Lord of the Deep (10 page)

CHAPTER
15

THEY CONTINUED TROLLING.

Two more hours before they’d head back to the harbor.

“This place is dead,” Cal finally said.

How could he
say
that, Mikey thought? They’d hooked a marlin, and a monster at that. They’d boarded two fish, maybe one of them close to record size.

“Yep,” Ernie added. “Might as well go on in and see what the dolphinfish weighs.”

“All right,” Bill said. “If that’s what you want. Tell the truth, I’d like to know that myself.”

He got on the ship-to-shore and called ahead to let them know that the Crystal-C was coming in with what just might be a world-record mahimahi, so roll out the official scale. “And while you’re at it, Jimmy,” Bill added, “double-check the record for mahimahi. Whisky Bravo one-six-nine-three, the Crystal-C, over and out.”

“You got it. Over and out.”

Bill started to put the transmitter back on its hook, then stopped. He called home. Mom was there.

“We’re coming in early,” Bill said. “How’s Billy-Jay doing? Over.”

The radio spat static. Mikey leaned closer.

“He’s better. Don’t worry, he’s fine. Why you coming in early? Over.”

“Bring Billy-Jay down to the pier and see. We might have a record mahi on board. Over.”

“We’ll be there. Out.”

Bill hung up the transmitter and turned down the static. He gazed at the island.

She’d said Billy-Jay was fine. Mikey studied Bill’s profile, wondering if he believed it.

They headed toward the harbor, the bow of the Crystal-C rising and falling, knifing through the choppy silver afternoon sea. It wasn’t so calm now.

Bill wanted to troll on the way in, maybe hook another ono. But Ernie and Cal would have none of it. “Just get us back to shore,” Ernie said.

Bill shrugged. “Your money.”

CHAPTER
16

SOON THE RADIO STARTED crackling with calls from other boats. Listening in, as always. Trying to judge where the action was.

“Where’d you hook the mahi?”

“Billy, I think the record is eighty-five pounds, something like that.”

“Were you off Keahole, or what?”

“We ran into birds off Keauhou, but no action. Where was you at? North end, or what?”

“North of the harbor.” Bill gave them that much.

Secrets.

Mikey grinned.

Alison lay on the bunk across from Cal, her eyes and the sketchbook closed.

Mikey pulled his feet up and sat cross-legged in the seat across from Bill.

Bill glanced back at Cal and Ernie. “It’s too bad, you know. If this fish does turn out to be a world record, it won’t count. It could have made you famous, Ernie.”

Bill shook his head and winked at Mikey.

Mikey grinned.

Bill sat sideways in the pilot’s seat, one hand loose on the wheel.

Mikey knew he wasn’t joking. If it was a world record it
would
make Ernie famous. And the Crystal-C. But Mikey also knew it wouldn’t count. Ernie didn’t strike it. An angler had to fight his own fish start to finish for it to count.

“What do you mean, it won’t count?” Cal said, turning around to face Bill.

“Well, the rules are strict,” Bill said.

He thought before going on, as if sensing that he should choose just the right words.

“A fish can’t be considered an official world record unless you handle it yourself, all the way. Nobody else can touch any part of the rod, reel, or line during the fight. Ernie let Mikey strike it for him. So that would disqualify him. Don’t get me wrong, it can still be a record fish. It’s just not going down in the books.”

Cal turned back and sat staring at Ernie, elbows on the table, fingers laced together.

“Be like making history,” Ernie said. “Your name in the fishing Hall of Fame.”

No one spoke for a moment.

The engines droned.

Still staring at Ernie, Cal said, “So who’s to know?” Alison opened her eyes.

“Who’s to know what?” Bill said.

“Who’s to know Ernie didn’t strike it?”

Bill grinned, shook his head, and looked away, looked out toward the wake behind the boat, where the sun turned the ocean into winking jewels. “Well, I guess we’d know, Cal.”

“Well, what if you didn’t tell?” Ernie said.

Bill chuckled.

Mikey laughed, too. Was he kidding?

Bill coughed weakly, a closed fist to his mouth.

“I think you’d better cut back on the beer,” Bill said, grinning.

Ernie glared at Bill. “Har-dee-har. That wasn’t a joke.”

Bill’s grin vanished. He narrowed his eyes, as if in thought. He ran his hand over his mouth. “Well, listen, guys, in the first place I don’t work that way. But even if I did, and I got caught hiding something like that, I wouldn’t be able to get a job pumping boat fuel, let alone continue on skippering. My reputation would be shot. And if I lost that, I’d lose everything.”

Ernie huffed, saying, “Who’s ever going to tell? Not us, that’s for sure. Not your kid. Right, kid?”

Mikey looked down.

“Anyway, who’s paying for the damn boat here?”

Bill studied Ernie, saying nothing more. He curved his fingers into his chest and scratched, his eyes squinty, as if he’d had about enough of these bozos.

Mikey leaned forward. At
last
, he thought. Bill’s going to let them have it. These jokers have crossed the line, big-time. They didn’t know one thing about Bill Monks, not one thing. And anyway, who did they think they were? Some kind of kings or something?

Alison sat up, brushed her hair out of her face.

“Ernie’s right,” Cal said, turning around. “This is our charter, we paid for it, it’s our fish to do with what we like. When we get in there and this turns out to be some kind of record fish, then Ernie caught it, and he caught it alone. That’s the end of it. This picture coming into focus?”

Cal glared at Bill.

Then Mikey.

He didn’t look at Alison.

Mikey felt as if he’d been slapped in the face.

Cal grinned and added, “You so worried about your reputation, well, think about this. Maybe we say you struck the fish without asking us, huh? Rumor like that could do some damage, wouldn’t you say?”

Mikey felt his jaw drop. Is he
serious
?

Alison turned toward Mikey, her mouth open. She looked away the second their eyes met.

Bill’s gaze locked on Cal. Neither of them flinched. Bill’s going to lose it right about now, Mikey thought. And it’s about time.

Mikey waited, afraid to even blink.

“Now, now, Cal,” Ernie said, putting up his hands.

“No need to go in that direction. How about we just throw in some extra cash? Say we triple the full three-day fee? Make the payoff worth the risk, so to speak? I mean, this could make all of us famous, not just me. What do you say, Billyboy?”

Mikey looked at Bill.

Bill glared harder. He clenched a fist and turned away, ever so slightly, his eyes burning holes in everything they rested on.

Mikey stopped breathing.

“A triple fee,” Ernie said again. “Ain’t nothing to spit at.”

Bill started to say something, then mashed his lips into a tight, thin line and turned away.

“Not to mention how much business we could throw your way,” Ernie added. “And look what it would do to your reputation, huh?”

Bill put his hand over the bandage on his arm and shifted in the seat. He looked out the window at the sea.

A long, silent moment passed.

“All right,” he whispered.

Mikey’s jaw dropped.

Something lurched in his stomach, some weird, awful new thing.

No, Bill—

Wait, Mikey thought. Don’t jump to conclusions.

Just wait.

Bill has something up his sleeve.

Ernie smiled, cold and flat. “Deal,” he said, wagging his eyebrows.

Cal
humphed
.

Bill turned his back on them.

Mikey waited a moment longer, as long as he could stand it. Staring at Bill.

Finally, he got up and went out into the sun. He didn’t look at Cal or Ernie or even Alison. He felt dizzy. Stunned. These were idiots on this boat. He hoped the fish wasn’t a record at all. But what if it was? Would Bill
really
keep silent? Had he meant what he’d said,
really
meant it? If he had, and if Mikey didn’t go along with it, then Bill would be caught in an unforgivable lie and he could kiss his charter boat business goodbye.

Mikey would
have
to go along, he’d have no choice.

He wiped his sweaty hands on his shorts. A triple fee was good money, but . . .

Bill had to have something up his sleeve.

Of course he did.

Of course.

CHAPTER
1

BILL THROTTLED BACK as they approached the harbor.

Mikey stood on the bow with the mooring line coiled in his hands. There was a big crowd on the pier, and more people were streaming over from the village, heading out toward where the Crystal-C would dock.

Bill circled into the bay. Two fish flags fluttered high on the outriggers—orange and white for ono, yellow and blue for mahimahi.

The sky was a shield of high white clouds, and the water reflected a grayish green in the shallows, the sandy bottom clearly visible twenty feet below.

The slow, smooth motion of the boat easing up to the pier felt right in Mikey’s body, in his legs and knees. As it always did.

But that was all that felt right.

His spirits brightened some when he saw his mom and Billy-Jay on the pier. Mom waved, then leaned down and spoke to Billy-Jay, and he, too, waved.

Mikey lifted his chin.

Bill reversed the engines just as the bow was about to touch the truck-tire bumpers on the pier. Mikey jumped off the boat and secured the bow line.

Perfect.

Another small, right-feeling thing, a knot so clean and tight. He ran back along the pier.

Bill, with his bandaged arm, made his way aft and tossed up the stern line and Mikey hitched that off, too.

“Mikey!”

He turned.

Mom struggled through the milling mass of chatting, rubbernecking people, Billy-Jay in tow. “Wow,” she said. “Can you believe this crowd? What’d you bring home, Moby Dick?” She hugged him, then waved a hand in front of her face. “
Eew,
you smell like fish.”

“Yeah.”

She stood back, squinted at him. “What’s wrong? You should be leaping with excitement.”

Mikey shrugged.

Mom frowned.

Mikey squatted down in front of Billy-Jay. “Hey, bud. We brought you a really, really big mahimahi today.”

Billy-Jay grinned and reached out to find Mikey.

Mikey took his hand and held it. He seemed fine now. Not coughing or breathing funny. “Yeah,” Mikey said. “A giant. Want to touch it?”

“Uh-huh. Where is it?”

“You just hang on a minute, okay? We got to get it off the boat.”

Billy-Jay grabbed hold of Mikey’s T-shirt, as if not wanting him to leave. Mikey felt like tossing him up on his shoulders and carrying him on board. Sometimes he did that. Bill did, too. But there was still work to be done.

Besides, Bill had something planned that Mikey didn’t want to miss.

Cal and Ernie were out in the stern cockpit gazing up at the crowd massing on the pier. They looked like completely different men now, both standing taller. Alison stayed in the cabin, her arms folded, the sketchbook, pencil pouch, and paperback book tucked under them.

Mikey jumped back down onto the Crystal-C.

He took up the stern line and snugged the boat up against the bumpers. Ernie, then Cal, climbed off the boat.

“Ali?” Cal said, looking back.

“In a minute,” she said.

Cal studied her. He pursed his lips, then raised his eyebrows in resignation. “Well, don’t take too long, honey. We’re gonna take some photos and I want you in them, all right?”

Alison shrugged.

Cal lingered a moment longer, then turned to follow Ernie over to the fish scale.

Mikey and Bill hauled the mahimahi out of the fish box. A hush fell over the crowd. Bill had hold of the tail. Mikey gripped it by its gills, and together they hefted it up onto the pier. Bill grimaced, and Mikey wondered if it was because of the wound, or if he was just now starting to add up all the problems this particular fish could bring to the Crystal-C.

On the pier Bill’s friend Jimmy picked up the mahimahi’s tail. He threw a short length of rope around it, looped it over the scale hook, and pulleyed the fish up off the concrete, the scale chain clinking and rattling.

Bill tossed the ono up onto the pier. It slid dead-eyed to a stop near the fish scale. No one even glanced at it.

The arm of the scale wagged forward and back, forward and back. It jiggled and slowed and stopped.

“Ho!” Jimmy said, his white teeth lined in gold. “Ninety-one pounds and six ounces. You da man, Billy Monks. You broke the record. You caught Bigfoot.”

The crowd erupted in applause.

Bill got off the boat. He took his T-shirt out of his back pocket and pulled it over his head.

“Who’s the lucky angler?” Jimmy shouted.

“That’d be me,” Ernie called, waving a hand. He pushed closer. The noisy crowd made way, clapping.

Mikey looked down and studied the floorboards. A trail of watery blood ran from the fish box to the gunnel. One of Alison’s white shoes had specks of red on it.

“Well, hang on, then,” Jimmy said. “I got an official IGFA application form in the truck. We can fill it in now.” He whistled, adding, “Man, I gotta call a reporter.”

Flash cameras went off as people surged in around the hanging fish.

Cal and Ernie flanked the mahimahi, grinning and waving, bloated as puffer fish.

Come on, Bill. Say something. Do something.

He’s waiting for the right moment, Mikey thought. Maybe he’s waiting for the reporter, to say it then, say it’s a great fish, probably the greatest mahimahi ever caught, but too bad it’s not official because . . .

Yeah. He’ll do it like that.

Mikey wiped his clammy palms on his T-shirt. His heart thumped in his ears.

“Give me a hand up?” Alison said.

Mikey jumped. “Oh . . . sure.” He’d almost forgotten she was there. “Sorry.”

Mikey grabbed the stern line and pulled the boat closer. He took her hand. She stepped up onto the gunnel, then the pier. His spirits sank even lower when she let go and looked back down on him. It felt as if something were slipping away. He didn’t know what. Something like a friend, leaving for good.

Alison smiled. “Coming?”

Mikey shook his head. “I don’t want any part . . . I don’t like to have my picture taken.”

“Come on, in this crowd they’ll never find us.”

Mikey hesitated, then dropped the stern line and jumped up onto the pier.

The photographer’s rattletrap old Buick lurched to a stop inches from the back of the crowd. He jumped out, his huge belly leading. “Out of the way, out of the way.
Press!
” he shouted, shoving through.

“Press!”

Hidden back in the crowd, and with Alison peeking around from behind him, Mikey watched Cal and Ernie pose. The happy fishermen with their glorious bounty, Ernie’s loud shirt open to his stomach, the rod and reel—everything was in the picture.

Cal dragged Bill in for a shot, and Bill went right along, posing beside them.

How could he do that?

They’re cheats, Mikey thought. They’re liars.

“Disgusting, isn’t it?” Alison said.

Mikey’s stomach felt like knotted rope. “What?”

Alison grabbed his hand. “Let’s get out of here.”

Mikey followed her, squeezing through the crowd. He felt dizzy, as if he weren’t even in the same town. It was weird. The whole day had gone from great to shocking to weird and downright strange.

They pushed their way out.

“Where’s your brother?” Alison said. “Is he here?”

Mikey looked at their hands, clasped in a tight knot.

Alison let go. “Sorry. I just couldn’t stand it anymore.”

“Mikey!” Mom called. “Over here!”

She was standing by Bill’s jeep, waving.

They walked over.

“Wow,” Alison whispered. “Your mom’s beautiful.”

Mikey felt embarrassed. Had his mom seen him holding hands with Alison? She had a grin on her face that made Mikey frown.

“Well,” Mom said.

“This is Alison,” Mikey said, before she could add to the “well.” “She was on the boat with us today.”

Alison smiled and reached out to shake hands. “Nice to meet you,” she said.

“You must be very proud of your father,” Mom said, turning toward the crowd.

“My uncle caught it.”

“Well, we should all be proud of this.”

Alison smiled, then looked down at Billy-Jay. She knelt. “And you couldn’t be anyone but Billy-Jay,” she said. “You look just like your father.”

“Who’s that, Mikey?” Billy-Jay said.

Mikey dropped down next to Alison, one knee cocked forward. “This is Alison, Billy-Jay. She’s my friend.”

Alison stuck out a hand, then pulled it back, glancing at Mikey.

Mikey dipped his head toward Billy-Jay, mouthing “Go ahead.”

Alison took Billy-Jay’s hand in hers and shook it. “Mikey’s told me all about you. But you’re bigger than I thought you were.”

Billy-Jay grinned.

Mikey stood and glanced toward the Crystal-C. Bill was back on board. Cal and Ernie were talking to strangers, acting as if they’d known them for years.

The crowd was starting to disperse. Some people stayed to take pictures of the mahimahi. Some leaned against each other. Honeymooners. With no idea they were admiring a couple of cheaters.

“Can we go to the big fish now?” Billy-Jay said.

Mikey turned back. “You bet, bud.”

He and Alison each took one of Billy-Jay’s hands and walked him over to the hanging fish, now faded to the color of lead pipe.

Mikey bent over, hands on his knees. “It’s right in front of you.”

Billy-Jay reached out and touched it with his fingertips, then his whole hand. “Big,” he said.

“Bill says we’ll probably never see another one like this in our lifetime.” Mikey glanced up at Alison. “I believe it.”

Mikey showed Billy-Jay the ono, too, and Billy-Jay explored every inch of it, including the eyes, gills, and spiky teeth.

Alison sat down on her heels and wrapped her arms around her knees. She studied Billy-Jay, watching his face register reactions to the fish, the little smiles and moments of thought. Her eyes seemed so kind, Mikey thought, watching Billy-Jay like that. What was she thinking? Mikey became aware of the fact that this was the first time in his life he’d ever gotten this close to a girl. She was older than he was, sure, but that didn’t seem to matter.

Jimmy returned with the IGFA application form on a clipboard. Cal, Ernie, Bill, and the crowd that remained gathered around him.

Mikey stayed crouched down with Alison and Billy-Jay, hoping he wouldn’t be seen.

Now, Bill. Do it now.

Tell.

Since you missed your chance with the reporter.

That wasn’t fair, Mikey thought. The reporter never showed up. Unless the photographer was also the reporter.

“Okay, gentlemens,” Jimmy said. “Let’s have the facts.”

“Mikey,” Bill said, suddenly noticing him. “Come. We need you.”