The Man Who Ivented Florida (39 page)

Tuck grinned, displaying his missing teeth. "Shade it is!" But he was thinking, Which is exactly what you deserve, letting this sorry little shitheel do your thinking for you.. . .

He waited until they had gone back to their air-conditioned van—Londecker and the two women hadn't shut the engine off since they'd arrived. Just sat there in the coolness with a couple of other people, secretaries, probably, waiting for the hearing to start. Then Tuck found a piece of rope and led Gator outside, talking to the dog as they walked down the mound toward the road: "Them ones in the van, you can bite them anytime. Just not today, that's all. They ever come back, though, I want you on your toes. Hey!" Tuck jerked at the leash. "You listening to me?"

The dog's pink tongue was lolled out, all slobber-faced. He looked up at Tuck, panting affectionately.

"That's better. Now ... you know the trailer park people. Leave them alone. They gonna be living here now, specially the women. Don't be biting them. The one's making me sweet and sour pork tonight, and you can have what I don't eat. The rest of these people"—Tuck looked up and down the road—"they're tourists. I stand to make a fair piece of money off 'em, so just leave 'em be. I don't care if all two or three thousand come over and try to take your picture, scratch your ears, whatever. Don't bite 'em."

Which was how many people Tuck guessed were in Mango this late Monday morning. A thousand, maybe more. The road was packed with cars and strolling people, and it seemed to Tuck he couldn't go ten feet without some stranger stopping him, pumping his hand, saying she'd heard him on the radio or saw his picture someplace.

They'd say, "Mr. Gatrell, you're a celebrity!"

And Tuck would just grin and answer, "Yes, ma'am, I am. High time, too!" Trying not to act too uppity.

They'd say, "Does that water of yours really work?"

And Tuck would reply, "All I can tell you is, I ain't never felt better in my life."

Which was pretty much the truth, things were going so smooth. The trailer park people had been working like fools, pounding, pouring, hauling trash, and the whole place was already starting to look like something. Ervin T. and his fiddle had pulled in more publicity than even Tuck had hoped for, and now the musical agents were beginning to call, talking about recording this, documenting that—why, Ervin was up to the house playing for a man from Nashville right now. Tuck could hear the music above the ruckus of all the milling people, and he stopped for a moment, concentrating. Ervin was playing the . . . the . . . "Mango Tango."

Enthused, Tuck popped the rope to get Gator's attention. "You wonder why that song's prettier than the 'Orange Blossom Special'? 'Cause I wrote it. Me."

The dog sniffed a tree, then, with great ceremony, hiked his leg.

"Hey—I did, too," Tuck insisted. "The words, anyway. That's what I wrote. Which that dumb bunny ought to be singing, if he really wants to sell it."

Stiff-shouldered, Gator dug around in the sand, then pissed again.

Tucker frowned. "Believe what you want. I ain't tellin' you nothing no more."

Not
that everything was perfect. Joseph had saddled Buster and ridden off at first light, telling Tuck, "You don't need me around to make a fool of yourself. You always managed that fine on your own."

Smart-alecky Indian; don't know when a person's trying to do something good for him.

And Henry Short still hadn't arrived. Which wasn't so surprising, Henry being old and crazy both. But what the hell was he going to tell Miz Walker if he didn't show up at all?

She'd walked up to him first thing and said, "Mr. Gatrell, I had other work planned for today, so you better have a very good reason for insisting that I be here this morning." That's what she told him, talking formally, but a little peeved, with that cop look in her eye.

She hadn't much let him out of her sight since. She was always somewhere close by, with her pretty face and gray skirt and jacket.

Tuck stopped as if to pet the dog, but really to take a look behind him, see if she was there.

She wasn't. At least not that he could tell.

That woman acts like she don't trust me!

Otherwise, things were going like he wanted. The trailer park people were ready for the meeting. Lemar Flowers was, too, looking more like a judge than a lawyer with his black suit and leather briefcase. The only big disappointment Tuck had had all morning was that Marion hadn't arrived yet.

Lemar had told him, "If that nephew of yours ain't here by noon, just go ahead without him. I never saw the point in the first place. It's not like it's an imperative."

To which Tuck had replied, "You just do the thinkin', Lemar. That's what you're good at. But leave the planning to someone who knows how. He'll be here—I know that boy. We got the same blood, and he's almost as smart as me."

But now it seemed as if Lemar might be right. Still no sign of Marion and, to Tuck, it was the biggest disappointment of the day.

To the dog, he said, "Duke'll be here. You just wait and see," and tugged at the rope, telling the dog to follow.

A couple of smart businessmen had brought little trailers that opened up into hamburger stands, and they had the flaps up, selling burgers and hot dogs and Coke. As he walked along the road, Tuck could smell the meat frying; made him think of the old county fairs that he'd loved as a boy but never got to go to much. His people were so poor.

Tuck told the dog, "That's maybe what we'll do next. Open us up a restaurant. Potatoes and tomato gravy, and some Chinese food, too. When we get all this other stuff squared away."

Near one of the hamburger stands, down by the bay, a television remote truck was parked. It had a strange corkscrew antenna sticking out of the top and cables strung all over the place. Tuck stopped and tapped on the side of the truck. When a man poked his head out the back, Tuck told him, "They want to start in about a half hour. You boys ready?"

The man seemed a little miffed. "Perhaps I didn't make myself clear, Mr. Gatrell. You're not the producer here. I am. The meeting's not important to the piece we're shooting—"

"I thought you wanted to interview Ervin T. Rouse."

"We do. That's the point—"

"Get him on camera, playin' and tellin' stories?"

"Yes—"

"Then the point is, Ervin'll be a lot more willing to give you the interview if you got your cameras set up for the hearing. I'm his manager, and you got my word on that." Tuck smiled sweetly at the man's angry expression, then turned away.

In front of old Rigaberto's gas station, Tuck had built a nice stand so they could sell jugs of water. Well, he'd had the trailer park people build it, but it was nice just the same. Real simple, but right on the road, so it was the first thing people saw when they came around the sharp curve. Nothing fancy, just a plywood table, a chair, and a couple hundred milk bottles filled with springwater stacked behind. And a hand-painted sign tacked to the table that read:

WHILE IT LASTS!
GLADES SPRINGWATER
$10

Figured he'd start the price high, just to see how it went. They could always paint another sign. But these tourist people never even flinched, just took their wallets out and stood in line.

Lloyd was sitting at the stand now, a couple of the Palm Valley women helping him. But there were only a half dozen people or so waiting to buy, so Tuck wagged his finger at Lloyd, called him over for a private talk.

Tuck said, "Looks like business is starting to fall off a little, Lloyd. You been here all morning?"

"I was over helping Dunn at the junk pile, so just the last hour or so. But it's been steady." Lloyd glanced over his shoulder. "You know how much we've made just since I've been here? Like four or five hundred dollars. Which makes it something like three or four thousand, total, just from yesterday and this morning. That's a lot of money."

Thinking, We'd better make it while we can, Tuck said, "Sure, but we need more, a lot more. To get this place fixed up right, we need all we can get. Big Sky Ranch Fund, that's what I'm calling it. My lawyer's got the papers all fixed, making it legal. Takes money for lumber and paint, and to pay truckers to haul stuff. Say"— Tuck motioned Lloyd closer—"you been handing everybody one of them fliers Thelma typed, ain't you?"

The flier, a single mimeographed page, began: "If you don't want the state to steal our springwater and all of Mango to boot, then make yourself noisy at the public hearing today. . . ."

Lloyd nodded. "Handing them out here and on the street, too."

"You notice anybody coming back to buy more water once they used it?"

"This is only the second day we've been open—"

"After they tasted it, I mean."

Lloyd was momentarily uneasy. "That's the thing. It tastes so sulphury. Like medicine, maybe that's what people will think. If it's good for them, they won't mind—"

Tucker was saying, "Uh-huh, uh-huh, but I got this idea about using cherry flavor. I got a gallon of it up to the house. Just don't say nothing to the Indian about it—"

"Joseph."

"Yeah, he's real sensitive."

Lloyd was nodding his head, agreeing with him. "You know, that's exactly what the women say about him. My wife, that's what she said. I guess Mr. Egret spent an hour last night showing her the barn, the horses, telling her stories. They sure like him. My wife seemed so cheerful after her tour."

Tuck's eyes narrowed, reviewing what Lloyd had just said, matching that up with what he knew about Joseph's cow-hunter morality. But then he said, "Naw-w-w-w. . . ."

"Naw?"

Tuck started to say, "Those ladies are too respectable," but then he remembered who he was talking with. "I mean, naw-w-w, 'cause they're such good women and they feel sorry for him, that's all. The poor old fool. But about that cherry flavor—"

"Just between you and me," Lloyd said.

Tuck said, "Mums the word," as he started to amble away, but then he stopped. "Oh, and there's one more thing. Them state park people want their table in the shade. The mango tree down by the water? You and the ladies get a minute—"

"In the shade? The mosquitoes will eat them alive. That's where the bugs stay during the heat of the day. Even I know that."

Taking his hat off to scratch his head, Tuck said, "Mosquitoes? Well, I guess that's true," like he hadn't even thought about it.

He
found John Dunn near the barn with some other men, sorting piles of trash in the junkyard. When Dunn saw Tuck stop and pull out his pocket watch at the crest of the mound, he called to him, "I know, I know, we've got to get cleaned up for the hearing. But while you're here, let me ask you about something."

Tuck stepped through the fence into the pasture, listening to Dunn talk but not looking at him. He had his eyes on the bay, scanning the water, thinking, That damn Henry Short, I shoulda gone and brought him in myself!

Dunn said something else, and Tuck said, "Huh?"

"The way we're sorting this stuff," Dunn repeated. "You told me the things that would float or leak gunk, we'd pay to have that carried out by truck, right?"

Tuck said, "We got the money for it. I was just down talking to Lloyd. A couple thousand bucks already, so we can get a crane in here and yank out the big pieces, yeah. Plus money left over." He was looking at the fly bridge of the ruined boat; the vines had all been cut away.

Dunn said, "And you want to make a reef out of the things that sink, so we're making a whole separate pile. But what about stuff like this?" Tuck had followed Dunn to the heap he'd created, watching him stoop to touch a twenty-foot length of rusty cable. The cable was an inch thick, freshly crusted with tiny barnacles, as if it had recently been pulled from the water. Clamped to each end of the cable were heavy grappling hooks. Tuck muttered, "Gawldamn!" as Dunn continued: "Something like this could tear the propeller right off a boat, couldn't it? Or ruin the underwater part of an engine? If a boat hit this, we'd be in a lot of trouble. Not to mention the people in the boat—"

Tuck already had one of the grappling hooks and was starting to coil the cable. "Where the hell you get this?" He looked over his shoulder, hoping not to find that Angela Walker was still following him around, spying.

"Inside that old boiler. It was filled with stuff, and I just... did I do something wrong?"

"Hell, yes! I mean . . . hell, no." Tuck had the cable up, lugging it back toward the boiler. "What I mean is, you boys are working too hard at this. You don't have to be pulling stuff apart, looking at everything. I was talking generally; about the reef, I mean. Find us a good piece of deep bay water to dump this junk, give you folks a nice easy place to catch groupers and snappers. Plus save us the expense of trucking it out." Tuck dropped the cable into the boiler, thought for a moment, then piled more trash on top before slamming the iron door closed. "Just leave things as they is. I mean, the job ain't got to be perfect." Tuck's eyes surveyed the area again: barn, house, shade trees, people milling on the road, Lloyd and the women carrying the long table toward the mango tree, the state park people still sitting in their air-conditioned van. No sign of Miz Walker... but there was Marion, just pulling up in his truck, his blond hair all wind-scattered, wearing those thick glasses. Getting out with a manila folder under his arm.

Tuck let his breath out, relaxed a little bit. To Dunn, he said, "You boys best get cleaned up now. When you talk to them park people, I want you looking like somebody."

SEVENTEEN