Lassiter 07 - Flesh and Bones by Levine, Paul (ebook reader web .txt) 📕

the mango grove when the spotlights came on. I was still cutting back and forth, making like Emmitt Smith, when it occurred to me that Blossom was alongside, running in stride. She could have taken me down with a firm crunch to the calf, but there she was, barking loudly. Happily keeping pace with me. Much more fun than being tethered to a guard.

I slowed to a trot, and so did she. I put my hand out and she licked it, then started barking again. In the distance, I saw the headlights of a Jeep, heard men shouting.

"Quiet, Blossom," I told her.

She barked louder.

I reached up, pulled a mango from a tree, and rolled it a few feet away. Blossom trotted over and picked it up in her mouth. No more barking. Then she brought the mango to me, dropped it at my feet, and barked some more.

I picked up the mango and hurled it as far as I could. Barking happily, Blossom took off that way, and I ran the other.

I was nearly to the levee when I heard an engine kick up. A second Jeep was there, waiting. The headlights came on, freezing me. Engine growling, it headed straight for me. I pivoted and ran up the levee, scrambling on all fours in the soft dirt. I heard the Jeep slam to a stop, heard the men yelling behind me.

At the top of the levee, my knee buckled, the one with the railroad track scars, and I tumbled down toward the water. A shotgun blast kicked up mounds of dirt alongside me. With no Blossom running interference, I was in their line of fire now.

I either dived into the water or fell into it. Either way, it was deep enough and fast enough to carry me off. I took a breath and went under, going with the flow. I came up, heard another shotgun blast, and went under again. I held my breath as long as I could and came up again. The shouts were well behind me now. I was gone, body surfing down this channel of clear, fresh water, so recently sucked up from the aquifer.

In a few minutes, the water grew deeper, the current faster. I tried to touch the bottom but couldn't. I slid onto my back and floated farther still. It is not easy to judge the passage of time when your adrenaline is pumping. Maybe it was ten minutes, maybe it was forty, but it wasn't long before the water slowed. A tree branch floated alongside me, and I grabbed it. A black mangrove. Then I caught the scent of brackish water and knew I was nearing the bay.

A mist rose from the moist soil into the night air and then, shining eerily above me, a light. And then another.

I was passing through the orange glow of a string of high-intensity lights, and above me, through the ghostly mist, I saw the silhouette of a building. Or at least the skeleton of one, under construction. Girders and framing a dozen stories high, rising like a spooky dreamscape. Bigger than anything in these parts, power-plant-sized, with a concrete smokestack poised like a missile next to the building.

And then it was gone. The gleam of the lights grew weaker, then disappeared, too. As I floated along, a strange thought worked its way into my consciousness. Had I seen anything at all rising out of the mist, or was it the product of my imagination, my fears, my dreams? Dr. Millie Santiago, where are you when I need you?

The water picked up speed again, and when I tried to swim toward the side of the levee, I was so exhausted I just let it carry me on. In a moment, the current slowed again, then stopped. The water was suddenly warmer. And salty. And endless. I was in Biscayne Bay. Keep swimming east and I'd hit the coast of Africa.

A gentle tide was headed out to sea, and so was I. Floating on my back again, I turned over and did a slow crawl, angling north along the shoreline. Just offshore, the lights of a shrimp boat twinkled in the night. I swam in that direction. A fish jumped from the water, silvery in the moonlight.

I swam some more, picking up strength, cutting smoothly through the flat, warm water. Suddenly I was thirsty, and I thought of Harrison Baker and his tale of fresh water spouting up in the middle of the bay. I thought of the coral reef not far south of here, alive with fish. I thought of all that lay beyond the horizon, so much of it unknown. As a boy, I had wanted to run away to the sea. Now, here I was, wanting to come back to land. There, too, to face the unknown.

15

Ready to Wear

The policeman knocked on the door and waited. So did I.

Water dripped from my clothing onto the dark wood of the hallway. Blood trickled from a dozen scratches on my forehead, legacy of the thorns. Even worse, my nose itched, and with my hands cuffed behind my back, I couldn't scratch it.

Through a window at the end of the hall, I could see the orange glow of the sun rising over the ocean. It had been a long night.

The cop knocked again, louder. A muffled voice came from the other side of the door. A moment later, Chrissy Bernhardt, dressed in a black-and-red silk kimono, cracked open the door, the chain still attached. She didn't seem surprised to see a cop at her door at dawn.

"Sorry to bother you, ma'am," the Miami Beach cop said. Yeah, he actually said "ma'am," just like in the movies. The cop was in his fifties, probably a year or so away from a retirement watch and juicy pension. He pushed me toward the door. "Do you know the subject?"

"Subject?" I asked, offended. "I always thought of myself as more of a verb."

"Let me get a