Native Tongue Part 21

"Don't worry, Charlie, it'll pa.s.s."

With the trainer's help, Maria Rodriguez finally broke free from d.i.c.kie the Dolphin's embrace. Cursing, tugging at her tonga, she paddled furiously toward the ladder on the wall of the tank.

"Faster!" Charles Chelsea hollered. "Here he comes again!"

Two hours later, he was still trying to apologize without admitting the truth. "Sometimes they play too rough, that's all."

"Playing?" Maria sniffed sarcastically. "Excuse me, Mr. Chelsea, but I know a d.i.c.k when I see one." She had changed back to TV clothes, although her hair was still wrapped in a towel. "I ought to sue your a.s.s," she said.

They were sitting in Chelsea's officea"the reporter, Charles Chelsea, and Joe Winder. The crew had returned to the truck to put the dish up, just in case.

"Come on," Winder said to Maria, "be a sport."

"What?" She gave him an acid glare. "What did you say?" She whipped the towel off her head and tossed it on the floor.

Very impolite, Winder thought, and unprofessional. "Take it easy," he said. "Nothing unspeakable happened."

Maria pointed a finger in his face and said, "Someone could get killed out there."

Charles Chelsea was miserable. "How can we make it up to you?" he asked Maria Rodriguez. "How about we comp you some pa.s.ses to the Wild Bill Hiccup show?"

She was gone before he could come up with something better. On her way out, she kicked at the towel.

Joe Winder said, "Don't worry, she won't sue."

"How do you know?"

"It's too embarra.s.sing. h.e.l.l, she'll probably destroy the tape on the way back to Miami."

Defensively Chelsea said, "She wasn't supposed to grab the dolphin. No touching is alloweda"swimming only."

"This was a terrible idea, Charlie. Who thought of it?"

"Fifty bucks a head. They've got a bunch of these places in the Keys."

Joe Winder asked where Kingsbury had purchased the new dolphin.

"How should I know?" Chelsea snapped. "A dolphin's a dolphin, for Christ's sake. They don't come with a pedigree."

"This one needs a female," Winder said, "before you let tourists in the water."

"Thank you, Doctor Cousteau." The publicity man got up and closed the door. He looked gravely serious when he returned to the desk.

Joe Winder said, "I hope you're not going to make me write a press release about this. I've got more important things to do."

"Me, too." To steel himself, Charles Chelsea tightened his stomach muscles. "Joe, we're going to have to let you go."

"I see."

Chelsea studied his fingernails, trying not to make eye contact with Winder. "It's a combination of things."

"My att.i.tude, I suppose."

"That's a factor, yes. I tried to give some lat.i.tude. The hair. The casual clothing."

Winder said, "Anything else?"

"I understand you broke into the vole lab."

"Would you like to hear what I found?"

"Not particularly," Chelsea said.

"A paper written about the blue-tongued mango voles. The one you sent to Will Koocher when you were recruiting him."

Chelsea gave Winder a so-what look. "That it?"

"Funny thing, Charlie. The person who supposedly wrote that paper, this Dr. Sarah Hunt? Rollins College never heard of her." Winder raised his palms in mock puzzlement. "Never on the faculty, never graduated, never even attendeda"what do you make of that, Charlie?"

"Pedro told me of your ridiculous theory." Chelsea's lips barely moved when he spoke; he looked like a goldfish burping. "Dr. Koocher wasn't murdered, Joe, but in your twisted brain I'm sure you've made some connection between his unfortunate death and this...this typographical error."

Winder laughed. "A typo? You're beautiful, Charlie. The paper's a G.o.dd.a.m.n fake."

Chelsea rolled his eyes. "And I suppose a simpler explanation is impossiblea"that perhaps the author's name was misspelled by the publisher, or that the university was misidentified..."

"No way."

"You're not a well person," Chelsea said. "And now I learn that you've telephoned Koocher's widow in New York. That's simply inexcusable." The way he spit out the word was meant to have a lacerating effect.

"What's inexcusable," said Winder, "is the way you lied."

"It was a judgment call." Chelsea's cheek twitched. "We were trying to spare the woman some grief."

"I told her to get a lawyer."

Chelsea's tan seemed to fade.

Joe Winder went on: "The newspapers are bound to find out the truth. 'Man Gobbled by Whale. Modern-Day Jonah Perishes in Freak Theme Park Mishap.' Think about it, Charlie."

"The coroner said he drowned. We've never denied it."

"But they didn't say how he drowned. Or why."

Charles Chelsea began to rock back and forth. "This is all academic, Joey. As of this moment, you no longer work here."

"And here I thought I was your ace in the hole."

Chelsea extended a hand, palm up. "The keys to the Cushman, please."

Winder obliged. He said, "Charlie, even though you're an obsequious dork, I'd like to believe you're not a part of this. I'd like to believe that you're just incredibly dim."

"Go clean out your desk."

"I don't have to. There's nothing in it."

Chelsea looked momentarily confused.

Winder waved his arms. "Desks are places to keep facts, Charlie. Who needs a desk when the words simply fly off the tops of our heads! h.e.l.l, I've done my finest work for you while sitting on the toilet."

"If you're trying to insult me, it won't work." Chelsea lowered his eyelids in lizardly disinterest. "We all fudge the truth when it suits our purposes, don't we? Like when you told me you got that scar in a car accident."

So he knew all along, just as Joe Winder had suspected.

"I heard it was a fight in the newsroom," Chelsea said, "a fistfight with one of your editors."

"He had it coming," said Winder. "He screwed up a perfectly good news story."

The story concerned Joe Winder's father bribing a county commissioner in exchange for a favorable vote on a zoning variance. Winder had written the story himself after digging through a stack of his father's canceled checks and finding five made out to the commissioner's favorite bagman.

Though admiring of Winder's resourcefulness, the editor had said it created an ethical dilemma; he decided that someone else would have to write the piece. You're too emotionally involved, the editor had told him.

So Winder had gotten a firm grip on the editor's head and rammed it through the screen of the word processor, cutting himself spectacularly in the struggle that followed.

"I'm sorry, Charlie," he said. "Maybe you shouldn't have hired me."

"The understatement of the year."

"Before I go, may I show you something?" He took out the small bottle that Skink had given him and placed it in the center of Chelsea's desk blotter.

The publicity man examined it and said, "It's food coloring, so what?"

"Look closer."

"Betty Crocker food coloring. What's the point, Joe?"

"And what color?"

"Blue." Chelsea was impatient. "The label says blue."

Winder twisted the cap off the bottle. He said, "I believe this came from the vole lab, too. You might ask Pedro about it."

Baffled, Charles Chelsea watched Joe Winder toss back his head and empty the contents of the bottle into his mouth. He sloshed the liquid from cheek to cheek, then swallowed.

"Ready?" Winder said. He stuck out his tongue, which now was the color of indigo dye.

"That's a very cute trick." Chelsea sounded nervous.

Joe Winder climbed onto the desk on his hands and knees. "The voles were phony, Charlie. Did you know that?" He extended his tongue two inches from Chelsea's nose, then sucked it back in. He said, "There's no such thing as a blue-tongued mango vole. Kingsbury faked the whole deal. Invented an entire species!"

"You're cracking up," Chelsea said thinly.

Winder grabbed him by the collar. "You f.u.c.ker, did you know all along?"

"Get out, or I'm calling Security."

"That's why Will Koocher was killed. He'd figured out everything. He was going to rat, so to speak, on the upstanding Mr. Kingsbury."

Chelsea's upper lip was a constellation of tiny droplets. He tried to pull away. "Let me go, Joe. If you know what's good for you."

"They painted their tongues, Charlie. Think of it. They took these itty-bitty animals and dyed their tongues blue, all in the name of tourism."

Straining against Winder's grasp, Chelsea said, "You're talking crazy."

Joe Winder licked him across the face.

"Stop it!"

Winder slurped him again. "It's your color, Charlie. Very snappy."

His tongue waggled in mockery; Chelsea eyed the fat blue thing as if it were a poisonous slug.

"You can fire me," Winder announced, "but I won't go away."

He climbed off the desk, careful not to drop the bottle of food coloring. Chelsea swiftly began plucking tissues from a silver box and wiping his face, examining each crumpled remnant for traces of the dye. His fingers were shaking.

"I should have you arrested," he hissed.

"But you won't," Winder said. "Think of the headlines."

He was halfway to the door when Chelsea said, "Wait a minute, Joey. What is it you want?"

Winder kept walking, and began to laugh. He laughed all the way down the hall, a creepy melodic warble that made Charles Chelsea shudder and curse.

SIXTEEN.

As a reward for the successful theft of Francis X. Kingsbury's files, Molly McNamara allowed Bud Schwartz and Danny Pogue to keep the rented Cutla.s.s for a few days.

On the evening of July 22, they drove down Old Cutler Road, where many of Miami's wealthiest citizens lived. The homes were large and comfortable-looking, and set back impressively from the tree-shaded road. Danny Pogue couldn't get over the size of the yards, the tall old pines and colorful tropical shrubbery; it was beautiful, yet intimidating.

"They got those Spanish bayonets under the windows," he reported. "G.o.d, I hate them things." Wicked needles on the end of every stalka"absolute murder, even with gloves.

Bud Schwartz said, "Don't sweat it, we'll find us a back door."