“All I saw was bonita outside. Didn’t mess with them.”
He looked at the sky, spat. “Won’t be much now till near sundown. Big snook came in right under this here dock last night, popping loud as a man slapping his hands. Joe Bradley, he got one upwards of eighteen pound.”
“That’s a good snook.”
“If’n you don’t know how it used to be around these parts. You want gas? Stecker don’t unlock till ten Sundays.”
“There’s a man here I was told to look up. Will my gear be okay if I leave it right there?”
“Sure. Who you looking for?”
“A man named Waxwell.”
He grunted, pulled a knot tight, spat again. “There’s Waxwells spread all the way from here to Forty Mile Bend. There’s Waxwells in Everglades City Copeland, Ochopee, and, far as I know, a couple way up to La Belle. When they breed it’s always boy babies, and they breed frequent.”
“Boone Waxwell?”
His grin was broad, showing more gum than teeth. “Now that one is a Goodland Waxwell, and he could be to his place, which isn’t too likely of a Sunday morning, and if he is at his place they’s a good chance he got a ladyfriend visiting, and if he’s there and he don’t, it’s still a time of day he could get mean about anybody coming to visit. Come to think on it, there isn’t anything he won’t get mean about, one time or another.”
“I won’t let him hurt my feelings.”
“You look of a size to temper him down some. But be careful on one thing, or size won’t do you no good atall. What he does, he comes smiling up, nice as pie, gets close enough and kicks a man’s kneecap off, then settles down to stomping him good. A few times he’s done it so good, he’s had to go way back into the Park until things quieted down. A couple times everybody thought we’d be rid of him for a few years, but the most it ever turned out was ninety days the county give him. He prowls four counties in that fancy car he’s got now, but around here he keeps to hisself, and that suits everybody just fine.”
“I’m grateful to you. How do I find his place?”
“Go out to the hardtop and go down that way to the end where it curves around to come back on itself, and on the curve two dirt roads slant off, and his is the one furthest from the shore line, and he’s maybe a mile back there, little more than a mile and a half all told. Only place on that road.”
I didn’t see the cottage until I came around the last bend in the shell road, and then it was visible between the trees, a hundred and fifty feet away. Once it had been yellow with white trim, but now most of it was weathered gray, the boards warped and pulping loose. The shingled roof was swaybacked, the yard overgrown. But a shiny television antenna glinted high above it, outlined against the blue sky. A mockingbird sat atop it, rocking with effort as he created melodic patterns.
A big Land Rover, new but caked with dried mud, was parked by a shed at the side. A large, handsome lapstrake inboard launch sat strapped on a heavy duty boat trailer. Parked at an angle, and almost against the rungs of the sagging porch, was a white Lincoln Continental four-door convertible, top up, the current model, dusty, with a rear fender bashed, taillights broken on that side. The collection of hardware was as if a very large child had been giving himself a happy Christmas. The closer I got, the more signs of neglect I saw. I went and looked into the skiff. It was loaded with extras, including one of the better brands of transistorized ship-to-shore units. But birds had dappled the royal blue plastic of the seats, and there was enough dirty rainwater aboard to fill the bilge and be visible above the floorboards.
I couldn’t imagine Boo Waxwell having much of a credit rating. So I could estimate at least twenty-five thousand dollars’ worth of toys in his yard. And guess there would be more in the house. Kids with lots of toys neglect them.
The mockingbird yelled, and insects shrilled, underlining the morning silence. I broke it up by facing the front door from thirty feet away, and yelling, “Waxwell! Yo! Boone Waxwell!”
In a few moments I heard some thumping around inside, saw a vague face through a dingy window. Then the door opened and a man came out onto the porch. He wore dirty khaki pants. He was barefoot, bare to the waist. Glossy black curly hair, dense black mat of hair on his chest.
Blue eyes. Sallow face. Tattoo as Arthur had described it. But Arthur’s description hadn’t caught the essence of the man. Perhaps because Arthur wouldn’t know what to call it. Waxwell had good wads of muscle on his shoulders. His waist had thickened and was beginning to soften. In posture, expression, impact, he had that stud look, that curiously theatrical blend of brutality and irony. Bogart, Mitchum, Gable, Flynn-the same flavor was there, a seedy, indolent brutality, a wisdom of the flesh. Women, sensing exactly what he was, and knowing how casually they would be used, would yet accept him, saying yes on a basis so primitive they could neither identify it nor resist it.
He carried a shotgun as one might carry a pistol, barrel pointing at the porch boards a few feet ahead of his bare toes.
“Who the hell are you, buster boy?”
“I want to have a little talk with you, Waxwell.”
“Now int that right fine?” He lifted the muzzle slightly. “Git on off my land or I’ll blow a foot off you and tote you off.”
And unless I could come up with something to attract his attention, that was just as far as I was going to get. You have to take your chances without much time to think. I knew he could check. But somehow I could not imagine Waxwell being very close to the lawyer. Or trusting him. Or trusting anyone.
“Crane Watts said maybe you could help me out, Boo.”
He stared at me with a mild, faked astonishment. “Now int he some lawyer fella over to Naples?”
“Oh, come off it, for crissake! I’m trying to line something up, and maybe there’s some room for you too, like the last time. The same kind of help. You understand. But this time, maybe nobody takes any of the money back to Tampa. We can use you, and we can use the same woman, I think. Watts said you’d know how to get in touch with her.”
Earnest bewilderment, “Mought be some other Waxwell you want. You makin‘ no sense to me noways, buster boy. You stay right where you are, and I come back out and we talk on it some.”
He went into the house. I heard him talking to someone, then heard a faint female response. He came back smiling, buttoning his shirt, shoes on, and a straw hat in cowboy shape stuck on the back of his curly head. He had indeed a merry smile, and he stuck his hand out when he was six feet from me. As I took it, I saw the first flick of what the old man had warned me about, and I jumped to the side. The unexpected miss swung his heavy right shoe as high as a chorus girl kick, and at its apex, I chopped down across his throat with my left forearm, driving him down to hit the ground on his shoulders with a mighty, bone rattling thud.
He stared up at me in purest astonishment, and then he began to laugh. It was an infectious laugh, full of delight. “Man, man,” he gasped, “you as rough and quick as the business end of an alligator gar. Taught ol Boo a Sunday school lesson.” He started to get up, and his face twisted. He groaned. “Think you bust somethin‘. He’p me up.”
He put his hand up. I took it. He swung his heels up into my belly and kicked me back over his head, and I had enough sense, at least, not to hang on and let the leverage slam me into the ground. I hit rolling, and kept rolling; and even so his heel stomped the ground an inch from my ear before I rolled under his trailered boat.
As I straightened up on the far side, he came running at me around the stern of the boat. He was a very cat-quick and deadly fellow, and he bulled me back against the lapstrake hull, screwed his heels into the ground, and began throwing big hooks with each fist, just as fast as he could swing. When they do that, it is best to try to ride it out. It is better than being bold and catching one. My defensive attitude gave him confidence.