Two types of men find their way to Rockport, Texas: fishermen and losers. Frank Tucker did not fish. He drank. Whiskey. Vodka. Beer. Pretty much anything with alcohol content. Every day. All day. And night. Until he fell asleep.
Only then did he find peace from the past.
Frank opened his eyes then averted them from the morning sun shining through the open windows. The present beckoned; he was not yet conscious enough for the past to torment him … for her face to haunt him … to hear her pleading … as Bradley Todd raped her … and her screams … as he stabbed her … forty-seven times … her cries as she lay dying … her last gasps of life. No, he still had precious time not to think of Sarah Barnes. He wiped drool from his mouth and shivered against the sea breeze. He had slept in his clothes again, shorts and a T-shirt. Rusty had taken the blanket. Again.
The dog barked.
Frank's head pounded like the surf against the seawall. Only there was no seawall on this isolated stretch of sand fronting the Gulf of Mexico. Rockport was a small fishing town on the Texas coast, about halfway between Galveston and Brownsville but a long way from River Oaks. A long fall. He had started falling and hadn't stopped until he landed in that sand. Face first. Drunk. He had passed out on the beach almost two years ago and had never left.
Or stopped drinking.
You do that when your life falls apart. When everything you worked for the last thirty years is suddenly gone from your life. When your wife leaves you for another man, a richer, sober man. When your children no longer answer their phones when they see your name on the caller ID. When the state bar association suspends your license to practice law because you showed up for trial drunk. Three times. When a man invests everything he has—everything he is and everything he ever will be—into his family, and then his family is abruptly ripped from his life like his wallet being snatched by a thief on the street, he is left adrift in a harsh world. He becomes a castaway.
And he drinks.
The local motto was Rockport: A drinking town with a fishing problem.
Frank sucked in the salt air. He was running the beach with Rusty. He still wore the same clothes. They were both barefooted. He had once run five miles every day, either on a treadmill at his downtown club or around River Oaks on weekends; but now one mile proved too much for his body. Being fifty-five years old and a drunk will do that to a man.
He stopped short and threw up.
He spit the last of the bile then stood and stretched to the sun. His morning detox. He stepped into the surf, unzipped his shorts, and peed. In front of God and everyone, except there was no one else in sight. Only a few seagulls witnessed his act of public indecency, and they wouldn't talk. He and Rusty walked the last four miles to the rock jetty that jutted out into the sea and then the two hundred paces to the point. The waves hit the rocks and splashed man and dog. He stared out at the endless sea.
If this wasn't the end of the world, he was close to it.
Where the hell's the shampoo? Frank felt the bottom with his toes—rock, wood, stone, another rock—
"Shit!"
Not a rock. He lifted his leg until his foot cleared the waist-deep water. A crab had clasped its claw onto his big toe and wasn't letting go. Frank yanked the crustacean loose and flung it into the surf. He searched with his foot again until he found the plastic bottle then ducked underwater; he emerged with the shampoo. He squirted the gel into his palm and applied it to his shaggy hair. He needed a haircut. He bathed in the Gulf of Mexico each morning because the sea was warmer than the shower; the water heater had broken, and he couldn't afford a new one. He scrubbed his hair then shampooed his body. He had put on weight. A liquid diet would do that to a middle-aged man.
Frank regarded his beachfront estate sitting just beyond the high tide line. The sea wind had caused the wood structure to cant landward, making it appear as if it might fall over at any moment; a strong gust could finish the job. The eight-hundred-square-foot bungalow—which sounded more romantic than "shack"—had been paid to him in lieu of legal fees in his final case. He had tried the case drunk but had still won an acquittal. His client was happy, but the judge was not amused; he reported Frank to the state bar. The third judge to do so. Three strikes and Frank Tucker was out. His license was promptly suspended pending substance abuse counseling and rehabilitation.
Which was still pending two years later.
One day a developer would come along and put up condos along this stretch of beach, and the town would declare his bungalow uninhabitable to make room for yuppies from Houston or refugees from Matamoros. Until that day came, this was home to Frank Tucker. And Rusty. The dog bathed only once a week, so he chased gulls on the beach while Frank bathed. He went underwater to rinse his hair and body. Another crab scurried along the bottom—or was it the same crab? They all look alike. Frank grabbed the shampoo and stood; he wiped the water from his eyes and combed his hair back with his fingers then walked out of the surf and onto the sand. A white-haired couple wearing wraparound sunglasses had wandered onto his part of the beach wielding long metal detectors—more tourists searching for lost Spanish treasure. Good luck with that. Frank walked past them; they recoiled as if they had seen a ghost.
"Morning," Frank said as he walked past them.
They stood speechless. Not the friendly sorts, he assumed. Must be from Dallas. That or they had never seen a grown man naked.
"We've got a big day, buddy. Need to protein up."
Frank filled Rusty's bowl with a high-protein feed then prepared his breakfast. He first brewed a pot of coffee. Then he set up the blender. Into the glass pitcher he dumped a scoop of Ion Exchanged Microfiltered Hydrolyzed vanilla flavored whey protein … a cup of frozen organic blueberries … a cup of frozen organic strawberries … one large organic banana … a cup of unsweetened organic almond milk … two cups of organic plain nonfat Greek yogurt … and a shot of vodka. The breakfast of champions. He blended the concoction then drank directly from the pitcher. He stepped the few paces to the small television and turned it on. Reception was fuzzy, so he adjusted the rabbit ears. He found the Today show and sat down in his favorite albeit ratty chair. Good Morning America on ABC was too perky for early morning and the CBS morning show too boring, so he watched Today. He liked Al. He downed the smoothie in long gulps while watching a segment on Buzz Bissinger, the famous author of Friday Night Lights and father of three, who had confessed in GQ to being addicted to Gucci clothes—$5,000 leather pants and $22,000 leather jackets—wearing women's underwear, makeup, and six-inch stilettos, and having dabbled in S&M on the side. Shit, he could have kept that to himself. The guy wrote a hell of a book about Texas football, which became a hell of a movie about Texas football and then a hell of a television series about Texas football, but he felt compelled to embarrass his children in the national media. Of course, it did make Frank feel somewhat better about himself: he had only embarrassed his son by showing up stumbling drunk at his nationally televised football game. He placed the empty pitcher on the plank floor next to the chair. The fruit and protein gave renewed vigor to his body, but the vodka made him …
He fell asleep in his chair.
Rusty barked him awake. The sun shone through the east-facing windows so it was still morning. Which meant either the dog had to pee or—
"Do we have an appointment?"
Rusty doubled as his secretary. Frank cleared his vision and pushed himself out of his chair. He rinsed a mug and poured coffee then stepped outside. A young man in a suit sat in one of the plastic lawn chairs on the porch. He stood and stuck a hand out. They shook.
"Frank."
"How're you doing, Ted?"
"Not so good."
"Well, let's talk about it in my office."
Ted kicked off his shoes and pulled off his socks and rolled up his trouser legs. He kept his coat and tie on; a lawyer could get only so casual. They walked to the sand and turned toward Galveston. Rusty bolted ahead to clear the beach of seagulls. The first lawyer had shown up about six months after Frank had landed in Rockport. Word quickly spread up and down the coast that the great Frank Tucker now resided in Rockport. He could no longer practice law, but he could still consult with lawyers who could.
"Prosecutor's being an asshole," Ted said.
"That's redundant."
"What?"
"You said a lawyer's being an asshole. That's the same as saying a lawyer's being a lawyer or an asshole's being an asshole."
"Huh?"
"Never mind. What's he doing?"
"Withholding exculpatory evidence … I think."
"Wouldn't be the first time."
Ted was a criminal defense lawyer in Corpus Christi thirty miles down the coast. He was defending a seventeen-year-old Mexican national against federal drug conspiracy and murder charges; an undercover DEA agent had been killed in a buy-bust gone bad. With the border drug war invading north across the river, it was an emotionally charged high-profile case. Ted was thirty-two, and this was the biggest case of his young career. He practiced alone; he had no senior partner to advise him. So he came to Frank. Often.
"But the judge has denied every motion I've filed to force discovery."
"Why?"
"His son was killed five years ago. Went into Mexico on spring break, didn't come back. Mexican police said he tried to buy drugs down there, cartel murdered him."
"And you think his son's murder is causing the judge to be biased against your Mexican client, an alleged cartel member and murderer?"
"Seems that way."
They walked in silence through the wet sand where the high tide had left seashells and shrimp and fish out of water. Rusty returned with a stick; Frank threw it sidearm, and the dog raced after it.
"My client isn't getting a fair trial, Frank."
"It's your job to see that he does."
"What should I do?"
"Is he innocent?"
"Yeah. He is."
"You sure?"
Ted nodded. "He's just a kid who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. All he wants is to get the hell back to Mexico."
"File a motion for recusal."
Ted regarded Frank as if he had just advised him to swim to Cancun.
"You want me to ask a federal judge to withdraw from the case? Shit, Frank, he's the only federal judge in Corpus. He could destroy my career."
"He could send an innocent boy to prison."
Ted stopped and picked up a shell. He flung it into the sea.
"Is that what you would do, Frank?"
"It is."
"For a Mexican?"
"For anyone."
"Why?"
"Because that's what lawyers do. Defend the innocent."
Ted dug his toes into the sand for a time then looked up at Frank.
"Frank, I don't mean any disrespect, but defending the innocent is what put you on this beach."
"No, Ted, defending the guilty is what put me on this beach."
They walked a bit more then returned to the bungalow where another man in a suit sat on the porch, his shoes and socks off and his trouser legs rolled up. Ted paid Frank with a $50 dollar bill. In Houston, he had charged $1,000 an hour.
"Thanks, Frank."
Ted headed up to his car on the road but turned back.
"Hey, Frank—I hope your son wins the big game up in Dallas today. I hate Oklahoma."
Frank Tucker was a family man. But he had no family. His wife had divorced him and remarried a man with money. She was now Mrs. Dale Joiner; he was the oilman whose wife had died of breast cancer. Liz was fifty; Dale was seventy. But he was also a billionaire, which lessened the age difference considerably.
His daughter had come home from Wellesley and finished school at a public college. Becky now taught English in a Houston public school. She had never needed her father, but she drove three hours once a month to spend an afternoon on the beach with her old man. He saw the disappointment in her eyes.
He hadn't seen his son in two years.
Or talked to him. Or communicated with him by mail, email, or text. Before his cell phone plan expired, Frank had called his son several times a week and left messages. He had even called collect—he had been past due on the bill—on the old landline in the bungalow. But his son had never called back.
William Tucker had no need for his father.
Who could blame him? His father had shown up drunk for his big game; which became his worst game. His son had banned his father from his life. But Frank Tucker had kept up with his son's personal life through his daughter and his son's football career through the sports pages. What father wouldn't? William had won the Heisman Trophy his junior year and was a sure bet to win it again his senior year. He had led his team to an undefeated record. They had four games left in the season, but for all intents and purposes the game that afternoon against Oklahoma would decide the national champion. Frank turned the television on, switched channels until he found the game, and then adjusted the rabbit ears until the reception was almost clear. The camera caught number twelve running onto the field. Rusty barked.
"Yep, there's our boy."
It seemed like yesterday when William was his boy. Twelve years old and throwing the football in the backyard. Dreaming of being a pro quarterback. Thinking his dad was the best dad in the whole world. Those are the times a father remembers and then regrets that they didn't last longer. That they had ended. That the twelve-year-old boy had grown up and become a man. That he wouldn't always be your boy.
That he wouldn't always think that you're the best dad in the whole world.
But he does grow up. And the boy who hugged you tightly when you came home from an out-of-town trial, who sat in the stands with you and watched the varsity play, who wanted to be with you, who was proud of you, who looked up to you—no longer does. When he's twelve, you want him to be better than you; when he's twenty-two and realizes that he is better than you, he has no reason to look up to you. He sees his dad not as a hero but as a human. With faults and frailties and failings and fears. And he moves on with his life. Away from your life. And your life is less.
Without a son.
William's star had risen as far and as fast as Frank's star had fallen. He was twenty-two and movie star handsome. He possessed extraordinary athletic ability. He was big, strong, and fast. He was the best college quarterback in the country and would be the number one pick in the NFL draft in April. He would soon be a very rich young man.
Frank would soon be drunk.
He and Rusty watched the game. Texas versus Oklahoma was one of the biggest rivalries in college sports. Longhorns versus Sooners. Burnt orange versus bright red. Each side of the Cotton Bowl Stadium in Dallas was filled with the respective school colors. Ninety thousand fans. Millions watching on television. Watching William Tucker play football. Perfectly. Amazingly. He ran for two touchdowns and threw for three more. But Oklahoma recruited most of its players from the state of Texas too, and they had come to play, so the game came down to the final play for William and the Longhorns. Fourth down. Eight seconds left. Losing by four points. Fifty-four yards to the end zone. They didn't draw up plays for that situation. The camera caught William in the huddle, calling the play and firing up his teammates for one more big play.
Frank's heart pounded. He did not want his son to fail.
The team broke the huddle and hurried to the line of scrimmage. William stood back in a shotgun and barked out the signals. One receiver went in motion across the formation. The center snapped the ball back to William … his receivers raced downfield … a linebacker blitzed, but the halfback cut his legs out . . . William rolled right … to the sideline … he set his feet … raised the ball … stepped forward … and threw the ball deep down the far sideline … to the end zone … to D'Quandrick Simmons … touchdown. Frank jumped out of the chair.
"Yes!"
He low-fived Rusty's paw and fell back into his chair. That's what perfect looked like. His son was a thing of beauty on a football field. That first college scout eight years before—What was his name? Sam Jenkins?—had been right after all: William Tucker was born to play football. He was special. But the scout had been wrong about one thing: Frank had followed his advice to the letter—public school, personal trainer and nutritionist, quarterback school, speed coach—but his son still hated him.
The fans swarmed onto the field and surrounded William. He threw his arms in the air. His face showed the pure joy of perfection. The television crew stuck a camera in his face and a female reporter yelled a question over the crowd noise. His son took no credit. Instead, he gave all the credit to his coaches and teammates and—
"The Good Lord."
Frank felt proud even from a distance of four hundred miles. His son had grown into a fine young man. Modest. Respectful. Not your typical star athlete. The kind of young man any father would be proud to call his own. But William Tucker had done it without the need for a father.
Frank Tucker never felt more useless in his life.
Frank again woke to Rusty barking. The sun shone through the west-facing windows and cast long shadows.
"Another appointment?"
Rusty dropped a golf ball in Frank's lap.
"Oh, is it our tee time?"
Frank Tucker teed up a Pro-V-One ball, the choice of your top touring pros. A four-dollar golf ball. He pushed his left hand into a Footjoy cabretta leather golf glove, his last one. He pulled his driver from the small carry bag and removed the head cover. It was a Titleist D210 with a Diamana Whiteboard 73 stiff shaft, which kept the ball down in the wind, a must on the difficult beach course. The sea lay to his right, and the wind was off the sea, so he played for a draw. He turned his cap backwards and adjusted his sunglasses he wore on a red cord around his neck. He stepped to the side of the ball, placed the driver behind the ball, adjusted his foot position, waggled once, and swung the club. The ball rocketed off the tee and into the blue sky and out over the water, where it hung for a long suspenseful moment … until the wind carried it back into the middle of the fairway.
Rusty barked his approval then raced ahead to the ball.
A lot of your exclusive country clubs don't allow members to play barefooted or dogs to serve as caddies. But being that Frank was the founding member of this particular club, he could play without shoes and with a canine caddie. He picked up his can of beer and the carry bag that contained seven clubs—he had found that the regulation fourteen clubs were not necessary on the beach course; he did carry a sand wedge—and slung the strap over his shoulder. Even at fifty-five, he enjoyed walking a golf course. The sand was wet and cool under his bare feet. The beach course was not the River Oaks Country Club, but there were no monthly dues. And he could just walk on.
He paced off two hundred and forty-seven yards. All carry. You didn't get a lot of roll on these fairways. Rusty stood guard next to the ball so a hungry seagull did not mistake it for food. Frank couldn't afford to lose another Pro-V-One. He was down to his final dozen. The last remnant of his River Oaks life.
"What's the yardage?"
Rusty barked.
"One sixty?"
Frank dropped the bag then grabbed a handful of sand. He tossed the sand into the air and gauged the sea breeze.
"Pin's on the right side of the green. I'm going to have to hold the ball in the wind with a cut. What do you think, seven-iron?"
Rusty barked.
"Six-iron? You really think so?"
Another bark.
"Okay, you're the caddie."
Frank took a swallow of the beer then pulled the six-iron and set up for a cut. He swung the club. The ball bored through the wind and held its line to the green. It hit the sand and stuck. Stiff.
"Greens are holding today."
Rusty barked.
"Yeah, you made a good call on the six."
A caddie who demanded credit. They walked to the green. The sand was wet and smooth; the ball would run true. But you had to putt around shells and dead fish. They were not considered loose impediments but instead part of the course. Local rule. Rusty dug a little hole fifteen feet away.
"I believe I was closer than that."
Rusty held his ground.
"Fine. A stickler for the rules of golf."
Frank yanked the putter from the bag. He lined up the putt and put a smooth stroke on the ball. He skirted a deceased jellyfish, but the ball broke left just before the hole. Rusty barked.
"Hey, how many times did Nicklaus have to putt around a jellyfish at the Masters?"
They walked to the tee box on the second hole, a par three. Frank tried to play nine holes every day. Never know, there was still the senior tour. Plan C. Thoughts of which he entertained until he duck-hooked a drive on the ninth hole into the Gulf of Mexico—against the wind. Rusty ran into the surf and dove for the ball, but to no avail. Damn, a Pro-V-One. The sea was a lateral hazard, so Frank suffered only a one-stroke penalty. But he got his four-iron approach shot up in the wind; it sailed into a dune right of the green. Sand shot. He pulled the sand wedge and pitched on; he two-putted. Double-damn-bogey. His caddie knew to keep his snout shut.
"Let's go up to the clubhouse. Time for a drink."
The sun sat low in the sky and transformed the wispy clouds hanging at the horizon into an orange-and-yellow masterpiece of nature. The sunsets always gave Frank hope; he had survived another day. They collected sand dollars on the walk back.
"We're in the chips now."
Frank tossed two sand dollars into the pile in the center of the card table.
"Whoa, we got us a big spender tonight," Dwayne said.
Frank was holding only a pair of fours, but Dwayne was always a sucker for a bluff.
"Practiced a little law today," Frank said. "Hence, the Jim Beam."
He had ridden the bike—he had no car, just a big-wheeled Schwinn with a basket up front, and there was no law in Texas against biking while drunk—to the store in town and bought four T-bone steaks and a fifth of whiskey for their Saturday night card game. Chuck had grilled the steaks on the Weber, and now they played cards and drank bourbon on the back porch of the bungalow. They each wore reading glasses; the curse of middle age. Dwayne smoked a cigar, Chuck a cigarette, and Chico a joint. Being a drunk himself, Frank tried not to judge, so long as Chico stayed downwind. A single sixty-watt light bulb dangled from above and illuminated the table sufficiently to make out the cards. Willie Nelson's "Phases and Stages" drifted out the open windows.
"I liked him better when he was young," Chuck said.
"He's eighty," Dwayne said. "You weren't alive when Willie was young."
Dwayne Gentry was fifty-six and an ex-homicide cop from Houston. Born and raised in the Fifth Ward, he was big and black and educated by the U.S. Army. Twenty-two years on the job, he had taken early retirement; in fact, he had been kicked off the force for being drunk on duty. Frank had known him from the old days; he was a good cop. He got the bad guys. He did the job the right way. But he had fallen hard for the wrong woman. A married white woman. And he had fallen alone; when he hit the ground, he didn't get up. Instead, he started drinking. He was already a bona fide drunk by the time Frank picked up the bottle, but Frank was a fast learner. Dwayne had stumbled into Rockport a year ago.
"Your son, that was a hell of a pass," Dwayne said. "Last second win over Oklahoma, that's got to feel good."
"Man, I'd love to get a tape, break the game down," Chuck said.
Chuck Miller studied game film as if he were still coaching. He was white, forty-nine, and stocky. He had grown up in Uvalde and won a football scholarship to SMU, back before the NCAA had given the school the death penalty in the eighties when it came to light that boosters (including the governor of Texas) had paid players. Chuck had played strong safety and was known for leading with his head; consequently, he had inflicted and suffered numerous concussions. He had been a good player, but not good enough to be paid by the boosters or the pros. After graduating with a degree in football, he hired on at a Houston high school to coach football. He promptly fell head over heels for the nineteen-year-old senior drum majorette. Her mother discovered their affair and reported him to the principal. He was promptly arrested for having an "improper relationship between an educator and a student." It was consensual sex with a female above the age of legal consent; she was an adult under the law and dated men older than Chuck. But those facts were not defenses to the offense. She was a student; he was an educator (although his lawyer had argued that a football coach could not be considered an educator under any known definition of the word). Which made their affair a second-degree felony under Texas law. For him, not her. He was a twenty-three-year-old coach just out of college and working his first job. It would be his last. The judge gave Chuck probation; the school district gave him a termination notice. Twenty-six years later, he still harbored dreams of getting back in the game. But it was hard enough to get hired in Texas after coaching a losing season, much less after screwing the drum majorette. He would never get back in the game. Chuck had found his way to Rockport five years before Frank fell face down in the sand.
"I'd've given my left nut to be as good as your boy," Chuck said.
"Hell, you could've given the right one too, much as you're using them," Dwayne said.
Chuck grasped the football he always carried as if to throw a pass. He carried the ball like old women carried poodles; he thought it kept him in the game.
"You know how rich your boy's gonna be in a few months? And playing quarterback for the Cowboys, man, he's gonna have to beat those Dallas girls off with a stick. Wonder if the team still bans the players from dating the cheerleaders? Always seemed like a harsh rule to me."
"That kind of wondering about cheerleaders is what put you on this beach."
"She was a majorette."
"She was a student."
Chuck shrugged. "Girls are my weakness."
"When's the last time you were with a girl?"
"In what sense?"
"The Biblical sense."
"Does phone sex count?"
"Those call-ins you pay for?"
"Yeah."
"No. In-person sex."
"Oh. Well, that really limits the sample size. Let's see, that would've been eleven years ago. No … twelve. I think."
"Girls ain't your weakness, Chuck. Delusional thinking, that's your weakness."
"Least my delusions aren't married."
"My wife's married," Chico said. "But not to me."
Chico Duran was fifty-two and an ex-con. He started his career in crime knocking over ATMs and then quickly graduated to bank robbery. The electronic variety. He never stuck a gun to a bank teller's head; just a few mouse clicks, and he transferred $50,000 to the Cayman Islands. Thirteen times. Chico maintained that he was simply striking a blow for working class Americans. "The government loans the big banks trillions at zero percent interest rate, then they turn around and charge thirty percent on our credit card debt. What is that but highway robbery? But I go to jail?" He did. Five years in a federal penitentiary. He remained indignant over his conviction to that day. He had called Rockport home the longest.
"Frank," Chico said, "how much money you make lawyering other lawyers?"
"Fifty bucks per session."
"On a monthly basis."
"Good month, five hundred."
"Five hundred? Man, I can get you a thousand, and you don't have to meet with lawyers."
Like a doctor saying you didn't need a digital rectal exam this visit.
"Tax-free money, Frank. Everyone's riding that government gravy train. You ought to jump on before all the gravy's gone."
Chico had found a less detectable crime than bank robbery: Medicaid fraud. Specifically, obtaining disability payments through false pretenses. He had forged the necessary documents, and eight weeks later received his first disability check. That was four years ago.
"Two months, I'll have you on the payroll. Lifetime benefit."
Frank had always declined Chico's offer. He still held out hope of getting sober and his law license reinstated. A federal Medicaid fraud charge wouldn't further the cause.
"And the beauty of it is," Chico said, "so many folks are doing it, you get lost in the pile. Almost no chance of getting caught."
"Almost."
"Ain't no guarantees in life, Frank."
An ex-cop, an ex-coach, an ex-con, and an ex-lawyer. All the exes of life. Castaways adrift in a harsh, unforgiving world. Each a loser in his own right. Everyone gets the opportunity to screw up his life, some more than others. Each of them had taken full advantage of his opportunities. Each dreamed of recapturing his old life, but then, dreamers and losers were next of kin.
"Panama," Dwayne said.
Chuck and Chico groaned. Dwayne was always researching foreign locations to live where his police pension would go farther than in the U.S. Chuck and Chico said nothing; they knew not to encourage him. But Frank enjoyed Dwayne's calculations. Sometimes he sounded almost rational.
"Panama?" Frank said.
"Yep. They use the U.S. dollar as their currency, but it's worth a lot more. You can live like a king down there. Everything's cheap. Housing, food, whiskey"—he held up his stogie—"cigars, cost you nothing down there. It's like going back to the fifties."
"You want to live in Panama?"
"I want to live someplace I can afford to live. Hell, I came down here figuring it would be cheaper than Houston, but all the Houston people are moving here, driving up the price of whiskey."
"If you want cheap," Chuck said, "why don't you move to Cambodia, eat fish and rice?"
"No cable TV."
Chuck grunted. "No ESPN, that would be a deal-breaker."
"But if you put your money in a bank in Panama," Frank said, "it might not be there tomorrow. There's no deposit insurance, and those governments down there, they're like Greece—one day you wake up and the government decides to take ten percent of everyone's bank account."
Dwayne shook his head. "You don't take your money down there, Frank. You leave it here. I'm not gonna offshore my money—I'm gonna offshore myself."
"Offshore yourself?"
"Yeah. See, rich guys like Romney, they stay here but send their money offshore. Poor folks like us, we leave our money here and send ourselves offshore."
It almost sounded rational. Dwayne tossed his cards on the table.
"I'm busted."
He stood and pulled out his small Mag flashlight as if pulling his weapon on a suspect. Beyond the light from the bungalow, the beach lay dark.
"I'm gonna have to dig up some more chips."
He took a step toward the sea just as a phone rang. Frank and Chuck did not react because neither had a cell phone. Dwayne and Chico checked theirs.
"Not mine."
"Or mine."
Another ring.
"It's from inside," Dwayne said. "I didn't know your landline worked, Frank."
"News to me. I thought they had pulled the plug for nonpayment."
Another ring. Frank was content to let it ring, but Dwayne was already up. He stepped inside and found the phone; he answered.
"Tucker estate."
He said nothing for a moment.
"Jail? Your one call?"
He returned to the porch with an odd expression on his face.
"Frank … it's your son."