Acts of Nature - By Jonathon King Page 0,89

Harmon’s. Inside I found the phone he’d spoken of before the gator took him away in pieces. I turned it on and dialed Billy Manchester’s number. He would be the one person I knew would have the technological ability to take the call even if the power and the cell towers were down in West Palm Beach. He was my friend, my attorney, and since I often worked for him as a private investigator, he was also my boss. He listened as always in absorbed silence until I was done describing where Sherry and I were and the GPS coordinates, her medical condition, and a quick synopsis of the carnage lying around me.

“I will be on a med flight in thirty minutes, Max, with a crew and an evacuation basket,” Billy said. “I will also inform the Broward sheriff’s office of the situation. Are you OK?”

“Yeah, Billy. Just get here.”

I punched the off button and stepped out past the hand with one thumb. Buck was facedown, the ripped left leg of his jeans was empty. Farther along the deck was the body of a big man I did not recognize. As I walked around him, I glimpsed a clump of bloodstained gristle against the nearby wall that I barely recognized as an ear. At the corner was Wayne, lying on his side, his arm extended out in the direction of his friend as if offering the four fingers he had left from an accident long ago to match his partner’s lonely thumb.

The sun was partway up now, smoldering behind an overcast sky, dimly glowing. A humid wind stirred and blew through the broken Glades trees and ferns, momentarily sweeping away the stink of blood and cordite and humans. Sometimes nature cannot stand us. And sometimes we cannot stand our own nature. I carefully made my way back inside to Sherry’s side and waited for the sound of a rescue.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

As always the author would like to acknowledge the excellent work of the folks at Dutton, especially Mitch Hoffman and Erika Imranyi, who succinctly debunk the statement that editors don’t edit anymore.

I also wish to thank Philip Spitzer without whom there would be no Max; my early reader, Lillian Ros Martin, for her insight and Spanish lessons; and Joanne Sinchuk, who spreads our work and without whom so many Florida mystery writers would simply be broke.

EPILOGUE

We are through the hurricane season. It is January in South Florida and the tourists and winter residents are leaking back down from up north to seek out the sun now that it is safe and the chill of winter is pushing them out of their own homes. It is nice to avoid the inconveniences of nature if you can afford to.

I am avoiding them myself by spending most of my time at Sherry’s home in Fort Lauderdale. After she was released from the hospital, I built a ramp from her driveway up onto her back deck, which overlooks the pool. I installed a new set of stainless steel handles that let her ease herself down into the water, and although that was their immediate purpose, she has taken to using them for doing “dips.” It is an excruciatingly difficult exercise she learned in rehab that is like an inverted pull-up and works the hell out of one’s shoulder and triceps muscles. I’ve tried to match her repetitions and failed. She calls me a wimp but concedes that she is only pressing the weight of her body minus one leg. I kept telling myself I was there to help her but I have not yet returned to my river shack. I think perhaps I’m there to help myself. Being alone in the wilderness has lost some appeal. Being with someone you need and needs you is, well, natural.

When Billy’s privately arranged medevac helicopter arrived at the Everglades shack, a rescue jumper and an emergency medical physician winched down and immediately took control of Sherry, inserting IVs, stabilizing her leg, administering who knows what antishock drugs. They strapped her into the basket and pulled her up into the chopper and I followed. While they worked on her, a flight nurse was trying to open another vein in Sherry’s right arm but had to pry her hand open to loosen a muscle, and in her palm she found a necklace with two stones, an opal and a diamond. Sherry had not let loose of it since ripping it off Wayne’s neck. The nurse handed it to me and I