Salty Sky

by Seth Coker

  She offered condolences but didn’t request specifics. Whether her actions stemmed from good breeding, disinterest, or trust was hard for Cale to tell. A hint of jealousy might have been nice.

  They finished lunch, and Cale stuffed cash in an amount equal to the meager price of lunch in the tip jar on the way out. Back at the marina, they rented a modified golf cart from the harbormaster. Ashley refilled Jimmy’s water bowl and set it in the boat. His sleeping spot followed the shade. If he got too hot, he was smart enough to hop in the water and then climb back onboard. Cale pulled the two surfboards out and set them crossways in the back of the cart—probably OK at fifteen miles per hour.

  A hundred yards down the path from the marina, the scenery became scrubby, wind-beaten trees five feet on either side of the path. They passed houses built on stilts. Mosquito central, Cale thought, but to each their own. It wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility that mosquito leeching was a little-known method for reducing blood volume and pressure passed down from unlicensed barbers throughout the centuries.

  The gas-powered cart downshifted to first gear to climb the island’s mountain. They reached the plateau, roughly seventy-five feet above sea level. The dune, cleared of trees, was domesticated with zoysia and provided a bit of a view. Cale pointed out the areas of interest: the marina; the ferry dock; the island grocery store; the mainland; the golf course, where a gator, with doves perched on its back, impersonated a statue in the fairway.

  The large beach Cale targeted for them was down to the right. The waves looked OK. The water didn’t look turbid enough to hide a bull shark, but he couldn’t tell for sure. A bull shark is just not a pretty animal and doesn’t even look hydrodynamic: big belly, small eyes, mottled coloring. Would Ashley buy it if he just said the waves were no good? But things looked OK from here.

  They descended the mountain. The cart’s governor kicked in, and Cale got no juice from pushing the pedal to the mat, but he kept it pinned anyways. At sea level, he pulled the cart onto the road’s shoulder. They were the only people at the beach.

  With the longboard under his arm, Cale walked to the beach. He used the bagged essentials in his other hand as a counterbalance. Ashley carried the smaller board on her head. Cale was giddy to get in the water. His speech and walking pace accelerated. Just short of the water, they set everything down. He traded out his shirt for a rash guard. She pulled off her dress, and Cale became even giddier. He handed her a rash guard to put over her bikini. A strange surge of gravity made his eyes watch her raised-arm wiggle that got the rash guard over her head much too quickly. Even with the guard on, Ashley’s gravitational force was still very strong. Fortunately, the extra polyester weakened it enough that he could mind his manners.

  A circular bar of green wax was fished out of the bag. It smelled slightly of coconut. He waxed the shortboard and started on the longboard. It was pretty bare; there was plenty of sand in old bumps. He expected Ashley to use the longboard. It had a safer feel. It was easier to catch waves on it, too. The only time the longboard was a bummer was when the water was choppy, when fighting its size could be exhausting.

  Cale’s world narrowed to one job: waxing. Small circles into big circles. Nose to tail. Rail to rail. He was fully in the present, just like when he was flying. This was a characteristic of a good pilot—immersed in the present, fixated on the little jobs that needed to be done. He hummed tunelessly. When he finished, he looked up.

  Ashley was already in the white water. He hadn’t noticed her departure. She held the board leeward of her body to keep the wind from slapping it into her face. She walked to waist deep, waited out a breaking wave, took two quick steps, dove forward with the board, and paddled furiously. She made the crest of the next wave at its peak, the last unbroken spot in the wave. Pretty cool. Cale wouldn’t mention that since he got to use the longboard, he wasn’t as nervous about the bull sharks.

  He dropped the wax in the sand, ran the longboard into the water, and used the bigger board’s superior paddling speed to catch Ashley as she turned perpendicular to shore to await her set. She flicked her hair back as she sat up, straddling the board. She wiped the water out of her face with both hands. Cale paddled slightly past her. As he sat up, straddling the board, he slowly slid down toward the board’s tail. The lower center of weight helped him quickly spin around and, by kicking his feet in opposite directions, he sped up the turn, spinning in a circle.

  The first wave passed. They both caught the second. He went left; she went right. It was a nice first ride for both of them. Cale made it back to the surf zone first. She paddled back calmly, with a steady rhythm, not at the furious pace she broke through the breakers with. She must have been giddy to get out there too.

  Cale said, “Well, you could have told me.”

  She showed a mouthful of the type of straight white teeth you find only in America. God bless the US orthodontics industry.

  Cale continued, “I had worked up this whole ‘feel the spirit of the ocean’ guru routine.”

  She replied, “I told you, I’m from San Diego. I thought you knew that was on the ocean. Pretty big surf town.”

  Unfazed by the flirty taunt, he replied, “I know where San Diego is. It’s the first place I killed a man.”

  Ashley gasped audibly. “You are such an animal. I feel so safe yet so vulnerable with you here alone in the ocean.”

  Of course that exchange never happened, but Cale liked the thought of it. But when calculating the odds in his head, the estimated chances for a net positive response from mentioning that he’d killed someone were precisely none too good. His response instead was a smile coupled with a wizened look down the shoreline (this would have been part of the ocean guru routine anyway). He assessed the break of the waves and made certain they were in an optimal location. That was the biggest key to enjoyable surfing: being in the right location. Too far out, you didn’t catch many waves; too far in, you had waves breaking on your head.

  As a surfer, she proved distinctly not bad. Good etiquette. Good wave count, particularly considering she was using the shortboard. Nothing radical. They stayed on the water longer than he’d meant to. Cale came in tired, but Ashley seemed energized. There were no side-to-side-moving fin sightings. Several fins swam by bobbing up and down, which seemed a positive harbinger.

  They dried off, and Ashley undid her bikini and got into her dress from behind a beach towel—a both incredibly sexy and incredibly cruel San Diego Beach Betty trick.

  The wind picked up. This time, she drove the golf cart while Cale kept an arm across the boards. Back aboard the Whaler, Ashley cast off the bowline and pushed the boat’s bow away from the dock. Cale let the stern line tighten, the bow swung around, he unhooked the stern line, then engaged the engines to forward, and they headed to the channel.

  Outside the barrier island, the Whaler bounced across intermittent whitecaps. At the next channel, Cale ducked the Whaler inside to the waterway. They again found themselves crossing over the debris coming out of the Cape Fear River. The sun was warm now, and it felt like August again. When the journey was over, Cale tied back onto the butt end of the pier where Framed was docked and killed the engines.

  When they arrived, Ashley’s roommates were sunning their hides on the bow deck, out of the wind. Their hands pecked at smartphones. The captain was working in the storage locker under the rear salon benches. Joe and Tony walked to the flybridge rail as the welcoming committee. They each wore clean Tommy Bahama shirts and held a highball in one hand. Tony fanned playing cards in his other hand. They had magnanimous greeting smiles on their faces.

  Tony said, “It’s about time youse two made it back. We was getting ready to deputize a posse. We’da had seafarers from Norfolk to Daytona Beach on the lookout.”

  Ashley responded, “Thanks for the concern,” and asked, “Joe, how did you sleep last night?”

  That was a very polite way to ask the burning question.

  Joe answered, “Not too bad, really. Thi
nk I’ll sleep better tonight. Bring Mr. Coleman onboard with you if he has a moment. He and I only met briefly … and not over the sunniest of circumstances.”

  Ashley went to see her friends. Cale climbed the flybridge ladder. At the summit, Tony handed him a Scotch on the rocks. Not his normal order, but when in Rome (or, in this case, transplanted Brooklyn) … Cale scanned Joe’s boating attire over and concluded it was an impossible outfit in which to hide a weapon except in the small of his back.

  Joe started the conversation. “Youse know I don’t blame you for Gino.”

  “Thanks.” It was amazing how little he’d thought about this recent conflict today. You want to forget your little problems? Get big problems.

  “My sister—his mother—called me today. She is likely to find an old Sicilian to curse you, though.”

  “Don’t worry about those curses,” Tony added. “They only work if they have a little of your blood to start with.”

  “Well, curse or not, I hope the guy recovers quickly.”

  The three men moved into more cocktail party-caliber get-to-know-you conversations, reviewed the day, the water, Cale’s current business. He felt a bit like a teenager being vetted in the front parlor before the homecoming dance. You kids have fun tonight, but not too much fun. His twenty years in the DEA came up.

  “Yeah, it was terrible to see in the eighties what happened to some neighborhoods. Crime—so much property crime. And the things people would do. Moms turning tricks behind dumpsters for a fix. Glad they cleaned up the crack problem. Dinkins just fed the beast; Giuliani showed the difference you can make when you don’t accept problems as unsolvable.

  “It sounds so silly, but one of the main things he stopped that turned the city around was the guys washing windows at intersections. When that kind of harassment stopped, it just turned things around.”

  “How much did you tip those goombahs for washing your windows, Joe?” Tony goaded. His eyes twinkled at the jab.

  “Only tip they got from me was …” Joe let it pass. Maybe he couldn’t come up with the right comeback. Maybe he didn’t want to let a carnal insult or racial diatribe flow out in front of a stranger or, more likely, where it could be overheard by the girls.

  Joe turned back to Cale. “So where were you in the DEA?”

  “All over. Here, DC, Southern California, Northern California, Texas, Florida, Mexico, even South America.”

  “You ever get in any tight spots?”

  “Yes.”

  “Undercover?”

  “No.”

  “Busting into a crack house with a SWAT team?”

  “No.”

  But this got Cale thinking. There were so many more frontline jobs than pilot. How did he get in this position? His risk was supposed to be from turbulence. Updrafts. Downdrafts. Instrument failure. Worst case, a surface-to-air missile that the agency rehearsed dodging but to Cale’s knowledge nobody actually ever faced. Certainly not long-suppressed revenge.

  The captain brought snacks up, which provided a momentary diversion in the conversation. But before Cale could get traction heading in a different direction, Tony was back on him.

  “So youse going to tell us what kind of tight spots?”

  The difference between Brooklyn gentlemen and Southern gentlemen: The Brooklyn gentlemen would make you say no. But for some reason unknown to himself, Cale chose not to say no. He’d been queried for years on the topic and always clammed up before. Today, he answered, “I can tell you about one incident. It got a decent amount of press at the time. The other stuff is still classified.”

  At least officially. It didn’t feel quite as classified as he’d like it to be. Maybe that was why he told them about San Diego.

  The captain, who was sitting in on the conversation, pulled up an old newspaper article on the tablet about the incident. He read the relevant sections aloud. Cale really didn’t like how easy that was to find. Joe and Tony’s expressions changed slightly. They were perhaps surprised by the brutality. Their visitor stabbed a person to death. Did they question how a blade felt cutting through a man? Cale would have answered, “Same as deer.” That wouldn’t help. They had never field dressed a deer.

  “So why’d you retire?”

  “I needed a change. After Maggie—my wife—passed, I took more and more back-office assignments. I couldn’t let something happen to me while my girls were growing up. The back office is not where I was meant to be. I’m no good at it. So when I got my years to qualify for retirement, I mustered out to the real world. My girls were away in school by then. I borrowed heavily, bought a twin-engine turbo prop, and started my charter business.”

  “Sorry to hear about your wife. I was wondering about you spending this whole day with Ashley, thinking maybe you and your friend who’s about to tie the knot again were two peas in a pod.”

  Cale laughed, “Thanks for that comparison.”

  “Now I feel like a real prince with that comment I made asking about what you told your wife. My wife passed, too. Last year. You know, Tony isn’t going to believe this, but I think I was jealous of you and Ashley. Sadly, I was more fired up about that than my dear sweet muscle-headed nephew. For what it’s worth, I’ve switched my feelings on Ashley to paternal, so watch yourself, I’ve been known to pack heat.”

  “I’m sorry to hear about your wife too. Hard to believe the things you take for granted about loved ones until they’re gone.”

  For the first time, the two men felt the similarities in their lives’ flight paths, including their attraction to Ashley. The mood turned respectful, and there was palpable longing for the dead, but it wasn’t somber. Tony decisively broke the mood.

  “My wife is still alive. Look, I’ve got the voice mails to prove it.” He held up his phone and showed seven unchecked voice mails with the name Sofia beside each.

  Joe laughed, “Tony, when did you tell her you were coming home? Between the storm and you not returning her calls, she’s worried you’re coming home before she can get her cabana boy out of the house!”

  “Cabana boy. Yeah, now that I’m retired, I should be a cabana boy out in the Hamptons. That’s a good gig. ‘Miss, may I apply your sunscreen? No, ma’am, rubbing it in won’t be any trouble at all.’”

  The banter picked up speed. Cale’s wit wasn’t quick enough to catch the ride, but he enjoyed watching the carousel. Eventually, the girls came up. Joe wanted to treat for a large steak dinner. Cale took off, with promises to return in time for a seven-thirty topside cocktail and an eight o’clock reservation at the steak house.

  30

  CALE MOTORED HOME at full cruising speed. There was no less debris in the water, but he had acclimatized. That didn’t make going full speed smart; it was the intellectual equivalent of, after several hours’ driving in the rain, finding yourself traveling at eighty miles an hour despite the decreased visibility, increased stopping time, and unpredictable hazards.

  He realized his calendar was suddenly full. He’d planned on Googling for pictures of Escobar today, but the date with Ashley had somehow superseded that in importance. Now he had a dinner party tonight, a charter tomorrow through Friday, and finding and killing narcotraffickers this weekend. The last part needed to be done without ending with a seat in Old Sparky. Busy times. But first he needed to dock, get in the house, pack for the charter, and get back on the Whaler without anything bad happening.

  Tonight, Cale would pay to leave the Whaler at the marina with Framed until Friday. He’d then get a hotel room after dinner for shuteye. A good night’s sleep would keep up his energy reserves, and the FBO was a quick cab ride away. He needed to get there earlier than normal, closer to three hours before flight time than the normal one hour before. He hadn’t checked his plane since the storm. The guys from the hangar said everything was fine, but they didn’t have as strong an interest in its maintenance as he did. What’s that saying about a pig and chicken at breakfast? They both are invested but the pig is committed. Old pilots didn’t
get old by saving money on their airplane maintenance.

  Without slowing, Cale passed his house. Nothing caught his eye. He did a one-eighty, pulled back the throttle, and passed again, now heading south. He came back, stopped at a crab pot buoy with a good view of the house. He raised the pot, hoped the pot’s owner wasn’t in eyesight, pretended to unload and rebait the trap while studying the house. It seemed OK. He dropped the pot, reengaged the engines, and pulled into the boat lift slings. Cale chose not to raise the slings and wrapped only one line around a cleat.

  Jimmy hopped out and trotted up the yard, changing the pH mix in several locations as he made his way toward the house. He wasn’t on edge, but he wasn’t a trained guard dog either. Cale pulled the Beretta from the console box, pointed it down with his right hand, and stepped onto the dock. He jogged off the edge of the dock, turned left, and walked into the pines. After pausing and resurveying his surroundings, he walked out of the pines into the outdoor kitchen, ducking behind the counter. After another pause, he picked his head up and looked around. Jimmy stood at the back porch screen door waiting. Cale went back into the trees. The back of his flip-flops slung dirty puddle mud up his backside as he ran. He now circled to the front to study the driveway. It still seemed OK. He had a feeling that right after the bullet pierced his ribs, the thought Well, it seemed OK was going to run through his mind.

  Jimmy didn’t ask questions and walked around to the front door without complaint. Cale decided Jimmy was right and he would enter the front door. The door was too thick to shoot through, and he’d know if anybody was inside as soon as the door opened. If the alarm started beeping, all was kosher. No beeping, and it had been cut from the inside; there was a battery backup if the power had been cut from the outside. Straight to woof-woof-woof meant somebody had tripped it already.

  Cale sprinted from his hiding spot to the front door and pushed completely against it. His hand on the knob, he turned and pushed. Beep-beep-beep. He hustled in, locking the door behind him. He turned off the alarm, went through the house, locked the back door, then returned to the front door to let Jimmy in. Cale then relocked the front door, armed the alarm to STAY, and exhaled.