Highfire

by Eoin Colfer

  “Fob,” he said, grinning like a loon. “Fob. Yep, got me a fob.”

  It was stupid, he knew, dicking around with electronics when his boss was languishing in the shack, but a big part of fifteen-year-old Squib was still only nine and the buttons on this plastic teardrop were super-satisfying to press, especially with the corresponding flashing light.

  “That’s right, Charles Jr.,” he told his big-dicked friend, who was not even in the vicinity, “you keep fiddling with your equipment; I got me an infrared multifunctioned fob.”

  After this Squib indulged himself in a thirty-second laughing jag; then he knuckled down to business. After all, he had to get Bodi Irwin’s cruiser loaded, unloaded at the shack, and back here before sunup.

  Too many people up on Vern as it is, he thought. I don’t want no one quizzing me on why Bodi is fine with me ferrying supplies into the swamp.

  Squib surely did hope that Vern would not regain his senses while he was about his errands. The dragon might not be too thrilled to see strange humans in his shack.

  At least he ain’t in a position to fry my momma, thought Squib. I’m certain of that. He was as certain of Vern’s condition as he’d ever been of anything; otherwise he would never have left his momma holding the reins upriver. Boss man is in that in-between place he talked about, so I gotta get some juice into him before he crosses to the other side.

  Vern was so out of fat that his body had shut him down in midflight; he wasn’t going to be shooting off any bolts anytime soon, not until he’d glugged down a couple of drums.

  So Squib was back in the lockup, but there was another difference, too, the second one being that on this occasion he was wearing a dragon skin with the head hooked over his own head like a scaly Batman mask, the arms tied about his waist and the rest trailing behind him like a bridal train.

  This is probably offensive to dragons for some reason, he thought. What say I never tell Vern it even happened?

  Even so, Squib snapped off a quick selfie, just in case he ever needed to stick it to Charles Jr.

  The Pearl Bar and Grill had its own landing out back for locals who outfoxed the drunk-driving laws by cruising in for their beers. Even then, some guys got too wasted to even keep a boat between two banks of a river and so spent the night in their pirogues, tied up at the jetty, which explained all the alcoholic mosquitoes in the region. Bodi Irwin went even further to secure his custom by running a booze boat round the local inlets picking up strays.

  “The three ins,” Bodi always said. “Inlets, infirm, and inebriates: pick ’em up and deliver them to my door. Maybe it’s time you did a shift on the booze boat.”

  Seemed like Squib would have himself another job if Vern ever gave him a slack minute—but first things first was to get his number one boss back to his regular disagreeable self.

  Squib fobbed himself through the rear gate and onto the dock. There was only a single vessel moored at the wooden jetty, Bodi’s own flat-bottomed aluminum cruiser, which bore the Pearl Bar and Grill logo along both sides in speech bubbles coming out of an artist’s impression of a manga-looking Honey Island monster, which Squib knew would piss Vern off no end.

  All clear then, thought Squib. Lock and load—or in this case, load and lock.

  He laughed again, reckoning that he was funnier than Vern gave him credit for. Sometimes he thought of cracks so fast that Jimmy Kimmel would crap himself, but all Vern did was roll those slitted eyes all the way round and say something like, “Shit, boy, I ain’t paying you to talk like you got hit in the head. Ain’t you got some work to do?”

  The lights went out, and Squib waved his arms a little to activate the halogen spots.

  Less thinking, more moving, he thought.

  It took him maybe thirty minutes to roll half a dozen drums onto a trolley, one at a time, wheel them down to the jetty, then unload at the other end. It didn’t help none that he was down four digits in total, and three of his stumps were giving him trouble even though his momma had stuffed the toes of his Converse with cotton wool. It also didn’t help that the trolley hadn’t seen a squirt of oil since before he was born, and the jetty was probably Civil War era and was short a mess of its planks. Nevertheless, Squib persevered because he was the world’s only executive assistant to a dragon, and that was a position he was eager to hold on to. He wrestled the six drums onto the Pearl’s deck, and the booze boat settled a little lower into the river.

  Still plenty of clearance, thought Squib. She could take another couple easy and still pull up at Boar Island without no trouble.

  But time was ticking on and he could always make another run tomorrow. Best be on his way. He fobbed the electric fence, then cast off from the Pearl’s jetty and went motoring upriver on low revs, keeping the churn down so even if someone did hear an engine at this god-awful hour, they wouldn’t be able to tell which dock it’d slunk from.

  Unless they’re watching me with some kinda night-vision optics, thought Squib, and risked another ten percent on the throttle.

  HOOKE AND HIS newly minted drug lords, minus Jing Jiang, were loading their gear into Willard Carnahan’s RIB at the Petit Bateau dock maybe three hundred yards south of the Pearl Bar and Grill while Squib was giving his fob thumb a workout.

  “This is a nice goddamn boat, brother,” DuShane Adebayo commented, testing the inflatable tube running around the gunwale with the heel of his fist. “Stable as all hell. Nice-sized deck. Even these groundhogs couldn’t turn this shit over. Where’d you get a rig like this, Hooke?”

  Hooke thought of Carnahan keeling over into the swamp and that mutant-big turtle breaching right out of the murk. “A gift,” he said.

  “Yeah, sure,” said DuShane, tossing his gear onto the deck. “I bet you get a lotta gifts, right, Regence?”

  In truth, Hooke would have preferred his own cabin cruiser, which felt a lot more substantial than this glorified dinghy, but the lieutenant was all smiles and nods, and he knew his stuff on the water. Also, Hooke’s cruiser was buried in swamp sludge twenty feet off the coast of Honey Island, so it wasn’t like he had a choice in the matter.

  “Do what you gotta do, Lieut,” he said. “We’re heading out as soon as Jiang shows up.”

  He had been sincerely hoping that Jing Jiang might be able to swing a chopper, but the markswoman had laughed at both this suggestion and his offer of the Barrett .50-cal, opting instead to retrieve her own sniper rifle from an off-duty stash.

  “I gotta swing by a place for a thing, then I can put a hole in the New Orleans monster without getting within a thousand yards of it,” she’d said.

  Hooke was fully aware that the team didn’t really credit his dragon story, not in their bones. They had all watched the footage and heard the chatter around the Quarter, but a thing like Vern had to be seen in person to be believed. If the shoe was on the other foot and he was the one being sold a line about dragons, then he, too, would take the wad of cash and watch how this thing played out, maybe see if it led to where the rest of Ivory’s loot was at.

  Tonight we are testing the waters in every way, Hooke thought. And the best thing is, killing a dragon ain’t even illegal.

  His gaze was drawn to the flash of Bodi Irwin’s big halogens across the road in his yard. Hooke didn’t really give much of a crap about someone snooping round back of the diner; this seemed like pretty routine law-and-order stuff. But he didn’t need a monkey wrench in his own works at the moment. Technically, nothing unlawful was going down, but if these dockside shenanigans were stress-tested, then it was likely they would all be out of jobs, at the very least.

  It’s prob’ly some dumbass burglar getting barbecued by Bodi’s fancy fence, he thought, but decided maybe it would be prudent to check it out, because who knew what the hell might be going on in this sleepy backwater town where dragons dressed like men and carried cell phones.

  Might find myself a unicorn wearing suspenders, he thought. Or a vampire chained down in the diner parking lot.

 
So after patting his vest to check for his monocular, he trotted to the end of the jetty to see what the light show was about, and a couple of minutes later he was mighty glad he had, for it looked like Lady Luck was smiling down on him brighter than the lopsided grin of the Louisiana moon.

  There’s the kid, right there, wearing some kind of romper suit. “Well, if that don’t beat all,” said Hooke, delighted. “I guess good things do come to those who wait.”

  “Wait?” said Jewell Hardy, appearing beside him. “We only been here an hour or so.”

  “It’s a saying, Hardy,” he said, zipping the monocular into its pouch. Wasn’t much need for it anyhow on a night like this. Sometimes when the stars were out in force, the swamp had a shine to it, like the whole river glowed with phosphorescence. Made the details stand out—even the shadows were sharper. “Ain’t no call to dissect everything I say.”

  “Just making conversation, boss.”

  “Ain’t no bosses,” said Hooke. “We’re all partners here.”

  Hardy punched him playfully on the shoulder. “Whatever you say, boss.”

  The constable found that he was warming to Jewell Hardy, which wasn’t like him. “I like you, Jewell,” he said. “I surely do hope you make it through the night.”

  Hardy considered this comment. “You’re serious about this dragon fella Vern, right, Hooke?”

  “Right Hooke,” he thought. Nice.

  “Yeah, I’m serious,” he said, keeping his eyes on Squib. Kid’s limping a little. “Three hundred large worth of serious. What do you think, this is all some kind of elaborate setup?”

  “Nah, I can’t figure an angle for that level of convolution,” said Hardy. “But maybe you’re crazy. No offense.”

  “I gotta say, I’m a little offended. But you’re young, so you get a one-time pass.”

  Hardy pocketed an imaginary pass. “Appreciated, chief.”

  “And to put your mind to rest, I ain’t crazy, though it might be better for you if I was.”

  “’Cause if you ain’t crazy, then I gotta take on a dragon, right?”

  “That’s right, Jewell.”

  Hardy stretched both arms in front of her, clenching her fists till they creaked. “If you guys can draw his fire, then I reckon me and old Vern will have ourselves a time.”

  Hooke didn’t doubt it. He recognized a stone-cold killer when he saw one.

  Takes one to know one.

  Still, Vern had been at this business for centuries. “From what I hear, Vern favors his right hand. Also, those wings of his wrap around a motherfucker. You go in there, you ain’t coming out.”

  Hardy nodded, taking it in.

  “In-jab-out,” said Hooke. “Keep dancing. You dance, girl? Sometimes the big ones don’t dance.”

  “I dance fine,” said Hardy. “I fought a tiger once in-country. You hear about that?”

  He still had his eyes on the Pearl’s yard. “Yep, I heard. Heard they pulled that cat’s teeth and claws.”

  “That they did. Weren’t no need. I could’ve done it anyway.”

  “I hope so, girl, ’cause with Vern, teeth and claws are present and correct. Still, could be it won’t get that far.”

  “Could be it will,” said Hardy. “I sure hope so.”

  Kids, thought Hooke. Every one of them invincible. Jewell Hardy cannot wait to get up close with the creature who will most likely kill her.

  It occurred to him that he had never even heard Hardy come up to him. Big and sneaky. Like those Trojans in the wooden horse.

  “Say, Hardy,” he said, “you see that kid down there? It’s gonna take him a couple of minutes to fetch another barrel.”

  Hardy grinned. “Way ahead of you, Hooke.” And she took off down the dock.

  DUSHANE ADEBAYO WHISTLED from the boat, and Hooke turned to see Jing Jiang stepping down into the RIB cradling a rifle case like it was her firstborn.

  “We heading out?” said DuShane.

  Hooke checked on Squib again. The boy was done loading barrels of oil, looked like, and there was no sign of Hardy. He mused on this. Barrels of oil. Barrels and barrels. Looks like the dragon needs him some fuel.

  Which would mean . . .

  Vern is on empty, he realized. There ain’t never gonna be a better time.

  “Cast off, Skipper,” he said, walking down the jetty. “Plans have changed a bit. I hope you’re as sneaky as they say because I need to follow that kid upriver without him knowing. Is that a thing we can do?”

  DuShane frowned in exasperation, like, Why do I have to deal with these landlubber idiots all the goddamned time?

  “Just tell me, DuShane,” said Hooke, thinking that maybe the Adebayo attitude might need some adjustment in the near future.

  DuShane patted one of the RIB’s twin outboards. “These babies are muffled, Constable, so all’s we gotta do is hang back a little and that kid won’t hear jack over his own engine. The only way he cottons on is if he decides to row that tug upriver.”

  “Well, all right then,” said Hooke, deciding to keep it all congenial for the moment. “You good, Jiang?”

  Jing Jiang was all decked out in camo, including a lightweight balaclava. “Good to go. I’m gonna set up on the prow, put one in the eye of this so-called dragon. Turns out to be a guy in a suit, then thanks for the easiest hundred grand I ever made.”

  “Listen to me, Jiang,” said Hooke slowly. “First we ground the beast, then we assess. There’s no kill shot till I give you the signal. This bastard has Rebel gold, and I want him to part with it before he dies.”

  Jiang’s eyes narrowed in the balaclava’s slit. “I’ll try, Hooke, but sometimes the call has gotta be made by the finger on the trigger.”

  Hooke pinched the bridge of his nose, like, I’m holding back my temper here. “Jing, girl, we ain’t on no official op. This here chain of command only got one link in it. I want you to do what I say to the letter. Ground him and let me work. Okay?”

  But apparently Jing Jiang didn’t get to be the world’s preeminent female sniper by being easily intimidated. “I hear you, Hooke. And I understand you got all that testosterone swilling around your lusty balls. But if this Vern guy is a real live dragon, perhaps he won’t let you work. Perhaps I’ll have to make a split-second decision. You okay with that, Constable?”

  Hooke nodded. He knew that a remote kill would be the best outcome all round, but a part of him didn’t want it to go down like that, even if there hadn’t been loot at stake.

  What we got here is biblical, he thought. Be a shame to finish it long-distance.

  A man only got so many epic nights in his life. Maybe he and the Hardy girl could beat Vern to death with their bare hands.

  Beat a dragon to death. Now that would be something.

  Also, “lusty balls.”

  Nice.

  Chapter 19

  VERN HAD BODI IRWIN HELP HIM TO THE LANDING, WHICH BARELY qualified as a landing, overrun as it was with cypress knuckles, multicolored spores, and moss drapes. Vern had never fixed it up because he didn’t want any swamp folk getting ideas and tying off there. One of the dragon’s favorite tricks was to lie on his back in the shallow waters and punch dents in any hull that came too close, something he’d been doing for a hundred years. He called those punches “warning shots.”

  Here be treacherous waters, boys: You ain’t getting onshore from here without perforations.

  And so the tours knew to give Boar Island a wide berth on account of it wasn’t safe to land there. Too many submerged rocks and roots. And if the water predators didn’t get you, then the big cats and boars on the island would do the job. It was like the Bermuda Triangle for hillbillies: People went missing on Boar Island and the environs. And so the Honey Island monster legend grew.

  Honey Island, which was fake news. Humans couldn’t even get the island right.

  But the point was, there was hardly a soul who knew the way through.

  Waxman had known the path, and now that secret had bee
n passed on to young Squib.

  Vern sighed.

  Waxman.

  Damn, that old bastard had been a good friend to him. In less than a hundred years Vern had grown closer to that mogwai than he’d ever been to his own kin. The dragon’s long experience of grieving told him that it would be decades before that pain dulled some, and it would never truly leave his system. Especially considering the way his buddy had checked out.

  I been sadder for longer than any creature alive, thought Vern. Ain’t that a pain in the ass.

  Vern blinked his inner lids half a dozen times to clear off the film of gunk which had been bothering him thanks to the ’70s chemical runoff from Exxon, which had permeated every molecule of water in the state and would take a million years to dissipate. His vision cleared, and he saw the Pearl motoring down the center of the river, Squib plowing up a wake like he didn’t care who saw.

  “I keep telling him,” said Vern to Bodi, “low-profile. That’s the whole goddamn point.”

  “Teenagers,” said Bodi, feeling Vern’s weight on his shoulder. “You give ’em access to an engine and all good sense goes out the window.”

  “’Cause sound travels like a motherfucker over swamp water,” continued Vern. “Skips right along like a flat stone. I swear I can hear the music from your joint most nights.”

  “You like it?” asked Bodi, hoping for an affirmative answer.

  “A bit fiddle-heavy, if you ask me,” said Vern. “Ain’t you got any Linda Ronstadt on that jukebox?”

  “I thought about it,” said Bodi. “A little on the nose, maybe?”

  “Or maybe not,” said Vern.

  “We’ll have her on there Monday,” promised Bodi. “‘Blue Bayou’ on repeat.”

  Squib must’ve spotted his boss onshore because he made a great show of throttling back on approach.

  “Look who just noticed us standing here,” said Vern, sniggering.

  “James goddamn Bond himself,” said Bodi.

  “Guess how many people he’s fooling with his Look at me, ain’t I careful act?”

  “Not a one.”