Forever’s Just Pretend: A Hector Lassiter novel (Hector Lassiter series Book 2)

by Craig McDonald

  His stomach in knots, Hector said, “Rough language, from a fucking priest. And you can’t fault a lady for having real taste.”

  “He’s no priest,” Consuelo said. She scowled at Brinke. “You know Miguel?”

  Brinke made a face. “No. Only from hearing you talk about him About him, and his fall. About the blow to his head.”

  Miguel pointed his gun at Brinke. “Liar! You shamed me. You’re that bitch—Twinke? Brinke?—who turned down my offer for a drink.”

  Brinke said, “You’re nuts. I don’t know you.”

  “Last Christmas, in the Cap’n’s bar, you laughed at me, you filthy bitch!”

  Consuelo said, “Last Christmas you were still with me, Miguel! So you bretrayed me long ago! How many times before seeing Brinke did you try to take up with other women and maybe even succeed? How many times did you betray me?”

  Miguel kicked the wall of the yacht’s cabin. “This isn’t supposed to be happening like this! Damned sun, if it wasn’t so hot? If my head didn’t hurt so much? If I could just fucking think for one moment?” He slammed his fist into the cabin’s door jamb. “Goddamn it, you people have to listen to me! I’ve got a fucking gun!”

  Beau slowly lowered his hands. “What you really have, old son, is a big old problem. I don’t think you’ve thought any of this through. Do you know even a little about pilotin’ a boat?”

  “Can’t be that hard,” Miguel said, one hand pressed to his forehead, shielding his eyes.

  “You don’t know where you are,” Beau said. “No land in sight, and there’s only so much fuel. You set off in the wrong direction, you’ll end up adrift. If that happens, you’ll probably die too, but slowly, from dehydration and starvation.”

  “I’m not afraid to die,” Miguel said with a sneer. “But I’ll kill you and your wife first. I really don’t care about what happens to me after.”

  “I don’t believe that,” Consuelo said. “If that were true, you would have killed yourself already and not come here. You would have killed yourself before you killed poor Malú. Or, in guilt, you would have killed yourself, after killing our friend. But you didn’t do either did you, Miguel? You care only about yourself. Now I see that is so.” She nodded at Brinke. “Or, since you admit you dreamed of betraying me with her, I guess maybe the accident only made you more the bad man you always were. The man who always thought only of himself.”

  Hector checked the sky. Perhaps two hours before the sun sank enough to maybe give Miguel some desperately needed relief, some dangerous focus. Hector locked eyes with Beau. His grandfather chewed his lip and contemplated the fishing pole gripped in Hector’s hands.

  Miguel said, “I want you all to stand together there, where I can watch you at once. Give me time to get better, to clear my head to think.”

  Brinke moved to Beau’s side. Miguel said to Hector, “You, in the chair, you get over there with them.” Beau’s eyes urged him to resist. Hector had already begun to grasp the old man’s plan, mostly because it was his scheme, too.

  “I just can’t do that,” Hector said. “Haven’t you ever fished? I mean for really big fish?”

  Beau stepped in then, eyes on Hector. “What Mase there is saying, Miguel, is that he’s strapped to that chair, and that chair is bolted to the deck. That pole between Mase’s knees is anchored to that chair in a brass socket. That’s all so because on the other end of that line is maybe as much as a thousand pounds of blue marlin, a fish that’s all muscle and has a sword for a nose. A real, honest-to-God man-killer.”

  “So cut the fucking fish loose,” Miguel said. “Cut the line and get your ass over there,” he said to Hector.

  “Don’t think you’re hearing what the man said,” Hector said. “A fish this big takes wire to catch, not fishing line. You can’t just cut this cord. Hell, the three of us couldn’t do that with the best of tools. It’s made to resist cutting or breaking. It’s made to haul in a damned whale.”

  “You don’t know anything about deep-sea fishing,” Beau said, “you don’t know anything at all about it, do you, Miguel?”

  Miguel pushed the heel of his left hand into each eye, blinking afterward. “How would I?” There was real hatred in his voice. “This is a rich man’s sport,” he said.

  “Then let me tell you a couple of other important things about this rich man’s sport,” Beau said, holding up a hand to shush Hector and Consuelo. “We’re dead in the water right now. There’s nobody at the helm, and that’s a really bad thing.”

  Miguel pulled at his priest’s collar and the pressed his left hand to the top of his head again. “Why? Why is that so bad?”

  “Because that fish, that giant damn fish, it’s still moving somewhere down there,” Beau said. “That’s dangerous for us and for this boat. That fish is maybe plenty big enough to pull this boat backward if he makes a run to stern. Boats aren’t made to go backwards, not at any real speed. Water comes up over the back here, well, then it weighs us down to rear. It’ll upset the center of gravity and we’ll sink, nose up. We’ll all be in that water in under two minutes. Odds of bein’ pulled out of the drink by some other passing boaters this far out is next to nil. Chances of rescue are so slim as to make prayer pointless, even if you were a real priest. But we wouldn’t have to worry about drowning or dying of exposure in the water.

  “Mase has been fighting that fish quite a while before you stumbled out of the hold,” Beau glossed. “That fish is hurting inside. Probably hemorrhaging internally. Bleedin’ from its overtaxed lungs. Even if his innards aren’t compromised, his mouth is all torn up from the hook. That means blood in the water. Blood means sharks. This kind of fishing, you’re always in a race with the sharks. And if that fish compromises this boat, then we’ll be in the water with those sharks. I don’t care how much you think you don’t care about dyin’, boy, you do not want to die from a feeding frenzy of sharks.”

  Miguel chewed his lip and slid a little deeper into shadow. “Maybe he won’t run that direction,” he said. “This boat has three other sides. Odds alone says he runs in one of those directions.”

  “Then we’d maybe be dragged sideways and swamped,” Beau said. “We’d sink nearly as fast then.” Beau gestured at the back of the yacht. “But any way he runs than off the back, he takes wire into our screws. Tangles the line in the propellers or bends the blades. Then we’re dead in the water again, but for keeps. Then we just sit here, waiting to be sunk or to die of dehydration or exposure. You know, from the hot summer sun you can’t abide.”

  Miguel hit the door jam with his fist again. “Then what’s the point? How do we wrap this up with this damned fish?”

  “You let us catch it, fast, before we lose the light you hate so much.” Beau said, “Look, sonny, it gets dark, we lose the edge of eyeballin’ the fish and trackin’ his movements. In the dark, we’re screwed all over again. All those bad scenarios come home to roost in spades.”

  Miguel said, “What do you need to do to catch this fish?” Miguel’s voice was strained, Hector thought. But Hector supposed they couldn’t be so lucky as to have the ailing Miguel black-out or become too incapacitated by the pain in his head to cease posing a threat.

  “I need to drive this boat,” Beau said. “I need to get us underway. Usually do that from the flying bridge, up top where I can see. But I can do it from below. You can sit in there in the shade with me, keeping that gun of yours trained on me. Consuelo can sit next to me, where you can see us both.”

  “And the other one?” Miguel waved his gun at Brinke.

  “She needs to stay out here with Mase,” Beau said. “That bucket by his feet is full of water. If that marlin gets himself in a real run, and Mase has to give him line, then Brinke needs to pour water on the reel there to keep it cool. Can’t have the mechanism overheating and stoving up. But the most important thing, right now, is for me to get in there and get us underway. I need to use those engines to wear that marlin down. Need to steer us clear of the fishing line and tur
n us as needed to meet his runs.”

  Miguel seemed to Hector to be wavering, maybe prepared to go for it. Miguel just needed a firm nudge, Hector figured. So he wouldn’t disturb the now-quiet marlin, Hector opened up the drag and carefully pulled loose a little line so there would be some slack. He saw that Beau saw what he was doing; the others hadn’t.

  Hector yelled, “Oh God, he’s making another run!” Hector whipped back the pole, reeling in some of the slackened line, striving to make it look like he was working hard against fierce resistance.

  Beau leaned over the back, peering out to sea, then turned around and said, “She’s running from stern!” Nearly yelling, putting fear in his voice, Beau pleaded, “I need to get in there, right now, or we’re all going in the drink with that fish!”

  Miguel dithered a moment.

  Hector said, “She’s turning to starboard!” He swiveled in the fighting chair.

  Beau said, “We’ll lose our propellers!”

  Miguel stepped aside and waved his gun at the helm. “Go!” He pointed the gun at Beau’s head. “Start her up, but be careful passing by me. Anything looks funny, I shoot your wife. In the belly. Understood?”

  Beau licked his lips. “I understand everything. You best believe that, sonny.”

  54

  Beau slid behind the wheel. Consuelo followed closely behind him, turning and squeezing through the cabin door, trying to keep as much distance as possible from Miguel. As she passed, Miguel leaned into her and said, “This changes nothing. You don’t escape from this, puta. When this thing with the fish is over, I still kill you and the other whore. And that old man at the wheel. The hombre in the chair, Mase, he can take me in sight of land. So don’t get your hopes up. You’re going to die. You and that thing that old man put inside you.”

  Consuelo said nothing, just slid past him with red cheeks and angry eyes. She sat down next to Beau. She squeezed his hand. “What are we going to do? He says as soon as the fish is caught, he’ll kill all of us but Héctor. Him he’ll force to drive the boat until he sees land. Then he says he’ll kill Héctor, too.”

  “I’m sure he means to do all that,” Beau said, busy and focused. “Man proposes. God, or his instrument, disposes.”

  “So what does that mean? What do we do, Beau?”

  He smiled at Consuelo. “We fish.” He started the engines. The marlin was currently dormant. Beau knew when the big fish felt the tug from the boat getting underway the marlin would be stirred to flight, to make another run and effort to throw the hook.

  Beau called back to Hector, “Going to take her forward. Now listen closely to me damn it, Hector. Listen hard. Hector, you be real careful now. You don’t want to have too much drag on that line. You know what happens with too much drag, yes?”

  Hector smiled, his back to the others. “I can well imagine,” he yelled back to his grandfather. “I know what the drag will do. I know what too much or too little will do. Especially if he’s running in the direction opposite the one we’re moving in.”

  “Exactly,” Beau said. God bless my boy for being’ a quick study, he thought.

  Hector turned off the drag, letting the line run out slack between his fingers as Beau eased the boat forward.

  Beau called out, “Important thing, if this goes badly, is knowing just when to let go.”

  “I understand,” Hector said. “It’s the way with everything.”

  Brinke said to Hector, “You two have any ideas for getting us out of this mess?”

  “We’re literally working on it as we speak,” Hector said. “I need you to get behind me, casual like, darlin’. Get right behind this chair and you stay there. Pretend to massage my shoulders and neck again.”

  Beau yelled over the sound of the motors, “We should be seeing him now, don’t you think?”

  “You would think,” Hector said.

  “I’m going to open the engines up,” Beau said. Whenever you think the time is right, you give the word, Hector. You understand me?”

  Hector flexed his fingers. He freshened his grip on the pole and tightened the drag a bit to goad the marlin to action. As the slackened line was taken up by the boat’s motion, Hector braced his feet on the stern’s rail.

  He jerked hard on the rod and felt a sharp pull back from the line. The fishing line started going out with a squeal and Hector put on a bit more drag, trying to reel back in some line and feeling the weight and strength of the leviathan on the other end of the line.

  The marlin broke surface thirty yards off the stern, furious and frenzied. The fish sprayed Hector and Brinke with bloodied water droplets. There actually was some blood visible in the right gill slit, and now, behind the marlin, Hector could see a pair of fins, probably of tiger sharks, Hector figured.

  Miguel said, “My God! Look at him!” The Cuban was clearly awed by the enormous blue marlin. Smiling, Miguel said, “Just look at him!”

  Forgetting himself just a little, Miguel stepped a bit out onto deck, squinting and shading his eyes for a better look at the leaping fish. The marlin jumped again, thrashing its head side-to-side. “God, look at how beautiful!” Miguel quickly looked back over his shoulder to confirm Beau and Consuelo hadn’t moved. When he saw they were still in their seats, he turned around again to watch the marlin.

  Beau slowed the engine a bit, then said, “You’re going to have to help us, Miguel, unless you let me back there.”

  Miguel said, “Then who would drive? You said it was important someone steer, old man.”

  “Consuelo could maybe handle it,” Beau said. “Thing now is just to be ready to pull in the marlin. See, he’s almost worn out,” Beau lied. “There’s a pole fastened there under Mase’s feet. It’s a gaff hook. You need to get it in the fish’s mouth and pull him up alongside when Mase gets him in close. I’ll stay on the engines if you’ll help Mase. You can tuck your gun in the waistband of your pants. Not like Mase can do anything to you, not strapped as he is into that chair like that.”

  Miguel said to Beau, “You’re loco.”

  “We have to hurry,” Beau said. “Please! If it gets dark, and the fish ain’t landed, if he has any struggle in him or time to recuperate…? I told you, we can’t fight him in the dark.”

  Miguel gestured at Brinke with his gun. “And this one?”

  “Marlin’s past running at speed enough to need to cool the rig,” Beau said. “Brinke can come in here with us.”

  The marlin leapt again. Miguel watched him, obviously excited and awed. “He doesn’t look so tired, gringo,” he said. “But, okay.” He waved the gun at Brinke. “You, in with the others, puta.”

  Brinke said softly to Hector, “Do you want me to go, darling?”

  “With all haste,” Hector whispered. “Get in there where it’s safer. Keep your head down. Bullets may yet fly.”

  Miguel made sure Brinke reached Consuelo and Beau. He then looked carefully at the rig securing Hector to the fighting chair. He was satisfied Hector couldn’t easily free himself.

  Hector shook his head and said, “Don’t sweat it, fella. I’m no Harry Houdini. A straight-jacket couldn’t tie me up any tighter than this rig does. Now pick up that hook and let’s get to it. Figure that blue is about thirty-feet off the stern.” Another lie: it was more like sixty yards, Hector estimated.

  Beau called back, “You remember all I said, Mase?”

  Hector yelled, “Sure. Short form, it’s set drag. Then let go. Right?”

  “Right-o,” Beau hollered back. “And on your mark, I’ll open up the engines. Get a little distance from those sharks when it’s been done.”

  “Sounds jake,” Hector yelled.

  To Miguel, Hector said, “Put the gun in your pants and get that gaff. You’ll need both hands. This thing we’re going to try and catch is as heavy as a horse. Stand a little off to the left of the line. I’m going to hit the marlin one more time, to break him, then you step up close to that line as you can and be ready with that hook.”

  Hector
notched up the drag again and called to Beau, “Just a tad more engine.” He hit the marlin again and felt a sharp jerk as the blue began its hard run away from the back of the boat. Despite whatever the hook had done to its mouth, the fish was still strong and fresh. All its fight was undiminished. Hector opened up the drag to give the fish more line, to increase the speed of its flight.

  “Now Miguel,” Hector said, moving his feet to make room. “You step up here.”

  Miguel did that, leaning out with the hook. He warned Hector, “You get any ideas about trying to kick me over, I’ll have time to grab the rail and put three in your chest. Then I’ll rape your woman. That’s what I’ll do if you try anything.”

  “Thought of kicking at you never crossed my mind,” Hector said.

  As Miguel leaned out with the hook, Hector lifted the butt of the pole free from the brass chair socket between his thighs. He held the pole in his hands, careful to keep his fingers clear. Hector yelled to his grandfather, “Open her up now!”

  When he felt the boat accelerate, Hector turned the pole a little to an angle and then set the drag full on.

  Hector spread his fingers.

  There was a loud t-h-a-w-n-g as the rod flew from his hands and struck Miguel and the gaff hook.

  Miguel had half-turned at the sound of the pole’s release. The rod struck Miguel just below the rib cage, then trailed up his torso. The handle of the reel snagged his priest’s collar.

  Hector winced as the Cuban and the pole were ripped from the boat and dragged quickly out into the Great Blue River by the massive marlin.

  Beau kept the engines open a long time, putting distance between them and Miguel’s body, just in case enough life remained in Miguel to take a shot back at them.

  Hector ran to the cabin, grabbed a pair of binoculars and played with the focus pin, scanning the horizon.

  He saw sharks’ fins converging. Hector hoped the sharks severed the fishing line, freeing the marlin of the fishing rig and whatever the sharks left of Miguel, giving the blue marlin some possibility of recuperation, some chance for survival in reward for saving their lives.