Wayne sat in the shade of a live oak, a wild twisted sculpture of iron and bark. His bench formed a quarter ring around the tree, set where the branches offered the greatest shade. The bench was banded to the trunk with an iron rim, the woodwork pegged and grooved. The trunk had begun to flow over the band like wooden molasses. The bench was the work of a man who loved wood, someone who didn’t need any more accolade than to have people come and rest and enjoy the tree as much as he did. The nearby dovecote was cone-shaped with screened walls. Another live oak formed the dovecote’s central pillar. There must have been forty birds, chuckling and cooing and brushing the air with silken wings. Wayne sat and watched the old people totter from the community center, not actually clutching one another for support, but pretty close.
When Jerry sauntered over, Wayne greeted the former cop with, “It’s not right.”
“Glad to hear you say that.” The black man settled himself on the bench next to Wayne. “I’ve had this thing caught in my craw for eight months. Doesn’t make me feel a bit better that I didn’t get burned. The only reason was, I couldn’t get the money from my pension account fast enough. By the time I had the cash, the deal was done.”
“So what happened?”
Jerry did a thing with his hands, gripping the bench’s edge and trying to curl it, like he probably would’ve done to Zachary Dorsett’s bones if he had the chance. “Man, that dude was good. Right to the end. Came in that last day, grey as old dust, laid it out in a voice from the tomb. How he’d lost his own shirt in the process.”
“You’re sure about that? The guy himself went bust?”
“Left all the papers laid out there in the hall leading to the cafeteria for us to inspect. Wanting us to understand he was as shot through by this as the rest of us. Last day he got hugged by every woman in the joint. Didn’t even have a car to drive away in. His sister came and picked him up.”
Wayne knew that sort of pause. “Tell me the rest.”
“I called in a favor. Got a buddy with the state to go through their records. Found the man living large.”
“Where?”
“Resort on the Gulf Coast, just outside Naples. Got himself a semi-palace on the water. Place called Lantern Island.” Jerry’s cop awareness must have caught Wayne’s widening eyes and quick little intake of breath. “What?”
Wayne was still trying to shape a decent response when Victoria appeared. She tottered out the front door and waved cheerily at them with her free hand. Her other arm was gripped tightly by Foster, who appeared seriously concerned about keeping her upright. Wayne asked, “She been sick?”
“In a manner of speaking.” Jerry gave the day a worried squint. “She’s fasting. And she doesn’t eat enough already.”
Wayne caught the edge inside the growl. “That fasting, it’s got something to do with me?”
“She’s been praying for you around the clock. And don’t you start on the worrying gig. I got enough going on with those two. Foster’s stopped sleeping and she’s not eating, I don’t know which is worse.”
But he wouldn’t let go that easy. “She’s praying for me?”
Jerry’s face was mottled teak and umber in the shade. “What, you thought that bet of hers was some kind of joke?”
“I don’t know what I thought.” Despite the heat, Wayne shivered. Lantern Island.
“That lady, she sinks her teeth in, a viper don’t have nothing on her.” When he rubbed his face, the beard sounded like sandpaper. “Where were we?”
“Your former accountant is living the high life.”
“My buddies at state, they say the house is leased from his new employer. They say as far as the law is concerned, his bankruptcy was legit and there’s nothing we can do about it.”
“Do you believe that?”
Jerry re-aimed his squint. “I look like a fool to you?”
Wayne knew what he was going to do the instant he heard the words, “Lantern Island.” But he waited to spring the news until after dinner. The old folks spent the afternoon acting like ants whose hill had been kicked up, rattling along the lanes in their chairs and their walkers, talking in those broken-tone voices of worried old folks. There was a lot of shaking of heads. A number of glances were cast at his empty porch. Like Wayne was the thief instead of just being the guy who told them what they already knew.
After dinner things wound down. The community had basically exhausted itself from worry and doing their thirty-yard dash up and down the lanes. Jerry sat on Wayne’s porch reading a paperback and swatting at bugs. Wayne had hoped to get the former cop alone to spring his plan. But Foster had dragged himself over from the cafeteria and was now snoring quietly, the Wall Street Journal spread like a blanket over his lap. Wayne went into his closet, pried out the floorboards, and lifted out his carryall. He slipped into what he thought of as his professional gear, checked his watch, and decided he could not wait any longer.
Wayne’s appearance raised the cop’s eyebrows a notch. Jerry took in the outfit—black sweats, black sleeveless T-shirt, black Reeboks, black fingerless gloves—and said, “I’m thinking multiple felony.”
“I need to do something, and I can’t do it alone.”
“This have anything to do with our pal the accountant?”
Wayne squatted down by the cop’s chair. “I need some plastic. I’ve got to make a booking before the place shuts for the night.”
Whatever Wayne might have been expecting, it wasn’t what he got, which was a massive grin that puckered the uneven crevices of Jerry’s broad face. “I wouldn’t rate that the best explanation I’ve ever heard.”
But before the cop could reach into his back pocket and come up with his wallet, a scrawny white hand reached across and offered Wayne a Visa. Foster did not sound the least bit sleepy as he said, “Use mine.”
“I only need the help of one other person.”
Jerry warned Foster, “I ’spect the man didn’t dress up like this for an ice cream run.”
“I signed my name right there beside Holly on that skunk’s contract.” Foster tossed his newspaper aside. “Go make your call.”
They met again twenty minutes later. Jerry was dressed in dark shorts and top, no socks, and boat shoes. Foster’s outfit was a bit more original—navy shirt buttoned to his neck, charcoal grey slacks, black socks, and wingtips. Jerry gave his friend a careful up-and-down, but all he said was, “Works for me.”
Foster waited until they had piled into Wayne’s truck to slip him a note. “Victoria asked me to give you this.”
Jerry scowled. “You told the lady?”
“Didn’t need to.”
Wayne unfolded the paper and read, “First Chronicles, chapter 20, verse 1: ‘In the spring, at the time when kings go off to war …’”
Jerry asked, “What’s it say?”
Wayne refolded the note and stowed it away. “I have no idea.”
Jerry leaned his head back. “Ain’t that just like a dame.”
They winged their way across the state. The truck followed two grooves, one in the asphalt and the other in Wayne’s head. Jerry had the map unfolded in his lap. He glanced over a couple of times as Wayne swept the truck around tight turns on unmarked country roads, drilling through the night at a steady seventy per. Foster watched the proceedings for about fifteen minutes and then zoned out. Jerry, however, played like a creature of the night, just blinking and watching until he was certain enough to say the words, “You been this way before.”
Wayne just punched down a trifle harder on the gas.
“Either that or you been planning this a lot longer than you been letting on.”
Wayne kept his focus tight on the night and the road.
“Which would be a serious strangeness,” Jerry went on, “seeing as how you didn’t have a clue about the skunk living on Lantern Island till I told you.”
That did it for polite conversation until they hit I-75, the north-south tourist artery flanking the Gulf Coast. Wayne skipped by the exit for Lantern, taking the next coastal route and easing back a trace when they entered civilization. Jerry didn’t say anything more, just kept switching his gaze back and forth between the road and the driver. When they pulled into the marina and Wayne parked beside the boat moored at the dock, Jerry just shook his head and gave a soft little hmmmmmmm.
Foster kept snoring as Wayne stowed his canvas carryall and started the boat’s motor. Jerry poked his buddy in the ribs. “Come on, sailor. Rise and shine.”
Foster snuffled and came awake in stages. “Where are we?”
Jerry turned and inspected the night. “Close enough to ground zero to smell it.”
Foster rubbed his face. “I need a coffee.”
Jerry’s teeth shone in the streetlight. “My guess is, ten minutes from now you’re gonna know an adrenaline rush that’ll have Starbucks looking like baby food.”