Tuna Tango

by Steven Becker

  “I’ll take this and be right back,” he said as he pushed the platform into the night air. Reaching the seawall, he hopped off and started unloading the huge fillets onto the concrete. He was about to jump onto the wall when headlights flashed into the parking lot and the truck pulled in.

  “Shit, Dick! He’s back.”

  ***

  Will was in the cabin of the boat, cooking a fillet from a snook he had caught earlier in the afternoon. He had noticed an abundance of fish attracted to the structure of the building when he had done his inspection the other day and knew from his years as a guide how any kind of structure was a fish magnet; the piers of the building a perfect spot for the smaller bait fish to hide and the larger predators to ambush their prey.

  Unfortunately, his rods and reels were still at his old house, and he had no desire for another run in with Sheryl, so he’d decided on a more primitive method.

  From the convenience store down the street, he had bought some 12-pound test line, medium-sized hooks, and bait. Using the holes they had cut in the floor like an ice fisherman, he rigged a line to each hole, using a two-by-four spread across the opening to hold it in place. An unattended line would not hook nearly as many fish, but there was a way around that. To set the hook, he pulled back two feet of line and looped it with a rubber band attaching it to the two-by-four with a nail. Once the fish hit, it would take the bait and pull on the excess line. The rubber band would allow enough time and recoil for the fish to hook itself.

  He had set up the rigs and gone to get some supplies, hoping dinner would be at the end of one of the lines when he got back. Less than an hour later, when he returned, two of the rigs were pulled tight, the rubber bands broken. The lines came up easily, a fat snook on the end of both.

  That was two hours ago. He had filleted the fish and walked across the street to the beach to watch the sunset. Now back aboard, he had two fillets cooking in butter on the small gas stove. Dinner cooked, he went back to the cockpit to escape the heat of the cabin. Just as he sat down to eat, he saw the lights of the truck pull into the parking lot next door. He set the plate down, stepped onto the dock, and made his way to the seawall, trying to stay out of site. As he got closer, he saw what looked like Kyle’s car with it’s headlights on.

  Fearful that the boys had broken into the cooler again and were now in danger, he did a quick inventory of what was at hand, trying to find anything that might be serviceable as a weapon. He felt some responsibility for their indiscretion—unable to pay them earlier, they were probably desperate for cash. He couldn’t get to his tools in the fish house without being discovered, though, so he ran back to the boat and looked through the storage. With a flare gun in one hand and a boat hook in the other, he crept back toward the building.

  George was standing by the door of the cooler with two men, cursing under his breath as he tried several keys in the lock. He relaxed slightly as he realized that if the lock wasn’t cut, the boys must have been up to something else. But what? At the end of the dock, he reached an exposed area that was clearly visible from where George stood, though the big man was still head down, working the lock. He yelled something at one of the men, who went to the truck and came back with a pair of bolt cutters. George stood back as the man cut the lock and opened the door.

  “It’s gone!” one of the men yelled.

  George looked around the lot. “What’s with that clown car over there? It’s running. Go find out who’s here!” he screamed.

  Will crouched low to avoid being seen as he watched the three men spread out and search. They tried the door to the building, but it was still locked. The beam of the flashlight moved to the seawall, and Will could clearly see Kyle standing chest deep in the water with a pile of tuna fillets.

  There was nothing he could do as George yelled for the men to come over and they pulled Kyle out of the water. One threw him against the building while the other loaded the fillets into one of several coolers in the back of the truck.

  George went over to Kyle and punched him in the stomach. He started yelling questions at him, but Kyle just stood there, looking like he was going to throw up, and said nothing. One of the men came over to them and said something to George that Will couldn’t make out. George punched Kyle in the face and went to the truck.

  A moment later, he came back toward the shaken boy, his hands balled into fists. Will could clearly hear him screaming that it was only half the fish. He hit him again and Kyle went down in a lump. Then he kicked him and the two men dragged him to the truck.

  Chapter 10

  Will ran to the seawall, unsure of what he had just witnessed. Both the platform and concrete were covered in blood and fish slime. He turned to look at Kyle’s car, noticed it was still running, and went to turn it off. As he reached in through the open window to turn off the ignition, he saw a pair of eyes reflected in the headlights. His first thought was a gator, but they didn’t live in salt water. Wondering what else it could be, he went to the gap between the building and seawall and leaned over.

  “Will. What the fuck,” came the broken voice.

  “Dick? They’re gone. Come out of there,” Will said.

  “I gotta get the rest of this fish out. Where’s Kyle?”

  “You didn’t see?”

  “No. I saw that dude pull up in the black truck, but that’s it. Can you send the platform over here?”

  Will went back to the corner of the building where the platform bobbed in the small waves, kicked some of the fish remnants into the water, and climbed on. He was starting to get an idea of what the boys were up to. As he started to pull the joists, he slipped on the greasy plywood, barely keeping his balance. He maneuvered his feet to a clean spot and moved the platform toward Dick. The fish carcass lay on the rocks, there, a pile of fillets beside it.

  “Holy crap. Where did that come from?”

  “Never mind that, I’ll tell you later. Can you just get me out of here and tell me what happened to Kyle?”

  Will could hear the panic in his voice, and decided to get him to the parking lot before telling him that Kyle was gone. He pulled the platform toward him and helped load the fillets. Dick jumped on next to the three huge piles of meat with the Sawzall in hand and a large grin on his face. Seawater flooded onto the overloaded deck as Will pulled the craft toward the seawall, with Dick huddled over the cargo, protecting it from sliding off. When he reached the end of the building, he glanced at the parking lot to see if there were any onlookers and, with a final push, escaped the confines of the understructure.

  “You better start talking,” Will said as he pulled his body from the platform to the seawall.

  Dick sat next to the fillets. “Would you just tell me what happened to Kyle?” He got up, jumped onto the seawall and started pacing nervously,

  “That guy, George, took him. Smacked him around and then threw him in the truck. OK. Now spill it.”

  Dick started to balk. “We were just trying to get some cash to pay this guy back. If you would have given us the advance—”

  Will blew. “Don’t you even think about blaming this on me. You guys have known me for three days and worked all of eight hours. You make your own decisions.”

  “OK, OK.” Dick looked around. “Hey, you don’t have any weed do you? My stuff is wet.”

  “Damn it, Dick. Kyle is gone, you have a pile of what looks like illegal bluefin tuna, and you want weed?”

  “It calms me down. You have no idea.” He put his head down.

  “Would you please tell me what you two are into, and maybe we can figure out what to do about Kyle.”

  He was getting impatient. George could have killed him by now and dumped his body … or he could be coming back here to look for the rest of the fish. The more he thought about it, the more he realized the story could wait. If George did come back, and found them like this, he would be implicated as well.

  “Hurry up. Let’s get the fish in the building and clean this mess up before he comes
back. Then we can figure out what to do about Kyle. It’s not going to help him if we get caught, too.”

  They carried the piles of fish into the building, fighting the flies that were eagerly swarming around the warming fillets. Dick dragged a hose to the platform and cleaned the surface and seawall. When all the evidence was gone, Will took the platform underneath again. He swatted the flies as he jammed a large screwdriver into the eyes of the fish to keep it from floating to the surface, and then unceremoniously slid it into the water. Now it would stay below the water and be quickly consumed by crabs.

  Dick was just finishing the cleanup when Will emerged and tied off the platform. “Let’s go to my boat over there, and you can tell me what in the hell you two are into.”

  He walked away without waiting for an answer. Halfway down the dock, he saw Dick close the car door and come running after him. Back on board, he sat in the cockpit and waited while Dick told him about the cooler and the fish, stopping frequently to pull hard on a roach he must have recovered from the car.

  “So, you guys broke in again? I guess it won’t do any good to fire you.” He got up.

  “Where you going?”

  “To the police. Your friend has been abducted and you’re sitting here smoking a joint. It’s not my problem, but someone has to do something.”

  “Wait. Look, man.”

  Will turned to walk away.

  “OK, there’s more. Me and Kyle are in some trouble with some bad dudes. You can’t go to the police. I’ve got a couple of bench warrants I know of, and what about the fish? We stole it, too. It’s his word against ours, and that’s like felony shit.”

  Will turned around and sat down. He needed a few minutes to process all the information, and sent Dick into the cabin for two beers. The downside of taking this to the police quickly came to mind as he sipped his beer. Between the illegal fish and the abduction, the fish house would be a crime scene forever. There would be no more income from the job, and he had no other prospects. And crawling back to Sheryl after what had just happened was not a good option right now.

  He looked at Dick. Even though it had only been a couple of days, he had grown attached to the boys. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but it seemed that there was a little bit of each of them in him, and they were starting to grow on him like younger brothers.

  Plus, if he went to the police, he was probably also guilty by association, and would have to worry about retribution from George, as well as prison time.

  “OK. No police. For now. We know George has him, and I met a couple guys the other night that know him. I can go over to the bar where they hang out and talk them up. See if I can find out where he lives, or if he has any commercial buildings around here. Hang out - I’ll be back.”

  He got up to leave, giving Dick a hard look before he acknowledged him.

  ***

  Dick waited for a few minutes, finishing the joint and throwing it overboard before he got up and went back to the fish house. What was the point of sitting there waiting for Will, when the least he could do was to sell the fish and pay off his and Kyle’s debt? The padlock on the plywood door was locked and he had a quick, anxious moment before he remembered the holes in the floor. He went back to the platform and pushed himself under the building, stopping at the first hole he came to. As he had earlier, he struggled through the opening, missing on his first attempt. Once inside the building, he went for the fillets, now covered with flies, and started tossing them down onto the platform. He followed the last one through the hole and pushed the platform toward the seawall.

  With an eye on the road in case George or Will came back, he loaded the fillets into the backseat, rubbed his slimy hands on his cargo shorts, and sat in the driver’s seat. It had been a while since he had driven, having lost his license to traffic violations and court no-shows a year or so ago, but the keys were still in the ignition and he started the engine. Flies buzzed around his head as he opened the windows and pulled out of the lot. Once on the road, he drove as fast as he thought he could get away with, the flies streaming out the windows as he accelerated.

  The only choice to sell the fish now was Dirk, the fish dip guy. Dick figured he had at least a hundred pounds of fillets, and that would get him at least a couple hundred dollars—just enough to pay off Rucker. He knew the fillets were worth more, but he had no idea where to get their true value. He drove toward the Gandy Bridge, glancing down at the lights from the boats fishing below, and wishing he were there instead of in his current mess.

  At the end of the bridge, he followed Gandy Boulevard for several blocks before turning right into an older residential area. He passed rows of homes, mostly built in the 40s and 50s, all with the same ranch house layout and shallow pitch roof. They’d been built to house the residents of MacDill Air Force Base, nearby, so they all looked exactly the same. Finally, he stopped at a rundown house with an unkempt front yard and a boat sitting on a trailer with a flat tire in the driveway. Even in the dark he could tell the lawn was dead.

  A light came on as soon as he pulled in the driveway, and a face peered out from behind the flimsy curtains. Dick breathed a sigh of relief; Dirk must have recognized the car, because he went right to the door. They talked neighborhood gossip for a few minutes before Dick showed him the fillets, and then quickly made a deal.

  A few flies still swarmed the slimy backseat as Dick pulled out of the driveway a few minutes later, but at least he had some cash. Enough to pay their debt and maybe score a little more weed to see him through. Dirk had seen the fish for what it was and paid him a premium.

  He drove slow, now, careful to stay just below the speed limit as the houses started to get nicer. The neighborhood changed from all older homes to a few blocks of old mixed with newer homes dwarfing the original houses. Builders had moved in and started buying the smaller homes, tearing them down and building as large a house as possible.

  Soon all the houses were new. He pulled into a driveway, skirting the large circle in front of the house, and proceeded to a gate on the side, where an intercom buzzed. The gate opened in front of him. The smaller driveway led to a courtyard behind the home, where he parked and waited, knowing that Rucker had seen him on the security cameras.

  “Dicky.”

  He heard the voice before he saw the man. The relationship tortured him—they had run in the same group in high school, but Rucker had cleaned up his act and gone to college, while Dick was, well, where he was. Rucker had become a banker, but his greed had grown, and he’d started supplementing his banking career with drug sales. The man approached the car, dressed in a high-class suit and smirking.

  “Didn’t expect to see you. And driving! Shit. Where’s Kyle?”

  “He’s working.”

  “Well, you come to settle up?” He looked at his watch.

  “Yeah, I got your money.” Dick handed him several hundreds through the window.

  Rucker took the money, folded it neatly, and put it in his pocket. “That’s it? Where’s the rest?”

  Dick stammered, “Kyle said we owed five hundred. That’s what I gave you.”

  “He didn’t add the interest and penalty. You guys are real late. I need another two hundred.” He leaned into the window. “Christ, what’s that smell?”

  Dick sat there frozen. Rucker might have been a high school friend, but he was serious about his side business and collecting. He had no qualms about sending muscle after his money. Dick handed him the extra hundred he had held back, hoping that would placate him.

  “Another bill. That’ll buy you another day. But remember, it goes up fifty a day.”

  Dick didn’t answer. He pulled the shifter into reverse and backed into the turnaround, then put the car in drive and drove back toward the street. The gate was closed, and he had to wait anxiously for Rucker to open it before he could leave. He knew the guy was waiting the few extra seconds just to torture him.

  Two streets over, he pulled into a dark spot where the streetlight had bur
nt out, and checked the glove compartment. There was a small baggie with a little weed—maybe enough for a day. But the way things were going, he knew his consumption was sure to go up with all the stress.

  He reached into his pocket and pulled out the pipe, dumped the wet contents onto the street, and packed a full bowl. At least the ride back to the beach would be mellow, he thought as he turned on the radio.

  Chapter 11

  Will walked down to the bar, still thinking about what to do. Kyle was in danger, and he rethought his decision about the police. Maybe an anonymous tip would at least alert them there was a problem, but other than that, he could find no way to approach the authorities without involving himself and Dick.

  He entered the bar and saw one of the guys he had talked to the other night. They exchanged pleasantries and Will sat next to him at the quiet bar, both glancing at the football game on the TV. The men exchanged comments about the game as they watched and drank. Will finished his beer and summoned the courage to ask about George. There was really no way to ask what he needed without sounding like he was fishing for information, so he didn’t attempt to disguise the conversation.

  “You know that guy we were talking about the other night?” he started. “I need to find him. Do you know if he lives around here, or has an office or anything?”

  The man put down his beer and looked Will in the eye. “I warned you about George and his crooked deals. You haven’t gotten involved in something have you?”

  “Not me. But a friend kind of got mixed up in something.” He felt better not lying.

  “All the same, even the police keep their distance from him. He actually filed a law suit a couple of years ago that they were harassing him. I don’t know how it ended, but since then he runs around the beach like he owns it.” He drank from his beer. “Be careful, is all I’m saying.”