by Jim Nisbet
Tipsy blinked. “Is that bad?”
Red laughed. “You’re easy.”
“Well, what about it?” Tipsy glowerd. “Maybe a doctor gave him some bad news.”
“The only bad news Charley ever let a doctor give him was that a race had been canceled. You submit to a doctor about anything other than sailing, Charley used to say, he’ll find something wrong with you. That’s his job. I couldn’t agree more.”
“You never see a doctor either?”
“Just to get sewn up. But hell, a veterinarian can sew you up. So can a competent sailmaker.”
“Sewn up from what?”
“Fishhooks. Gaffs. Marlinespikes. A machete.” He indicated a series of scars on his right forearm. “Teeth.”
The scars looked like a pink oath in cuneiform. “Shark?” Tipsy asked.
“I don’t count sharks,” Red said. “Sharks don’t know any better. Anyway, I was worried about Charley. I didn’t think he was in shape for the job. Ever since he came out of prison … I don’t know. Yes I do. Prison changed Charley. He was cavalier about it, but anybody who knew the before-prison Charley and the after-prison Charley could see it. He’d had enough of the wrong side of the law. If that meant poverty or a whole new set of friends or dying instead, so be it.” Red held up a forestalling hand. Tipsy had already noticed that it, too, displayed a scar, a diagonal slash across the palm, but this one was recent.
“I know all this,” she said with a trace of impatience.
“Even so, if Charley met a blind fed under the clock in Grand Central Station,” Red continued, with a trace of satisfaction, “Charley wouldn’t tell him what time it was.”
“I think that’s what you might call obstreperous.”
“The hell you say. Anyway, he got hard time for that particular trait, and his un-snitched-upon colleagues gratefully took care of him when he got out. That’s how he got the job in the boatyard, that’s how he got his boat, that’s how he could afford to refit her. That’s how come, three years later and six months ago, I rolled over and promised him a milk run. In between, he didn’t ask me for anything. Not once.”
“Smuggling a kilo of cocaine into Florida in the hull of your engineless sailboat is a milk run?”
“The current security climate makes it a little trickier than it used to be, but, you know, really, aside from the fact that the feds don’t know their ass from a hole in the ground, there’s so much dope being smuggled into the United States at any given hour of the day or night the authorities cannot possibly keep up with it. In light of which a mere kilogram is insignificant. Virtually nonexistent. And that’s a true story.”
“Can I ask you a question?”
“Sure.”
“Why didn’t you just give him the twenty thousand?”
“What am I,” Red touched his chest and looked over the rims of his half-glasses, “made of money?” He lofted the injured paw. “Just kidding.”
Tipsy conspicuously looked around. “Nice boat.”
“Suffice that you be reminded,” Red repeated, “that it’s not my nice boat.”
Tipsy narrowed her eyes. “We’re down to who you work for.”
Red ignored her. “I knew if I offered him the money outright, he’d turn me down. So I offered to loan him the money at zero percent interest, or whatever terms he wanted. He turned me down. He insisted on earning it, and he pointed out the obvious, that I was the only person who could help him earn that much on short notice. Make that any notice. In retrospect, I should have jammed the cash up his ass in small denominations. In a moment of sentimental weakness, however, I capitulated.”
“Seems like a lot of rigamarole for an insignificant kilo of cocaine.”
“Well, sure, now that everything’s fucked up, of course it looks that way. Meanwhile, complete idiots get whatever shit they want into the country by the metric ton on a weekly basis. Some of these guys are pretty mean, too. A man gets on in years, he doesn’t care to deal with such guys. Besides,” he gestured at their surroundings, “you couldn’t load a ton even on this tub. To move a ton, you need a real boat. A ship. And you need real connections. Somebody almost has to be on the inside of the feds’ deal at the harbor, or in the airport, or on both sides of a given border. Such operations are big and expensive and there’s leaks, weapons, treachery, and a lot to lose. Sooner than later people get killed, and it’s almost always the little people. I don’t know why; maybe it’s because there’s more of them. Anyway, in the space between the giant steps, the likes of me discover plenty of opportunity for modest markets.”
“How little was my brother?”
“Tiny. But your brother killed himself.”
“Oh,” Tipsy choked out the obvious retort, “autodecapitation.”
“No,” Red replied, as if patiently, “that part I did. But I did it only after he had already drowned himself. Why are you rubbing this in? You think I enjoyed it or something?”
“Did I say that?”
“Then lay off it!”
A passing swell gently lifted the big cabin cruiser and let it down again. The brass oil lamp, a pricey and highly polished anachronism, creaked as it swayed over the chart table.
“You cut …” Tipsy began, but she felt stupid repeating it, so she didn’t. “I saw it. I could see it again. So it must be real.”
“He was already dead,” Red took the trouble to remind her. “In the moment, I felt that I had no choice.” His fingers turned his glass on the chart.
“You had no choice?” Tipsy said tightly. “Thousands of people die every day. Maybe it’s millions. How many of them get their heads cut off? Before the invasion of Iraq, I mean. But in Iraq it happens before they die. But after? What’s the use? Wigs? Cornea transplants? Or have they perfected brain transplants? And besides,” she started to cry, “who the fuck would want my brother’s stupid brain anyway? What sort of people are we talking about, here? Morons who need implants in order to pretend they have beautiful memories of sailing the Caribbean?” The tears flowed at last. She drummed the chart table with her fists. “If that’s the problem, why don’t they just buy themselves bigger Travel Channels!”
Red stood and attempted to comfort her by putting his arm around her shoulders. She hit him in the gut as hard as she could. He took it. She hit him again. “Go on, tell me,” she said through her tears. “I can take it. I’ve been taking it all my life.” She angrily wiped her eyes. “See how tough I am?”
“I was there because I was tracking him,” Red said, almost as if he were speaking to himself. “And self-pity is going to get us exactly nowhere.”
“You son of a—” About to strike him again, she stopped. “What did you say?”
“I was worried about him. So, instead of fretting for two weeks, I decided to do something about it. What the hell, I figured, I hadn’t been fishing for a couple of months. So I gassed up Tunacide, laid in a bunch of supplies, and took off.”
“Who?”
“That’s my fishing boat. Man, you oughta see her. She—”
“Skip it,” she said fiercely. “I wouldn’t know a fishing boat from Proust.” She took up the black bandana, touched it to her eyes, then slammed it down on the chart. “I want my brother!”
“I can’t help you there, Tipsy,” Red said quietly.
She squeezed shut her eyes and shook her head. “I know I need to get a grip. I will get a grip.” She shook off his arm. “Tell the goddamn story.”
“She’s got a fishfinder fit to spy on a guppy’s private life at a thousand fathoms. Radar, sonar, global positioning, satellite television, Vessel Identification, so forth.” He touched Tipsy’s shoulder reassuringly, then began to pace. “The whole time Charley was out there, I was just over the horizon, keeping an eye on him. Unbeknownst to Charley, along with the blow and the DNA, I got Arnauld to put a transponder aboard Vellela Vellela. Only I knew its frequency, which mutated daily according to the first eleven terms of the Fibonacci series.”
Tips
y blew her nose. “The what?”
“You know, 0,1,1,2,3,5,8,13 …”
Tipsy pounded the chart table with the bandana-wrapped fist. “You’re taxing me!” Her drink, his drink, the dividers, and the brick of cocaine, all jumped. Abruptly, Tipsy’s eyes unfocused and slowly refocused. “A transponder?”
“So,” Red resumed, “I was keeping an eye out for Charley, not really all that worried about him, you understand, and getting in some fishing, too. In fact, right here,” he touched the chart with a forefinger, “about a mile east of Bird Rock, I nailed a magnificent yellow fin tuna, the prettiest one I ever caught. Incredible fish.” He moved his finger an inch. “The day after Charley anchored off Albert Town.”
“So you shadowed him from Rum Cay onward?”
“The whole way. And it was spectacular. I hadn’t spent so much time on the water in years. Some places in the Caribbean have changed a lot. Other places, it’s like Columbus never learned to sail.
“The reefer was damn near full of fish by the time that ten days was up, and it’s a big reefer. Much bigger than this one. Not as cold, though,” he reflected. “Anyway, mornings I’d while away fishing. Just let her drift. Afternoons I’d spend catching up with Charley. Evenings I’d crack a beer and put her on automatic pilot, or even anchor out if the surroundings were interesting or the next morning’s fishing looked promising. Tunacide’s good for sixteen knots. With Charley traveling at four, five knots at the most, it was a bigger problem not to overrun him than it was to lose him. I just had to be sure I kept him hull down and traveling away from me.
“How far away was that?”
“Twenty-five, thirty miles. The tower on Tunacide is pretty high and pretty distinctive. If Charley had ever seen it, I’d be busted toot sweet.”
“It sounds like a setup.”
“Stop.” Red held up the hand. “I’m the one got set up.”
The tears had ceased but Tipsy remained fragile. She had a headache. Her eyes were swollen. She blotted them with the kerchief. “I’m all right,” she finally sniffed.
“The unexpected is what happened. Vellela Vellela holed herself for keeps. I don’t know how. It could have happened to anybody. To me, even. Nighttime, broad daylight, awake or asleep—it was an accident. Anyway,” Red opened the logbook. “Except when he’s hallucinating French poetry, the last few entries are cursory, as opposed to the chattier ones.” He leafed back a few pages. “He last slept … here. Two full nights.” He touched the chart. “Albert Town, four days before. After that,” he drew a finger along the plotted course, “four days with no sleep, the last two on uppers. He was bushed. After he turned north he almost certainly set up the boat to steer a course unattended, and passed out in his berth.”
“But you were right there. Couldn’t you have gotten to him before the boat went down?”
Red grimaced. “You ever fought a tarpon?”
“A what?”
“It’s a fish.”
“No. What about it?”
“It’s a game fish.”
“So?”
“They don’t call it ‘game’ for nothing. That very morning a tarpon hit my troll rig so hard he almost turned the boat around.” He showed her the palm of his left hand. “See this?”
“I noticed it, yeah.”
“The bastard snatched my best rod right out of the gimbal. Sure, I had a sennit on it. But before I could get the rod back aboard and set the brake and so forth the sonofabitch had peeled maybe five hundred yards of No. 18 wire off the reel. It sounded like one of those wind-up penguins on speed. About half of that wire went through the meat of my hand. Cut it right down to the bone like one of those things you slice cheese with.”
Tipsy winced. “Why didn’t you just let the poor fish go?”
Red gave her a look. “Not bloody likely.” He jerked a thumb at his chest. “Am I not a man?”
“My brother was just over the horizon,” she shouted, “dying!”
Red held up both hands. “Last time I checked Charley’s position he was just fine. Loping along at a good four and a half knots, according to my reckoning, keeping a perfectly straight course, hitting his waypoints dead on, sailing by vane and log and the sextant and dead reckoning as if he had the finest automatic pilot money can buy. Like,” he jerked his thumb toward his chest again, “I did. He was a fine sailor. I wasn’t worried about him. I was worried about that damned fish. And my rig, of course, by the by, which is worth something north of a thousand bucks if you had to buy it new.”
“Which you didn’t,” Tipsy guessed.
“No, of course not. What’s that got to do with anything?” Red shouted. “First,” he resumed, moderating his tone, “I let the fish run against the drag while I knotted a t-shirt around this hand with my teeth and strapped myself into the chair besides. So right away, I don’t mind telling you, there was blood all over everything. Slippery as hell, too. It looked like I’d already killed a bunch of fish and cut my throat into the bargain.
“Anyway, having gotten my act together, I had but one thing and one thing only on my mind. I went to fighting that fish.”
“Well, come on,” Tipsy asked impatiently. “How long could it take for a macho man to land a goddamn fish?”
“In this case, six and a half hours.”
“Six and a half hours? I don’t believe it.”
“At the end of which he got away.”
“Oh, no,” Tipsy sympathized unconvincingly.
“It happens.” Red drew himself up to his full height. “Do I detect irony in your voice?”
“Sure. As well as pity for the fish.”
“I thought as much. Anyway, when you play a fish like that fish there’s a lot of work, as I think you’d call it. You’ve got to let it run, reel when it gets tired, let it run, reel, run. Meanwhile, don’t let it pull the line under the boat, don’t let the line foul the prop, don’t give the fish enough slack to spit out the hook, don’t let yourself get dehydrated, do not get sunstroke. Pace yourself with the fish, ration your strength, and so forth. It’s a lot of trouble, especially when you’re by yourself, and it’s a lot of fun, too, and don’t give me any of your shit, ’cause you don’t know what you’re talking about. Cut to the chase. By the time it was all over we’d had a good fight and the fish was gone. I’d drunk one beer and opened another before I remembered what I was really doing out there. I checked the screen and right away I could see that Charley’s boat had only moved a few miles while that fish dragged me and Tunacide all over the place, and while, by then, forty-odd miles separated my boat from Charley’s, it should have been something like sixty.
“Now, there are a lot of reasons for a boat not to be moving, especially if it’s a single-handed sailboat without an engine. The wind might have died, for instance. Or some part of the rig might have failed. More likely the single-hander is hove to for a little shut eye under the premise that if he’s not moving in broad daylight he’s got a diminished chance of getting run down. But maybe he broke something, too, or maybe the wind piped up and he had to shorten sail and fouled a halyard, or hey, maybe he hooked a real nice fish and he fought it and won and now he was sitting down to his own grilled tuna, with two or three bottles of beer followed by a nap into the bargain. There’s a lot of variables. Did you ever think of any of this?”
“No,” she said decisively. “None of it.”
“Well I did. There was plenty of reason for Charley to be dawdling out there, and every reason for me not to expose myself. So I cleaned up the boat and doctored my hand, both of which were pretty near ruined, drank two liters of water and two more beers, turned up the audio warning on the radar, as well as the volume on the VHF scanner, and passed out in the shade of the master’s berth with an electric fan on my face. You ever sleep with a fan? It’s—”
“You may be much man, but you’re human, too,” Tipsy concluded.
“Thank you. That’s right. When I woke up I made myself a big breakfast, and—remember that yellow
fin tuna?”
Tipsy nodded.
“While the tuna steak was poaching in butter and white wine with a couple of bay leaves and some fennel,” Red smacked his lips, “I got around to checking on Charley’s position. Not to mention my own position.”
“And?”
“We were both drifting with the current. In the better part of nine or ten hours, he hadn’t made six miles over the ground. Like me. But he’d been at it about twice as long as I had. So maybe something was up.”
“You made a beeline for him?”
“Not a bit of it. I’ll finish my breakfast, I said to myself, and then, if Charley still appears to be adrift, I’ll figure out a way to sneak up on him. After dark, maybe.”
“Jesus,” Tipsy said through clenched teeth.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Red said. “But for a tarpon, there went a live sailor.”
“Not to mention a live brother.”
“Not to mention,” Red nodded grimly, “a double-crossing son of a bitch.”
TWENTY-NINE
“THE TUNA WAS DELICIOUS, BUT I DIDN’T ENJOY IT. STARTED WITH BEER and finished with coffee, watching the screen the whole time, and finally I couldn’t stand it any more. I fired up the engines and headed for Charley. Slowly. I helmed from the flying bridge, which put my eyeballs maybe twenty-five feet above the water. Higher than this thing.” He indicated the overhead. “All things being equal, I might have managed a glimpse of him sternwise, and, what with rising and dipping and the sun behind me, he might not notice me at all.
“But the closer I got to his signal the more fucked up I knew things were. At a range of about thirteen miles I should have been able to see the top of his mast—that’s nautical miles, about fifteen statute or land miles. It’s a long way to see the tip of a mast but it should have been easy. There would have been sails attached to it. Big white sails. I knew what direction to look, and I had stabilized binoculars. It was a typical Caribbean day, clear as a bell with passing pods of low cumulus. There’s tables that tell you what’s visible at such and such distances and heights above the water and so forth. All I had to do was look it up and I did. Like the mast of Vellela Vellela was, says right here in this book, forty-one feet six inches above the waterline, to which Charlie had added a couple of feet, and my eyeball was maybe twenty-one feet above the water, so the tables allowed for a sighting of Charley’s main trucks at 17.73 nautical miles. Round up to eighteen. I remember it clearly. It’s like I’m looking at the figures as I speak.