Oh no, the pervert from the stilt house.
That's all she needed now. Him plowing around gawking at her.
Well, she would ignore him. Pretend as if he just wasn't there. She cleaned off her face, toweled off the wrench, and leaned into the engine hold again, turning her attention to the purge nut. But she could hear the boat getting closer and closer; heard the pelicans in the nearby mangroves drop down off the limbs, laboring to flight on creaking wings. Could hear the boat slowing to idle, could feel her own boat rise and roll in the skiff's wake, then heard the skiff's motor shut down.
The bastard was stopping.
Then she heard, "Hello the boat. Anyone home?"
She blew through her lips, a fluttering noise of irritation, and sat up.
"I'm home. What do you want?" Which sounded even sterner than she'd planned, but what the hell. She didn't have time, and this guy had ruined her sunset swims.
There he was, standing at the wheel, drifting along in his boat, and she could see that her tone had taken him aback. Could hear it in his stammer when he answered, "Uh-I thought- Well, I just stopped… stopped to say hello. Being neighborly. I live in the stilt house." He motioned with his head. "Off the south mangrove bank-"
Sally interrupted. "I know, I know. By the marina-" But then she stopped herself. What in the world was wrong with this man's face? Splotches of white on it, like clown makeup. Or like he'd been baking and sneezed into the flour. She didn't want to stare, but gad.
He said, "You need some help working on your engine?" He smiled a little. "Looks like you're up to your elbows in it," meaning the grease.
Kind of an interesting-looking guy, really-healthy, with muscles and wire glasses, but he had that gook on his cheeks. Maybe he had poison ivy or something. But then she thought about him looking at her through the telescope and got mad again.
"You think you know more about my own engine than I do?"
"Not at all, I-"
"You think women can't work on engines?"
It took a moment, but his smile disappeared. On the skiff, Ford was thinking, Her face isn't as pretty as I thought. Eyes too sunken, cheeks too narrow. What is that, grease in her hair? as he said, "I think you're overreacting just a tad to a-"
"Or maybe you were studying my engine. Back there in your little house with the telescope." She made an airy gesture with a black hand. "Maybe you weren't peeping at me."
The man said, "Ahem," as if he'd been stuck with a needle but didn't want to show it.
Sally said, "That's right. And I don't have much time for sneaky people."
The man said, "You assume too much," in a flat way that surprised her a little. She expected him to be defensive. She sat looking at him as he started his skiff and touched it into gear, idling away. Then over his shoulder, he said, "If you need help with the engine, give me a call on the radio."
Not wanting to let him off so easy, Sally answered with heat, "I won't. Don't you worry."
The man leaned on the throttle of his fast skiff. He didn't look back.
It was late afternoon before Sally Carmel got her own boat running properly. And she didn't raise Mango until late afternoon the next day.
FOUR
By Wednesday, October 21, Joseph Egret felt good enough to make his escape. His joints didn't ache as badly, and he didn't feel medicine-crazy anymore. He thought about trying to contact Tuck, maybe ask him to come up and keep the orderlies busy while he sneaked out. But that wasn't smart because Tuck always had to do things his own way. Had to do it with a lot of style and tricks just to let people know just how fancy-minded he could be.
Naw, he'd escape by himself. Be a lot quieter that way. Hell, if he was real quiet, the nurses might not even notice and, after a week or two, they'd forget he was ever there.
That's what he'd do. Be real-1-1-1 sneaky quiet like them TV Indians. Maybe lift a few scalps on the way out. That made Joseph smile, lying in his bed, looking at the ceiling. Lift the television set, more like it. Be nice to have down there in the Glades. Be nicer if he had electricity, too, but who could say he wouldn't stumble upon a nice little generator some day? And it was best to be prepared. Besides, Tuck had electricity at his place, and that's where he'd be living. Tuck hadn't invited him, but they both knew that's what was going to happen if Joseph made it out.
Joseph snuck into the room across the hall to watch another eerie sunset-he'd never seen the sky so strange, and he was convinced it was one of those earth signs his grandfather had told him about. Maybe the sky was telling him not to linger. The fiery clouds could mean it was getting late. Or maybe it was telling him to take that television set. Hard to say. Joseph returned to his bed to wait for darkness, but he drifted off to sleep. He would probably have slept right through if it wasn't for a dream he had, a strange dream in a world of burning sky and white celestial light in which his grandfather smiled at him, sitting behind the wheel of a shiny convertible, maybe a Cadillac. Which made no sense-his grandfather had preferred Chevys. What made less sense was that the passenger door was open, as if he expected Joseph to get in with him.
You telling me to go ahead and die, Grandpa?
Nope. Tellin' you to get in the damn car. You already dead.
Joseph sat up with a start, breathing heavily in the darkness. He'd had a dream… then he couldn't quite remember what had happened in the dream. Something about dying, and there had been a lot of white light. There was a nice car in the dream, too. But then Joseph remembered he planned to escape that night, and he didn't think about the dream anymore. He swung out of bed.
He got down on his hands and knees and found the bottle of water Tuck had given him, and he emptied it with a long drink.
Tastes good, he thought. Sulphury, like a bay smells.
He also found his deerskin boats and black roper's hat. He put them on, feeling the soft leather, grinning at the weight of his old hat. But that was all he had to wear. They'd taken his clothes, and now he wished he'd asked that nice aide, Marjorie, for clothes rather than snuff and chocolate. Should have asked her to bring a pair of her gentleman friend's golfing trousers and one of those sweaters with baggy arms like Arnold Palmer wore. That woulda been nice, but it was too late now. And he couldn't hitchhike to Mango wearing a damn gown that flopped open and showed his butt.
Joseph stood in the darkness, thinking. Then suddenly it came to him. He knew where to find clothes. Well, sort of. The orderlies had locked him in the rest home's big storage locker once, and he knew just where to go. He slid out into the hall, looking this way and that, moving quietly through the shadows. He could hear lone voices coming from some of the rooms, crazy babbling. Could hear the television turned up loud downstairs, which meant the fat nurse was probably sitting there eating candy. Could also hear the bong-bong that meant someone had pressed their call button, wanting help from the orderlies. Which was bad. Joseph swung around and saw the light flashing over the door of his own room- that damn little bright-eyed bastard trying to get him in trouble again. He considered going back; maybe wrap the IV tube around the little jerk's throat. But no, he didn't have time. He had to hurry.
Joseph shuffled along, almost running. The storage room was behind the double doors at the end of the hall, and he pulled them open. Inside were boxes of all sorts of stuff, Christmas decorations and mops and a box of donated Halloween costumes, kept for the party they had each year so the television people could take pictures and prove how happy everybody at the rest home was. Joseph started opening boxes, throwing Christmas stockings and plastic pumpkins onto the floor. There was a suit in there somewhere. He'd seen it-a gray suit. Then he found the jacket and tried to pull it on over his shoulders, but it was way too small. Couldn't even get it over his arms. He found a dress, a red one with frills, big as a tent.