I could see Charlie across the room. He was engaged in the delicate task of cutting one of the seven women out of the group. He had selected an aloof brunette—by far the most attractive woman in the room. The two of them were hunched over a table, insulated from the rest of the bar by the intensity of their conversation. The brunette had the look of country clubs and tasteful dinner parties and expensive boutiques. I wondered what circumstance had motivated her to get into the very tough world of sales. Also wondered if Charlie had noticed the sizable diamond on the ring finger of her left hand.
Watched the brunette scoot away from the table; then, very deliberately, very privately, place her hand on Charlie's thigh—a brief, intimate gesture—before rising to go to the rest room.
The ring, apparently, wasn't a problem.
"You want another beer? But you have to let me buy this time. I always pay my own way."
The little blonde was drinking margaritas. She loved the salt. I stuck with beer because that's what I drink. Her name was Farrah. I didn't ask, but I assumed her mother had watched a lot of television back in the seventies. Farrah was from Granite City, Illinois, right there on the Mississippi River, so close to St. Louis that it was like just one great big city now. She'd graduated from high school six years ago, was accepted into the University of Missouri's nursing program, but just hated it. What she really wanted was a nice car and a nice apartment—both of which she now had. "All because I went into cellular marketing. You wouldn't believe the benefits our company gives. Just for the team members—that's what they call us, the people who work for them. They've even produced an exercise video just for us. 'Cause we're all a team, understand?"
I understood. She kept ordering margaritas, and I continued to pour down beer. Normally, I limit myself to three. But I wasn't in the mood for rules or limits. If I allowed myself to pause, to examine what I was doing, the image of Hannah and Tomlinson popped into mind . . . that small house, just the two of them . . . cricket noises outside and the ceiling fan whirring overhead.
Farrah was telling me, "I like you, Doc. No, I mean it. I first saw you, I thought, whew, he's got cold, cold eyes. But I was wrong. You're just a big ol' sweetie. Hey—your turn to buy or mine?"
Through the gradual process of increasingly familiar body contact, Farrah let me know—and those around us know—that she had made her selection. Now she sat on a barstool, just high enough to throw her arm casually around my shoulder. Just close enough so that I could feel the heat of her left breast as it traced designs on my ribs.
Jerry came into the bar, saw the crowd, and began to play Jimmy Buffett on the keyboard. Farrah wanted to get out on the dance floor with the rest of the group. I told her that there were few things more ridiculous than a full-grown man trying to mimic jungle ceremony. She said, "Huh?" then, "You better not go anywhere," before giving me a moist kiss on the cheek and shimmying out among the dancers. I watched her nudge one of her girlfriends, heard her say, "You meet the guy I'm with? He doesn't even own a cellular unit." As if it was proof they were on a tropical island, a million miles from the regional office.
I stood there watching, a cold green botde in my hand. Farrah was wearing beige pumps, a black T-length sweater dress—looked like cashmere—that fit snugly enough, and was cut low enough, to show the weighty bounce of breasts, the slow roll of buttocks as her body absorbed the music and reissued it. Every so often, she'd look over and give me an owlish wink . . . which caused me to consider just what in the hell I was getting myself into. I was no meat market predator; I'd never gone to a bar and tried to pick up a woman in my life. "You want to come home and see my specimens?" would have been a lackluster line. So I had just about decided to quietly disappear, when I felt a tap on my shoulder. Turned to see a face that was familiar. Finally realized it was Garrett Riley, a deep-water guide out of Naples.
"What are you doing this far north, Garrett?"
He said, "You got your skiff handy?"
"Yeah."
"There's something you need to see."
I looked at the empty bottle I was holding, looked at Farrah on the dance floor.
Garrett said, "Hell, don't worry about that. She ain't gonna catch a cab, and I'm a little drunk myself. I don't need you to make sense. What I need is somebody to give me a hand." When I hesitated, he added, "Hurryin' wouldn't hurt none."
I put the bottle on the bar and followed him outside.
Chapter 7
Garrett had been hired to run the Hatteras that was moored down by the boathouse. The charter was a three-week island hopper, he said, Key West to Tampa and back, that he wouldn't have taken, this being the prime day-tripper season, except his own forty-two-foot Johnny Morgan had spun a prop, which scored the drive shaft and stripped the bearings just inside the stuffing box.
"I figured three weeks at half pay was better than waiting on parts, sittin' home whackin' off to the Weather Channel," he told me.
He made a stop at the Hatteras. Signaled me to wait, then scrambled gibbon quick up the ladder to the fly bridge. He returned carrying an industrial-sized bolt cutter.
"You mind telling me where we're going, Garrett?"
He held a finger to his lips—his clients were asleep. Said, "Not far. Where's your skiff?"
Once I got my boat away from the seawall, I let him take the wheel. He hurried us out the channel, no lights at all, then gunned us onto plane. Directly to the east lay Useppa Island. At the turn of the century, back when West Florida was still considered wilderness, Useppa had been a sportsmen's en- I clave, host to people like Teddy Roosevelt and Joe Kennedy. The Kennedy connection proved useful in the sixties when Useppa was leased by the C.I.A. to train Cuban exiles for the Bay of Pigs invasion. Now the island was a graceful private community: palm trees and white houses built on rolling hills. Garrett ran toward the island, obviously in a hurry; didn't throttle back until we had snaked our way past
the oyster bar near the private channel. Obviously, whatever he wanted to show me was on Useppa.
"That's where it is," he said, motioning.
"Where what is?"
"Where they strung the cable."
"What cable? What the hell are you talking about, Garrett?"
We were idling along now, through the island's harbor. "Little more than an hour ago," he said, "I was over here in the dinghy, plug-casting the docks for snook. Noticed a boat up there in the shallows, somebody poling it along. Didn't look to me like they was up to any good. You know how men'll act when they're tryin' to be real quiet? It was like that.
"Watched 'em dump something. Something heavy, too." He pointed to the shoreline. "Right there. They had to do some gruntin'. Then they fired up their boat and purely tore ass out of here. Still no lights. Shit, they about run me down. It was a mullet boat, two guys in it. But the weird thing was, they run clear out around the island, then north toward Charlotte Harbor. Why not just pop through the Pineland cut? I couldn't figure it out." He pulled the throttle back to neutral and switched off the engine. "But I found out. That's what I'm going to show you."