Bait: A Novel (6 page)

YESTERDAY.

“T
his could go on all damn day,” Tal muttered.

Slim pickings was an understatement. The ball cap at his feet still didn’t have a single bill in it. Tallahassee Jones looked up and down the boardwalk again. There were people about, not as many as he’d hoped, but enough to warrant an evening of musical offerings, in his opinion. The cap suggested otherwise.

“C’mon, people, pay a little and I’ll play a lot.”

Tal mopped his brow with a bandana. The sun was too hot, despite the lateness of the day. The sky was almost cloudless. Not a single breeze from the ocean. He’d spent the better part of the week strumming his mangy acoustic on the boardwalk and asking folks for spare change in the sweltering heat. Change was all that was being tossed his way, sparse and of the nickel and dime variety. Between songs he swigged from a paper bag containing tall boys of Budweiser. The beer being sucked through his lips was warm and sour, but he didn’t care. He got the numbing he needed out of it.

“Christ, folks, throw a dog a bone,” he grumbled.

Tal drained his second tall boy of the evening, letting a thimbleful of foamy amber trickle from the corner of his mouth. He let out a loud belch and crushed the can inside the bag, much to the distaste of an old white woman walking her Yorkshire terrier nearby.

“Disgusting,” she said.

“Take your bitch elsewhere, bitch,” he muttered.

But she was already walking away, pulling her yappy dog along by the neck. The beer buzz chased away his inhibitions and Tal decided to let loose. He tuned his D string, cleared his throat, and broke into a fervent version of Bob Marley’s “Waiting in Vain,” guitar strumming solid, voice a smoky tenor. He performed with eyes shut, opening them only to thank a passerby when he heard the clink of coins hitting coins in the hat. Whenever Tal played “Waiting in Vain” these days, he didn’t think of an elusive love. In fact, a woman was the last thing to come to mind. Now he only equated the lyrics with heroin.

“It’s been three years since I’m knockin’ on your door . . .”

Three years since heroin completely took over Tal’s life. Before that he’d claimed recreational use for a long time, a baby habit, if such a thing could ever be said of junk.
Recreational
was an almost impossible adjective for the opiate that could never be kept at arm’s length, and about as laughable as the term
high-functioning addict.
With heroin you were only delaying the inevitable. Baby habits were quick to turn into belly habits, wringing your guts in an iron grip if you failed to feed them on time.

“Tears in my eyes burn, tears in my eyes burn . . .”

Tal had cried for heroin. He’d begged for it, crawled for it, fought for it, stole for it, and once almost killed for it.

“Sounds awesome, dude,” said a kid passing by on a skateboard.

Tal nodded appreciatively, but the kid donated nothing. Busking outside the marina was usually lucrative, more profitable than mere panhandling. People with the money and the means liked to see the less fortunate work for a handout. They wanted entertainment for their dollar, whether it be singing on a sidewalk or dancing on a bed of hot coals. Those who moored their boats at the marina all had serious dough. Some of them recognized Tal and tossed him a little extra, though it still made him feel like a minstrel most days. Once in a while some specimens of white wealth would walk by and regard him as such, a sneer on their lips or a chuckle in their throat. Tal had half a mind to bash their heads in with his guitar. Give him enough tall boys in one afternoon and he just might.

Tal looked at the expensive yachts on the water, wishing he had the kind of bank account that paid for them. He took in their names:
Odyssey Two
,
North Star
,
Esmeralda
,
Pelican Briefs
,
The Naughty Nemo.
Some were sailing toward the Florida Keys, toward the place Tal dreamed of escaping on a pricey pleasure craft with a few hot bitches at his disposal and a mountain of coke in the cabin. He knew more about the Keys than the average Joe. His years working as a janitor at the marina had given him the knowledge, back before he got fired for trespassing on people’s docked vessels.

“Shit job anyway,” Tal mumbled, tuning his E string.

During his employment he’d overheard much at the marina. Scores of Jimmy Buffetts with one too many margaritas down the hatch had given Tal insight into high-class life on the water. Tal took notes, a habit that had eventually led him to board boats in search of things to boost. He knew how much these vessels sold for, how much fuel they consumed, how much their insurance cost, how much they depreciated over time. He knew what parts could be stolen and sold for a pretty penny too. A fish finder could go for hundreds of dollars, marine radar for thousands.

The Keys themselves, though, they were a thing of interest. Over seventeen hundred islands of various shapes and sizes made up the archipelago, a network of dotted land and separating sea covering more than three hundred and fifty square miles. Tal knew just how lost you could get in those parts. Every year a number of boats failed to return to the marina.

Some vanish without a trace,
Tal thought.

The Keys could be cruel. Unbearable heat, freak weather, rocks and reef hiding just below the surface primed to puncture hulls. Plenty of ways a person could fuck up their boat trip too: miscalculate fuel, run out of supplies, or simply suck at navigation. If your boat ran into trouble, that was one thing; but if it went down, you were toast. Adrift in a dinghy or floating in a life jacket gave you a snowball’s chance in hell of surviving. Even with a radio or phone to call for help, you would be waiting ages for rescue if you didn’t have exact coordinates. You’d be the proverbial needle in a haystack, a human speck on a vast canvas of blue. Whether people were searching or not didn’t really change how long it might take for someone to come across you out there.

There were far worse places to die in the world, Tal conceded that. The Keys were sensually beautiful, the epitome of paradise. The tropical sun, sand, and sea might make you think you’d died and gone to heaven. But Tal knew the allure was part of the deception. The postcard scenes were silken veils drawn across untrustworthy faces. The things out there that could cut you, sting you, paralyze you, devour you—too many to remember.

When missing boat owners reappeared they were usually in corpse form. Hurricane season was a death sentence for anyone caught out in the Keys. The lucky ones drowned. The less fortunate died of hunger or thirst. The poorest souls succumbed to the stuff of nightmares. Nature had a habit of mixing beauty with beast. The Keys were no exception. Its beasts were bloodthirsty.

Tal remembered a fishing trip he’d taken long ago with some friends he hadn’t seen now in years. There had been warnings from the outset, and cautionary tales told during lunch on an island. Their skipper, reeking of whiskey and cigarettes, made sure everyone understood that to be taken in by the Keys’ charms was foolish, citing the case of his own brash brother who had gone scuba diving one morning and never returned.

Tal couldn’t recall the details much, but he did remember the skipper’s stories scaring him enough to consider passing on the snorkeling portion of the trip. When he did get in the water he stayed close to the boat, refusing to venture out too far. Through his face mask he saw all he needed to: shallows fanning out and suddenly dropping down into rock and reef where small fish swam in schools and crustaceans scuttled over coral sharp enough to flay flesh from bone.

It was what he didn’t see that would have convinced him to stay out of the water for good. Farther out, larger creatures swam in the cooler, darker, deeper waters where sunlight was gradually eaten away until the gloom was almost liquid night. Far fewer species ventured down into the blind cold. Those that did rarely returned. From time to time the last straining rays of sunlight would be broken by large gliding bodies that were known to patrol the depths—creatures that also ventured to the surface.

You’ll never catch me diving down there,
Tal thought, looking out at the expanse of ocean beyond the marina.

He began strumming his guitar again, determined to earn a score’s worth of pity from passersby. The sun was sinking to the horizon. The lampposts along the boardwalk buzzed, gathering enough charge to flicker weak light. He broke into his third tall can and looked up and down the walk to see if any cops were around. Hardly anyone about at all, so he decided on another Marley number, a down-tempo version of “I Shot the Sheriff.” Tal closed his eyes and played.

“Every time I plant a seed, he said kill it before it grow. . . .”

Tal strummed and sang with everything he had. When the last chord rang out he opened his eyes. There hadn’t been one single clink in the hat during the song, but some generous soul had recognized his talent and dropped a silent ten-dollar bill. Tal looked around for who that might have been. There was nobody about, save a couple of joggers. Only a sliver of sun showed above the horizon. A thirst inside Tal made itself known, right on cue. Beer wouldn’t suffice anymore. There was a habit to feed and tar to score. Tal considered calling it early and heading back to his hood. He looked down at the hat. Almost enough cash inside for one decent fix.

“Maybe I can swing a discount.”

Tal looked at his fingers, blistered and raw from all the playing he’d done over the previous days. Enough was enough. He packed up his guitar and pocketed the change. On the way home he’d visit his new dealer, a pusher in the neighborhood known only as Al Catraz. What he’d scored from Catraz the other day was powdered perfection. He needed more of it.

People came and went from the marina all the time and at all hours. Tal thought nothing of the approaching footsteps behind him just before capable arms grabbed and restrained him. The pinch of a needle in his neck swirled and slowed Tal’s world. Everything went black by the time he buckled and dropped.

NOW.

T
al fell to the sand, hands clutching his upset stomach. The others nearby knew how he felt, for their own guts roiled and burned in their bellies. Felix picked sand out of his belly button and got Nash’s attention with a grunt.

“We’re civilians to them,” he said.

Nash stopped biting his fingernails long enough to ask, “Pardon?”

“They referred to us as civilians in the note,” Felix said. “Not citizens, not prisoners, not hostages.”

“So?”

“So, why point us out like that? Who calls people civilians?”

Nash thought it over. “Government, I guess.”

Felix shook his head. “Military.”

“Military?”

“Yeah, or something like it. You’re looking at people with power and capability and reach who see people like us as something less, something weaker.”

“What are you getting at?” asked Ginger.

Felix looked to the yacht. “I’m not sure yet.”

“Then do us all a favor and stop talking,” Tal grumbled.

Felix didn’t think he’d heard right. He looked at the half-caste sweating on the sand, knees drawn to his chest, facial muscles flexed in a portrait of pain.

“Huh?”

Tal didn’t look at him. The agony burning at his core scrunched him up like a paper ball. With eyes squeezed shut and a locked jaw he spoke even quieter than before.

“Quit talking already.”

Felix’s chuckle was frigid. “What you say to me, boy?”

Tal’s scream sent them all reeling.
“I said shut the fuck up, nigger!”

It took Felix a second to recover from Tal’s outburst. Then he was on his feet, fists up, ready to throw down.

“Okay, asshole, round one, let’s go.”

“Felix!” Nash yelled. “It’s not him, it’s the dope.”

Felix didn’t care. Tal didn’t rise to the challenge, but Felix struck him anyway, landing an awkward downward punch to the forehead as he fell on the man. Stunned, Tal wrapped his limbs around Felix’s body and locked him up. They rolled on the beach, a writhing tangle of black and brown. Felix roared, trying to find purchase for another strike.

“Think you can talk to me like that, you filthy half-breed?”

Tal’s arm slipped and Felix managed another swing, but missed his mark, planting a fist into the sand beside Tal’s head.

“Nigger?” Felix was saying. “
Nigger?
I’ll show you—”

Felix saw the head butt coming, turning his face away just as Tal’s forehead crashed into his cheek and blossomed heat there. It probably hurt Tal more, but it still stung Felix like a bitch, spiking his anger up to rage.

“Oh, you’re dead for real now, man!”

Nash and Ginger reached around Felix and grabbed an arm each, using all their strength to pull him off Tal and drag him back. Kenny and Maria tried to assist, but managed only to get in the way.

“Jesus, Felix!” Ginger yelled. “Fucking stop!”

Nash backed her. “Quit fighting already.”

Felix fought off their grip and they dropped him on his back. He was quick to get to his feet, poised for another fight. Although his expression said he’d take them all on if he had to, he refrained from doing so.

“Touch me again and you’ll be the ones on the receiving end of this,” Felix warned, raising a fist. “Mark my words.”

Nash and Ginger stepped back, hands raised, not wanting a fight. Tal lay on the sand, breathing hard, staring at the sky with watery, bloodshot eyes. He didn’t care if Felix came back for another round. He figured the bruiser couldn’t hurt him any more than what was wringing and stabbing his insides.

“The guy is going through withdrawal, dude!” Nash yelled at Felix. “Look at him. He’s in agony. He don’t mean no harm. He barely knows what he’s saying or doing.”

Felix looked into Tal’s absentee eyes, saw the fever on his face, the sweat on his body, the reddening patches where scratching had raked his skin raw. All of it told him that Tal had already arrived in hell’s lobby and would be checking in soon enough. Everyone would be accommodated sooner or later, no exceptions, no escape. The reality of it was starting to erode everyone’s composure.

“Had enough?” Felix asked. “Or do you want some more of the same?”

No response. Tal’s obliviousness to the threat of attack stopped Felix from launching one. There was an understanding. He’d been in Tal’s shoes before, desperate for dope and unable to get fixed. Felix didn’t feel pity, but he was struck with anxiety: worry over his own worsening condition that was simply Tal’s on a time delay. Ginger stepped forward and laid a hand on Felix’s shoulder, supporting his fears.

“Tal’s got a head start on the rest of us. I’d say he’s in deeper by a day or so.”

“Whatever,” Felix said. “That still doesn’t give him the right to—”

“No, it doesn’t, you’re right, Felix. All I’m saying is that the withdrawal is a reason, not an excuse, for his bullshit. Let’s see how mild mannered you are in twelve to twenty-four hours.”

Nash grabbed a bottle of water from the box and knelt beside Tal, extending it to the man’s unmoving hand. Tal didn’t grab for it.

“Tal, you okay?”

Tal’s throat bucked before answering. “Oh, yeah, I’m solid gold. Twenty-four fucking carats, man.”

Ginger shored up beside Nash, kneeling so she could lay the back of her hand on the hot skin of Tal’s forehead. She felt the lump delivered by Felix’s blow.

“How bad you got it, man?”

“You been through it before, honey?” Tal asked, a tear escaping the corner of his eye and rolling to his earlobe. “Gone cold turkey?”

“I’ve tried to kick the habit a few times, yeah.”

“And how’d that make you feel?”

Ginger swallowed hard. “Like a sack of smashed assholes.”

Tal gave a weak grin. “That’s putting it mildly. I’d wager I’m worse off than any of you have ever been before. I ain’t got a bad habit. The bad habit’s got me. Know what I mean?”

She did. Tal rolled onto his side, away from Ginger. It pained him to do so, but he didn’t want the woman to see him cry.

“What do you want us to do?” Kenny asked.

“I want you to go away,” Tal moaned and closed his eyes.

It wasn’t a request. They did as asked, backing away from Tal as if he were the carrier of an infectious disease.

“And stay away,” he added.

The group said no more to each other, breaking off and heading in separate directions. Worsening withdrawal was heightening their irritability, making them sour. Thinking straight was becoming problematic. So was controlling their emotions. Staying sharp required effort now, but they were still wise enough to know that a little distance was a good thing.

Ginger was right. Tal was by far the worst off. The pain became unbearable as he lay on the sand and he was soon forced to stand. He walked the island aimlessly until he found a sizable rock at the far end and perched on it, twisting his back in such a way that it brought relief to his guts. The sight of the small island across the channel fascinated him, its size and distance eating up his attention. Goose bumps stood out on his skin. Itching was incessant on all parts of his body. He talked nonsense to himself and the others were happy to leave him alone.

Ginger and Kenny retreated to the opposite side of the island, where they had first awakened. They took with them their allotment of food, though they had no appetite. Their stomachs ached, producing cold sweat on their skin and low moans in their throats. Girl and boy sat huddled on the sand, feverishly keeping an eye out for any sign of a passing vessel or aircraft.

Nash strolled, patrolling the island’s perimeter, lost in his thoughts. Maria took refuge under the shade of a large palm tree, closing her eyes in the vain hope that she might soon wake from her nightmare. Felix seemed to disappear completely, but Nash caught sight of him squatting among the bushes. Nash knew the deal. Diarrhea was the direct result of not taking your junk on time, a reverse of the constant constipation suffered when on the stuff. Vomit played counterpart to this. If Felix hadn’t tossed chunks already, he would soon enough.

Nash puked up bile behind a tree where he was sure no one could see him. Embers burning in his bones flared up and ignited his muscles, white-hot agony causing starbursts in his vision. Cold shivers followed, which seemed to drop a degree with every shudder they produced.

I’ve never had it so bad in all my life,
he thought, wincing as another pang speared his gut.

Despite the varied symptoms between them, the one thing that savaged the six in unison was the hunger
.
Their cravings had grown exponentially since they had awakened and Nash was well aware of how bad things could get. He’d only attempted a detox once in his life, and that was with the right supplies. He was in for a rough one. They all were.

Nash avoided Tal the first two times he circled the island. On his third pass, he decided to check in. He approached Tal cautiously, watching him sway atop his perch. Before Nash uttered a word, he knew Tal’s condition had worsened.

“How are you keeping, buddy?”

A grunt rattled from Tal’s throat. Not even a glance was thrown Nash’s way. The man stared ahead, lips moving, but making no sound. His knees were drawn up under his chin and he rocked in that unstable way Ginger had when Nash first awoke.

Mental patient,
Nash thought.
Victim in shock.

Tal was almost unrecognizable from the man Nash had first met on the beach. His face had become more haggard, his eyes feral and bloodshot. His arms were scratched to the point where blood was spotting on the skin from old track marks and spread in freshly raked lines.

“We could make it,” Tal suddenly blurted out. “I could . . . yeah . . . fuck, I could make that. S’not that far. Not that far at all.”

Nash looked out to where Tal was staring. The next island seemed closer from this vantage point, but he knew it was an illusion. Tal snapped his face toward Nash, eyes wild and popping.

“Not far, not far, not far. Just a little swim, Nash. . . .”

“What?”

“Just a little swim, that’s all. Kick, kick, stroke, stroke, and we’d be over there before you know it!”

Tal was serious, his intention backed by a cocksure crazed look, a daredevil with no safety net, oblivious to the dangers. Spittle formed in the corners of his mouth as he leaned forward on his stone throne. A foul fecal smell pricked Nash’s nostrils. He suspected the man may have shit his pants and took a step back.

“You could definitely use a dunk in that water, buddy,” Nash said. “Smell like you’ve just rolled out of some homeless guy’s asshole.”

Tal didn’t hear. He glanced back at the channel, grinning like a clown on cocaine, nodding excitedly.

“You and me, N-N-Nash,” he gibbered. “Both of us, man. W-we could do it. Swim that shit easy. Just the two of us. More junk if it’s just the
two
of us, eh? We get more if it’s only me and you, right?”

Nash felt the overwhelming urge to smack the piss out of the stinking, driveling addict. Somehow he thought a beating would make them both feel better. He fought the urge. Nash was well versed with the addicted brain. You couldn’t beat sense into, or stupidity out of, a junkie. It would be a waste of time and knuckle skin.

“You’re losing it, man,” Nash said. “If you think we’re swimming to that island you’re completely fucked.”

Tal shot him a wavering look, his mouth curling into an expectant smile, then dropping into a hopeless gape. His dancing pupils were pinpoints as he mumbled a string of static, unintelligible words.

“Right,” Nash said, rolling his eyes. “Point taken.”

He turned away, tuning out the maniac’s murmurings, bereft of any desire to try to communicate with the increasing half-wit. Tal focused on the water again, hand swaying in front of his face in sync with the movement of the waves. Nash walked only a few paces before swiveling back. All too soon it could easily be him perched on that rock, slowly losing his marbles. He had to at least try. Nash cleared his throat, trying to make his voice as authoritative as possible.

“Come on, Tal. Get down from there and pull your shit together. It’s high time we got back to the others.”

He may as well have been speaking into a gale-force wind. His words reached no one. Tal was as good as gone, drifting away on his rock, everything meaningless except the next island and the junk on its shore. Nash hitched in breath to repeat, but expelled the air without a word. There was nothing he could do. He flipped Tal the bird instead and turned his back.

“Fine, stay here and rot on your rock.”

Walking up the beach, Nash cast another glance toward the water. Among the rolling blue waves and white crests, he caught a flash of gray, gone as quickly as it appeared. Nash waited to see if it would resurface. When it didn’t he looked to Tal, wondering if the man had seen it too, but Tal’s head was tilted toward the sky, mouth opening and closing like a guppy. Nash trudged back up the beach with a new weight in the pit of his stomach. That which had surfaced in the water preyed on his mind. He wasn’t entirely sure, but he thought he’d seen a fin.

When he passed Maria sitting under her tree, his perturbed expression did not go unnoticed. She reached out a stopping hand.

“Hey, what made your face like that?”