Randy White - Shark River

There, by the mouth of a tiny cave, we found a sizable brass box, locked with a padlock, that was so heavy I had to rig it to an air bag to lift it.

Something else we found on the bottom near a second, larger cave was a child-sized human skull-almost certainly Ransom’s son, the boy who’d refused to believe in superstition, and whose body was never recovered.

Drifting there, looking into the vacuous eye sockets, I had the startling realization that this boy had not only been a kindred thinker, he had also been my own flesh and blood.

I looked at Tomlinson… He looked at me before holding an index finger to his regulator- Sshhhh. Let the child rest.

We did. We left him and never told Ransom. But first, I touched fingers to my lips, then touched his forehead. A private farewell to the nephew I never knew.

Then the four of us sat alone in one of our two cabanas at Fernandez Bay, drinking champagne, whispering and giggling like conspiratorial children as we counted out 276 coins: sixty-one of them Spanish, gold and silver, the rest old British and French coins.

Ransom had looked at me teary-eyed and said, “We rich, my brother, we rich! Man, I’m gonna buy me a boat and live on Sanibel. Or maybe a house. Get me a TV and that red car, too!”

Now, though, as I applied suntan oil to the lady’s long and lovely legs, old coins and considerations of wealth seemed not very interesting, nor even important. I found that-surprise, surprise-my hands seemed to have a mind of their own. They decided I couldn’t just slather on the oil, it was only reasonable that I give her a body massage while I was at it.

Judging by the soft moaning sounds she made, the lady seemed to approve.

Once, she got up on her elbows, turned enough so I could see the milky, blue veins beneath the white skin of her breasts. I looked into her brilliant blue eyes as she asked, “You still sorry that your girlfriend couldn’t make it?”

Meaning Lindsey Harrington who, over the phone, had stammered and stuttered at my invitation to Cat Island before she finally said, “Like, the thing is, Doc, I think the world of you. And you’ve, like, helped me a ton, you really have, and my dad approves, which is surprising as hell, but… but… well… remember me mentioning Big Ben, my bodyguard? Now that Dad’s let me out of prison, Big Ben and I’ve decided to go hang out in San Francisco for a while. He knows an artist out there who does these, like, unbelievable tattoos.”

As my hands worked their way up the lady’s back to her strong shoulders, I said, “She’s not my girlfriend. Girlfriends, I’ve decided, are a pain in the ass.”

Which is when my friend, Dewey Nye, the former tennis great, got up on her elbows once more, laughing. She seemed to find that hilarious. She was laughing, then she was roaring. “Tell me about it, pal,” she said. “Tell me about it!”