A couple of times, he actually came close to confiding in her.
Ford slowed his boat enough to look into Jessica's house. Lights were on and he could see the silhouette of wind chimes above the door transom and the outline of a cat in the window.
He idled toward the dock, turned into the current, and tied off. The metal box he had found on Tequesta Bank was beneath the console, and he considered carrying it in with him, but did not. Jessica switched on the porch light and stepped out just as he was about to knock. She was wearing a white strapless dress and her hair was combed long over one shoulder. She looked very pretty, and Ford realized he had never seen her in a dress before.
"Ford? That's you, isn't it?" She stepped out into the light, and Ford could see that her face looked different; decided it was because she was wearing makeup. She said, "I've been trying to get in touch with you all afternoon, kiddo. Where've you been? I called the marina twice and then boated over to your place. When are they going to put a phone in that house of yours—" She stopped suddenly and touched his elbow. "Hey, what's wrong? You don't look right. Your eyes look funny. You been drinking?"
"Drinking? Sure I've been drinking. But just a quart."
"You just look upset or something."
Ford said, "I got no work done; I was bitten by a bird. Mostly, I just need someone to talk to. Someone with a clear mind and an objective viewpoint."
"A bird?"
Ford held his hand up for inspection. "A vulture. That was after a couple of dozen of them dropped their load all over my shirt. Smell it? So maybe I can get cleaned up and we can go get something to eat. Or maybe you just got back?"
From the dirt road came the sound of a car traveling fast, and Jessica glanced at her watch. "Ah, damn it, Ford . . . that's why I was trying to find you. There's a party tonight on Captiva. A lot of New York exhibitors are going to be there, a lot of rich collectors. I've known about it for a month, and I wasn't going to go, but then Benny flew in unexpectedly. I wanted to ask you to take me, but I couldn't find you, so now—" She looked at the drive as a car turned in, still going way too fast. Dust was like smoke in the big car's headlights. "—so now I'm going with Benny. I told you about him, remember?"
"No ... I don't think so."
"Benny from the gallery. Benny."
"Oh . . . right. Benny. That one." It was the name of a man she had said owned the gallery in Manhattan that handled her work; the man who had also once been her lover, or so Jessica had implied. Ford said, "Well, that ought to be fun, you two together again."
She took his arm. "Don't be so damn big about it, Ford. Come on, at least meet him."
Benny swung open the door of the rental car and came toward them, walking fast. He was as tall as Ford, leaner, black curly hair styled close to the head, tight jeans, bright floral shirt open to the sternum showing glittering chains among the mat of chest hair, the cosmopolitan look with body by Nautilus.
"Jess! My God, it's great to see you!" Big hug and a kiss, arm thrown around her shoulder, taking no notice of Ford. "You look marvelous, just marvelous. Island life agrees with you. I've been telling everyone in the city you're in your Gauguin period, off in the sticks creating brilliant stuff."
"No, no, nothing like Gauguin, but I do have a couple of new things. ..." Jessica was smiling, too, happy to be talking about her work, but perhaps not as happy to see him as her forced expression made it appear, and a little uneasy as she made the introductions. Benny became even more magnanimous, catching Ford's hand just right, squeezing too hard, saying "To hear Jess talk on the phone, she doesn't have a friend in the world on this little island. I'm damn glad you locals are around to keep an eye on her," putting Ford right in his place with a big grin.
Ford said, "Well, us locals think the world of little Jess," giving the dryness an edge, but Benny was done with it, already leading Jessica to the car, saying "What is that smell?" and Jessica, glancing back, gave Ford a searching Are-you-going-to-be-all-right? kind of look.
When Ford didn't respond, Jessica said to Benny, "Oh, those damn vultures. You get used to it after a while."
Ford touched the throttle and the skiff jumped on a line through Dinkin's Bay toward a pocket of lights in the encircling darkness: the marina. He ran straight across the flats, not slowing until he came abreast of the double markers beyond the marina basin. His own house was a dim shape three hundred yards to the east: two small cottages under a single tin roof on ^ wooden platform, all built on stilts and connected to the shore by ninety feet of old dock.
It was Friday night, clean-up and cocktail time. Fishing guides hosed their skiffs after working the late tide and live-aboards were beginning to circulate among neighboring houseboats, drinks in hand, smiles fixed, everybody smelling of shampoo and looking for a party. Someone had put speakers out on the dock so that Jimmy Buffett seemed to be erupting from the water singing, saying that, on the day that John Wayne died, he'd been on the Continental Divide.
Two tarpon hung from the support over the cleaning table, one about eighty pounds, the other well over a hundred. With ropes passed through their gills they looked like giant aluminum herring, weird, misshapen, and Ford pictured the corpse. He stepped onto the dock thinking he could use a few beers, just as in the song, wondering where he had been on that day, the day that John Wayne died.
"Hey, Doc . . . come here, I ga-ga-ga-got to show you something." A man in khaki shorts and a long-billed cap was waving for him, Jethro Nicholes, muscular, dark-haired, one of the fishing guides. Nicholes was an easy laugher, good-looking, just a little younger than Ford. His stutter had burred the ego points, made him seem boyish, gave him an air of vulnerability not normally associated with men who opened Coke bottles with their teeth. Jeth made Ford wish more people stuttered.
Ford said, "Looks like you had a pretty good day out there,
Jeth." His own voice sounded strange to him, oddly carefree. "You bring in both for mounts?"
Nicholes was still motioning, wanting Ford to come the rest of the way down the dock, shaking his head as he said, "Naw, Ted Cole's boat got that one there; the littler tarpon. My people got this one. Hundred twenty-six pounds by the ma-ma-market scale. Older woman on my boat caught him, blond-haired woman." He was grinning. "God, what legs, Doc. Had me keep my arms around her waist part of the time. 'Fraid the ta-ta-ta-tarpon was going to pull her in. Had to concentrate like hell to keep my mind on the fish and offa what I could see when she leaned forward cause she had on one of those kind of blouses and didn't wear nothing underneath. I'm telling you, Doc, you wouldn't expect a woman her age to look like that. Lord, you'd need safety glasses, that's how those things stood up. And smell good? God da-da-da-damn she smelled good."
"Smell's important."
"Smell, huh? Like in biological stuff?"
"Yeah. Did MacKinley say anything about the phone guy coming? They were supposed to have my damn phone in a month ago. "
"Why would MacKinley tell me? If I want to see you, I can just holler out the door." He stared at Ford for a moment. "You mad about something? You don't look right."
"I've been drinking."
"Oh. Good. Hey, look at this. See here what I saved for you?" Ford had followed the guide to his charter skiff, a blue Suncoast with Jacks or Better in white script on the stern. He watched as Nicholes opened the forward fish box and pulled something out. "Nice little b-b-b-bull shark, huh? Hit a pilchard of all things. You still want 'em, don't you, Doc? For your fish-selling business, I mean."
Nicholes was talking about the marine specimen business Ford had started, Sanibel Biological Supply.