I liked her quick reaction. She seemed to know instantly what I wanted her to do-stay between the hysterical girl and myself. I didn't want to be put in the position of having to light her off.
She gave Tisha a warning look. "I'm getting kind of sick of her myself."
Just like that, Tisha became very, very quiet.
Tony wasn't being cooperative. He was hurt and furious and he had a very nasty mouth. His attitude was as foul as his language. I was getting sick of both. Now I nudged him with the stick and said, "You need to answer my questions, little man, or I'm going to get mad. You don't want me to get mad, do you?"
He told me to go do something to myself-a physical impossibility.
He was still on the ground. I was standing over him. I said, "Did I mention that was your last warning?"
"Get away from me, asshole!"
"See? A perfect example. You don't seem to have any concern for my feelings." I knelt, put a knee in his side, slapped him twice in the face when he tried to fight me off, then I reached and got a good grip on his earrings, left hand and right hand. They became very effective steering devices. I turned his head until he was facing the ground, neck bent upward, toward me.
"That hurts, damn it!"
"I bet it does. But know what's gonna hurt worse? From now on, every time you don't answer a question, I'm going to rip a pretty little ring out of your nasty little head. First one that goes is that nose ring. That's going to hurt."
"Ford."
I turned to see Nora's quizzical, worried expression-I wasn't really going to torture the man, was I? I gave her the slightest nod in answer. It changed her face; changed the way she looked at me.
I said, "Okay, let's try it again: tell me why you dug up Dorothy Copeland."
"I didn't!"
I changed my grip on his head so fast that I had the nose ring in my fist before he could react. I gave it a sharp tug, hard enough for him to feel it, but not hard enough to rip it away.
"Shit!"
"I don't think you heard the question: Why'd you open her grave?"
"Honest, I didn't! I swear to Christ I didn't! I don't know who did, either. Some sicko, man, but it wasn't us."
"Then why were you at the funeral? And don't give me that crap about nothing better to do."
"To see what was in the coffin. People on the island knew there was something buried with her. That was always the story. I grew up hearing it, man, and I wanted to see for myself. Derrick and the two chicks, they were just tagging along."
"You have no idea who did it?"
"Not a clue. Honest to God. Yeah, we've been digging out here, but we haven't found shit. Some bones, that's all. Some pottery. But digging up the girl's grave, no way, man. I had absolutely nothing to do with that."
"Your dad's such a nice guy, he loaned you all this expensive equipment. He must be big on hobbies."
"When he sees what you did to his shit, you're going to find out how big my dad is, asshole!"
"There's that mouth of yours again." I twisted the nose ring until he made a squeaking noise. "Sneaking onto an island, digging up an important archaeological site. I hope you're nicer to the cop who arrests you."
"We ain't sneaking, man. We don't got to sneak. My dad's general contractor for the dude who owns the whole fucking island, man. They're gonna start clearing and building in a couple of months anyway. What we done here, shit, this ain't nothing compared with what my old man's gonna do when he gets the rest of his permits."
I said, "See how easy it is? I ask a question, you give me an answer." I released the nose ring. "Who does your dad work for?"
His eyes were watering; he had the sniffles, too. "The old man who was at the funeral today. The rich dude, Ivan Bauerstock."
Tony was Tony Rossi, son of Frank Rossi, the big man with the florid face and the T-shirt I'd seen at the funeral. He'd been working for Bauerstock for nearly fifteen years, according to his son, and both men had a passion for Indian artifacts.
"It's like their thing, you know? They collect the shit, trade it back and forth. It's what they got in common. Mr. Bauerstock, he's into all kinds of stuff. Artifacts, that's just one of the things. So when they get a construction deal going, and it's at a place that might have something to find, they make it a point to get in a little early. Dig and sift; no big deal. Which is my whole point, man. You think we're gonna get arrested? Shit, dude, you're the one who's gonna get arrested. My dad's boss owns the fucking place."
I thought I was going to have to restrain Nora when he said that. I waited patiendy while she lectured him. I saw at least one point hit home-"We'll have Ivan Bauerstock arrested and make you testify!" — before I asked him a few more questions. We were both standing now; me leaning on my stave, him limping around when he moved, nursing an elbow that had already swollen to the size of a baseball. Whenever he balked at a question, all I had to do was take the stave in both hands. It kept him talking.
It wasn't unusual for his dad to pay him and some of his buddies to do that hard, hot labor. He'd been doing it off and on for years. The difference this time was, his dad had been so insistent that they put in a lot of hours and make a very, very careful search. Tony was vague about what he hoped they'd uncover.
"Stuff like the girl found, that's what my old man said. I'd seen those pictures a thousand times. Wooden masks, Spanish beads. That thing you took out of the girl's coffin, they'd love to have that, man. They're big on carvings or anything made of gold. Something major, Mr. Bauerstock is gonna pay me a big bonus. Two thousand bucks cash plus a thousand each for my friends."
"Plus he was paying you to dig."
"Hell yes, he was paying us. Lot more than I'd make at Wendy's."
I asked him, "Does that make any sense to you? To pay so much for a carving?"
"A rich man doesn't have to make sense. He just has to be rich. Know what you might try, dude? When my old man figures out where you're hiding and comes to beat your ass, you might try offering him that carving in trade. Get yourself off the hook."
Before I turned him loose, I told Tony his old man wouldn't have to look hard. I'd be on Key Largo.
We were nearly to the long bar off Lostman's River before Nora spoke. We'd ridden all that way in silence, past Panther Key and Jack Daniels and Pavilion Key; the Ten Thousand Islands off to our left, mangroves so dense that they absorbed sunlight; they seemed to create a dark dome beneath the bright blue October sky. I saw only two other skiffs the whole way, plus a sailboat on the far horizon probably outward bound from Key West or the Dry Tortugas. The two of us sat side by side but alone, as silent and remote, it seemed, as the dark islands touched one after another by my skiff's trailing wake.
Violence releases a potent chemical cocktail into the muscles and the brain. The aftereffects can be a little like a hangover. It produced a gloom in us both. I had drifted so deeply into my own thoughts that I actually jumped a little when she spoke.
"Ford? You really would have done it. Why's it so hard for me to believe that?"
It took me a moment to understand the question. "The rings, you mean."
"Yes. You'd have torn them out to make him talk. You really would've."
I thought about lying, then decided to hell with it. "Probably. A couple of them, at least, just to let him know I was serious. Until he convinced me that he wasn't the one who dug up Dorothy, it seemed like the thing to do."
"It was so… brutal."
"He wasn't all that nice to me, if you think about it."
She touched her fingers to my arm, a signal of some type. "I wasn't criticizing you. It was an observation. I've never seen anything like that. The whole scene keeps going through my mind over and over. Wasn't that girl awful?"
I nodded.
She touched my arm again and looked at me. "Some puppy dog. Delia called you that. You're no puppy dog."