Stuart Kaminsky: Midnight Pass

“A bit oversimplified,” Reverend Wilkens said with a smile that indicated I was woefully uninformed on the issue but that he was a tolerant and patient man. “Before 1918, Siesta and Casey Key were separated by Little Sarasota Inlet. In 1918, a strong gale broke open Musketeers Pass about halfway down Casey Key and created Bird Keys, a small and a tiny island formed by wash-through sand. In 1921, Little Sarasota Inlet was partially closed by another storm. Property owners finished filling it in.”

“Leaving only Musketeers Pass between Casey and the south end of Siesta Key,” I said to show I was paying attention.

“That is correct, but without going into more of the Lord’s manipulation of the land and elements, let it suffice that Musketeers Pass was renamed Midnight Pass, a fifty-foot inlet separating Casey and the south peninsula of Siesta Key and providing direct access to Little Sarasota Bay and Bird Keys. The Pass began to grow smaller as the keys drifted toward each other or nature just filled it in. In 1983, two homeowners received permission from the state and county and closed what remained of the Pass. Result? Little Sarasota Bay became stagnant, creating a new ecological system.”

“And that’s bad.”

“No,” he said, “that is good. Little Sarasota Bay has become a unique plant and animal sanctuary, a relatively tourist-free nature haven. The Lord allowed those homeowners to close that Pass for a reason. They simply finished the work He had begun. If He wants it open, He’ll do so without the Corps of Engineers and many millions of dollars the county can ill afford. He parted the Red Sea. I trust he can part a narrow fifty-foot stretch of filled-in land if He so chooses. I wish the Pass to remain closed until the Lord chooses to open it. The Army Corps of Engineers has indicated the cost to reopen will be as much as ten million dollars, and then the cost of keeping God from closing it again after that will be a million or more each year.”

He started at me with sincerity and unblinking eyes. He was good, but I could see there was another reason for wanting Midnight Pass left closed lurking behind those deep, brown eyes.

“It will be the last item on the agenda and probably won’t come up till after midnight on Friday. I’ve got the feeling that a few of my fellow board members whose views differ from mine will have lots to say on the earlier items such as tearing up Clark Road again or replacing blighted trees on Palm Avenue. We’ll listen to the public and then discuss and vote on Midnight Pass. The vote won’t be subject to review unless there’s a violation of the state or federal constitution.”

Wilkens basically represented Newtown, the African-American ghetto in Sarasota running about four blocks or more in either direction north and south of Martin Luther King Jr. Street. The far south end of what could be called Newtown was within walking distance of downtown. A curious man might have wondered what the Midnight Pass business in another district forty minutes south had to do with Newtown. I wasn’t curious.

I was about to say, “What’s this got to do with me?” when Fernando Wilkens told me.

He leaned over and whispered, “I’ve got the votes.”

“The votes?”

“To keep the Pass closed,” he said. “There are five members on the County Commission. Votes involving contracts for millions of dollars are routinely decided by simple majority.”

I nodded to show him that I was paying attention.

“I have your assurance that this is a privileged conversation?” he asked softly, though no one was listening. He looked around to see if we were being watched by anyone. Cars drove by but on a day like this only teens, joggers, and the homeless wandered the streets of Sarasota.

It’s privileged. How did you find me?” I asked. “And why?”

I’m not listed in the phone book, either in the white pages or in the yellow pages. I’m a process server with even less ambition than DQ Dave. I work as little as I can, live as cheaply as I can, and have as little to do with people as I can. I checked my watch and glanced at my bicycle leaning against the side of the DQ. If I didn’t get going in the next five minutes and pedal hard, I’d be late.

“My lawyer, Fred Tyrell,” Wilkens said. “He told me about you.”

I nodded. Tyrell was the token black in the downtown law firm of Cameron, Wyznicki, Forbes, and Littlefield. No “Tyrell.” Tyrell’s job was to take minority clients and even drum them up. Sometimes it worked. Sometimes even the most committed African-American activists wanted a smart white lawyer, preferably a Jewish one. Cameron, Wyznicki, etc., had one of those too, Adam Katz. I think the firm took him in about a decade before I came simply because of his last name. I had done work for both Katz and Tyrell. The partners had their own short list of investigating and process-serving private detectives and process servers, though I got most of my business from another law firm, Tycinker, Oliver, and Schwartz on Palm Avenue.

I nodded again, looked at my empty cup.

I’m what is usually called medium height and probably seen as being on the thin side, but I pedal to the downtown Y every day, work out for at least an hour three times a week, and have grown hard in a town of white sand beaches and lazy hot days. I grew hard to stay away from my own desire to turn into a vegetable.

“Parenelli will vote with me,” said Wilkens.

I nodded a third time. This was no surprise. Parenelli was the closest thing we had to a radical liberal on the council. He was old, crusty, had moved down from Jersey thirty years ago, and would have gladly voted for Eugene V. Debs for governor if Debs were alive and eligible. Sometimes the other council members kept certain issues until late in each session in the hope that Parenelli would be too tired to protest or might even doze off. Parenelli was too crafty an old socialist to let that work. He sat with his thermos of black coffee, did crossword puzzles while he pretended to take notes, and waited for the big vote.

Three commission members always voted together on money issues. They would furiously debate for hours whether they should approve an unbroken or broken yellow line down the middle of the recently widened Tuttle Avenue, and you would never know how that one would go, but on expenditures, they were closer together than the Statler Brothers. That left Wilkens and Parenelli together on social issues. Votes of three to two were common, but it was even more common to have unanimous votes because most issues were without controversy and without interest to even the commission members.

“The way I count it, you’re one vote short.”

“Trasker,” the Reverend Wilkens whispered, leaning even closer to me.

I thought delusion had set in on Wilkens and considered advising him to wear a hat and stay indoors. I had a University of Illinois baseball cap I could offer him, but I didn’t think he’d accept the gift or use it.

I even considered inviting him across the parking lot to my barely air-conditioned office and living closet, but decided that whatever confidence he might have in me would be gone with his first view of my professional headquarters.

“William Trasker is one of the block of three,” I said.

Wilkens smiled. Nice teeth. Definitely capped.

“William Trasker is dying,” he said solemnly, though I had the feeling that Trasker’s impending death didn’t completely displease him.

“Trasker came to my church office day before day before yesterday,” Wilkens went on. “Told me, said there was nothing they could do to him now and that he’d enjoy surprising the commission by voting with me. It was to be a done deal.”

“Still two questions,” I said, pitching the empty cup toward the white-plastic-lined metal mesh trash basket and sinking it for a solid two points. “First, what did Trasker mean by saying there was nothing ‘they’ could do to him now? Second, what do you need me for?”