American Tropic

You’ve got to work with me tonight, pilgrims, or ol’ Truth Dog is going to sail away back home. We’ve got four endangered turtle species here in the Florida Keys: the leatherback, the loggerhead, the hawksbill, and the green. Why can’t we stop the slaughter? I’m waiting for your answer. Okay, here’s a pilgrim. Talk me some sense.”

A woman’s shaky voice answers. “I never called before. I’m so nervous.”

“You’ll be fine.”

“You know, uh, there’s been, uh, extensive scientific research into cancer. They’ve scrutinized Neanderthal fossils and found no evidence of cancer. Cancer only shows up two hundred years ago. It’s modern times that have surrounded us with cancer and …”

“Don’t stop. I’m here for you.”

The nervous woman’s voice becomes emboldened. “Remember when you said the dumping of toxic stuff by the military around the Keys might have poisoned the water?”

“Military’s been here since the Civil War. Ships, submarines, fighter jets, you name it. Toxic dumping is our legacy.”

“Now we have abnormally high rates of cancer.”

“I always say, you want the true picture, you’ve got to connect the right dots.”

“The picture is,” the woman says, sobbing, “everything is being poisoned. People, coral reefs, sea life, everything is going to die of man-made cancer.”

“You’re right. It’s all connected. Next caller, you’re up. Connect the dots.”

A squeaky male voice begins excitedly: “What’s that ditzy dame talking about? She’s got cancer on the brain. Everybody wants to cure cancer, but it’s the witty bitty we should worry about.”

“Witty bitty?”

“The Key Largo cotton mouse. It’s on the official endangered list. It’s being wiped out by runaway cats from trailer camps.” The squeaky voice drops to a confidential tone. “Truth Dog, I’m reaching out my hand to you. Will you pray with me?”

“Whatever floats your boat. Okay.”

“You got my hand?”

“I got it. It’s sweaty.”

“We pray thee, Lord, to keep safe all your creatures great and small. Especially the witty bitty.”

“Maybe the Head Man up above will hear your prayer.”

“Oh, he will. He’s listening right now. He’s going to show you the light. Good-bye, brother.”

“Next caller. Go. I’m waiting.… I said, go.”

The baritone of a man’s belligerent voice slams through the silence. “I’m the vet who called before.”

“Welcome back, vet.”

“I saw bad shit in Nam. Shit that makes what happened in Iraq and Afghanistan look like a Disneyland ride. A famous photo was taken durin’ the Nam war. It showed a naked Vietnamese girl runnin’ up the road. Her village had been napalm-flamed by us. She was on fire. Blobs of smolderin’ napalm burnin’ off her skin. That stricken look on her face—f*ck, man—that look! That was the look of innocence destroyed by our evil.”

“That’s it, show me the rage.”

“I was one of the guys napalming those Nam villages. I was nineteen years old. I still see that girl’s smolderin’ skin in my dreams, nearly half a century later. The smell of burnin’ flesh wakes me up every night.”

“The smell of rage.”

“I saw the same look that girl had in another photo more recently, when that oil well blew in the Gulf.”

“Deepwater Horizon blowout. Worst ecological disaster in American history. Total cover-up.”

“It was a photo of a pelican flounderin’ in a sea of oil. The bird’s body was drenched in brown slime, its wings stretched out, tryin’ to fly, but it couldn’t. Its eyes were huge with fear, like that girl’s eyes, that girl with her skin on fire runnin’ up the road. We’ve got to stand against innocents’ being slaughtered.”

“We’ve got to stand up to the war machine that runs on soul-sucking oil or our days are numbered.”

“That’s why I called before about the comin’ Permian Extinction Event. Next time I’ll call with proof that it’s all gonna blow sky-high.”



Seagulls swarm in the sky above Pat’s shrimping boat as it plows through heavy ocean swells far out at sea. The boat’s long-poled twenty-foot outriggers are winged out on both sides of the vessel, their unfurled dragnets roiling the water. Pat swings in one of the outriggers and cranks up its dripping net. The net breaks the surface of the water, weighted with a squirming catch of pink-shelled shrimp. Pat pulls the rip cord on the net as it swoops in over the deck. A small catch of briny shrimp drops from the net onto the deck. She yanks off her canvas captain’s cap and whacks it in frustration against her blue jeans. She whips around to her boat mate, standing next to her. The mate is shirtless, the sun-darkened skin of his broad upper torso swirled with wicked-looking interlocking tattoos. He hikes his tight jeans up and takes a boxer’s stance in his white rubber shrimper boots, expecting a punch from frustrated Pat as she shouts: “We’ve been out here for three days, and all I get is a twenty-buck load of pink bug-eyes! I can’t even pay my fuel with that!”

The mate cocks a hand over his eyes and squints at the sunlight’s glare on the ocean. “Looks like your luck is taking a turn.” He points to a bubbling break on the water’s surface. A pod of fast-moving dolphins leaps from the water into the air, their bodies twisting in muscular turns as they approach the side of the boat.

Pat claps her hands together. “Hallelujah, let’s get some bait for the longlines!” She runs into the pilothouse and races back out with a shotgun. She takes a position on the prow of the boat as the pod of dolphins nose-dive back beneath the water and disappear. She aims the shotgun at a calm spot in the water in front of the boat. She waits. The dolphins break through the surface of the calm spot in a gushing spray of saltwater; sunlight shimmers on their sleek, wet bodies arched high in the air. She fires a blast from the shotgun. Blood spews from one of the arched dolphins. The others dive from sight, leaving the dolphin with its side blown open floating on the sea close to the boat. Pat puts down the shotgun, grabs a long gaffing pole, and whams its steel hook-point into the floating dolphin. The mate short-gaffs the creature from the other side. Together they heft the dead weight up onto the deck.

Pat grins with delight at the mate. “Hurry, get that bucket of J-hooks.” She pulls out her knife from the leather holster belt strapped around her waist. She grips the knife and slashes at the dolphin’s thick dorsal fin, curved up high from the center of its back. The blade cuts through the fibrous veins of the fin in a spurt of blood.

The mate comes back with the bucket of barbed J-hooks. Pat pushes sliced bloody dolphin meat onto the hooks. She wipes sweat off her face and looks up. “Perfect bait—the turtles always think it’s drifting squid.”

Pat goes into the pilothouse and throws the engine switch. The engine growls to life in a loud metallic clang of firing pistons. She steers the boat out on a new course. The mate feeds the baited hooked longline off the stern into the slashed V-wake of the propeller-churned water behind the boat. The longline whirrs away into the distance, sinking from sight beneath the water.



The sun smacks down on Pat at the back of her boat; she is cranking the wood handle of the line-winch, which reels in the longline trailing in the water. The mate works next to her, hoisting the longline onto the deck. All the longline’s barbed hooks are stripped of dolphin bait. Pat keeps cranking the handle; the veins on her neck pop out purple. The last of the longline left in the water jerks, goes taut, whirs back out. Pat grips the handle tighter, puts all of her strength into trying to stop the line from stripping farther out behind the boat. The mate grabs the handle with Pat. They strain together, groaning as their muscles burn, holding the longline. The tension reverses toward Pat and the mate; they crank the winch handle harder. The longline in the water comes closer to the boat.

The gray humped shell of a sea turtle crests above the water. The steel barbs of a J-hook are sunk deep into one of its thrashing front flippers. The turtle aggressively flaps its free flipper against the water’s surface, struggling to turn its great weight against the hook that holds it to the taut line.

Pat whoops with joy. “A leatherback! Jackpot!”

The mate holds the winch handle steady.

Pat grabs a heavy net. She leans off the side of the boat and casts the net across the water over the splashing turtle. She holds the rope attached to the net as the turtle’s bulk thrusts against its sudden entrapment.

The mate jams the winch handle into the locked position. He joins Pat in holding the net rope against the fury of the turtle. They are pulled to the edge of the boat. They lean dangerously off the side of the boat, about to fall into the water, pitting their combined weight against the turtle. A mighty thrust from the turtle knocks Pat and the mate off balance, and they fall to their knees on the slippery deck. They hang on to the rope, pulling back harder, groaning as they haul the turtle up from the water and heft it aboard. The turtle’s bulk crashes onto the deck in a booming thump, its massive shell glistening; its prehistoric sharp-beaked face snaps from side to side as it gasps in exertion with humanlike sounds.

Pat gazes at the formidable animal before her. “What a beauty. Must be a hundred years old. Big money in the fin meat. Chinese are convinced eating it will give them King Kong hard-ons to bang their girly friends all night long.” She throws her head back, joyfully singing out at the top of her lungs an old pop song, “All night long, forever!”

The mate wipes sweat off his tattooed chest. “Yeah, Chinese will pay a fortune.”

The turtle powerfully slaps its long leathery flippers against the deck, futilely searching for water to make its escape. The hollow gasping from its beaked mouth becomes desperate; its bulging sea-green eyes gape up at its captors.

Pat picks up an iron mallet and grips its handle. She mounts the netted turtle. Her legs straddle both sides of the humped shell body. She raises the iron mallet, takes aim at the back of the turtle’s exposed head, and swings. The mallet penetrates deep into the turtle’s skull with a bone-shattering blow.

The mate stares at the turtle’s crushed skull. His face cracks into a downward frown. He turns and leans over the railing of the boat, spewing an arc of vomit into the water.

From her perch atop the dead turtle’s massive shell, Pat swings the bloody mallet high and shouts with a laugh at the mate, “Man up, you p-ssy!”



Joan sits on the edge of her bed. The soft curves of her body are outlined through a sheer slip. She tilts her head and listens to approaching footsteps in the hallway. She looks anxiously at the closed bedroom door as it creaks open. A figure comes through the doorway.

Luz steps into the room. “Sorry I’m late, hon.” She unbuckles her pistol and sets it on the dresser. She pulls off her shoes and trousers and stands in her loose white shirt and white panties. She begins to unbutton her shirt and notices the concerned expression on Joan’s face. She speaks in a soothing voice: “You can stop worrying, I’m home.”

“I can’t help worrying. I know what’s going on.”

“What do you mean, you know what’s going on?”

“Since Nina became ill, you’ve changed. You hardly touch me anymore. Nina is my tragedy too.”

Luz gets down on her knees before Joan. Her sad eyes stare apologetically. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I just can’t … get beyond … this pain.”

“There is only one way out of pain. You have to push it aside with new life.” Joan takes the bottom of her slip with her fingers. She sensually glides the slip up over the swell of her hips, past the thinness of her waist, and above her arched breasts. She pulls the slip over her head and tosses it aside. The white skin of her face flushes pink as her lips part, offering Luz her mouth for a kiss.

Luz leans toward Joan, then stops. “Forgive me, darling. I can’t.”

Joan slides an arm around Luz’s waist and pulls her close. She covers Luz’s face with lip-brushing kisses. Luz’s breath sucks in sharply with a gasp. Joan lies back on the bed, her arms outstretched, the fullness of her naked body exposed. Her breasts heave; her rib cage expands and contracts with deep, expectant breathing. She reaches up and gently pulls Luz’s head down.

Luz’s cheek rests on Joan’s smooth thigh. She inhales the sweetness of Joan’s skin. She listens to Joan’s urgent breathing. She hears the sound of her own breath. She tastes the wet saltiness of her tears as they fall from her eyes. The tears run down Joan’s thigh, disappearing into a shadowed crevice.



Ceiling fans swirl in the humid air over the heads of Big Conch and Hard Puppy, who are perched on stools at the Bounty Bar’s long counter. Their eyes are riveted on Zoe, dressed in her work uniform of tight white shorts and white halter top. She stands in front of the cash register, adding up the night’s receipts.

Hard swings around to Big. The left side of his forehead has a red gash where Luz whacked him with the butt of her gun. His platinum teeth flash as he drunkenly slurs his words into Big’s face. “Only be two things in life you need to know. First be, how to get along with people. Second be, how to get around people.”

Big slams his beer bottle on the mahogany counter. “Thousand f*cking times you told me that. I hear it again, I’m going to bash your—”

Zoe interrupts. “Time to go, Boy Scouts. I’m closing.”

Big throws a questioning look across the counter at Zoe. “I’m always thinking, why’s a lovely lady like you running a bar?”

Zoe gives a weary smile. “Every time you’re here drinking, you ask that. It’s always the same answer: I have a university degree in philosophy. Can’t do anything with that except teach or tend bar. I had to support Noah through law school, couldn’t do that on a teacher’s salary. So here I am, still in the bar racket.”

Big keeps his questioning going, enjoying the beer buzz-cut of his words. “That Truth Dog of yours is a drinking man, sucks it up like a thirsty baby, but never comes in here. He stays away because he knows Big rules this roost. Your Dog’s a chickenshit.”

Zoe walks from the register to Big. She stares at his blurry, reddened blue eyes. “Okay, Big, I’ll tell you with no philosophizing why Noah is never here. You’re an amateur drinker—you drink in public places. Noah is a professional. A professional, he drinks alone. He doesn’t need an audience.”

Hard nods his head in agreement with Zoe. He digs a coin out of his pocket. He flips the coin in the air, catches it, and closes his fist on it. He holds out his clenched fist to Zoe. “What side my coin be comin’ down on? Be it heads, you go home with me. Be it tails, you go home with Big. You call it, bitch goddess.”

Zoe shrugs her shoulders and laughs. “You can keep flipping that coin until it loses its shine. I’m not going home with either of you.” She quickly scoops up Hard’s and Big’s beer bottles. “Time to leave, guys. No more telling each other true lies.”

Hard shifts his gaze to the end of the counter, where Hogfish sits alone, his head jerking erratically to music pumping through iPhone earbuds. Hard turns back to Zoe and gives her a mocking wink. “I gets it now. You be savin’ yourself for the Hog. That guy can barely make a bologna sandwich with what little pink meat he’s got between the legs.”

Big belches in Hogfish’s direction. “What’s left of his brain has been boiled like a lobster in a pot.”

Zoe moves down to Hogfish and leans across the counter to him. “Sorry, camper. Two o’clock at night. I want to close up shop. You’ll have to leave.” Hogfish’s glazed eyes roll; he doesn’t look at Zoe. She pulls the earbuds out of his ears. “I said you have to go.” He snatches the earbuds back from her, jumps off the barstool, and runs for the door.

Hard hoots as the door slams behind Hogfish. “That sucka be a spook! Spookier than his crazy ol’ man!”

Big slaps his open palm on the counter and hooks a macho grin at Zoe. “If Hog ever hassles you, give Big the word. I’ll snip his balls off and run them up the flagpole.”

Zoe walks back along the counter and stops in front of Big. “I don’t need you to protect me, not from Hogfish, not from anyone.”

Big’s grin widens to a belligerent smirk. “I’m serious as a triple heart bypass. Hog gets a weird-on with you, just nod in Big’s direction and he’s dust.”

Zoe pushes away from Big. “Hogfish isn’t hassling me. Leave the poor guy alone. It’s Hogfish that’s being hassled. Hassled by the world. That’s what happens to these vets that come back from wars they didn’t start. I know. My father got the same treatment when he came back from Vietnam, treated like shit or ignored like a freak. Cut Hogfish some slack or this bitch goddess will scrape those blue eyes out of your head with her pretty fingernails.”

Big throws his head back and shouts up at the fan blades cutting the air, “Goddamn, ain’t nothing sexier than a sassy woman!” He looks back at Zoe. “You’re a spur under my saddle, but I still want to ride you. Ride your gorgeous ass right into the sunset!”



Zoe steps outside beneath a neon BOUNTY BAR sign glowing blue above her in the humid night air. She locks the bar’s front door, puts the key in her purse, and zips the purse up. She tucks the purse under her arm and starts walking away. She stops, hearing shuffling from the other side of the deserted street. She looks across the street and stares into the shadows of a tall night-blooming cactus tree. She sees no movement. She glances up at the hanging orange lantern of the moon with halos of light thickening around it, indicating rain is close. She continues walking, heading along empty palm-lined streets snaking between century-old white clapboard houses with wraparound balconies and widows’ walks, once inhabited by ship captains and harbor customs men, now tarted up in shiny new tropical colors and surrounded by the electrical drone of motors powering air conditioners and backyard swimming-pool pumps. The houses are constructed cheek by jowl; their tall pitched tin roofs lean into one another as if to block any hurricane winds that might come rushing unannounced through the streets.

Zoe hears the fall of footsteps behind her. She stops beneath the leafy canopy of a woman’s-tongue tree. She spins quickly around and looks back to surprise whoever might be following her. She sees no one; she waits. She hears above her the rattle of seeds in the long pods dangling from the woman’s-tongue tree. The air brings the scent of a rotting dead rat. She hears footsteps again. She stays still. Her breathing becomes faster, her heart pounds. She smells her own fear exuding with the perspiration from her exposed skin. She jolts at a sudden screeching. She hears a thump from the porch of the house across the street. The entwined bodies of two black cats locked together in lust roll off the porch as they scream in sharp pain.

Zoe turns and walks on at a faster pace, her long legs in her white shorts flashing in the night. Nocturnal skink lizards on the cracked sidewalk skitter away. The sound of footsteps behind her grows louder. She doesn’t look back as she hurries to her two-story Bahamian-style house with its smooth plastered exterior of blush-pink walls and framed white windows. She opens the gate of the picket fence in front of her house and races up the flagstone steps. She unlocks the door, steps inside, and slams the door closed.

In the jungle-thick garden behind Zoe’s two-story house, insects chirp and frogs croak in the dense foliage. The insects and frogs suddenly fall silent as oncoming footsteps sound. A person’s heavy breathing wafts through the air.

A light inside Zoe’s house goes on from the second-story bedroom facing the garden. Through the bedroom’s open window, golden lamplight illuminates her as she hurriedly undresses. She stands naked for a moment, then quickly slips on a silk robe. A sudden gust of wind bangs the wooden plantation shutters against the sides of her bedroom window. She leans out from the window and grabs the wooden shutters. She is caught framed by light behind her; the wind blows her hair and flutters her silk robe. Her robe falls open, exposing the swing of her breasts. She grabs the open robe and pulls it tightly together. She slams the shutters closed.

In the garden, wind rustles the jungle foliage. The noise of insects and frogs starts again. Thunder rumbles overhead; lightning bolts crack the darkness and expose in the garden the upturned body of a Cuban death’s-head palmetto roach. Red fire ants swirl up from the earth around the brown-crusted hoary creature and begin devouring its multitude of legs flailing hopelessly. Rain shoots down from the sky.



Rain slashes onto Pat’s boat, anchored at the shrimping-boat dock. Pat, belowdecks, in a narrow berth, tosses and turns in her sleep. The rain above awakens her. Illuminated numbers on a digital clock next to her glow: 4:02.

A clanging bang from the deck above startles her. She jumps out of the berth and pulls on her clothes. She grabs a flashlight and a sharp fish-boning knife. She shines the beam before her as she climbs the spiral galley ladder to the top deck and steps cautiously out into the rain. She aims the beam in the darkness. The beam illuminates a long rope from the mainmast that was ripped loose by the wind and dangles down. At the rope’s end is a steel pulley, clanging against the deck.

Pat struggles to secure the rope back to the mast in the wind and rain. She ties the rope down, then shines the beam around the boat again. Nothing seems wrong, she goes below. Rain continues to pound on the empty deck.

On the side of Pat’s boat, at the waterline, next to the heavy iron anchor chain, the skull head of a black-and-white-rubber-encased skeleton emerges from the water. The head turns slowly, revealing an iridescent skeleton face with two deep black eye sockets. Hard rain drums on the skeleton’s face.

The skeleton’s black-rubber-gloved fingers rise from the water and grab the anchor chain. The skeleton pulls out of the water, climbs hand over hand up the length of the anchor chain, and stands upright on the deck of the boat. Slung over the skeleton’s shoulder is a speargun. The rain beats on the skeleton as it moves stealthily across the wet deck. It stops before the closed galley door leading belowdecks. The skeleton does not move. It waits. The rain whips harder, thwacking against the skeleton’s tight rubber suit. The skeleton’s bony-fingered rubber hand reaches out slowly and clutches the latch of the galley door. It slides the door back, steps silently through the opening, and closes the door behind.

Halfway down the inside galley spiral ladder leading belowdecks, the flash of a thrown knife whirs past the descending skeleton. The tip of the knife’s blade drives deep into the wood wall behind the skeleton’s skull. The skeleton peers from its deep eye sockets into the surrounding darkness. Out of the darkness Pat appears, her breath bursting in a war-cry as she runs, swinging the barbed hook of a gaffing pole before her with a muscular hurl. The skeleton dives into the shadows. Pat’s gaffing pole swipes through the air, its flashing steel hooks seeking their target.

On the boat’s deck above, the wind howls in the rigging and around the tall mast. The wind picks up velocity; its howl becomes a high-pitched sound like screaming, screaming lost to all ears in the fury of a raging storm.



The morning glare exposes the shrimping-boat dock blocked off by police cars and yellow crime-scene tape; screeching seagulls circle above. On the deck of Pat’s boat, a team of latex-gloved investigators work methodically, gathering evidence. Among them are Luz and the Police Chief, scrutinizing a red X spray-painted on the deck’s plank flooring. The Chief glances at Luz with a look of dismay. “I was hoping Bizango had moved on.”

Luz stares at the boat’s boom net extended over the water. “No such luck. He’s back in business.” Tangled inside the net hanging from the boom is Pat’s naked, bloody body. A steel spear is pierced between her breasts, through her chest, and out her back. Her ears have been cut off. Her lifeless lips are closed shut by the sharp barbed metal points of J-hooks.

The Chief shakes his head. “Only thing different with Bizango’s MO this time is, he closed the mouth with J-hooks, not fishing line. Why J-hooks?”

“Could be simple. Could be that’s all he had.”

“J-hooks, for Christ’s sake. I still don’t get it.”

A rowboat in the water below the boom glides under the net weighted with Pat’s body. A police photographer in the boat aims his camera up and rapid-fires pictures through a zoom lens.

The Chief looks at the seagulls above, diving in downward swoops toward the mutilated body in the net. “Why Pat? She’s not involved with Neptune Bay Resort.”

“No rhyme or reason. Bizango must be—”

Loud shouting and banging come from belowdecks. Luz and the Chief run to the open hatch doorway leading below. They pull their guns and climb down the spiral ladder into the galley. They look around; the galley is deserted. They hurry through a low opening into the engine room. Next to a maze of greasy valves, pistons, and pipes stands Moxel, holding a gun to the head of the Haitian boy Rimbaud.

Moxel triumphantly announces, “Found this monkey hiding here.”

Rimbaud’s fatigued red eyes are terrified, his clothes dirty and ragged; his body is thin from lack of food.

The Chief rushes to Rimbaud. “What did you do to the white woman? How long have you been hiding on her boat?”

Rimbaud is too frightened to answer. He looks with pleading wide eyes at Luz.

Luz steps close to Rimbaud and speaks in a calm voice. “Son, what’s your name?”

Rimbaud bites his trembling lip and doesn’t answer.

“Son, I promise I won’t let them hurt you. Who are you?”

Rimbaud’s words blurt out in French to Luz. “Protect me! I saw a Bizango. Don’t let Bizango kill me.”

The Chief looks at Luz. “What’s he saying?”

Moxel shouts. “Yeah, what’s the monkey’s alibi!”

Luz shakes her head. “I don’t know what he’s saying. He seems to be speaking French. All I understand is the word ‘Bizango.’ ”

The Chief orders Luz, “Lock him up and get him an interpreter. I want answers.”

Moxel unhooks the steel handcuffs dangling from his belt. He grabs Rimbaud’s thin arms and roughly shackles the boy’s hands behind his back. He pushes the boy forward with a proud nod at the Chief and Luz. “I’ll book him. It was me. I got Bizango. I got the serial killer.”



Luz paces back and forth impatiently at the end of a long corridor in the Detention Center. A uniformed and armed guard marches to her with Rimbaud. The boy’s head is shaved; his skinny body looks lost in a bright-orange prisoner jumpsuit; his hands are cuffed.

The guard speaks to Luz quickly, with irritation: “Where’s the interpreter? He’s supposed to be here to get the prisoner’s statement.”

“Don’t worry. He’s coming. Take the handcuffs off the boy.”

“No way. He’s a murder suspect.”

Luz sees Noah, dressed in his rumpled seersucker suit, weaving drunkenly up the corridor. He stops in front of her and raises his hand in a salute. “French interpreter, reporting for duty, sir.”

Luz stiffens with anger. “Sober up! This kid’s being accused of murder! You’ve got a job to do!”

Noah turns and recognizes the shaven-head prisoner in the orange jumpsuit. He blurts out a laugh. “Rimbaud! He’s no murderer. You’ve got to be kidding. The kid is harmless. What kind of bullshit is this?”

The guard sniffs the rum scent of Noah’s breath. “It’s no bullshit, buddy. You have thirty minutes to get the prisoner’s statement before he’s locked up again.”

Noah tilts on wobbly legs. “A whole thirty minutes, how generous. With that much time I can get his entire life story and also read him Moby-Dick.”

The guard takes Rimbaud by the arm and pulls him across the hall. He shoves Rimbaud through an open doorway into a windowless room, then looks back at Noah. “You’re wasting time. Now you only have twenty-nine minutes. Get in here.”

Noah walks across the hall and steps inside the room. The guard walks out and shuts the door behind him.

Noah and Rimbaud sit across from each other at a bare table. Rimbaud’s bony jaw is set; his lips are clamped shut.

Noah takes out a black micro–digital recorder from his coat pocket. He sets the recorder on the table, turns it on, and speaks to Rimbaud in French. “I’m glad you’re alive. I’d given up hope. Why did you leave my boat the night of the Shrimp Fleet Blessing?”

Rimbaud’s eyes turn down. He stares at the bare wood surface of the table and doesn’t answer.

Noah slips out a pint bottle of rum from his other coat pocket. He takes a swallow and sets the bottle next to the micro-recorder. “Rimbaud, help me out. They’re holding you for murder. Why did you leave my boat? You were safe there.”

Rimbaud keeps staring at the tabletop. With his index finger, he traces out on the table’s surface an invisible spiraling circle.

“Listen, kid, I know what you’ve been through. You escaped the misery of Haiti and drifted on a rickety raft seven hundred miles in shark-infested waters to make it to this promised land. You lost your home, your family, everything, the same old sad story. There’s nothing going to change the sad story unless you let me help you. Tell me, why did you leave my boat?”

Rimbaud’s head snaps up, his eyes wild with fear, his French words shrill. “To save myself! I jumped from your boat because the sky was exploding with fire!”

“The sky exploding? What do you mean? Ah, the celebration fireworks that were being shot off that night. It never occurred to me you’d never seen fireworks before. No wonder it scared the hell out of you.” Noah urges Rimbaud on with another question. “What happened after you left my boat?”

Rimbaud squirms, trying to make himself smaller inside his oversized orange jumpsuit. His words come out slowly. “I hid … on different … boats.”

“So that’s why you were on Pat’s boat.”

“Pat?”

“The woman whose boat you were found on.”

A loud knock raps on the closed door. From behind the door, the guard’s voice shouts, “Be quick. Hurry up.”

Noah looks directly into Rimbaud’s eyes. “Did you kill Pat?”

Rimbaud moves forward in his chair. He speaks in a low voice, afraid of being overheard.

Noah leans in, struggling to hear the barely audible words coming from Rimbaud’s trembling lips.

“One night, a skeleton rose from the dead. I was hiding, and I saw it with my own eyes. I saw Bizango.”

“Bizango? Who is Bizango?”

“A skeleton who rises from the dead. A zombie executioner. He is the great corrector between right and wrong, between good and evil. He is the ultimate judge. Bizango kills evil people.”

“You’re telling me a zombie skeleton rose from the dead and killed Pat?”

Rimbaud stares fearfully and nods his head in an emphatic yes.

Noah turns off the micro-recorder. He picks up his bottle and takes a long drink. He caps the bottle and slips it back into his pocket. He fixes Rimbaud with a solemn gaze. “I know you’re innocent, kid, but if the only defense you have is that you saw a zombie kill Pat, then you’ll be convicted for murder.”



A cloaked judge stares down from her elevated podium at the defendant’s table below, where Noah sits between Rimbaud and a young public defender. Behind the table stands a uniformed bailiff with a holstered .45 strapped to his waist. From the back row of benches, Luz leans forward intently, watching the proceedings in the crowded courtroom.

The judge dips her glasses low on her nose and glowers at Noah. “Because of your past inappropriate antics in a Florida court, you have been disbarred from practicing law in this state. What are you doing in my courtroom?”

The public defender quickly rises and answers in a nervous voice: “Your Honor, may I clarify that Noah Sax is not here as legal representation for the defendant. I am the defendant’s counsel. I respectfully would like to make a motion to the court that—”

The judge cuts the young defender off. “These proceedings will not continue with Mr. Sax present.” She nods to the bailiff. “Escort Mr. Sax from my courtroom.”

The armed bailiff steps to Noah and pulls him up by the arm from his chair. Noah shakes free from the bailiff and faces the judge. “I’m not here as an attorney. I’m here as the defendant’s interpreter. The defendant has a right to an interpreter of his—”

The judge jabs her finger at Noah. “It’s at the court’s discretion to appoint the interpreter. I certainly did not appoint you.”

“But under Florida law the defendant has a right to an interpreter of his own choosing. It specifically sets forth in State Statute Number—”

“Mr. Sax, don’t push your luck. If you’re out of order here today, I’ll jail you for contempt.”

“Count on me, Your Honor, I’ll be a model citizen.”

“No wisecracks. I won’t tolerate it. If it were possible to disbar you twice, I would.”

Noah sits back down between Rimbaud and the defense attorney.

The judge bangs her gavel. “This hearing is postponed until the autopsy of the deceased victim, Pat Judy Benson, is complete. The defendant, Rimbaud Mesrine, is to be held without bail.”

Noah jumps up. “That’s not fair. If it please the court, I would like to—”

“No, it does not please this court. Nothing you do will ever please this court. Be seated.”

Noah stays on his feet. “I just wanted to say that I have information from the defendant regarding—”

The judge glares. “No more warnings, Mr. Sax. I’m locking you up right now if you don’t shut up.”

The defense attorney rises quickly. “Your Honor, if it please the court, may I—”

“Counsel, I already told Mr. Sax, this court is not pleased!”

The judge bangs her gavel. “Court adjourned!”