you’d make out. And the old man had died because he couldn’t afford to take the boat out of the water long enough to fix up the rotted leaky bottom. So he drowned out there in the Gulf, him and Buck and Howie, going down in the black night water, choking in the salt water, flapping and choking and yelling and no one to hear them. If the old man had been fifty bucks ahead, he could have taken the boat out and fixed it.
[The big blue Cadillac moves fast. He keeps it at ninety as much as he can. His is the type of mind that can remember details that seem unimportant at the time. Some part of him is forever observing, recording, filing. And that knack has made him money.
Suppose a question were asked: What were the last five cars you’ve passed, Flagan?
“Counting the ones pulled over on the shoulder?”
Just the moving ones.
“That’s easier. Let me see. Five. I’ll even tell you in the order I passed ’ em, A blue and white convertible. Dodge or DeSoto. Woman driver. Then a beat-up old panel delivery. Then—let me see—didn’t get much impression from the next one. Dark. Small car. Dark green I think. Then a foreign job. Fancy. I don’t know what the hell it was. Followed him for a time and finally made it when he slowed down some. Some people don’t like anybody on their tail. When they try it on me, I walk away from them. Then the last one was that station wagon, loaded pretty heavy. Local plates. Clearwater or St. Pete. How’m I doin’?”
Doing fine in your big car, Johnny.
And he senses trouble ahead. He leans forward. He uses the brakes gingerly and the big car skids, straightens, skids, straightens, slows and stops and he lets his breath out and hopes that the station wagon is going to be alert and not pile into him, or get shoved into him by that foreign job.]
5
About eleven miles north of the town of Crystal River on Route 19, on Florida’s West Coast, State Route 40 crosses 19 at a village called Inglis. Forty doesn’t go far west after it crosses. Just three miles to a place called Yankeetown on Withlacoochee Bay. The Gulf is that close to Route 19 at that point.
Follow Route 19 further north and it swings inland a hit, through Lebanon and Lebanon Station, then Gulf Hammock. By the time it gets up to Otter Creek, six miles north of Gulf Hammock, it is twenty-two miles from the Gulf. Cedar Key is out that way, twenty-two miles along Route 24.
In that straight six miles of Route 19 between Gulf Hammock and Otter Creek, Route 19 crosses the Waccasassa River. Not much of a river. Not much of a bridge where it goes under the road.
The Waccasassa River empties—ten miles from the highway—into, almost inevitably, Waccasassa Bay. The bay makes an almost triangular indentation into the coast of Florida, just about half way between Yankeetown and Cedar Key. The shores of the bay are dreary, uninhabited. Thick mangrove grows down to the salt flats. Behind the mangrove the land is sodden, marshy. In the Gulf Hammock area, Route 19 cannot be more than six feet above the high tide mark in the Gulf ten miles away.
The bridge over the Waccasassa is a relatively modern concrete highway bridge, two lanes wide. Some years ago it was built to replace a rickety wooden lane and a half structure with timbers that flapped and rumbled under the wheels of the vehicles. At the time the bridge was being replaced, through traffic had to take a detour. Not a long detour, about four miles in all. If you were headed north you had to turn west off Route 19 about a mile before you came to the bridge. It was a narrow sand road, and it angled sharply away from Route 19 for over a mile. It turned north then and crossed a narrow wooden bridge over a vagrant loop of the sleepy Waccasassa, and about three hundred yards farther crossed a second bridge over the main river. Two and a half miles farther on, after bearing almost imperceptibly east, the sand road rejoined Route 19.
When the new bridge was built,
[The big blue Cadillac moves fast. He keeps it at ninety as much as he can. His is the type of mind that can remember details that seem unimportant at the time. Some part of him is forever observing, recording, filing. And that knack has made him money.
Suppose a question were asked: What were the last five cars you’ve passed, Flagan?
“Counting the ones pulled over on the shoulder?”
Just the moving ones.
“That’s easier. Let me see. Five. I’ll even tell you in the order I passed ’ em, A blue and white convertible. Dodge or DeSoto. Woman driver. Then a beat-up old panel delivery. Then—let me see—didn’t get much impression from the next one. Dark. Small car. Dark green I think. Then a foreign job. Fancy. I don’t know what the hell it was. Followed him for a time and finally made it when he slowed down some. Some people don’t like anybody on their tail. When they try it on me, I walk away from them. Then the last one was that station wagon, loaded pretty heavy. Local plates. Clearwater or St. Pete. How’m I doin’?”
Doing fine in your big car, Johnny.
And he senses trouble ahead. He leans forward. He uses the brakes gingerly and the big car skids, straightens, skids, straightens, slows and stops and he lets his breath out and hopes that the station wagon is going to be alert and not pile into him, or get shoved into him by that foreign job.]
5
About eleven miles north of the town of Crystal River on Route 19, on Florida’s West Coast, State Route 40 crosses 19 at a village called Inglis. Forty doesn’t go far west after it crosses. Just three miles to a place called Yankeetown on Withlacoochee Bay. The Gulf is that close to Route 19 at that point.
Follow Route 19 further north and it swings inland a hit, through Lebanon and Lebanon Station, then Gulf Hammock. By the time it gets up to Otter Creek, six miles north of Gulf Hammock, it is twenty-two miles from the Gulf. Cedar Key is out that way, twenty-two miles along Route 24.
In that straight six miles of Route 19 between Gulf Hammock and Otter Creek, Route 19 crosses the Waccasassa River. Not much of a river. Not much of a bridge where it goes under the road.
The Waccasassa River empties—ten miles from the highway—into, almost inevitably, Waccasassa Bay. The bay makes an almost triangular indentation into the coast of Florida, just about half way between Yankeetown and Cedar Key. The shores of the bay are dreary, uninhabited. Thick mangrove grows down to the salt flats. Behind the mangrove the land is sodden, marshy. In the Gulf Hammock area, Route 19 cannot be more than six feet above the high tide mark in the Gulf ten miles away.
The bridge over the Waccasassa is a relatively modern concrete highway bridge, two lanes wide. Some years ago it was built to replace a rickety wooden lane and a half structure with timbers that flapped and rumbled under the wheels of the vehicles. At the time the bridge was being replaced, through traffic had to take a detour. Not a long detour, about four miles in all. If you were headed north you had to turn west off Route 19 about a mile before you came to the bridge. It was a narrow sand road, and it angled sharply away from Route 19 for over a mile. It turned north then and crossed a narrow wooden bridge over a vagrant loop of the sleepy Waccasassa, and about three hundred yards farther crossed a second bridge over the main river. Two and a half miles farther on, after bearing almost imperceptibly east, the sand road rejoined Route 19.
When the new bridge was built,
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