Night Moves (Doc Ford)

22




DEANO’S PARTNER WAS TRYING TO ESCAPE ON FOOT? To where? Taxis don’t cruise the island, and the hotel’s main bike rack was empty.

On a run, I followed the man under the check-in canopy, where he veered right into a second parking lot, only a few vacant spaces showing puddles from a recent rain, and populated by a family of six, twin girls wearing Mickey Mouse ears, pillows in their arms.

When I hollered, “I want to talk to you!” the father looked up, correctly read the faces of the two strangers, and ordered his kids, “Get in the van—now.”

Bambi slowed, then sprinted into the cluster of children, shoulder-butting the father while the mother screamed. The move created a temporary shield that forced me to detour around a Winnebago while he beelined through the bushes toward an adjacent hotel, where there was a tennis court and another parking area.

A rental car, that was his destination. A white Jeep wagon, Florida plates, that Deano and Bambi had been smart enough to park a safe distance from their rooms. They’d also daubed mud over the plate. Bambi was in the Jeep, stabbing a key at the ignition, when I reappeared from an unexpected angle. Didn’t notice until I had a hand on the passenger door, which he tried to thwart by slamming his hand down on the electric lock button. But too late . . .

“I want to talk,” I said again. I was standing in a puddle of crushed shell, the door open, but then swung into the passenger seat when the engine started.

“Get out!” Bambi ordered.

I shook my head. “Your friend has some serious mental issues, you know that.”

I didn’t expect the rage the comment sparked. “You don’t know a goddamn thing about me! Or about Deano. So shut your mouth! I’ll call the police if you don’t get out right now.” Didn’t expect a Boston accent, either, but it made sense.

“The two men chasing your buddy are cops . . . so, yeah, I think that’s a good idea. I’ll come along, you can tell them all about it.”

Looking straight ahead as if he hadn’t heard, Bambi scowled, then put his hand on the gearshift as if to drive away. I was deciding whether to go for an arm bar or just go along for the ride when, instead, he used the hand to turn down the music—tribal rap, it might have been, drums like electronic thunder that kept pace with the chanter’s piercing hip-hop.

“You buy that in Africa?” I asked.

Arturo’s partner ignored the question for several seconds, then turned to me. “Those a*sholes had no right to question Deano! Not after all the garbage he’s been through. And he’s trying, man, he’s really trying to get it together! Then the cops pull a stunt like this.”

I said, “It’s not like they accused him of attempted murder,” and watched how he reacted to my double meaning.

He didn’t. Bambi stayed on track by continuing to transfer blame. “I heard the way they came into his room—pretending like they wanted to help, then started right away with the questions. Shrinks and cops, we’ve talked about it, they’re always trying to trap you with questions. Well, bullshit, that’s not the way you deal with someone like the Deanster. Force an alpha lion into a corner, man, how goddamn dumb you got to be not to know what’ll happen?”

Eyes straight ahead again, the man’s jaw muscles flexed. “They’re lucky he didn’t have a weapon, you know,” he confided. “We don’t need firearms. We do it the real way.”

A threat. But I let it go, asking, “What’s your name? Mine’s Ford.”

Finally, a reaction. “I know who you are. We saw you almost every day in Boca Grande during tarpon season—the guy who was going to ruin it for everybody. We had a cable deal all lined up until word got out.”

I said, “Word got out about what? Deano’s brain injury?”

Bambi’s brown liquid eyes flared. “No, you prick! That the state might shut it down once your study comes out. Sponsors are going to take a risk like that? Jesus Christ, and we had everything all set to go, then you come along. Must make you feel real important, huh? F*cking up other people’s lives? I was surprised when Deano gave you another chance.”

Another chance at what? “He might still be willing to work something out,” Bambi said, “if you’ve actually found something. Just one hit on cable, just one goddamn break, that’s all we need. We can’t pay the ten thousand—never could. But if you had just given us a chance, none of this bullshit would have happened.”

What the hell did that mean?

Bambi looked at his watch, his mind working on something, then explained in a tone so suddenly optimistic I felt a chill, “Dean’s really good, you know. So am I—not that the networks give a shit about talent. The project we’re working on now, though, just wait until those hacks see it. Millions we’re going to make . . . because it’s timeless!”

I was thinking, Big ego, built-in excuses, and baited him, saying, “Then you’re better off. We found something—but a few pieces of airplane wouldn’t make much of a show. Cressa didn’t give you the latest update?”

The man who’d killed a pig with a spear smiled, letting me know he was too savvy to fall for it. But then revealed more than I’d hoped. “Don’t ever trust that bitch. She even came on to me one night, and Deano hates her. If his old man ever stops thinking with his cock, she’ll be out the—” Bambi caught himself, stopping midsentence, then switched off the ignition for some reason. Or was he baiting me . . . ?

Apparently not, because he popped the trunk and got out, explaining, “I’m going to check on Deano. But I’m taking a camera—cops act almost human with a camera around.”

Sirens—a chainsaw warble that found its way inside the Jeep. More than one squad car, sounded like, coming fast from the direction of the Rum Bar on Rabbit Road. I got out and spoke to him across the roof. “I’ll be right behind you.”

The Bambi-eyed glare again from the back of the Jeep. “I don’t give a damn what you do. Unless you want to make a film with a couple of first-rate shooters, stay away from both of us.” Then leaning into the vehicle, he appeared to fumble something, and I heard, “Shit . . . right in the water,” before he disappeared from view.

A setup of some type, my guess. Rather than wait, I hurried to the back of the Jeep in two fast strides, hoping to catch him unprepared. Bambi had thought it through, though, and was ready. As I came around the rear fender, he stood and swung a bamboo staff that whistled with velocity, but I got a shoulder up in time or it might have killed me. He lunged and swung again. I tried to step inside the staff’s power radius, crouching as I threw out my left hand and tracked its path. The bullwhip smack of bamboo on skin wasn’t as piercing as the pain, but I caught the tip of the staff and managed to hang on when he tried to pull it free.

“I think you’re both insane!” I heard myself shout. The pain was numbing, but I wasn’t in shock—I was mad. What I wanted to do was bust the bamboo over my knee, then use it to spank the bastard. Which is why I yanked too hard and why I went backpedaling into the bushes when Bambi suddenly let go and sprinted to the driver’s-side door. It was still open—just as he’d planned, I had no doubt.

Mud! He or Deano had used it to camouflage the license plate. Two letters—RK—was all I could decipher before the Jeep spun out of the shell parking lot onto West Gulf Drive, then was gone.

I got to my feet, momentarily heartened when a Sanibel squad car braked out front, lights flashing. Before I could get the officer’s attention, though, he accelerated to the West Wind and turned. Seconds later, another blue-and-white followed, then a big diesel EMS vehicle. It confirmed what I had suspected: Kerry Brett or his partner Moonley had called for backup. But why the ambulance?

—

I PICKED UP the bamboo shaft and rushed back to the West Wind. Beneath a covered walkway, next to a coin laundry, I scooped ice into a bag and held it in my throbbing hand as I jogged past the pool, relieved the area hadn’t been emptied by some bloody clash nearby. Then stopped among sea oats on the path to the beach.

No . . . not a bloody scene, but damn ugly. Beyond a gaggle of tourists who’d gathered to watch, I could see Tomlinson standing at a distance as my friends Kerry and Moonley were joined by uniformed cops who came on a run to form a restraining semicircle around Dean Arturo.

They, too, maintained a guarded distance. It was because of Arturo’s behavior and the mad dog look on his face. He was handcuffed and shirtless on his knees, the Gulf of Mexico behind him, but continued to fight by lunging and gnashing his teeth . . . then spearing his legs at anyone who got close enough. My first reaction was pity. A strapping big man with a healthy body who’d been felled by an accident and a brain injury—it could happen to anyone. Could alter the behavior of the most stable among us.

But then Deano’s threats, which reached the ear as a sustained flow of profanity, began to register, and my pity was replaced by a clinical interest. Soon, that changed to disgust. Brain pathology might exacerbate anger, but it is not the source of hatred. Dean Arturo’s contempt for people originated from within, the plane crash had only released his hatred into the world. The man raged, spittle flying, in barbed sentences that were vicious, vile, full of self-pity, but he crafted his insults with purpose, methodically targeting the physical flaws of his enemies.

“Hillbilly genetics from a used rubber!” Deano screamed at a woman cop, then ridiculed her teeth, her body, her “white trash” income, then her chances of happiness, before aiming his venom at a new target. The woman bore it stoically, eyes hidden behind sunglasses, but I noticed when she touched a hand to her mouth, took a slow, involuntary step back, then folded her arms as a shield against another attack.

Something else: the scar I’d noticed on Deano’s forehead was only the first inch of a injury that dented his skull like a walnut. His long hair, molded in place by a ponytail, had hidden it that morning on my dock. Not now as he thrashed around on his knees, flinging himself at anyone who came too close.

Pity. Once again, that dominated my perception—or clouded it. After watching for another minute, though, I was done wondering about it and went to fetch Tomlinson. “Let’s go before he spots us,” I said, putting a hand on his shoulder.

An actress friend once described Tomlinson’s eyes as “pools of lechery and wisdom,” but only his scars were showing when he turned to me and said, “He’s possessed by demons. There’s a decent man in there somewhere, but handcuffs aren’t the way to set him free.”

“Yeah?” I responded, “His partner just tried to knock my head off with this.” I tapped the bamboo shaft in the sand. “The best way to deal with the homicidal crazies, I suppose, is stay out of their way and hope they kill someone else, huh?”

Tomlinson winced, but it was because Arturo was now screaming, “You’re all fakes, you’re clowns!” which touched a chord in him, apparently. “Doc,” he said, “I’ve been in that guy’s shoes, man. Handcuffs just press the Crazy button. Jail and shock treatments don’t help, either.”

When he has downed enough rum and is in an autumnal mood, he sometimes talks about the shock treatments prescribed during his college years to jolt him out of a sustained depression that (I suspect) put him at risk of suicide. This was the first time, though, he had alluded to being handcuffed and the center of a similar demeaning insanity. I wanted to spare us both the details, so I steered him toward the parking lot, saying, “Don’t worry about it. They’ll wait until he calms down, then commit him for seventy-two hours. Couple of days in the psych ward might help him snap out of it. And”—I hesitated, thinking it could wait. But it couldn’t, so I continued—“and one of us needs to phone Cressa. She’d probably rather hear it from you.”

Deano had spotted us and was now lying on his belly, spitting sand, yelling, “Hey! I’m talking to you, Ford! F*ck up my life, then turn your back on me! Hear me, Forrrrrd?”

Tomlinson slowed for a moment, then decided, Hell with it, so Arturo had to address the cops and the crowd, yelling, “Those two—they’re both screwing my brother’s wife! That’s what this is all about. The hippie, I’ve got video! And the big-shot biologist—I know he’s doing it, too! They’re friends with all the local cops!”

My turn to consider stopping, but Tomlinson kept me moving. “Challenge him and people will think it’s true.”

“We’ve got nothing to worry about,” I countered. “No video of us—not after last night.”

“Who cares if he does? Doc, next time you come up with a peaceful solution, don’t bother because—” We were in the parking lot now, shattered glass on the walkway outside Deano’s room, so Tomlinson paused to look. A cop stood guard inside the sliding door, framed by a jagged hole, so it was like peering into a cave where sunlight touched a tangle of broken furniture, the detritus of a brawl.

I was ready for what came next, so prodded, “Now you’re against nonviolence?”

My pal shook his head to shush me, derailed by something. After a moment, he asked, “Did you hear a cat?”

No, just the diesel rumble of the EMS truck and Deano’s distant howling. “From inside the room?” I asked. “I don’t know the officer, maybe he’ll let us take a look. But, hey, you know it’s a waste of time. Crunch & Des would have bolted when the door broke.”

Tomlinson’s eyes were linking images together: a TV screen that had been ripped off the wall, mattress overturned, minibar bottles scattered . . . the cop’s meaty hand resting on his holstered Glock, aware of us but unconcerned. My guru pal appeared to shudder, said, “Forget it,” then continued walking and soon remembered that he’d been saying, “Next time you come up with a peaceful solution, Doc, do me a favor: please don’t. Stick with what you’re good at.”

“Deano can’t kill us from the psych ward,” I reminded him, but was thinking, I will!