Lassiter 07 - Flesh and Bones by Levine, Paul (best fiction books to read TXT) 📗

"Hey, stupid. Destruction of county property is a misdemeanor," the black woman said in a bored tone that made me think she'd said it before. "I'm gonna call a cop."

I was hopping on one foot, squeezing my right hand into my left armpit, trying to strangle the pain. "The only time I was arrested," I said grimacing, "it was a case of mistaken identity."

She gave me a cross-eyed look.

"I didn't know the guy I hit was a cop."

"I don't understand, Carmody," I said, leafing through stacks of zoning permits and building plans. "It's got to be here."

"Don't be stupid," Carmody Jones said.

The huge woman clerk and I had progressed to first names. I called her Carmody and she called me Stupid.

She thumbed through a file of her own. "That farm is in what's called a special taxing district. It's almost like a little city. Like what Disney World did. Constructs its own sewers and roads."

"And buildings," I said, thinking of the giant structure rising along the irrigation ditch. "Just when did Guy Bernhardt get himself a special taxing district?"

"Last November twelfth," she said, pulling out a blue-backed document with a gold seal. "A resolution followed by special ordinance of the county commission. It was unanimous. Recommended by the staff of Building and Zoning, also the Department of Environmental Regulation, the Planning Commission, the South Dade Master Plan Council. A special agenda item at the end of the meeting. No debate, no protesters."

"No publicity," I said, looking at the file. My right hand was tucked into a Baggie filled with ice, courtesy of Carmody. I started reading aloud: "Whereas Bernhardt Farms, Inc., a Florida corporation, intends to pursue the public purpose of furnishing water both for itself and for other users, including Dade County; whereas Bernhardt Farms, Inc., has pledged to undertake this activity on its own without resort to public funds; whereas South Florida suffers the clear and present danger of drought and a falling water table; and whereas Bernhardt Farms, Inc., has pledged to use the latest technology in desalination . . ."

Desalination.

Now there was a new one for me. Confusing as ever. First good old Guy Bernhardt outrages his neighbors by sucking their wells dry. And now he's going to turn salt water into gold.

"Desal," Charlie Riggs said.

"He's going to take salt water from the ocean and make fresh water?" I asked.

"More likely he's going to draw up brackish water from the Floridan Aquifer."

Doc Charlie Riggs knows most of what's worth knowing and a lot that isn't.

"I would agree," said Harrison Baker, fiddling with his mustache. I was in the presence of two old coots, and that didn't include my granny, who was filling mason jars with a clear liquid that surely did not come from the aquifer. We were on the porch of her old house in Islamorada. The sun was setting in the gulf, the palm fronds were slapping the tin roof, and all of us were a tinge overheated from the white lightning, which only stoked the fires of a tropical July day. "Salt water is too expensive to treat," Baker went on, "except when there's no other choice. On desert islands, that sort of thing."

"Then there's the salt byproduct and the question of disposal," Charlie Riggs added.

"Quite right," Baker said, taking a sip of Granny's moonshine. "Produce ten million gallons of water a day and you'll end up with over two million pounds of salt. You can't leave it on the ground or it will pollute the groundwater. You can't put it back in the ocean or it will destroy all life for a hundred miles."

He paused a moment, his eyes tearing, either from the thought of dying coral or the sting of Granny's liquor.

"But with the new technology," Charlie Riggs said, "once you recovered capital costs for construction, you could probably treat brackish water for the same price as fresh groundwater and produce far less brine than with seawater."

Baker nodded. "Reverse osmosis would be best."

Charlie sipped at his mason jar and seemed to agree.

I asked a few questions. I learned that reverse osmosis, like distillation, takes the water out of the salt, whereas electrodialysis and ion exchange take the salt out of the water. To oversimplify it, Charlie said with a look that implied I needed all the simplification I could get, all you need for osmosis is a lot of electricity, some high-pressure pumps, and a filter. And lots and lots of brackish water.

We gel our drinking water. Baker had already told me, from the Biscayne Aquifer, the layer of porous rock that sits just under the ground. Go deeper and you'll run into sediments about seven hundred feet thick. Below that is the Upper Floridan, containing brackish, highly mineralized water not suitable for drinking unless you remove the salt.

"Some cities have done it," Baker said, turning to me, "but no private party ever has, not with a plant like you're describing, not on that scale."

"So what's Guy Bernhardt going to do with all the water he's going to produce?" Charlie Riggs asked.

I knew, of course, but my granny was quicker. "Unless he's a dang fool," she said, "he's gonna sell it."

17

I Am a Man

I didn't tell Chrissy Bernhardt where we were going. I didn't want her to have time to call Dr. Schein, or her brother, or anyone else who might have told her what to do.

Like take a pill raising her blood pressure.

I figured she wouldn't know the other tricks the cons are so good at. Biting the tongue. Sticking a nail in the shoe.

So I wasn't playing straight with her. Because I was afraid she wasn't playing straight with me.

A lawyer needs to know the truth.

No, strike that. I can't speak for my brethren. I need to know the truth.

Maybe it's a failing. Maybe I'd be better off not knowing. Maybe I should just take whatever gift horse Schein was riding. But I couldn't. I don't know why, I just couldn't.

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