II
“Dusky! Dusky! Are you listenin’?”
The reality of Nels Chester screaming at me over the Konel VHF jolted me out of my nostalgic reverie.
“Yeah, I’m here, Nels.”
“Christ, I thought for a second they’d gotten you too.”
“Not hardly. Tell me again: which way were they headed?”
“Well, east-nor’east, tryin’ to pick up the main shippin’ markers into Key West, I suppose. But if you’re figurin’ on interceptin’ that cigarette hull, Dusky, there’s just no way, ’cause it’s clear outta sight already.”
“Shut up, Nels. What about Billy Mack’s boat? How many guys are in it?”
“Two. The big colored guy that cut Billy, and one of the white guys.”
“That course, Nels—that course will bring them right by the shoals at Sand Key and Eastern Dry Rocks, won’t it?”
“Yeah, but hell, they won’t even know those shoals are there. They ain’t gonna slow up. I been around boats all my life, and these guys don’t know what in the hell they’re doin’.”
“One more thing, Nels. Give me half an hour before you notify the Coast Guard.”
“What?”
“Just do it, goddammit! Now, cover up Billy Mack good. Use that white fly-bridge canvas—I’ll buy you a new one. And when you get back to the docks, don’t let any of those gore seekers or newspapermen stare at him. I won’t let them do that to Billy Mack. If I hear that it happened, I’ll come looking for you, Nels. You know me; you know I mean it.”
I switched the VHF off in the middle of Nels’ indignant protestations, then hurried deckside.
“Fish on!”
The guy who had chartered my boat sat tensed in the chrome-and-white fighting chair while, astern of us, a big Atlantic sailfish, iridescent blue in the blackblue water of the Gulf Stream, knifed its way through the weak trolling chop, mullet bait already in its mouth.
“Thousand one. Thousand two . . . ”
Before he had a chance to finish his count and strike the fish, I had whipped my Gerber fishing knife out and cut the line. His face registered surprise, then outrage.
“What in the hell . . . ? What are you, some kinda madman?” He jumped out of the fighting chair, letting the big Penn Senator reel fall with a thud onto the deck. He shoved me back against the ladder to the fly bridge of my old custom-built, thirty-four-foot sportsfisherman, hands gripping the collars of my shirt.
I didn’t like the guy to begin with. He had chartered me three days in a row, each day coming aboard with the loud and braggartly flourish of the gaudy rich, browbeating his pretty blond wife, lecturing her when she missed her first fish. I couldn’t understand it. She was a good woman. A beautiful face and figure; soft weight of breasts lifting full and firm under the denim shirts that she wore. And she was obviously intelligent. Once I caught her looking at me in the soft way that women do when they are interested in a man. And when I caught her, her gaze hardened, softened, then hardened again. She seemed to be saying: “Okay, I made a mistake. I married a bratty man-child who isn’t big enough or confident enough to allow his wife to live as an individual. He gropes for integrity by stealing mine, and his ego feeds on making me look small and silly and foolish. I made a mistake, but I’ll live with it. I don’t need an affair with a big blond hulk of a charterboat captain to salvage what humanity I have left. That would only make me feel even more pathetic. No matter how good-looking you are, no matter how tender you might be. And as much as I would like to. . . . ”
His hands tightened, pulling his big hams of fists up under my chin when he realized how easily he had shoved me back against the ladder.
“I want my money back, Captain MacMorgan. Every goddam cent of it. That was my one shot at a trophy fish, and you blew it. It could have been a world’s record on thirty-pound, and I want a refund. Now!”
He was a big guy. A whole head taller than I am—and I’m just a tad over six feet two. The college fullback type; maybe tight end. If so, that had been some years and twenty pounds ago. Oh, in a fight, he might even now have been able to summon all that strength and speed of college days—but not for more than forty seconds. And, frankly, I didn’t give a shit if he could. Slowly, ever so slowly, I reached up and took his wrist in my right hand, and then began to squeeze. Softly at first. Then harder. I watched his face. First, he was amused. Then surprised. And then his face blanched white with pain. I felt the small carpal bone pop and crush beneath my grip.
“Oh, Jesus!” His hands fell limply to his sides. “Jesus, you broke my . . .”
Gently, I grabbed his shirt collar and swung him into the cabin, noticing, as I did, the slightest of wry smiles on the face of his wife.
“Listen to me, fat boy,” I said in a hoarse whisper. “And listen good. In about ten minutes I’ve got a very important date with a couple of murderers. It won’t take long. And I want you and that nice woman—I’m not going to call her your wife because that implies ownership, and she’s too good to be owned by anybody, especially you—to do what I say. You lock yourselves in the head and don’t come out no matter what you hear.”
“You’re crazy,” the big man said, eyes wide with horror. “I refuse to be a part of any of it. I demand you take us back to Key West immediately. I demand . . . hey, what are you doing?”
I had lowered him down into a booth seat beside the galley. I was rummaging around in the food locker and finally found what I was looking for. A little tin of Copenhagen snuff. I held it up.
“See this stuff? Got hooked on it when I was a kid in the circus. I was a catch man—the best, some used to say. But there was a lot of pressure, lot of responsibility. Got so before each show I had to have a dip of this Copenhagen. Then, in Vietnam, I had it shipped over. Couldn’t fight without it; that’s how it got to be. I killed seventeen men in hand-to-hand combat above water, and the last thing thirteen of them saw was me about to spit this shit into their eyes. Now, do you have some idea of what I’m doing?”
There was a wild look of terror in his eyes. He made a lunge for the VHF. I caught him in midstride, swung him around, and slapped him; four good stingers.
“Okay,” he said, a little whimper escaping. “Okay, I’ll do anything you say.”
“Good. Just lock yourselves in the head and don’t come out. No matter what.”
I started up deckside, then stopped and turned around. His chubby face was pallid and he was holding his wrist. I said, “Your wife didn’t see any of this. So it never happened as far as I’m concerned. If she had seen you humiliated, I know what you would have done. Taken it all out on her. Made her life an even bigger hell than it is right now. So forget it. Right?”
He nodded quickly.
I jumped the steps to topside and came immediately face to face with the woman. I slammed the cabin door behind me.
“You heard?”
She nodded somberly. She seemed to be on the verge of tears, her lovely face flushed, and I realized that I had seen only one prettier woman in my life—Janet, my wife.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I had to do it. My best friend was just . . . just murdered. The guys who did it . . . well. See that light tower toward shore a ways? That’s the marker at Sand Key. If my guess is right, they’ll skirt Sand Key, turn directly for Western Head and the channel into Key West. And if they do, I’ve got ’em. They’ll go around at Eastern Dry Rocks, or I’ll intercept them. Either way, they’re dead.”
She gasped. In her eyes was sadness and deep concern. “You can’t do that, Captain MacMorgan. You have a wife to think about. And you love her; love her very much. I can tell. You’re the first man who never . . . never . . . ”
“Made a pass at you, Mrs. Johnson?”
She smiled at me then; reached up with a soft dry hand and touched my face. “Did you really kill seventeen men in hand-to-hand combat?”
“Maybe.”
I watched her study my eyes.
“Yes, I think you did, Captain MacMorgan.” She stood on tiptoe and brushed my cheek lightly with her soft lips. For an instant I felt the fullness of nipple and breast against my chest; felt the brief heat of thighs against my leg. “I wish you well, captain. I had forgotten: there are still some men who do the things they have to do. No matter what.”
