The airboat. So that’s it, thought Anna. The reason for the alcohol. He’s going to stage a boating accident. She looked down into the shallow water. The flats. Not enough room to dive under anything.
Jerry jumped up into the captain’s seat in one motion. Anna’s heart seized on a strong beat. The moment froze; sound dropped out. Her eyes stayed straight, her mind thumbing through the final details. The roseate spoonbill on that branch. The tarpon fin to her right. The perforated mangrove islands across the horizon. The sound came rushing back in her head with a tremendous roar, and she found herself running.
Jerry enjoyed himself watching her pitiful escape attempt, high-stepping with awkward splashes, falling down over and over. He was mildly aroused. His empty eyes saw all the vectors. Her distance and slow progress, then the future path of the airboat that would cut her down well before shore. He turned the ignition key. Twelve volts of DC current zipped to the blasting caps on the sticks of dynamite duct-taped under the airboat driver’s seat.
Anna was knocked down in the water by the force of the explosion. The demolition was over-engineered, at least three times the TNT needed for the job. Jerry’s ballistic path was almost straight up, still strapped in his chair like an F-16 pilot bailing out at altitude. Except he was on fire.
Anna watched him sail higher and higher before arcing over and coming down headfirst in the muck. Just legs and seat bottom showing. It took a full minute for the last of the flaming pieces to flutter down and hiss into the water around Anna as she splashed back to shore.
EVERYONE ON THE front lawn of Coleman’s trailer turned toward the sound of the explosion.
“That was dynamite,” said Gus.
They looked northeast. A black cloud rose from the horizon in the direction of No Name Key.
Gus hopped back in the cruiser and stuck his head out the window. “Walter, stay here until the bomb squad arrives and clears their car.”
“Be careful.”
The cruiser took off. It jumped islands in quick succession. Traffic on U.S. 1 heard the siren and halted at a green light as Gus made a squealing left on Big Pine and raced up the long, straight road that would eventually lead to No Name Key.
Soon, a single car appeared a mile in the distance, coming toward Gus through the road’s shimmering heat waves. The car grew larger and larger until Gus couldn’t believe his eyes. A metallic green Trans Am. He hit the brakes and turned the wheel. The cruiser skidded to a sideways stop, blocking both lanes. The Trans Am ran off the road into a palmetto thicket.
Gus jumped out and drew his gun. The driver’s window rolled down. Gus immediately recognized Anna from TV, the missing woman presumed dead. He holstered the pistol and ran to her door.
“Ma’am, are you okay?”
“Let’s make a deal.”
TWO HOURS LATER, an otherwise quiet lane on Ramrod Key was jammed with gossiping neighbors. The trailer and yard were wrapped in crime tape. Serge and Coleman chatted with Walter while demolition experts crawled everywhere.
A member of the bomb squad came over. “The car’s clean… except for this unregistered gun I found in the glove compartment.”
“Must have been my wife’s,” said Serge. “You think you know someone….”
Another bomb technician emerged from the trailer. “Clean inside… except I found this.” He held out an ashtray. “At least twenty roaches. There are four or five more just like it.”
“She also turned out to be a burglar — and a drug fiend,” said Serge. “Constantly breaking into Coleman’s trailer and smoking joints.”
Walter made a dismissive wave with his hand. “Don’t worry about it.”
The bomb squad guy dumped the ashtray in his pocket and walked off.
Suddenly, more explosions. Bright bursts of light in the sky over Key West.
“Look,” said Serge. “The fireworks are starting.”
Walter checked his watch. “I wonder what’s taking Gus so long.”
COLORFUL FIREWORKS REFLECTED off the windshield of a sheriff’s cruiser parked down by water’s edge on Big Pine Channel.
The people in the front seat weren’t watching them.
“Tell me again about the money,” said Gus.
“We split it fifty-fifty,” said Anna. “There’s at least three million. We get the hell out of here and start over. You’ll have to quit your job, of course, but how much can that be paying?”
Epilogue
THE QUIET TIME just after sunset in the Florida Keys. Scarlet hues burning through the mangroves. Strings of headlights on U.S. 1.
The incoming tide quietly lapped the northern shore of No Name Key. A ring of seaweed formed. Another soft wave carried a six-pack ring. Some of the water washed over a Polaroid photo in the sand. It had singed edges. Another wave came in and the photo began to float. It was a picture of a house, the typical kind you’d find in this part of the Keys. One of the older ranch deals. The front yard was made of smooth landscaping stones. In the middle was an old ship’s anchor. Another wave came and carried the photo off.
A METALLIC GREEN Trans Am sat in the driveway of a vacation home on Big Pine Key. There was a long gouge through the stones in the front yard — from the crab-trap floats to the driveway — where Anna and Gus were dragging a heavy anchor.
The pair got the thing to the lip of the trunk. But between Anna’s petite frame and Gus’s back, it was hard to tell who was having the worse of it. An old-timer watched from the porch of the house next door. He had a white T-shirt, suspenders and bedroom slippers. When Gus and Anna dropped the anchor again on the third try, the old man came over.
“Let me give you a hand.”
It went in with a thud. “Thanks.” Anna tied the trunk lid down with string.
“Heard about the owner. You related?”
“His sister.”
“My condolences.”
“Appreciate it.”
“Only saw him a couple times,” said the neighbor. He caught Anna looking down at his slippers. “You reach a certain age, you just don’t give a damn anymore. I don’t know why.”
Anna smiled.
“You gonna be selling the place or coming back?”
She put her hands on her hips and looked around in the twilight. A miniature deer hoofed across the street. “Don’t know yet.”
The animal began gnawing on one of the flowers that surrounded the anchorless space.
“Go on, now,” said the old man. “Git!”
“No,” said Anna. “Let him eat.”
The man pointed back at his own property, where all the plants were circled with chicken mesh. “You have to use the wire.”
Gus climbed in the passenger seat. Anna went to the driver’s side.
“You’re lucky if you already got property in the Keys,” the man told Anna across the Trans Am’s roof. “Too expensive to buy in anymore. I could sell my house and get a giant place in Lakeland. I got brochures.”
Anna climbed in the car. The old man came around to her window. “Let me know if you decide to sell. I know people. Actually, I get a kickback, but we can split it.”
“I’ll keep it in mind.” She buckled her seatbelt. “Thanks again with the anchor.”
The old man looked up at the sky and scratched his whiskers. “There’s a big storm coming.”
Anna started the car. “There is?”
“No. That’s something this old guy tells Linda Hamilton before she drives away at the end of The Terminator….” The man began walking back to his house. “I just like to say it all the time.”
The Trans Am backed out of the driveway, the rear end riding low from a three-hundred-pound solid-gold anchor painted with marine primer and verdigris stain.
Stuart, Florida
A SMALL TOWN, but, as they say, a great place to live. It’s up on the east coast. Jensen Beach to the north, Hobe Sound to the south. Beautiful beaches, arts, health care, the rest of the state’s problems another world away. The best part is the neighbors. Always saying hello in the supermarket, the bank, the library. Particularly the library.