The Cormorant (27 page)

“That’s great. I have to–”

“Gotta lot of great names for some of the Keys, too, you know. Shelter Key. Knockemdown Key. Soldier Key. The Ragged Keys–”

“I really enjoy our time together, Florida Man,” she says, suddenly realizing
this
is the guy eating faces and fucking alligators and hang-gliding onto cruise ships to take shuffleboard dumps. “Lemme ask you something else. You know where a girl can buy a gun?”

“A gun? Whoa.”

“That’s right.” She mimes a gun with her thumb and forefinger and makes
pchoo pchoo
sounds.

“Most places are probably closed. I know Billy’s Pawn up in Key Largo would be open, but shoot, Billy’s on a fishing trip and the shop’s closed while he’s out there.”

“That doesn’t help me.”

“South of here is Kitty’s Range and they sell ammo there, and sometimes you can find fliers and whatever on the corkboard, but Kitty’s is definitely closed by now.”

“That still doesn’t help me. Listen, Florida Man, it’s been super-crazy-fun-times hanging out but I gotta–”

“You could have my gun, I guess.”

“Your gun?”

“Uh-huh, yeah. It’s a Springfield knock-off of the Colt 1911 .45. Or maybe it’s a Colt knockoff of the Springfield. Shit, I dunno. I’ll go get it.” And then he gets up out of his chair – an act so slow it’s like watching a glacier form over the epochs of time – grunting and groaning and moaning as he does, before tottering off to his double-wide.

Miriam stands out there. Bugs biting. Sunburned skin growing tighter and tighter – so tight she thinks it might split like a sausage casing.

Two minutes. Five minutes. Fifteen.

He went in there and… well, she has no idea what. Fell asleep on the toilet. Drowned himself in the bathtub. Got eaten by the alligator he was trying to cornhole.

That was fun while it lasted.

She turns around with her keys–

And sure enough, here comes Florida Man.

He’s got the pistol in his hand like he’s ready to start shooting people. He strolls up, walking less like
a person
and more
a self-propelled collection of dirty rubber bands,
and he points the gun right at her.

“Here you go,” he says.

She stares. “That’s maybe not the best way to hand someone a gun.”

“Huh?” He looks down. “Oh.” He gingerly uses both hands to turn the gun around so the grip is facing her.

As she takes it, his finger brushers her finger and–

He’s 105 years old and looks like some kind of sun-baked beach mummy. He sits on a dock with a can of Schlitz in his arthritic claw and his body just… gives up. Everything goes slack. All his organs power down like someone turned off a breaker somewhere. The can drops out of his hand and rolls into the ocean, beer foaming over the edge. He laughs and farts a little fart and then it’s a slow, comfortable brain death.

–and she pulls back, honestly surprised. No bath salt cannibalism. No hang-glider defecations. Zero alligator fucking. She’s almost disappointed, but she finds solace in the fact that Ashley doesn’t find
him
, too.

“You die well,” she says.

“Thanks.” He nods like he understands, though he surely does not. “My name’s Dave.”

“My name’s Miriam.”

“Cool. You gonna shoot some cans or something?”

“Or something.”

“Cool.”

FORTY-THREE

MURDER WAS THE CASE THAT THEY GAVE ME

Gun in her lap. Foot on the pedal.

She tried to give Dave the Florida Man a couple hundred bucks from her stash, but he didn’t want it.

So she took the money, hid it under the motel bed, and hit the road.

Now she’s out on the highway.

She tastes blood. Her trigger finger aches.

In the seat next to her, the thug with the blown scalp covers up a laugh with his hand. “You gonna kill the right motherfucker this time?”

“I am,” she says.

And she is.

FORTY-FOUR

SUMMERLAND

Midnight.

Moon in ribbons on black water.

Miriam stands at the edge of someone’s yard at the southernmost point of Summerland Key. An abandoned white house sits, lights out, fifty yards down. Around her are half-collapsed deck chairs and rotting picnic tables. Unlit torches. Swaying palms like black fractal shadows.

She doesn’t know who owns this place. The fence has long blown to the ground, the white paint peeling off the pickets, the wood rotting.

Easy entry, then.

Pale gravel grinds under her boots.
Like little knucklebones.
Like the ones Ingersoll kept in that pouch of his.

A minivan sits parked nearby. Also dark.

She steps up past all that, walks right to the water’s edge.

There, in the distance, a small island.

Two big trees stand above all the others like hands reaching for the sky. As if hoping to grab the moon and forever failing to do so. What was it Sugar said?
Beseeching the heavens for favor
. That’s it. That’s the island.

And she curses herself. She didn’t even think of how she’d get there. All the other islands seemed connected – bridges and roads are the thread that stitches this crazy archipelago together.

But this island is just… out there. Across the water.

At least a quarter of a mile out.

Even thinking of dipping her
toes
in that water gives her the shivering fits. As the thought crosses her mind, she thinks of the waters of the Susquehanna – turbid mud stirred by the angry current, voices carried along with it. Bubbles and ghosts and terrible thoughts.

Eleanor Caldecott’s corpse – a finger pressed to dead lips.

Shh
.

Miriam presses the heels of her hands against her eyes.

The river was bad. The ocean is worse. A big hungry mouth. With coral for teeth and sharks for tongues. Wanting to swallow her up.

She won’t swim.

Won’t do it.

Can’t
do it.

She shudders.

Wait. There–

A shape bobbing in the water past the house.

It’s a kayak. Just past a boat ramp. The paddle floating next to it, tethered there with a dark cord.

She goes to the boat. Takes her knife, cuts the rope holding it to the post next to the ramp. Then she slides down the concrete and–

Don’t get in the water don’t do it just go home fuck this you still have time maybe you can wait and spring a trap and catch him leaving
–

But then she sees her mother. Stab wounds like little bloody mouths opening on her chest. She sees Jerry and his dead bird. She sees Peter and his squirting jugular. And over all of it: Ashley’s leering face. That boomerang smile. Those shiny nickel eyes.

Miriam gets in the boat.

FORTY-FIVE

DARK CROSSING

She sees faces in the water.

Not just tricks of the light, either. Corpse faces. Brined and swollen like tumors. The boat thumps against them.

They’re not real. It’s just the Trespasser
.

Dead mouths drift open. Silvery bubbles burst to the surface, carry with them whispers that crawl into her ears like snakes–

Chooser of the slain…

You don’t know what awaits you…

You’re not prepared…

Turn back, go home, give up…

The faces of those she’s killed stare up at her.

Edwin Caldecott’s prim, pursed-lips. The cop, Earl, his tongueless mouth sucking in seawater. Beck Daniels – really, Beck Caldecott – on his face is painted a twin-tailed swallow tattoo, the lines distorted and wings bulging from the bloated, waterlogged flesh. Other faces swim in and out: the Mockingbird Killer, Ingersoll, Harriet, the ATM thug. The faces too of those whose deaths she did not cause but which feel like hers just the same: Del Amico, Ben Hodge, Jack Byrd, Hetta Gale, Steve Lister, the little boy named Austin with his red balloon, a balloon she sees float to the surface like a fishing bobber–

They all tell her the same thing:

You’re not ready for this. You pushed and pushed and pushed.

Eventually something was going to push back
.

And then she’s almost there. Almost to the island of the pleading trees with the reaching, desperate branches.

FORTY-SIX

TWO TREE KEY

The kayak bumps against the rocky shore. She curses even the slightest sound and tries carefully to clamber out of the boat – but she’s not used to boats, doesn’t know how it all works. It’s not like getting out of a car. Her foot presses back and suddenly the boat drifts away. Leaving her here. On the island with the two skeleton-hand trees taller than the rest.

She tells herself,
I don’t need the boat to do what needs to be done
.

Everything is dark. The cover of the trees above blots out the moon and stars. She draws the pistol. Checks it for ammo. Pops the magazine back in, then thumbs off the safety.

She creeps into the tree line. The island isn’t big – but it’s big enough. Walking its circumference might take her a half-hour. Better to cut through the middle. Sugar said that Ashley was on the far side.

Miriam descends into the brush. Gentle steps through sand and tide pools. Water soaking boots, socks. Clouds of flies parting like mist.

It’s then she smells it: food. Something sweet and savory.

Baked beans. Like her mother used to make.

She follows the scent like it’s something out of a cartoon, the vapors tickling the underside of her nose and drawing her closer, closer.

By some small favor, she’s as quiet as a priest’s whisper.

Ahead: an orange, fickle glow.

Firelight.

Now the smell of food is joined by smoke. The firelight plays off metal – the bottom of a small boat. A boat brought to shore and overturned. The boat Ashley must use to get to and from this island.

Gently, carefully, slow as a praying mantis, she parts a nest of mangrove branches with the side of the gun–

And there sits Ashley Gaynes.

His back is to her. A small campfire crackles and pops ahead of him.

The gun feels suddenly heavy in her hand.

Gingerly, she raises the .45.

The back of his head lines up between the two iron teeth of the pistol’s sights. Her finger coils around the trigger.

“I see you got my messages,” he says, setting down a can of baked beans swaddled in foil. He drops a spoon into it with a clank-and-rattle.

Her hand shakes.

“Go ahead,” he says, still facing away from her. “Pull the trigger. Lemme make it easier on you.” He scoots on his butt in a circle until he’s finally facing her. It’s him. Just like in the visions. The fire lights him from behind. He’s just a shape – the silhouette of a paper target she wants to perforate with bullets.
So why won’t you shoot?

“You just couldn’t leave well enough alone,” she says.

He smiles. Runs his hands down along his jeans, then pulls up the hem on an ankle to show off a glimpse of the metal prosthetic beneath. “I was going to. I really was. But I’ve given myself over to it. This isn’t my idea, Miriam. It really isn’t. I’m content to live and let live here. My hands, though, they’re tied.” He holds up both hands. He wiggles the fingers. Taunting her.

“I could just shoot you.”

“And I’m sure you will. You’ve got the jump on me. I’m just a crippled asshole, can’t outrun a bullet. So why not take a second? Let’s have a conversation. I’ve missed you.”

She bares her teeth. “Die in a car fire.”

“We were good together, you and I.”

“You were a manipulator.”

“Like you’re any better.”

“I am. I’m honest.”

“Like when you told Louis that I was your brother?”

“That was
your idea
.” She punctuates the last two words with a thrust of the pistol. “I came clean. I’ve changed.”

“You have. You’re right. You figured it out.” He starts patting the side of his jeans and she growls, waves the gun. He holds up his hands in plaintive surrender. “Just looking for my flask. Got a little rum in it if you want. I see you like rum now.”