Chapter Eight

 

Eight weeks later

5:30 p.m. EST

Thursday, August 28, 2020

 

Bare feet propped on his desk, the Labor Day edition of The Boca ninety percent ready for tomorrow night’s six o’clock printer’s deadline, Zack felt his taste buds commence their late afternoon activity, beginning with the tempting, now only a memory and unavailable palate delight—Joe Case’s famous arroz con camarones.

“Living will never be the same,” he whispered.

Disturbing him more than the loss of the shrimp-and-rice delight was Case’s unexpected departure from the Miami scene. Strangely, without a word, nobody knew why, he and Kim had disappeared. The Bimini Road sold, a pronouncement from the new Chinese owners, Jay and Mindy Xzing, “Case moved to Bimini Island, that’s all we know” is a book with the last chapter missing, Zack thought.

The Bimini Road gone, the old cement block building the same but now home to The Tea Company, the new restaurant featured, along with Chinese beer and a fresh sushi bar, Shanghai cuisine. The inside dump-ambience remained the same except that the booths were now painted bright cardinal red. No Bohemia beer a problem, the Tsingtao okay, but the three foot gold embossed red posterboard menus, pick one from column A, two from column B, brought a frequent lament from Zack, “I can understand religion being complicated, but this is ridiculous.”

He pushed back in his swivel chair, sat up, and, having falling off the nicotine wagon, peered at, rising out of four days of clutter on top of his desk, a pack of regular Camel cigarettes and a pack of MORE. He contemplated a Camel then shifted his eyes to the pack of MORE.

Just had a MORE.

He took a Camel, lit it and reasoned to himself, These things will probably kill you and chewing sugary gum will rot your teeth, but I loathe bozo bureaucrats telling me what I can and can’t do. Five-hundred-dollar fine for lighting up on the beach Nuts to that

He slipped back into his chair and anticipated his planned Labor Day weekend aboard Veracity. Charting the course, he figured he would run out to Sands Key, anchor near there the first night then head east, get in the stream, just drift forwhatever. Then again, perhaps he’d take a run to Bimini, maybe find Case—fifty miles, piece of cake—and on that little patch of mangrove and sand finding a character like Joe Case ought not to be that difficult, he thought.

He leaned farther back and imagined being on the water, put his hands behind his head and closed his eyes. In a moment, he was bobbing on Veracity’s aft deck, the shoreline gone, blue sky and water surrounded him.

Smelling the salty sea, he switched the engines off and listened to the ocean swells slapping the hull.

Then it was there again. It was always there, the old nagging, and he thought, Where are you hiding and why? Forget the wherehow about why

“How many steaks can you eat a week?”

He opened his eyes. He swore he heard the words. The blades of the ceiling fan stirred the air. He spoke to Jocko. “You know, Jocko, sometimes you punch below the belt.”

He turned to the office window behind his desk and looked south to the distant sprawl of greater Miami. Wondering about that Joe Case “profit has no home” thing, Senator Nancy Beno came to mind. She led that snake-handler Armstrong in early polls, but Ben was slicker than the snakes he handled, he thought. Beno has to KO that insane sonofabitch.

Zack turned in his chair and propped his bare feet on the windowsill.

Pondering a series of support-Beno editorials, he heard someone enter his office. Immediately, he recognized the fresh Ivory Soap smell of Mary O’Brien. Savoring the moment, he anticipated her familiar pristine voice.

It came. “Boca, you just got another call from the President’s media guru.”

He turned and watched Mary slide onto the Naugahyde sofa. She wore her usual outfit—faded Levis, lavender V-neck polo shirt and tan tennis shoes. No socks, no jewelry, no makeup. A black-banded silver Timex slid loosely on her wrist.

“I did?” Zack said.

“Yes, you did.”

“How did I get a call if you took it?”

“Telepathy.”

“Oh, let me guess what Dr. Lande had to say”

“Same complaint as always.” Mary stretched her tanned arms over her head and pushed her slender legs out. The stretch was a tall one considering her willowy body was just short of six feet. She touched the front of Zackary’s desk with the tips of her tennis shoes and fluffed her shaggy dishwater hair.

Zack shook his head and smiled.

“What?” She flashed.

“All comfy?”

“Yes.” She flashed again and stretched farther.

“That’s good.”

She rubbed the bridge of her wide, but not too wide, nose. “How’s Boca’s day going?”

A half-smoked Camel hanging from the side of his mouth, he decided to ignore the Boca remark, preserve the mood. Studying the fervor in her blue eyes, he said. “What did you tell her?”

Engrossed in Zack. “Who?”

He leaned over his desk. “I thought you said Lande called.”

“You smoke too much.”

“Oh, and did you say that?”

“What?”

“You smoke too much.”

She rolled her eyes.

“So, what did our dear Ms. Lande have to say?”

“The White House must be reading your editorials.”

“At least we have two readers.”

“Who’s the other one?” Mary raised an eyebrow.

“You.”

“And you, that’s three.”

“So what did Lande say?”

“Says you’re bordering on malice—actual malice, she said.”

“Is that all?”

“Quoted some New York Times versus Sullivan. Court held that a public person, celebrity, politician—Armstrong—who alleges libel, as by a newspaper—you—and can prove that the statement was made with ‘actual malice’—knowledge that it was false or done with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not—can sue for damagesand you, The Boca, is and they’re not above suing.”

He shook his head. “She really said all that?”

“Yes, Boca, she did.”

“You know I don’t like that.”

“What?”

“Being called Boca.”

“Fits.”

“On what grounds?”

“Your mouth?”

“I meant Lande.”

“I think it’s maybe because you keep writing that our dear President is paranoid with delusions of grandeur—megalomania, narcissistic I think you wrote ‘marked by infantile feelings of omnipotence, grandeur, delusional, manic-depressive, they call it bipolar now, disturbed, senile, an insane lunatic mien master, stupid jackass’ or something like that.”

“Well, let him prove he’s not.”

“Zack, come on, you have to admit you are a little excessive. Like Lande said, you’d think the old fart, you, was a licensed shrink.”

“She called me that?”

“Yes.”

“Huh, imagine. Anyway, I have had considerable training in mind games.”

“You keep reminding me.”

“Anything else?”

“She said you’re dead wrong on that military para-something, global unit whatever editorial, and they want a retraction.”

“Ten billion U.S. smackers went somewhere.”

“Zack, it’s a dangerous world. Benny is counteracting terrorism.”

“Why do you defend that moron?”

“No need to get edgy.”

“I’m not edgy.”

“Sound edgy.”

“He’s insane.” Zack crushed his cigarette out.

“He’s a politician.”

“D-minus. He’s a mole-brained idiot zealot.”

“Oh, I don’t think so.”

“Plain and simple—nuts.”

“You said that.” Mary stood, stepped to the coffeepot and poured herself a cup. “Political rhetoric.”

“C-plus.”

“Thank you.” She tasted the coffee. “Ugh, this is unusually rotten.”

Zack ignored her and mimicked Armstrong’s Southern drawl. “The time is much more momentous than Hannibal’s decision to cross the Alps. Beyond Columbus’s discovery of a new land. Eclipses Einstein’s Theory of Relativity. This is more akin to those days immediately before” He looked at her. “Tell me that’s not nuts”

“Why are you getting so worked up? It’s just me.”

“You do understand that we—you, I, humanity—we are all, all of us, in the hands of an accidentally placed idiot who thinks Jesus Christ sleeps in the Lincoln Bedroom”

“Boca, Boca, Boca, how you tend to exaggerate.” Mary sat on the arm of the sofa and nursed her coffee.

“I do not exaggerate”

“Well, anyway, Armstrong must be putting the heat on Lande to shut you up.”

“He’ll have to change a few words in the Constitution”

“Lande might show him how.”

“Or God.” Zack lit a MORE.

“Maybe he does talk to God.” She looked at him. “Some people say they do.”

“Who?”

“Don’t you?”

“Difference is, I know I’m crazy, and besides, the Big Guy isn’t talking back.”

“How objective we are.” Mary walked to the office window and looked out. “Boca, when can we have dinner?”

Her question, like a surprise jab, hit him between the eyes. Fifteen seconds passed.

“Take your time. When?”

“Mary, we’ve been through that umpteen times.”

“Just dinner, for cripes sake.” She tasted her coffee. “Ugh, I will never understand how you can drink this tar.”

“I like to think asphalt.” He exhaled.

She shook her head. “So, when can we have dinner?”

“I feel like I’m being pressured.”

“You feel right.”

“Mary, you know this could be construed as sexual harassment.”

“What do you mean ‘construed?’ It is.”

“How long have you worked here?”

“You don’t know?”

“Let’s see, four years”

“Four years and three months—I followed you here after Florida State, remember?”

“Journalism student, right, tennis scholarship, Sarasota High, State high school singles’ champ, three siblings—Kate, Kelly, Jim—father is a coach”

“Oh, stuff it and quit changing the subject.”

Zack picked up a Sports Illustrated invoice from his desk. “By the way, this came for you, third notice.”

She took it, glanced at the total and threw it back on his desk. “That’s yours, remember? That and free parking, half my incentive package.”

“What was the other half?”

“A ride on your boat.” She tilted her head. “Remember?”

“No.”

“Liar.”

“When you get my age you forget some things.”

“Only what you want to.”

Zack looked at his watch—5:05. “How about a drink?”

“You’re kidding.”

“Just one.”

“You have one, I’ll have two.”