Tampa Burn df-11 Read online

  “You did illegal things in my country. And in Nicaragua, too. Unthinkable things. The worst, though, was what you did to a man named Don Blas Diego.” Her voice became harsh, emotional and accusatory, as she added, “You knew. You had to know who that kind and decent man was. You knew that Don Blas was my-”

  I interrupted. I had to interrupt because I couldn’t allow her to finish. “At the time,” I said, “I didn’t know who he was. And for a long time afterward. I swear it. I truly didn’t know, not until much later.”

  I did not add that Don Blas Diego had been neither a kind man nor a decent man. What good would it serve now, telling her the truth? To challenge her family memories?

  On one level, I was pained that Pilar had been hurt. On another, I was shocked that those documents still existed. Supposedly, there had been only one file maintained on my activities: a book-sized dossier that, not so long ago, I had tossed into a driftwood fire after making an exchange with a friend on a deserted beach. I’d watched the pages burn and curl, feeling the first suggestion of freedom from a past that had consumed me. That such a file still existed in Masagua seemed illustrative of the chaos that was now crippling it.

  Something else: Clearly, someone had chosen me as a personal project. Or a target. Had singled me out as the focus of a lot of deep digging and single-minded research. More troubling, that person necessarily had a first-rate intellect. They’d had to correctly reassemble a lot of convoluted links to find those files, and then unscramble or decode them.

  Who?

  Why?

  Trying to maintain emotional composure, keeping my expression blank, I watched her draw a deep breath, struggling to get herself back under control. But then I winced as she said, “You’re not the good man I thought I cared for. How could you have done those things?”

  In a whisper, I replied, “There was a war going on.”

  “Yes, but it was our war. Not yours. Do you know what concerns me the most since I found out? That he calls you ‘Father. ’ If he believes your blood runs in his veins, will he try to emulate you? Already, he’s becoming more and more like you. At night, I go to sleep worrying about it. Will that part of you be in him? That gene, that kind of… of evil? Is there a killer inside of my child, waiting?”

  I said, “There’s a difference between evil and carrying out orders.”

  “So you tell yourself. It’s a way of rationalizing. You can’t see that? Or maybe you simply can’t admit it.”

  “I’ve admitted more than most.”

  “And you can still live with yourself?”

  I said, “It was touch and go there for a while. Just because you don’t see the scars doesn’t mean they’re not there.”

  I thought the honesty of that would leach some of the anger out of her. It didn’t.

  “To open that folder, to see what was inside… I was in total shock.”

  “Don’t be so sure that all the things you were told, the files you saw, were true.”

  “Photographs don’t lie, Marion.”

  “Oh, they can. Believe me, they can.”

  Completely out of character, she then put her hands on hips, leaned toward me, and in a shrill whisper that became a whispered shriek, yelled, “I hope to God everything I read about you is true. I hope it’s all true. Because I need someone smart and ruthless to help me get my child back. I hope you are a vicious son-of-a-bitch and you find the people who’ve taken my son!”

  Trauma changes us; fear can transform us. In that instant, I realized something. I realized that I no longer knew this person. Heartbreaking.

  Staying composed, hoping my calm would help to calm her, I said, “At least now I know why you’ve come back to me. Now, at least, I know the truth.”

  “Did you expect something more?”

  There was still a filament of hysteria in her voice.

  I don’t know why I said it. Maybe I wanted to hurt her because she’d hurt me. She’d certainly done that more than once over the years. Or maybe I really meant it when I replied, “I don’t know what I expected. But I can tell you what I hoped. I hoped you’d come to tell me that you wanted me back. Because I love you. I’ve always loved you. You can hate me, loathe me, whatever you want. But nothing is going to change the fact that I still think of you often. I’m not an overly emotional person. But that’s the way it’s been, Pilar, from the day we first met.”

  When I stepped toward her now, she did not retreat. Her body went slack when I took her into my arms and pulled her face to my chest. She neither responded nor struggled to free herself as I squeezed her close and continued, “No matter what you’ve read or heard, I’m still the man you were in love with. I’m the same person. So you must still feel something for me.”

  I felt her shudder-a prelude to tears, perhaps?-as I turned her face upward and pressed my mouth to hers. For several long seconds, she simply hung there, lips against mine, as if she were asleep, or numb. But then gradually, very gradually, her lips seemed to soften as her legs found a base beneath her. Then I felt her mouth move and open slightly as her hips lifted against mine… her arms tightening gradually around me, squeezing, losing herself in the moment…

  More so than any woman I’ve met, Pilar is made up of two distinct and different physical, emotional beings. One is public. The other, she keeps locked away, caged deep-the sexual Pilar. To know the first, you would never, ever guess the existence of the second.

  The sexual Pilar can emerge voluntarily or involuntarily, but when that woman appears, it’s like a creature set loose. The transformation may be gradual, but it is total, and there are no boundaries, no taboos. Once the transformation passes a certain point, there is no stopping her body, because Pilar’s body takes total, sensory control.

  For a few powerful seconds, I sensed the creature trying to slip from its cage, its body seeking mine… but not for long. Her muscles seemed to spasm in sudden realization… then she stopped, frozen, before Pilar turned her face away and pushed me backward.

  “No. I can’t. I won’t. ” Her voice was husky.

  Her body, at least, remembered the way it had been between us.

  I said, “I’m not perfect. But I’m no monster. You know that. And you still love me. That won’t change between us.”

  Did I really believe that? Probably not. It was another way to repay the hurt she’d caused me.

  I expected to hear Pilar reply. Instead, I was shocked to hear a second woman’s voice answer from nearby mangroves at the edge of the parking lot. It was a familiar voice, deeper, with a pure Midwestern accent. The woman was obviously, and for good reason, furious.

  “What a sweet little scene for me to interrupt,” said the second woman. “Doc Ford with another woman. What an asshole thing for you to do, Ford-you were my best friend, damn you! This is the kind of trailer-trash bullshit I never would have expected.”

  I looked up and got a glimpse of Dewey Nye-long legs, white tennis shorts and blouse, blond hair glimmering from beneath a dark sun visor.

  I said, “Dewey?”

  “Yeah, that’s right. It’s me, ol’ buddy. Surprise, surprise.”

  “Dewey… whoa, wait, hold on. Something happened-”

  She didn’t give me a chance to finish. Raising her voice to drown mine, she told Pilar, “A monster is just about exactly what he is, lady. Which shocks the hell out of me. He’s a damn Jekyll and Hyde, which, thanks to you, I just found out. So you can have him. Forever you can have him. I’m outta here for good.”

  I got another quick glimpse of long legs and blond ponytail swinging before I heard her car door slam.

  She’d sold her ’Vette and bought a new two-seater Lexus. I can never remember the model. The roadster showed impressive stability as she spun it around in the parking lot, kicking a wake of shells and dust as she accelerated away.

  The encounter had sobered Pilar, and my hands were shaking as I combed fingers through hair in momentary shock, whispering to myself, “ Oh… that poor, dear girl. ”


  After a long, long silence, mosquitoes screaming in my ears, Pilar said, “I’m sorry that happened. I truly am. Is she someone you care about?”

  “Yeah. She is, very much. We’ve been together for a while.”

  “I’ve seen her before. That time in Panama. I remember now. Very athletic and beautiful. Dewey? I’ve forgotten her last name.”

  “That’s her.”

  “I can never let you kiss me again, Marion. Ever. Or hold me. I’ll explain that to her if you want. That it meant nothing to me. I’ll tell her that, too, if you like.”

  Looking closely at Pilar, I said, “Even if that’s true, I don’t think she’d believe it.”

  SIX

  I went back to the house, took the keys to my old Chevy pickup truck off the hook over the front door, and went looking for Dewey. I’m not the most compassionate of people, but anyone who hurts a friend and does not swiftly try to make amends ranks, in my book, among the lowest of the low.

  There was a second, more selfish consideration. I realized something: I didn’t want to lose the lady. Not like this. Not because of something I said-words I was now already fairly certain I didn’t mean.

  I drove toward Captiva Island on SanCap Road, past Sanibel Gardens, past the Sanibel Rum Bar amp; Grille at the intersection of Rabbit Road-Tomlinson’s new favorite hangout. Then past the elementary school where the ball diamond lights were on, a couple of the beer-league softball teams tinging away with aluminum bats.

  It looked like Nave Electric was playing the Timber’s staff. I drove faster than normal, windows open, one hand on the wheel, the Gulf of Mexico off to my left, the bay beyond, houses and tree fringe to my right.

  A Campeche wind was blowing off the Gulf, stirring the tops of palms. It leached a cumulative heat from the island’s sand face, weighted with the odor of sea grape, palmetto, oak leaves, prickly pear. My truck’s lights created a tunneled, pearl conduit, stars above, vegetation gathered close on this part of the road, traffic sparse.

  I looked at my plastic watch: 9:07 P.M.

  Dewey had sold her beachfront home because it was impossible to refuse the small fortune a software magnate had offered her. Besides, as she said, the house was never much more than a hotel to her anyway, she’d traveled so much during her years as a tennis pro. There was no vested emotion. In fact, the place had personal baggage and some bad memories.

  So she’d banked half the money, and used the rest to buy and remodel a luxury bungalow, bayside, hidden in a coconut grove between Mango Court and Dickey Lane, just past Twin Palms Marina and the Sunshine Cafe on Captiva Island.

  At Mango Court, I turned right down the sand drive, her property isolated by high ficus hedges and security warning signs, expecting to see her Lexus parked beneath the open, roofed carport.

  It wasn’t.

  She hadn’t run home with her tail between her legs, as might have been expected.

  Why was I surprised? Dewey almost always does the unexpected. It’s one of the reasons I value her. She is five-ten, 155 pounds or so of pure nonconformist female, highly competitive, though secretly super sensitive despite the fact that her vocabulary has a consistently salty, seagoing flair.

  Dewey is different. Maybe it’s because her life has been so different from the lives of most women. Her family is from somewhere in the Midwest-Iowa or Kansas or Ohio, I think. But because her father was a tyrant and a bully, she grew up attending the Nick Bollettieri Tennis Academy in Bradenton, Florida. She got used to living in a dorm, adjusting to a communal society and life on the road because she never got the chance to experience anything else. For a while, she was ranked one of the top twenty tennis players in the world. But then there was an elbow operation, and a knee operation, and she decided to concentrate on golf, a game she loves.

  Something else Dewey concentrated on for a time was Walda Bzantovski, the Romanian tennis great and her long-time lover. But things hadn’t worked out.

  Which is why she was now living on the islands, splitting her time between this classy, plush bungalow on Captiva, and my spartan stilt house on Sanibel.

  Until tonight.

  So where do female ex-jocks go when they’re furious? Or when their hearts are broken?

  Probably the same place men go, I decided. To seek comfort and counsel in a best friend. Or in a friendly bartender.

  I was her best friend. At least, I had been. Which left option number two. So I drove from place to place, checking the parking lots of bars.

  I looked for her car at the Mucky Duck, R. C. Otters, ’Tween Waters, and the Green Flash without results. Back on Sanibel Island, though, I got lucky. I drove through the lot of the Sanibel Rum Bar amp; Grille, and her Lexus was there, hood cool to the touch.

  I’d driven right past the place on the way to her home.

  The Rum Bar is built into a little strip mall that it shares with a health club and a couple of other island businesses. But it’s still got a tropical feel, the way it’s decorated; plus, it attracts all the fishing guides and service industry locals as well as tourists on their way to and from Captiva Island.

  I didn’t see many familiar faces on this Tuesday night, though. The bar was packed, two or three deep, ceiling fans swirling overhead, flags and nautical charts from Central America and the Bahamas on the walls, a local band, the Trouble Starters, singing about what they were gonna do when the volcano blew as I walked through the doors.

  Dewey was there. She was in the corner of the room next to the Cuban refugee boat that the owner had salvaged in the Florida Keys and had converted into a table. She was playing a game called Ringmaster: Swing the brass ring accurately and it will arc on its string and lock itself onto a hook six feet away.

  Dewey wasn’t alone. Not a surprise. Women as attractive as Dewey spend few lonely moments in bars. She was with a group of five men, the central focus of their attention. The men were drinking mixed drinks. They wore bright Hawaiian shirts or polos, a couple of middle-age bellies showing, and neatly pressed khakis on an island where almost everyone wears cargo shorts in May.

  So they were tourists, probably down here fishing or golfing or attending some kind of convention. They had the look of money, with their styled hair sprayed in place, waxed Docksiders, and heavy gold watch bracelets and rings. So I made another guess: maybe corporate executives, or attorneys, or members of the same investment team on Sanibel for a meeting, cutting loose a little, showing off for the tall blonde with the bawdy vocabulary.

  Dewey saw me the instant I walked in. Without pausing, her eyes swept through me and away as if I were invisible.

  For a moment, I thought she might throw an arm over the shoulder of one of her new buddies; do something to try and instigate jealousy. But, no, she was too classy for that. Instead, she shoved one of the men roughly, tossed her head back, laughing, and took her turn with the ring. First, though, she placed her chalice-sized margarita on the refugee boat-Dewey, a woman who seldom drank alcohol.

  I thought to myself: Uh-oh. Trouble.

  There was that potential.

  At the bar, I paid for a Bud Light, told Mark, the bartender, that Tomlinson-a Rum Bar regular-would probably be in later, and strolled over to the little circle of men clustered around Dewey. They greeted me with cool glances, their body language screening me out, telling me it was their little party, go away.

  But I didn’t go away. I stood there watching for a quarter of an hour, listening to the kibitzing, trying to assess, evaluate, hoping Dewey would excuse herself and give me a chance to explain.

  Her new friends were salesmen from a national sporting goods chain based outside Chicago. There were four underlings, judging from their ingratiating manner, and there was the big boss, Corporate Vice-President in charge of something.

  I never heard what.

  Corporate V-P was authoritative, but in the chummy way that head coaches use. He wasn’t overtly arrogant, but he did have a CEO’s knack for assuming center stage. He was shorter than I but
much broader, with dense black hair and the layered, geometric facial structure that women seem to find attractive.

  There were a couple of more details I noted: His underlings were working hard for him, through deference and flattery, helping him make a play for Dewey.

  Something else: There was a wedding-band width of sunburned skin on the ring finger of his left hand.

  Salesmen get an unfair rap. Their profession is a favorite target of derision, when in fact I know it to be among the most demanding of occupations. I know because, when it comes right down to it, I’m a salesman. I sell marine specimens-and I’m not the world’s best.

  If you’re gunning to be a top salesman, you’d better possess all the social skills, and nearly every intellectual gift. The field’s about as competitive as it gets. But there was something about this little group I disliked. Maybe it was the missing wedding band. Maybe it was the way the pack was trying to herd the female stranger into the arms of its alpha male. Or maybe I was deluding myself-I do it regularly-by trying to intellectualize my jealousy.

  Whatever the reason, there was no doubt that I overreacted when Corporate V-P caught me staring at Dewey. He glared at me for a moment, and when I refused to break eye contact, he said, “This is a private party, champ. Or maybe you’re just lost and mistook us for friends. Well, we’re not.”

  Which received nervous laughter from everyone but Dewey until I replied, “The only thing lost seems to be your wedding ring. I’m willing to make a guess. The ring’s back in your hotel room. Probably hidden under the condoms you bought at the airport.”

  Groaning, rolling her eyes, Dewey said, “Smooth, Ford. Jesus. Mister Congeniality,” as Corporate V-P stepped toward me, his underlings moving aside, creating room for us and thus a small stage.

  “ What did you just say to me?”

  I repeated what I’d said, not budging as he advanced toward me, still looking into his eyes, which made him uneasy, I could tell. But he was committed to it, his employees watching, and he couldn’t back down. Not without confronting me first, establishing for them that he held a higher rung on the machismo ladder, anyway.