twitching, his screams silenced.
Jim Tiger was stone-cold dead, and I was stone-cold sober.
Guillermo Diaz stood, frozen. By the time he reached inside his nylon jacket, I had picked up the stun gun and aimed it at his chest. The first electric zap buckled his knees and opened his mouth. The second sat him down. The third drove a palsy through his arms and legs.
I heard the door bang open behind me and turned in time to see Florio, a twelve-gauge shotgun cradled in his arms, coming toward me. I dived to the deck and rolled just as a blast tore out a chunk of the railing, the noise ringing in my ears. The shotgun barrel followed me to the floor, and I kept moving, scrambling hand over hand. I looked over my shoulder to see Florio pump and raise the gun once more. I took two steps and dived over the railing, a blast of pellets tearing at my coattail.
Into the blackness.
The fall took forever.
I expected to be shot out of the air, like a clay pigeon.
And then the splash.
It was something between a belly flop and an Olympic medal, closer to the former. I went under, not knowing how deep it was but thankful for once that Nicky Florio had dredged, with or without permits.
I heard another blast and felt the ping of pellets in the water above me. I stayed under as long as I could.
I surfaced and took a breath, my lungs exploding with pain. My breathing sounded like a locomotive in my ears. I tried not to splash. The sun was sizzling on the horizon, the black water glinting with morning light. I wondered what Nicky could see from the high-stilted porch.
I listened to the sounds of the swamp. Birds chirping, frogs burping, the screech of an animal I had never heard before. I floated on my back, my legs weighted down by my wing tips. I discarded the shoes and kicked gently, moving away from the house.
Another roar from the shotgun, but farther away.
Still moving backward, I bumped into something rough and scaly.
A log?
I whirled around, searching for yellow-green eyes, or worse, red ones…
It was a large branch of a lignum vitae tree.
I resumed my easy backstroke, tearing off my suit coat and letting it float away. I maneuvered around the hardwood hammock, putting more distance between the house and myself. Five minutes later, I could barely see the light from the windows through the tops of the mahogany trees.
I was trying to conserve my energy, floating, swimming, floating again, when I heard it.
A heavy breath beside me. I rolled to the side and was sprayed by a fine mist from two nostrils just above the water’s surface. The rest of the animal was hidden below the surface.
From diving, I remembered what to do when you encounter a shark. Don’t panic; don’t splash; don’t strike out. I wondered if the advice applied to alligators. No matter. I was too scared to do anything. I just floated there while it moved closer and breathed its hot breath on me and finally nuzzled me with its snout.
Chapter 23
I treaded water and the animal raised its head.
Dull gray, the color of an elephant, with a blunt-nosed face. It reminded me of a hippo.
Then it squeaked and nuzzled me.
A big, lumpy manatee. A sea cow with bad breath. It squeaked again. I treaded water some more, backpedaling. Lumpy moved its arm like front flippers and came close enough to kiss me. This guy, or gal, must have weighed half a ton.
I didn’t know what to do, so I imitated its sound. Mine was more of a squawk, a little off key. I hoped it was the manatee version of hello, and not a war whoop. Or a mating call.
The manatees are essentially harmless and friendly. They eat grass and drift through life not bothering anybody. Man is a much greater danger to the manatee than the other way around. The big lugs float just below the surface in our waterways and canals, where power boaters frequently slice them up with their propellers.
Sirens of the sea, they are the sea maids from A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Five hundred years ago, Columbus saw manatees floating by as he approached the New World. His log revealed he thought they were mermaids. Columbus had been at sea too long.
Another squeak from Lumpy, another squawk from me.
Then it did a pirouette, slowly spinning 180 degrees, showing me its wrinkled gray back. I tentatively stroked its head, provoking a squeak-squeak.
I stopped stroking, and it turned and faced me again.
The sun was an orange fireball just above the horizon. A heron croaked as it flew overhead. There was the splash of feeding fish nearby.
I was tired of treading water. “What do you want, pal?”
Another squeak. Then another pirouette.
It just floated there, its back to me.
Waiting. It expected me to do something. But what?
Growing even more tired, I put my arms around its neck and held on. Lumpy started swimming. So that was it. The manatee was a cabbie, and I was the fare. We would not break Mark Spitz’s records, but we were moving. Judging from the position of the rising sun, we were headed north and maybe a little east. Not that it made much difference, since I didn’t knowhow to get out of here anyway, but we were going deeper into the Glades and away from Tamiami Trail. Keep it up, and we might hit Lake Okeechobee.
We passed dozens of hardwood hammocks, staying in the deep water well offshore. Live oak and royal palm trees were outlined as silhouettes against the brightening sky. I heard a woodpecker rat-a-tat-tatting and watched a black-and-white wood stork wading in the shallow water near shore. We swam through patches of green water lettuce and lilies and kept on going.
I saw an osprey dive-bomb the water and come up with a fish in its talons, then head back toward a hammock and what I imagined was its nest filled with young birds. A black-and-yellow snake slithered by, and I told myself it wasn’t a diamondback rattler.
By the time we approached a strand of bald cypress trees, my arms were starting to cramp. In the distance I heard two thudding explosions, the same sounds I thought had been thunderclaps the morning after Gondolier was killed. A heavy mist hung over the water, and the air was cooler here. This time of year, the trees were bare of their needles but were cloaked with ethereal tapestries of Spanish moss. I was trying to figure it out. We had headed north, farther from the national park, farther from the Trail, deeper into Micanopy territory.
Of course. We were in the Big Cypress, the part of the Glades that truly looks like a prehistoric swamp. The water, stained by tannin, was the color of richly brewed tea. The rising sun was shimmering behind the Spanish moss. Air plants and red bromeliads and white orchids grew out of the cypress trees, which, in turn, grew out of the dark water.
Figuring the water was shallow, I let go of Lumpy and tried to stand. The water closed over my head, and I never did touch bottom. I came up and found my friend waiting, squeaking, then turning around for me. I felt unworthy of such tender care but climbed on anyway.
I lost track of time. The sun was high overhead, and my throat was constricted with thirst when I saw the hardwood hammock in front of us. It seemed larger than the others, and there was another difference, too. At the shoreline, covered by gumbo limbo trees, was a wooden dock that even Lumpy knew was the sign of man.
I figured the manatee brought me here thinking I wanted to be with my own kind. You’re wrong, Lumpy. I’d had enough of Nick Florio and his buddies to prefer the company of a thousand-pound creature with halitosis. But maybe this place had a fishing cabin where the thoughtful owner left a six-pack of beer behind.
