Everglades, page 9
Sally took over. “Geoff and some other developers around Miami couldn’t get insurance. People who wanted to buy a new house couldn’t get insurance. It was a mess. So Geoff and some of his business associates came up with their own solution. He was brilliant in his way. Driven, but brilliant.”
DeAntoni said, “What he did was pretty smart. His group did the research and calculated that, when a certain area of Florida is hit by a really bad storm, there’s almost always a ten-to-twenty-year gap before it’s likely to get hit again. Statistically. Those’re good odds. How much can you make writing clean insurance over fifteen years? Start in the high millions, then add some nice big numbers at the front.
“So they found investors, formed a company and applied to the Florida Department of Insurance. To push through the kind’a thing they wanted takes a lot of political juice. They had it.
“In June, about three years ago, the state approved them as what they call a foreign property and casualty insurer, and accepted them into the state homeowners’ insurance pool. What that means is, that quick”—DeAntoni snapped his fingers—“they were guaranteed to write policies on over a quarter million private homes and businesses. The insurance racket, man, it’s got its own language. They were granted a bunch of lines of business: Homeowners’ Multi-Peril, Commercial Multi-Peril, Auto, Ocean Marine, Health . . . and life insurance, too.”
“Geoff had life insurance through his own company,” Sally said.
I asked DeAntoni, “Aside from Sally, were there other beneficiaries?”
“Yeah, and I’ll give you one guess who. The company may have to write out a whole lot bigger check to the International Church of Ashram Meditation. More than four times what they would pay to Sally.”
“That explains it,” I said. Meaning why they’d hired DeAntoni to find out the truth—a small insurance company with a reason to keep things private and quiet, and maybe not have to go bankrupt.
chapter ten
I walked the two of them through mangroves to the marina. I hadn’t eaten since that morning—my camp breakfast in the Everglades. Not a very good breakfast, either, since Tomlinson had loaded his goofy little group with health-food types. We’d had bulgur wheat and a slab of some kind of fibrous-looking substance that was supposed to be a substitute for meat.
DeAntoni said, yeah, he wanted to eat, too, but Sally was reluctant.
“It’s not that I don’t want to see the old marina gang, Mack and Jeth, Rhonda and JoAnn and all the others,” she explained, “but I’ve learned that old friends feel a little uncomfortable when a friend changes.”
Referring to herself.
She certainly had changed. It happens a lot, and all too often to good men and women. It happens through misfortune, random accidents, the tragedy of disease, the realization of personal failure.
It also happens because the detritus of an unsatisfying life can accumulate like a weight, until even a strong person finally breaks, gives in and seeks shelter in one of the many escapes available to us all. Drugs are a common route of escape. Religion can be another.
Something had happened to this good lady. Maybe for better, maybe for worse. I have no illusions about my competence as a judge. I screw up my own life so consistently, disappoint my own vision of self so regularly, that I have become a reluctant critic of other people, other lives. But it was obvious that she was no longer the woman I had held, laughed with and made love to on the moonlit outside deck of my stilt house.
Surprise, surprise. Tomlinson had returned for the party. Karlita, the television psychic, was with him. Her idea, he said. Totally. Because she wanted to see me.
Tomlinson threw his arm around my shoulder, weaving mightily. Drunk, stoned, nearly out of it, slurring, “The lady likes the cut of your jib, compadre. Karlita the Chiquita. She’s looked you over port to starboard, bow and stern.”
“Tomlinson,” I said trying to shush him. “Enough with the sailing metaphors. I have no interest in the woman. I already told you that. How’d you get here? Please tell me you didn’t drive your own car.”
“My car? I’ve never owned a car in my . . .” He let the sentence trail off, thinking about it. “Wait a minute, I do own a car. I bought a Volkswagen Thing off Bud-O-Bandy. Classic beach transport. It’s like a tent with four slabs of drywall built around an engine. My dream car.”
“Exactly,” I said.
We were standing by the sea grape tree next to the Red Pelican Gift Shop, the docks, the darkening bay behind us, the masts and fly bridges of boats strung with party lights. Tomlinson had a pink sarong knotted around his waist, tarpon and snook hand-painted on silk. Shirtless, he was skin over bone, all sinew and veins, his gaunt cheeks and haunted eyes suspended above his shoulders like a human face perched on the stem of a delicate mushroom.
His hair was longer than ever, scraggly, sun-bleached to straw and silver. He’d isolated two shocks of hair with the kind of spring-loaded combs that little girls use: One shock was a ponytail that hung to the middle of his back. The other sprouted directly from the top of his head, a Samurai effect.
He took a deep breath, eyes wide, trying to calm himself. Then he held up an index finger. “Ah-h-h-h, now it’s all coming back. I didn’t drive. I came with Karlita in her black sports car. A hundred fifteen miles an hour through the Everglades. Sawgrass a blur, rednecks in airboats flipping us the bird, screaming foul oaths while I sent out telepathic warning signals to innocent wildlife. Yes, of course. There’s no mystery here. I returned to Sanibel like any normal working lug. In a Lexus GS 400, my head mashed to the seat like I’d been Velcroed by kidnappers. So . . . what was your point again, Doc?”
“Karlita,” I said. “She’s the point. I’ve got no interest. I don’t want her in my house. I don’t want her in my lab. I don’t want to spend more than a minute or two listening to her bullshit. As long as we’re clear on that.”
He held up an index finger, asking me to pause so he could ask a question. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m getting a very negative vibe here. You don’t like the lady?”
“No. I don’t like the lady.”
I watched my old friend sigh heavily, eyes drowsy, his whole body drooping as if he were about to fall asleep. Or pass out—a more accurate term.
I hoped it was my imagination, but lately, it seemed, Tomlinson was absolutely smashed after only nine or ten beers—a historically light night for him.
Not a good sign.
I am not a fretter, but, of late, I’d been worried about him. He was killing himself. Slowly and surely, he was destroying his own body, his own first-rate mind, by overindulging in a garden variety of legal and illegal drugs.
He’d gotten worse in the last year or so. My personal guess was that it was his way of dealing with the pressure of his growing notoriety. A way of re-creating an insular privacy that he no longer enjoyed.
So he was staying drunk most of the time. Or hiding out on his boat. Or on the Florida Keys: Key Largo, renting the little apartment overlooking the Mandalay Bar, Mile Marker 97.5. Or in Key West, moored at the Conch Republic Fish Company docks, or staying at Simonton Court, or Old Cypress House, doing happy hour with Dave, then drinking all night with Chris Robinson at Louie’s Backyard.
Or exploiting absurd excuses to retreat to the Everglades.
Every day by sunset, he was out of control. Mostly, it was alcohol—which is why the fact the he seemed to be getting drunk on fewer drinks was a troubling symptom.
Chronic alcohol use causes the liver to become fatty. The fat chokes off blood that delivers oxygen to liver cells. Those cells are replaced with scar tissue called cirrhosis. Result? A drinker can tolerate less and less alcohol because there are fewer liver cells to process it.
Of course, it was also probable that he was supplementing his alcohol intake with marijuana, illegal pharmaceuticals, psychedelic fungi, even surgical halothane gas when he could get it.
Tomlinson made friends quickly, and he had a long list of medical professionals he could call on for special fun and favors. Because he knew I didn’t approve, he rarely confided in me when it came to his current drug of preference.
The height of paradox was this: A couple of months back, he took me aside and said, “Doc, I don’t want to offend you, but I’m telling you for your own good. The whole marina’s worried because of your drinking.”
I said, “What?”
“Used to be, you’d have a couple of beers a night. Now you’re drinking that black Nicaraguan rum. Getting drunk, too—that’s the rumor floating ’round. That’s what I suspect.”
Trying my best to be patient, I told him, “Tomlinson, you know exactly what I drink because you’re right there with me. Drinking rum on my porch at sunset, or your boat, almost every night. Geezsh.”
Which made him pause a few beats, thinking about it, before he replied, “Oh. In that case . . . well, you’re in the hands of a professional. Enjoy!”
Standing near the marina’s picnic tables, where there were trays of crab cakes, bowls of ceviche, steamed shrimp and fried fish, Tomlinson told me, “Last night, when you two were out canoeing, Karlita said she had a psychic vision. That you were destined to become lovers.”
I answered, “The lady’s wrong. Count on it.”
He wagged his finger at me, having fun. “Um-huh, the Ford Theory of Reality. You only accept as fact that teeny weenie bit of ignorance that can be measured, weighed and classified.
“One day, though, you’ll step through the veil and experience the spiritual world. When you’re ready, man, when the student’s ready, your teacher will arrive. You put out such good vibes, my brother, I’m willing to bet cash money that your spiritual teacher will come complete with a really great ass. So maybe it’s Karlita.”
“Thanks,” I said. “So now I have something to look forward to.”
I turned and began to walk toward the docks, where I could see Sally and Frank DeAntoni standing among a group of liveaboards, red plastic cups in hand. Yet, by the way they stood, shoulder-to-shoulder, facing one another, talking intensely, they effectively isolated themselves. Two people alone in a crowded space.
Behind me, Tomlinson said, “If Karlita says you two are going to end up lovers, my money’s on her. Might do you some good. Step into the Karlita cage and take a few swings.”
First sailing metaphors, now baseball: two of the man’s great loves. But all drunks become tiresome after a while, and I was getting irritated.
I told him, “I’m still seeing Grace Walker, just in case you’ve forgotten. I try to focus on one partner at a time.”
“Focus,” he said. “I’m with you there. There are men who choose the vagina as their only telescope to the world. Bad choice. Poor light gathering capabilities and unpredictable resolution.” He stopped. “Hey, what’s that you got in your hand?”
As I continued to walk, I held up the glossy photo DeAntoni had given me. “Nothing. No one you’d know.”
“See? There you go being purely logical, which can be a bummer. That’s why you’re always surprised by the unexpected.”
He took the photo from my hand, holding it up to the dock lights. Stood there weaving, studying it before he said, “This man’s name is . . . hum-mmm . . . it’s coming back to me. His name is Minster something. Jerry Minster? No . . . Geoff Minster. See? I do know the guy.”
Surprised by the unexpected. He was right about that. And Tomlinson often surprises me.
I said slowly, “Yes. It is Geoff Minster. Exactly. Sally Carmel’s Miami husband. When did you meet him?”
“Whoa, wait—Sally’s husband? That, I didn’t know. Very weird, man. A very far-out karmic linkage. To meet him yet not know he was married to our old buddy Sal.”
Tomlinson has the amazing ability to react as if sober when the subject is sufficiently serious. He’s developed what he calls a “lifeguard twin” that is always waiting and ready, hidden within his brain. In an emergency situation, when drunk, Tomlinson calls upon the twin to speak articulately, to walk steadily, to be extremely courteous to law-enforcement types and attentive to attractive women.
He seemed to be sober now, as I said, “Then explain how you know him.”
“Remember I told you about the two pre-Columbian circles they found over in Dade County?”
“I remember,” I said impatiently. “How does that have anything to do with Minster?”
“Because Minster was the developer who was trying to build some mega-million-dollar high-rise luxury condo on the site. Built-in Starbucks, a little mall, high-tech security. You know the place, Brikell Pointe, located where the Miami River joins Biscayne Bay. Right near downtown Miami.”
“How long ago was this?”
“A little more than two years ago. I remember telling you about it.”
I nodded. “So that’s the connection.”
“Yep. Do you know where Cassadaga is?”
Cassadaga is one of Florida’s stranger towns. It is northeast of Orlando, and well known for an enclave of oddballs who claim to be witches and warlocks.
Tomlinson said, “In Cassadaga, there’s a group of mystics. A tight bunch of truly enlightened beings. I can’t tell you the name of the group. I took a vow of secrecy. This is an extremely successful, solid bunch. Not the usual flakes that I love so much.”
He said, “Unlike the usual ones, the fakes and pretenders, they actually have the gift of telepathy, clairvoyance, all kinds of powers. Which means making money is easy for them. And they’ve made lots of it. Prescience. Don’t you love that word? What it combines and implies?”
“What you’re telling me is that you’re a member of the group,” I said.
“If you choose to come to that conclusion, I’m not going to argue, mi compadre. The point is, they—we—couldn’t allow Minster and his corporation to destroy something that’s not only an important archaeological site, but also a major Power Place. It’s an earth vortex, both the circles. Very powerful vortices. You’re familiar with the term?”
“No, and I’m pretty sure I don’t want to hear about it. All I’m interested in is how you know Minster.”
Both of us walking again, Tomlinson made a calming motion with his hands. “I’ll make it quick. But you need to know what I’m talking about to understand how I met the guy. Okay?”
When I didn’t reply, he said, “Okay, a quick lesson in earth energy. There are focal points for electromagnetic power. Hot spots you might call them, or vortices. Sometimes they’re rocky areas, water places, whole biospheres. Or sometimes they’re built by man. Pyramids or Indian mounds. A deep water spring, for instance. Volcanoes.”
“Volcanoes,” I said. “That’s enough. I get the idea.”
“Wait, you need to hear the rest. Vortices have a dominant force, either electric or magnetic. A very few possess both—Power Places we call them. Over the centuries, mystics, psychics—even alien visitors—it’s where they go to replenish their energy reserves. The Everglades? The Everglades is one of the world’s great Power Places. All those springs and vortices; no other place like it.”
“Tomlinson, please don’t start talking about the Swamp Ape again. I’m still pissed off about you getting my truck stuck.”
“Ahh-h-h. The skunk that nailed you when you were trying to push me out of the ditch. A touchy subject, yes.”
I interrupted, “I don’t blame the skunk. I blame you. Only you. So do us both a favor, please don’t dwell on it.”
He said, “Okay, okay, so back to the energy deal. It’s part of a force field that links everything. The earth. Our own bodies. Our souls. The energy’s produced by three key elements: iron, oxygen and silicon crystals. Quartz and silicon; it’s the same thing. Silicon Valley? That’s why computers will ultimately evolve to the point where they have their own spirituality, their own crystal souls.”
I interrupted, hurrying him along, saying, “Okay, Minster was going to build on what you’d call a Power Place. I understand that, too. So what happened?”
“What happened is, this group of Cassadaga mystics preformed a spiritual intervention. On Minster. Minster and his major partner.”
“His partner. Okay, now we’re back on track. His business partner, was it a cult leader who calls himself Bhagwan Shiva?”
It was my turn to surprise Tomlinson. His facial expression is normally passive, always congenial. Now, though, his face illustrated an uncharacteristic distaste—maybe even a little touch of anger in there.
“Shiva,” he said. “Bingo. That’s what he calls himself. But it’s not his real name. He chose the name, like . . . like a Halloween mask. A disguise. It’s something to hide behind. Bhagwan means ‘Blessed one.’ Shiva means ‘Prophet.’ The dude we’re discussing, he’s neither.”
I began to smile, “In all the years I’ve known you, I’ve never heard you saying a bad word about anyone. You really don’t like him, do you?”
“Never met him; never want to meet. He’s a cult leader, and you know me, man: I’ve never found a religion I didn’t like. Do you know what religion really is? Religion, any legitimate religion, it consists of rules of morality linked by love. That’s it.
“What Shiva’s done is steal the worst parts of three or four faiths, and he uses them to feed on weakness. A lot of it’s taken from Scientology; the science-fiction writer deal? There’s a very heavy indoctrination program. They do what they call ‘cross-auditing,’ trying to rid themselves of a kind of virus implanted in humans by space aliens a billion years ago—which is cool. I’ve got no beef with Scientology. But what Shiva does is use it to control people, not elevate them.
“The guy he really models himself after, though, is Bhagwan Shree—he’s dead, now—but he had a couple of hundred meditation centers around the world. He preached free love, that getting rich was good. So Shiva’s stepped in, made himself the new Bhagwan. He’s part carnival act, part like those motivational shysters you see on late-night TV. It’s still all about energy, man. Negative and positive. The guy who calls himself Bhagwan Shiva, he’s a black hole. A power-zapper, and he just can’t get enough. The non-Bhagwan, that’s the way I think of him. Evil—I think of him as that, too.”
