He heard Al’s boat crank and then saw it through the slats of the gates, speed off down the river.
Vivian stepped inside. Rusty closed the door and latched it closed from inside.
Rusty turned to get the remote door opener which sat on a little shelf there. With all the people on the river today, if he left the slip gate open, at least one dumb ass would feel entitled to invite himself to drive right into Rusty’s boathouse and take a close-up look at his hydroplane.
Rusty turned and there was Vivian about to step down in his boat. He put out his hand to keep from running into her.
There they were up against one another, heads a foot apart. Rusty could have leaned in and kissed her. She smelled like she had just gotten out of the shower. She smelled young. It reminded Rusty of high school and the excitement of being near a girl, how incredible it had been. Rusty felt that excitement again for a fleeting moment.
He broke away from her and said, “Okay, let’s go.”
Chapter 40
Rusty followed Vivian into the house. Al stuck his head out from the kitchen. “Come on in, Rusty. You want a glass of orange juice or something while you wait?”
“Sure.”
“Orange juice?”
“That’s fine.”
The first thing Rusty saw when he walked into the kitchen--the 8x10 picture of Al’s folks sat on the kitchen counter. Aimed right at the kitchen door so Rusty wouldn’t miss it.
Yes, there was no doubt. She was the one and only Katrina Matthews.
Al had taken the picture from his computer room and put it right there on the kitchen counter for Rusty’s benefit. What did it say in the world of symbolic gestures and cat and mouse? Here’s a not-so-subtle hint--I know that you know.
And the better question might be--But how?
Al poured Rusty a glass of orange juice. “I think Vivian is changing her clothes. Hold on.”
Al stepped out of the kitchen and seconds later returned, holding a big box.
“Hey,” Al said. “Here it is. A little sonar type device. I was turned on to it by a bass fisherman.”
“At least they’re good for something.”
Al laughed, and Rusty could see it--the Al Gloria had fallen in love with. Al possessed two laughs. One, a snide snort that could give you the willies. Then, the genuine one, like just now, that validated the fact Al and Rusty shared the same view on die-hard bass fisherman. The laugh that made you want to be his buddy and closest friend.
“We can just sonar the water’s edge in the suspect areas and spot some hidden catfish holes in the side of the bank. We’re going to blow them out of the water today.”
“Oh, Al. Speaking of blowing them out. Did you ever get those peach tree stumps taken care of?” There’s a little cat and mouse of your own.
“Oh, yeah. And it only took one stick. I’ll give you back the other two.”
“No, no. You can keep the dynamite. I was just wondering if you had enough?”
“One was all it took. As Gloria said you said, it was a strong batch. But I do want you to have the other two back. I have no use for them.”
Al handed Rusty the sonar box. Rusty took out the equipment, had no real idea what he was looking at. Al went out the back door, and Rusty sat there with a strange metal box in his hands.
“I’m ready to go,” Rusty heard and then Vivian came into the kitchen. “Where’s Al?”
“He stepped out back a minute.”
Vivian had changed her clothes. She had on cut-off jeans. Once they called them Daisy Mae’s, later they were just short-shorts, and now he had heard them called Daisy Duke’s.
She had on low-cut Keds and no socks. For the first time he noticed a small tattoo of a butterfly near her right ankle. She had on a large light blue denim work shirt with the front tails tied just above her belly button. She had one of those belly button studs.
Her shirt was kind of large. In fact, it might have been an old ones of Al’s that he used to wear all during his short stint as Davenport Bait Shop manager.
She had a kerchief tied around her neck. He thought that was a fine touch to her ensemble. It reminded him of Bogart in the movie last night.
“I love the kerchief around your neck. I used to wear one years ago. Sometimes,” Rusty said. “And I used to tie my work shirt at the waist like that. Nowadays, that’s considered effeminate.”
“I think it would look very handsome and macho on you,” Vivian said.
Rusty let that flattering comment be. And in his silence, Vivian got up and ran out of the kitchen.
Al entered the back door. He had two sticks of dynamite in his hand along with some caps. “Here’s the two sticks left over. I got these caps from a blasting engineer.” He held it all out for Rusty.
Rusty saw at a glance that they were in fact the sticks he had made. Which proved to him that Compton had not been blown up with dynamite that Rusty cooked. Rusty gave him three sticks. And one stick--even from Rusty’s extra strength batch--wouldn’t have blown Compton’s car to hell.
But Rusty had never seen the actual blown-up car or any police photos. Just the news bullshit exaggeration. One strategically located stick of dynamite would sure as hell send a piece, or multiple pieces of metal through Compton’s head, throat, heart. Al Bolton might not know more than god, but he knew a hell of a lot more than your average dynamite demolition man.
Rusty made a motion to put the device down on the table, but then held it, because it needed to go back in the box.
After a moment of awkwardness on Rusty’s part, Al shoved the dynamite and caps down into his own cargo pants pocket.
Al took the instrument out of Rusty’s hands. “Let’s go down and hook it up onto my boat,” Al said.
Vivian pranced in, holding a turquoise-colored kerchief. She went straight over to Rusty and started tying it around his neck. She said to Al, “Honey, I’m putting this around Rusty’s neck for luck. You want one?”
“No, Rusty can get away with that. You put one on me everybody would question my virility.”
“Since when have you worried about what everybody thought?”
“Since always. I’m not the maverick renegade you think I am, Viv.”
“Oh, yes you are.”
“Come on, let’s get all this down at the dock and get ready to kill them dead.”
Chapter 41
They formed a three boat flotilla.
Al was in the lead with his state of the art equipment to spot hidden catfish holes. And he was all loaded down with ice and drinks and snacks. He had the video camera and the today’s newspaper sealed watertight in a big plastic zip-lock bag.
Vivian was next. Her boat held the aluminum contraption that Al made to link the two boats together. She was at the stern with her hand over on the outboard throttle. Every once in a while she glanced back at Rusty.
Rusty was in his boat, staring at Vivian.
Vivian. He could remember his days in Clear Springs High Latin class. He knew Spanish. Didn’t Vivian come from some word that meant life?
What was it that Jenny was always complaining about of Rusty? That he put his attention on the wrong things. And here he was with a man who might be setting him up for God knows what and he had his attention on Vivian.
Maybe nobody else saw it. But Rusty could not deny what he knew. What was obvious deduction. The missing piece of the puzzle that made it all make sense.
Katfish King, Dr. Robert Compton, Al’s mother--they all were from Winston County.
Their flotilla passed by a commercial fishing boat with a Confederate flag flapping from the stern. A big bearded fat boy held up a catfish that must have weighed sixty pounds. A fat woman in white shorts and a halter top was filming it. Over the sound of the outboard, Rusty could hear her say, “Now kiss him, Roy. Kiss the catfish right on the mouth.”
Al led them across the river and past the bluffs. There were no grabblers along the bank here. It was solid bank, red clay or rock. No openings. No
visible holes.
But Al trolled along with his sonar device, now bolted onto an aluminum bracket near the bow of his boat.
Al waved them over. Al trolled on to the bank. He tied his bow to a little snag there. Vivian taxied on up, cut her engine. Rusty cut his engine and coasted toward Vivian.
Vivian held onto Al’s gunwale, Rusty held on to Vivian’s. Al stood up in his boat with a cane pole, sounding it down to the bank, jamming the pole up and down, like he had hit firm bottom just a few feet down in the muddy water.
“There’s a hole right under there,” Al said, pointing. “If you look good, you can see the top of the hole right at the water’s edge. Big hole. Seems to be a mass in there, big enough to be a fifty pounder. You think you can duck down under there, Vivian?”
“Sure.”
Al motioned for Rusty to bring his boat around parallel to Vivian’s.
Al was quick. Almost supernaturally quick. Enough to get Rusty’s attention that Al possessed some kind of supreme physical powers. Al hopped over into Vivian’s boat and handed Rusty the end of a long aluminum beam. It had clamps affixed to it. The length of the strut went across the beams of both boats and left about four feet in between them.
Soon, the boats were connected with three pieces and a crosspiece near the stern. A ladder went down into the water from Vivian’s boat. It was a clever setup. Vivian could grabble the catfish, come in between the two boats, and wrestle the catfish over into one of the boats, using the ladder to gain some extra height, and never capsizing either boat.
Vivian took off her shirt. She had on a tight athletic bra top of a thing underneath. She hopped over into the water which barely came up to her waist. She waded over to the bank, put her hand against the bank.
“You see it, Vivian?” Al asked.
She ran her hand along the bottom edge of the top of the hole. She appeared to be kicking around at it with her foot.
“Yeah, the hole is big. Wish me luck. I’m going in.”
“Luck,” Al said.
Vivian ducked her head under the water and disappeared into the hole.
Then Rusty heard splashing. Good. That meant there was a big air pocket in there. Vivian could breathe okay.
Rusty turned to see Al with the video camera trained right on the area. Al was saying, “Here we are on the west bank of the river about a half mile south of Clear Springs. Vivian has gone in…”
Then Vivian’s head popped up out of the water. She stood up. She had her hand down in the mouth of a big flathead cat. She trudged over toward the boat.
Rusty stood over toward the bow, bending like he wanted to jump in and assist, but if he so much as touched the catfish or even Vivian before she got him into the boat it would be a disqualification.
“You got it! You got it! It’s a big one. Bring it on up between the boats,” Al hollered.
Rusty picked up a big ten foot thick bamboo pole he used for poling and hustled back to the stern of his boat. He stuck the end of the pole down into the water, that was about five foot deep there. He pushed the pole down into the hard clay bottom there, to hold the boat in place when Vivian wrestled the cat in.
Then the catfish rotated. Vivian’s feet came out of the water and up into the air.
The catfish was rolling on her. She held on. It rolled over her once. She got another footing and stood back up. But her feet were too close together.
“Spread your legs!” Rusty hollered.
She did. It gave her much better balance. She had her right hand in the cat’s mouth. Her left arm was wrapped around the catfish. She quickly, with wide strides, splashed over to the ladder, and in one fluid movement--took a step up on the ladder and bear hugged the catfish over the gunwale right into the bottom of her boat.
She pulled herself quickly in the boat and was right on top of him.
Vivian was a strong, agile, athletic girl.
“Way to go, Vivian,” Rusty said.
“Good girl,” Al said, like she was a dog.
“Al has trained you well.”
“She has a natural knack for this stuff,” Al said.
The catfish was flopping around. Vivian was on top of him. Al kept filming. She tossed some tow sacks over the catfish and started strapping him down so he couldn’t get out.
“How long can a catfish live out of water?” Vivian asked.
“A long time. Can’t they, Rusty?” Al said.
“Yeah. As long as you don’t let him bake out in the sun. And as long as you keep him damp. Hell, one time Ray forgot one in his boat and the next day, it was still alive. Put him in the water, he swam away.” A bream, a crappie wouldn’t have lasted a fraction that long out of water. Catfish were like roaches. Hard to kill.
“He’s not big enough,” Vivian said.
“What do you mean?” Al asked.
Rusty stood up in the middle thwart of his boat, looking down at the catfish.
“He’s smaller than the one I got yesterday.”
“What do you figure the catfish to weigh, Rusty?”
“Thirty-five, forty pounds at the most.”
Al let the camera down to rest at arm’s length. “What do you want to do, Vivian? You want to go weigh him in?”
The catfish started grunting.
“I hate when they grunt. It creeps me out.”
“That’s what they do,” Al said. “So, what is it?”
“There’s no use taking him in.”
“There is a total poundage trophy,” Rusty said.
“Yeah, but I don’t have a chance for that one now. And I want biggest catfish.”
“I understand,” Rusty said. His big advice for Vivian so far had been for her to spread her legs. The catfish was grunting again.
And now she did spread her legs, straddled the cat, took the straps off it, picked it up by its mouth and wrestled it back into Elk River.
Chapter 42
They cruised back up the river with their flotilla in the same order.
Rusty didn’t know why he kept following them. His good sense told him he should just break away from the flotilla and get Sammy on the cell.
Come to think of it, he knew why he didn’t break away. He was scared to break away. If his suspicions were true, if he broke away, Al would come after him. The Boston Whaler would take him over. Al probably had a gun and would just blast him there like he had done Elmore Katfish King.
Rusty suspected Al of murder. Al knew that. All that surveillance equipment and spy stuff. Rusty asking Al to get him that dope on District Attorney Starr--Rusty had practically invited Al to monitor Rusty’s own life. Al knew every move Rusty had made. Every step. Even getting the Winston County high school yearbook from Dolopia College President Vargas Preston.
Conspiracy Theory stuff and government mind-control methods explained it all. The way Al had always treated him. Maybe he had wanted to recruit Rusty into some clandestine operations. Bring Rusty over to the dark side. Somehow, covertly, Al created a rapport, a bond, with Rusty. How else would Rusty know what Al was thinking? And Al sure as hell knew what Rusty was thinking.
Al led them up the river and past the other bluffs. When they were almost straight across from Al’s cabin, Al stopped trolling and stayed in one spot. He waved them both to come over.
Vivian taxied on up and cut her engine. Rusty did likewise and when he reached over to grab Vivian’s gunwale, Al was saying, “What do we have here?”
“What is it, Al?” Vivian asked.
“There’s a big empty space. Long opening about two feet under the water. There’s a mass. I’m not good at evaluating this machine yet, but it looks to be at least two times as big as the last one.”
“Wow. That would put the catfish at seventy pounds. That would win the rodeo! Yeeha!”
Vivian might be involved in a redneck activity. But she was no redneck. Her yeeha was unconvincing, not anything near a rebel yell.
“Seventy pounds. That’s a big fish. Especially in dark, muddy water.” Al
sounded the bottom with his cane pole. “And you got four feet of water here. That’s deep to be dragging a fighting cat through.”
“What, Al?” Vivian asked. “We do all this training and I’m not going to go for the catfish I’ve been looking for?”
“I’m just checking. It might get a little hairy here and I don’t want you to blame me.”
“Oh, come on, Al. Let’s go for it! You do your job, I’ll do mine.”
“That’s what I want to hear, honey,” Al said. “You guys rig your boats back up together and I’m going to see if I can check out this hole.”
Rusty and Vivian clamped their boats back together. When they were putting the stern strut across, Rusty glanced over at Al. Al was a good twenty feet away and Al’s boat and Al’s back was to Rusty. He couldn’t tell much, but Al was leaning over the side and had his hands down in the water there up against the bank.
Then it sounded like metal hitting Al’s boat. Al’s boat moved around. Maybe it was just the clamps hitting the sides of his own boat.
Al pushed his boat back from the bank. He was checking out the bottom with the cane pole. He pointed to where he had just been.
“Pull up there right against the bank. The hole is two feet under the water. I checked with my own hands,” Al said.
Rusty stood at the stern of his boat. He put the bamboo pole over into the water, dug the end down into the muddy bottom and shoved the end of the pole into the mud and then pushed the bows of the boat into the bank.
“What do you think, Rusty?” Al asked.
“Let me see your cane pole.”
Al handed it to him. Rusty checked out the bottom from the bank to the stern of the boat.
“Okay, Vivian. You want to be quick with this one,” Rusty said. “I don’t know if you’re going to have an air pocket in there. When you go in the hole, you feel for the fish, get a hold and then go fast. Pull him out. The first two feet, you have a slick clay bottom, like you are probably going to have in the hole. Get him out here past the hole two feet. Then you have a muddy bottom. You’ll be able to get a good footing and keep your head out of the water.”
The Redneck Detective Agency (The Redneck Detective Agency Mystery Series Book 1) Page 17