Lord of the Deep (11 page)

CHAPTER
2

MIKEY STOOD AND LOOKED AT BILLY-JAY.

“I’ll watch him,” Alison said.

Their eyes locked.

Alison smiled, so warm.

Mikey blinked, then walked over to Bill, and Alison followed, holding Billy-Jay’s hand.

Mikey was a member of the crew, he had to be there. Whether he wanted to or not. He felt even dizzier. Confusion swirled in his brain.

“Let’s start with the skipper,” Jimmy said.

Bill dictated the necessary information—kind of fish, weight, length, tackle, boat, time of day, skipper, angler.

Come on, Bill. Tell Jimmy what they’re trying to get away with.

Jimmy shook his head. “You men are going to be famous. You’ll probably have this record for years before it gets broke. Here, sign this and let’s send it in, get her in the books.”

Cal and Ernie beamed like five-year-olds with Popsicles.

Mikey glared at Bill.

Cal signed and handed the clipboard to Ernie.

Ernie signed in bold strokes.

He grinned and handed the form to Bill.

Now,
Bill.
Now . . .

Bill took the form and checked it over. He held the clipboard in one hand, as if not wanting to taint both hands. He read the entries.

Ernie held out the pen.

Mikey’s eyes riveted on it.

Bill took the pen, tapped the clipboard twice, then signed his name.

Something escaped from Mikey’s body.

He felt weak.

Bill held out the clipboard and the pen to Mikey.

Never. Never ever ever.

It’s not right.

But if I don’t sign, it will ruin Bill.

“Mikey?” Bill said.

Mikey took the pen.

Then the clipboard.

He waited.

Cal and Ernie scowled at him.

“You need to sign the form, Mikey,” Jimmy said. “It’s the rules.”

Mikey ground his teeth and quickly scribbled his name. His hand trembled and his signature was nearly unreadable. Mikey handed the pen and the clipboard to Jimmy and turned away. He felt hot. Anger burned across his face and rose up into his scalp. He could actually feel it. A swelling all over his body.

Cal waved Alison over.

Mikey took Billy-Jay.

Ernie grinned and clapped a fat hand on Alison’s shoulder. “So what do you think, Ali? Not bad for an old man like your uncle, huh?”

Alison slipped out from under his hand, looking as if she’d just swallowed a spoonful of diesel fuel. “What I think, Uncle Ernie, is that it scares me to think I’m related to either of you.”

Ernie’s grin vanished.

Cal scowled.

Jimmy looked confused.

Mikey backed away. Get out of here, he thought.

Alison took Billy-Jay’s hand from Mikey and walked over to Mom at the jeep.

Mikey followed, glancing back at Bill, who was now studying the concrete at his feet, Cal and Ernie flanking him, cold eyes glaring at Alison. Or maybe at him. Maybe they thought what she said was his fault.

Mikey turned away.

Alison became suddenly cheery, approaching Mom.

“Billy-Jay sure likes the fish,” she said.

Mikey gazed at them. Listened to them talk, not hearing what they said. His vision was fuzzy. He rubbed his eyes and turned away, then strode over to the Crystal-C and jumped down on deck. He got a hose from the forward hatch and dragged it aft. He reached up and hooked it to a spigot on the pier and turned the water on full blast and started hosing salt off the boat.

He worked fast and sloppily at first, then more forcefully. He shut off the nozzle and took a hard hand brush and got down on his hands and knees and scrubbed the floorboards, working and reworking the bloody spots, the bloody trail, the leftover slime. He never once looked up toward the pier.

“Mikey,” Bill called.

Mikey stopped and looked up. Bill stood with Cal and Ernie.

“I need you here.”

Mikey set the brush on the gunnel and climbed off the boat. He ripped off his T-shirt and dried his hands on it, swiped it over his face, then jammed a corner of it into his back pocket.

He stood, waiting for Bill to say something. Chew him out for not sticking around, or for making Jimmy think there was something going on that he should know about.

But Bill said nothing.

In fact, Jimmy seemed satisfied with everything. Maybe they’d told him Alison had a bad day, got seasick or something.

Probably.

Cal clapped a hand on Bill’s shoulder, all happy again. “The triple fee is yours on Friday, Billyboy, but for today . . .” Cal smiled and handed Bill a crisp, new hundred-dollar bill.

Bill took it, moved it quickly into his pocket. “Thanks, men. That’s very generous.”

Ernie held a folded ten-dollar bill out to Mikey. Had it stuck between his first and second fingers. “This day turned out to be a bonanza for all of us, now, didn’t it, boy?”

Mikey looked at the ten. He didn’t want it, but he took it anyway. He didn’t care anymore. What was left to care about?

“Thanks,” he mumbled.

“There’s more where that came from,” Cal said, tapping Mikey’s shoulder. “If we can do this again tomorrow, maybe we’ll even triple that.”

Cal and Ernie left.

Mikey looked at the ten-dollar bill. He’d give it to Bill, since he wanted money so much. But later, not now. He’d leave it somewhere for Bill to stumble on. Maybe under his pillow so he could think about it all night.

Mikey stuck it in his pocket.

Bill went over to lower the mahimahi into the back of Jimmy’s truck.

Mikey jumped down onto the boat and continued scrubbing—get it cleaner, get the salt off, clean the seats and the rods and the reels, scrub the slime, scrub it away.

“Mr. Fisherman,” someone called.

Mikey glanced up.

Alison smiled down on him, hands on her hips.

“Aren’t you even going to say goodbye?”

Mikey stood, wiped his wet hands on his shorts. “Sure.”

He tossed the brush into the bucket and climbed up off the boat.

“It’s not the end of the world,” she said.

Mikey frowned.

“Besides,” she added, “what can we do?”

Alison studied his face. She reached out, hesitated a moment, then brushed her fingertips down his cheek. They were soft and warm. Mikey smelled suntan lotion. He saw tenderness in her eyes, or understanding, something wise in the pale, pale blue. Her touch fired off a lightning bolt that shot through his body. The feeling grew and gathered in his throat.

“You’re a good person, Mikey Donovan,” she said.

Alison kissed his cheek, then wiped it dry with her thumb.

And left.

CHAPTER
3

SHE WALKED AWAY BACKWARD, leaving with Cal and Ernie.

Mikey stood gawking.

Alison climbed up onto the seawall and headed back the way she’d come that morning, her hair brilliant gold in the rich setting sun. Cal and Ernie strode ahead, their arms moving in conversation.

Alison looked across the water.

Mikey lifted his hand halfway.

Then she was gone.

Bill and Mikey took the Crystal-C to its mooring in the bay. They put her to bed and came back to the pier, all in utter silence. Mikey tied the skiff to an orange float in the small-boat landing. Bill unhitched and removed the outboard from the stern and started toward the jeep.

Mikey stayed in the skiff, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. He looked down at the half inch of water sloshing around his bare feet. A sketch of moss grew there. He rubbed at it with his heel.

He sighed and pushed himself up and got out of the skiff.

Billy-Jay was in the jeep, both hands on the steering wheel, yanking it from one side to the other. Mom stood ready to catch him if he should fall. Her car was parked in the next space.

Bill lifted the outboard over the back of the jeep and set it onto the rear seat. “Where you taking us, Billy-Jay?” he said.

Billy-Jay turned toward Bill’s voice. “Daddy!”

Bill lifted him up and kissed his forehead. He hugged Billy-Jay close, so close you might have wondered if it had been a month since he’d seen him. Bill closed his eyes.

Mom watched, surprise showing on her face.

Mikey stood behind the jeep, waiting. For what, he didn’t really know. But whatever it was, it was going to be uncomfortable.

“Daddy!” Billy-Jay said. “You’re hurting me.”

Bill let go, quickly. “I’m sorry, Billy-Jay. I’m—I’m just really happy to see you.”

He set Billy-Jay on his shoulders. “Boy, have you got to stop growing. You’re so heavy you’re making me feel old already.”

Mom put her hand on Billy-Jay’s knee, the look of surprise or concern still there.

“I went to the doctor today,” Billy-Jay said.

Bill lifted Billy-Jay’s hands off his eyes. “No kidding. Why’d you do that?”

“Mommy, why’d we go?”

“Just a checkup.”

“Checkup,” Billy-Jay repeated.

Bill bounced him around as if he were a horse, then lifted him off and set him down on the pier and squatted. “So, what’d the doctor say?”

Billy-Jay said, “I got a lollipop.”

Bill ruffled his hair.

Mikey felt as if he were somehow not part of this. Nothing seemed real anymore.

Mom touched Bill’s bandaged arm. “What’d you do?”

“Just a scratch. Loose hook.” He leaned down and kissed her cheek. She put her arm around his back and hooked her thumb in a belt loop.

“Is it bad?” she said.

“No, but I think I’ll get it checked anyway, so it doesn’t get infected.”

“Good idea.”

Mom stood back and eyed Bill. Then Mikey. “All right,” she said. “What’s going on?”

“What do you mean?” Bill said.

“Something’s different.”

Bill raised his eyebrows. “Nothing’s different.”

“You and Mikey . . . both of you seem . . . different.”

Bill glanced at Mikey. “Nothing in particular. Just men stuff.”

Mikey said nothing.

Mom looked into Mikey’s eyes, then shook her head and reached for Billy-Jay. “Let’s go on home, Billy-Jay. Leave the
men
to work out their men stuff.”

Mikey wanted to go with her. But he always went home with Bill. Way it was.

She didn’t leave.

Bill took his keys from his pocket. “Let’s go show the doc your handiwork, Mikey.” He slid into the jeep, started it up.

Mikey glanced at Mom, then went around and got in. He sat with his arms crossed, looking out toward the ocean. Maybe Bill would explain it to him on the way home.

No, it was too late now.

“You sure everything’s okay?” Mom said, studying Bill.

“Sure I’m sure.”

“All right. See you at home, then. Bye, Mikey.”

Mikey lifted his chin, his gaze fixed on the white dot of a boat heading in from the razor-sharp horizon.

CHAPTER
4

THEY DROVE FOR TWENTY MINUTES IN SILENCE.

Nothing but the whine of the engine and the sticky air, now thinning and cooling.

All the way up the mountain to the clinic Mikey wondered what was going through Bill’s mind. He was so quiet. But then he always was. Never said what was on his mind. One of those men who keeps everything to himself.

Mikey’s neck cramped from looking away from Bill. He had to turn his head back slowly, rocking it from side to side to work out the crick. His teeth were clamped and his jaw ached. At one point when Bill had slowed behind a truck, Mikey almost jumped out of the jeep to walk home.

He’d never been so worked up in his life.

It surprised him. It scared him.

It messed everything up.

The clinic was a squatty one-level building in a small town way up on the flank of the island. It was yellow, almost green, the color of a painted cinder-block bathroom at some beach park. A surly jungle loomed over it on three sides.

One dim floodlight barely illuminated the parking lot. Puddles of afternoon highland rain filled the low spots.

Bill pulled up and shut the engine down. “Coming in?”

Mikey shook his head.

He could feel Bill’s eyes all over him. He turned farther away, so he couldn’t see Bill at all.

“Listen, Mikey, there’s—”

“I’ll just wait out here,” Mikey said.

A trembling rose inside Mikey’s gut, the kind you get when you’re about to get into a fight.

Bill paused a moment, then said, “I was going to say, there’s more to that decision than you see on the surface.”

Mikey turned toward Bill. “Oh, right. Like more money?”

Bill looked at him. Sad eyes, Mikey thought. He turned away. So what? He was too angry to care.

His hands shook. He’d never in his life spoken to an adult like that, and especially not to Bill. His throat started to burn. Tears welled in his eyes, but he willed them back.

Bill got out and went into the clinic.

Mikey allowed himself to turn and watch him. He swiped his eyes with the backs of his arms. The trembling subsided. The pressure drained away.

He sat, his mind strangely blank.

In a while, he got out and walked over to the edge of the parking lot. There was a line of concrete tire stops at the edge of the jungle, and he sat on one of them with his back to the weeds and bushes. The sun had set and the sky had darkened. The floodlight reflected off a puddle out in the middle of the parking lot. Mikey tossed a pebble into it and watched the reflection scatter.

He looked down at a string of ants flowing past his foot. They marched silently under the tire stop. He turned and sat facing the jungle, following the ants out the other side and off the asphalt.

Why should he care about Cal and Ernie? They were fools. It was just a fish.

No, there was more to it than that. It wasn’t about Cal and Ernie, anyway. It was Bill.

Mikey sat with his arms crossed over his knees. His mind was wearing him out. He rested his head on his wrist.

He jumped when someone tapped his shoulder.

He must have dozed off.

“Let’s go home,” Bill said.

Mikey stood, feeling embarrassed or sorry or sad. At least the anger had gone, for now. He glanced at Bill’s arm, now neatly bandaged and taped. He wanted to ask how it was, and if he had to get stitches.

But he said nothing.

Bill put his hand on Mikey’s shoulder and walked him back to the jeep.