That night Carver awoke in his bed in the Glades Inn to an odd, snarling sound outside in the dark. He lay on his back in total blackness, his fingers laced behind his head, and realized he was listening to the sound of an airboat deep in the swamp. Maybe one of Ray Orb’s boats. But according to I. G. Unit, Orb didn’t operate in this part of the swamp because it was too dense and dangerous. And how could you not believe I.C.?
Carver fell back asleep listening to the faraway sound of the airboat and dreamed that it was a gigantic insect droning in the swamp. In the dawn and the halfway country between waking and sleep, he thought maybe his dream was possible.
It was more possible, he decided when fully awake, that the late-night droning from the swamp was indeed an airboat’s engine, and the cargo was illegal narcotics.
Carver established a routine over the next five days, not doing much other than fishing with rod and reel and ‘Oh Buggie!’, going to secluded fishing spots in the evenings and staying late, tossing his infrequent catches back into the water. Carrying his fishing gear, he explored the swamp around Mangrove City. Though he came across tracks in the mud once, he never saw an alligator. And he didn’t again hear the snarl of an airboat engine in the night.
Until the sixth night, when he was standing ankle-deep in water near the gnarled roots of a mangrove and heard the sudden roar of an engine, as if a boat that had been drifting nearby had abruptly started up. A light flashed, the swinging beam of a searchlight illuminating the swamp, and for an instant through the trees he saw the shimmering whir of an airboat’s rear-mounted propeller spinning in its protective cage as it powered the flat-bottomed boat over the water. Judging by the size of the prop and cage, it was a large boat. Carver heard voices, then a single shouted word: “Cuidado. A man yelling in Spanish to whoever was steering the boat to be careful, probably of some looming obstacle the light had revealed.
Carver stood motionless until the snarling engine had faded to silence. He could still hear water lapping in the boat’s wake, even see ripples that had found their way to the moonlit patch of algae and floating debris where he was pretending to fish.
He reeled in ‘Oh Buggie!’ and a tangle of weed, then returned to where the Olds was parked and drove back to the motel.
Maybe tonight he’d finally caught something.
After showering away mosquito repellent and swamp mud, he put on a fresh pair of boxer shorts, made sure the room’s air conditioner was on high, then went to the alcove closet. He reached up on the shelf and found the half-dollar-size bronze Aztec calendar again and stood staring at it. No one knew for sure that the ancient circular Aztec design actually was a calendar. It was only a theory.
Carver stared at the trinket, then placed it back on the shelf. Now he had a theory, and one he believed in. Tomorrow he’d do something about it.
He sat on the edge of the sagging mattress, flicked the wall switch off with his cane, and dropped back on the bed in the warm darkness. With so much resolved, and with a clear course of action before him, he dozed off immediately and slept deeply.
He sensed it was toward morning when he dreamed again of the giant insect droning in the swamp. Only this time he was surprised to hear it buzz his name.
Abruptly he realized someone was in the room speaking to him. Without moving any other part of his body, he opened his eyes.
I. C. Unit was standing at the foot of the bed. He was holding a shotgun casually so that it was pointed at Carver.
“Carver. Carver. You best wake up. You’re gonna go fishin’ early this mornin’. Gonna get yourself an early start well afore sunrise. Ain’t no need for you to worry about bringin’ any bait.”
Carver knew why. He was going to fobait. And not for fish.
At I.C.’s direction, he climbed out of bed and dressed in jeans and a pullover shirt, then put on his green rubber boots. His fishing outfit.
“Don’t forget your rod and reel,” I.C. said. “Gotta make this look realistic. Hell, maybe we’ll even let you catch a fish.”
When they went outside, Carver met Peevy and Magruder. There were no introductions and none were necessary. Peevy was a short man with a beer gut and a pug face. He was tattooed, like I.C., with the crude blue ink imagery of the amateur prison artist without adequate equipment. Magruder was tall and thin, with a droopy moustache and tragic dark eyes. Each man was armed with a semiautomatic twelve-gauge shotgun like I.C.’s. Their shells were probably loaded with heavy lead slugs rather than pellets, the rounds used by poachers to kill large and dangerous alligators. Awesome weapons at close range.
“He don’t look like much,” Magruder said in a southern drawl that sounded more like Tennessee than Georgia.
“Gonna look like less soon,” Peevy said in the same flat drawl. He dug the barrel of his shotgun into the small of Carver’s back, prodding him toward the parked Olds.
I.C. laughed. “Shucks, that’s ’cause there’s gonna foless of him.”
Peevy drove the Olds, and I.C. sat in back with his shotgun aimed at Carver, who sat in front and wondered if he could incapacitate Peevy with a jab of his cane, then deal with I.C. and the shotgun. But he knew the answer to that one and didn’t like it. Magruder followed, driving a dented black pickup truck with a camper shell mounted on its bed. As they pulled out of the Glades Inn parking lot, Carver was sure he saw a light in the office go out.
“You weren’t smuggling drugs,” Carver said, as they bumped over the rutted road. “You were bringing in illegal aliens from Mexico.”
“From there and all over Central America,” I.C. said. Now that Carver knew, he was bragging. Nothing to lose. “Boat from Mexico transfers ’em to airboats on the coast, and we know the swamp well enough to boat ’em in here. The Glades Inn is the next stop, where they pay the rest of what they owe and then are moved by car and truck on north.”
“And if they can’t pay?”
I.C. laughed hard and Carver felt spittle and warm breath on the back of his neck. “That’s the same question that poor Terry Frist asked. Answer is, if they can’t pay, they don’t go no farther north.”
“Nor any other direction,” Peevy added, wrestling with the steering wheel as they negotiated a series of ruts.
“And Terry Frist?” Carver asked.
“’Gator got him, all right,” was all I.C. said.
Peevy smiled as he drove.
They wound through the night along roads so narrow that foliage brushed the Olds’s sides. Finally they reached the most desolate of Carver’s fishing spots, a pool of still water glistening black in the moonlight, its edges overgrown with tall reeds and sawgrass.
As soon as they’d stopped, I.C. prodded the back of Carver’s neck as an instruction to get out of the car. Carver climbed out slowly, feeling the hot, humid night envelop him, listening to the desperate screams of nocturnal insects. Magruder parked the pickup behind the Olds, then climbed out and walked forward to join them. The only illumination was from the parking lights on the Olds.
While I.C. held his shotgun to Carver’s head, Magruder looped a steel chain around the ankle of Carver’s right boot and fastened it in place with a padlock. Then he shoved him toward the center of the shallow pool of water. Carver noticed a thick cedar post protruding from the water.
When they reached the knee-deep center of the pool, Magruder strung the chain through a hole in the post, wrapped it tight around the thick wood, then used another padlock to secure it. He clipped his key ring back onto one of his belt loops, then stepped back. Peevy was standing nearby, his shotgun aimed at Carter.
I.C. handed Carver the casting rod. “You hold onto your prop here,” he said, then snatched Carver’s cane away and effortlessly snapped the hard walnut over his knee. He let both ends of the splintered cane drop into the water.