Night Moves (Doc Ford) - By RandyWayne White Page 0,41
the crosshairs of another man’s trouble. Not that we wouldn’t stand up for you if it’s true.”
I said, “Tomlinson gets in these moods and he thinks everyone’s out to get him. He’s probably the one started it.”
The man nodded and pretended to be convinced. “That’s what I figured. Plus, you would have gone straight to the police.” After a beat he added, “Right?”
“Someone’s trying to kill you, it would be stupid not to,” I replied.
No . . . he wasn’t buying it. I’ve lived next to the marina too long, and this wasn’t the first unsettling rumor that had made the rounds about me. Even so, he said, “Good. I was almost convinced that’s why you asked Jeth about that Stiletto. You know—worried about some jealous husband spying.”
“Just curious,” I said. “JoAnn said she’s never seen the owner.”
“Nothing mysterious about that. A hired captain brought her in one night, and the owner made all the arrangements online. Some corporate secretary, anyway. Paid by wire transfer. That’s not the only boat new to A-Dock. That big Lamberti? Probably a million-dollar yacht, but no one’s said a word about it. The owner’s Brazilian and he paid the first week cash. In euros. The guy’s a jogger, you haven’t seen him? Runs every morning.”
I made a mental note to have a look at the Lamberti but stuck with the subject of the Stiletto. “It’s probably all that carbon fiber that makes people suspicious. Tinted windows, a black hull. What’s the name of the corporation?”
Mack blew a cloud of smoke toward the sunset sky, pleased he had finally confirmed the rumor was true. “I’ll find out what I can and let you know. Can’t have the marina’s most respected citizens bullied by some jealous tycoon, now can we?” He turned to go but then stopped. “By the way, where did you and Tomlinson disappear to today?”
Less than a minute into my cover explanation, the marina owner checked his watch to keep from yawning. “Doing a fish count in Lostman’s River,” he said. “Love to hear about it—but later, Doc. Okay?”
—
I WAS IN THE WATER, opening the gate of the stingray pen, when my cell phone beeped. When I looked I saw that I’d missed two calls, not one. Mrs. Crescent Arturo and my new workout partner, Hannah Smith, had dialed simultaneously—a coincidence I wouldn’t risk sharing with Tomlinson.
Hannah, I wanted to speak with. No doubt she had stopped to tend to the dog, as I’d requested, but had found the dog missing. This after driving her fast little flats boat from across the bay to help, so I owed the woman an explanation.
It wasn’t just about courtesy, though. Hannah is one of the rare independent ones, tall and confident in the way she moves, but also guarded at times—a private woman who protects personal boundaries or, less likely, who is aware of some inner frailty that she keeps hidden from outsiders. She is complex, like all interesting people, and I was just getting to know her. For now, we interacted on the most basic of levels. Hannah was a superb fly fisherman with a good laugh and among the few willing to swim a quarter mile along the beach after a three-mile run with me.
Cressa Arturo, I had to speak with. I’d enjoyed parts of our evening together, but now I was obligated. She’d rescued the dog from Mack’s wrath, and my mental image of her elegant beach house didn’t include paw prints and room for a rangy, sodden, oily-coated retriever.
Even so, both would have to wait. After opening one side of the pen, I sloshed my way to the back of the netting, then stomped around until the female stingray spooked in a jet stream of silt. Her wake left the five immature rays rocking like drunken birds, so I stepped into the pen and shooed them carefully, very carefully, toward the opening. My lone stingray wound had come from a ray no bigger than a plate. If body size was in any way proportionate to the amount of poison and pain inflicted, god help the poor bastard who stepped on a big one. The pain is so intense that the Maya used fresh stingray barbs to induce trances and also to prolong the agony of human sacrifices. It’s because the barb is a saw-blade of spines composed of vasodentin, a substance harder than bone, and each spine is grooved to transport venom-secreting cells when the barb is plunged into a victim. As