“You act like I’m interruptin’. Like you’re too busy to listen.”
I replied, “Acting’s on a long list of things I’m not good at.”
“But you heard me. Rich, I’m telling you. Both of us. Your hippie friend, too, if he’s willin’ to work for it. We can all kick back and retire.”
My hippie friend is Tomlinson, a middle-aged oddity, part sinner, part saint, a Ph.D. brain coded with a sailor’s sensibilities, all hardwired inside a scarecrow’s body.
I asked Arlis, “Which is it? A Spanish galleon or an investment scheme? I’d guess the track, but I know how you feel about horses and gambling.”
“Only thing stupider than a horse,” Arlis replied, “is a man dumb enough to bet on something dumber than he is.”
I smiled, filing it away for later, and replied, “I’m out of guesses,” then returned my attention to the aquarium, noting the balanced mobility of sea horses as they ascended and descended, erect as chess pieces. Four weightless knights powered by a hummingbird blur of fins.
Arlis baited me, saying, “You couldn’t guess in a month of Sundays.”
I replied, “Then I won’t waste my time.”
I was fiddling with the aquarium pump, having trouble with the flow valve. Wild sea horses are more fragile than the pet-store variety. They require a tranquil environment and no surprises. The man watched me open a yellow legal pad and calculate a stress-free rate of water exchange: 50 × 4 = 200 × 1.75 = 350 gph. Then he endured several more minutes of silence as I began replacing the large pump with two smaller pumps. Finally, he lost patience.
“Dang it, pay attention. This is big! I found something most men quit looking for years ago. But I finally figured it out. You’re the first I’ve told. How you figure it’d feel to have a hundred million dollars in the bank? Maybe five hundred million, depends on gold prices. I’m talkin’ about bona fide rich.”
He pronounced it “bone-a-FI-DEE,” a man with enough swamp and saw grass in his ancestry to speak with an authentic Florida Cracker accent.
“Gold,” I said. “You think you found a Spanish wreck. I was right.”
“Nope. Not the pirate treasure variety, anyway. I ain’t no schoolboy dreamer and I ain’t senile. I’m sure about this one, Doc.”
I stood, removed the glasses that were tied around my neck on fishing line and used microscope tissue to clean the lenses.
“Just like you’re sure about the cold front? VHF weather says it gets here tomorrow afternoon. You say tonight. Usually, faith and fact don’t have much in common.”
The man touched the zipper of his coat, then produced leather gloves from the pockets. “I’m right, you’ll see. You’re gonna need that new wood-burning stove of yours. By sunset, the wind will start to gust. Four hours from now, it’ll feel like Canada’s pissing on us with a cold hose. Nothing to slow that north wind but the Georgia border and a couple of parking lots at Disney World.”
I turned to the windows above the dissecting table where chemicals and test tubes were lined on shelves. The sky was Caribbean blue. The bay was silver where clear water met mangroves along the shoreline. It was eighty degrees and calm. Pelicans crashed bait near an oyster bar where—bizarrely, but not unexpectedly—my boat-bum neighbor, Tomlinson, was sloshing in the shallows, wearing baggy Thai fishing pants, no shirt, a bucket hanging from the crook of his arm. He was as animated as a kid collecting Easter eggs.
Tomlinson was harvesting oysters for dinner, I decided. I made a mental note to pick a few fresh limes when I walked to the marina and buy a couple of more quarts of beer.
“Arlis,” I said, “I’m working. If you want to tell me what you found, tell me. If not, there’s one last beer in the fridge and plenty of books to read until I’m done. But take it outside.”
“Doc, you’re always in a hurry. You ain’t changed a gnat’s nut since you was a boy. You call this work? Now, mullet fishing’s real work, not playing around with little bitty fish to be sold to some laboratory or Yankee college professor.”
He was referring to my little company, Sanibel Biological Supply—purveyor of marine specimens and consultant for hire when a worthwhile project comes along.
I turned to him and saw that he was unzipping his coat, sweat beading on his forehead, as he came closer to the aquarium. “Man, it’s warm in here,” he added. “Don’t your ceiling fans work?”
I gave him a closer look. “Are you feeling okay?”
His face was flushed, and I noticed that his hands vibrated with what may have been a neurological tremor. Arlis is seventy, but the man is fitter than most thirty-year-olds.
“I’m fine, just fine,” he replied.
I told him, “Shed a few layers of that snowsuit—if you’re willing to risk frostbite. But do it outside. Don’t make me ask again.”
In reply, I received a pointed look, his rheumy gray eyes huge behind thick glasses, a young man alive in his brain, still in command of the aging body.
“You tellin’ me to leave?”
“I’m telling you I can’t talk about getting rich until I’m done doing what I get paid to do.”
“No need to get mouthy about it. A week from now, you’ll be wondering how a man could be so generous—that is, if I don’t get pissed off and march my ass right out of here.”
I replied, “Unless you messed with the bolt, Arlis, the door’s not locked. I wouldn’t want to be the one to stand between you and happiness.”
The man glared at me for a moment. “Well, if you did, it wouldn’t be the first time, Dr. Marion D. Ford!”
I knew what the man was referring to. It was a women whom we had both known and admired—and possibly loved, in our respective fashions—but then she had died. I sighed. I shook my head. I said, “Jesus, Arlis, let it go.”
“I didn’t bring her up—you did.”
I replied by returning my attention to the sea horses, suddenly envious of a species that is blessed by the inability to speak.
Arlis is a variety of old-time fisherman seldom encountered these days, possibly because, on the Mangrove Coast, men as irritating and assertive as Arlis often died suddenly while being choked, or shot, or left behind to drown.
I like the man but in small doses. I appreciate the fact that he’s among the last of a very few people whose toughness reflects the Florida biota by virtue of having been forged by its hardships.
Arlis continued staring at me for a long moment, before saying, “I found his treasure plane. Batista’s treasure plane.”
I said, “What?”
He said it again.
Suddenly, the man had my attention.
“This isn’t the first time someone’s told me that,” I replied, trying to recover from my surprise.
“It’s the first time I ever said it,” Arlis replied. “I suppose now you’re gonna tell me that don’t make a difference. This is me talking, Doc. By God, I found it. I’m not going to beg you to listen.”
Arlis was right. It was different coming from him. He was talking about a plane commandeered by Fulgencio Batista, the man who had ruled Cuba before Castro seized power.
Arlis paused, taking his time as he gauged my interest. “You know the story. I can see it.”
I said, “I’ve heard rumors.”
“This ain’t rumor. I know people who know people.”
“Everyone does. And everyone has a treasure story. They print wreck sites on restaurant place mats. It’s what boat salesmen talk about before they reach for the contract.”