I saw that it was neither. Lying on the deck, beneath the gumbo, was a banjo-shaped animal that was a little less than two feet long. It had the round body of a ray, but the truncated tail of a fish. Its milky gray body was covered with peculiar triangles, circles and semicircles that were suggestive of military camouflage or some weird alien, computer coding. An unusual and highly adapted animal.
“What the hell is that thing?”
I touched it gently with the tip of the wooden handle. The fish moved ever so slightly, its black eyes indifferent, gill clefts moving rhythmically, secure in its own defense system.
I said, “It’s an electric ray. We don’t get a lot of them around here, but when we dragged along that sand beach? That’s probably where he was.” I used the handle to lift it slightly, then amended. “Sorry, where she was. The way you tell is, they’re kind of like a shark. The males have elongated claspers.”
We were all three crouched over it now. I turned the misting water spray on the ray to keep it cool, and still it did not react.
Tomlinson’s eyes were wide, very excited. “Its skin was really smooth when I first touched it. Then it was like he flipped the power switch. Zap! Serious voltage that went straight to my brain, then arched down to my toes. Awesome! Like a bright red light flashed on behind my eyes and I could see a wiring schematic for my entire nervous system. Far out, man!” He paused; was looking at the ray, thinking about it. “Hey… what happened was, it hurt like hell, yeah, but it also gave me a kind of weird high. It wasn’t just painful, it was… interesting. In a chemical-electric way, I’m talking about. A really far-out sort of rush.”
Ransom said, “Lordy, Lordy, some pair, you two white men. My brother, he have a bullet cut his arm, it don’t even bother him. Mr. Thomas get a shock, he like the feeling.”
“No, no, what you don’t understand is, I am a scientist, Ransom, a very dedicated karma explorer. Pain and pleasure-they’re not that far removed. Or maybe I… what it could be is, I’ve been desensitized by some very high voltage.” He lifted his hair and pointed to the tiny lightning bolt scar. “Mother nature zapped me once. I also spent a couple weeks doing a little table dance which some Freud-geeks used to describe as electroshock therapy. Didn’t have much choice about either one, but this, yeah, it wasn’t too bad.”
I said, “This is what they call a lesser electric ray. It’s got chemical tissues”-I pointed without touching-“there and there on its body which can generate something like forty volts. Maybe not even that. But it’s got a relative in the Atlantic-I’ve found a couple in the Gulf, too-an animal called ‘torpedo ray,’ maybe because of its shape, but probably because it packs such a jolt. A torpedo ray can knock you on your butt. It’ll produce a lot more than a hundred volts.”
Before I could consider stopping him, Tomlinson reached out and touched the ray again, then looked at me, still holding his fingers to the fish, breathing fast and shallow. I watched his expression transition gradually from pain to exhilaration and then studious delight as he began to speak as giving dictation. “Not bad… not bad… whoa, got a little surge there! Yes, a very natural high. Yep, beginning to move through the cerebral cortex down into limbic Happy Valley. There… there… yes! My plumbing’s now on-line! Doesn’t really hurt, man, once you…” His eyes widened. “Oooh-lah-lah! Man, this is like a neurological cleansing!” He yanked his hand away and sat back heavily. “Phwew!”
He was suddenly concerned. “I didn’t hurt the fish, did I? Like drain it or something?”
I began to lift the ray by the tail-it couldn’t shock from the tail. “No, it’s fine. They spend all day cruising the bottom, shocking sand worms, then sucking them out whole. Long pink worms almost exclusively, I can’t remember the Latin name. Shocking things is what they do.”
“You’re going to release it? Doc, why don’t we keep it? You study the fish, then I’ll drop by every now and again and I’ll let the fish do little experiments on me. When I was touching it? I could feel every part of my body come to life. Every part of my body-if you catch my drift.”
I lowered the electric ray into the water, skated it back and forth a few times to make certain it was healthy, then watched it flap away with birdlike grace. “He’s always joking around, Ransom.”
He threw his hands up-the ray was gone. “Man, I wasn’t joking!”
The woman was kicking dead turtle grass and goop toward the stern, cleaning up to go. Same as with calculating the clipboards-she knew what to do without having to be told. I was already starting to like her despite the fact I didn’t know her and had been convinced I didn’t want to know her.
“You two coconut-headed men, it gonna be fun going with you and getting daddy’s money.”
She’d asked and asked, but I’d yet to give her an answer.
“We’ll talk about it,” I said. “I’ll look at the things Tucker sent you, then come up with a solution that’s acceptable. Something to make you happy.”
“Uh-huh, that good, man. What I want right now, though, is to get myself cleaned up. Gonna bathe myself, put on my little black skirt, and let you buy me that expensive lunch just to celebrate.”
I told her, okay, but first I had a phone call to make.
8
C alling from the portable phone in the master bedroom of my cottage, I listened to the fourth ring, hoping no one would answer. I felt like some guilt-ridden adolescent schoolboy who’d been caught misbehaving and who dreaded a confrontation with the principal.
I was on the verge of hanging up, when a man’s voice said without hesitating, “Okay, so we finally get a chance to talk, Dr. Ford. And if I sound a little agitated, it’s because I’ve been waiting all morning for your call. I asked them to make it clear the message was urgent. The woman at the desk didn’t tell you that? Do the lady a favor and say she told you it was urgent. I’m on the island’s corporate board.”
Caller ID is one of the minor irritants of this digital society.
He sounded middle-aged, no older. He had a very deep voice, lots of testosterone, just a hint of southern accent but an articulate airiness that told me this was a man who was used to giving orders, not taking them, a man accustomed to sitting back and listening, an intellectual counterpuncher. Oddly, his bullying threat- I could have the lady fired -seemed forced, overly theatrical. Something about it didn’t ring true.
When I didn’t respond immediately, he said, “This is Doctor Marion Ford, isn’t it?”
I answered, “There-that’s maybe not a polite way to begin a phone conversation, but it’s at least acceptable. Yes, my name is Ford. Thanks for asking. And you’re Hal Harrington.”
“Of course!”
“I wasn’t sure. Last night an FBI agent told me that you’re a diplomat. I guess I expected you to be diplomatic.”
Which caused him to stumble, interrupted his timing, and he became momentarily formal. “You’re right. You’re exactly right. Especially when the first point of business should be to thank you for saving my daughter yesterday. I mean it. Thank you very much, Doctor Ford.”
“No need.”
“As far as I’m concerned, there is. The people who tried to abduct her are of the very slimiest variety. Lowlife opportunists. Small-time drug people who hate my stand on a particular issue, and’re looking to make a big jump in the cartel community. No one else would have tried anything so risky. They’d love to have a major bargaining chip, and I don’t doubt for a moment that they’d have killed Lindsey if they’d succeeded. Bargaining wouldn’t have saved her. I’m very thankful you were there and decided to get involved.”
“Read the reports, Mister Harrington. I didn’t save your daughter. She saved herself.”
“Nonsense. You mentioned my occupation? In my line of work, an important job skill is… well, let’s put it this way. I deal with liars and equivocators on a daily basis. If I couldn’t get a little edge here and there by recognizing what’s true and what isn’t, I wouldn’t be very effective.”