I decided to lie there and think about making out under a magnolia tree and smile.

Around nine, Kelly called to let me know her Coast Guard captain had phoned. She got a date out of it. I got bupkus. According to the boyfriend, all vessels leaving foreign ports must go through customs when arriving back in the United States. But, between ports, they can pretty much wander around the Gulf of Mexicoa"or anywhere else they wanta"without telling a soul. The young captain explained that a private yacht, for example, could have left Brazil, sailed along the Central American coast, and cut over to Apalachicola Bay without filing a report or leaving any record of its route. Also, that same yacht could pull into Tampa two days later and no one would ever know where it had beena"only that it left Brazil and then entered the United States a certain number of days later.

After saying good-bye to Kelly, I padded downstairs and scrambled three eggs, which tasted better than I remembered eggs tasting. Later, as I swirled orange juice in my mouth like wine, I punched in Joey's number on the kitchen phone. We spoke briefly before I hung up and called Loutie's. Carli answered. I said good morning, made polite conversation about Hitchc.o.c.k and Grace Kelly, and asked for Susan.

When Susan picked up, I said, "Good morning."

Susan, I thought, sounded pleased. She said, "Good morning to you. Is this call one of those Southern things that Midwestern girls like me don't know about?"

"What are you talking about?"

"You know. Calling your conquest the next day to let her know you still respect her."

"Cute. Unfortunately, it wasn't much of a conquest, which is not to say that I will not always think fondly of emptying the trash." Susan laughed. I said, "The reason I called is that I've tried every way I can think ofa"short of going to Apalachicola and renting a boata"to find out who may be cruising from South America to Dog Island with merchandise and refugees on board. Monday morning, Kelly's going to start checking customs in Panama City, Mobile, and Tampa to see if anything jumps out at her, but that's really a hope-we-get-lucky tactic. I think I'm going to have to head down to the islands and ask a few questions and maybe rent a boat or a plane."

"Yes. Last night, you said you might do something like that. Do you want to stay at my house while you're down there? It's a little shot up at the moment, but I've already had the real estate companya"you know, the people who handle renting out the place when I'm not therea"I've already had them clean up the mess and nail plywood over broken windows and that kind of thing. So, if you're interested, you're welcome to it."

I said, "I think I'd rather stay someplace where the Bodines haven't already tried to kill us."

"Good point."

"I think I'll try to rent something on one of the islands. Probably on St. George, since Joey already has Dog Island covered. He's going to keep watching Hayc.o.c.k and let me know when he goes out to meet another boat. That way, I can check around with some of the local fishermen or maybe rent a boat the next morning. If I can get out there before our smugglers weigh anchor, I should be able to get a name or a registration number off the boat."

Susan was laughing again. "Weigh anchor, huh?" I didn't answer. She gave me the name of her agent so I'd have someone to help me find a rental, and asked, "Are you going to come by before you leave?"

"No. I hadn't planned to. Do you think I should see Carli and explain what I'm doing?"

There was a brief silence. "No. No, that's okay. I think she's fine."

Now there was a short silence on my end as my sad little brain kicked in. "I slept like a baby last night."

She said, "Okay," but what she meant was, Why are you telling me this?

"Since my brother died last fall, I haven't been able to sleep a whole lot. h.e.l.l, I see the sunrise so much I've gotten tired of looking at it." I said, "I just wanted you to know that last night, for the first time in months, I slept through the night and didn't wake up until after seven."

"If you're this happy about sleeping in till seven on Sat.u.r.day morning, you must have been having problems. So, I'm glad. Whatever the reason." She hesitated and said, "For whatever it's worth, last night had the opposite effect on me. I tossed and turned for an hour before finally drifting off."

I thought of how I had pulled her against me in the moonlight, and I recalled the emotion in her eyes. I decided I had gone too far. She obviously missed her husband and wasn't ready for another relationship.

"I'm sorry, Susan. I know it must be hard."

She giggled, which was something I had never heard her do. I had heard her laugh, chuckle, and even guffaw on one occasion, but I had never heard Susan Fitzsimmons giggle. She said, "Tom? You really don't get it, do you? For me, the only hard thing about kissing you was stopping. And, oh yeah, then trying to go to sleep in what I can only politely describe as a thoroughly unsatisfied condition."

"Oh."

Susan repeated back, "Oh."

I promised to call from the beach and to come by the minute I got back in town. I put the receiver in its cradle and found myself sitting at the breakfast table, smiling idiotically at an empty gla.s.s of orange juice.

The house Susan's agent found for me was not in The Plantation. Based on past experience, I decided that the fat guy at the gate was not an insurmountable obstacle to people who wanted to kill me. And there was always the consideration that Susan was footing the bill. Unless I stayed in Susan's house, which seemed like a monumentally bad idea, I would be looking at a couple-thousand-plus a week for a rental house inside that gated community. But just a few hundred yards away, on the low-rent side of The Plantation's guarded gate, I found a beachfront Jim Walter home on hurricane stilts for a mere eight hundred.

Inside the little house, pastel upholstery, pastel curtains and blinds, and pastel prints filled the house with faded ocean motifs. There was a "master bedroom," which meant, if you were careful, you could actually walk around the bed without b.u.mping into the wall or the dresser, and there was a "guest bedroom," which meant, in there, you couldn't. The kitchen occupied a back corner of the living room, which boasted two double sliding gla.s.s doors that provided the requisite Gulf view and led out onto a weathered deck.

I threw my canvas duffle on the guest bed and rummaged around until I came up with running shorts and shoes and a Grand Hotel T-shirt with a faded nautilus sh.e.l.l on the front. After stuffing my new house key and two fifty-dollar bills into the inside pocket of my shorts, I left through the roadside door, circled back under the house, and walked out onto the beach.

Small whitecaps lapped the sand ten feet below a wavering line of gray and white sh.e.l.ls that marked high tide. A hundred yards offsh.o.r.e, a striped-sail catamaran skidded across blue-green swells. Seagulls hovered over my head like graceful beggars, and, as far as I could see in each direction, no more than a dozen bodies interrupted the soft flow of sandy beach.

The island was between seasons. The end of spring break had emptied the beaches of young, nubile bodies; winter had fled New England and the Midwest, pulling h.o.a.rds of not-so-young and not-so-nubile s...o...b..rds back to their native climes; and the summer vacation trade had not yet begun to flood the beaches with sun-blistered families. I turned toward the center of the island, in the direction of a cl.u.s.ter of buildings that serves as the island's downtown, and began walking. With every step, pockets of powdery sand squeaked like baby seals beneath my feet. I could feel the muscles in my thighs and calves and a thousand tiny fibers in my ankles and knees stretch and work and warm. I started to run.

Twenty minutes and a little more than two miles later, the mustard walls of the island's only motel jogged by on my left. I slowed to a walk and turned toward the restaurant-slash-bar just east of the motel. A wooden walkway stretched over gra.s.sy dunes and connected to an outside dining area furnished with plastic tables and chairs and a freestanding bar roofed with palm fronds and surrounded by four huge Tiki masks. I tried to imagine why Hawaiian kitsch had been used to decorate a bar in North Florida. If nothing else, the Seminoles should complain.

I ordered iced tea and fried crab claws and struck up a conversation with my blonde, nut-brown waitress. Summer sun had bleached her as white and burned her as brown as a person can bleach and burn in the tropical sun. A yellow metal b.u.t.ton on her left breast told me her name was Lauren. In fifteen years, when Lauren turned forty, she would look fifty. But, for now, she looked pretty d.a.m.n good.

It was midafternoon, and the restaurant was as deserted as the beach. Lauren took my order, and we talked. After she put a basket of steaming crab claws on the table, I asked her to sit.

Lauren told me about life on the island and about the fishermen and about the pleasure boats that anch.o.r.ed and dropped speedboats full of yachtsmen who dined and drank and tipped like n.o.body's business. And, most interesting of all, she told me about an old fishmongera"a local legend named Peety Boy who had known everything and everyone on the island since the dawn of time.

Lauren went back to work, and I trotted over the walkway and down the beach to the waterline, where I pulled off my shoes and shirt and dropped them in the sand. Cold surf swirled over my toes and ankles and then my legs. A deep breath, and I dove into a wave. I didn't wait thirty minutes after eating, but then I didn't plan on deep-water swimming. I just needed cold water on my face. I needed to think.

A few laps back and forth parallel with the sh.o.r.eline, and I staggered out covered in chill b.u.mps. I donned shirt and shoes and walked back up along the wooden walkway and past the restaurant. As I pa.s.sed, Lauren waved and flashed a friendly smile.

It was time to find Peety Boy. According to my new friend Lauren, every day of the week the old man parked his wagon next to the public basketball court near the center of the island. She said I couldn't miss it, particularly since Peety Boy's rolling store bore the logical name of "Peety Boy's Seafood." I was a.s.sured that word on the island was: If Peety Boy didn't know about it, it didn't happen.

I hung a right on Gorrie Drive, the main road along the Gulf side of the island. The public beaches' parking lot where Carli had parked with her date that fateful night came up on the right. Across the road, a basketball hoop protruded at a downward angle from a dejected backboard. The goalpost sprouted from a slab of sand-powdered pavement that sat in the middle of a small gra.s.sy field. On the far back corner of the gra.s.s sat Peety Boy's Seafood. The boxy trailer looked homemade but well built. It was the size of one of those pop-up things that retired people haul from state to state, but this one was square and white, with a long service window cut into the side. Painted plywood hung down by chains to form a counter that, come nightfall, would swing back into place and close the window. Above the opening, Peety Boy had stretched a striped awning. Above the awning, he had painted the name of his business.

As I approached, an elderly man with thick white hair, sun-wrinkled skin, and a paucity of teeth, said, "Good day to be alive!"

I said, "Yep. This is a beautiful place."

Peety Boy turned to toss a couple of fresh fillets in the icebox and stepped back up to the window. The store sat on truck tires, so he looked down at me. "Most beautiful place on G.o.d's earth. Been here my whole life. Never moved an inch, 'cept for World War II. Helped whip the Germans in France. Then came on home and thanked G.o.d for gettin' back and bein' back."

I said, "They trained around here somewhere for D-Day, didn't they?"

Peety Boy looked pleased but, probably because of his missing teeth, smiled more with his eyes than his lips. "Not many folks know that nowadays. Yessir. Down close to Carrabelle, at Lanark Village, six divisions, 'bout forty thousand troops, got what they called amphibious trainin'. A couple dozen drowned tryin' to learn it. Walter Winch.e.l.l, he called Carrabelle 'h.e.l.l by the Sea.' But it ain't. Everywhere is h.e.l.l when you're trainin' to fight a war." Peety Boy wiped fish blood on his white ap.r.o.n, and changed to a businesslike tone. "So. What can I do for you today? Got some beautiful jumbo shrimp. Got the prettiest oysters you ever saw. Come right out of Apalachicola Bay. Just got 'em in this mornin'."

"I'm trying to get some information."

Some of the openness faded, and Peety Boy looked doubtful. He said, "Well, I guess that's all right."

"I'm trying to locate someone who would know whether the boat of a friend of mine has been around here recently. I don't think my friend came ash.o.r.e. But I'm pretty sure he laid up off Dog Island for a few days last week."

Peety Boy put his hands on the counter and leaned forward. Fish blood stained his thick nails and work-scarred fingers, and, as he put weight on his hands, hard cords of muscle jumped and strained beneath thin parched skin on his forearms. He said, "You say this is a friend of yours?"

Peety Boy's watery black eyes drilled through my face and into my thoughts. Country isn't stupid. Uneducated isn't stupid. Peety Boy had my number. I said, "No. It's just easier to say a friend than to tell everything I know to everyone I ask. I'm looking for a large boat, probably a yacht, that was in the area last week. It's for a real friend. A young girl who's in trouble."

The old man's face relaxed. He straightened up and reached over to pull a wooden stool up to the counter. He perched his thin rump on the stool, poked a Camel non-filter between a pair of dry chapped lips, and lit the end with a Zippo. Through a cloud of gray smoke, he said, "That's fine. How long you been lookin'?"

"A few days. But this is my first day here on the island."

He chuckled, but there wasn't much pleasure in it. "You go around askin' questions like that 'un, and it'll probably be your last day here too." He paused and looked out across the basketball court and the parking lot at the Gulf of Mexico. "Tell you what. I'm gonna fill you in, and I'm mostly doin' it 'cause you're gonna get messed up if I don't. And, the way I see it, if you're lookin' after a friend, that's the right way to go. So listen up. Don't ask n.o.body else about this stuff, and don't tell n.o.body you talked to me. If you promise that, I'll tell you who I think can help you out."

"I can do that. I'm not looking for trouble."

Peety Boy looked out at the water some more, then he said, "Get in your car and drive over to Eastpoint. You just go back across the causeway and take the first right. There's a line of little seafood houses over there. Places where they buy the catch off the boats and sell it to tourists. Same thing I do, only they ain't as particular about how old some of it is. You go to a place called Teeter's and ask to talk to Billy Teeter. Tell him I sent you. Don't tell n.o.body else. Just tell Billy. If he ain't there, you ask when he'll be back. You got that?" I told him I had it and thanked him. He said, "Well, that's all right."

I pushed two fingers inside my waistband and fished out a wet fifty from the inside pocket. As I looked up, I noticed a b.u.mper sticker over Peety Boy's cutting board for the first time. It read, G.o.d is love. I said, "Can I pay you? Believe me, it's worth it to me."

He looked down at my wet money and said, "No, sir."

I thought for a few seconds and said, "Can I buy fifty dollars' worth of shrimp from you?"

Peety Boy looked doubtful. "Yessir. You can do that. How you gonna get it home?"

"I'll come back for it." He didn't look like he believed me. I said, "I'm going to be on the island for a few days. If there's any way possible, I'll stop on the way home and pick up the shrimp. If I ran into trouble or I have to return home in a hurry, then next weekend I want you to give fifty dollars' worth of seafood to the next young couple who comes by. Is that a deal?"

Peety Boy thought a bit and said, "Yessir. That's all right."

And I felt gooda"for about ten seconds.

chapter twelve.

As I stood there trying to convince Peety Boy to take my money, I had unrolled the soaked fifty and pressed it against my T-shirt with my palm. I had squeezed a rectangle of water into my shirt and managed to flatten the bill back into shape before pressing it into Peety Boy's hard palm. That felt good. Seeing Deputy Mickey Burns cruise by when I turned to leave did not.

Burns' cruiser moved at that intimidating snail-pace cops use to make you feel like you're under surveillance and like you've done something wrong, if only you could remember what it was. I waved and got the universal cop nod in response. I decided to jog back to my pastel palace along Gorrie Drive where I would be in plain view of the island traffic, which, as it turned out, consisted of one four-wheel-drive convertible with two dark-suited, Hispanic-looking businessmen inside, what appeared to be an old lady trudging along deep inside a straw hat, dark gla.s.ses, and a flowing dashiki, and three dogs. Two of the dogs barked and growled and chased me for a few feet to spice up their day. Otherwise, the trip was uneventful.

I had reached the top of the wooden steps and was fishing inside my waistband for my rented key when I saw him step out from the tall s.p.a.ce under the house. Sonny, the almost mute, eye-jumping painter walked up the stairs behind me. When he was four steps away, he hung back like someone who had been kicked down stairs before. "Go on inside. It ain't locked."

As Sonny spoke, he swiveled his right hip toward me and showed me the b.u.t.t of a handgun sticking out of his pocket. The movement looked a little effeminate. I decided not to tell him.

I pushed open the door and stepped inside my own little pastel h.e.l.l. A familiar-looking man sat in a rattan chair padded with green and peach puffs of printed seash.e.l.ls. Carli had given me a pretty good description. He did in fact look like a weight lifter or an ex-jock going to fat. My young client didn't know it, but she had seen a pretty famous guy shoot another man in the mouth. Leroy Purcell, former All-American running back for the University of Florida, used gridiron-scarred, oversized hands to push out of the chair. If I hadn't known he'd taken out a knee his last year with the Cowboys, I don't think I would have noticed that he favored it getting up.

Purcell seemed to be trying for a Florida resort look. He wore a blond crew cuta"waxed straight up in fronta"and an expensive set of golfer's duds. His problem was that the wardrobe didn't much go with the scarred gash across his chin, or his twenty-inch neck, or the overwhelming sense of controlled violence that seemed to radiate from every pore.

He rose to his full height and said my least favorite sentence in the English language. "Do you know who I am?"

I said, "You used to be some kind of jock, didn't you?"

Purcell looked disgusted. "My name is Leroy Purcell. And, yeah, I was some kind of jock. I was the kind who played tailback for Florida and spent five seasons with the Dallas Cowboys."

I really did not like this guy. "Congratulations. What can I do for you?"

He turned deep red. "I'm not used to being talked to that way."

And, I thought, I'm not used to entertaining murderers. I said, "I didn't invite you here. You and Harpo broke in because you wanted to see me, and you think I'm supposed to be impressed by who you are. Fine. I'm impressed. Now tell me what you want."

This, I thought, is not going well. Over the past week, I had been shot at; Susan had been shot at; her house had been vandalized; my life, Susan's life, and Carli's life had been turned upside down; and a frightened, abused teenage girl had been traumatized beyond description. It all came pouring in on me. I breathed deeply and tried to regain control.

I repeated, "What do you want?"

I was not the only one starting to lose it. Leroy Purcell said, "You're not exactly impressing the s.h.i.t out of me either, McInnes." I looked at him. "I came here to talk business."

"So, talk."

"Are you this big an a.s.shole with everyone, or do you think you know something about me in particular?"

"I'm this big of an a.s.shole with everyone."

"Well, a.s.shole, we're going for a little ride." "I don't think so. You want to shoot me, then shoot me. But I'm not going to get in a car and go anywhere with you two."

"I could have Sonny make you."

I turned and looked at Sonny. His eyes were bouncing around the room, never really looking at me but keeping me in view somehow. I said, "I doubt it," and Sonny's eyes stopped ricocheting and focused.

Purcell said, "I know about you, McInnes. I've taken the time to know about you. I hear you're some kinda minor league hard-a.s.s. But old Sonny here is major league. You might say he's a professional." I shrugged. Purcell smiled, but it wasn't pretty. "You need to come with us. If you do, you'll be fine. We're just going up to The Plantation. If you won't come, Sonny's gonna put a bullet in your a.s.s."

"I guess I'll come then."

Purcell said, "I thought you would."

"In case you're wondering, it was that 'bullet in the a.s.s' line that did the trick. That sounds like it would hurt."

No one thought I was funny.

Purcell drove my Jeepa"he already had the keysa"while Sonny and I sat in back. The back windows on a Jeep Cherokee are tinted dark. Sonny had drawn his hip gun and was keeping it leveled at my rib cage. As we approached the gate, Sonny took off his cap and placed it on the seat. Then he used his free hand to pull an old-fashioned switchblade out of his left hip pocket. He pressed the point of the blade deep enough into my side to just break the skin and then put the gun away and placed his cap over his knife hand. Behind tinted windows, no one outside would be able to tell I was a flick of Sonny's hand away from a punctured lung. Purcell was right. Sonny seemed pretty professional.

The guardhouse came up on the left, and Sonny said, "Don't say nothin'."

The overstuffed guard's uniform shuffled to the car, was visibly and loudly impressed with Leroy Purcell's presence, and waved us through. I a.s.sumed Purcell or one of his capos had a house on the island and that was where we were going. I was wrong. We went to Susan's beach house, and I was relieved not to see an old Ford pickup sticking out of the carport.

We trudged up the wooden steps single file, and Sonny kicked in Susan's front door while Purcell and I watched. When the door splintered and swung open, Sonny limped to one side, and Purcell strutted in ahead of us like an African chieftain at a war council.

Sonny said, "Inside." He had his gun out again, and it was pointed at me. I sighed and followed Purcell.

Purcell said, "This is more like it. Where does she keep the liquor?" I didn't answer, which seemed to upset Sonny because he rapped me on the shoulder with the b.u.t.t of his revolver. That was enough. I turned and hit Sonny on the bridge of his nose with a straight right that had six months of anger and frustration and wanting to hit someone behind it. Sonny went down. Then he came up again with blood pouring from both nostrils and every intention of killing me where I stood. Purcell yelled, "Stop!"

Sonny looked pleadingly at Purcell, who said, "Did I tell you to hit him?" Sonny shook his b.l.o.o.d.y face and dripped red on the carpet. "I told you I wanted to talk to this man, and I wanted to impress him that we are serious. When I need your help impressing him, I'll tell you. You got that?"

Sonny nodded this time and dripped more blood on Susan's rug.

I said, "Can he sit up and beg?"

Purcell looked p.i.s.sed. "Shut the f.u.c.k up, McInnes."