The Sound of Many Waters (18 page)

Moments earlier, Mama Ethel had given him the two “quottas” he would need for the 50-cent phone call. It did not feel right to accept money from a homeless person, but she insisted, and “beside,” she said, “it ain’t nothing compared to what you given me, and I ain’t talkin bout gold.” She promised she’d have lunch ready for him when he returned. He intended to leave that night under the cover of darkness, al
t
hough part of him wished he could stay with her forever.

“Just rememba two things, Mista Zany,” she said as he left. “First of all, the worm betta not find nothin pretty in the robin’s song. And don’t you dare forget that the cat’s gotta eat if he smells any meat. Go on now. Do whatcha gotta do.”

He tried to decipher her idioms as he walked but he finally decided that he should not get lost in what were probably just the ramblings of a lonely woman who had spent too much time in squalid seclusion.

The riverfront town he found above the bridge—Titusville—had certainly seen better days. Like other communities populated by Space Center employees, this one had sprouted up out of nowhere in the fifties, but now, after the end of the
Shuttle
program, Titusville was a tired old man wea
r
ing the same clothes he did as a teenager.

Zane tried to act and appear as normal as possible while he searched for a phone, and when a police cruiser zoomed by on the road, he stood up straight and pretended to look into a furniture shop window. The Spanish coins in his poc
k
ets—two shrink-wrapped stacks—were so heavy that he had to hold up his shorts by sticking one of his fingers into a belt loop. Having been worried that the cops might be looking for a man with a duffel bag, he had emptied the bag and left it under the bridge with Mama Ethel.

He came to a man nailing a plywood plank to the window of a barber shop. At first, Zane guessed that the business was another victim of the ailing economy, but when the man came down from his stepstool, Zane saw the words spray-painted on the wood:
Juan, Juan, go away! Don’t come again no other day!

“Who’s Juan?” asked Zane.

The man looked surprised. “You been living under a bridge or something? It’s a cat two already, sprang up yesterday from that depression out there.”

“Really? Is it coming this way?”

“Why else would I be boarding up? Supposed to hit just north of here, couple days from now.”

…………………………

Now at the gas station payphone, Zane was met with a long silence after dialing his father’s number, followed by the recording of a nasally operator: “We’re sorry. Your call cannot be completed as dialed.”

“What am I doing wrong?” said Zane, as if the recording might answer him. A pit bull popped its head out of a sidecar attached to a
Harley Davidson
motorcycle parked nearby. The dog watched him with skeptical eyes.

“I wasn’t talking to you,” said Zane. A long drip of drool oozed out of the dog’s mouth and splattered on the motorcycle’s license plate. When Zane noticed that the license plate read Brevard County, he understood the problem with the phone—he was in a different area code. Calling anyone in South Florida was long-distance. When he hung up, the phone did not even return the quarters. What an archaic piece of junk; he might as well have been trying to use a telegraph.

Frustrated, he followed an old, bespectacled woman through the door of the gas station. The tantalizing smell of coffee and donuts enveloped him and he wished he would have spent the 50 cents on a snack instead of feeding it to a stupid payphone. The woman glanced back at him. He knew he probably smelled as bad as he looked. He walked up to the clerk behind the counter, a spiky-haired brute of a man adorned with piercings and elaborate tattoos. Zane flashed the best smile he could muster.

“May I use your phone?” he asked, his tone higher and more feminine than he had intended.

“Payphone’s outside,” said the clerk, his voice as deep as a trench. Zane noticed the
Harley Davidson
eagle tattoo on the man’s arm and remembered the motorcycle parked outside the gas station.

“I see you’re a Harley guy,” said Zane.

“Sure, I’m into Hogs. You ride?”

“Do I
ride
?” Zane had never even sat on a moped, let alone a motorcycle. “Every day, bro. Bike’s in the shop, though.” Zane cringed when he realized he had accidentally rhymed.

“What kinda bike?” said the clerk.

“What kind?”

“Hold up, let me guess. Fat Boy?”

“Hey, who you callin’ fat boy?” Zane laughed and the clerk did, too. “Yes, my man, that’s my ride. I love Fat Boys.”

The woman, now perusing the magazines, looked up at him.

“I’m Shady,” said the clerk.

Was the man describing himself or making an introduction? But then Zane saw his nametag: Lucas Shademan. Now, it was Zane’s turn. He tried to think of a good biker nickname for himself, one that would not divulge his real name, but something that was at least vaguely personal. Fisher. Fisherman. Fishizzle.

“I’m Fishy,” he blurted. He immediately regretted it. Shady, however, smiled.

“Well alright, Fishy,” said Shady. “Hey, you and I should hoon it up some time. Go find us some hardbellies out at
Lone Cabbage
. Pound a few
Natties
, ya know?”

Oh, Zane knew—not one of Shady’s slang words. He did his best to look like he understood, but in reality Shady spoke a language altogether foreign.

“Listen, my friend,” said Zane. “I really need to use your phone. Payphone’s not working for me.”

Shady shook his head. “No can do, brother. Wish I could, but I’d get fired.” He pointed up at a closed-circuit security camera. Funhouse renditions of the two of them stretched across its bulging eye. “Bossman might be watchin.”

Zane looked around, then reached into his pocket, pinched a gold doubloon off the top of the stack, and slapped it on the counter. The woman peeked over the magazine rack so he cupped his hand over the coin. “Would this make it worth it?” he said in a hushed voice.

Shady leaned forward and gawked at the coin. “Is that—?”

“Solid. I don’t know how much it’s worth, but it’s probably more than you make here in a year. So, can I use the phone?”

Shady slid the coin into his pocket. He leaned over the counter to look out the window, and then he grabbed the phone handset from behind the register and handed it to Zane. “Be quick,” he said.

Zane began to dial his father again but stopped. What if the police were tracing his father’s calls? Was it worth the risk? He suddenly remembered his last conversation with Skip. Starting over, he dialed his own cellular number and entered his passcode—4321—to reach his voicemail.

His father’s voice burst out with frantic urgency. “Zane! Why won’t you pick up? I know you’re on the ocean right now. Listen, it’s about your client. He’s not really out there to go fishing.”

“No kidding,” Zane muttered.

Shady tapped on his skull-shaped watch.

“I’m so sorry, buddy,” said Skip’s message. “I gotta come clean. Remember that coin you found when we went diving? I never told you, but I saved those GPS numbers that day, and I went back there without you after that. Took me an underwater metal detector. Turns out there were more of ‘em down there. Brought up a dozen or so over the years and sold ‘em all, for damn good money, too. But eventually I wasn’t finding no more. Figured I’d got ‘em all. Word got out on the dock—you know how it is—and not too long ago I was having a drink at the
Lager-Head
when this guy comes up, says his name is Miguel and he’s been looking for the wreck of the
Señora Dolores
for years.”

Shady tapped on his watch again. Zane gave him a pleading look. “Please, just one sec.”

Shady crossed his arms.

“So this dude tells me,” continued Skip, “that he heard I found some of the coins he’s been looking for, and that he’s got a salvage boat, dredge equipment, the whole deal. Said we’d split whatever he found if I just showed him the spot. So, I took him there. He anchored up, dug for a few days, and I’ll be damned if he didn’t find the mother lode. Zane, I’m talkin’ hundreds of millions of dollars worth.”

“Time’s up,” said Shady.

Zane slapped another coin on the counter. Shady stuffed it into his pocket. “Thirty seconds. I mean it.”

“Two problems,” said Skip. “Number one, Uncle Sam wants a piece of the pie. It’s illegal to salvage treasure without a permit, and one day these two IRS agents started asking around the dock about what he was up to. Second problem is that Miguel was such a greedy pig he wanted to cut me out of the deal. I told him I’d spill the beans to the IRS guys if he did. Well, he knew I’d be waitin at the dock when his boat finally came in with the loot. So, what did that bastard do? He hired himself a floatplane to transport the treasure at sea so his boat would come in empty. He chartered you—knowing you’re my son—just so I wouldn’t talk. But Zane, I found something out about him tha—”

The line went dead. Zane looked up. Shady had his finger on the base of the phone. “Sorry, Fishy, but the law’s comin for his mornin coffee. He’s friends with the boss, so...”

Zane spun around and looked out the window. The same roundish police officer who tried to shoot him on the bridge humped out of his police cruiser and waddled toward the door. His face had the ruddiness of an Irish alcoholic. Reflective aviator sunglasses veiled his eyes. Zane buried his face in the candy aisle as the officer entered.
Starburst. Milky Way. Payday.

“Mornin, Shady,” said The Law. “Stayin outa trouble?”

“You’d know if I wasn’t,” said Shady.

“You guys gonna board up for the storm?”

“Ain’t everyone? Bossman says I gotta close early today and go buy some plywood. Hey, we got some fresh glazed with sprinkles up there for ya. Any speed traps I should know about before I leave?”

The Law poured coffee into two paper cups. “You know I don’t eat donuts, Shady. I refuse to be a cliché. You probably don’t know what that means. Anyway, speed traps? Not today. Nope, got me some company from the federal government riding along.”

Zane glanced out the window. A uniformed man with a bald head sat in the passenger seat of the police car. He looked vaguely familiar. Where had he seen that face before? It hit him just as The Law said, “The tax man. IRS agent. Scary, right? And boy is he hot for revenge. He was out on that boat. His partner’s the one who got killed.”

“I heard about that,” said Shady.

The Law tossed two one-dollar bills on the counter. Holding a coffee in each hand, he backed up to the door and pushed it open with his rear end. He paused, however, to finish talking. “Turns out this punk kid didn’t drown under the bridge like we thought. Nope, last night, Air Force lost two soldiers out there by one of the old pads. Little sicko cut their throats, stole their Jeep and a handgun. We just found the vehicle parked down by the river.
I tell ya, if I catch that guy…” The Law shook his head and pushed himself through the door. “Gotta run.”

Zane’s body felt weak. Not only were the cops looking for him again, but Miguel lurked nearby as well. He had to get out of town, but he couldn’t flee without warning Mama Ethel about the hurricane. She had no way of knowing otherwise.

“You okay, Fishy?” said Shady.

Sweat effused on Zane’s forehead. “Yeah.”

Somewhere, glass broke. A clear, greenish liquid spread across the floor, splashing onto Zane’s bare feet. Pickles?
He looked up to find the old woman standing over a pile of dropped groceries. Her lower jaw trembled as she stared at a
Florida Today
newspaper on a rack. There, glaring back at her from the front page—his eyes ice blue against the inflammation that encompassed them—was the mug shot of Zane from his final night with Lucia. The woman looked at Zane, then at the police cruiser now pulling out of the parking lot.

“Please don’t,” said Zane.

“Criminal,” hissed the woman, and she bolted out the door, hobbling after the car. Zane looked at Shady. “Please help me.”

Shady glanced at the newspaper with disbelief. “It’s
you
? Did you really do what they’re sayin?”

“Do I look like I could kill someone with a knife?”

Shady paused. “I guess not. But I can’t help you.”

“You can take me on your bike. Take me to Gainesville.”

“Gainesville? You’re nuts, man. Get outta my store.”

Zane took out the stack of Spanish coins. “I’ll give you all of these. You’ll be set for life.”

Shady stared at the coins with a look of temptation and unease. “Dang. I don’t know, man…”

Zane slammed his fist on the counter with such force that it startled Shady and knocked a chewing gum display to the ground. “Listen to me,” Zane said with commanding passion. “Do you want to be a gas station clerk for the rest of your life, or do you want to be the badass you were born to be? You call yourself a biker, right?”

Shady nodded.

“Then come on. Let’s ride.”