Everglades, page 14
“Know what else those three had in common?” McRae asked. “They didn’t much like Geoff. Don’t misunderstand me—they didn’t hate him. Just didn’t particularly care for him, which I can understand. Before his religious conversion, Minster was a hard-ass businessman who didn’t give a damn about making friends. After his conversion, he was so touchy-feely-spiritual that a real man wouldn’t want to waste time talking to him.”
According to McRae, he’d spoken with all three after the disappearance. Each of the three men told him that the only reason they’d gone on the fishing trip was because Minster had pushed and pestered until they finally agreed just to fulfill a social obligation they would never have to endure again.
McRae asked us, “Now why would Minster choose three men who didn’t much like him to go on that boat?”
“Witnesses,” Tomlinson said immediately. “Three of the most respected men in the state. He wanted witnesses. The kind no one would ever doubt.”
McRae was nodding, smiling; a man who was at the head of the table no matter where he sat, sober or drunk. “You, sir, have an intellect that is not implied by your physical appearance—unlike your politics. I have a little granddaughter who uses the same kind’a combs in her hair, and that shirt you’re wearing reminds me of Derby Day in Lexington. All the pretty, flowered bonnets.”
Tomlinson took it as a compliment. “Thank you, Mr. McRae. But I can’t take credit for the witness theory. Doc was the first to think of it. Invite three solid citizens, then fake your death by jumping overboard. A second boat’s in the area, lights out, waiting to make the pickup.”
I’d considered the possibility, but didn’t remember mentioning it to Tomlinson.
I listened to McRae say, “I haven’t followed it that closely. Perhaps you gentlemen know more details. Did anyone ever ask the boat’s captain if he had his radar on that night? If there was a second vessel following, or waiting close enough to pick up Minster, the skipper would’ve seen it on the screen.”
DeAntoni said, “I interviewed the captain. So’d the cops. He had radar, yeah, but he told me he didn’t notice. It was such a clear night, plenty calm, that he was running the thing all by himself, no need to use the electronics. Plus, he had no idea what time Minster went overboard. The last person to see him was the retired judge, and that was around nine P.M. They didn’t realize he was gone ’til the next morning, when they woke up in Bimini.”
I asked, “Can you think of any reason why Minster would want to stage his own death?”
McRae said, “There’re only two reasons a man disappears on purpose, and both’re because he feels he has to escape. He’s trying to escape from someone who wants to kill him, or he wants to escape his old life. Too many bills, too much pressure. Leave behind a life he just can’t stomach any longer. Or maybe escape into the arms of a different woman.”
DeAntoni said, “Minster was sick of his old life, his wife told us that. Was he screwing around on her?”
“Sorry, that’s the sort of question a gentleman doesn’t answer. Not that I approve of such behavior. I’ve been married for fifty-two years and was unfaithful to my wife only once. That was a long, long time ago. It was the saddest, sickest thing I’ve ever done, and the only true regret I have in this life.”
After a few moments of reflection, McRae added, “Was Minster screwing around? I will say this. In the Ashram faith, I hear communal sex is allowed. Maybe even encouraged. All I’ll tell you is, the month before he disappeared, Minster lived here in the club’s bachelor quarters. He almost never went home to Sally. I also know he had a special friend, an Indian woman. That’s all I’ll say on the subject.”
“Would you tell us her name if you knew it?”
“No.”
“Is there anything else that suggests to you that he intentionally went missing?”
“As I said, there’re only two reasons a man chooses to disappear: to start a new life, or to get away from someone who was trying to kill him. Could be, both reasons applied to Geoff.”
That was a surprising thing to hear. DeAntoni said, “He was afraid of being killed? By who?”
“Figure it out for yourselves. Toward the end, he and Jerry weren’t getting along. They sat here one night, screaming at each other. Kurt about soiled his pants, he was so quick to shut the restaurant down. The holy man, Bhagwan Shiva, acting like a drunken bully. We can’t let the faithful see something like that, now, can we?”
“Do you know what the argument was about?”
McRae had begun to weave slightly, his eyes even blur rier. Now, with a slowly marshaled effort, he straightened himself, giving it careful consideration, before he told us, “Gentlemen, I think our little barter session has come to an end. I have reached the point where this very fine Scotch has turned to common whiskey on my palate, and that’s a sin against all that I hold dear. Besides, the subject’s too serious for drunk talk.”
He was pulling his wallet out, from which he produced a business card. “You write your phone numbers on this little piece of paper. Give me some time to think it over. Maybe I’ll call. Maybe I won’t. Let’s just leave it at that.”
As we paid the tab, I noticed that Tomlinson had his hand on McRae’s shoulder, leaning toward him, talking into his ear.
I watched the distinguished man frown, shaking his head. Then McRae closed his eyes, listening . . . then it appeared as if he were fighting back tears, patting the top of Tomlinson’s hand with his own. He spoke a few words as Tomlinson continued to whisper, and then McRae was nodding, smiling a little.
Outside, I dropped far enough behind DeAntoni to ask Tomlinson, “What were you saying to him back there?”
“Mr. McRae’s wife, Gwendie, was operated on for a cerebral aneurysm six months ago. She’s been in a coma; on life support ever since.”
“How’d you know that?”
“I didn’t. I had a strong sense that he was in pain. He’s a good man, too. Not my kind of man. Not the kind I’d choose for a friend. When he described Shiva as ruthless? He was describing himself just as accurately. I suspect you realize that. But a good man, even so.
“His driver takes him to Naples Community Hospital every night at six, where he sits beside Gwendie for as long as he’s allowed, holding her hand, whispering into her ear. Every morning, he comes here and drinks single malt until he’s drunk enough to go home and get some sleep.”
“What did you say to him?”
“I got his e-mail address. Told him I’d send him a paper I wrote a long time ago. Maybe it’ll give him some comfort.”
I knew exactly what paper he meant—“One Fathom Above Sea Level.” But I said, “What paper’s that?”
“Just a paper. I’d almost forgotten I’d written the thing until strangers starting e-mailing me, asking questions about it. Pretty weird, man. The present meets the past. Unfortunately, the brain cells that did the writing are long, long gone. Oh”—he was walking beside me, twisting his yellow goatee into curls—“something else I told him was that my instincts are pretty good. I told him I was getting strong vibes that Gwendie’s gonna wake up soon. It might take awhile, but she’s going to be okay.”
I said, “Do you think that’s a responsible thing to do—give the man false hopes? You could end up hurting him more.”
“In the paper I mentioned—this is just an example, and I’m paraphrasing. But I wrote something about selfless hope. I said hope is the simplest proof of divine origin. When I told him that, he seemed to appreciate it.”
I said, “I wouldn’t mind seeing how you come to that conclusion. Why don’t you send me a copy. I’ll read it.”
That much was true. I hadn’t read it. For some reason, to do so without Tomlinson’s permission had seemed an invasion of his privacy. It was something a stranger could do, but not a friend.
“Know what, Doc? Considering all you’ve been through, I came this close to asking you to read it fifty, sixty times. But it seemed like an imposition. Like you’d have to read it just because we’re pals.” Then he stopped talking and, in a different tone of voice, he said, “Uh-oh. Here comes trouble.”
He meant the golf cart speeding toward us, two men aboard. Pith helmet, the guard from the front gate, was sitting beside a driver who wore a black T-shirt and black cap, SECURITY printed on both in yellow letters.
I remembered Sally telling us about Shiva’s Archangels, the security people who always dressed in black.
DeAntoni saw them, too. He stopped, waiting, when pith helmet said loud enough for us all to hear, “There they are; it’s them. Those’re the ones.”
chapter fifteen
The golf cart came at us full speed, then turned in front of DeAntoni so abruptly that it almost hit him. He backed up reflexively a couple of steps as the two men bailed out even before it stopped. Pith helmet was already talking, speaking to us as a group in his cop voice, very officious.
“You individuals are on private property. I warned you. I told you that you weren’t permitted on the grounds, but here you are. So we’re going to detain you until we’ve contacted the sheriff’s department—”
At the same time, DeAntoni was saying, “Whoa, Mac, stop right there. Not another step closer,” because they were coming toward him.
Pith helmet had a leather sap in his hand, and appeared ready to use it. The man in the black cap held what looked to be a cell phone, but the shape didn’t seem quite right. Then I realized what it was: a taser gun. A taser shoots twin, dart-pointed probes that produce a pulsing, high-voltage current when they make contact with human flesh.
Pith helmet was saying, “The smart thing for you people to do is shut your mouths, just come along peacefully. Put your hands behind your heads—” as DeAntoni stopped backing up, his expression was changing; a sort of game-face transformation that I know too well.
“Mac,” he said, not very loud, “you lay a finger on me, you’re going to be shitting little pieces of that sap for the next three weeks.”
Which is when Tomlinson rushed forward, trying to intervene. He was walking fast toward the security guards, his palms held outward—slow down; stay calm—telling them, “It’s okay, it’s okay, we have permission to be here. Call Carter McRae. He knows us. Mr. McRae, or even the bartender, Kurt. He saw us together.”
Black hat had been focused on DeAntoni, but now he turned his attention to Tomlinson, holding the taser in his hand like some kind of space-age revolver. Black hat was taller, leaner than pith helmet; had a look of forced stoicism, as if he were trying hard to behave professionally, but was actually excited, enjoying himself.
“You’re friends of Mr. McRae, huh? Just like you’re good friends of the Terwilligers. I called Mr. Terwilliger and checked. They’ve never heard of you people. Which is why we’re detaining you. So put your hands behind your heads. Now.”
At the same time, black hat was talking to Tomlinson, telling him, “Stay back, stay back, don’t come any closer—I’m warning you,” as Tomlinson continued to walk fast, trying to position himself between DeAntoni and the two guards.
Then black hat shot Tomlinson in the chest with the taser. I heard a blast of compressed air; saw the probes snake toward him. Tomlinson was wearing a Hawaiian shirt, pink surfboards on purple silk. It was very thin material, and I could hear the sickening thud of the darts impacting upon muscle and bone.
It was a grotesque scene to witness. Tomlinson dropped like a rag doll, landed on his side and rolled to his back, his arms and legs flailing, the muscles of his face spasming as his eyes fluttered back in his head.
DeAntoni and I had begun to sprint toward black hat the instant he aimed the taser, but pith helmet intercepted DeAntoni—or tried to. I heard pith helmet give a shriek of pain, but didn’t see why because I was concentrating on black hat, who held the taser in his left hand like some macabre puppeteer, Tomlinson twitching wildly at the end of two black strings. With his right hand, though, black hat was now un holstering a revolver.
The sign at the gatehouse had warned that the staff here was authorized to carry firearms, but what kind of idiot would draw a weapon under these circumstances? The answer was unnerving: the kind of idiot who was eager for a reason to shoot someone.
Me.
I vaulted over Tomlinson and drove my shoulder into black hat’s chest, pinning his right wrist against his holster as I pushed him backwards, then lifted him high off the ground, his feet kicking. I held him there for a moment before I turned and body-slammed him onto the brick sidewalk. He hit with such force that it knocked the wind out of him: The wide, bulging eyes were symptomatic. It’s a terrifying thing to be unable to breathe, and his expression reflected that terror.
He’d gotten the revolver drawn—a .38 caliber Smith. I kicked it away, into grass, then rushed to Tomlinson and yanked the probes out of his chest. The muscle spasms ceased almost immediately, but it took a few moments before his glazed eyes could focus.
“Are you okay?”
He made a fluttering noise with his lips, his face illustrating dazed wonderment. “Holy shit! What a . . . what a rush that was, man. Wow.”
To my left, I could hear DeAntoni saying, “I knew it, I knew it. Look’a the tears running down tough guy’s cheeks.”
He had the fingers of his left hand wedged between pith helmet’s throat and jaw, holding him against the golf cart, and was slapping him rhythmically with his open right palm. “Guess what I’ve decided, tough guy? I’m not going to let you arrest us today. Nod your head a couple times, just so I know you agree.”
Pith helmet nodded quickly.
Black hat was recovering, getting slowly to his knees, so I scooped up the revolver, popped the cylinder, threw the cartridges into the bushes, then the gun. A walkie-talkie lay nearby, and I tossed that, too.
I told DeAntoni to stop, give me a second, and then I said to pith helmet, “Know what we’d appreciate? We’d really like a ride to the closest gate.”
Pith helmet’s voice was higher-pitched now and raspy. “That’s all we wanted in the first place. To tell you to leave the premises. That’s all we wanted you to do.”
Helping Tomlinson to his feet, I said, “Then you won’t mind if we borrow your golf cart.”
I told DeAntoni I thought it was a bad idea to drive the cart off Sawgrass property. He said, “Screw ’im. You heard the dude. Gave us permission to use it. Screw walkin’ through the field again. I’m driving the damn thing all the way back to that bar. What was the name?”
Gator Bill’s.
He did, too. Drove us past the service gate, where Freddy gave us an uneasy wave, down the road to the little crossroads village of Devil’s Garden.
Tomlinson sat in the front, still dazed but excited, jabbering away. I was in the back, so I had to turn to listen to him say, “My tolerance for high voltage just keeps getting higher and higher, man. I’ve been zapped so many times, I’m starting to enjoy it—which opens a whole new world of exploration.”
He lifted his hair to show DeAntoni, pointing to the tiny lightning-bolt scar on the side of his head. “Mother Nature once zapped me with lightning as a personal favor. Direct strike, man. A very intense experience. Years before that, I also spent a couple of weeks doing a little table dance which my old shrink, a Freud-geek, described as ‘electroshock therapy.’ Didn’t have much choice about that one, either. Same this time. Man, when those two darts hit my chest, it was almost like the time I picked up the electric ray. Remember, Doc?”
I said I did, pleased that he was okay; that he didn’t seem to be suffering any lasting effects from the stun gun.
He said, “When I got hit, it was like a bright blue light flashed on behind my eyes. I could see a wiring schematic for my entire nervous system. Seriously. Like in the cartoons where the mouse electrocutes the cat. Far out, man! In a chemical-electric way, I’m talking about. A really far-out sort of rush.”
When Tomlinson added, “Doc . . . I want you to think this one over. If I invested in one of those taser guns . . . if I asked you to give me the occasional shot in the ass—controlled conditions, of course. An interesting social experiment is what I’m describing—”
I told him, “Absolutely not. Drop the subject,” as DeAntoni, shaking his head, said, “A weirdo, man. How’d I end up dealing with this kind of shit? I’m driving a golf cart through a swamp with a hippie who probably gets his jollies sticking his pecker in a light socket. Unbelievable. After this one, I’m thinking of moving the whole damn operation back to civilization.”
When we walked into Gator Bill’s, people eating at tables, men at the bar, the waitress, everyone, looked up, as afternoon sunlight trailed us through the screen door.
There’s the scene in classic Western films where the saloon goes silent when strangers enter. This room didn’t go silent, but it quieted except for the country jukebox. The impression was the same: We were outsiders, and outsiders were neither expected nor welcomed.
At the bar were wobbly, wooden stools. We took the last three at the end. To the woman behind the counter, Tomlinson said, “Maybe you’ll know. I just got shot with a taser gun; some serious voltage. What kind’a beverage would you recommend as a good chaser? Beer’s not going to do it, and wine just doesn’t seem appropriate.”
She was a tall, wide-bodied woman who wore a blouse outside her skirt to mask her shape. An Indian-looking woman. Most of the people in the bar, in fact, looked Native American. Men, mostly; ’Glades Indians dressed like cowboys in jeans, Western shirts and boots. Working guys, cattlemen and truck drivers, probably, on their lunch break.
To Tomlinson, the woman said, “You drunk? I’m not understanding what you mean.”
DeAntoni said, “Just give Mr. Looney a beer,” as Tomlinson told her, “The security guards at Sawgrass nailed me with a taser. One of those electric stun guns? Which was actually kind of interesting, but something about it—maybe the electrical current—left a weird metallic taste in my mouth. Probably had to do with the chemical transformation of ions. So I need the right drink to get rid of the taste.”
