Sanibel Flats

and sells off the stuff he doesn't want. Has his men do the excavating. Zacul likes to use it to help play the crowd.'

'What?'

'You know, when someone's around who can help him. He plays the Mayan Indian bit trying to take back his land of his ancestors. Shit, the guy's from Peru, pure Castilian far as we can find out. Not a drop of Indian blood in his body. But the act still gets him a lot of supporters up there in liberal land. Movie-actor types, like to have their pictures taken with outlaws. They put on benefits, send U.S. dollars. Makes them feel real caring, politically aware. The dumb asses.'

'I don't suppose you could give me the name of the source. '

'You suppose right. Not until I get the negatives from those photos, anyway.'

'Did your source tell you where Zacul and his men are camped?'

'Up in the mountains, just like your buddy Juan Rivera. Where all those bastards hide out. That's who you figure has the kid? Zacul?'

Ford said, 'It seems to fit with the story the boy's father gave me.'

'Then I'd write him off as dead. Zacul doesn't like you gringos, even the young ones, and he's about as crazy mean as they come.'

'I still want you to try and find him.'

'Me? I got all the information I could, damn it. Don't play these bullshit games with me. I'm gonna have a war to deal with here in a few months or one real nasty election, and I don't have time to run around looking for some kid who's probably already dead. You're gonna have to come down here and get him yourself.'

'I'm not allowed to return to Masagua for another year, Buck. You'd have me arrested at the airport. '

'What kind of asshole do you take me for?'

'You don't really want an answer to that, do you?'

'I want those negatives, Ford.'

'Then find the boy, Buck. '

ELEVEN

Ford went outside, into the darkness, down the steps to the dock that sided the shark pen. He had two boats, the eighteen-foot flats skiff and an old twenty-four-foot flat-bottomed trawl boat that he used for dragging up tunicates, seahorses, small fish, and other specimens. He had felt tradition-bound to name each of the boats, but had come up with nothing that didn't sound cutesy or egocentric. He considered Beagle II for the trawl boat; maybe W. H. Wood for the skiff, in honor of the man who landed history's first tarpon. But when the guy came to paint the names, neither name seemed right, so he had had Sanibel Biological Supply stenciled on the sterns of each, and left it at that.

With its nets and outriggers folded above, the trawl boat looked like some huge, gloomy pterodactyl as it swung experimentally on its lines in the calm night, bow tied to the dock, its stern anchored off. Ford checked the lines of the trawl boat, then stepped into his skiff, touched the trim button, and lowered the engine. He idled across the bay toward the dim shape of Tomlinson's sailboat in the distance.

Dinkin's Bay was a backwater, far off the course of normal boating traffic, so Tomlinson showed no anchorage light atop the mast, but his cabin light was on. There was music, too; weird discordant notes of a wooden flute curling out of the cabin, floating over the dark water like mist. As Ford drew closer, though, the music stopped and the silhouette of Tomlinson, wearing only shorts, appeared on the cockpit.

'Hello the boat!'

'Hey . . . Doc, that you? Hey, this is great. Come on aboard.' It was beer time anyway, Tomlinson said, and it was real nice getting company for a change, almost like Christmas sort of, and he'd just finished playing along with Shuso, playing the Japanese bamboo flute.

'Shuso?' Ford had followed Tomlinson down into the cabin of the sailboat and took a seat on the settee berth. There were neat rows of books, brass gauges on the bulkhead, and the cabin smelled of damp wood and coffee and diesel fuel.

Tomlinson rummaged through the ice locker, found two bottles of Steinlager, then slid in behind the dinette table. 'The Zen Buddhist, Shuso. You never heard of him?' Like he might have been talking about Boston leftfielder Mike Greenwell or Brian Wilson. 'Started his own Zen sect. Uses the traditional hotchiku, a plain bamboo flute, to express the true feeling of Zen, like haiku; you know, poetry.'

'Ah,' said Ford. 'That Shuso.'

'Right. Trouble is, Shuso never found a suitable student to carry on his form of Zen. No one willing to dedicate their life to the hotchiku. It's been pretty sad. Makes him kind of a tragic figure, really. ' He handed Ford the flute he had been playing—a long unvarnished length of bamboo with twelve neatly awled holes. 'Figure I might take a little trip to Japan, maybe in the fall, pop in on this great man and surprise him. Let him know I'm on the trail; see if we have something karmic going. I have a feeling I'm just the guy he's looking for. Shuso's getting pretty old. He could kick off at any minute, you know. '

Ford tasted his beer; really good beer, from New Zealand. 'No, I didn't know. But it's kind of coincidental you should mention travel—'

'No offense, Doc, but I don't happen to believe in coincidence.' Tomlinson had accepted the flute back and was touching the holes dreamily, playing it in his mind. 'Everything that has happened, everything that will happen, it all exists in this single moment, endlessly surfacing and submerging; natural order, perfect law. The word coincidence is an invention that defines

our own confusion better than it describes a unique occurrence.'

'Oh,' said Ford. He believed in coincidence and he believed in confusion; had had too much experience with each not to believe, but he hadn't come to argue philosophy. 'Well, anyway, traveling, that's what I came to talk about. The son of a friend of mine is in trouble. Down in Central America; Masagua. He's been kidnapped by smugglers, probably revolutionary guerrillas, a group called the Shining Path. I'm leaving tomorrow to try and get him out.'

Tomlinson looked at him for a moment. 'You're not joking about this, are you?'

Ford said, 'Nope.'

'Sounds dangerous, man. The Shining Path, I've read about those people. But I thought they were in Peru.'

'Peru, then Colombia, now putting down roots in Central America. My friend is dead and there's no one else to help his son, so I feel like it's sort of an obligation. The kid's only eight years old.'

'Right! For sure, man; you gotta do it. The grand gesture: one brave man walking into the Valley of the Shadow—hell, no other choice for a moraled human. Fuckin' A.' Tomlinson finished his beer, then hurried to the ice locker to get another, ducking beneath the low bulkhead. 'You're probably going to be killed, huh?'

Ford said, 'If I thought that, I wouldn't go.'

'All by yourself, trying to steal a little boy away from a bunch of zapped-out Maoists who'd boil babies just for a change in menu.'

'You're not making this any easier, Tomlinson.'

'Huh? What? How do you mean.'

'My friend called me just before he died to ask me to help get his son out. He said he needed at least two men to make it work. He was right. To free the boy, it's going to take at least two guys. To make some kind of exchange, or set up some kind of diversion. I won't know how to work it until I get there.'

Tomlinson said, 'Yeah?'

Impatiently Ford said, 'So?'

Finally the light dawned. 'Me? You're asking me to go?'

'Yes,' said Ford. 'I am. You said you're interested in the Mayan culture, well, this trip should take you right through the heart of it.'

'Goddamn, I'm flattered. I really am!' Tomlinson was beaming. 'This is the first time anyone's ever trusted me to do something important!'

Ford didn't like the sound of that, but he said, 'It may be dangerous.'

'For a little kidnapped kid? Hell, I don't care.'