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  “Where the hell is my kayak?” he asked no one as he flip-flopped from pylon to pylon searching for the missing boat.

  3

  The Good Work

  Troy Clint Bodean stretched his back, which snapped and popped like a nearly finished, microwaved bag of popcorn. An odd shiver ran down his spine. Odd because it was August in the Keys and it was usually as hot and humid as a stale, sweat-soaked sauna. But there was a chill in the air today that sent his skin prickling with goose bumps.

  He shook the sleep off as he pulled himself up to his elbows and peeled back the blanket he’d borrowed from the old fella—Stan Wachowski from Minnesota—currently inhabiting the brown and yellow trailer in slot 03. A retired insurance salesman whose wife had left him for a younger, more aggressive used car salesman, Stan had sold his Buick, bought a small RV and decided to head south—away from his whore of a wife and away from the frigid hell of the Land of 10,000 Lakes. The only thing he’d kept from his busted marriage was the afghan his wife had knitted presumably between hot car salesman sex sessions. Troy tossed the blanket off, unrolled the sweat-stained t-shirt he’d used as a pillow, and tugged it over his head. His shadow on the ground told him his hair was a moppy mess. What else is new?

  Folding the blanket into a neat square, he limped his way back to the trailer to return it to Stan, but found the door locked and no sign of the man puttering around his home on wheels. Maybe the old fella had found a similarly exiled divorcee or an innocent young maid to share his bed. Troy laid the blanket on the metal folding steps that led up to the door and walked to the edge of the water just ten feet past the end of the trailer. The gentle waves here weren’t a postcard of azure or aquamarine, but more of a blue, gray, and beige mixture—like a watercolor painting made with a brush the artist never cleaned. Palm trees swayed over the top of a thatch-covered pavilion with a circular cement picnic table underneath. One of the half-moon shaped benches was broken in two and reminded Troy of something he once read about a lion on a cracked altar in a fantasy land hidden in a closet.

  He plopped down on the bench that was still intact and rocked his spine back and forth easing the aching muscles from his night spent sleeping under the stars—on the ground. The gentle breeze blew past him and the smell of salt and fish guts oddly made his stomach growl. But, given that he’d spent his last bit of cash on a bag of beef jerky and a bottle of water at the Quickie Mart beside the last Greyhound bus station, he wasn’t sure he could do anything to tame his hunger. A seagull screeched and he glanced up toward the sound. An early morning spray of sunlight glowed on a pink piece of paper stapled to one of the tiki hut’s support poles. Two of the staples had given up and the flier now flapped lazily back and forth. He couldn’t make out much through his bleary vision except the bold words scrawled in permanent marker at the top:

  NOW HIRING.

  He stood and the bench he was sitting on wobbled, fell over, and cracked, much the same as the other one. Guess it’s time to move on, he thought. He shrugged and walked over to the pole. Holding the bottom of the paper, he read the details. Something about a maintenance man for a tennis club. He shivered as he recalled the time he’d spent up in Key Biscayne. Dang, that had been a hell of a ride. He almost walked away but the last three sentences caught his attention.

  PAY IN CASH. ROOM AND BOARD ON PREMISES INCLUDED. START IMMEDIATELY.

  Bingo.

  Only problem was, the job was in Islamorada, quite a few miles away. Sure, he could walk it, but there were some pretty Facist rules about hitchhiking in the Keys and he wasn’t sure he had it in him to trek across the long bridges that looked so cool in pictures. His eye caught a bike wheel turning slowly from the back of Stan Wachowski’s RV. The glittering green multi-speed bicycle hung on a rack behind a pink one that had a distinctly feminine look to it. He was sure before he checked that the green one would prove to be locked fast to the rack, but the pink one would be unchained and free—like the woman that used to ride it. He was right.

  "Sorry, Stan," he thought, spinning the back wheel of the Pepto Bismol colored ten-speed.

  Figuring the pink bike had probably belonged to Stan’s ex-wife, Troy hoped the old man wouldn’t miss it much, and might even wish it good riddance.

  As he lifted the bike from its perch on the rear of the trailer, he noticed an odd smell, rank and rancid. He shrugged it off, there were a lot of discarded fish entrails baking in the sun over at the marina. Troy never noticed the body unceremoniously shoved under the back axle of the trailer as he pedaled away—a body with sixty-nine strange three-holed lacerations that another Kampground visitor from Wyoming would say reminded him of spur marks as it was dragged from its hiding place.

  The cool morning he had enjoyed at the Key Largo Kampground & Marina had hazed away into a late afternoon sauna. Eleven miles down US-1, he was soaked to the bone with sweat on the outside and dry as a bone on the inside. His tongue was thick and sticky and he felt like his throat was closing in on itself. As he approached The Laura Quinn Wild Bird Sanctuary, a cramp took hold of his right calf and wouldn’t let go. He nearly crashed the pink ten-speed as he limped off the side of the highway toward the shade of the sanctuary. The ramshackle entrance of the place looked to be cobbled together from mismatched and repurposed lumber, much of which showed visible signs of rot. Troy’s front wheel thumped along the warped and weathered planks that formed a boardwalk of sorts under the canopy of dense, rangy mangroves.

  As he rolled along, his hands seized into balled fists—cramping into bony vises. Ironically, though they were both clamped tight to the handlebars, the cramps kept him from being able to apply the handbrakes and slow the pink bike. Tourists and visitors strolled along the boardwalk peering into the lush vegetation, studying birds Troy couldn’t see as he barreled toward them uncontrollably. He put his left foot down in an effort to slow his ride, but as he did, it cramped as well. Later, after the crash involving a woman wearing a tie-dyed muumuu, her two inconsolably wailing toddlers, and a husband who insisted on clucking at the birds like a chicken, Troy would count himself lucky that he’d passed out, missing their loud and obnoxious exit from the park.

  He woke up lying in a sparsely decorated bedroom that looked to be straight out of the seventies—mid-century oak dresser with gold inlays, white metal bed that squeaked loudly as he moved, and a threadbare yellow quilt rolled down covering only his feet. A clock was ticking somewhere, but when he tried to move his head to look for it, the timpani drums pounded in his brain. He closed his eyes and flopped back down on the pillow.

  “Easy, young fellow,” a voice said to him.

  She sounded like an older woman, raspy and thin, but kind and motherly at the same time. He wondered if he’d died and somehow reunited with his mama in heaven. Not likely, he thought. He opened his eyes slowly.

  “Am I dead?” he asked as the small bedroom came back into view.

  Thin curtains blew in the breeze from an open window to his right. In front of the window was a silhouette of a tiny woman with short gray hair. She had ruddy skin tinged with sunburn, a dingy pink t-shirt with a pelican on the front, and a clear bag of fluid in her hand. Troy could see that a tube trailed out of the bag, drooped down toward the floor, then rose up again to end at a needle in his arm.

  “S’pose not,” the woman said. “Unless we’re both dead.”

  She looked around at the room through dark sunglasses.

  “Which is entirely possible at this point.”

  She laughed and gave the bag a gentle squeeze. Troy felt warmth enter his skin through the IV.

  “What is that?” he asked, nodding toward the bag.

  “Saline. Hope you ain’t got any heart issues,” she said, shrugging her shoulders. “Didn’t see a medical bracelet or anything on ya, so I took a chance giving you this.”

  Troy shook his head. “Nothing that I know of.”

  He tried to sit up, but his head swam and his body twitched like a jellyfish, threatening to cramp aga
in.

  “Whoa, now, son. Give me a minute to get some fluid in you before you get all jumpy again.” She held up a hand. “I’m figuring you probably had a big night partying and you’ll need some hydration before you get your next drink. Am I right?”

  “Actually, I just biked down from Key Largo and didn’t have any water. Must’ve gotten dehydrated in the heat.”

  The woman rolled an imaginary toothpick around her mouth. “Uh huh. And I’m Mother Teresa.”

  Troy shrugged. He had no energy to argue the point and figured it didn’t matter anyway.

  “Nice to meet you, Ma’am.” Troy held out his free arm. “Name’s Troy Bodean. Never thought I’d get to meet a saint.”

  The woman laughed and took his hand. She was thin and bony, but her squeeze was firm and sure.

  “Actually, most folks might tell you I ain’t no saint, just a bird lady. Name’s Laura Quinn.”

  “So, you’re the one who owns this place?”

  She nodded.

  “Did you have to give that woman and her family their money back after I crashed into them?”

  “Nah, they didn’t pay anything,” she said, waving the thought away. “Ain’t no admission, though donations are always welcome.”

  Troy felt more warmth flowing into his arm and took a deep breath. The room wasn’t swimming as much now and he was beginning to feel a little more normal. Normal but tired. His eyelids felt like sandbags and he let them close.

  “Yup,” the bird lady said as darkness closed in. “Just get a little rest. We’ll continue this later when you wake.”

  And with that, Troy fell into a deep blue sleep. Blue like the water he been cruising past on his cotton candy-colored bike.

  When he woke for the second time, the sash was lowered a bit and the sheer curtains hung limp in front of a dusky window. Pale purple skies glowed beyond revealing that he’d slept for at least three or four hours and that it was nearly night. He propped himself up on his elbows and saw that the quilt had been pulled up over his legs and the IV had been removed from his arm. A single dot of blood blossomed into the gauze taped over the needle’s former entry point. His head throbbed, but softly, not threatening to drown him into unconsciousness again. He slid his legs over the edge of the bed, wincing with the expectation of the cramps returning to savage his calves, but thankfully, they never came. He tested his weight on one foot, then added the second. He managed to stand upright and was relieved that he felt—all things considered—pretty good. By force of habit, he rubbed his hands together in a motion that would wipe away dirt or grime and was met with a stab of fiery pain in both palms. He opened his hands and found they were bandaged with gauze and tape. A dark red and brown stain soaked through both, the right a little more than the left. An image of tumbling over the handlebars of the bike and reaching out to catch himself flashed into his head. He remembered his palms dragging and bumping along the boardwalk grabbing splinters in both.

  “No pushups today, I reckon,” he mumbled as the pain subsided.

  Using his fingertips, he turned the knob to the door and squeaked it open. He was met with a hallway lined with old photographs. Most of them featured Miss Laura Quinn and various birds in states of injury or healing. More of the wall was covered with photos than was bare. Troy was duly impressed. Apparently, she was some kind of bird rescuer.

  “That one’s a brown pelican. We’ve got quite a few of them here,” a voice said from behind him.

  Troy turned to see Laura Quinn standing behind him. She had long black rubber gloves on that were slick with something—he couldn’t tell what. Noticing his gaze, she began to peel the gloves off.

  “Yeah, it’s blood,” she sighed. “Couldn’t save that one.”

  An awkward silence hung between them. Finally, she was the one to speak again.

  “You always prance around in your birthday suit?”

  It was then that Troy came to the realization that he was naked. He covered himself with his bandaged hands. She seemed not to care that he was nude and he was thankful for that.

  “I gather you noticed your hands?”

  He nodded looking down at his gently clasped hands.

  “You had some pretty vicious scrapes and a dozen or so big splinters.” She motioned for him to follow her down the hall. “I’m almost certain I got ’em all. Just keep an eye on your hands for any red, puffy areas that linger.”

  He followed her into a small, fluorescent lit room. She opened a cabinet, pulled out a white towel and tossed it to him. He wrapped it around his waist as she took down a large white bottle from the top shelf. Opening a drawer, she took a plastic baggie out, counted a few pills into it, then sealed it with a zip. She handed it to Troy.

  “Take three a day. Space ’em out a bit. Might wanna eat somethin’ with ’em.”

  “Antibiotics?” Troy asked.

  She nodded.

  “How can I repay you?”

  “No need, son. It’s part of what we do here. Keep them flying.” She pointed a finger up at the ceiling.

  “Only question now, I suppose, is where are my clothes, and my hat, and my bike?”

  She leaned her head back and chuckled with a raspy, thin laugh. “Clothes are in the bedroom. I washed ’em for you. As for the bike, you won’t be goin’ anywhere on that thing. You trashed it pretty good.”

  “Dangit,” Troy said, tucking the baggie into his pocket. “What mile marker are we at?”

  “You’re at ninety-three. Tavernier”

  Troy took in a deep breath. The air in the small room was bleachy and sterile, not at all like the bedroom he’d woken up in.

  “Well, I guess I’ll be hitching down to Islamorada. What is that? Mile seventy-six?”

  “Uh-yah,” she said, shaking her head. “I wouldn’t put my thumb out around here. The police aren’t too friendly with hitchhikers. You can probably catch a bus that’ll take you all the way though for a couple of bucks.”

  Before he could tell her he didn’t have the money to take the bus, she pulled a wallet out of her back pocket. He immediately recognized that it was his wallet.

  “You’ll find you have a bit more there than you came in with.”

  Troy stared at it for a long moment before taking it.

  “Why are you doing this?”

  “I told you, son.” She smiled an ushered him back into the hall. “It’s what we do around here. Keep ’em flyin’.”

  Ten minutes and a tepid, slightly slimy ham and cheese sandwich later, he was in the farthest back bench he could get on a Dade-Monroe shuttle. It stank of sweat, urine, and alcohol. The nineties-era neon Miami Vice pattern of the cloth seats was threadbare and slightly damp, but there seemed to be no problem with the A/C. A cool rush of air streamed down steadily on his head. He took off his hat—the outback tea-stained cowboy hat—to feel the chill up and down his scalp and neck. For the first time in twenty-four hours, he felt reasonably good. He dozed in and out of consciousness until the driver—a woman who might have been Esther Rolle in another life—sang out.

  “Islamorada, sugars.” Her hand waved across the front windshield. “Village of Islands.”

  Outside, the sky was on fire with purple, red, orange, and yellow. As Troy stepped down off the bus, the same smell of salt and fish from Key Largo bathed him in the thick, hazy air. The bus door screeched shut and the muffler rattled as it pulled away from the stop. All was quiet and still—even the breeze had already gone to sleep. Off-season in the Keys, thought Troy. Nobody here but us locals.

  He pulled out the scrap of paper he’d squirreled away into his pocket. It was slightly wet having gone through the wash at the bird sanctuary, but the writing was still clear enough. He saw that he was only a few steps from 76800—the place that was hiring. He hoped he hadn’t taken too long to get here. A large round sign with peeling paint and amateurishly drawn palm trees proudly wore blue lettering announcing that he’d made it. Islamorada Tennis Club. Beyond the green chain link fence wrapping t
he driveway, he heard the thwock thwock sound of tennis balls being hit. He wiped his face with his shirt hoping he didn’t look too homeless—but he knew in the Keys, that wasn’t uncommon, nor was it inculpatory. Troy Bodean tucked the paper into his pocket and walked through the gate.

  It was around that same time that the police were notified of the disappearance of the infamous Laura Quinn. No one would know anything was amiss until three days later when her body was found in a brown pelican nest hidden back in the mangroves. When questioned, the regular staff and interns at the Wild Bird Sanctuary would describe a strange, lanky man showing up just before her disappearance wearing a straw cowboy hat over long, stringy, black hair. When the bulletin hit the airwaves, a computer buried in a secret office, under a secret compound, in a secret location sent a highly encrypted email to a man with no official title. Very few knew anything about what he did at the bureau. Most just called him The Hunter.

  4

  Hammock Style

  Troy circled the two-story whitewashed house looking for the source of the rallying sounds he could hear echoing around the mangrove encircled tennis courts. Green shutters framed old wooden windows and thick, pink bougainvillea climbed a wall of lattice attached to the parking lot side of the building. Some kind of bird screeched and flew out of it as he got near, causing him to duck and slap a hand on his hat to keep it in place. The courts—six clay and one hard—were not lit and most sat in near total darkness. The single hard court—a rarity south of the Florida-Georgia line—was closest to the back of the pro shop and benefited from a soft mosquito-bulb-yellow glow from the porch lights beaming out over a long row of half-broken rocking chairs.

  A man in a shockingly fluorescent pink shirt dripping with rivulets of sweat was pounding tennis balls being flung at him from what Troy thought might be a 1970’s era ball machine. Most flew long and smashed into the windscreen lined chain link fence beyond the far baseline. The man, whose black Nike socks were pulled high on his calf to just under his knees, looked to be making no attempt at proper tennis shots.