Would that work? No… because by the time I got there, someone else would’ve already contacted her. The county cops, probably. So I needed to tell her now or find a way to get her out of her apartment; give her something to do until I had time to get to her.
She said, “A question like that, it seems just a tad touchy-feely for a guy’s guy like you. Or wait… tell me if I’m right: you and Tomlinson went and got drunk and you’ve got a bet going or something. About how Amanda really feels about Frank-the-jerk. One of those heavy conversations drunk men have.”
It was nearly 8:00 P.M. and I was back in Dinkin’s Bay, back on Sanibel Island. My skiff was tied bow and stern to the counterweight and pulley system I use when the weather’s foul or I might be away for a while. There seemed to be a little preweekend party going on aboard the soggy old Chris-Craft, Tiger Lily. Chinese lanterns had been strung around the flybridge and I could hear music drifting across the water: “Rum amp; Coca Cola,” the big band version. Lately, JoAnn and Rhonda had been listening to 1940s music. They had also taken to wearing glossy scarlet lipstick, equally bright hibiscus blossoms in their hair, and flowered sarongs. The Dorothy Lamour look, as if waiting for the GIs to return from overseas.
Fashion is nothing more than gossip in fabric form, energized by hope and dispersed by osmosis. Which is probably why I’d been noticing that men around the dock were beginning to favor pleats and anything olive drab. And probably why, lately, female waitresses and bartenders around the islands were parroting the Dinkin’s Bay look: sandals, Lennon Sisters hairstyles and sarongs.
Funniest thing of all, though, it was Tomlinson who had rediscovered and popularized that Stage Door Canteen combination.
The sandals and sarong, anyway. His hair, Tomlinson always wore that down. Even when he played baseball.
With the phone wedged between my shoulder and ear, I told Amanda, “This has nothing to do with a bet. I’m asking for a reason. That question, Do you understand why you’re mad at Frank? it’s something you need to consider. What I’m saying is, I know you care about the man. No matter what you said about him earlier, I know he helped raise you and you care about him, and… that’s all a given.”
“Christ-o-mighty, you can be so weird sometimes, Ford. Talk about a strange phone day! I get home, there’s this hysterical message from Skipper the Bimbo Queen on the recorder, call her immediately. The two born-again dolphins must have had their first fight. Now you’re behaving like Father O’Malley. Hey, can you hang on a minute? I’ve got your uncle on the other line.”
So the newly widowed Skipper had been trying to get in touch. Amanda probably hadn’t called her back because she’d been talking to Tuck. The man’s timing was extraordinary. This was a rare exception because his timing was almost always, always bad.
I waited… and waited. Then: “Your uncle, he really could get to be one of my favorite people in the world. He’s so darn… I don’t know, sincere or something. And so easy to talk to. He makes me laugh. Really laugh.”
I was in no mood to hear this. “Do you want me to call later? After you’re done listening to Tuck?”
“Come on, now. Don’t be snotty. No… what I told Mr. Gatrell was I’d call him back when we were done. Know what he said?” Her chuckle told me that she found the man amusing. This twenty-some-year-old woman sitting in a Lauderdale condo linked by fiber-optic thread to an Everglades gangster who’d driven cattle on horseback and poached gators for a living. “What your uncle said was, ‘Well, lil’ lady, then you’ll be calling me back real soon, ‘cause Duke, he’s not a man to use two sentences when one word’ll do.’”
Her impersonation was pretty good, but I didn’t want to encourage her.
I said, “Really.”
“Yeah. You two guys… do you want me to tell you why it is I think you don’t get along? It’s like when my mom and I get into these spats, it’s not ‘cause we’re so different, it’s ‘cause we’re so much alike.”
“Take my word on this one, Amanda. Tucker Gatrell and I are nothing alike. Nothing.”
“Jesus, you don’t have to bite my head off. It should be something we could at least sit down and talk about.”
“I don’t have a lot of time. I’m leaving for Colombia tomonow. I’m taking the morning Avianca flight, and I’ve got a checklist of things to take care of before I leave.”
She was very quiet for a moment before she said, “If you’re going to Colombia looking for my mom, I’m going. But you coulda at least given me a little warning. Your uncle, he wants to go, too.”
“Tuck’s not going and you’re not going, either. There’s something I need to tell you-”
“Hold it!”
I raised my voice to make her listen. “Amanda, I have something very important-”
But her voice was louder: “What you have to say can just wait, ‘cause I have something I need to tell you, too!” She practically shouted the last of it. Yep, she could be forceful and had chosen this moment to show it.
In a normal tone, I said, “Okay, okay. We’ll do it your way.”
“Damn right we will. What I need to tell you, buster, is you’re not the boss. I asked you to help, yeah. But if I want to go to Colombia, I’ll go. And if Tucker Gatrell wants to go to Colombia, he’s my friend and we’ll both by God go.”
Her voice had more chill than fire. I was smiling a little, her tone was that familiar to me. The same pissed-off intonations that had been in Bobby’s voice when he was mad.
First Bobby, now Frank Calloway.
This woman had lost them both and didn’t even know it yet.
Speaking of the death of her dad, Amanda had once told me, “You don’t know what it’s like.”
Didn’t I?
Standing there with the phone to my ear, alone in my house, I decided to tell her something I’d never told anyone, not even Tomlinson. The circumstances made what I had to say relevant, but it was more than that. There was something about this girl that I liked and trusted.
I said, “I want you to calm down. And I want you to sit down.”
“If you think you’re going to talk me out of going-”
This time, instead of raising my voice, I spoke more softly. “I’m not going to talk you out of anything, Amanda. If you want to go to Colombia with me, that’s fine. Or meet me there later. Whatever. But we need to have a talk first.” She was listening now.
“I’m going to ask you a favor. It may seem like a strange favor, but if I’m willing to help you, then you need to be willing to help me. I’m going to tell you why I don’t want Tucker Gatrell around me. Or even near me. Let alone with me in Colombia. It’s something I’ve never told anyone, but I’ve decided to tell you, because… well, you’ll understand when I’m done.”
She must have read something in my tone; hadn’t heard me this serious before. She said, “This isn’t about my mom, is it? My mother, she’s okay, isn’t she? If that man’s hurt my mom-”
Her voice had a little-girl quality when she was frightened.
“No, it’s not about your mom. But look… this favor I’m going to ask is important to me. What I’d like you to do right now, the moment we hang up, is get in your car and drive to…” Where? I’d thought about asking her to pick a hotel on Lauderdale Beach. Take her for a walk, give her the news that way, very gently. But no… it’d take me two hours to get there, which meant that she’d probably spend the next hour or so in her own apartment waiting. By then Skipper or the Sheriffs Department would have been in touch.