One of the men was about thirty-five, tall and stocky with close-cut blond hair and burning blue eyes. He wore a loose blue shirt and tan khaki slacks and white deck shoes.
Right off I thought he was an asshole. I also thought he was the guy Beatrice had screwed to maintain the fishing charter. He looked too damn smug and in charge to be anyone else. The guys with him were both about his age and were dressed similarly. One was thin and had dark brown hair and a mole on the side of his face that could have been painted with eyes, mouth, and nose, and passed off as a Siamese twin.
The other guy was a handsome, average-sized black man. I watched to see if Leonard checked him out.
He did.
Blondie said, “We goin’ or what?”
Ferdinand smiled, straining at it I’m sure. He said, “Yes. We are waiting on Beatrice.”
“Beatrice,” he said. “She’s not here?”
“Ferdinand just said that to see if you’d ask if she’s really here,” I said.
“Yeah,” Leonard said. “She’s hid. We’re all going to start searching the boat for her in a minute. Whoever finds her gets a gummy bear.”
“And who are you two?”
I wanted to tell him I was the guy that was going to throw him off the boat, but it wasn’t my boat and I was here to help, not make matters worse.
“A friend,” I said.
“And him?” Blondie said, nodding at Leonard.
“I jes do duh coffee and put fishes on duh hooks,” Leonard said. “I’s known as Unca Leonard.”
“That’s funny,” Blondie said.
“Why thank ya, suh. I’s got me uh liddle niggra minstrel act I’s been workin’ on.”
The black guy laughed. Mole Face was smiling. Jose finished loading bait, then, sensing tension, disappeared like morning fog.
“Look,” I said. “We’ll go back to the hotel and see what’s up.”
“I’ll go with you,” Blondie said. “I left her early this morning so I could run some errands. She’s supposed to be here. I’m gonna give her a piece of my mind.”
“I wouldn’t give her too much,” I said.
“Yeah, and why’s that?”
“Because I might not like it.”
“And I don’t know you got mind to spare,” Leonard said. “I think you use most of it just getting up in the morning.”
Blondie snorted, looked at Leonard. “Lost the minstrel act, didn’t you?”
The veins on the sides of Leonard’s neck expanded.
“Whoa,” the handsome black guy said. “It’s cool. It’s cool. Let’s not get off on the wrong foot. We’re down here to fish.”
“Yeah, and this charter hasn’t been nothing but a problem,” Blondie said. “I’m ready to chuck the whole thing.”
“Hey,” Mole Face said. “You got some poontang out of it, didn’t you… Oh, sorry, old man. I forgot she was your daughter.”
Ferdinand didn’t say anything. He just looked stunned.
I put my hand on his shoulder. “It’s all right. Me and Leonard will go check on her.”
He nodded.
We climbed off the boat. Me, Leonard, and the blond asshole.
“You don’t have to come,” I said to Blondie.
“Yeah, but I want to,” he said. “I left her this morning, I told her to hurry along. One thing I hate’s a woman that doesn’t do as she’s told.”
“You asswipe,” Leonard said. “I’ve got a mind to knock your nose on the other side of your head.”
“Don’t push it, buddy,” Blondie said.
Leonard laughed. It actually scared me, and I love him. I figured Blondie, if he had a couple of brain cells left, must have felt his stool go loose.
At that very moment Beatrice came rushing up, breathless. Boy, was Blondie glad to see her. I saw a bit of color come back to his face.
Beatrice was holding her side, showing she had been hurrying. Her hair hung wet around her face. She had on a shorty towel robe, flip-flops, and was carrying a large yellow plastic bag. She saw us staring at her.
“What?” she said.
“You’re making us wait,” Blondie said.
“I’m sorry, Billy,” she said. “Really.”
She almost started to cry. I noticed she had a bit of a black eye.
I took hold of her arm, nodded at the eye, said, “He do that?”
“Wha… Oh, no. I slept on my hand or something. I am fine.”
“She bumped her head on the headboard last night,” Billy said. “When I was putting it to her from behind.”
Beatrice felt me tense. She said, “Please, Hap. Please. I’m not bothered, you shouldn’t be.”
I let my breath out slowly. “All right.”
“You’re not needed here,” Billy said. “In fact, why don’t you and your man here stick to shore.”
“I need them along,” Beatrice said. “They’ll bait the hooks.”
I knew then why she had really wanted us along. She was afraid of this joker.
Billy looked at Leonard. “Now you’ve nothing to say?”
“I was concentratin’,” Leonard said. “Tryin’ to decide how hard I’d have to pull your head for it to come off.”
Billy tried not to show he was bothered, but his bobbing Adam’s apple betrayed him and the Elvis sneer he manufactured trembled. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s fish.”
17
As we boarded the boat behind Beatrice and Billy, Leonard said, “What I suggest is we finish out the day, I whip his ass. If he still wants some, you can have him.”
“We’ll flip for first later.”
Beatrice took us aside, said, “Father will show you how to bait the hooks. It is hard at first, but when you have baited a few, it will be easy.”
We set the boat free of the dock and chugged out into deeper water. The day was hot, the sky blue, spotted with clouds as white as Santa’s whiskers. The diesel exhaust, combined with the motion of the boat, the heat, made me feel ill. Within fifteen minutes I was vomiting over the side. Pretty soon thereafter, Leonard was doing the same.
Billy was sitting in the fighting chair, drinking a cold beer he’d pulled from the ice chest. He laughed. “Couple old sea salts.”
As we hung over the side of the boat, Leonard said, “I’m mortified.”
“Did you bring the seasickness pills?”
Leonard shook his head. “Afraid not.”
It was a long day. I had only thought it was hot. Now it turned hot. The sardines in the big plastic buckets smelled ripe as disease.
Ferdinand showed us how to bait the sardines on hooks. It was harder than it looked. But after only a few fish came off the hooks and I had poked only five or six holes in my hand, and Leonard had managed to rediscover his East Texas heritage by teaching everyone on the boat all the curse words known to humanity in English, we had it going.
A little fishing was done en route, but nothing was caught. We moved out into deeper water. The sea was
