Sanibel Flats

enjoying the improved housing and medical care. For the first time in four hundred years, the country was at peace, and Balserio was quick to take the credit.

But Balserio finally heard the whispers, though long after everyone else in Masagua: He was just a puppet, the rumors said, his wife the puppeteer. He acted at her bidding. There was only one thing the presidente wouldn't and couldn't do for this great lady—which is why she had never conceived, borne a child. Furious, Balserio notified his department heads that they were no longer to discuss matters of state with his wife. She was banished from the government, though she remained in the palace . . . and in Balserio's bedroom, where she still did not conceive. The government began to fall apart; the people began to react to the increasingly brutal treatment they received at the hands of Balserio's men. Balserio answered with more brutality, and the tenuous peace was gone.

Now this.

Ford folded the paper and stood. MacKinley came by. 'You're looking a bit sleepy today, Doc. Didn't get our eight hours last night, did we now, cobber?' Smile, smile. Ford had heard the same thing from Jeth Nicholes and J. Y. Lavender, one of the local sailing instructors. Sheri Braun-Richards had left an hour after first light, walking down his rickety stilt house dock for all the early risers to see.

Sunday or not, he made phone calls. He tried an old associate of his in Washington, D.C., Donald Piao Cheng, but didn't get an answer.

Major Lester Durell of Fort Myers-Sanibel Municipal Police Department was home, though, getting ready to go play golf, he said. Durell had been a senior when Ford was a sophomore, played on the same baseball and football teams. Ford had dropped in at Durell's office once not long after his return to Florida: modern office with blue carpeting, a collection of ceramic pigs in police uniforms on the shelves, framed commendations and a diploma of his bachelor of science degree from Florida State University's School of Criminology on the wall. It wasn't the cop office you see on television. It was the office of an organized executive, competent in his work.

Ford was counting on that.

He asked Durell if he was going to attend the memorial service for Rafe. Durell hesitated, as if he hadn't really planned on it, then said, 'Sure, M.D. If you're going. You trying to make this into a sort of reunion thing? Get a lot of the guys together to give Rafe a send-off? If you are, I'll warn you right now that most of them are gone, moved away. Either that, or so rich on real estate they're at their summer homes in North Carolina.'

Ford said, 'I'm not interested in a reunion, Les. I want a chance to talk to you privately and thought it might be a convenient time.'

'Privately?' Said with a falling inflection that communicated suspicion; the cop defense system was suddenly in place. 'About what?'

'About Rafe. Not just privately, confidentially, too. I know you can't agree to something like that on the spur of the moment, so I thought I'd give you a day's warning.'

'Maybe I can give you an answer right now. I'm an officer of the court in uniform or out of uniform. That's the law. I'm going to have to hear a lot more before I can guarantee confidentiality. By then, Doc, you may have already told me too much. Do you still want to see me tomorrow?'

'I'll risk it . . . maybe for half an hour or so after the service? Oh, Lester—one more thing. If there was one investigative reporter in the area you would genuinely hate to have after your ass, who would it be?'

'I've got nothing to hide. None of them bother me.' Getting colder, more remote. He and Ford hadn't been close friends. Ford had the impression it wouldn't matter if they had.

'But if you had done something, and there was one reporter—'

'What's this all about, M.D.? You got yourself in trouble? Or are you trying to play amateur detective? People watch TV, get the impression they can snatch clues out from under the noses of the pros, solve the puzzle, live happily ever after, which is utter, utter bullshit. It doesn't work that way and, from what I remember of you, you're too smart to think it does.'

'I didn't mean to make you mad, Les.'

'Then don't try to manipulate me.'

'I wasn't manipulating. I want the name of a good investigative reporter. I can get it from you or from someone else.'

'You're thinking Rafe was murdered. That's what this is all about, isn't it?'

'Yes.'

There was a silence followed by a sigh. 'There's a guy on the area paper, Henry Melinski. Henry S. Melinski, that's his byline. Weighs about a hundred forty pounds, but he's got these blue eyes like an assassin. He doesn't scare and the bastard hangs on like a pit bull. If I'd done something wrong—which I haven't—I think I'd move to Pago-Pago or someplace if that bad boy got on my trail.'

'What about the Miami Herald? You know anyone there?'

Lester Durell said, 'Before I do any more volunteering, I think we need to have a talk first, Doc. I'll see you tomorrow.' And hung up.

Ford worked around the lab for a while, then tried Donald Piao Cheng in D.C. again. This time Cheng's wife answered, wanted to know when're you coming by to visit, Doc?; said they always had a spare bed; said you won't believe the change that's come over Donald. 'He's outside jumping rope, can you imagine?'

Ford tried to imagine. Cheng was maybe five eight, weighed two hundred pounds, smoked cigarettes. He worked for the U.S. Customs Department; a Type-A personality who couldn't slow down. Precise, driving; work, work, worry, worry, worry; everything right by the book. Ford couldn't imagine.

But then Donald got on and said he'd quit smoking, was down to 175 and wasn't going off the diet till he weighed 160. Ford said that was great, and he'd called to ask a favor. Cheng said, 'Name it. As I remember, I owe you one very big favor and two or three small ones.' With Donald Cheng, it wouldn't have mattered who owed whom because they were friends.

It took Ford a while to describe exactly what he wanted-When he was done, he added, 'I don't want to mislead you, Don. I haven't told you everything.'

'No kidding?' Cheng said dryly. 'I was afraid you were being unintentionally inscrutable.'

'It's necessary. I wouldn't do it if it wasn't. '

'But what's so important about a painting you want me to go clear to Manhattan to bid on it? Not that I'm not happy to help.'

Ford said, 'It was painted by a friend of mine. I like it. I'd like to own it.'

'My God, if the artist is a friend of yours, why don't you just tell her; buy it from her?'

'Because that way she'd feel obligated to give it to me. She needs the money.'

'Jeez. Mister white knight on a horse. I try to tell Margie what you're really like, and she says, Oh, he's got such a good face, such nice eyes, you're just jealous of the way he looks, Don, and he's so good with the kids. You quit NSA for six months, now you really are a nice guy? And an art lover, no less.'

From the phone in the lab, Ford could see two paintings on the walls: a stilt house at low tide by Wellington Ward and palm trees on a beach by Ken Turney. He said, 'I know what I like,' which would have made Jessica roll her eyes. 'And I've been gone a year, not six months. You understand, I'd like you to be there for the whole sale. This paintings might come up early, or maybe real late. I want to make sure you're there for the whole thing.'

'In other words, they might try to sell something illegal toward the end of the show, and you don't want me to miss it.'

'That's not the sort of thing you should hear from me.'

Cheng said, 'Okay, okay, the whole thing. Manhattan. Kids dye their hair purple there. Walk around with great big radios.'

'Your hair used to be down to your shoulders. Margie showed me the photos. You went to Woodstock and slept with Ivy League girls who felt guilty because you were a downtrodden minority. You told me that. You wanted to return to China and communicate with the bones of your ancestors. '

'I may; I still may do that!'

'Hey, Don, there's one more thing.'

'I was sure there would be at least one more thing.'

'I have the chance to invest with this importer who says he's going to buy a lot of Mayan artifacts in Central America, then bring them back and sell them at a huge profit—'

'That's a transparent lie, and I just want you to know that I know it.'