We cut in close to the beach at Cape Sable where mangroves grow a hundred feet high, then ran Tin Can Channel past Flamingo. Had I been alone, I might have stopped and placed a wild flower on a little marker that commemorates the passing of someone who was once very near and dear. Instead, I accelerated over a shoaling bottom, feeling the skiff gather buoyancy as the bottom pressure created lift.
Doing an easy fifty, we flew through the narrow cut at Dump Keys, then past Samphire Key where the water changed from gray to iridescent green over a coral bottom that showed a blur of sea fans and sponges. To the east was Key Largo. The big micro tower there punctured a cumulous cloud that was feeding on exhaust fumes and asphalt thermals.
The water continued to clear until it had the density of bright air. The eye told the brain that to fall from the skiff meant a drop of ten or twenty feet. I waited until I found a perfect basin of clear water, then backed the throttle and switched off the key.
"Why are you stopping?"
"Water like this, I've got to swim. The starboard locker, beneath all the ice, you'll find botdes of beer. There are a couple of Cuban sandwiches, too. Help yourself. All I've got is underwear, so turn the other way if you want."
"My God! Look at your side."
I had my shirt off. I looked where she was pointing and saw a tubular bruise where Derrick had hit me. A very serious hematoma that appeared as if it might still be bleeding. The bruise was black in the middle, green and red at the edges.
"If he'd hit you in the head, he'd have killed you."
I said, "I don't doubt it," and dived in, feeling the cleanness of water cover me. I swam out another twenty yards, letting my muscles stretch, my hands feeling the weight of water, and then I dived to the bottom once again. I surfaced to see Nora standing on the casting deck, ready to dive. She'd stripped down to bra and panties; a tall, flat-chested woman with ribs showing beneath dark skin. Bony hips and very long, smooth legs with a firm muscularity.
It was a nice image: dark, lean woman, lucent water, green horizon. Seeing her brought some light back into me and brightened my thoughts.
She did a pretty good dive, had a very nice, long-distance stroke.
Back in the boat, her black hair dripping, unselfconscious about her body showing through wet bra and bikini panties, she said to me, "I know what you mean. Water like this, you've got to get in."
Sixteen
Speaking from inside the little tiki bar at Mandalay Marina, Delia hung up the phone as she said, "That was him. That was Teddy. He'll be here around sunset and answer all your questions. You just wait. He's a sweetheart."
Tomlinson and I were standing outside on the tile floor beneath ceiling fans and a blue-and-white waterproof canopy that provided shade for a half-dozen picnic tables. Behind us was the marina basin: a row of docks and sun-bleached fiberglass hulls, No Mas, moored bow-out at the last slip, twenty or more sailboats afloat in the anchorage a few hundred yards off the rock jetty.
My pretty yellow Maverick was tied in the charter slip next to the bar.
On the other side of the basin, on white coral rock, were a few palm trees and a row of trailers. Delia lived in the beige Holiday Rambler with the screened porch, the tiki torches, the shrimp net curtains and the Conch Republic sticker on the front door. She'd made it a homey place with aloe plants on the porch and candles in the windows., Mandalay was really a fish camp and bar. All the regulars had nicknames: Conch Jerry, Queenie, Little John, Donald Duck, Lucky John. Twenty or thirty people called the place home or used it as a second home. They'd work on their boats barefooted on the coral, or sit at the bar drinking beer in their Mandalite T-shirts.
Everyone there called themselves Mandalites, as if they were a separate tribe. It reminded me a little bit of Dinkin's Bay, only the architecture was Tropical Transitory, had a more Keysy feel.
Keysy is a word you hear a lot down there.
It was Sunday afternoon. Nora Chung had been very busy on the phone. Sunday or not, she'd tracked down the director of her museum and several of the museum's most powerful board members. She'd told them it was imperative that they get together on a conference call and decide whether or not they should issue a formal complaint to Ivan Bauerstock and his son, the candidate. The result was a telegram which read: We insist that you immediately cease the illegal destruction of burial sites on Cayo de Marco and we intend to hold a press conference on this matter if you refuse.
To Nora, I'd said, "They still have telegrams?"
"Yep, and this one will stop the bastards in their tracks. If we hold a press conference, tell reporters about the big man's hobby, his son can say goodbye to the state senate. He's aware of that, which means he'll be ready to jump through hoops. You know the only thing I'm uncomfortable about? I like Ted Bauerstock. Just from the little bit I talked with him. I hate to drag him into this because of something his dad's doing."
Nora was now upstairs in the Mandalay's two-bedroom rental apartment making more phone calls. I had a few calls to make myself. I wanted to speak with Detective Parrish, see if he'd found out anything new or if maybe he'd received a complaint from a couple of punk rockers about a big man with glasses attacking them. I also wanted to speak to the funeral rep, Caldwell.
But Sunday wasn't the day to do it. I'd actually forgotten what day it was until I walked downstairs to the outdoor tiki bar to find locals already gathering there, popping beers while a man in a dark suit preached a sermon. The Church of Hawk's Channel, the outdoor service was called, with a congregation composed of live-aboards and ocean wanderers. It was maybe the only church in America where men and women could drink a Budweiser, watch the sunrise and pray. Keysy, real Keysy.
Key Largo-one small planet in a solar system of islands all connected by orbiting blue water.
Now Tomlinson lifted my wrist so that he could see my watch. "Yep, just like I thought. Beer time. Delia? I'll have a Hat-uey, and my politically insensitive friend will have a Coors."
Delia handed out two botdes already mounted in Styro-foam coolie cups. She was wearing a pink tank top and cutoff jean shorts and had a hawk's feather in her hair. All the waitresses dressed like that.
"He said he'd be here sooner, but he's bringing the boat up from Marathon."
She was still talking about Ted Bauerstock. She was smiling, the first time I'd seen her smile since I'd met her. With her narrow chin and black hair, she reminded me of a country-western singer. She had the underfed look of coal mines and sawgrass. "You know how politicians used to go by train and make what they called 'whistle-stops'? Teddy, he's doing the same thing by boat. He started in Key West and he's gonna work his way up the coast. Stops at marinas, talks to the fishermen, the real people, then meets with reporters. He said he ^was actually thinking about dumping the whole plan and have his boat taken out of the water. But he's so upset about what you say his daddy's doing, he's on his way right now."
I said, "The marina stops aren't getting enough publicity?"
"No, they're going just fine. It's not that at all. Haven't you listened to the weather this morning? There's another couple tropical storms forming. One's down off South America someplace, the other's off Africa. Weather people say they probably won't head this way, but they could. Teddy, he's bringing the boat anyway."
Since there is only one road that links the Florida Keys-Highway AlA-and since the road effectively divides the Atlantic from Florida Bay, all directions are given in relationship to the mile marker nearest the destination and to the body of water it sides. Mandalay Marina, Tiki Bar 8c Restaurant (rental apartments available, according to the plywood sign out front) was on the ocean side at mile marker 97.5, meaning it was ninety-seven and a half miles from Key West, the geographical and social equivalent of Florida's Ground Zero.