Native Tongue (38 page)

“Shall we discuss rap?” Joe Winder said sharply. “Shall we examine the lyrical genius of, say, 2 Live Crew?” He could be very defensive when it came to rock. Carrie reached under the table and pinched his thigh. She told him to lighten up.

“Rikers Island,” Jim Tile said. “Is there a song about Rikers Island?”

Winder couldn’t think of one. “You sure it’s not Thunder Island?”

“No.” Jim Tile shook his head firmly. “Our friend said he’d be leaving Florida one day. Go up to Rikers Island and see to some business.”

“But that’s a prison,” Carrie said.

“Yeah. A prison in New York City.”

Joe Winder remembered something Skink had told him the first day at the campsite. If it was a clue, it foreshadowed a crime of undiluted madness.

Winder said, “Rikers is where they keep that idiot who shot John Lennon.” He cocked an eyebrow at Jim Tile. “You
do
know who John Lennon was?”

“Yes, I do.” The trooper’s shoulders sagged. “This could be trouble,” he added emptily.

“Our mutual friend never got over it,” Winder said. “The other night, he asked me about the Dakota.”

“Wait a minute.” Carrie Lanier made a time-out signal with her hands. “You guys aren’t serious.”

Gloomily Jim Tile stirred the ice in his tea. “The man gets his mind set on things. And these days, I’ve been noticing he doesn’t handle stress all that well.”

Joe Winder said, “Christ, it was only an airplane. It’s gone now, he’ll calm down.”

“Let’s hope.” The trooper called for the check.

Carrie looked sadly at Winder. “And here I thought
you
were bonkers,” she said.

Agent Billy Hawkins told Molly McNamara that the house was simply beautiful. Old-time Florida, you don’t see pine floors like this anymore. Dade County pine.

Molly said, “I’ve got carpenter ants in the attic. All this wet weather’s got ’em riled.”

“You’d better get that seen to, and soon. They can be murder on the beams.”

“Yes, I know. How about some more lemonade?”

“No, thank you,” said Agent Hawkins. “We really need to talk about this telephone call.”

Molly began to rock slowly. “I’m completely stumped. As I told you before, I don’t know a living soul in Queens.”

Hawkins held a notebook on his lap, a blue Flair pen in his right hand. He said, “Salvatore Delicato is an associate of the John Gotti crime family.”

“Goodness!” Molly exclaimed.

“Prior arrests for racketeering, extortion and income-tax evasion.
The phone call to his number was made from here. It lasted less than a minute.”

“There must be some mistake. Did you check with Southern Bell?”

“Miss McNamara,” Hawkins said, “can we please cut the crap.”

Molly’s grandmotherly expression turned glacial. “Watch your language, young man.”

Flushing slightly, the agent continued: “Have you ever met a Jimmy Nardoni, otherwise known as Jimmy Noodles? Or a man named Gino Ricci, otherwise known as Gino The Blade?”

“Such colorful names,” Molly remarked. “No, I’ve never heard of them. Do you have my telephone bugged, Agent Hawkins?”

He resisted the impulse to tell her that Sal Delicato’s telephone was tapped by a squadron of eavesdroppers—not only the FBI, but the New York State Police, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, the Tri-State Task Force on Organized Crime and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. The New York Telephone box on the utility pole behind The Salamander’s butcher shop sprouted so many extra wires, it looked like a pigeon’s nest.

“Let me give you a scenario,” Agent Hawkins said to Molly. “A man used your phone to call Sal Delicato for the purpose of revealing the whereabouts of a federally protected witness now living in Monroe County, Florida.”

“That’s outlandish,” Molly said. “Who is this federal witness?”

“I imagine you already know.” Hawkins jotted something in the notebook. “The man who made the phone call, we believe, was Buddy Michael Schwartz. I showed you his photograph the last time we visited. You said he looked familiar.”

“I vaguely remember.”

“He has other names,” Hawkins said. “As I told you before, Schwartz is wanted in connection with the animal theft from the Amazing Kingdom.”

“Wanted?”

“For questioning,” the agent said. “Anyway, we believe the events are connected.” The ominous wiretap conversation had elevated the vole investigation from zero-priority to high-priority. Billy Hawkins had been yanked off a bank-robbery case and ordered to find out why anyone would be setting up Francis X. Kingsbury, aka Frankie King. The Justice Department had pretty much forgotten about Frankie The Ferret until the phone call to Sal Delicato. The renewed interest in Washington was not a concern for Frankie’s well-being so much as fear of a potential publicity nightmare; the murder of a protected government informant would not enhance the reputation of the Witness Relocation Program. It could, in fact, have a profoundly discouraging effect on other snitches. Agent Hawkins was told to track down Buddy Michael Schwartz and then call for backup.

Molly McNamara said, “You think this man might have broken into my house to use the phone!”

“Not exactly,” Hawkins said.

She peered at him skeptically. “How do you know it was he on the line? Did you use one of those voice-analyzing machines?”

The FBI man chuckled. “No, we didn’t need a machine. The caller identified himself.”

“By name?” The blockhead! Molly thought.

“No, not by name. He told Mr. Delicato that he was an acquaintance of Gino Ricci’s brother. It just so happens that Buddy Michael Schwartz served time with Mario Ricci at the Lake Butler Correctional Institute.”

Molly McNamara said, “Could be a coincidence.”

“They shared a cell. Buddy and Gino’s brother.”

“But still—”

“Would you have a problem,” the agent said, “if I asked you to come downtown and take a polygraph examination?”

Molly stopped rocking and fixed him with an indignant glare. “Are you saying you don’t believe me?”

“Call it a hunch.”

“Agent Hawkins, I’m offended.”

“And I’m tired of this baloney.” He closed the notebook and capped the pen. “Where is he?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Hawkins stood up, pocketed his notebook, straightened his tie. “Let’s go for a ride,” he said. “Come on.”

“No!”

“Don’t make it worse for yourself.”

“You’re not paying attention,” Molly said. “I thought G-men were trained to be observant.”

Billy Hawkins laughed. “G-men? I haven’t heard that one in a long—”

It was then he noticed the pistol. The old lady held it impassively, with both hands. She was pointing it directly at his crotch.

“This is amazing,” said the agent. “The stuff of legends.” Wait till the tough guys at Quantico hear about it.

Molly asked Billy Hawkins to raise his hands.

“No, ma’am.”

“And why not?”

“Because you’re going to give me the gun now.”

“No,” said Molly, “I’m going to shoot you.”

“Lady, gimme the goddamn gun!”

Calmly she shot him in the thigh, two and one-quarter inches below the left hip. The FBI man went down with a howl, clawing at the burning hole in his pants.

“I told you to watch your language,” Molly said.

The pop of the pistol brought Danny Pogue and Buddy Schwartz scrambling down the stairs. From a living-room window they cautiously surveyed the scene on the porch: Molly rocking placidly, a man in a gray suit thrashing on the floor.

Danny Pogue cried, “She done it again!”

“Christ on a bike,” said Bud Schwartz, “it’s that dick from the FBI.”

The burglars cracked the door and peeked out. Molly assured them the situation was under control.

“Flesh wound,” she reported. “Keep an eye on this fellow while I get some ice and bandages.” She confiscated Billy Hawkins’s Smith & Wesson and gave it to Bud Schwartz, who took it squeamishly, like a dog turd, in his hands.

“It works best when you aim it,” Molly chided.

Danny Pogue reached for the barrel. “I’ll do it!”

“Like hell,” said Bud Schwartz, spinning away. He sat in the rocker and braced the pistol on his knee. The air smelled pun-gently of gunpowder; it brought back the memory of Monkey Mountain and the trigger-happy baboon.

Watching the gray-suited man squirm in pain, Bud Schwartz fought the urge to get up and run. What was the old bat thinking this time? Nothing good could come of shooting an FBI man. Surely she understood the consequences.

Danny Pogue opened the front door for Molly, who disappeared into the house with a pleasant wave. Danny Pogue sat down, straddling an iron patio chair. “Take it easy,” he told the agent. “You ain’t hurt so bad.”

Billy Hawkins grunted up at him. “What’s your name?”

“Marcus Welby,” Bud Schwartz cut in. “Don’t he look like a doctor?”

“I know who
you
are,” the agent said. It felt as if a giant wasp were boring into his thigh. Billy Hawkins unbuckled his trousers and grimaced at the sight of his Jockey shorts soaked crimson.

“You assholes are going to jail,” he said, pinching the pale flesh around the bullet wound.

“We’re just burglars,” said Danny Pogue.

“Not anymore.” Hawkins attempted to rise to his feet, but Bud
Schwartz wiggled the gun and told him to stay where he was. The agent’s forehead was sprinkled with sweat, and his lips were gray. “Hey, Bud,” he said, “I’ve seen your jacket, and this isn’t your style. Assault on a federal officer, man, you’re looking at Atlanta.”

Bud Schwartz was deeply depressed to hear the FBI man call him by name. “You don’t know shit about me,” he snapped.

“Suppose you tell me what the hell’s going on out here. What’s your beef with Frankie King?”

Bud Schwartz said, “I don’t know who you’re talkin’ about.”

Miraculously, Danny Pogue caught on before saying something disastrous. He flashed a checkerboard grin and said, “Yeah, who’s Frankie King? We never heard a no Frankie King.”

“Bullshit,” Agent Billy Hawkins growled. “Go ahead and play stupid. You’re all going to prison, anyhow. You and that crazy old lady.”

“If it makes you feel any better,” said Danny Pogue, “she shot us, too.”

The campsite was … gone.

“I’m not surprised,” Joe Winder said. He took Carrie’s hand and kept walking. A light rain was falling, and the woods smelled cool.

Carrie asked, “What do we do if he’s really gone?”

“I don’t know.”

Ten minutes later she asked if they were lost.

“I got turned around,” Winder admitted. “It can’t be too far.”

“Joe, where are we going?”

The rain came down harder, and the sky blackened. From the west came a roll of thunder that shook the leaves. The birds fell silent; then the wind began to race across the island, and Joe Winder could taste the storm. He dropped Carrie’s hand and
started to jog, slapping out a trail with his arms. He called over his shoulder, urging Carrie to keep up.

It took fifteen minutes to find the junkyard where the ancient Plymouth station wagon sat on rusty bumpers. The yellow beach umbrella—still stuck in the dashboard—fluttered furiously in the gale.

Joe Winder pulled Carrie inside the car, and hugged her so tightly she let out a cry. “My arms are tingling,” she said. “The little hairs on my arms.”

He covered her ears. “Hold on, it’s lightning.”

It struck with a white flash and a deafening rip. Twenty yards away, a dead mahogany tree split up the middle and dropped a huge leafless branch. “God,” Carrie whispered. “That was close.”

Raindrops hammered on the roof. Joe Winder turned around in the seat and looked in the back of the car. “They’re gone,” he said.

“What, Joe?”

“The books. This is where he kept all his books.”

She turned to see. Except for several dead roaches and a yellowed copy of the
New Republic
, the station wagon had been cleaned out.

Winder was vexed. “I don’t know how he did it. You should’ve seen—there were hundreds in here. Steinbeck, Hemingway. Jesus, Carrie, he had García Márquez in Spanish. First editions! Some of the greatest books ever written.”

“Then he’s actually gone.”

“It would appear to be so.”

“Think we should call somebody?”

“What?”

“Somebody up in New York,” Carrie said, “at the prison. I mean, just in case.”

“Let me think about this.”

“I can’t believe he’d try it.”

The thunderstorm moved quickly over the island and out to sea. Soon the lightning stopped and the downpour softened to a drizzle. Carrie said, “The breeze felt nice, didn’t it?”

Joe Winder wasn’t listening. He was trying to decide if they should keep looking or not. Without Skink, new choices lay ahead: bold and serious decisions. Winder suddenly felt responsible for the entire operation.

Carrie turned to kiss him and her knee hit the glove compartment, which popped open. Curiously she poked through the contents—a flashlight, a tire gauge, three D-sized batteries and what appeared to be the dried tail of a squirrel.

And one brown envelope with Joe Winder’s name printed in small block letters.

He tore it open. Reading the note, he broke into a broad smile. “Short and to the point,” he said.

Carrie read it:

Dear Joe,

You make one hell of an oracle.

Don’t worry about me, just keep up the fight.

We all shine on!

Carrie folded the note and returned it to the envelope. “I assume this means something.”

“Like the moon and the stars and the sun,” Joe Winder said. He felt truly inspired.

The Amazing Kingdom of Thrills reopened with only a minimal drop in attendance, thanks to a three-for-one ticket promotion that included a free ride on Dickie the Dolphin, whose amorous behavior was now inhibited by four trainers armed with electric stun guns. Francis X. Kingsbury was delighted by the crowds, and emboldened by the fact that many customers actually complained about the absence of wild snakes. Kingsbury regarded it as proof that closing the Amazing Kingdom had been unnecessary, a costly overestimation of the average tourist’s brainpower. Obviously the yahoos were more curious than afraid of lethal reptiles. A thrill is a thrill, Kingsbury said.