beautiful integration of paleontology with archaeology. Don’t you agree?”
Dunk replied, “Last thing I want to do is talk to a cop,” then they discussed ancient tools made from shark teeth while my attention abandoned the conversation. It was because of the way Duncan had said
talk to a cop
.
A troubling possibility entered my mind. After three years in state prison, was it possible that Fallsdown was still on parole? If so, leaving Montana could put the man behind bars again. I’ve done far worse in my life than aiding and abetting a felon. That wasn’t the problem. I liked the guy. He had come to Florida on a quest that was admirable in a clumsy Don Quixote way. Maybe a phone call or two could make it right if he had skipped without permission. It depended, of course, on how forgiving his parole officer was.
When I returned to the conversation, though, and tried to exchange eye contact, Fallsdown swung from me to Mick, the tour guide, and asked, “How much do you charge?”
“Hundred bucks an hour to look for shark’s teeth. To see what’s left of Finn’s collection? Well . . .” Mick pretended to struggle with the quandary, then decided, “Ah, what the hell. You’re a brother Skin, so . . . so let’s say two hundred for the afternoon?”
Getting to his feet, Tomlinson said to me, “Hope you don’t mind, Doc. We volunteered your boat.” Then hesitated. “You’re carrying cash, right?”
At about the same time, a thief carrying bolt cutters and a gun was entering the house once owned by another violent man—Finn Tovar.
• • •
HALF A MILE OFFSHORE, Snake Island and the Venice Pier behind us, Mick, in teaching mode, told me, “Stop, I want to explain something.”
I shut down, and drifted, while learning that five million years ago, when the Florida peninsula was twice as wide, an archaic river had vented here from a shallow inland sea—thus the shark’s teeth.
Mick’s story varied from what I’d read, but it was close enough. I started the engines and steered south while he hollered an addendum: “That inland sea is where they dig phosphate now. For millions of years, bones stacked up there. But we don’t find teeth like we used to. It’s because of beach reclamation. They covered Venice Beach with tons of sand.”
Then, a few seconds later, he pointed toward the airport and informed us, “You’ll get a kick out of this—that’s where three of the nine/eleven terrorists learned to fly. One was a pretty cool operator. He came to my yoga class, showed up every Tuesday . . . almost.” As an aside, in his dreamy, stoned way, he explained to Dunk, “Yoga has a lot in common with our ancient ways. Equality, you know? The oneness of all life.”
Dunk, straight-faced, said, “I didn’t know ragheads were into equality.”
“Rag-whats . . . ?” Mick asked.
To Tomlinson, sitting beside me, I leaned over and said, “I want that asshole off my boat.”
He gave me an
OK
sign and said into my ear, “Mick has the keys to Tovar’s house—it’s only a mile down the beach. He keeps a bike there, so I figure he’s got permission.”
I didn’t like it. Rather than taking charge, I said, “He’d better.” Then moved on to my concerns about Duncan, saying, “Is there a chance he jumped parole?”
Tomlinson shrugged. “I can’t ask. It’s not the Indian way.”
I said, “Yeah . . . much smarter to let him go back to jail,” and bumped the throttles up to 5000 rpm, a blur of white sand to our left. Two miles later, Mick hollered, “That’s Finn’s place,” and told me to pull up on the beach.
The Gulf was calm, so I did. It was an isolated stretch of sand and foliage, a single orange roof through the palms. A big chunk of property in an exclusive area—the violent antiquities collector had been a wealthy man. The spot appeared safe enough until my friends and the tour guide filed through the door into Tovar’s house. By then, the thief
Dunk replied, “Last thing I want to do is talk to a cop,” then they discussed ancient tools made from shark teeth while my attention abandoned the conversation. It was because of the way Duncan had said
talk to a cop
.
A troubling possibility entered my mind. After three years in state prison, was it possible that Fallsdown was still on parole? If so, leaving Montana could put the man behind bars again. I’ve done far worse in my life than aiding and abetting a felon. That wasn’t the problem. I liked the guy. He had come to Florida on a quest that was admirable in a clumsy Don Quixote way. Maybe a phone call or two could make it right if he had skipped without permission. It depended, of course, on how forgiving his parole officer was.
When I returned to the conversation, though, and tried to exchange eye contact, Fallsdown swung from me to Mick, the tour guide, and asked, “How much do you charge?”
“Hundred bucks an hour to look for shark’s teeth. To see what’s left of Finn’s collection? Well . . .” Mick pretended to struggle with the quandary, then decided, “Ah, what the hell. You’re a brother Skin, so . . . so let’s say two hundred for the afternoon?”
Getting to his feet, Tomlinson said to me, “Hope you don’t mind, Doc. We volunteered your boat.” Then hesitated. “You’re carrying cash, right?”
At about the same time, a thief carrying bolt cutters and a gun was entering the house once owned by another violent man—Finn Tovar.
• • •
HALF A MILE OFFSHORE, Snake Island and the Venice Pier behind us, Mick, in teaching mode, told me, “Stop, I want to explain something.”
I shut down, and drifted, while learning that five million years ago, when the Florida peninsula was twice as wide, an archaic river had vented here from a shallow inland sea—thus the shark’s teeth.
Mick’s story varied from what I’d read, but it was close enough. I started the engines and steered south while he hollered an addendum: “That inland sea is where they dig phosphate now. For millions of years, bones stacked up there. But we don’t find teeth like we used to. It’s because of beach reclamation. They covered Venice Beach with tons of sand.”
Then, a few seconds later, he pointed toward the airport and informed us, “You’ll get a kick out of this—that’s where three of the nine/eleven terrorists learned to fly. One was a pretty cool operator. He came to my yoga class, showed up every Tuesday . . . almost.” As an aside, in his dreamy, stoned way, he explained to Dunk, “Yoga has a lot in common with our ancient ways. Equality, you know? The oneness of all life.”
Dunk, straight-faced, said, “I didn’t know ragheads were into equality.”
“Rag-whats . . . ?” Mick asked.
To Tomlinson, sitting beside me, I leaned over and said, “I want that asshole off my boat.”
He gave me an
OK
sign and said into my ear, “Mick has the keys to Tovar’s house—it’s only a mile down the beach. He keeps a bike there, so I figure he’s got permission.”
I didn’t like it. Rather than taking charge, I said, “He’d better.” Then moved on to my concerns about Duncan, saying, “Is there a chance he jumped parole?”
Tomlinson shrugged. “I can’t ask. It’s not the Indian way.”
I said, “Yeah . . . much smarter to let him go back to jail,” and bumped the throttles up to 5000 rpm, a blur of white sand to our left. Two miles later, Mick hollered, “That’s Finn’s place,” and told me to pull up on the beach.
The Gulf was calm, so I did. It was an isolated stretch of sand and foliage, a single orange roof through the palms. A big chunk of property in an exclusive area—the violent antiquities collector had been a wealthy man. The spot appeared safe enough until my friends and the tour guide filed through the door into Tovar’s house. By then, the thief
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