Ten Thousand Islands (24 page)

Listened to him say, “Nearly fifteen years ago, a member of the Communist organization, Students for a Democratic Society, disappeared from a bar in Aspen, Colorado. The night he disappeared, there were members
of U.S. Naval Intelligence in that same bar. With them was a member of SEAL Team One, along with a representative from Studies and Operations Group, your top secret organization. The name of the bar was The Slope. That man’s body was never found. Another SDS member was also targeted to be killed. This was in retribution for the bombing of a Naval facility in San Diego.”

I said softly, “I’m familiar with this story, Dieter.”

“I know that you are! I skied in Aspen last winter. The name of that bar has changed, but the picture is still on the wall of you and your SEAL colleagues. You were there that night because one of the men killed in that bombing was your close friend. I have two questions: Were you with Naval Intelligence? That is unclear. Or were you the SOG member?”

I spoke carefully. “I was never in the military, Dieter.”

“Yah, I knew it! The SOG member in the bar that evening, he was very gifted. Very famous in the craft, a, how do you say,
der Attentaeter
. He was a man who sometimes went by the name of North. Did much work in Cuba. So my second question is this: Why haven’t you? Why haven’t you extinguished him?”

“Who?”

“You
know
him.
Him
.”

I said, “I am completely lost. Is any of this supposed to make sense?”

“Of course you don’t understand me. But please, answer.”

“Did you sail all the way to Dinkin’s Bay just to ask me strange questions?”

He thought this was hilarious. I listened to him roar. “Yah! It was a consideration! I knew it must be an interesting place, the two of you at one small marina. But your
answer! Why was this second Communist subversive not extinguished?”

Looking through the apartment’s sliding doors, out onto the boat basin, I could see Tomlinson aboard
No Más
, sitting cross-legged on the cockpit locker. He was eating fish; had a glass of red wine balanced on the stern coaming. He appeared to be talking to the glass. Talking to his wine? Yes, no doubt about it. He looked like a stork with dreadlocks. He seemed to be really enjoying the fish.

He’d baked the entire snapper, yet hadn’t invited me to dinner? I’d loaned him my fine Loomis rod to catch the damn thing. Come to think of it, he hadn’t even
thanked
me.

I said, “Dieter, I have no idea what you’re talking about. But, if I did, I’d say the party in question, the Communist? If he doesn’t start being a little more thoughtful, his days may be numbered.”

It was nearly sunset. Because he knew I was still expecting more calls, Jack, the owner, told me I was welcome to carry around the restaurant’s portable phone. “If you’re down here to help Della, we want to take care of you any way we can,” he told me. “This place may be kind of strange and funky, but we’re family.”

Trouble is, they couldn’t find the portable phone. Then Salina remembered that Tomlinson had carried it out to his boat and never brought it back.

I asked her, “Where is Tomlinson?”

She became evasive and amused. “Tommy-san? Oh … I think, but I’m not sure … it may be that Betty Lynn took him over to her trailer to, you know, show him around.” Laughter. “Like Jack said, we’re trying to take care of you boys.”

Betty Lynn, the stocky deep-south blonde who couldn’t fit safely into a tank top, so had to wear a jogging bra beneath her
Mandalite
waitress outfit.

Tomlinson. He had always been extremely selective about liaisons until the mother of his young daughter had married a Boston politico. It had put him in an emotional tailspin. Since then, he’d demonstrated the jaunty sexual abandon of a lovebug.

I walked out the dock to
No Más
, stepped aboard, swung down the companionway steps and there, on the wooden door to the ice box, was the beige telephone handset.

As I reached for the phone, it rang. I picked it up and heard Salina’s voice say, “Doc, honey? Man’s on the line, he says he wants to speak to you.”

Then I heard Detective Gary Parrish’s voice. “Yeah, Doc honey, it’s me. You got a minute?”

Tomlinson had left the uneaten portion of the fish out on a wooden platter covered with aluminum foil. He’d baked it with onions, fresh chilies, lots of mushrooms, and he’d made fish gravy.

Despite his many oddities, the man is a fine cook.

I removed the foil, stooped, got a fork and began to eat, as Parrish said, “Only thing I’ve had time to do is try and find the girl’s runaway daddy, Dart Copeland. Wanted to ask him a few questions. You see him whispering to Mr. Bauerstock? But when he walked away from that funeral, it’s like the man disappeared. You expect me to know anything else, you’re too impatient for this kind’a work.”

I said, “Oh? My luck’s been a little better.”

I told him what I could about my conversation with Bauerstock. Without going into specifics, without breaching the confidentiality I’d promised, I presented a
very clear image of who wanted the totem badly enough to exhume Dorothy: Ivan or Ted Bauerstock. Perhaps both.

Parrish whistled, “Man, the chance to take down Ivan Bauerstock. That snobby rich man, he got the overseer attitude. I can see it when he looks at me. Wouldn’t I love to put the bracelets on him.” He paused for a moment. “But if the man knew where the wooden carving was buried, why’d he bother having someone rob Mrs. Copeland’s trailer?”

“I don’t think they
did
know at first. Della’s address was on file with the city cemetery, so she was easy to find. She hadn’t sold the carving, hadn’t donated it. They could have searched their computers on that, too. So the reasonable assumption was that she’d kept it. I think one other person knew where the totem really was, the big guy who was at the funeral; The guy with the red face, Frank Rossi. When Ivan or Ted dropped the word, Rossi probably told them about the grave.”

Parrish chuckled. “That reminds me, man. We got a report this other big white guy from the funeral beat the Johnny-cakes outta two of the local crackheads. One of them Tony Rossi, Frank’s boy. ’Bout ripped one’a their ears off, put the other one in the hospital. Families decided not to press charges. Who knows why? You wouldn’t know anything ’bout that, man?”

I said, “I know enough about Frank Rossi to not much care.” Then I told Parrish what he’d done to Della, adding, “So after he robs her, he date-rapes her. A woman who’s absolutely crippled by grief. He and his son aren’t going to get a lot of sympathy from me.”

Parrish said, “You eatin’ something?”

I told him.

“Man oh man, fish gravy and mushrooms. That’s Bahamas soul food, man!” Then he said, “We got that goin’ on here now.”

“Bahama’s cooking?”

“
No
. A version of it, date rape. Only worse. We got the whole staff workin’ on this one. That’s why don’t expect me to be doin’ much about Mr. Bauerstock and his politician son. Thing is … wait, tell me something first. Anybody else around to hear you and Teddy talkin’ about how much his daddy wants that carving?”

“No.”

“Then it’s his word against yours. All the people on Mr. Bauerstock’s payroll in this state, how you think that’d go? So I best spend my time tracking down this very bad man we got roamin’ around the Everglades.”

“The date rapist, you mean? Any man who rapes a woman should be put away for life. Or killed. Or chemically altered. You’ll get no argument from me. You can’t work both cases at the same time?”

“It’s worse than date rape, man. I told you about the three women disappeared? We finally found one of ’em. She must’a put up a hell of a fight. Jumped out of her abductor’s car while it was moving, but she chose the wrong time ’cause he was on the Marco Bridge when she bailed. That’s a very long fall.”

I said, “Dear God,” picturing it. “How old was she?”

“She was twenty-four, on vacation down here from Columbus. Medical examiner says she had a drug in her, this new drug come up here from South America from what the natives there call the Borracho tree. It means ‘drunk tree.’”

I said, “Borracho,
Jesus
. I’m familiar with it.” The drug made from the leaf of the Borracho tree is
scopolamine
.
I knew about it because, south of Cartagena and off the Rosier Islands, locals boiled skin off the roots and dumped the liquor into calm backwaters to stun immature tarpon which they then sold in the markets. Colombia is one of the few places in the world that considers tarpon to be a table delicacy.

Shamans there also used it to induce waking trances in their patients. An individual under the influence of Borracho is unaware that the dream they seem to be having is actually real. They can be ordered to engage in sexual or illegal acts without their consent or knowledge. They are also extremely suggestible.

I also knew about
scopolamine
because it was used for interrogation and subjugation in the world of international espionage.

“You think Mrs. Copeland feels bad ’bout her daughter? Listen to this. Man, I had to call this girl’s parents on the phone, tell them we’d found their missing child. Then stand there beside her father when the medical examiner pulled the sheet back for him to ID his dead girl. Know the worst thing?”

I had a terrible feeling of dreamy premonition as Parrish added, “The man who got the drug down her. He’d already hurt the girl bad before she jumped. He’d taken her eyes out; probably used his fingers, the medical examiner said. I had to tell the daddy the truth about that. It happened while his child was still alive.”

I said, “How do you know she jumped out of a car?”

“What you mean? ’Course she jumped out of a car. How else we find her floating under that bridge?”

“A boat,” I said. “She could have jumped from a boat.”

T
omlinson stood at the top of the companionway steps, looking in. For no reason that made sense, the individual ropes of his beaded hair created streamers of colored light as they swung back and forth. He said, “Uh-oh, uh-oh, holy
shitzky
. What you been eating there, Doc?”

“Some of your snapper. Thanks for inviting me, by the way. Yes, I’m being sarcastic. It’s excellent.” I touched a fist to my chest. “But I think it’s giving me heartburn.” Then I said, “Whew! Is it hot down here? All of a sudden, it seems really warm.” I tried to stand, then sat down quickly on the settee cushion.
No Más
seemed to be dancing around in the wind.

He came down the steps fast, held his palms outward. “Okay, first thing is, stay calm. I’m here by your side. I’m not going anywhere; not a thing in the world to be afraid of. Some consider me an expert in this field.”

“Are you nuts? I’ve got to fly. You know where Ted Bauerstock’s ranch is? We need to get up there right
away. Take the truck, bang on the gate till they let us in. I think the girls could be in trouble.”

He put his hands on my shoulders. “You’re in no condition to go anywhere, compadre. What you’re feeling right now is very typical. Mild panic, sweating, mild heartburn, all symptomatic. Especially the panic. It’s to be expected on your first journey.”

I was sweating and burping. Colors through the companionway door had gotten much brighter: molecularized purples and fruity pinks. As the boat rocked back and forth, the mast created a metallic slash in the tissue of burning, sunset sky. It was an opening large enough to swim through.

“Doc, there’s something I need to tell you. Before I do, I want you to promise me something. Please don’t hit me. I’ve seen you hit people. I’m much too fond of my nose to risk it. Plus it makes my eyes water and it looks like I’m crying. It would be embarrassing. I cry too much as it is.”

“Hit you? I don’t have time to hit anybody. I’ve got to get to Marco, find that ranch.” I tried to stand again. My legs had turned to water. I looked down at my boat loafers to see orange streaks scoring the leather. Then my brain, in rapid succession, transferred the outline of the loafers onto a leather hide hanging on the wall, then onto a cow that was sprinting away from a bald-headed cobbler who was chasing the animal, thread and needle in hand.

I sat again. Forced myself to be calm, and said, “Tomlinson, something’s happened to me. I’m not sure what. But my brain has begun to … has begun to.” I realized that I was focused on the telephone sitting atop the icebox. The phone was melting. As it did, drops of beige plastic turned to black and jumped around like grease on
a griddle. “My brain, Tomlinson … it’s my brain. It isn’t translating information the way it should.”

Now my heart was pounding, and sweat was streaming down my face. I felt my friend’s hand pat my shoulder, trying to comfort me. “It’s okay, Doc, after I explain, you’ll understand. What I want to tell you right off is this: psilocybin mushrooms are illegal in forty-nine of the fifty states. Know what the good news is? Florida is the fiftieth state. So it’s
legal
, rest your mind about that. We’re not breaking any laws. What you’re feeling right now is legal. Isn’t that great!”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “Are you saying that the mushrooms on the snapper are psychedelic mushrooms?”

“Shrooms we call them. Friendly little guys who know just how to mix with a natural chemical in the brain. Think of them as tour guides. It’s a chemical called
scrotonin
. Kind of a cool, masculine name, huh? It’s
fun
.”

I was looking at him, trying to remain calm. “Oh
shit
.” Then I said, “Okay, okay … I would never have consented to this. But I’ve got to deal with it, so … so when I see something crawling around your neck … something that appears to be a scarlet boa constrictor—like now, for instance—I should assume it’s bad information altered by chemicals?”

Tomlinson pulled the snake away from his neck, and it became a Vietnamese flag, red backing, single yellow star. “Yep, see! It’s really just a scarf.”

“Right, that explains it. File this away, Tomlinson. If you ever do this to me again, leave psychedelic food lying around, I will personally grab you by the neck …”