Kate took it from her hand and held it up so the lights from the parking lot shone on it.
“Three brown rats,” she said. “One wood rat.”
She and Sarah looked at each other for a moment. Kate shook her head sadly and got out of the car, walked back across the parking lot, and dropped the bag into the school Dumpster. Sarah and Thorn were quiet. Thorn watched Kate come back across the dewy grass.
She started the car, and Thorn shifted sideways, resting his legs across the backseat. Sarah glanced back at him as they got under way. She smiled at him, but Thorn saw something in her face, a slight lift in her eyebrows, a flush that made him uneasy, as though his boxing workout had somehow aroused her.
A mile down the road Kate pulled the pins out of her hair, shaking her head to let the wind work it loose.
5
KATE TRUMAN CUT THE THIRTY-TWO-FOOT Chris-Craft to an idle, still coasting forward, following the pathway of moonlight toward the east, out toward the shipping lanes. It’d been over a week since she’d had the boat out with Sarah, longer than she liked to leave the boat out of action, but everything was smooth, engine running without a murmur.
She took the big Chevy out of gear, watched the depth finder print out the bottom. The graph paper showed 60 feet, a gradual dropping away, then, as the vessel finished its coast, a plunge to 105, 110. The wall. Just east of Conch Reef, seven miles off Key Largo. Stacks of yellowtail, shadows of computer ink on the paper, marshaled just across the precipice, the larger ones halfway down the ledge.
“They’re here,” to no one.
She shut the engine off, went forward, and released the anchor. The current was running hard to the northeast. The stern would swing around, and they could lay their chum line right out across the edge of the wall.
Wary for a while, but after some glass minnows, a little macaroni, some menhaden oil, those fish would devour anything she dropped overboard. She’d seen nights the water had turned yellow with fish.
She made the anchor line fast. Alone, she might have stayed up on the bow, admiring. Moon still big, flat calm, a splash from flying fish or ballyhoo. Always something going on below the surface. She could use some of those Atlantic negative ions or whatever it was that granted you the peacefulness, the full, deep breath. There seemed to be a name for everything these days. Everything just biology and chemistry or a little trigonometry. Even the tranquilizing ocean, even tracking down the fish, all named, numbered, binaried.
But tonight she wasn’t alone. Her anglers for the evening, Laurel and Hardy, or what, Gomez and Fernandez? The skinny, sweaty one handled the conversation; the fat one probably a Marielito, six months ashore, whispered. All he did, whisper, whisper. Maybe he’d had to sell his voice box for passage over.
Both of them in their black, shiny shirts. The Laurel one wearing mirror sunglasses, in case the moon flared up. Rings the size of brass knuckles. Street shoes. A diamond earring, for godsakes. Ten o’clock at night and dressed for the disco. She should have just turned them away at the dock. “You can’t come aboard a fishing boat looking like Al Capone’s nightmares.”
Those people. Who bought all the black, shiny shirts before the new wave of Cubans arrived? It wasn’t like she had anything going on against Cubans. There’d been Cubans fishing down here, living here all her life. But these new ones. They behaved by some other book.
The one with English had wanted to go yellowtailing. He’d called her up at home and said he wanted her to guide. Wouldn’t be persuaded that yellowtailing was off. Very slow. Everything on the reef had been slow for most of June. Some Guatemalan freighter had run aground on Alligator Reef, and in the weeks that the tugs had been pulling at her, the water had gotten so milky all up and down the reef line, the fishing had died.
She told him no. She wouldn’t take his money for just a boat ride. She was a billfish guide anyway. No meat fishing unless it was for Thorn and her, groceries. But with charters, it was strictly catch and release, except for the occasional trophy fish.
The Cuban wouldn’t let go of it. Said he was down from New Jersey, came all this way to catch his favorite fish.
“No,” she’d said. And she gave him the names of a couple of others she knew could use the work.
He’d said, “I want the best.” And she asked him right back who had referred him to her.
“I forget her name,” the Cuban had said. “But I have yellowtail once a long ago, and I never forget it. It’s a savory fish, the best. I like the best.”
“Try one of those others. One of them’ll find you fish.”
“It was Roxy. Or like that. Said she was related. In Key West, where we eat breakfast.”
“I have a daughter, Ricki.”
“This is the one, then,” he said, sounding in a hurry now to get past this name business.
“Ricki recommended me?” she said. Not like her, not at all.
“Say you always get fish. Yellowtail, anything.”
“Well.” Weakening.
“We’ll not be trouble. Pay in front. Don’t worry about us.”
“All right,” she’d said, only because of Ricki. ’Cause she wanted to see who these guys were Ricki would recommend her to, after all this time. Even a little touched that Ricki would give her name. Yes, touched. Otherwise, she’d already begun building a case against this guy.
She put the chum bag in, sprinkled some elbow macaroni overboard. Poured a half gallon of menhaden oil over. Watching the slick spread across the calm surface. More whispering, the big one hunched over his companion, a real speech this time. Neither of them particularly interested in the chumming.
When she was finished, she turned and motioned at the big guy, who was looking over the side, holding on to the rail. She asked if he was OK.
“He is unused to being on the water,” said the little, skinny one. His mirror glasses full of moonlight. His hook nose the shape of a shark fin.
“Where does he usually fish?”
“I understand what you mean”—this with a trace of José Jiménez. “He is catching fish most times before from bridges.”
“Tell him if it gets any calmer than this, you could putt on it.”
The short, curly-haired one spoke out loud to the big man. It wasn’t Spanish, not Cuban, not Puerto Rican, nothing remotely Spanish. She’d heard the real thing all her life. This was something else.
She spilled some more macaroni onto the flat sea. Hands sweaty now. Not concentrating on the path the chum was taking. Eyes scanning, searching out lights. The two of them were watching her when she turned. She couldn’t read their looks. The little one was wiping his hands on the seat of his dark pants. Then he clasped his hands and stretched them inside out.
He said to her, “All that shit in the water, doesn’t it bring in sharks?” He’d taken off his mirror glasses, was holding them in his hand.
“It brings in yellowtail first,” she said, shifting the bucket of glass minnow slush to her right hand. She felt a queasy shake begin in her stomach, sending a wobble into her legs.
“But the sharks,” he said, smiling now with his eyes. The moon shining up his earring. “They come around, too. I want to see that. I like sharks. I like the idea of sharks.”
The big one was staring at him.
“Let’s catch us a goddamn shark. Forget this yellowtail shit.” His accent gone. Just American, plain, flat, maybe Ohio, maybe Indiana. It was a hobby of hers, placing accents. With all the tourists, you got so you could hear it.
“I’ll get the rods,” she said, fighting with the wobble.
“This is them here.” The little one motioned at the rocket launcher. It held two rigged yellowtail rods. Just that brass hook knotted onto twelve-pound test, no leader. Bahama rigging.
She said, “Those are bonefish rods. The yellowtail tackle’s in here.” She moved toward the cabin, not waiting for his permission. Pretending it was all going according to plan.
“Stay out here with us,” the little one said, s
omething new in his voice now. A little strain, something frayed, a whine but with anger in it.
“I’m getting the other rods.”
“You’re fucking staying out here in the fucking moonlight where I can fucking see you.”
Where did they come from? Holsters under those tight nylon shirts? Two blue-black pistols, darker than the night around them. The big fellow was starting to bob around now, impatient, as if the boat were rocking or something. His pistol bobbing with him.
“I don’t know about you, Irv,” he said. “I don’t fucking know about you sometime.”
“You got that right, boy. Call me unpredictable. Mr. unfucking-predictable.”
“I don’t like it, man. I don’t like changing the plan in the middle of things.”
“Hey.” The little one stepped over to him, watching Kate. “Hey.” He slapped the big man on the cheek, half-playfully. “You got to learn to improvise, buddy. You gonna ever learn how to be creative, you got to start letting go. Got to go with the flow.”
“Which way’s the flow fucking going, is what I want to know. I’m here, man, going with the fucking flow, and then the flow starts going somewhere else, you know. And it makes me a little nauseous.”
“Everything makes you puke. You got puke for blood.” Never taking an eye off Kate.
She’d run through her alternatives already. Dive into the cockpit, find her .38. Dive overboard. Rush them. Overboard seemed the best. But all that moonlight. Talk them out of whatever it was. She thought she knew what it was. Not much chance of talking somebody’s hired help out of their job.
The panic had gone, the shiver in her legs, like stage fright. Now that the curtain had swept back, and here it was, her nightmare come alive, she was composed. The same practical calm that overtook her when the big reel was spinning, a marlin running. Slow-motion calm. Do this, then this.
“You’re a pretty woman, you know that? For an old hag. How old are you anyway? Sixty-five, seventy? Gone dry, I bet, and me without nothing but reel grease in my tackle box. Hey, wouldn’t that be just right? Screwed the charter boat captain with reel grease.”
This man, Irv, took a couple of steps toward her, a little flounce, a cocky tilt of head.
“You like me? Even a little bit? It’s all it takes with me, just to like me a little bit, and I supply all the rest. You know? I make a big impression on most of the women.”
He’d closed to just a yard from her, his big partner edging up behind him. Kate thought something was wrong with those eyes, some failure of focus, a glaze. Maybe drugs, maybe worse.
“You ever thought you’re maybe upsetting the balance of things, doing a man’s job like this? You know, yin and yang, when it gets out of whack, man, things start spinning. You start getting the white in the black and the black in the white, you’re headed for big fucking trouble. Yin and yang, man, that’s the thing where the white fish is chasing the black fish, or the black one’s chasing the white one. Depends on how you look at it. But lady, if you were born yin, you fucking well stay yin. You don’t get a shot at yang till the next go-round.” The big guy had moved up to Irv’s shoulder and was craning forward, staring at him.
“I hope you know what I’m talking about ’cause it’d be a shame for the last words you ever heard to be confusing. You should always understand the last thing you hear before you die, ’cause otherwise it starts the whole karma thing off on the wrong foot. Know what I mean? Do you?”
He’d lowered his gun. Kate straining to hear any nearby boat passing, or voices out there in the ocean, men fishing who might hear a scream.
“I had a mother, an old fart a lot like you, and she strutted around just like you. She wanted to have what a man has. You know what that is? What a man has. I’ll show you. You forgotten ’cause you’re so old.”
Only because it was in her hand already. She had no idea that five pounds of decomposing glassy minnows would hurt anybody; it was more a matter of making a statement, not being shot down with a bucket of ground-up fish in hand. Most of the goop went on the big one, but a lucky handful rode in on the little one’s inhalation. He was looking down, trying to get his tight black pants unzipped. A mouthful of decomposing fish parts instead.
While he coughed, waving his pistol, she grabbed one of the yellowtail rods, gripped it like a baseball bat, and lunged it at the big one’s face. The tip found his eye. Bent him over. She whipped the rod around and slashed at the little one, the boss, caught him on his upraised forearm, threw the whole thing at him, and scrambled to the cabin. Her .38 was in the first-aid drawer.
She got it open, heard the yelling behind her.
She ducked behind the swivel seat and fired at the door. The goddamn gun bucked so, she wasn’t sure where the shot went, didn’t know how to correct for the next one. She heard the big guy moaning about his eye.
She reached up for the microphone to the shortwave, nothing shielding her from the cockpit door but that swivel bucket seat. There wasn’t much of a chance she’d come out of this. She’d made her peace, all that, years before, when the doctor died. But this wasn’t just dying. This was something else.
She squeezed off another round, this one at his hand waving around the edge of the door. She heard him go, “Whoowee.” A kid taunting. Then ducking his smiley face around the corner of the door, and she jerked another round at that. Again too late.
Kate squeezed to her left, just to change the angle, make it harder on him. Maybe she could stay out here all night, three shots left, a standoff. Hope the echo of her shots had made it ashore.
But he was there again, standing fully exposed in the door. She fired twice, but he’d already jumped aside. Still mocking her, her sluggish reflexes. She had that one shell. But with two of them, she knew it was finished.
He was mumbling now. Something he meant to sound like Japanese. Something to raise her hackles, to haunt her, spook one more shot from her. Out there in the dark, his sidekick whimpered, as he did this phony Oriental gibberish.
Kate duck walked back to the swivel chair. She wanted a straight-on shot this time. Her knees ached, the squeak of her boat soles on that scrubbed deck.
His mirror glasses came around the corner, hovered, staring at her. She aimed carefully this time, cradling the .38 with her left hand, and exploded one of the shiny disks. The guy whooped, dropped the glasses. Another trick.
The click on six. Then the skinny one looked around the edge of the cabin door, smiling at her. In the movies they always threw the gun when it emptied. But they always missed. She did it anyway, aimed it at that smile in the moonlight, slung it like a throwing knife. It clattered across the deck.
The only thing left was the flare gun. She’d chance the fire, chance anything at this point. It was in with all the Coast Guard things and charts, the plastic whistle, a compass that had been the doctor’s as a boy. She scrabbled among the junk, knowing it was taking too long, but not stopping at this point, going on through with it, the action completed, the statement made. It was there at last, the fat cartridge inside it, the gun broken open. She snapped it closed. An old lady, suddenly feeling fifteen, ready for this smiley bastard.
As she turned, he disarmed her. That quick. He smiled at her and pinched her cheek. He went back to the cabin door and pitched the flare gun out over the starboard side. This time she waited for him to return. She held the wheel with one hand, still captain of her vessel.
A breeze stirred through the cabin, ran cool across her damp shirt. She could hear the slap of the tide against the hull, feel the strain of the anchor line. The fishing would have been good. The silt from the grounded freighter seemed to have settled. Repairs well under way, everything settling back into place. The ocean, the reef, the fish, the powdery bottom.
Captain Kate Truman looked into his face. His painful smile.
“Lady, you ready to see this thing I got to show you? I know you’re going to love it. The girls are just crazy about it.”
Irv pressed the barrel of t
he .44 to her right shoulder joint, jammed it deep into the dry meat there. She didn’t try to squirm away, and she kept her eyes on his, not daring him to shoot, but watching him, almost curious.
Milburn started the engines from the upper deck, and as they got under way, Irv kept her pressed against the control panel with the automatic. He didn’t like those eyes. But he gave her back a look, trying to make it as hard as she was giving him.
When they were up on plane, the wind cooling things off, Milburn skimming them toward where they’d anchored their own boat, Irv fired a round into that shoulder joint. He didn’t want her dead yet. He did it more to close those eyes than anything. He wanted her alive when he screwed her. He might be a little hard on women, but he wasn’t any goddamn necrophiliac.
The gunshot surprised him, how loud it was, and he took some powder burns on his hand that scalded like shit. But her head fell back, and when he drew the barrel back and let her go, she slid down the panel to the floor.
When he’d finished with her, he stood up and cinched his pants. Her eyes were still closed, but he could see her staring wide-awake back of those lids. He let his singed hand dangle down with the .44, aiming it vaguely at her deflated old chest.
Irv was feeling sleepy. All that ocean air, all the excitement. His face was heavy, felt like Robert Mitchum’s must feel, full of bags.
He looked down at Kate. He’d decided not to dump her body after all. Milburn would freak, but Irv’d decided to let her relatives and friends find out just how weak she’d turned out to be. Coming on like some old Conch charter boat captain, but look at her. Barely breathing, the gristle all gone. And leaving her body behind would give the cops one more complication, a little extra twist on the ball.
What were they going to do anyway, match up his dick prints? Run a make on his jism?
Irv had made her a happy lady, driven her a little crazy there at the end. He watched those closed lids, knew her eyes were flicking around behind them. He curled his finger against the trigger and sent her off to the land of dead old ladies.
Under Cover of Daylight Page 5