Randy White - Shark River

She didn’t seem to understand or believe why I was amused by that. “Why you smilin’ at me? You think I’m joking? No, I mean what I’m saying-we use the money, buy you some decent furniture, then I take what’s left over if there some money remaining.”

Perhaps there is a sense of subconscious linkage due to familial genetics. More likely, it was because it was absolutely impossible not to like and trust this woman even though I’d tried to remain disinterested, indifferent. Didn’t matter. She’d won me over and there was nothing I could do about it. Whatever the reason, I decided to give her a vague idea-a very vague idea-of what my income is per year.

After I told her, she said, incredulously, “You got to be kiddin’!”

No, I wasn’t kidding.

“You got all that money, why you live so poor?”

I looked around my house, trying to see it through her eyes. “Money’s got nothing to do with the way I choose to live.”

She found that funny. “Man, money got everything to do with how a person live. You got money, you should show it off a little. Get a little flashy, man. Let people know.”

I said to her, “Once they know, then what?” Meaning that, like giving a name to a shark, it made no sense.

I don’t believe people who say they don’t care about money and I don’t trust people who care too much.

The acquisition of money is necessary to living a life of acceptable independence. The question, of course, is what is acceptable? And how much will it cost?

A couple of years back, after a beery night of philosophical discussion, Tomlinson and I had both decided to take an active interest in acquiring money. I saw it as a clinical exercise. He saw it as a spiritual experiment.

We both succeeded way beyond our expectations, but I feel no pride in what has been the steady accumulation of paper wealth because I had no emotional interest in it to begin with.

The same is probably true for Tomlinson.

Reason’s simple: The credit belongs entirely to Mack. Mack, who owns and operates Dinkin’s Bay, has a New Zealander’s appreciation for thriftiness and a genius for the American stock market. Coincidental to that discussion, I’d just separated a very evil man from a sizable chunk of money, and I’d asked Mack to invest it all for me. I didn’t care if I lost the entire bundle-indifference can also work as a very effective cleanser of ethics.

By the end of that fiscal year, had I not reinvested my dividend payments, profits would have far exceeded what I make collecting and selling marine specimens.

I already had a sizable cache of cash hidden away in foreign accounts, so I’d taken ten percent of what I estimated to be the total and had Mack invest that, too. Tomlinson did the same with his own sizable inheritance after the untimely death of his father. Without even trying or really caring very much, we’d both become men of means and perhaps even wealthy, depending on how the market went and whose standards of wealth you used.

I was checking a recent and already much regretted acquisition-a telephone answering machine-as I explained this to her.

She said, “You tellin’ me you make all that money and don’t even do no work for it?”

On a pad of paper, I noted that a Professor Steven Dougherty had called from Grinnell University in Iowa with an order for three hundred small horseshoe crabs preserved in formalin, as I said, “There’s risk involved. Not as much now because the guy who does the investing for me-you’ll meet him tonight, a man named Mack. This guy, Mack, he handles my investments, and he’s done what they call diversify. What that means is, he’s spread the money out into more dependable stocks, which are supposed to be safer. The marina has a big party every Friday night. In just a couple hours, right at sunset. Mack’ll be there.”

She was very interested, I could tell by her expression. “This man you talking about. This Mack? A man with brains like that, I bet he’s married.”

“No, but he’s got a very complicated love life. If you’re suggesting… if you’re even considering the idea, what I should tell you is, if you want to marry a man with money, choose someone else. Marina people don’t date each other. Not at this marina, anyway. Because of me, or because you’re close to Tomlinson-either one of us-it’s like you’re living here. So drop the idea.”

Staring at me, her nose flared. “Hey, man! Let’s have us a little understanding here, okay? I won’t give you no orders if you don’t try to order me around. How’s that sound? Besides, I ain’t gonna marry no man anyway. If I do, it going to be for the size of his heart, not the size of his wallet.”

She had Tuck’s quick temper, too.

“Sorry,” I said. “That was unfair. I could tell you’re interested in Mack, though. I’m not wrong about that.”

“I’m interested ’cause you think you’re the only one who’d like to be rich? If I give this man a big chunk a’ money, maybe he can make me rich, too.”

Listening to the answering machine, I noted that a Dr. Picking had called from Waldron College in Michigan and wanted to place an order for a hundred medium sea anemones, fifty preserved octopi, and up to two hundred live goose barnacles if I could find them. A pretty good order, because all those things are easy to get in February.

As I wrote the order on a pad, I said to Ransom, “You can ask Mack at the party tonight. What you need to keep in mind, though, it’s like I already told you: Six thousand dollars isn’t a lot of money even if it does exist. Which I doubt. Invest a small amount like that and it’s going to be a long wait until you can consider yourself wealthy.”

“There you go doin’ it again. Speaking mean about Daddy Gatrell. Besides, who knows? Maybe I be able to let this man invest more than just six thousand dollars. Maybe I saved up some big money from my waitressing. I’m a hard worker, man, make no mistake about that. A very hard worker. So, yes, maybe I have more money to invest than you thinkin’, my brother. How about I had… and I’m just throwin’ out a figure here… but what if I had, say, seventeen thousand dollars to invest. Or say that seventeen thousand dollars plus another three thousand? Your friend Mack, if he put that money in stocks, how long it take me to have enough money to buy me a nice house on Sanibel plus a pool, maybe? And a car? I want me a nice red car, one that’s got power windows.”

There was something in her tone-a duplicity of meaning-that made me uneasy. A specific figure spoken offhandedly, as if it were invented. The addition of $3,000-half the money she hoped we would find. There was something she wasn’t telling me. The tone was too familiar, and so was the impression of divisiveness.

Where had I heard that tone before?

Why’d I even have to think about it? Tucker Gatrell, that’s where I’d heard it before. Many times before. The same manipulative chord that signaled an unwillingness to trust a lesser human being with his actual plan. She was parroting Tucker’s old trick. Holding back information because knowledge truly is power. Intentionally keeping her own agenda secret, which I found offensive as hell.

I was about to tell her exactly that. But then the final message on my machine caught my interest… then it captured my attention. I was surprised to hear the formal, diplomatic voice of Hal Harrington say, “Doctor Ford, I’m afraid I have some distressing news. The Latin gentleman injured on the dock yesterday? I’ve just received a report from a reliable source who’s informed me that a man by the name of Amador Cordero was admitted to All Saints Hospital in Cartagena late yesterday evening. He was brought into the county via private plane, and rushed to the hospital. He was unconscious by the time they got him to the emergency room where it was determined that he had a severe spinal cord injury.