Randy White - Black Widow

Kathleen would be there. Beryl, too. Tricky. The same was true of the marina’s parties. They were a tradition, but no two were the same. Each had its own pace and mood.

I knew from experience the marina’s parties could be dangerous. They had ended marriages and partnerships, engagements, too, but they had also prompted spur-of-the-moment weddings. The party had hosted receptions, and many conceptions, although the number was impossible to track. It had brought together people who would be friends for life, and a few who would remain lifelong enemies because of drunken arguments and an occasional fistfight.

Years ago, Mack gave the party a name: Dinkin’s Bay Pig Roast and Beer Cotillion. But it’s been shortened to Perbcot as a spoof on Epcot, the Orlando tourist attraction. “I took the kiddies to Perbcot” is island code that explains disappearing for the weekend without risking details.

I decided to enjoy myself but stay on my toes.

I stopped at the marina office, said hello to Mack and Eleanor, and dropped a fifty-dollar bill into the donation bucket. Then I took a quart of beer from the cooler and carried it outside to the bait tanks, where I listened to the guides trade stories.

Snook were thick off the beach in knee-deep water. Tarpon were schooling inside Captiva Pass near the fish house once owned by Judge Lemar Flowers. Judge Flowers had been a friend of my uncle Tucker Gatrell, and hearing the name reminded me of the scorched letter back at the lab.

From the little I remembered, my mother was nothing like the angry woman in the back of the Mercedes. She was an amateur naturalist; one of the earliest advocates of a Save the Everglades movement. Long ago, I’d found her name on a little brass plaque near Flamingo, headquarters of Everglades National Park.

I was pleased when the guides switched the topic to the whale stranding of the night before.

“Killer whales,” Captain Nels told us, “only two of them dead. But there were hundreds for a while. I had a shelling charter this morning and talked to a woman who was camped on the beach. She saw the whole thing. And stink? Oh, man! It’ll be awhile before I take clients back there.”

Dozens of whales had tried to beach themselves, Nels had been told, but then suddenly turned en masse and headed out to sea.

“You think somethin’ could’a scared them, Doc?” Nels asked. “Maybe some of them big sharks come down from Boca Grande. That’s what I think. Other day, Mark Futch saw a hammerhead long as his boat.”

I sipped my beer and said, “I guess it’s possible.”

Tomlinson observed, "It’s a mystery why a straight arrow like you, Doc, is always knee-deep in women trouble,” frowning as if concerned, but actually enjoying himself. “I’m starting to think they don’t love you for your intellect.”

I said, “As if you’re an expert.”

“Shallow-up, Amigo. I’m giving you a compliment, for Christ’s sake. Only trying to help.”

“Umm-huh. Like a hangman giving advice about knots.”

We were standing by the canoe rack, looking across the water at the Darwin C. with its green trim and green Bimini canvas. Beryl Woodward and Kathleen Rhodes were sitting in captain’s chairs on the fly bridge, sipping drinks, leaning close the way women do when they’ve just met but already have things in common.

“Here’s an idea-how about I page you from the marina so it goes over the PA? I’ll say a U-Haul has just arrived, big enough so you can finally get your shit together. It’ll give you an excuse to skedaddle. You’ve never noticed how much nicer women are when they know you’re leaving?”

I said, “Funny. You’re a regular Dr. Laura.”

I had told Tomlinson I was flying out of Miami in the morning and Beryl wanted to go.

“Have you talked to her since she got to the marina?” he asked. He meant Beryl.

“Nope.”

“Have you told Kathleen you’re leaving for a week?”

“When have I had a chance? I’ve been standing here listening to you jabber for the last twenty minutes.”

Tomlinson was grinning, not bothering to hide it. “You’re screwed, amigo. The only difference between cliff diving and your love life is there’s no ambulance parked near the rocks.” Now he was laughingcheerful despite a hangover, and not even stoned. “If it wasn’t for you, I’d be convinced reincarnation is all about perfecting my role as the island’s village idiot. Thanks for sharing the load. That’s friendship.”

I took the quart of beer and poured the last of it over ice in a plastic cup. “I didn’t ask Kathleen to tie up at the marina. And Beryl’s not here because she’s interested in me. I already told you what she wants.”

I hadn’t use the word “revenge,” but Tomlinson had figured it out.

“You’re kidding yourself. Women don’t come to marinas to guzzle beer and sit on expensive boats. Only men are that simpleminded. Women come to marinas to meet the simpleminded men who own the boats-or for more serious reasons. Kathleen’s here because she’s serious. Maybe you should go face the music before those two women bond. You’re really S-O-L if that happens.”

Tomlinson turned to look at a sleek Sea Ray idling into the basin. “Hey-you said you aren’t happy about flying commercial? If your old contacts can’t help, maybe your new contacts can.” He waved his hand toward the Sea Ray. Coach Mike Westhoff was standing at the controls of the Playmaker with two men I recognized beside him: Dave Lageschulte and Eddie DeAntoni.

Tomlinson said, “Lags told me he and the guys are opening a new Hooters on Martinique-that’s close to Saint Arc. He’s been flying back and forth in the Gulfstream. Didn’t you say there’s a private airstrip there?”

I nodded. "Saint Lucia, too.” I didn’t want to fly directly to Saint Arc. Didn’t want the attention.

“Talk to Lags, man.”

Lageschulte and “the guys” were high school buddies from tiny Waverly, Iowa, who had founded a chain of sports bars. They’d done okay for farmboys.

I said, “Gulf Stream as in Gulfstream jet?”

“Yep. Five hundred knots, range four thousand miles, and a galley stocked with beer and chicken wings. A couple weeks back, the guys invited me along on a trip to Waterloo. We played pinochle, then hit some Amish auctions.”

“You’re kidding. Farm auctions?”

“The scene was incredible. Talk about drama. Lags had to outbid four or five bowed-neck Hawkeyes for a crosscut saw with a painting on it.”

I looked at Tomlinson, who was focused on the Sea Ray while combing a shaky hand through his hair. He’d been doing a lot of that lately- hanging with rock stars, business stars, jock stars, traveling, holding court among people who admired his writing, or his skills as a Zen roshi, or who felt set free by his Happy Hippie persona.

I hadn’t heard about the trip with Lags, but wasn’t surprised. Tomlinson was spending less and less time at the marina. There were long periods when we didn’t talk. Maybe he traveled to mask his bouts of self-doubt-there’s a fine line between traveling and running away. Or maybe it was because he’d achieved rock-star status of his own. His book One Fathom Above Sea Level had a growing cult following. Fans considered a trip to Dinkin’s Bay a form of pilgrimage. Because of that, the marina was no longer a refuge for Tomlinson.

“It’s flattering,” he had told me months ago. “But I worry that I disappoint people who love what I wrote. I can’t live up to my own words. I admit it. Words turn paper into stone-I’m not stone.”

Now, though, watching Coach Mike dock the Sea Ray, Tomlinson sounded right at home giving me travel advice.

“Flying commercial sucks. If you need a last-minute flight, talk to Lags, and don’t forget about Eddie. He’s a pilot. You could rent your own plane. You can afford it-why not?”