by the pool in her bikini all day, then go off at night. So I figured she was staying wired most of the time—vodka, dope, coke; she liked it all. And her with an eight-year-old boy at home.
'I called this old lady about two weeks ago, and she was real upset. Said that morning Helen had walked some guy outside to kiss him good-bye, and Jake came wandering out, still in his pajamas. Said she could hear Helen yelling at Jake to go back inside, and Jake started crying so this guy gives my boy a slap and bloodies up his nose. The son of a bitch hit my son, Doc! The old lady called the police, but the guy turns out to be the judge who railroaded me. They're not going to touch a judge, of course, plus I've never been what you'd call A-one popular with all them Yankees on Sandy Key. That did it, Doc. I mean, I went fucking nuts when I heard that.
'I got a plane back to the States that night and waited until Helen left the house. Poor little Jake was there all alone, and he was so damn happy to see me. I didn't exactly know what I was going to do till. I got there. Then I knew. There wasn't any doubt once I saw him.'
Ford said, 'You took him.' He had heard that already, too.
Hollins said, 'You're goddamn right I took him.' Still angry, but desperate, too. 'Jake helped pack his own suitcase, that's how anxious he was. I knew of a secluded spot on the Pacific coast of Costa Rica where no one would bother us and I could rent a place that had enough pasture to make a decent airstrip. Flying's my business and I'd done some work down there off and on over the last three years. But you already know that—hell, you're the one that give me the names and got me started. A buddy flew us cargo commercial to Mexico, then another pilot friend flew us down the rest of the way because I knew we couldn't get into Costa Rica without our names ending up on a computer someplace. There's a nice little village out there on the Pacific coast, and there's a school and nice kids, and I figured Jake and I could just live there, say screw the rest of the world. You can't blame me for that, Doc.'
Ford said, 'I don't blame you, Rafe. But it's called kidnapping, which is federal. And taking him out of the country is going to make them want to lock you up and melt the key. '
'You think I give a shit about that? I grew up with a drunk for a mother. I wasn't going to let it happen to Jake. But Christ—' This last came out in a rush of pure despair. '—I never thought those Central American bastards would take Jake to get back at me. Hell, it never entered my mind the stuff I had was that important. '
'They took your son? Who?'
'Masaguans. The Indios. You ever deal with those people? Now they've got my little boy.'
Ford exhaled, a noise of disgust. 'And you think you're going to work out a trade with them?'
Hollins said, 'I've got to,' his voice charged, near panic. 'And it's got to be soon. They've already had him four days, and it's driving me crazy thinking what they might be doing to him. See, I can't go to the feds. What am I gonna tell em: I kidnapped my son, then someone kidnapped him from me? They'd throw me in the pen—which I wouldn't mind if it got Jake back safe. But the feds don't have any pull with those Indios. Up there in those mountains, the way the Indios stick together, they'd never find the men, let alone find Jake. It's got to be me, Doc. I'll give 'em their damn junk back. I'll do anything just so long as they give me Jake. But I need someone to help. If I tried it alone, they could cut my throat, take their stuff, and still keep my boy. See? I need a hole card. I need you.'
Ford said, 'Jesus, Rafe. Of all places—'
'Come on, Doc, come on. This is serious. I need help, man.'
'That's the one place I can't go back to.'
'What, they got a warrant out?'
'No, it just wouldn't be smart for me to go back. Not now.'
'You're saying you won't help. I'm trying to get my son back, and that's what you're telling me?'
In the abrupt silence, Ford thought Hollins was about to hang up. He said quickly, 'Okay, okay. Where do you want to meet?'
'You mean it?'
'But you're going to have to tell me everything. Understand? I'll help, but I need to know everything. Then maybe I can find a better way. We can figure something out.'
Hollins said, 'Christ, this has all gotten so crazy I can't even think anymore. It's like I'm losing my mind, the way everything's just gone all to hell at once.'
'Sometimes it can seem like that.'
'You got some time tomorrow?'
'I've got time today.'
'Naw, tomorrow. Meet me on Tequesta Bank.'
'The island? Couldn't we just meet at a restaurant or something?'
'I got people looking for me, remember?'
'Okay.'
'Say . . . late afternoon, about six? I've got an appointment with some a my old buddies from Sandy Key; got to make a little money to finance this thing. Meet me at six, and I'll tell you about it. Everything.'
'Tequesta Bank. Up on the mounds.'
'Right. Just like old times. I've been kinda camping out there, keeping a low profile.'
'The FBI's already after you?'
'Someone's after me, but it's not the FBI I'm worried about.'
'Then who?'
Hollins said, 'Doc, I've got more enemies than a Dallas whore with herpes. So it's hard to say.'
Ford stepped out of the skiff, dropped the anchor in the bushes. He could see a boat hidden in the mangroves down the creek. The wedge of bow suggested a small trihull, a piece of junk Rafe Hollins would never have owned by choice.
The path leading into the island was overgrown, no wider than a rabbit trail. It twisted through mangroves and up a steep shell hill. Jungle crowded in beside him, above him, and there was the smell of heat and vegetation like wood ash and warm lime peelings, an odor that was pure Florida. For just a moment, the smell of the island brought it all back; made it seem as if he had never been away, back when he and Rafe were teenagers and had adopted the island as a sort of second home. Rafe's mother was a drunk, his father a commercial fisherman. Ford had lived with his uncle, an ex-triple-A pitcher who picked up the bottle the day his contract was dropped. Rafe and he had pretty much come and gone as they pleased.
They chose Tequesta Bank because of the Indian mounds and because it was uninhabited and no one was likely to bother them. They'd built a cabin on the highest mound and they had had beer parties and brought girls and sometimes just sat looking at the stars, the two of them, talking on the high mound by a campfire which flickered in a wind that blew straight out of Cuba.
Ford ducked under a spider the size of his fist. He stopped and watched the spider longer than he normally would, impatient with the charge of nostalgia, wanting it to fade. He noted that the spider was rebuilding its web, the upper half first, and that it was a golden-silk spider, a female that had recently made a kill. Probably some kind of butterfly judging from the orange dust clinging to the hair on her legs. What was butterfly dust called? Prismatic- something . . . prismatic scales, right. He stood looking at the spider; stood in the silence of his own heartbeat, his own breathing, the whine of cicadas; stood wondering why Rafe had yet to yell some greeting; realized that something really might be wrong. Eighteen years ago it could have been the prelude to a practical joke: a surprise party with a keg of beer and half the football team stashed in the bushes. But not now. Not after the urgency in Hollins's voice. Rafe was here and he was alone and he had yet to make the first sound.
Why?
Down the mound, the path disappeared into shadows.
Ford leaned and picked up a chunk of old conch shell, discarded it, then picked up a broken limb about the size of a baseball bat. Carrying the club, he moved quietly through the brush and up the highest mound, his heart pounding.
When he got to the top, he stopped again. To the west was the bay. He could see the domino shapes of condominiums on the barrier island that fronted the Gulf of Mexico three miles away: Sandy Key, the island where Rafe said he had lived. Back in high school, Sandy Key had been an undeveloped spit of land just beyond the county line, a good place for parties because it was outside the jurisdiction of the local sheriff's department. Now there was a causeway and the steady
