NativeTongue Read online

  Today he made his way quickly, worried about missing the best of the tide. When he got to the shoreline, he put on the Polaroids and swept the shallow flats with his eyes. He spotted a school of small bonefish working against the current, puffing mud about forty yards out. He grinned and waded out purposefully, sliding his feet silently across the marly bottom. A small plane flew over and the rumble of the engine flushed the fish. Joe Winder cursed, but kept his gaze on the nervous wake, just in case. Sure enough, the bonefish settled down and started feeding again. As he edged closer, he counted five in all, small black torpedoes.

  As Joe Winder lifted his arm to cast, he heard a woman call out his name. The distraction was sufficient to ruin his aim; the small pink jig landed smack in the middle of the school, causing the fish to depart at breakneck speed for Andros Island and beyond. An absolutely terrible cast.

  He turned and saw Nina waving from the shore. She was climbing out of her blue jeans, which was no easy task.

  "I'm coming out," she called.

  "I can see that."

  And out she came, in an aqua T-shirt, an orange Dolphins cap, black panties and white Keds. Under these circumstances, it was impossible for Joe Winder to stay angry about the bonefish.

  Nina was laughing like a child when she reached him. "The water's so warm," she said. "Makes me want to dive in."

  He gave her a left-handed hug. "Did you put on some bug spray?" he asked.

  "Designer goo," said Nina. "Some sort of weird enzyme. The bugs gag on it."

  Joe Winder pointed with the tip of the fishing rod. "See that? They're mocking me." Another school of bonefish cavorted, tails flashing, far out of human casting range.

  "I'll take your word for it," said Nina, squinting. "Joe, what'd you do to your hair?"

  "Cut it."

  "With what?"

  "A steak knife. I couldn't find the scissors."

  Nina reached up and touched what was left. "For God's sake, why?"

  "Chelsea said I looked like one of the Manson family."

  Nina frowned. "Since when do you give a hoot what Charlie Chelsea thinks?"

  "It's part of the damn dress code. Kingsbury's cracking down, or so Charlie says. I was trying to be a team player, like you wanted." Joe Winder spotted a small bonnet shark cruising the shallows, and cast the jig for the hell of it. The shark took one look and swam away arrogantly.

  Joe Winder said, "So now I look like a Nazi."

  "No," said Nina, "the Nazis had combs."

  "How's the new routine coming? I assume that's why you're here." It was the time of the week when the girls on the sex-phone line had to update their shtick.

  Tell me what you think." Nina reached into the breast pocket of the T-shirt and pulled out a folded piece of notebook paper. Carefully she unfolded it. "Now, be honest," she said to Winder.

  "Always."

  "Kay, here goes." She cleared her throat. "You say "Hello." "

  "Hello!" Joe Winder sang out.

  "Hi, there," said Nina, reading. "I was just thinking about you. I was thinking it would be so nice to go on a train, just you and me. A long, romantic train ride. I love the way trains rock back and forth. At first they start out so slow and hard, but then" – here Nina had scripted a pause – "but then they get faster and stronger. I love the motion of a big locomotive, it gets me so hot."

  "Gets me going," suggested Joe Winder. "Hot is a cliche."

  Nina nodded in agreement. "That's better, yeah. I love the motion of a big locomotive, it really gets me going."

  Joe Winder noticed that the tide was slowing. These fish would be gone soon.

  But there was Nina in her black panties. Knee deep in the Atlantic. Blond hair tied back under her cap with a pink ribbon. Reading some damn nonsense about sex on the Amtrak, in that killer voice of hers. The words didn't matter, it was all music to Joe Winder; he was stirred by the sight of her in the water with the sun dropping behind the Keys. At times like this he sure loved Florida.

  Nina told him to quit staring at her all sappy and listen, so he did.

  "Sometimes, late at night, I dream that you're a locomotive. And I'm riding you on top, stretched out with my legs around your middle. First we go uphill, real slow and hard and rough. Then all of a sudden I'm riding the engine down, faster and harder and hotter until…"

  "Until what?" Joe Winder said.

  "Until whatever," said Nina with a shrug. "I figure I'd just leave the rest to their imagination."

  "No," said Winder. "A metaphor like that, you need a big ending." He slapped a mosquito that had penetrated the sheen of Cutter's on his neck. "How about: We're going downhill, out of control, faster and hotter. I scream for you to stop but you keep pumping and pumping until I explode, melting against you."

  From someplace – her bra? – Nina produced a ballpoint pen and began to scribble. "The pumping business is a bit much," she said, "but I like the melting part. That's good imagery, Joe, thanks."

  "Any time."

  "Miriam's writing up another hot-tub blowjob."

  "Not again," said Joe Winder.

  "She says it's going to be a series." Nina folded up the notebook paper and slipped it back in the pocket of her shirt. "I'm going to be late to work if I don't get a move on. You coming in?"

  "No, there's another school working that deep edge. I'm gonna try not to brain 'em with this feather."

  Nina said good luck and sloshed back toward shore.

  Halfway there, she turned and said, "My God, I almost forgot. I got one of those phone calls at home."

  Winder stopped tracking the fish. He closed the bail on his spinning reel, and tucked the rod in the crook of an elbow. "Was it Koocher?" he asked, across the flat.

  Nina shook her head. "It was a different voice from last time." She took a half-dozen splashy steps toward him, so she wouldn't have to yell so far. "But that's what I wanted to tell you. The guy today said he was Dr. Koocher, only he wasn't. It was the wrong voice from before."

  Joe Winder said, "You're sure?"

  "It's my business, Joe. It's what I do all night, listen to grown men lie."

  "What exactly did he say, Nina? The guy who called. Besides that he was Koocher."

  "He said all hell was breaking loose at the park."

  "All hell," repeated Winder.

  "And he said he wanted to meet you tonight at the Card Sound Bridge."

  "When?"

  "Midnight sharp." Nina shifted her weight from one leg to the other, rippling the water. "You're not going," she said. "Please?"

  Joe Winder looked back across the flats, lifeless in the empty auburn dusk. "No sign of those fish," he said. "I believe this tide is officially dead."

  EIGHT

  Bud Schwartz didn't have to open his eyes to know where he was; the scent of jasmine room freshener assailed his nostrils. He was in Molly McNamara's place, lying on the living-room sofa. He could feel her stare, unblinking, like a stuffed owl.

  "I know you're awake," she said.

  He elected not to open his eyes right away.

  "Son, I know you're there."

  It was the same tone she had used the first time they met, at one of the low points in Bud Schwartz's burglary career; he had been arrested after his 1979 Chrysler Cordoba stalled in the middle of 163rd Street, less than a block from the duplex apartment he had just burglarized with his new partner, Danny Pogue. The victim of the crime had been driving home when he saw the stalled car, stopped to help and immediately recognized the Sony television, Panasonic clock radio, Amana microwave and Tandy laptop computer stacked neatly in the Cordoba's back seat. The reason the stuff was lying in the back seat was because the trunk was full of stolen Neil Diamond cassettes that the burglars could not, literally, give away.

  Bud Schwartz had been smoking in a holding cell of the Dade County Jail when Molly McNamara arrived.

  At the time, she was a volunteer worker for Jackson Memorial Hospital and the University of Miami Medical School; her job was recruiti
ng jail inmates as subjects for medical testing, a task that suited her talent for maternal prodding. She had entered the holding cell wearing white rubber-soled shoes, a polyester nurse's uniform and latex gloves.

  "I'm insulted," Bud Schwartz had said.

  Molly McNamara had eyed him over the top of her glasses and said, "I understand you're looking at eighteen months."

  "Twelve, tops," Bud Schwartz had said.

  "Well, I'm here to offer you a splendid opportunity."

  "And I'm here to listen."

  Molly had asked if Bud Schwartz was interested in testing a new ulcer drug for the medical school.

  "I don't have no ulcers."

  "It doesn't matter," Molly had said. "You'd be in the control group." A pill a day for three months, she had explained. Sign up now, the prosecutor asks the judge to chop your time in half.

  "Your friend's already agreed to it."

  "That figures," Bud Schwartz had said. "I end up with ulcers, he'll be the cause of it."

  When he'd asked about possible side effects, Molly read from a printed page: headaches, high blood pressure, urinary-tract infections.

  "Run that last one by me again."

  "It's unlikely you'll experience any problems," Molly had assured him. They've been testing this medication for almost two years."

  "Thanks, just the same."

  "I know you're smarter than this," Molly had told him in a chiding tone.

  "If I was really smart," Bud Schwartz had said, "I'd a put new plugs in the car."

  A week later she had returned, this time without the rubber gloves. Pulled his rap sheet out of her purse, held it up like the Dead Sea Scrolls.

  "I've been looking for a burglar," she had said.

  "What for?"

  "Ten thousand dollars."

  "Very funny," Bud Schwartz had said.

  "Call me when you get out. You and your friend."

  "You serious?"

  "It's not what you think," Molly had said.

  "I can't think of anything. Except maybe you're some kinda snitch for the cops."

  "Be serious, young man." Again with the needle in her voice, worse than his mother. "Don't mention this to anyone."

  "Who the hell would believe it? Ten grand, I swear."

  "Call me when you get out."

  "Be a while," he said. "Hey, is it too late to get me in on that ulcer deal?"

  That was six months ago.

  Bud Schwartz touched the place on his brow where the rent-a-cop's flashlight had clobbered him. He could feel a scabby eruption the size of a golf ball. "Damn," he said, opening his eyes slowly.

  Molly McNamara moved closer and stood over him. She was wearing her reading glasses with the pink roses on the frames. She said, "Your friend is in the bedroom."

  "Danny's back?"

  "I was on my way here when I spotted him at the Farm Stores. He tried to get away, but – "

  "You didn't shoot him again?" Bud Schwartz was asking more out of curiosity than concern.

  "No need to," said Molly. "I had the Cadillac. I think your friend realized there's no point in getting run over."

  With a wheeze, Bud Schwartz sat up. His ears pounded and stomach juices bubbled up sourly in his throat. As always, Molly was prompt with the first aid. She handed him a towel filled with chipped ice and told him to pack it against his wound.

  Danny Pogue clumped into the living room and sat on the other end of the sofa. "You look like shit," he said to Bud Schwartz.

  "Thank you, Tom Selleck." From under the towel Bud Schwartz glared with one crimson eye.

  Molly McNamara said, "That's enough, the both of you. I can't begin to tell you how much trouble you've caused."

  "We was trying to get out of your hair is all," said Danny Pogue. "Why're you keeping us prisoners?"

  Molly said, "Aren't we being a bit melodramatic? You are not prisoners. You're simply two young men in my employ until I decide otherwise."

  "In case you didn't hear," said Bud Schwartz, "Lincoln freed the slaves a long time ago."

  Molly McNamara ignored the remark. "At the gatehouse I had to tell Officer Andrews a lie. I told him you were my nephews visiting from Georgia. I told him we'd had a fight and that's why you were trying to sneak out of Eagle Ridge. I told him your parents died in a plane crash when you were little, and I was left responsible for taking care of you."

  "Pitiful," said Bud Schwartz.

  "I told him you both had emotional problems."

  "We're heading that direction," Bud Schwartz said.

  "I don't like to lie," Molly added sternly. "Normally I don't believe in it."

  "But shooting people is okay?" Danny Pogue cackled bitterly. "Lady, pardon me for saying, but I think you're goddamn fucking nutso."

  Molly's eyes flickered. In a frozen voice she said, "Please don't use that word in my presence."

  Danny Pogue mumbled that he was sorry. He wasn't sure which word she meant.

  "I'm not certain Officer Andrews believed any of it," Molly went on. "I wouldn't be surprised if he reported the entire episode to the condominium association. You think you've got problems now! Oh, brother, just wait."

  Bud Schwartz removed the towel from his forehead and examined it for bloodstains. Molly said, "Are you listening to me?"

  "Hanging on every word."

  "Because I've got some very bad news. For all of us."

  Bud Schwartz grunted wearily. What now? What the hell now?

  "It was on the television tonight," Molly McNamara said. "The mango voles are dead. Killed on the highway."

  Nervously Danny Pogue glanced at his partner, whose eyes were fixed hard on the old woman. Waiting, no doubt, to see if she pulled that damn pistol from her sweater.

  Molly said, "I don't know all the details, but I suppose it's not important. I feel absolutely sick about this."

  Good, thought Bud Schwartz, maybe she's not blaming us.

  But she was. "If only I'd known how careless and irresponsible you were, I would never have recruited you for this job." Molly took off her rose-framed glasses and folded them meticulously. Her gray eyes were misting.

  "The blue-tongued mango voles are extinct because of me," she said, blinking, "and because of you."

  Bud Schwartz said, "We're real sorry."

  "Yeah," agreed Danny Pogue. "It's too bad they died."

  Molly was downcast. "This is an unspeakable sin against Nature. The death of these dear animals, I can't tell you – it goes against everything I've worked for, everything I believe in. I was so stupid to entrust this project to a couple of reckless, clumsy criminals."

  "That's us," said Bud Schwartz.

  Danny Pogue didn't like his partner's casual tone. He said to Molly, "We didn't know they was so important. They looked like regular old rats."

  The old woman absently fondled the buttons of her sweater. "There's no point belaboring it. The damage is done. Now we've got to atone."

  "Atone," said Bud Schwartz suspiciously.

  "What does that mean?" asked Danny Pogue. "I don't know that word."

  Molly said, "Tell him, Bud."

  "It means we gotta do something to make up for all this."

  Molly nodded. "That's right. Somehow we must redeem ourselves."

  Bud Schwartz sighed. He wondered what crazy lie she'd told the rent-a-cop about their gunshot wounds.

  And this condo association – what's she so worried about?

  "Have you ever heard of the Mothers of Wilderness?" asked Molly McNamara.

  "No," said Bud Schwartz, "can't say that I have." Danny Pogue said he'd never heard of them, either.

  "No matter," said Molly, brightening, "because as of tonight, you're our newest members. Congratulations, gentlemen!"

  Restlessly Danny Pogue squeezed a pimple on his neck. "Is it like a nature club?" he said. "Do we get T-shirts and stuff?"

  "Oh, you'll enjoy it," said Molly. "I've got some pamphlets in my briefcase."

  Bud Schwartz clutched at th
e damp towel. This time he pressed it against his face. "Cut to the chase," he muttered irritably. "What the hell is it you want us to do?"

  "I'm coming to that," said Molly McNamara. "By the way, did I mention that Mr. Kingsbury is offering a reward to anyone who turns in the vole robbers?"

  "Oh, no," said Danny Pogue.

  "Quite an enormous reward, according to the papers."

  "How nice," said Bud Schwartz, his voice cold.

  "Oh, don't worry," Molly said. "I wouldn't dream of saying anything to the authorities."

  "How could you?" Danny Pogue exclaimed. "You're the one asked us to rob the place!"

  Molly's face crinkled in thought. "That'd be awfully hard to swallow, that an old retired woman like myself would get involved in such a distasteful crime. I suppose the FBI would have to decide whom to believe – two young fellows with your extensive criminal pasts, or an older woman like myself who's never even had a parking ticket."

  Danny Pogue angrily pounded the floor with one of his crutches. "For someone who don't like to lie, you sure do make a sport of it."

  Bud Schwartz stretched out on the sofa, closed his eyes and smiled in resignation. "You're a piece a work," he said to Molly McNamara. "I gotta admit."

  The Card Sound Bridge is a steep two-lane span that connects the northern tip of Key Largo with the South Florida mainland. Joe Winder got there two hours early, at ten o'clock. He parked half a mile down the road and walked the rest of the way. He staked out a spot on some limestone boulders, which formed a jetty under the eastern incline of the bridge. From there Winder could watch for the car that would bring the mystery caller to this meeting.

  He knew it wouldn't be Dr. Will Koocher; Nina was never wrong about phone voices. Joe Winder had no intention of confronting the impostor, but at least he wanted to get a good look, maybe even a tag number.

  Not much was biting under the bridge. Effortlessly Winder cast the same pink wiggle-jig he'd been using on the bonefish flats. He let it sink into the fringe of the sea grass, then reeled in slowly, bouncing the lure with the tip of his rod. In this fashion he picked up a couple of blue runners and a large spiny pinfish, which he tossed back. The other fishermen were using dead shrimp with similar unexciting results. By eleven most of them had packed up their buckets and rods and gone home, leaving the jetty deserted except for Joe Winder and two other diehards.