Naked Came the Manatee

Hector liked women with sharp teeth, women who liked to bite. He liked teeth marks on his shoulders. He liked giving them back, a nice oval bruise on their inner thighs. Yeah. Hector had a way with women.

Phil told Hector to stop looking at Fay that way. And Hector said a very bad thing to Phil. Phil said a very bad thing back to Hector. Hector said two very bad things. And Phil replied with three very bad things.

"Knock it off," Fay said. She stalked around, staring at each of them. Hector smiling at her, trying to decide where he wanted to plant his first teeth marks.

"Now," Fay said. "Which of you idiots is going to tell me what this is all about?"

"You tell us, pussy boots," Hector said. "That's what you here for. You here to tell us whatever we ask you." Phil said a very bad thing. And Hector replied in kind.

"OK, dammit, what's going on, Phil?" Fay said. "What the hell are you doing hanging out with this creep?"

Hector spun around. "Hey, man. How come she know your name, Phil? She said your name, man. How she know that? You tell her your name, you stupid moron breath?"

Phil said a very bad thing.

Fay said, "I asked you a question, Phil."

"So did I, Phil. How she know your name, man? You know this broad?"

"She's my wife," Phil said.

Under his breath Hector said a very bad thing. Then he said three very bad things out loud.

"Ex-wife," Fay said. "Ex, Phil, ex. And this is why. This, right here, what's going on this very minute, this is exactly why you don't live at home anymore. This is why it's finished."

Marion lugged the silver canister up to her house. She laid it on the glider on her front porch and went inside to shower and dress. Her windows were all open and the first cool breezes of the new season were sighing through them tonight. She dressed in long khaki pants and a plaid flannel shirt. She put on her brogans and rubbed some lavender-scented face cream into the grooves that lined her cheeks. She put a Band-Aid on the cut that Booger had given her.

She went back down to the porch and sat down in a wicker rocker across from the glider. Something had shifted inside her. She had felt it happen earlier. Some tectonic realignment that was sending tremors up to her flesh. She quivered with excitement for the first time in decades.

Quivering was dangerous at her age. But quiver she did. She had something in her possession that was worth something to the world at large. She sensed it. She knew that the placid young man she had pulled from the bay and nursed with Sawgrass Juice had found a similar canister and was queerly excited by its existence.

She was not sure what it meant. Canisters washing ashore? Perhaps hundreds or even thousands of silver containers drifting along the bottom of the bay. She knew she was onto something. Something of major proportions. A shipwreck out in the Gulf Stream, the canisters just now working their way to shore? Some high-tech note in a bottle thrown out from a passing spaceship? This was something new. Rejuvenating. Something that might just rescue her from the doldrums of old age.

She watched the bay brightening, saw the raspberry clouds out beyond Stiltsville, like streaks of jam across a doughy sky. She stiffened when she heard a car door slam nearby. But then relaxed, for she had recognized it. She looked out at the dawn and sighed to herself. She had made it another day. Another miracle. And now this, a second miracle. A new adventure.

She stood up, stepped to the edge of the porch. Her granddaughter was coming down the long sandy path. A beautiful young woman. Hard to believe she was carrying Marion's blood and marrow, so full of tough energy as she came striding up to the porch and halted. Her young face was seamed with worry.

"I need help, Granny."

"Not even a hello?"

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry. It's just that I'm so… oh, I don't know what I am at the moment. Hello, Granny."

"Hello, Fay. Now what's the matter, dear?"

But Fay was no longer holding Marion's gaze. Her eyes had shifted to the glittering canister and her mouth was working soundlessly, words without breath.

6. HEADING TO HAVANA-Carolina Hospital

Another cigar-smoking Don Johnson look-alike is all I need tonight, thought Mike Weston, as he exited the 1956 Buick nicknamed El Frankenstein by the driver. He wondered how a car could run with so many dead parts and why Cuban government officials were the only ones who didn't know Miami Vice had been canceled ten years ago. It had taken Mike two hours to get from the Jose Marti International Airport to the house in El Vedado. This time, they had insisted the meeting be on the island. He was told it would take place in one of Robert Vesco's mansions, abandoned since he'd fled the country for the safer haven of Libya.