Naked Came the Manatee (1996) Page 2

  She craned her neck for a look just as the pop-pop-pop of gunfire erupted from somewhere. That did it. She threw the truck in reverse, chewed rubber all along the space where the Hog had been. She stopped just short of the still-driverless Accord, dropped into low, and swung the pickup around in front of Deal. In the next instant she was speeding away toward U. S. 1, the scuba gear dancing, a hand and slender arm waving a thank-you as she disappeared. Something about the little drama left Deal with a curious pang, but the horns were deafening at his back and he didn't have long to consider it.

  He floored the Hog, roared past the stalled traffic himself. The kid who had been driving the Accord was just struggling up off his hands and knees. You think that was something, wait till you see what's coming next, Deal thought, then had to yank the Hog into an abrupt turn to avoid a new bottleneck headed out of the Grove.

  He found himself traveling down an unfamiliar narrow lane now, a tunnel boring through a dense overhang of ficus, Florida holly, and strangler fig. He was forced into another turn and another--like running a maze--and was still trying to brush aside the image of the striking woman behind the wheel of the dive truck. Was it someone he'd met? he wondered. Or someone he wished he had? In the next instant, he was clutching the wheel tightly as the Hog bottomed out in a huge, rain-filled pothole, spraying water like a Donzi off its prow.

  The filthy water was just clearing from his windshield when Deal saw the man, or what he presumed was a man. Though the whole thing couldn't have taken more than a few seconds, Deal's mind registered details with the precision and clarity that only impending disaster can bring. The figure stood in the middle of the gloomy tunnel of foliage, arm upflung in surprise, face twisted in the glare of the Hog's headlights. He seemed to be draped in a tangle of old shrimp netting which itself was studded with still-dripping seaweed, battered lobster-trap buoys, and the assorted detritus you'd expect to find floating the backwaters of the nearby bay these days. There was something odd about the guy's face, a lopsided quality that suggested he'd already had one accident in the not so distant past. He held a broken oar in his other hand--something he might have been using as a cane, or a makeshift crutch, and which had probably saved his life.

  The man--the ancient mariner, Deal found himself thinking--vaulted backward, using the point of the oar for leverage, just as Deal slammed on the brakes. The Hog seemed to sail on imperturbably for a moment, until the water sloughed off the linings of the brakes. When they did catch hold, it was with a vengeance. He felt the heavy rear of the car rip loose from the pavement and whip around violently, a force like a giant hand pressing him back in the seat. He was sure that next he'd feel the muffled thud of mariner body meeting sheet metal, but the moment passed, and instead he caught a glimpse of the man's astonished face peering at him as the Hog shot past.

  The pale, distorted face receded as if Deal were the stationary one; he watched helplessly as the man was yanked into oblivion by some otherworldly force. Then the front end of the Hog tipped up abruptly, and Deal felt himself plunging down into his own abyss. There was a crunching sound, metal against rock, another, and another, a jolt as his head rammed the roof, a second as it bashed against the wheel.

  He was seeing only bright flashes of light now, had lost all sense of orientation. Upside down, sideways, going forward, or back? Impossible to know. He heard a tremendous splash, felt another jolt and a momentary weightlessness before gravity finally caught up with him. Gentle rocking now, and then a slow but steady descent. The smell of seawater, brackish rot, odor of the grave, he thought.

  He was in the water and going down. Groggy, he felt his hands grope blindly, frantically for the handle of the door. He sensed a great coolness envelop his chest, his groin, his neck. Strange objects bumped at his face, slid away, curled back again. He felt the door lever slide into his grasp like some odd creature from the deep. He pulled. Kicked reflexively at the door, felt resistance, unlatched his seat belt in a kind of daze.

  He felt release then, free drifting in water that was cool and somehow warm at once. His limbs were heavy now, his head lolling in the current. Whatever instinctual source of energy had enabled him to escape had expended itself. He floated beneath the surface, his consciousness teetering, sensing that soon he would open his mouth and take that great last gasp that would fill his lungs with water and sink him like a stone. Worst of all, there was nothing he could do about it, not one thing.

  He felt the pressure building in his chest, accompanied by a mounting fire in his brain. He willed his arms to move, his legs to kick, but the signals flew off down blind trails, leaving him adrift, rudderless, a ship with a captain shouting orders from the bridge and no one left in the engine room. As he drifted into darkness, he dreamed that something--a hand, or perhaps a diver's fin--came to brush against his chest, and then he became aware of a great presence swelling up beneath him. In this dream or vision, he began to rise through the murky water, picking up speed, spiraling upward toward some brilliant pool of light. Aside from the rather hackneyed image of the light, it seemed a lovely dream to him, one in which he felt his face break the surface of the water as if it were a tangible membrane, a passage into some other world, where he could gulp down air like any other man, and simply live and be.

  "Just lie still, you." The woman's voice came to him from the darkness. A small voice, ancient, and yet carrying the authority of its years. He blinked his eyes, realized that it wasn't just darkness, that in fact he couldn't see. He raised his hands in a panic, felt hers pull him down.

  "You've got some nasty bumps and cuts there," she said. "I've got a poultice resting. It's not to be disturbed."

  Deal felt the pressure of cloth, at his face. Yes, maybe he could detect a nimbus of light. He blinked again, felt his lids rustle at the bandages, smelled vague medicinal odors.

  "Hospital," he heard himself mumble.

  She laughed. "There won't be any hospital tonight, unh-uh. They got the whole of Coconut Grove cordoned off, they do. Waitin' for the fuss to burn itself out."

  Deal heard distant shouts, chanting, the double boom of a shotgun. He felt a wave of dizziness sweep over him. He lay back, remembering, trying to comprehend all that had happened.

  "Where am I?" he managed, at last. He groped about him, felt crisp sheets, a blanket, realized his clothes were gone, that he was wearing some kind of flannel gown. A lady's nightgown? It couldn't be. Surely it couldn't.

  "Keep your hands off those bandages, now, or I'll tie 'em down, you hear me." Deal nodded, rested his hands on his chest.

  "You're one lucky boy," she cackled. "Lucky old Booger took a liking to you, lucky I was there to pull you out."

  "Booger?"

  "He's a manatee," she said. "He's the last sane creature that lives in these parts, and that includes me. All the fuss erupted downtown, I went over to have a chat with Booger, see if maybe he thought this was a sign."

  "A sign?" Deal's head was swimming again.

  "The beginning of the end," she said. "Booger and me got a running bet. Hundred and two, I think I'll be around to witness it, he says we got a ways to go yet. I found him in his little grotto, keeping you propped up on a chunk of boat seat."

  The dream was coming back to him now. The vague presence, being propelled upward, toward a pool of light he'd taken for the light. He shook his head.

  "Did you have a flashlight with you?" he asked.

  "You think I can see in the dark?" she snorted. "Here, raise up some. I want you to take a drink of this."

  He felt a wiry hand under his neck, sensed something warm and steaming at his lips. The smell was bitter, even searing. "What is it?" he said.

  "Swamp yarbs," she said. "Now drink it, or I'll hold your nose and pour it down you."

  Deal sensed it wasn't a bluff. He was so weak he had no doubt she was capable of doing exactly what she said. He nodded, helped her guide the cup to his lips.

  Despite its wretched smell, the brew tasted amazingly good. Licorice, he
thought. And something earthy. With an unidentifiable blend of herbs. It was bracing. And just as quickly, soporific. He was drifting again by the time his head hit the pillow.

  "Booger showed me what you floated in on," she said.

  "I don't know what you mean," Deal said.

  "What you had tied to that boat seat," she said.

  Deal shook his head. "I... I fell into the water," he said.

  "Course you did," she said. "You wrecked your boat and damn near drowned."

  "No," he said. He felt himself spiraling. "I didn't."

  "Carrying a thing like that, I'd hate to admit it myself," she said.

  Deal wanted to protest again, but he was just too tired.

  "I showed it to Booger, though," she cackled. "Fried his apples, I'll tell you. See there, I told 'im. Here comes the end of the world, Booger, just like I said."

  He hadn't the slightest idea what she was talking about, but she'd get no argument from him. Not this night. She was still cackling when he went under for good.

  3. BISCAYNE BLUES--Paul Levine Just how much is a whiplash worth?" John Deal asked, twisting awkwardly in his cervical collar.

  "That depends on whether Dr. Scheinblum is sober when he testifies," his lawyer, Jake Lassiter, answered.

  Deal hadn't been in court since an action film star had sued him over a broken pump motor in a custom-built Jacuzzi. Lassiter had won the case, cleverly arguing that the tub hadn't been intended for a dozen persons, eleven of whom happened to be strippers from Club Plutonium, bobbing for apples and whatnot in the foamy water.

  Deal had nearly been late this morning. Though a native of Miami who had built houses in virtually every neighborhood, he had become lost on a stretch of Eighth Street--Calle Ocho--recently renamed Olga Guillot Way. A few blocks to the west, the same street was called Celia Cruz Way, then Loring P. Evans Memorial Boulevard. He'd turned north on what had been a familiar avenue, now renamed General Maximo Gomez Boulevard, and followed a Porsche with the personalized plate LAWYER. Like boasting about having the clap, Deal thought.

  Heading downtown, he'd vaguely wondered how he could get the street sign contract for the city, something he figured would keep him as busy as a coffin maker in a spaghetti western. The construction business was slow, and Deal was hoping for a decent settlement on his personal-injury claim, at least enough to lift the subcontractors' liens on his latest job and get his backhoe out of hock.

  Once on Flagler Street, Deal had paid a shoeless guy five bucks to clean the windshield and watch over the rental Taurus in a rubble-strewn spot under the I-95 ramp. Walking two blocks to the courthouse, he'd woven through a crowd of demonstrators who were protesting conditions on a Caribbean island that Deal could not place on a map. On the courthouse steps, the Voodoo Squad, two janitors with buckets and brooms, were gathering up a dead chicken, a goat's head, and a cake with frosted icing, all intended to cast various spells on judges and juries. Overhead, the turkey vultures circled in the updrafts, while inside, their double-breasted, dark-suited cousins hustled clients at the elevators.

  Now, as the day wound down, Deal sat in a fourth-floor courtroom, listening as his lawyer wrapped up his opening statement. He hoped this was a good idea. He'd let Jake talk him into it only because his debts were piling up so high, but now, listening to Jake's best over-the-top, never-overestimate-the-intelligence-of-the-jury histrionics, he was having his doubts. Well, too late now. He didn't know what strings Jake had pulled to get the case to court so fast, but here they were.

  "An unprotected hazard!" Jake Lassiter thundered, moving closer to the jury box where he planted his 225 pounds like an oak among saplings. "A death trap! A terrifying plunge into darkness and fear!" Lassiter paused and studied the jury. By Miami standards, it was a typical collection of strangers: a tattooed lobster pot poacher, a nipple ring designer with a shaved head, a santero who chanted prayers to Babalu Aye during recess, a cross-dressing doorman from a South Beach club, and two Kendall housewives who nervously clutched their purses. "Thank heavens for John Deal's extraordinary physical condition," Lassiter proclaimed reverently, "and thank heavens for his fervent will to live."

  Not to mention a manatee named Booger, Deal thought. He hadn't told Lassiter he'd been saved from drowning by a barnacle-encrusted sea mammal, then nursed back to health by a 102-year-old woman who brewed medicinal potions from swamp grass. And of course, he hadn't mentioned the box.

  The box.

  The best he could figure, it must have been attached by the bungee lines to the manatee named Booger. Somehow Deal had gotten tangled in the bungee when he'd floated out of the Hog into the cold, wet darkness. It had all been too weird.

  "The city of Miami recklessly maintained a hazard at its marina," Lassiter told the jury. "The city breached its duty of reasonable care in failing to properly light the street and failing to warn of the sheer drop-off to a watery grave."

  "Objection, Your Honor!" shouted Russell B. Whittaker III. The city's insurance lawyer jumped to his feet and tugged at his suspenders. "That's closing argument, not opening statement."

  "Sustained," Judge Manuel Dominguez announced gravely, then shot a look at the wall clock. He hated to miss the first game at Miami Jai-alai. "Move it along, Mr. Lassiter." Maria, the court clerk and the judge's favorite niece, held up eight fingers, alerting Lassiter to his remaining time. The judge's secretary, Ileana Josefina Dominguez-Zaldivar, slipped into the courtroom from chambers and whispered something into the judge's ear, though she probably didn't call him "Your Honor." Ileana was his older sister, and insisted on calling the judge Manuelito, even in court. Lassiter took a slow turn to gather his thoughts. Victor, the bailiff, sat in the back row of the gallery. A handsome if vapid lad, he was the judge's son-in-law, and he was happy to be in uniform after flunking the police academy entrance exam twice and the firefighters' test four times.

  The courtroom door squeaked open. Britt Montero, the Miami News reporter with the luminous green eyes, peered in, didn't find anything worthy of a two-column headline, and left. Back when Lassiter had been in night law school, having finally been cut by the Dolphins after a few undistinguished years on special teams, he had had a date with Britt, but she'd stood him up for a three-alarm fire.

  He faced front. Time to crank it up again. "The evidence will show that John Deal is a building contractor of impeccable reputation who has been injured through no fault of his own," Lassiter rumbled on. "You will hear the testimony of Dr. Irwin Scheinblum, a respected physician with forty years' experience in two states."

  Deal smiled to himself. Hadn't Lassiter called Scheinblum a senile, alcoholic quack who'd lost his license in Rhode Island--something about penile enlargement surgery that had resulted in a net loss--before hanging out his shingle on Coral Way? The courtroom door squeaked open again, and Deal glanced in that direction. The man who walked in looked familiar. Dark hair, short and muscular, with a mustache, a vaguely Hispanic look. Where had he seen him before?

  "Yes, ladies and gentlemen," Lassiter continued. "Dr. Scheinblum will describe Mr. Deal's severe musculo-skeletal-ligamentous trauma."

  In other words, whiplash.

  This morning, Deal thought. I saw him this morning when I did the U-ey on Eighth Street, or whatever the hell it's called now. He was in the black Camaro right behind me. Deal turned again, stiffly, his neck flaring with pain. He squinted and envisioned the man at night, draped in a tangle of old shrimp netting, leaning on an oar on the little street running along the marina. The guy he'd almost flattened seconds before his beloved and battered Hog had plunged off the dock. What the hell was he doing here?

  Jake Lassiter sipped his Grolsch and tried not to look toward the table closest to the bay. "Him?"

  "Yeah," Deal said. "He's following me."

  The guy sat alone near the end of the wooden deck at Scotty's Landing in the Grove. At a table next to him, two Yuppie insurance lawyers in white shirts and yellow ties were trying to score with two young women from the al
l-female America's Cup team.

  A light breeze stirred from the east, and a three-quarter moon was rising over Key Biscayne. Jake Lassiter and John Deal were drinking beer, eating grilled dolphin, and preparing the next day's testimony.

  "No, no, no! Your neck isn't simply sore," Lassiter told him. "It throbs. It aches. The pain is excruciating. Every breath is torture, every movement torment. Get it?"

  "Yeah, my life is a living hell," Deal said dryly.

  "That's good, John. Have you done this before?" Deal shrugged and looked toward the table nearest the bay, where the guy's face was hidden behind a copy of Diario las Americas.

  "Could be an insurance investigator," Lassiter said, "making sure you're not doing the lambada at Club Taj."

  Deal crumbled some crackers into his conch chowder. "No. He was there the night I went off the dock."

  "There was a witness? Why the hell didn't you tell me?" He studied his client a moment. "John, I may not be the best lawyer in town, but... "

  "Don't belittle yourself, Jake."

  "No, it's true. I'm one of the few lawyers in the country who wasn't asked to comment on the O. J. Simpson case, even though I'm probably the only one to have tackled him."

  "For a second-string linebacker, you're not a bad lawyer, Jake, but as I recall, you usually missed tackling him."

  "Thanks. But you gotta trust me now. What else have you left out?"

  Now Deal told him everything. The traffic jam that turned into bedlam in Coconut Grove, then wheeling the Hog down a side street, the specterlike vision of the man draped in the sh imp net, then the plunge and crunching descent into the black, brackish water. By the time he told about the manatee, the old woman, and the box, it was a three-beer story.

  "What should we do, Jake?" Deal asked, finally.

  "Shula would go with the play-action fake, get the corner to bite, then throw deep. But me, I just buckle up the chin strap, lower the head, and slog straight ahead."