Tropical Freeze Read online

  “Benny’s looking for somebody to show him the fishing spots, show him how it’s done. Simple, basic stuff, where to cast his line, like that. I suggested he talk to you.”

  “You did?”

  “See, the thing is, Benny plays it very close to the vest with me. So, I thought, well, if you were out with him, fishing, shooting the shit, just you and him, you might be able to fill in some gaps for me. Might get some privileged glimpses.”

  “Glimpses into what?” Thorn said.

  “His business dealings,” Gaeton said.

  “This is very vague, man.”

  “I know it is, but it’s the best I can do at the moment.”

  “All right,” Thorn said. “Let me get this right. You volunteered me to take this guy out, put him into some fish. I listen to what he says, tell you about it later. That what you mean? Help you investigate your boss.”

  “Yeah,” Gaeton said. “Listen, but don’t try to wheedle anything out of him. The guy’s very cagey.”

  “Jesus, Gaeton. You could’ve asked me first.”

  “Yeah, I should’ve. But Benny brought up the fishing thing all of a sudden, and I just blurted out your name. And he’s fastened on to it, keeps bringing you up.”

  Thorn looked out his window at the Everglades, at that sweep of watery prairie, the gnarled cypress, the crisp distances. A great white heron, all wings and neck, floated between the trees out there, making lazy strokes.

  “We can talk more about this later,” Gaeton said. He patted the dashboard. “We better catch up to our friend here.”

  The Mercedes crept up to one-thirty, the Porsche disappearing around a curve, and by the time Thorn and Gaeton rounded it, the Porsche had gained a half mile on them.

  The road ahead made a sweeping turn through the saw grass and palmetto. Flocks of egrets perched on the bare branches of the cypress, and the vast marsh stretched away to every horizon. They drove ahead for five more minutes, rounding a gentle curve and facing down a long, empty stretch. They could see maybe five miles ahead, and there was nothing.

  “Shit,” Gaeton said, bringing the Mercedes down below a hundred. “He must have turned off somewhere.”

  “That, or he’s in California by now.”

  He told Thorn to hold on, and he braked hard, swerving the car into a rest stop. There was a van load of nuns sitting at the cement picnic tables. They held their drumsticks still and watched as the Mercedes slid across the lot. Gaeton made a full one-eighty and fishtailed back onto the asphalt, giving Thorn a wink.

  It took them twenty minutes of backtracking, but they found the Porsche parked in the lot of a Miccosukee Indian village. Gaeton parked beside the Porsche. In front of them was a gift shop in a rotting wood building. A hand-lettered sign propped beside the door advertised airboat rides and cases of cigarettes.

  Thorn was about to get out of the car when Gaeton put a hand on his arm.

  “I been meaning to give you this thing.”

  He pulled a small knife from his pocket, held it out for Thorn.

  “What? A bribe?”

  “Kind of,” Gaeton said.

  “That your dad’s?” Thorn said. “His Buck?”

  Thorn took it, examined it. It was a one-bladed Buck with a black, deep-grained handle.

  Gaeton said, “I don’t have any use for the thing anymore. And I thought, what with you into carving plugs now, maybe you’d like it.”

  “I don’t know, Gaeton,” Thorn said. “I appreciate it, but—”

  “Take it, Thorn. Don’t embarrass me.”

  “Well, thanks, man. Thanks very much,” Thorn said. He opened the knife, tested the blade with his thumb. A razor. “I’d forgotten he did that, whittled.”

  Gaeton said, “You know, it was mainly trick stuff. Wood chains, balls in cages, stuff like that.”

  Thorn glanced at the old Indian woman watching them from the admission window.

  “I know he’d like you to have it,” Gaeton said. “Me, I’ve been carrying it around for years. I never use it but to clean my nails.”

  Thorn held the knife and was about to ask Gaeton to quit bullshitting him and tell him what this was really all about, but his friend had turned and was getting out of the car. Thorn slipped the knife into his pocket and followed.

  Gaeton explained to the old Indian woman in the admission window that they were looking for the owner of the Porsche. The woman stared at Gaeton, said nothing for a moment, then inspected Thorn. Finally she pointed into the compound. Gaeton pushed through the turnstile, and Thorn followed, past an even older Indian woman weaving a hat from palmetto fronds, through double swinging doors into a dusty yard.

  There was their man. Claude was counting out some bills onto a weathered picnic table in front of a band of Miccosukee Indian boys. They were in jeans and dirty flannel shirts. Long, greasy black hair, cowboy hats and boots. Fat Samoan faces. They were slapping each other on the back, grinning.

  Twenty yards away was the alligator pen. A young Indian boy was standing in front of a half dozen sleeping alligators. He was holding a pole about eight feet long, shaved to a sharp point. Another Indian boy was lashing the left wrist of the Porsche salesman to the side of the alligator pen. Naked and flat on his butt in the dust of the pen. His other wrist and both ankles were already roped to stakes. His bright clothes were strewn about. One tan Weejuns was in the corner of the mouth of one of the larger alligators. The reptile seemed to have fallen asleep mid-munch.

  “Would you fucking look at this,” Gaeton said.

  A couple of the Miccosukee boys noticed Gaeton and Thorn and moved to confront them. Protecting their cash position here.

  “Hey, Claude,” said Gaeton. “What the hell’re you doing?”

  Claude reached out and put an arm on the biggest boy’s shoulder and halted him.

  “No, these are my associates,” Claude said.

  Claude was standing in the shade of a chikee hut a few yards from the alligator pen. A few Indian women stood nearby, watching Claude, silently disapproving of all of this.

  The car salesman hissed at Gaeton and Thorn. Apparently afraid to shriek and wake the gators. The boys who had tied him up had climbed out of the pen and were examining the pile of money on the table nearby.

  “Hey, Claude, look,” Gaeton said, putting his hand on the man’s arm. “I think we got ourselves a cultural misunderstanding here. I mean, maybe in Jamaica, or wherever the hell you’re from, you know, you guys are a little more heavy into the torture angle.” Gaeton sent Thorn a look: Get ready to hit somebody. “But you know, we Americans, well, when we go out and buy a car, well, normally the guy that sells it to us, we like to let him live. At least for a while.” He gave Thorn a quick smile. “I mean, I don’t want to lecture you, God knows, but we’re real close here to having a deceased citizen on our hands.”

  Thorn watched as the alligator that’d been chewing on the shoe came to life and took a few sluggish steps toward the naked man.

  “Oh, shit, look out now,” one of the Indian boys said. “That’s Maximilian.”

  The Porsche salesman had decided to play dead. He was gazing back to Thorn and Gaeton, giving them a sad and painful face. He was ignoring the alligator, though surely he could hear the reptile dragging itself along, maybe already feel its breath on his ankle.

  “Get some garfish,” the oldest boy said to one of the others. “Hurry up, asshole.” The young boy ran back into the main building.

  “Me and my friends, we can dispose of the body,” the oldest boy said. “For another thousand.”

  “OK, that’s it,” Thorn said, pushing past the Miccosukees. He picked up the sharpened pole the young boy had used. Took a breath and climbed over the fence.

  Maximilian was two yards from the car salesman when he fell asleep again. The loafer still hung out the corner of its mouth. Thorn squatted beside the man and began to work at the knot at his right wrist, holding the lance with one hand, untying with the other.

  He had on
e wrist loose and had moved around to untie the other when the smallest of the alligators lifted its body and took a steady aim at Thorn, crossing the five yards of dusty ground with surprising speed.

  Thorn jabbed the point at the reptile’s mouth, dancing away to the right to draw it from the Porsche guy.

  “Stick him in the nose,” Thorn heard someone say. “In the nostrils!”

  The gator paused, gathering itself, looking over the battlefield. Thorn glanced quickly over at Gaeton. He had his Colt out and had it leveled at the gator, a look for Thorn. No jokes. Just say the word.

  Thorn looked back at the gator, drew the pole back carefully, and made a savage strike, but hit only teeth and gums. The car salesman had his left wrist free and was working frantically on his ankles. Thorn edged backwards, poking the air just between the eyes of the gator. It surged forward and got inside the striking point of Thorn’s pole. He stumbled backwards, fell, and the alligator lunged at him.

  A fish landed in the dust a yard from Thorn’s face, and the alligator hesitated for a moment, cut its eyes toward the fish. It lowered itself and snapped it down. Thorn rolled to his left, got his feet back, and followed the car salesman across the fence.

  They stood gasping, looking back into the pen.

  “My shirt. My fucking jacket,’ the Porsche guy said.

  Thorn stared at him.

  “My goddamn outfit. Jesus Christ! Look at it.”

  Thorn kept staring at him.

  Gaeton came up beside Thorn, putting away his Colt. His shoulder harness showed under his windbreaker.

  “I would’ve shot,” he said. “Except I couldn’t remember if these things are endangered or not.”

  Thorn turned his stare to Gaeton.

  “Hey,” Gaeton said. “Just kidding. Just kidding.”

  And the man, Claude, was there, too, standing behind Gaeton, those green eyes, with their quiet burn, their lazy power. Then the man smiled at Thorn, but it wasn’t a smile you smiled back at.

  “Can we get that damn saw blade now?” Thorn said, turning to Gaeton, letting go of those green eyes, of that smile that was no smile.

  Thorn drove the Porsche back to Miami, following the three of them in the Mercedes. By the time they reached the car lot, the salesman was yes-sirring Gaeton, almost bowing as they walked over to the showroom.

  Thorn stood around in the showroom, while the salesman, Claude, and Gaeton sat inside the sales manager’s office. The manager spoke with somebody on the phone. He talked for a while, then handed the phone to Gaeton. Gaeton spoke a few words and hung up. Everybody walked out of the office smiling one smile or another. Even Claude seemed docile.

  Gaeton came across to Thorn, handed him the Mercedes keys.

  “Go get your saw blade and go on home,” he said. “I got to clean up a couple more things here.”

  “That’s it?”

  “For now,” Gaeton said. “We’ll talk some more later.”

  “Well,” said Thorn, “thanks for the entertainment.”

  4

  When Thorn pulled the Mercedes into the grassy two acres where his house was going up, there was a white Monroe County Building and Zoning station wagon parked next to Jack Higby’s rusty pickup. Jack had been helping Thorn rebuild the stilt house since September. They were about a week away from putting on the tin roof.

  Jack was sitting out at the stone picnic table under the sapodilla, giving a sip of beer to his skinny black dog. There was a man in a white short-sleeved shirt and gray pants up on a stepladder inspecting the subflooring, scribbling on a clipboard. He glanced over as Thorn was getting out of the Mercedes.

  Jack rose and came over to Thorn. Barefoot, his jeans bagging on his skinny body, and his long black beard flecked with sawdust. The building inspector started down the ladder.

  Thorn waited for Jack by the car. The dog, Garfunkel, loped over to Thorn first, plunged his nose in Thorn’s groin, and gave him the pubic lift. Thorn stooped and scratched the hound’s throat. Jack checked out the brown Mercedes, lifted an eyebrow.

  “Don’t ask,” Thorn said.

  Jack said, “Well, we got us a problem here, partner.”

  “What is it?” Thorn said. “We too far over code?”

  “Well, you talk to him,” Jack said. “I hadn’t done us no good with the man.”

  Thorn met the building inspector in the middle of the yard.

  “George Carmel,” the man said, putting out his hand. Thorn shook it. “You got yourself a real interesting house here, Mr. Thorn. Real interesting.”

  Thorn waited. The man was red-faced. He had an unhealthy glow, as if things were stretching to their limits just below his surface.

  “Hey, could we get out of the sun?” Carmel said.

  Thorn led him over to the shade the house was throwing. The man sat on a stump, shook out a cigarette, and gestured at Thorn with the pack. Thorn shook his head.

  “I never seen wood like this before,” Carmel said. He’d picked up a small piece of nara the size of a pencil box. “Weighs like lead,” he said. “Must be hell to nail into.”

  “We’re not using nails,” Thorn said. “You didn’t notice?”

  Carmel smoked his cigarette and eyed Thorn.

  He said, “Where’s wood like this come from?”

  “Borneo,” Thorn said.

  “Jesus,” the man said. “Borneo. Where the headhunters are.”

  Thorn said nothing.

  “How you come by it?”

  “Port of Miami,” Thorn said. “We take apart the cradles the Taiwanese use to ship their cheapo boats in. They’re cutting down their hardwood forests to ship us plastic knock-off yachts.”

  “They charge you up there for that?”

  “We’re doing them a favor,” Thorn said. “Saving them having to haul it off and burn it.”

  “That’s where all of this comes from?” Carmel asked.

  “Is this official?” Thorn said. “Some new regulations?”

  “You’re so touchy,” the man said. “I see this strange wood, I just want to know where it all comes from. Like that siding you’re using. That tamarind? From around here.”

  “Some of it,” Thorn said. “There’s mahogany, green heart; there’s some Jamaican dogwood, buttonwood. Whatever we can scrounge.”

  “From developments?” Carmel said.

  “Look,” Thorn said. “These woods are legal. If somebody bulldozed a protected tree and left it along the highway and I come by and pick it up and shave it into planks, it’s no crime.”

  “Well,” Carmel said, “I’m no lawyer. But … You know, I’m just trying to spare you some aggravation. People spend a few years building their dream house, and they move in, tack down the carpets, switch on the TV, and then they find a red tag on their front door. They cheated here or there on the codes, or sometimes they just didn’t even know the codes. There’re so many little things to keep up with. And next thing they know, the whole thing has to come down. They’re crying as the bulldozers roll Óinto their yard. See? I’m just trying to spare you that.”

  “So spare me,” Thorn said. “What’s it take to spare me?”

  “You married, Thorn?”

  “No.” Thorn looked over at Jack, sharing more of his beer with Garfunkel. A heron watching from the shoreline, waiting his turn.

  “Well, you don’t know then,” Carmel said, shooting a look toward the Mercedes. “Wife wants to buy this and that, make the nest pretty. You know what Tupperware costs? Those plastic things? And the kid. Hey, if you’re in the tenth grade, you can’t just wear a pair of jeans. No, you got to have some red threads running this way and that. And birthdays, and anniversaries, and you have to take the old lady out to eat once or twice a week, keep her lubricating sufficiently.”

  “How much?” Thorn said.

  “Two hundred,” the man said. “You know, a couple of pair of jeans for the boy. Tupperware. Keep the veggies fresh.”

  “Get off my land,” Thorn said.

&n
bsp; “Yeah, yeah,” the man said. “A man with morals, I like that.”

  “Sure you do.”

  Carmel stood up, brushed off his gray pants. His face had gotten redder in the shade. He flicked his butt into an oleander bush nearby.

  “Give you one more chance,” Carmel said, uninterested now. He drew his ball-point out of his shirt pocket, clicked it a few times.

  “If you’re not off my land in about thirty seconds, you’re going to be picking exotic Far Eastern hardwoods out of your lower tract.”

  The man looked at Thorn and squeezed his face into a sour smirk. He dashed off a quick scribble on his clipboard, took a thumbtack out of his shirt pocket. He stepped over to one of the cedar telephone poles, the stilts that Thorn and Jack had augered into the coral bedrock. The man fastened a red tag to it.

  “You’re officially out of business,” Carmel said, looking into the bureaucratic middle distance. “You want a list of your violations and methods of compliance, you come to the county building anytime Monday through Friday, ten to two. But let me tell you something, wild man. You so much as start up a power saw on this place, and you’re bunking with the sweethearts at the county jail.”

  He walked back to his station wagon, got in, and drove away.

  Jack and Garfunkel came over.

  “Well?” Jack said.

  “Let’s take the afternoon off, Jack. Go rip the faces off some barracuda. How ’bout it?”

  “Whatever you think,” Jack said. “Whatever makes you happy.”

  Darcy Richards stood in front of the WBEL weather map and pointed to the satellite photo of a front pushing down from Canada. It was the first major Arctic invasion of the season, a five-hundred-mile-wide glacial arm stretching through the Midwest and into North Georgia, its wispy fingers already tickling Atlanta.

  “Well, the radar boys tell me this is a fizzler. They say it’s going to run out of momentum in Jacksonville. But I say this is the real thing, a genuine Siberian express hiding in a dip in the jet stream.” Darcy smiled into the lights. “Right on schedule, second week in January. So, I’m warning you, get out your camel hair coats. It’s gonna get damn cold this weekend.”

  The national temperatures flickered into place behind her, and the producer whispered into her earphone, “Temps, temps.”