The line went tight and Beatrice jerked the rod, hit the fish, and it jumped. It was long and enormous. A sailfish.
“Goddamn,” Billy said. “Look at that. That’s record size. Don’t you lose him. Hit him again.”
And she did. The line went even tighter. Beatrice was pulled forward against the straps of the fighting chair. I could see one of her nipples peeking over the top of her bikini. It looked brown and friendly.
Beatrice tightened the drag. The line veered to the right, wide. Then back to the left, like a thin saw cutting lumber.
“Loosen the goddamn drag,” Billy said.
“It’s all right,” Beatrice said.
“I know fishing. Loosen the drag.”
“So do I,” said Beatrice. “My father owns a fishing boat.”
“Don’t you talk back to me.”
“Sorry,” Beatrice said, and loosened the drag.
I was suddenly up and standing next to Billy.
“You keep talking to the lady like that, and you’ll be swimming home,” I said.
“Lady?” Billy said. “Look at those tits and ass hanging out. You call that a lady?”
At that moment I tensed to hit him, but Leonard took hold of my arm.
“It’s their show,” he said softly. “For the moment.”
I took a breath, stepped away back to the bench, and sat down.
All right, I told myself. This is her game. Let her play it. She wants it like this. She knows what she’s doing. It sucks. But it’s her game.
Ferdinand worked the controls, reversed the boat and slowed the speed, gave the big fish room to run.
“I have one on my wall that’s a record,” Billy said. “And it’s not near big as that one. I’ve never seen one that big. And a goddamn woman hooks it. Don’t you lose it. You hear?”
“Yes, Billy,” Beatrice said.
Acid boiled around in my stomach. I looked at Ferdinand. He was stoic. My admiration for him was fading. Surely he knew the score. He must, or he wouldn’t let this shit go on. And if he knew the score, then that meant he wanted Beatrice to do what she was doing.
Leonard sat down beside me.
“Just be cool,” Leonard said.
The rod was bending. Billy said, “Loosen the goddamn drag.”
“It will hold,” she said.
“Loosen it.”
She did. The line sang, vibrated like a violin string. The fish went wide to starboard.
“Look at that cocksucker run,” Jason said.
The fish leaped.
I’ve never seen anything so incredible. Up it went. The sunlight hit the fish and it was many colors. Red and blue and gunmetal gray. Its veins appeared to stand out under its flesh. Nothing like it would look the moment it hit the deck, dying. Its color would fade. It would fade even more on the trip to shore. It would lose all of its real color in the taxidermist’s shop. It would end up dead and mounted on someone’s wall over their couch. A living, twisting, multicolored piece of magnificence turned to a hard, leathery, listless shadow of its former self.
The fish struck the water and disappeared.
The line slacked. The pole began to straighten.
“Hit him again,” Billy said.
She did. With a pull and a grunt. Then she hit him again.
Sweat pops were coating her forehead now, running down her chin and chest. The bathing suit was damp with it. A convention of sweat beads gathered in her belly button and made the bits of exposed pubic hair limp. The muscles in her legs and arms coiled and knotted, as if being braided from the inside. She pressed her little feet hard against the footrests.
“It’s too big for her,” Landis said.
“No,” Billy said. “She can land it. It’s the biggest fucking sailfish I’ve ever seen. It’s a goddamn dinosaur.”
Beatrice worked the line, the drag. It was obvious she knew what she was doing, probably better than Billy, but it was just too much fish. It might have been too much fish for anybody.
Billy poured a cold beer down her back.
“Chill out and hang in,” he said.
I looked at Leonard. “Let me just knock a tooth out.”
“Not yet. Don’t fuck her game for your pleasure.”
Beatrice hit the big fish again, solid, and it leaped. Pinned itself against the sky like a brooch on heaven’s chest. Hung there for what seemed way too long to be natural. Then, finally, even it was overcome by the laws of gravity, and down it went, slicing into the water.
“It’s like a goddamn submarine,” Jason said.
The line went solid again, jerked Beatrice against the straps. They were starting to cut into her shoulders, making red lines.
“You take the line,” Beatrice said. “You want him. You fish him.”
“No, honey,” Billy said. “You’re going to bring him in.”
“I cannot,” Beatrice said. “I am much too tired.”
“You’re stronger than you think. I know. I’ve been on the receiving end of your power. If you can fuck all night long, you can fish all night long.”
I glanced at Ferdinand. He was red. He gunned the boat’s motor.
“Hey, old man,” Billy yelled up at him. “You’re pulling the line too tight doing that.”
“Sorry,” Ferdinand said, and cut the engine back.
“I want this fish, Beatrice,” Billy said. “You want to give me what I want. What I’m paying you gives me what I want, and then some. You fuck this up, you’ll pay. You know that.”
“Yes, Billy. Oh, God, Billy, please. My back feels like it is breaking.”
“You’re okay.”
“My arms. I cannot hold them up.”
“Sure you can.”
“You want the goddamn fish,” I said. “You take it. She’s hurting.”
“Nothing worth doing is easy,” Billy said. “It’s her fish, and she’ll land it.”
“Please, Billy,” Beatrice said. “You can have it. It could be you caught it in the first place.”
Then I really got it. He was mad Beatrice had caught the big fish instead of him, and he was punishing her with it.
I called to Ferdinand. “Cut it out. Let’s take the boat in.”
He looked at me, his mouth moved at one corner, but he said nothing.
Billy said, “I’m paying ten, no, twenty times… You hear me, old man, twenty times what you get for a charter. So you do it my way. Beatrice will do it my way.”
“It is okay, Hap,” Beatrice said. “I can land him. I can do it.”
“You don’t look like you could hold your leg up,” I said, “let alone land that monster.”
“I can,” she said.
The boat stopped and the great fish sounded, dove way down into the deeps. The rod bent into a bow. Beatrice was beginning to shake. Her face was pale and her eyes looked as if they might roll up into her head. She was stretched forward in the straps so that her back was away from the fighting chair, exposed. I could see the cords of muscle there, knotted like the Gordian knot.
“She can’t take much more of this,” I said. “This is silly. I’ll take the fish if you won’t.”
“You won’t do any such thing,” Billy said. “It’s her fish and she’ll land it. She caught it, she can bring it in.”
“Billy,” Beatrice said. “I feel faint.”
He poured beer over her head. “Here, this’ll freshen you up.”
