal stuff?”

  Sally said, “No. They leave everything exactly the way they found it.”

  “Then how do you know someone’s getting into your house?”

  “That’s the same question the police asked me. I’m… I’m not sure. It’s more of a feeling I have. An awareness. Almost like an odor-I can tell that someone’s been going through my things. My files, even my clothing. Plus, all the weird bad luck I’ve been having. It’s being done intentionally.”

  She told us it began shortly after her husband vanished. She’d get into her car and the battery would be dead. Or the battery cable loose. Or a tire flat. “A brand-new BMW,” she said. “What are the chances?”

  It was always when she was out. Never at home.

  “It’s as if someone wanted to make sure I’d be delayed coming back,” she said.

  Someone had been getting into her computer, too. She’d checked the records of her Internet provider and found that a person had been signing on under her password from an outside computer, and also from her own personal computer. She’d changed passwords several times, but wasn’t certain if her e-mail was still being monitored.

  “Something else bad happened to my… to a pet I had. A dog,” she said, her voice beginning to crack. “But I… I don’t want to talk about that now. Maybe later.” She turned to me, regaining her composure. “That’s all I wanted to ask Frank. Should I trust him?”

  I said, “Yeah. I think you can.”

  Sally told us she couldn’t call the International Church of Ashram Meditation by its official name because she didn’t consider it a church. Pagan idolatry. That’s what the minister at her church called it. The Reverend Wilson.

  An example: Bhagwan Shiva taught his followers that, once they were formally accepted, the morality of the outside world no longer applied to them. Everyone on the inside was a chosen person. Everyone on the outside was part of a spiritually dead society, so what outsiders thought-even family members-didn’t matter.

  “That’s a guy I need to talk to,” DeAntoni said. “Shiva. I’ve asked his secretary for an appointment a half dozen times. Even did it in writing. So I may have to try walking into their Palm Beach compound, see what happens.”

  Sally said, “You won’t get far. My husband used to talk about how good the security is. Family members on the outside are always trying to snatch their loved ones, because that’s the only way to get them deprogrammed. So Shiva has his own little group of enforcers, like guards. Archangels, that’s what he calls them. They dress in black. They’re scary-looking, their whole attitude. Men and women both. The ones I saw, they carry nightsticks, and those little guns that shoot electrical darts. What do you call them-?”

  Listening to every word, DeAntoni said,“Tasers.”

  “Tasers, yes, I think. And his personal staff, his Archangels, they swagger around like they can’t wait to use them.”

  “Talk about one crappy religion. How nice is that? People get in, they can’t get out.”

  Sally said, “Once you reach a certain level-they’ve got a hierarchy of secret levels-once you get so high in the organization, yes, I don’t think you can just one day say, hey, I’m out of here. I don’t think they’ll let you leave.”

  “How high did Geoff get?”

  “About as high as a member can get. Over a period of slightly more than three years, he went to the top. Probably because he had so much personal interaction with Shiva-their business dealings. He was proud of himself, all his church promotions. He was such a goal-oriented person, so obsessive, that he had to excel at everything.”

  Frank asked, “Your husband and this religious guy, would you consider them friends?”

  “No. I don’t think Shiva has friends. He’s set himself up like a God, so everyone else is beneath him. Besides, Geoff began to realize that Shiva wasn’t all that he pretended to be. I know they had at least a couple of blowups.”

  “What makes you think that?”

  “Because he told me. A few months before Geoff disappeared, he told me he was going to ask Shi
va for some kind of resettlement. It had to do with all the money and property we’d given the Ashram. Geoff was about as mad as I’ve ever seen him.”

  I asked her, “Did Shiva agree?”

  “Yes. My husband said he had no choice. I don’t know what he meant by that.”

  It took her a few minutes to explain that she didn’t know all the details, but the resettlement had something to do with a property the Church of Ashram owned on the northeastern edge of the Everglades.

  “They’re trying to put in housing, hotels and at least three casinos. The casinos have to be built on Indian land for some reason, but that’s part of the plan because the church’s acreage butts up against reservation property. Even so, I know they were having permitting problems. Geoff told me that.”

  I asked her, “Why would Florida Indians allow anyone to build on their land? That makes no sense.”

  “Not their property, really. Shiva’s property. He’d sell the Indians his acreage for some ridiculously low price. A dollar, or whatever it takes to be legal. There’s a federal law that says an Indian tribe can incorporate purchased property as part of their tax-free reservation. In return, they’d let Shiva build his development and casinos. He’d pay them a percentage of the gross. That’s what he’s trying to get them to do.”

  She added, “But the incorporated tribes-the Seminole Tribe of Florida and the Miccosukee Tribe-weren’t interested. That’s the last I heard. Geoff told me Shiva was going crazy trying to get them to go along with his idea. Money, political pressure, everything. He even started dressing like an Indian, trying to kiss up. It didn’t help. Nothing helped. But, the last time I spoke with Geoff, he said Shiva had an out. A way of making it work.”

  “Did he give you any details?”

  “No.”

  I sat for a moment, thinking about it before I said, “Your husband. The deal he struck with Shiva. He was to get a piece of the casino development?”

  “Yes. A big piece. Enough for him and Shiva to patch up their differences. But then Geoff disappeared.”