Captiva

rituals. Scares people shitless, plus plenty of social outings—a first-rate theology, you ask me.'

Hannah shook her head. 'Jimmy never called it that. He just outright called it voodoo. His mama was like the main witch lady. He showed me all her stuff, which really pissed her off. Not that she didn't take to me. But she didn't like Jimmy, and Jimmy hated his family. So, what did he care?'

Tomlinson was warming to the topic, enjoying the opportunity to be talking about something that interested her. 'The woman, Darroux's mother, did she have an altar in her home? Some kind of a carved head with a cigar, or maybe a cigarette, sticking out its mouth?'

'Yeah ... a cigar, and some beads on this blue velvet tablecloth. Feathers. . . and a shot glass full of liquor. The liquor, it was always there. I remember, because Jimmy, he'd walk past and drink it, then laugh like crazy. Rum. I could smell it.'

Tomlinson winced. 'Oh man, no wonder he and his mother didn't get along.' He turned to me to clarify —'That's like a Baptist stealing from the collection plate'—before asking Hannah, 'You happen to notice any small brown bottles around? About this tall?' He held his thumb and forefinger a few inches apart. 'Rows of them, probably hidden out of sight, but not anywhere close to the altar. And a Bible nearby?'

Hannah stared at him a moment, impressed—or maybe uneasy—but a little impatient, too. 'I don't remember. What I meant was—' She stood up suddenly, went into the house and returned with the pitcher of tea. 'What I meant was, it was like being under a spell. Not that I really was. By the time Lissa and Mary Lou and me got back to Cedar Key, I didn't much feel one way or the other about him. Just sort of burnt itself out. It was fun, but that's about it. He'd telephone sometimes, always late at night and Pretty drunk, which really pissed off my daddy. Next day he'd be roaring, She's got Negroes callin' her! Negroes!' ' She was laughing as she finished filling my glas^'T'd heard through Lissa that he got into trouble down in Mexico. Campeche, I think. For buying cocaine or selling cocaine. Some °f the shrimpers, they were into that.

'Then, about two years ago, he shows up here. He'd been mullet fishing in Texas, but the nets got banned there, so he and about a jillion others naturally come to Florida to steal our fish. I was working my own boat by then, rentin' this place, but I wanted to buy. My daddy'd just died, and, in his will, he left me a little more than ten thousand dollars. But there was a . . . what'a you call it? ... a stipulation. I had to be married and settled down for at least two years before I could touch the money. That's what the lawyer told me: Married and settled down.' She chuckled softly. 'Even from the grave, Daddy was still scared of me. Of what I'd do.' She shrugged, a display of indifference.

Tomlinson said, 'So you decided to marry Jimmy'

'That's right—two years ago come May. I coulda married about any man on the island, but guess it was the devil in me that made me choose him. Just meanness. What did I care who my husband was? I wasn't ever going to get married, and I'll never get married again. Maybe I was tryin' to show how independent I am, marrying somebody Jimmy's color—but island people are a lot more accepting than you'd think. If Jimmy'd been worth a damn, they'd have taken him right in. But he kept a dirty boat. He'd cut in on somebody else about to strike fish. When he wasn't drunk, he was high on crack. That man purely loved the rock.'

I said, 'You stayed married to a man you didn't like or trust just to get your inheritance.'

The fingernails of her right hand found the back of my neck, flexed briefly into the skin, then began to make a soft, affectionate circular motion in my hair. 'That's right, Ford. I'm greedy. I'm going to buy this house. The net ban's not gonna run me off. My Great-Aunt Hannah, Big Six herself, lived right here on Sulphur Wells. I need that money. I'm starting some kind of business, Arlis Futch and me. Maybe Raymond Tullock, too.'

When I asked, 'What business?' her fingers found my ear; touched it delicately, explored around inside, then began to stroke the lobe. Normally, such an intimate gesture would have made me uncomfortable. But now it seemed weirdly natural; homely and friendly and simple-hearted. I leaned closer to her, so that our shoulders touched.

Heard her say, 'I'm not sure, but it's gonna take money. These little fishing shacks like mine used to sell for next to nothing. A pine house and a chunk of shell on the bay islands. Who'd want it? Like old Mr. what's-his-name at Eljobean, he gave away most of the beachfront over on Gasparilla just for back taxes. But it's getting to be worth something now. Arlis has developers snooping round his place all the time, askin' how much he wants. They're chomping at the bit, can't wait till us netters are gone. That's why everybody on the island's so pissed off at Jimmy for getting himself blowed up. I told you we're still fighting the net ban? What we're doing, we found a lawyer in Gainesville who's going to file a lawsuit. Ask a state judge to grant an injunction against the ban, and also seek economic relief.'

'Make the state buy back your boats and nets,' I said.

'Yeah, or let us keep fishing. Which is why the stupidest thing a netter could do is cause trouble. Give the state a reason to refuse. But there goes Jimmy and some of those other idiots, stealing motors, starting fires. Mostly, they're white trash outsiders, but there're a few local boys, like Kemper Waits and his crew. Like they're getting even, but really just hurting us all.'

She had become increasingly animated, this gangly twenty-five-year old Woman waving her arms around. Now she leaned back in her chair. 'Well... I say good riddance. I'll see that he's shipped home. I'll see that his family knows what happened. But I won't miss him, and I won't shed a tear. Does that sound mean?'

Tomlinson said very softly, 'He hit you. That was it.'

Hannah was nodding slowly—amused that Tomlinson already knew. 'Yeah, that was it. Part of it. After we got married, he'd only lived here about two weeks when he got drunk and started slapping me around. I tried to fight back, but ended up with two black eyes. The cops took him off to jail, but that didn't last. So I went to a lawyer, got a judge to sign some papers, and we tossed his stuff in the yard the next day.

'About a week later, after midnight, I heard him outside. Kicking down the door. I'd been expecting it; knew just exactly what I was going to do. Had it all planned out because I swore to myself that no man would hit me again. Ever. One of us would die first. But instead of fighting him, I talked real sweet, real nice, getting him calmed down. Then I brought out the rum bottle. For about two hours, I just kept talkin' and feeding him rum. It took the whole bottle. Then, when he passed out, I dragged him down to my boat and ran him into Boca Grande Pass. By then, it was daylight.' She paused for a moment, remembering it.

'This was a year ago last June. You've been in Boca Grande Pass in June? I found a spot off the beach, away from the fleet that's always there. Tarpon were rolling all over the place, these big hundred-pound fish kicking water into the boat. First thing Jimmy sees when he wakes up is these tarpon flashing all around. He kind of shook his head—he didn't know what to make of that. Then he realizes that his hands and feet are tied, and he's not wearing any pants. He didn't know how that happened, and he's getting worried. Then he notices that there's a loop of fishing line knotted tight around his pecker, and he looks up to see that I've got the other end of the line in my hands—I'm just sitting there smilin' at him— and there's a hook on the line baited with a live mullet.

'He looks at his pecker, looks at that baited hook, thinks about all those hungry tarpon. Then he begins to sort of sob. His face screws up like a baby's face, and he starts beggin' me not to throw that bait in the water. I just sat there real calm . . . and tossed that live mullet into a pod of tarpon. Then I said to him, 'Jimmy? That little bit extra you got just ain't worth the bullshit. So you want to come to an agreement? Or do you want to fish?' '

Tomlinson said, 'Far out,' his voice a constricted whisper.

'I know, I know—but for a long time after that, I didn't have any more trouble with Jimmy.' Hannah laughed, sighed; a weary sound . . . and I watched her lean her head on Tomlinson's shoulder; turned to notice for the first time that the long, lean fingers of her left hand were resting on Tomlinson's thigh. Heard her say, 'So that's why I'm glad Jimmy's gone.'

My boat was nearly high and dry. The new moon had sucked so much water out of the bay that I spent a soggy half hour slogging around in the muck, pushing, pulling, and rocking to get the thing out into the foot of water it took to float it. I had to brace my back against the transom and lift until my muscles creaked and my shoulders popped, just to budge the damn thing.

That was bad enough, but I had begun to feel mildly sick ... a little woozy and dazed, probably from lack of sleep. I'd been up since, what? before three? Not that I was sleepy. After four or five glasses of Hannah's strong tea, sleep was out of the question. All that caffeine had my heart pounding; created an unpleasant roaring in my ears.