Paz nodded. He had some experience both with beings appearing from nowhere and with uncanny geometries. “I like that one. So you think it’s possible.”

“Not the right question. Like I said, anything’s possible, but almost everything except what we observe is ridiculously improbable. On the other hand, we don’t know shit about either consciousness on the fine grain, or about the probability set associated with dimensions other than the familiar ones.” He regarded the present beer can, found it empty, flung it away. “There, that solves the physical problem, but it leaves the sociopolitical one, which I think is the most telling.”

“Which is what?”

“Which is that if these little guys, these shamans, can do all that subtle moving of energies with their minds, how come they don’t rule the world now? How come scientific technology totally destroys any competing worldview? I mean, destroys it physically? The Indians are all on reservations, if you notice, and all the indigenous people, so called, are flocking into cities, dying to sew underwear and get a TV.”

“Mozart,” said Paz.

“Say what?”

“A woman I once knew, an anthropologist, said that magic was like a creative art. There were geniuses that could do things that no one else could, just like Mozart, but that they couldn’t package what they did so that the whole culture could do it, too. But any asshole can use science packaged as technology, so the primitives get killed off everywhere, like you said.”

“Hmph. Sounds like something an anthropologist would cook up. Now, do you want to know the real explanation?”

“If you would be so kind.”

“You have perfectly ordinary murders by human murderers, who are also charlatans. The so-called evidence is planted and faked. The observers are distracted and/or scared to death, or are believers and autohypnotize themselves.”

“Yeah, that’s the current police theory. But how come me and my wife and my kid are having the same dream about a jaguar while this is going on?”

“Oh,dreams! Nowthere’s a body of reliable evidence! Look, the reason science more or less abandoned self-reporting in the study of the human mind is that with the right suggestion people will report fuckinganything. I mean the whole purpose of the scientific enterprise is to eliminate-”

“Daddy! My hook is stuck!”

Both men looked at Amelia, whose rod was bowed nearly double. Paz realized with a guilty shock that he had nearly forgotten she was on board. The drag on her reel let out a number of clicks. Paz jumped to her side and took the rod from her. He heaved on it and felt the tug of a live weight on the line. Handing it back, he said, “That’s not stuck, baby, you have a fish on there. Reel it in!”

As she did, Zwick leaned over the side and observed the line. “I think it’s an old tire. It doesn’t seem to be doing much running.”

“Shut up, Zwick! Don’t tell a Cuban about what’s a fish. Am I right, Amelia?”

“It’s a fish,” she cried. “I can feel it moving.”

She was correct. After five minutes of steady cranking a large gray shape could be seen moving toward the surface. Paz reached out with a landing net and heaved the thing over the rail, but it was lively still and with a violent gyration it leaped from the net and began to skip and bounce along the deck.

“What is it, Daddy?” the girl shouted.

“It’s a hardhead catfish. God, it must be a two-pounder. Wait a second, I’ll get the net on it again…”

But the fish skittered across to where Zwick was standing. He raised his foot. Paz saw what he was about to do and a negative expostulation formed in his throat. Too late. Zwick stamped down heavily on the catfish’s back, and the sharp, thick, venom-coated spine that marine catfish wear in their dorsal fins went right through the bottom of his sneaker and pierced his foot to the bone.

“Does it still hurt?” Paz called out twenty minutes later as theMata skipped over the bay toward Flamingo, going all out.

“Not really. I just amputated my foot with your bait knife.”

“Seriously.”

“Seriously? It’sagony! Why the hell didn’t you tell me the goddamn thing had a poison spine in its back?”

“Because I thought you knew everything,” said Paz. “Who could imagine that the world’s smartest man would tromp on a catfish? We’re almost at the channel. Do you want me to take you to Jackson?”

“Hell, no!” said Zwick. “I might get touched by one of my students. No, let’s go to South Miami, it’s closer anyway.”

Seventeen

Ifail to see why everyone sort of turns away and giggles when I tell them what happened to me,” said Zwick to Lola Wise. His tone was aggrieved, but she was hard-pressed not to giggle herself.

“It’s nothing to be ashamed of,” said Lola. “I heard that Sir Francis Crick once stuck his tongue in a light socket.”

“You’re giggling, too! You’ll probably be laughing your ass off when I get permanent brain damage from this operation.”

“It’s a local, Zwick. They have to clean out the puncture. You don’t get permanent brain damage from a local anesthetic. You’re a doctor, you know this. I can’t believe you’re being such a baby.”

Lola felt a tug and leaned over to receive a whisper from her daughter. “Amy says you can get Dove bars in the cafeteria. She says she always gets one when she has to get shots and wishes to know if the same will make you stop whining.”

“Thanks, Amy,” said Zwick. “Throughout this you’ve been the only person who hasn’t made me feel like a jerk. Tell me, Amy, this is something you learn in kindergarten here? The colors, the alphabet, and catfish have poisonous dorsal spines-that’s in the curriculum?”

Before Amelia could consider this question, a nurse came in, giggling, and whisked Zwick off on a gurney.

“Where’s Daddy?” Lola asked.

“Around. Mommy, is it my fault that Bob got stuck? It was my catfish.”

“No, of course not, sugar. It was an accident. He didn’t know it was dangerous to step on it.”

“But,technically, if I hadn’t’ve caught this fish, he wouldn’t be hurt.”

Lola bent down and gave the girl a hug and a tickle. “Oh, stop it!Technically, if I hadn’t met your father and got married and had you, you wouldn’t be there and wouldn’t have caught the fish. You can’t string contingencies out that far; you’d go nuts.”

“What’s contingencies?”

“Stuff that happens because of other stuff. The point is, contingency is morally neutral. Responsibility follows intent. You didn’t intend to hurt Bob’s foot, did you? No? Then you’re off the hook.”

“Like the catfish,” said Paz, catching this last as he entered. He caressed his daughter and wife simultaneously. “We have a seriouspescadora here,” he said, nuzzling the girl. “She landed that monster all by herself, two pounds three ounces, a major fish.”

“Yes,” said his wife, “we were just discussing the tangled web of contingency and how while she was responsible for the fish being there she was not responsible for Bob getting stuck.”

“True enough, but on the other hand, you might say that Zwick needed to be punctured a little. A lot of people think that what happens was meant to happen.”

“It’s a point of view,” said Lola, in a tone that indicated she did not share it. “Anyway, I have to go check on a patient.”

“Busy day? I was surprised to see you working.”

“I’m not meant to lounge, as you know. I was going batty in the house and I figured I’d ease back in on a slow shift. This is a strange one, by the way, this patient. A couple of Good Samaritans found her wandering up Dixie Highway, naked. They thought she’d been drugged and assaulted.”

“Was she?”

“Hard to say. No drugs in the blood work. Sexually active, but she hadn’t been raped, not recently anyway. On the other hand, shehad been tied up with tape, hands and feet. I can’t get anything out of her-mute and flaccid. And an epileptic. She seized just after she got here.”