American Tropic

Light shines out in the night from an open-sided canvas party tent set up on the earth-scraped construction site of Neptune Bay Resort. Inside the tent, a band of musicians dressed as bare-chested mermen play a bouncy Caribbean tune. Cocktail waitresses in fishnet mermaid costumes circulate through the well-dressed crowd with trays of tropical cocktails and exotic appetizers. At the center of the crowd, Big Conch holds court. He is outfitted as Neptune, god of the sea, wearing a toga and leather sandals; a gold plastic crown circles the top of his long white wig. He grips in one hand a pitchfork, its handle and three sharp steel prongs painted silver to represent Neptune’s trident spear. He pumps the trident in the air. “Silence!” The band of mermen cease their music; the cocktail waitresses stop and balance their service trays on their bare shoulders.

Big steps to a table covered by a cloth canopy. “It’s been a vicious four-year fight. I’ve had countless work stoppages and spent a fortune on attorneys. I was opposed by every environmental group. Today, the government approved Neptune Bay Resort. Free enterprise prevailed!” The crowd hoots their approval. Big puts down his trident and pops a bottle of champagne. He sloshes the bubbly liquid into a plastic silver chalice and raises it high. “Neptune Bay will stand forever as a monument to my dearly departed partners, Dandy Randy and Bill Warren. Damn, I miss those boys; I wish they were here to share this slam-dunk victory.” He grabs the edge of the cloth canopy covering the table. “Ladies and gentlemen, I present the most ambitious development ever built in the Florida Keys, a world-class resort that will put thousands to work and fatten our tax rolls with the fruit of hardworking capitalism, the fabulous Neptune Bay!” He whips off the cloth canopy. The crowd applauds at a fiberglass scale-model display of the vast complex. Big raises his silver chalice triumphantly in the air. “Construction of Neptune Bay resumes tomorrow. I will—”

His words are cut off by the roar of a boat engine. Everyone looks out from the open-sided party tent at the concrete pier jutting into the ocean. At the end of the pier is Big’s powerboat, with its engine roaring. Big grabs his steel-pronged trident and runs out onto the pier to his boat. No one is in the boat; its two-hundred-horsepower engine idles with a turbo-fueled growl, and exhaust steams from beneath its chrome spoiler back fin. On the boat’s sleek hull the name Big Conch is spray-painted over by a slashed red X.

Big jumps into the boat and turns off the engine. An eerie whistle breaks the sudden silence. Big looks across the water. There is no one in the darkness. Big raises the trident spear gripped in his hand and shakes it angrily. “Whoever you are—I will get you! I will cut off your head and piss down your neck and have you tell me it’s raining!”



A massive redbrick fort built during the Civil War dominates the entrance to Key West Harbor on a spit of land hooked out into the Atlantic Ocean. The fort’s towering walls are surrounded at their base on three sides by a deep water-filled moat. The fort’s one open entrance is guarded by two large iron-barrel cannons. Police cars speed up to the entrance, skidding to a stop. The Chief and his policemen, outfitted in riot gear and bulletproof vests and carrying heavy automatic weapons, jump from the cars and run into the fort. They race to the end of an arched brick corridor where Moxel stands waiting, with his rifle at the ready. The Chief catches his breath, looks behind Moxel at a six-foot hole opened up in a brick wall, and huffs. “So this is it?”

Moxel nods at the hole. “Yeah, the fort’s restoration crew was doing structural work on this old wall when they realized it closed off what once was a doorway. Probably bricked in way back in Abe Lincoln’s time. When the crew broke through, they discovered a passageway leading into a hidden room. They found weird stuff and got out fast.”

“What kind of weird stuff?”

“Really spooky. Bizango stuff.”

“We got an alert that this is Bizango’s hideout. Did anybody see him?”

“I was the first one here, immediately sized up the situation, and issued the alert.”

“Did you see him? Did you go in?”

“No, I was waiting for backup.”

The Chief grips his rifle in one hand and unhooks the long metal flashlight hanging from his belt as he barks orders at the surrounding men. “Guard this entrance. Moxel and I will go in. If we’re not out in twenty minutes, two of you follow us—never more than two at a time. I don’t want to lose a whole squad to this maniac; he could be hiding anywhere.”

The Chief clicks on his flashlight and steps through the brick wall’s opening into a passageway barely the width of a man. He shines the flashlight into the darkness, exposing twisting curves ahead. Moxel follows him in. They duck their heads beneath the low arch of the brick ceiling as they squeeze forward. The Chief stops, sweat pours down his face. “Jesus, must be a hundred and ten degrees in here.”

Moxel’s nostrils twitch as he inhales the stifling air. “Smells like a sewer. Smells like there might be dead Civil War guys rotting in here. Let’s turn around.”

“We can’t turn around. It’s too narrow.”

“We can walk out backward.”

“No. We’re going through to the end.”

Moxel slaps at his face. “F*cking mosquitoes. I’m being eaten alive. During the Civil War, more soldiers died from mosquito malaria than were shot in battle. I saw that on the History Channel.”

“Keep your voice down. Is the safety of your rifle off?”

“Of course.”

“You sure your rifle’s loaded?”

“Shit, I forgot.”

“Goddamn it, man. Load your rifle.”

Moxel loads his rifle in the semidarkness, snapping cartridges into the clip. “I’m ready now.”

“Good. I hope this passageway doesn’t go on too much farther.”

Moxel follows close behind the Chief. The passageway becomes narrower and tighter. They squeeze forward, and emerge into a dark room. The Chief shines his flashlight around the room, exposing old wooden crates stacked along one wall. The crates are stamped MUSKET ROUNDS, BLACK POWDER.

The Chief whistles under his breath. “Looks like we’re in a Civil War munitions room.”

“Shit! This stuff is so old it can blow if we even talk too loud.”

“Don’t get excited.”

The Chief aims his flashlight at a wall. The beam lights up a giant red X spray-painted across the wall. Below the red X, on the floor, is a Pelletier speargun. Next to the speargun is an open box full of four-foot-long steel spears.

The Chief shines his light onto the adjoining wall.

Stuck to the wall with duct tape are cut-up newspaper headlines in bold black ink:

SOME SHRIMPERS IGNORE LAWS PROTECTING TURTLES

CONDOS SLATED FOR WHITE HERON HABITAT

TRACTOR-TRAILER RIG KILLS THREE KEY DEER ON HIGHWAY

POWERBOAT RUNS OVER 22ND MANATEE THIS YEAR

DOLPHINS DIE IN PESTICIDE-POLLUTED WATERS

CORAL REEF DESTROYED BY CRUISE SHIPS

ALLIGATOR SLAUGHTER DECLARED A DISGRACE

TOXIC WASTE LINKED TO CANCER IN THE FLORIDA KEYS

Moxel turns to leave. “I’m getting out!”

The Chief grabs Moxel’s arm. “You aren’t going anywhere. This is definitely Bizango’s lair.”

“He could be in here!”

“He’s not here.”

“How do you know?”

“If he was, you’d already have one of his steel spears shot through your heart.” The Chief shines his flashlight up, exposing a solid brick ceiling. “How the hell does Bizango get in and out of here, if the outside passageway’s been bricked up since Civil War times? Got to be another way in.” He points the beam across the ceiling, then down along the brick corner to the floor. The beam lights up an open carton of black micro–digital recorders. The Chief takes a step toward the carton. He stops at a sudden loud clacking at his feet. He jumps back.

Moxel aims his rifle at the floor. “What’s that?”

The Chief shines down his flashlight. The slick green mildewed floor around him is alive with clawing orange crabs. The crabs scuttle toward a wide hole in the floor. The hole is filled with brackish water. The crabs splash into the water and disappear down the hole.

The Chief steps carefully to the hole. He bends over and directs the flashlight into the hole’s murky water. He holds the beam on the water. “Damn, now I get it. This hole was originally built as an escape hatch in case the fort was under siege. The hole is on the exact same water level as the moat outside surrounding the fort. That’s why the water from outside doesn’t flood into this room. Civil War soldiers could secretly escape this room by jumping into this hole and swimming through an underwater tunnel up into the moat. Bizango figured that out and he did the reverse.”

“I don’t get it.”

“Bizango’s been swimming under the moat and popping up through this hole to hide. That’s why we couldn’t find him all this time.”

“Let’s get the hell out of here.”

“I want you to stay in this room. Bizango might pop up from this hole at any moment.”

“Chief, I can’t stay here. Tonight’s the Fantasy Parade. Bizango will be prowling for his next victim. I’m the one who’s come closest to capturing him. I should be out there on the streets, hunting him.”

The Chief shines his flashlight into Moxel’s face. “Stay put and don’t leave this room. That’s an order.”

Moxel’s face twists angrily. “Okay, but you’re wrong. I’m the guy to bring Bizango down.”

The Chief takes out his cell phone and punches in a number. “Damn, it’s dead. No reception—brick walls are too thick. I can’t get ahold of Luz.” He moves to the passageway opening and punches in the number again. “Line’s still dead. She’s up in Key Largo at her daughter’s soccer game. I need to get her down here.”

Moxel snorts. “F*cking soccer moms. They’re at a game when there’s a killer on the loose. That’s why women shouldn’t be cops.”

The Chief swings his flashlight around to the back wall and shines it on the spray-painted red X. “You’re wrong about Luz. Sometimes the only way to counter a man’s killer instinct is to use a woman’s intuition. I’ve got a feeling Luz is the one who is going to bring Bizango down.”



The Key Largo High School soccer field is a sun-parched grassy rectangle lined by wooden bleachers that are filled with parents and supporters watching teenaged girls in shorts and jerseys battle out the final minutes of a hard-fought game. The sweating girls charge a white ball in a rush of running legs and pumping muscular thighs. A scoreboard on the side of the field reads LARGO GATORS 2, KEY WEST CONCHS 1.

In the bleachers, Luz and Joan jump to their feet, yelling encouragement to Carmen as she runs in the middle of the action on the field. The ball bounces off the leg of a Largo player and goes out of bounds. Carmen races to the sideline and takes the ball from the referee for a throw-in. Both teams scatter back into their positions, hands on their hips, breathing hard as they focus on Carmen, waiting. Carmen holds the ball above her head, her feet planted firmly on the ground. She searches the field for an open teammate. She hurls the ball toward the Largo goalpost, and the action explodes into another blur of running girls.

Joan holds Luz’s hand and squeezes it. “I’d give anything if Nina could have seen this championship. She was Carmen’s biggest fan.”

Luz squeezes Joan’s hand back. The cell phone in her guayabera-shirt pocket rings. Luz doesn’t hear the ringing above the yelling around her; she strains to figure out what is going on at the far end of the field, where the ball sails through the air above the players. She sees Carmen and another girl leap high, their long hair flying, their bodies lunging toward the ball. Carmen whacks the spinning ball with her forehead, slamming it toward the goal net. The other girl in the air smashes hard into Carmen. Carmen falls, her head hitting the hard ground, knocking her out. The action on the field stops. Carmen lies motionless.

Luz jumps down from the bleachers and runs across the field, with Joan close behind. Luz shoves through the players packed around Carmen; she kneels at Carmen’s side and holds her by the shoulders. “Can you hear me?” Carmen’s eyes don’t open. Luz shouts, “Can you hear me?” Carmen’s eyes slowly open; she moans and tries to get up. Luz pushes Carmen’s shoulders back down. “Don’t move! Watch my finger with your eyes!” Luz holds a finger in front of Carmen’s eyes and moves it slowly. Carmen’s dazed eyes follow Luz’s finger from left to right. “Good. Now count for me backward from five.”

Carmen keeps her eyes on Luz as she counts. “Five, four, three, two, one … I love you, Mom.”

Luz breathes heavily with relief. She kisses Carmen’s cheek and pulls her to her feet. The cell phone in Luz’s shirt pocket rings, but she ignores it.

Joan pulls the ringing phone from Luz’s pocket and answers. “This is Joan. Luz can’t talk. Yes, go ahead, I’m listening. Okay, but it will take her two hours to get there from here.”

Joan clicks the phone off and looks at Luz. “That was the Chief. They found Bizango’s hideout. Chief said you’ve got a siren and red lights on your rocket Charger, use them and get your ass to Key West.”



Thousands of people wearing wildly imaginative and bizarre costumes are packed along the sidewalks lining both sides of mile-long Duval Street. The excited spectators cheer as the enormous decorated floats of the Fantasy Parade motor past. The floats resemble everything from a jet airplane crashed into a mountaintop, to pirate ships with sails billowing from towering masts, to the marble façade of the White House, to spooky haunted houses. From each passing float, costumed men and women fling strings of colored beads and candy to the playful crowd below. Between the floats march high-school bands, Jamaican tin-drum bands, Dixieland bands, bluegrass bands, and heavy-metal bands blasting an earsplitting blare.

Through the raucous sidewalk crowd, a man wearing a presidential-looking dark suit and a rubber John F. Kennedy mask obscuring his face makes his way. A Frankenstein monster with iron bolts protruding from his neck lurches by the masked man. The monster is followed by a roller-skating seventy-year-old woman high on ecstasy, her wrinkled body totally nude except for a Red Riding Hood cape.

The Kennedy figure looks up to a clattering sound in the sky and sees a police helicopter overhead. The copter skims above the rooftops of buildings lining the parade route. On the rooftops, police riflemen view the crowd through high-powered scopes.

The masked man is banged into by a broad-shouldered drag queen wearing a red-white-and-blue Wonder Woman costume and a rhinestone tiara. Wonder Woman bats long false eyelashes at the man. “Well, if it isn’t John Frigging Kennedy, my hero. Don’t ask me what I can do for my country. Ask me what I can do for you! It’s Hell-o-Weenie. Treat or be tricked.” Wonder Woman slams a can of beer into the masked man’s chest.

The man pushes the can away and walks on, his attention caught by black-and-white flashes in the middle of the street. He turns quickly to spot twenty men in full-bodied rubber skeleton suits, their faces hidden behind skull masks with knobby eye sockets; they all look like Bizango. The skeletons wear shiny black top hats and tap-dance behind a brass band of bloody-faced staggering zombies. The skeletons stop and toss their hats high in the air. They twirl around on white canes, blowing shrill whistles clenched between their teeth. The skeletons catch the spinning hats as they fall back down, to cheers from the crowd.

The masked man closely follows the tap-dancing skeletons until his way is blocked by punk rockers surrounding Scarlett O’Hara. Scarlett is resplendent in her Civil War–era satin ball gown, flowing black wig, and sequined silver mask. The gang of spike-haired punks are tricked out in black leather pants and steel-point black boots. The punks’ faces are tattooed over by ghoulish inked images. The punks shout rude, lusty comments about Scarlett’s creamy swelled cleavage, pushed up from the tight top of her ball gown.

The masked man shoves through the punks to get to Scarlett. He leans his rubber face close to her. “Excuse me, Miss Scarlett, you in trouble? Need some help?”

The punks press in belligerently around the man. One punk spits his screaming words onto the man’s Kennedy face mask. “F*ck off, dead president!”

The masked man pushes aside the front of his suit coat, exposing the handle of a pistol tucked behind his pants belt.

The punk shouts at his mates, “Motherf*cker president is packing! Motherf*cker president assassin!” The punks run off.

Scarlett flutters a purple fan before her face as she eyes the man from behind her silver mask. “Mr. President, there’s something familiar about you. Do we know each other?”

“Maybe we do. Your voice sounds exactly like my wife’s.” The man grabs the bottom of his rubber mask and pulls it off.

Scarlett sees the exposed face of Noah. She coos sarcastically, “Don’t you mean, my voice sounds exactly like your ex-wife’s, not your wife’s?” She pulls up her sequined face mask and takes it off. It is Zoe.

Behind Zoe, in the street, a huge float depicts a palm-tree-studded island encircled by aqua-blue ocean waves. A painted wooden sign is arched over the island spelling out NEPTUNE BAY RESORT. Commanding the island’s center is Big Conch, costumed in his King Neptune toga, his long white wig circled by a plastic gold crown, and gripping his silver-painted pitchfork trident. He is surrounded by big-breasted mermaids in skimpy bikinis. The mermaids toss brightly wrapped candy to the leering crowd. Big vigorously pumps the silver trident above his head. He gazes down and sees Zoe in her Scarlett ball gown next to Noah holding his Kennedy mask. Big grabs the crotch of his short toga and thrusts his hips forward. He points the trident’s sharp steel prongs at Zoe. “Hey, Scarlett, why you with a president when you can be with Neptune? I’m king of the sea!”

Big’s mermaids laugh and throw handfuls of candies through the air to Zoe. The candy rains down as a black-and-white-rubber-encased skeleton appears next to Zoe. The skeleton dashes past her. It climbs up the blue-painted plywood waves of the island float and pushes the mermaids aside. It leaps toward Big and rips the trident away from him. It turns to the crowd, the steel-pronged trident held high in its hand. People erupt in panic. “It’s him! Run! The killer! Bizango!”

Big yanks the trident from Bizango and slams its wood handle against the skeleton’s skull with a loud crack. Bizango reels backward. Big swings the base of the trident’s steel prongs into Bizango’s face, knocking the skeleton to the floor. Big aims the prongs at Bizango and thrusts forward. Bizango rolls; the prongs scrape the rubber skeleton suit, drawing a leak of blood. Bizango springs up. Big points the trident and lunges forward. Bizango spins aside; the sharp prongs whiz past. Bizango grabs the handle and wrenches the trident away from Big. Big dives toward Bizango. Bizango swings the trident around and drives its sharp prongs into Big’s chest; blood spurts from around the embedded prongs. Bizango yanks the trident back, pulling the prongs from Big’s chest. Big’s breath explodes in a gasping blast of shock as he falls dead at Bizango’s feet.

Bizango raises the bloody trident and hurls it through the air at the wooden sign arched over the float. The steel prongs pierce the sign’s painted words, NEPTUNE BAY RESORT.

On the street, Noah runs alongside the still-rolling float. He tries to keep his footing in the terrified crowd. He pulls out the pistol tucked beneath his pants belt. He aims the pistol up at Bizango. “Stop! I know who you are!”

Bizango’s rubber skull face mask swerves around. The mask’s deep black eye sockets stare down at Noah with the aimed pistol.

Noah shouts above the screaming crowd at Bizango, “Don’t make me shoot you!”

Bizango’s skull eyes turn away from Noah. The skeleton leaps off the float, lands on the street, and races away into the panicked crowd.

Noah runs after Bizango as a police helicopter swoops in from overhead. From the copter’s open door, police riflemen aim down into the chaos. The copter’s searchlight beam flashes on a fleeing Bizango. The riflemen cannot fire without hitting others in the crowd. The searchlight keeps Bizango in sight. Bizango breaks off down a side street, with Noah close behind. In front of Bizango, a police car speeds up and brakes to a skidding sideways stop, blocking the street. The car’s doors swing open; the Chief and his sharpshooters jump out.

Bizango stops in the middle of the street, trapped between the shooters and Noah. In a black-and-white blur, the skeleton races to a building with a sign above its entrance, KEY WEST AQUARIUM. The building’s glass entrance door is shut with a padlocked iron chain. Bizango violently yanks the chain, trying to break the lock. The shooters from behind open fire. Bullets zing around Bizango. The entrance door shatters open in a hail of glass shards. Bizango runs through the blasted open doorway into the aquarium.

Darkness inside the aquarium is illuminated by blue neon light exposing fish exhibition tanks. Behind the thick glass walls moves the fin-flick and gill-sucking glide of obscure sea creatures. The tanks hiss with circulating water. The Chief and his shooters spread out and move between the tanks. The Chief’s attention is caught by a sudden black-and-white flash reflected on the glass of a tank. The flash disappears. The Chief looks quickly around. He sees another black-and-white flash. He raises his gun to fire, then pulls his finger quickly away from the trigger. The black-and-white flash is a large zebra fish, swimming straight at him from the opposite side of a tank’s glass wall. The zebra fish knocks against the glass barrier with a thud, then glides off.

A shooter shouts out in the darkness, “There he is!”

The back emergency door of the aquarium swings open, setting off a ringing alarm. Framed in the doorway by outside light is the skeleton figure of Bizango.

The shooters fire; bullets zing through the air, smashing into the tanks, shattering glass, releasing a cascading avalanche of water and sea creatures.

The Chief runs as he yells above the alarm at the shooters, “Go after him!”

The Chief and the shooters race toward the open exit door. They slip on the wet floor, falling onto broken glass and sliding among floundering sea creatures. The Chief skids across the floor past a loose octopus flailing its tentacles, then bumps to a stop against a twisting leopard shark. He pushes away from the shark, yanks out his cell phone, punches in a number, and shouts, “Moxel! You read me?”

Moxel’s voice crackles back over the phone: “Chief! I can barely hear you! I’m in the fort hideout!”

“Bizango is headed there! He still thinks it’s safe! Get ready! Alert all riflemen! Shoot to kill!”



At the top of the soaring white column of the Key West Lighthouse, Noah stands on the outside circular iron catwalk. Above his head, the shining glass beacon revolves in the night. He gazes across the lights and shadows of the town. In the distance, police helicopters fly over the maze of streets, searching for Bizango.

Echoing up from the interior staircase behind Noah is the sound of approaching footsteps climbing to the top of the lighthouse. He turns to the open doorway leading from inside onto the catwalk. He pulls out the Luger tucked behind his belt. The black-and-white skeleton of Bizango appears in the doorway. Noah raises his pistol. “It’s over.”

Bizango’s skull head swivels slowly; the impenetrable black sockets of the eyes fix on Noah. The rubber mouth and nose openings of the face mask pulsate with heavy breathing. Noah steps closer with the aimed pistol. “You can’t kill every wrongdoer. Even a hurricane can’t blow away all of man’s evils. This is the end.” Bizango’s chest heaves. Noah reaches out in a swift movement and grips the bottom of the mask. Bizango’s hand whips up, and skeletal fingers grab Noah’s wrist in a powerful grip. Noah holds tight to the mask. “Even a hurricane can’t blow away all of—”

Noah’s words are cut by the clatter from a helicopter swooping down over the lighthouse. The copter’s side door slides open. A sharpshooter leans out from the doorway with a scope-mounted rifle and pulls the trigger. Bizango slams Noah down onto the catwalk as the bullet blasts out a cement chunk of the wall where Noah was standing. Another bullet whams into Bizango. The skeleton raises clenched fists above its skull head in defiant rage at the copter; rifle fire zings; blood gushes from bullet holes ripping into Bizango’s rubber suit. Bizango collapses against the catwalk’s iron railing, struggling to hang on.

Noah, facedown on the catwalk floor, reaches out and grabs Bizango’s skeleton ankle. He pulls back hard on the ankle, trying to keep Bizango from falling off the lighthouse. The helicopter banks hard and hovers directly in front of Bizango. The copter’s blades whip waves of wind against Bizango, who clings to the railing. The crack of five rapid rifle shots from the copter tear into Bizango. Noah feels Bizango’s ankle wrench away from his grip. Bizango plunges off the side of the lighthouse. The helicopter shines its searchlight on Noah. He staggers to his feet, grips the catwalk railing, and looks over. Far below is the sprawled black-and-white body of Bizango.

Noah races down the lighthouse staircase and outside. He kneels next to Bizango. The skeleton’s rubber suit oozes blood. Noah leans over Bizango’s face mask and hears faint breathing. He takes hold of the mask and begins lifting it up.

Behind Noah, a police car skids to a stop. The Chief and the riflemen jump from the car. The Chief yells, “Is he alive or dead?”

Noah swings around furiously. “Stay the hell away!”

The Chief signals his riflemen. “Stand back! Give them room!”

Noah turns back to Bizango and pulls hard at the tight skull mask. The mask peels off the face with a loud sucking sound. The Chief and the riflemen stare in disbelief at unmasked Bizango, stunned at the exposed face of Luz.

Noah bends close to Luz, trying to hear the words she struggles to get out. Her dim eyes stare up at the beam at the top of the lighthouse; her lips barely move. “Look … Cuban doves … returned … not … extinct … hope.”

Noah looks up to the solitary beacon of light high above. “I can see them, Luz. The Cuban doves are flying. Your doves have returned.”



The rising sun illuminates Noah’s boat, with its radio antenna bolted to the deck, adrift on the ocean. Inside the pilothouse, Noah sits at his console. He swivels in his chair and leans close to the microphone, his words stripped to raw emotion.

“I’ve had calls all morning about Luz Zamora. Many of you are convinced Luz was a senseless cold-blooded murderer, a coward hiding behind a mask. Others believe she was a brave avenger, proving that it takes a woman to do a man’s job. Some think that as Bizango she only murdered corrupt souls, making her a heroic eco-vigilante defending those in nature who cannot defend themselves. We cannot accept what Luz did, killing those who kill the environment, but we can try to understand. The world our children are now born into has thousands of toxic chemicals that did not exist until recently. Unknown poisons invade our air, our water, our homes, our food, our blood. Luz believed that this environment caused her daughter Nina’s childhood leukemia, that it caused her father’s lung cancer, that it caused her own cancer. Who’s to say Luz wasn’t right? There are over two hundred different types of cancer. Who’s to say that all of us are not dying a slow death from rancid rivers, poisoned oceans, defiled land, polluted air, and perverted food?

“Luz thought of herself as the ultimate judge, Bizango the great corrector. Her Bizango believed that man cannot destroy his environment without consequence, that a price must be paid, that accountability must come home to roost. The philosophers say that no man is an island; well, Key West is a real island in the current of the Gulf Stream, it is affected by the totality of the biodiversity swirling around it in air and water. Each and every one of us is no different; no matter where we are on this earth, we are all islands affected by civilization’s implacable currents of consequence bearing down on us.”

Noah stops. He picks up a can of Red Bull from the console and takes a long swig. He leans forward toward the microphone, his voice thickening with conviction.

“Loyal pilgrims, the feds are about to shut down my radio broadcasts, but they aren’t shutting me up. Don’t despair, I remain your Truth Dog, an old dog with new tricks. I’ve been reinstated as an attorney; my battles now will be in the halls of justice. I intend to fight on as another kind of corrector—a small one, not a great one. I believe that it will take millions of small correctors to defeat the great injustices surrounding us. I leave you today with words of wisdom from a poet back in the 1960s, when something new and radical swept the land called the Environmental Movement. The Movement’s true believers carried the torch forward as today’s Green Movement, the New Ecology, or whatever the hell name is slapped on it. The 1960s poet sang his words as if each one was a razor blade cutting his throat with its truth. His was a final cri de coeur, a fierce lament of human frailty. He knew in the end we must lay down the sword after the war is over. I’ll play the poet’s song. I bid you all farewell until my next and very last broadcast.”

Noah pushes a disc into the CD player on the console. From the big battered wood speakers, the song of the poet plays in an undulating rhythm, its words smoldering on the surface.

“This old world

may never change

The way it’s been

And all the ways of war

Can’t change it

back again





I’m not the one

to tell

this world

How to get along

I only know the peace

will come

When

all hate is gone

I been searchin’

for the dolphins

in the sea.

And sometimes I wonder

Do you ever

think of me”

The words fade away, and Noah switches off the speakers. He pushes his chair back, closes his eyes tight, and sits in silence. The trawler sways gently. He opens his eyes and looks down at Chicken, resting at his feet.

“Come on, lover boy, let’s take a breather.”

The dog trots after Noah out onto the deck of the boat, into the fresh salty air. Noah blinks in the bright sunlight. There are no white cumulus clouds as big as Spanish galleons sailing through the sky. There are no spread-wing seabirds skimming across the vast ocean’s blue surface. All is empty, except for a black dot on the far horizon. The dot grows larger as it gets closer, then comes into focus, revealing itself as a speeding Sea Ray boat.

The boat’s twenty-four-foot hull skips over the water. It comes alongside Noah’s trawler and pulls up. Zoe stands at the stainless-steel wheel of the helm. She turns off the engine and calls to Noah on his deck:

“There’s something stuck in a bottle that belongs to me. Will you help get it out?”

She tosses up an empty corked rum bottle and he catches it. She pulls off her sunglasses; her blue eyes are gazing. “So, pirate, what do you think?”

Noah tips the bottle up to the globe of sun. Inside the glass shines Zoe’s gold wedding ring. He uncorks the bottle and taps the ring out into his open palm. He closes the ring in a tight fist and stares at her. “What do I think?”

“Yeah, you’re supposed to be a lawyer, a smart guy.”

Noah reaches down and pulls Zoe up onto his boat. He holds her tight, his words close.

“I don’t think. I know: the pirate has his treasure back.”



Is anyone awake? This is Truth Dog speaking to you for the last time from pirate-radio boat Noah’s Lark. Do you hear me? I’m on the line for you. I’m on the hook. I don’t want it to end this way. We can do better. Call me before it is too late. The whole democracy idea in the beginning was to reinvent, to shed the skin of xenophobia, to climb that noble mountain and plant a flag of infinite possibilities for a new tribe. High hopes are these, my pilgrims, the dreams and schemes of those mad merrymakers, our Founding Fathers. Call Truth Dog. Tell him how lightning strikes you between the eyes and you see the flash of revelation across the ocean. This is your last chance. Rise and shine.

Are you out there?





A Note About the Author

Thomas Sanchez is a descendant of cattlemen dating back four generations in California to the nineteenth-century Gold Rush. He was born days after his father was killed at the age of twenty-one in the Battle of Tarawa during World War II. Sanchez’s novels have received numerous honors, and he has been awarded a Guggenheim fellowship and is a Chevalier of France’s Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. Sanchez is also the director of a forthcoming film documentary, Into the Light, chronicling the life of Jack Garfein, survivor of eleven concentration camps, Actors Studio icon, and legendary film director. Sanchez divides his time between San Francisco, Key West, and Paris.

Other titles available in eBook format by Thomas Sanchez

Day of the Bees • 978-0-307-76609-0

King Bongo • 978-0-307-76610-6

Mile Zero • 978-0-307-76608-3

Rabbit Boss • 978-0-307-49748-2

Zoot-Suit Murders • 978-0-307-49895-3

www.thomas-sanchez.com

For more information, please visit www.aaknopf.com