The Night Charter

by Sam Hawken

  “Hey, there,” Parker said to Lauren as the bus left. She was already walking, and he hurried to catch up. “How was school today?”

  “Fine,” Lauren said.

  “Just fine? Learn anything new and exciting?”

  Lauren regarded him with a sour eye. “It was the last day of school, Dad. We’re not learning anything on the last day of school.”

  “Yeah, I guess not. Still…there’s got to be things going on.”

  “Nothing, Dad,” Lauren said.

  “Absolutely nothing? You guys sat there and stared at the walls all day?”

  He caught the slightest hint of a smile, but she stanched it. “They gave us busy work. I had to write an essay on what I’m doing this summer. That’s the kind of thing kids do.”

  “That’s tough,” Parker sympathized. “They should have asked you about how we can have world peace.”

  “I’m serious, Dad! It’s stupid. If they don’t have anything for us to do, they could cancel classes and let us all go home a week early.”

  “I don’t know if I’m ready to have you home all day right now,” Parker said. “I could use another week. How about summer school? You ever think about summer school?”

  Now Lauren did smile, and she punched Parker in the arm. “That’s not funny. Only stoners and juvies go to summer school. You want me to lose all my friends?”

  Parker threw his arm around her and squeezed her shoulders. “I want you to be happy. That’s all. Whatever it takes to make you happy.”

  They walked like that part of the way. Lauren put her head against him, and Parker was glad. She was so tall now. In only three years she’d grown like a weed. He remembered holding her hand to balance her as she walked for the first time. “Dad?” she asked.

  “Yeah?”

  “Did you find a job today?”

  The pleasant feeling fled Parker. He sighed. As if it was a signal, Lauren slipped away from him and put her gaze on him. He felt shrunken in her sight. “No, I didn’t find a job today,” he said. “But I looked. I really did look.”

  “I guess that’s good enough,” Lauren said, but she did not come back to his arm again. They walked apart the rest of the way.

  Parker got the front door unlocked and held it for Lauren before he heard the rumble of the engine. It was as distinctive as a fingerprint. “Hey, go inside and relax a little while,” he told Lauren. “Uncle Matt is coming.”

  “Ugh,” Lauren said. But she did as he said and vanished indoors.

  He waited on the front walk until he saw the familiar yellow-and-black Charger coming down the block. Matt had the windows down and a tanned arm propped in the window as he cruised the old car to a stop at the curb. He cut the engine and climbed out. “Hola, Parker,” he said. “What’s up?”

  “Not much.”

  “Catch you at a bad time?”

  “No. I was just getting ready to fix Lauren a snack.”

  Matt approached him. He was a lean man, so much so that his skin seemed tight over his flesh and bones. His hair was lank and brown and came down floppily over one eye. Matt was always brushing it back, but it fell in the same place every time. Parker did not know why he didn’t cut it. “Lauren, huh? Maybe I should go in and say hello.”

  “It’s okay,” Parker said. “She only got off the bus a few minutes ago. She needs some downtime.”

  “Sure, whatever,” Matt said, and he brushed his hair from his face. “I came to talk business anyway.”

  “What about it?”

  “Well, do you have the charter all set up?”

  “I’m still working on it.”

  Matt frowned. The expression pulled taut skin even more tightly. “Parker, we don’t have all the time in the world. Now is this lady going to take our money or not?”

  “I don’t know. I’m trying to work my way around to it.”

  “There’s no more time for that. The Cubans are getting antsy, and they want to get this done soon. They’re waiting on us to give them a window. I can’t stall them forever.”

  “I’ll get on it,” Parker said.

  “Okay,” Matt said, and the frown vanished. “And there’s one other thing: I wanted to throw the guys a little bit of money to keep them happy. So I need about a thousand right now.”

  Parker stood with his back to the door, aware of the house and Lauren and everything inside. He did not let worry cross his face. “I can’t do that right now. You know how it is.”

  “Hey, come on, Parker, who’s the man in charge of all this?”

  “You are.”

  “Right. So I need some of the money. Like right this minute.”

  “It’s not where I can get at it,” Parker said.

  Again Matt swept the hair back. Again it fell into place. His eyes had darkened. “Where did you put it?”

  “Somewhere safe. Even I can’t get at it right away.”

  “Did you put it in a safe deposit box or something?”

  “You told me not to say,” Parker said. He thought of the loose piece of wainscoting. Even if Matt looked, he would not see it. “You told me to take the case, put it somewhere where only I knew where to find it, and sit on the money until it was time to divide it up. So that’s what I did.”

  “How are you paying the rent on this place?” Matt asked.

  “We get assistance. And I had a little money saved up. It’s enough to get us through until this pays off.”

  “Until it pays off,” Matt said. “I guess that’s all up to you now.”

  “I’ll get us the boat.”

  Matt scrutinized him. The darkness had not gone away. “I want to meet the captain. Can I do that much, or are you keeping her all to yourself?”

  “Sure, you can meet her,” Parker said. “Just don’t…don’t push too hard. I get the feeling she’ll say no if you push too hard.”

  Now Matt smiled broadly and spread his hands as if to take Parker up in a hug. His arms were spidery, the muscles long and raw. “Hey, do I look like the kind of guy who’d screw up your thing? I put all my trust in you, man. We’re partners for life.”

  A tension eased in Parker’s chest, and he breathed a little more deeply. “I’ll call her up and see when we can see her. Maybe tonight. I’ll have to check.”

  “You call me with the time and the place, and I’ll swing by to pick you up,” Matt said. “Okay?”

  “Absolutely,” Parker said.

  “I can’t wait to lay eyes on this chick. Is she hot, or what?”

  “Yeah, she’s good-looking.”

  “Does she have big, giant titties?” Matt asked, and his smile turned wolfish.

  “They’re okay,” Parker said. He imagined Camaro beneath him and above him. He imagined her beside him in the little bed at the bow of the boat. These were things Matt could not know.

  “All right, then. See you later, bro.”

  “Bye,” Parker said. He went inside and closed the door, and then he watched Matt through the peephole until the Charger drove away. He relaxed only when he couldn’t hear the engine anymore.

  Chapter Eight

  WHEN THE ANNABEL was within cellular range of the shore, Camaro’s phone vibrated in her pocket. She checked her calls and found three from a number she didn’t recognize and one message. She dialed into voice mail. It was from Parker. She was glad it was not an invitation to a second date, a real date with dress-up and flowers and dinner by candlelight. He wanted her to meet one of his clients, and he wanted the meeting soon. Camaro deleted the message.

  She looked to the back deck at the three men and their wives, each taking turns snapping pictures of each other in the fighting chair as the sun went down. There had been plenty of snaps earlier when one of the women managed to land an eighty-pound swordfish, and much disappointment when it was time to return the fish to the sea. There were sailfish and mahi-mahi and blackfin lining up to be caught thereafter, and everyone was happy again.

  The Annabel was close to the marina when Camaro called Par
ker’s number. He picked up right away. “Is this Camaro?” he said.

  “It’s me,” Camaro said. “Sorry. I didn’t get your call until now.”

  “I thought maybe you were avoiding me.”

  “I can’t avoid you,” Camaro said. “You paid me a deposit, remember?”

  “I meant because of…you know. The other thing.”

  “Don’t even think about that,” Camaro said. “I had fun. You had fun. That’s all it had to be.”

  “Right. Sure. Okay.”

  He was quiet a bit, and Camaro angled closer to shore. “You needed to talk to me about your client?” she asked.

  “Oh, yeah, absolutely. Matt, he’s one of the guys I’m chartering the boat for, wants to meet you. I was wondering if you had time tonight for us to come by and check the boat out, say hello. That kind of thing.”

  “What’s he worried about?” Camaro asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean what’s so important that he has to see me right now?”

  “He’s a real picky guy, that’s all. Wants to make sure we have the right boat.”

  “Do you think you have the right boat?”

  “Yeah, I think so. I think so. You know, there’s some stuff I want to talk about, but we could maybe do that some other time. I don’t know what kind of food you like.”

  “I told you: I’m not looking for any boyfriends,” Camaro said. “You want to talk to me, you can call or stop by the marina. I’m around. And you still have a few days to schedule your charter.”

  “Will you be around in an hour?” Parker asked.

  The marina was close now, the dense thicket of boats clearly visible in the dying sunlight. “I will. Come on by, and bring your client.”

  She hung up. On the aft deck the clients were all done taking their pictures and stood around glumly waiting for the charter to be done. The fun was over, and now there would be the drive home and tomorrow’s pain from arms and necks that didn’t get enough sunscreen.

  They said their good-byes and tipped Camaro a hundred dollars, and then they were gone. Despite the time and the growing darkness, she hosed down the deck and set to cleaning up once again. What she did tonight she wouldn’t have to do tomorrow.

  She heard a deep-throated engine a half-hour later and climbed the flybridge to see out toward the parking lot. The yellow-and-black Charger was distinct under the lights. She recognized Parker when he got out, and saw the second man come from behind the wheel. The two walked together down the pier. When Parker saw her, he waved, but she did not wave back.

  He stopped by the boat. He looked, as always, like a castaway on some beach in the Keys. The other man wore a short-sleeved shirt open over a white tank top and worn jeans that had light patches over the knees. His boots were steel toed and heavy. He watched her with critical eyes.

  “Permission to come aboard?” Parker asked.

  Camaro came down from the flybridge where she could be closer to the second man. When he looked at her, she looked back, and they went on like this until he blinked and glanced away. “I think you’re good,” she said finally.

  She caught a moment of unhappiness on Parker’s face, and then it submerged. “Camaro, this is Matt Clifford. He’s one of my clients,” he said. “Matt, this is Captain Espinoza.”

  “Nice to meet you,” Matt said, and he held out a hand for her to shake. She took it. He was stronger than his frame suggested. “Parker said you had a nice boat. Sure looks good to me.”

  “She gets the job done,” Camaro said.

  “I was kind of hoping to see the whole thing.”

  Camaro hesitated. She sensed the old nerves from Parker again, but Matt was languid, at ease like a loosely coiled snake, his eyes hooded. He had tattoos coiled down his arms, some of them crude, done by amateurs. Prison ink. A long minute passed in silence. She beckoned him forward. “Come on then,” she said.

  They boarded, and Matt prowled the deck while Parker stood aside. Camaro watched only Matt as he poked a head into the cabin. “Real nice,” Matt said at last. “Clean.”

  “I saw your ride,” Camaro said. “The Charger. A ’70?”

  He looked at her sharply. “Yeah, that’s right.”

  “Got a 440 under the hood.”

  “Yeah. You know cars?”

  “Some cars.”

  “She’s a classic,” Matt said. “I restored her myself.”

  “That so?”

  “That’s so.”

  He stood still, and they looked at each other again until Matt broke the spell a second time. Camaro marked him as he began to walk the deck again, touching the rods on their rack, drifting a hand over the back of the fighting chair. She had Parker at her back, and he had not moved.

  When Matt stopped, he did not look right at her, but past her. “I think you’re gonna earn your ten thousand just fine,” he said.

  “What ten thousand?” Camaro asked.

  “The ten thousand,” Matt said. “Parker didn’t tell you about the ten thousand?”

  Camaro glanced back at Parker and saw him looking at his sandals. A muscle in her jaw flexed. “I didn’t sign on for anything paying ten thousand,” she said. “It’s eight seventy-five for a one-night charter. You’re going swordfishing.”

  “Right. Swordfishing,” Matt said.

  “Yeah,” Camaro said, and she fixed him with her eyes so that he could not look away. “That’s what I do. I take people out to fish. If you’re looking for something else, you have the wrong boat and the wrong captain.”

  “Didn’t he pay you a deposit?”

  Camaro rooted around in her pocket until she found the folded bills. She counted off two hundred dollars and turned on Parker. “Give me your hand,” she told him. He complied, and she thrust the money into it before looking back to Matt. “There’s your money, and that’s the way off the boat. I suggest the two of you go.”

  Matt put his hands up for peace. “Hey, listen, I’m just saying—”

  “I don’t give a shit what you’re saying. Get off my boat. Now.”

  Parker spoke up. “We should go, Matt.”

  Matt’s gaze flared, and for a moment Camaro thought he might round the fighting chair and take a swing at her. The tension was in his body, the lazy snake a hard spring. She dropped a foot back and settled her weight. The instant passed. “Okay, let’s go,” Matt said. “I’m sorry you wasted my time.”

  “Whatever,” Camaro said.

  They disembarked. Parker stole a glance in her direction, and she glared at him until he looked away. As they retreated down the pier, she felt pain in her hands and realized they were balled into fists. She forced the fingers to come apart.

  After a minute the sound of the Charger’s motor rolled down to her. Then they were gone.

  Chapter Nine

  PARKER CALLED HER in the morning. She let it ring through to voice mail twice, but when he tried a third time she answered. “Fuck off,” she told him.

  “Wait, listen,” he said, “I can explain.”

  “I’m not interested,” Camaro said.

  “Can you at least give me a chance?” Parker asked. “I’m asking for fifteen minutes. Hell, give me ten minutes! I can lay it all out for you, and if you’re still a no, then I’ll leave you alone, and you’ll never hear from me again.”

  “Or I can hang up the phone and never hear from you again,” Camaro said.

  “Look, I’m not saying you owe me anything, but I thought maybe we had a connection the other day. All I need is a few minutes and that’s it. I’ll come by your boat if I have to.”

  Camaro looked around her kitchen. She took a knife from its block and held it in her fist reversed, edge out, and point down. She cut the air. “I have a gun, Parker.”

  “Please,” Parker said.

  She didn’t say anything, and he was quiet. His breathing carried down the line, quick and nervous. The memory of him standing by while Matt walked the deck came to her unbidden, and the sense of his d
iscomfort in the presence of the man he called his client. “Okay, I’ll meet you,” she said. “But if you’re wasting my time, I will not be happy. Do you understand?”

  “Absolutely. Where do you want to go?”

  “The diner. I’ll see you there around one o’clock.”

  “I’ll be there.”

  There was time enough to work out on the back porch, but she chose to dress for running instead. Her neighborhood was nothing but mile after mile of flat ground and cheap little houses occupied by people who worked hard and lived paycheck to paycheck. Mostly Cuban families, speaking nothing but Spanish at home. When she went running, they would sometimes watch her from their yards as they watered their plants or simply sat in folding chairs letting time and the world slip by them. Their children played in the street, riding old bikes or kicking a ball around.

  In the end she ran five miles and then soaked in the shower for twenty minutes. She dressed and took her bike to the diner. She arrived ten minutes early and got a booth without Parker, ordering two iced teas and telling the waitress to hold off on taking their order until she was sure she would stay.

  “Blind date?” the waitress asked.

  “Something like that,” Camaro replied.

  He came right on time and spotted her through the front window. If he’d worn a hat he would have held it in his hands as he approached the booth, but instead he was shamefaced and timid, and it made Camaro want to knock him over. She pointed him into his seat.

  He started immediately. “Thank you for seeing me,” he said.

  Camaro looked at her watch. “It’s one minute past one,” she said, and she turned the bezel to mark ten minutes. “When we hit eleven minutes, I walk out that door unless you have something amazing to tell me.”