"No. But it will be. It's only a matter of time. My dad paid off the family, but it'll get out. Since he lost the medallion, Dad's had a surprising number of business failures. In the last twelve weeks, in fact, it's not an exaggeration to say he's lost at least thirty percent of his wealth-many millions of dollars. You beating a confession out of Tony Rossi was the latest of many setbacks. Frankly, I've had some setbacks myself in my race for the state senate." "Oh?"
"You can look it up, so I might as well tell you. I've been falling in the polls. Turns out, my newest opponent is the son of one of dad's oldest enemies. One's as unscrupulous as the other. This guy hired two prostitutes to claim I tried to force myself on them. Sexually. Complete bullshit, but that's what politics has come to. To Dad, I'm just an extension of his business interests. He's lost the medallion and now my Senate race is going to hell along with everything else. That's the way he sees it. He wants to reverse the momentum. He believes the totem might do that."
"What if Delia doesn't want to sell it?"
"Oh, he'll get the totem, count on it. That's why I've called you aside, Dr. Ford. He'll buy it from Delia or use Dorothy's scholarship fund to leverage it out of her. Or he'll have someone steal it. That's why I'm talking to you now. It's not for you or for Delia, even though I'm fond of her. It's for Dorothy. She really was something special. I didn't know her well, but she had a quality about her that was… well, I guess angelic is the only word that fits. She seemed too good for this world. I don't want to see her mother get hurt."
I ignored the strange urge to ask him more questions about Dorothy. What did her voice sound like? Did she have a favorite expression? An interest in natural history? It was irksome that he'd actually spent time with her, but I hadn't. Instead, I said, "You're an unwilling pawn, just trying to help."
He stiffened slightly. "I don't care for your tone and I don't need your sarcasm. This may come as a big shock, Ford, but I really am going into politics to try and do some good. My father has spent his life hurting people and destroying lives, living a completely selfish existence. You'll read this, too, so I might as well tell you: I spent my teenage years in a privately run cloister, fighting to overcome the emotional damage my father did when I was young. This was in North Dakota. Can you imagine a Florida kid being sent there? But
I made it. I came out with my sanity and the conviction to live a constructive life."
When I offered no expression of empathy, the indignation faded. "You're not interested in my personal history, nor my politics. I knew that the first moment I laid eyes on you. But you're a rational man, so let me give you a condensed version of why we need strong people in political office with good motives. Shrink the earth's population to a village of precisely a hundred people, and here are the ratios. There would be fifty-seven Asians, twenty-one Europeans, seven South Americans, nine Africans and eight from the U.S. Seventy of those people would be non-Christian, eighty would live below the poverty level and half the world's wealth would be in the hands of only six people, all citizens of the United States. And only two of those hundred people would own a computer."
I said, "Meaning there are dark days coming for a pampered nation."
"Unless we get very tough, quick. Yes." He held his hand out to me. I didn't want to take it. It is a common social quandary. Finally, I shook his hand as he said, "I'll tell Dad you're counseling Delia on what to do with the totem. I suspect he'll go easier on you if she decides to sell. I made her an offer. She'll speak to you about it."
As he walked away, I told him, "Breaking the lease on my house, I can see why you'd do that. But this's got nothing to do with Mote Marine. They're doing great things for this state."
Over his shoulder, Bauerstock said, "You think my father gives a damn?"
Eighteen
Tomlinson was talking. "Know what I think I'll do? I think I'll cut my hair, buy some decent clothes, trim my nails and move to Pittsburgh. I hear it's a lovely city. They have a surprisingly good baseball team and a great manager. Watching the Pirates at Three Rivers. That would become my hobby. I'll send my sweet little daughter postcards and knickknacks."
I said, "Oh?"
It was nearly midnight. The wind had freshened, gusting hot, then cool, followed by long moments of calm. Somewhere in the darkness, far out to sea, hot-air thermals were ricocheting skyward, absorbing tons of water vapor and beginning a slow, counterclockwise momentum.
I was sitting in my skiff, wrapping tape onto a length of electrical conduit I'd found. Tomlinson was standing near me on the seawall. I'd loaned him my stout Loomis bait-casting rod with a fine old ABU reel that is loaded with twenty-pound test. I carry it for stopping big-shouldered fish around docks and mangroves. My fly rods are for sport. This bruiser was for putting food on the table.
Tomlinson had tied on a very large lure called a Bomber. It was studded with gang hooks, all very sharp. When it hit the water, it sounded heavy as a brick. He was casting out onto the black water, then reeling it back slowly, very slowly.
Behind us, there were still a few people on stools inside the tiki bar, but the music had stopped. Beside the bar was a flat-roofed, two-story stucco building rimmed with a balcony. It was an upstairs-and-downstairs rental duplex. In the lemon lights of the marina, the building's green paint had turned gray, and the sliding glass doors of the upstairs apartment were illuminated. Nora was still awake up there, her silhouette moving across the scrim of living room light, maybe talking on the phone.
The woman spent a lot of time on the phone.
"When I get to Pittsburgh, I think I'll buy a two-bedroom house in the suburbs-never know when a babe might want to sleep over. Yes, and get a nice desk job. County government, perhaps, something secure. Good money, good benefits. A meat-and-potatoes kind of job. I'll buy life insurance. I'll file my taxes quarterly. Perhaps marry a God-fearing Christian with multipersonalities. That way I could come home to a different woman every night. Whoops. Holy shit!"
I heard a tremendous thrashing out on the water, then a whistling noise as the Bomber came zooming past my ear and landed in the coral rock by a coconut palm.
I'd thrown my hands up-way too late-and now I sighed and returned to my wrapping. "You get a tarpon on like that, Tomlinson, you've got to bow when it jumps or it'll throw the plug back at warp speed. You're going to get one of us killed. That thing only missed me by a couple of feet."
"Sorry, sorry." He was stripping out the tangle, retrieving the lure. "Big bastards out there in the dark. Absolutely lucking ferocious. If tarpon grew teeth, I wouldn't go anywhere near the water. What I want is a nice snapper. Something tasty for lunch. Perhaps invite Delia. They ought to be hitting on this falling barometer." He began to cast again. "Where was I?"
"Pittsburgh."
"Ah, exactly. I've come to regret this pirate's life of ours, Marion. A life of excess and immorality. A man can only take so much sunshine and water, plus the constant party-party-party that Florida requires. I fear that chemicals are starting to take their toll. Reptiles have been visiting me in my dreams. I need to steel myself or rent a U-Haul."
"Um-huh. Tomlinson? Are you sleeping with Delia?"
He stopped reeling for a moment. "Of course I'm sleeping with Delia. The poor woman needed comforting. I'm just what the doctor ordered."
"Then you know that Ted Bauerstock made her an offer on the totem."
The totem was still in the black bag, beside me on the boat.
"I know, she told me. More money than she makes in two years. I told her to keep the totem for a while. Absorb some of its goodness, some of its power, then sell. But Ted wants it right away. She's thinking it over." He was silent for a moment, then: "You had a long, private talk with the man."