The pilot touched down smoothly and slowed. “How can we tell if this is the right dock?”
“It’s the first one up from the creek,” Tommy said. “Can you turn around and come in with my side to the dock? Then I can hop out and hold the plane. Leave the engine running, so you can take off immediately if this is the right place.”
The pilot made a wide turn, set the engine at idle and approached the dock. As he did a man came jogging down the dock.
“That’s Mike!” Tommy yelled. “He’ll catch us.”
The pilot maneuvered closer until the wing was over the dock. The man reached out, grabbed the strut under the wing and pulled them until the floats brushed the fenders attached to the dock. Tommy opened the door and tossed his overnight bag onto the pontoon, then hopped out and closed the door. He gave the pilot a thumbs-up and, with Mike’s help, pushed the airplane away from the dock. A moment later the airplane was picking up speed, and a moment after that it lifted off and headed south, climbing.
“Hey, Mike!” Tommy said, shaking his hand and clapping him on the shoulder. “How you been?”
“Not too bad,” Michael Levy replied. He was a little over six feet tall, on the slim side, wearing shorts, sneakers and a polo shirt. He grabbed Tommy’s bag and started up the dock. “C’mon,” he said.
“I’ll show you what I’ve got done.”
GI G I D R O V E T H E rental car down the paved road, with Larry Lee, which was his real name, in the passenger seat. “Look at that,” Larry said, pointing to an airplane climbing above the tree line, headed south.
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“It’s just an airplane,” Gigi said, checking their map. “Here’s the road to the marina coming up.”
“It’s against the law in Florida to land an airplane on a beach or on the inland waterway,” Larry said.
“Does anybody pay attention to that?” she asked.
“The cops don’t,” he replied.
“Did the airplane have any offi cial markings?”
“No, it looks ordinary enough,” Larry said, “but I still don’t like it.”
She reached the road with a sign pointing left to the Osprey Marina—private.
“Slow down,” Larry said. “Slow way down.” They came to a bridge. “Stop at the top of the bridge,” he said.
“All right.”
The bridge gave them a little elevation to see above the trees, which weren’t very tall.
“We’ve got a nearly empty parking lot, a shack and a fl oating pontoon,” she said. “No more than a dozen boats, and I don’t see any people.”
“There’s one,” Larry said. A man had stepped onto the pontoon from a small motorboat with a cabin and was walking toward the connecting footbridge that rose and fell with the tide. He was carrying a sailing duffel. “Let’s just wait here a minute,” Larry said. The man walked ashore, tossed his duffel in the back of a pickup, got in, started it and drove toward the road.
“Go ahead slowly,” Larry said. “Let him get past us, then stop before you get to the parking lot.”
The truck passed them going the other way as they drove off the bridge.
“He looks like a regular guy with a boat,” Gigi said.
“Yeah, he does. Just pull over about fifty yards ahead at that wide
spot. I want to take a look on foot.”
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S t u a r t W o o d s