'Yo Mama!' Jackie called, her voice rising from the forest of stones. 'Will you quit genuflecting to your ancestors and get back here and share this blunt with me?'
Abbey walked back to where Jackie was sitting against a tombstone. '
'Don't give me that shit, you're as much a Mainer as I am. No offense.'
She sat down cross-legged, took the joint, inhaled, handed it back. As the burning sensation spread from her lungs to her head, she unwrapped her sandwich and bit into it. They ate in silence and then Abbey lay back in the grass, tucked her hands behind her head, and looked up into the sky. 'Did you notice?' she asked. 'At least half the people buried here are younger than we are.'
'You always get so morbid.'
'I'll be less morbid after I find the meteorite.'
They both laughed, lying in the grass, faces to the sky.
11
Randall Worth came around Thrumcap Island in his twenty-four-foot PC-6, the
Worth lobstered alone, without a stern man, because no one would work for him. So much the better, he didn't have to split his profits. A while ago some bastard had cut half his string because he was caught taking shorts.
He threw over the last trap and brought the boat into a tight idle, wheel hard to starboard. The line zinged out, the float popping into the water, followed by the buoy. For a moment Worth let the boat drift while he pounded down the last half of a Coors Light and threw the can overboard. He wiped his mouth and eyed the engine panel. The engine was running cold, the injectors were shot, there was fuel coming out the wet exhaust and spreading rainbows over the water. Every few minutes the bilge pumps would kick in, vomiting oily water over the side. He spat again, the gobbet lying on the deck like a shucked oyster. He kicked the raw water hose and washed the lougey out the scuppers.
He hoped his piece-of-shit boat would last the season. Then he'd buy insurance and sink it. All he had to do was stick a bad fuse into the bilge pump, moor his boat, and wait two days.
As Thrumcap Island passed to starboard the distant outline of Crow Island came into view, the huge white dome of the old Earth Station rising up like a bubble. The Crow Island ferry was just coming out of the harbor, churning away as it rounded the point and headed for Friendship. As he glanced back toward the mainland he was surprised to see a boat anchored in a quiet corner of Marsh Island Passage. He squinted.
The
He immediately throttled down, staring. A feeling of rage crawled up his spine and spread through his brain like water into a sponge. Fucking jungle bunny, he couldn't forget what she'd said about that
As the boat drifted in the tidal current, Worth pulled the last can of Coors out of the plastic rings and tossed the plastic overboard.
He hammered down the beer and stuck the can in the beer holder screwed to the side of the engine panel. He was starting to feel edgy, tense, his skin crawling. The crank bugs. He began itching nervously at the skin of his cheek, inadvertently breaking off a scab, feeling the wetness of blood on his fingertips.
He swore. Ducking into the tiny cuddy, he removed a glass bulb pipe from behind some gear, dropped in a rock, and with a shaking hand lit a Bic and directed the flame down into the bulb. There was a sudden cooking noise and he drew in hard, filling the bulb with smoke, then taking it into his lungs. Leaning back against the hull, he closed his eyes and let the rush happen, a sense of elation so strong it made him feel, for a moment, almost like a real human being.
He stuffed the pipe and crank back behind the fishing gear and bounded into the wheel house, feeling on top of the world. Once again he saw the
Suddenly, he had an idea. A good idea. In fact, it was the best idea he had ever had.
Worth checked his watch: four o'clock. The girls were obviously going to spend the night on the boat. This would give him time to go into Round Pond, fuel up, load up on beer and beef jerky from King Ro. He could pay a visit to his connection and score some more crank and collect the money he was owed for the stuff he'd boosted out of that mansion on Ripp Island. He could be back out at Louds at dawn.
With an out-loud laugh he goosed the throttle to 3000 rpms, spun the wheel, and headed back out past Thrumcap Island and around the southern end of Louds toward Round Pond Harbor.
With the money from the treasure, he'd buy himself a new boat--and he'd name it the
12
'He looks like Squealer, the Beanie Baby pig,' said Mark Corso. 'You ever see that pig? Big, soft, fat, and pink.'
Marjory Leung leaned back on the stool and laughed, her long black hair swaying, then lifted the martini to her pursed lips. Corso watched her abdomen stretching, her apple-shaped breasts sliding under the thin stretchy cotton of her top. They were in one of those California theme bars, done up in bamboo and teak, with corrugated tin roofing and colored floor lights, tarted up like some watering hole on the beach in Jamaica. Reggae music throbbed in the background. Why was it in California that everything had to look like somewhere else? He remembered what Gertrude Stein had said about California.
'Freeman warned me about him,' he added. 'How the hell did a guy like that get to be second in command?'
Leung set the drink down and leaned toward him, conspiratorially, her thin, athletic body like a bent spring. 'You know why he keeps his door shut?'
'I've often wondered about that.'
'He's surfing for porn.'
'You think so?'
'The other day I knocked on the door and I heard this sudden movement inside, like he was startled. And then when I came in he was hastily tucking in his shirt and his computer screen was blank.'
'Putting away his schlong, I bet. The very thought makes me want to puke.'
Leung issued a bell-like laugh, twisting on her stool, her hair swinging again, her knee touching Corso's. Her drink was almost empty.
He polished off his own drink and waved his hand for another round. The knee remained in contact with his.
