“The clay birds are for members. Not everyone gets to shoot live pigeons-it’s a rare opportunity that I’m offering. A chance for real spiritual exploration. Are you sure you won’t give it a try?”
For a moment, Tomlinson focused his attention on the bird he was holding, stroking it as he made a low cooing sound. Then he lifted the dove in both palms, blew softly into its face, and said, “You’re not hurt. You’re okay, now,” and tossed it upward.
The bird flapped unevenly for a moment, came close to tumbling, but then seemed to feel air beneath its wings, and righted itself.
Surprised, I watched the bird fly toward the swamp maple horizon where, I noticed, a much larger bird was perched. It was a snail kite. The snail kite, I noted, was the same size and color of the rare bird we’d seen standing on the mahogany tree at Chekika’s Hammock. The kite looked like a blue hawk.
Tomlinson’s manner now became oddly buoyant as he said, “Looks like you’re only batting five hundred, Jerry. One of your savage animals got away. You say you enjoy sports? I’ve got a sporting offer for you.”
Shiva said, “Really? Sporting. A kind of wager?”
“In a way. How about this: Let me try to break a target. Load a gun with two bullets and let me try. If I hit at least one of the targets, you agree not to shoot any more pigeons.”
Shiva began to chuckle. “First of all, shotguns don’t fire bullets, they fire pellets from a cartridge. Which is why that hardly seems fair. Even if you’ve never shot a gun before, it’s possible that you might get lucky. One target in two shots?” He was shaking his head now, seeming to relish the circumstances. “No, I don’t like those odds.”
Tomlinson’s voice became steely as he said, “Then how about giving me one cartridge? One group of pellets, and I’ll break two targets. If I break any fewer than two targets with one cartridge, I’ll shoot the rest of the stations with you. I’ll kill live birds. I give you my word.”
DeAntoni said, “I’d like to get in on some of this action,” as I told my friend, “Listen to me just for once. Most experts couldn’t make a shot like that. Just stop. Let it go. Let’s get the hell out of here.”
But Tomlinson wouldn’t be swayed. He accepted a shotgun from a grinning Izzy, then a single 12-gauge shell. Tomlinson held the shell in his long fingers, inspecting it. I doubt if he’d ever seen one before.
The shell was the size of a miniature sausage and had a brass cap attached to a red plastic casing. He bounced the shell in his hand, feeling the weight of it.
Then, to me, he said, “Show me how to operate this thing, brother.”
The shotgun was a 12-gauge Beretta over-and-under, which means that the two barrels were mounted vertically as opposed to side by side. I demonstrated how to load his single cartridge in the top barrel, then showed him how the safety worked. When he seemed to understand, I opened the chamber and grabbed the shell as it popped out. I handed both the shell and shotgun to him.
As I said to Tomlinson, “You’re making a mistake,” Shiva, standing off to the side, told him, “Izzy’s all set when you are.”
Dimple-chin was standing by the catapult, clay targets in place, the spring arms cocked.
I watched Tomlinson pause to tuck his purple-and-pink Hawaiian shirt into his baggy shorts and pull his scraggly hair back. Then he stepped onto the shooting deck, shotgun ready-an incongruous combination and an absurd thing to witness.
I listened to Shiva say, “What an amusing little soul you are.”
I listened to DeAntoni say, “Concentrate, Mac. You can do it. Wait until just before the plates cross, then squeeze the trigger.”
I listened to Izzy say, “Tell me when you’re ready. I’m throwing two at once.”
Then I heard Tomlinson call, “Pull!”
There was the fluttering sound of spring compression as twin clay targets arched high toward the pond-but Tomlinson didn’t shoot. Instead, he snapped open the shotgun and plucked out the unfired shell with his big right hand. Then he whirled like the gangly pitcher he is, and rocketed the shell toward the mechanical catapult, narrowly missing Izzy.
But he hit his target. The 12-gauge cartridge had to have been traveling close to eighty miles an hour when it crashed into the stack of clay birds mounted vertically into the machine. Several of them shattered.
In the microsecond of silence that followed, I heard two soft plop-plop s as the airborne disks landed in the pond.
Tomlinson tossed the shotgun on the ground with theatrical contempt. Then he walked toward Shiva. “No more live pigeons for you, Jerry. You’re going to keep your word. Like the big-time religious guru you claim to be. Right?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. You cheated. You tricked me.”
“Nope. I told you if I broke any fewer than two targets with one shell, you win. But I broke five or six. Maybe more. Count ’em if you want. You know what the key is? Mushin. That’s a Japanese word.”
Shiva’s smugness was gone now. Beneath the beard, his face was turning shades of ruby, his neck muscles spasming. His voice was more of a hiss as he said, “You pompous, meddling son-of-a-bitch. I want you out of here. I want you off my property. Get the fuck away from me!”
Tomlinson was only an arm’s length away from Shiva now, nose to nose, smiling. “No more pigeons, Jerry. You promised. Or don’t promises mean anything to you?”
Shiva began to reply, but then he appeared to think of something. The sudden grin on his face was manic. Abruptly, Shiva raised his shotgun, leaned, and fired both barrels.
The snail kite perched in the maples exploded in a smoking swirl of feathers, blue and gray. The corpse of the bird tumbled like a wingless plane. It made a melon sound when it hit the ground.
Shiva lowered his shotgun and yelled into Tomlinson’s face, “Okay, smartass! I won’t shoot any more pigeons. But the blood’s on your hands, not mine.”
For the first time since I’ve known the man, I saw Tomlinson break emotionally. Eyes bulging, he lunged toward Shiva. He got his huge hands around the man’s neck just as I grabbed him from behind. I had to call for DeAntoni to help-Tomlinson had surprising, freakish strength. I’ve never experienced anything like it. It took us both to restrain him.
I believe-I truly do believe-he would have tried to kill Shiva if we’d let him loose.
As we dragged Tomlinson away, he was screaming every foul word, all aimed at Shiva, and interspaced with this refrain: “You’re ruined, Jerry. The Everglades won’t allow it! I swear to God almighty, that we will ruin you…”
I noticed that Izzy, holding the recorder, was relaxed. He seemed very pleased about something.
It was on our way home, just after sunset and while we were crossing the Sanibel Causeway, that DeAntoni’s cell phone rang. I looked at a sky that was streaked with iridescent clouds, mango gold and conch-shell pink, and listened to his side of the conversation.
I heard him say, “Hey, Mrs. Minster, good to hear from you. Oh.. . okay, Sally.”
We were riding over sand islands, Lighthouse Point an elevated darkness off to our left, as I heard: “You’re kiddin’ me. And you knew the guy?”
After a full minute of silence, DeAntoni spoke again into the phone, saying, “I’ll drop off Doc and Tomlinson and come straight to your place. It’ll take me about three hours. Maybe we can have a late dinner. If it’s not an imposition.”
He closed his phone, and glanced at me. “Ironwood, the gated community where Sally lives, has a night security guard. A guy named Johnson. He disappeared last night, and they found him floating in the bay this afternoon, dead. Sally said the guy took special care of her. Kept an eye on her house because of the break-ins she’s been having.”
I said, “How’d he die?”
“They don’t know yet. Maybe a stroke and he fell off a dock. That’s what the cops are guessing. But Sally doesn’t believe it. She says someone was in her bedroom again last night. They went through her drawers. She thinks maybe Johnson surprised the guy.”