by Boyd Craven
“Ok, I have a place found,” Irish John said coming out of the cabin, GPS coordinates scrawled on a scrap of notebook paper. “Let me in, will program into your GPS.”
“Sure,” I said moving out of his way, watching.
He started punching in a custom GPS code and then gave a grunt when one of the saved waypoints came up. Apparently, this boat had been there before. I prayed that didn’t spell any sort of trouble for me. I had no idea what the previous owner had been like, just that the wife and son wanted to be done with the boat.
“We have two more hours to get there. You check on fish, ‘den get some sleep. We need your muscles later on for ‘dis fish. Irish John is loving ‘dis fishing trip!” The last was said with a fist bump.
“I… ok,” I said grinning.
Instead of going below deck, I unclipped one of the hammocks and strung it up on the other side of the supports. The port side; Irish John had started grilling me on nautical terms as soon as we were offshore. Never mind the fact I still used front, back, left, and right. The hammock actually was quite comfortable. It seemed the boat rocked one way, but when you were in the hammock, it almost felt like you were mostly still, as your weight kept you in what felt like one spot, if rocking slightly to keep your center of gravity.
When it was my turn to sleep the first night, I’d found the cabin stuffy. I could have opened some hatches up and turned fans on, but I had never slept in a hammock. Now I wasn’t sure I ever wanted to sleep on a bed again. Even last night when it had rained for about fifteen minutes and I’d got caught by some of the droplets, I hadn’t thought about going inside. The fresh water was cooler than the heat of a Florida fall, and it was refreshing.
I was starting to snooze when my phone suddenly started ringing in my pocket.
“Hello?” I answered, not recognizing the number.
“Hey Tony,” Carly’s voice came out of my phone, “how are things?”
“We’re running into a port near Pensacola to refuel and sell some fish,” I said. “How are you guys doing down there with the storm?”
“So far it’s just some rain and wind. Nothing scary. I didn’t even have to close the store so far.”
“Has it been busy in there?” I asked.
“Tool sales always go up before a big storm, then they get sold back to me on the cheap a week or two later. Chainsaws are always a big item after hurricanes,” she said, a note of amusement in her voice. “So what did you catch?”
“What kind of fish is that big one?” I called Irish John loudly for her benefit.
“’Dat’s a big assed bluefin tuna,” he called back, smiling, his frizzy white hair whipping like a halo around his head.
“He says it’s a big assed bluefin tuna. It’s just a hair over six feet long.”
The silence at the other end of the phone line had me worried I had lost signal for a second, but I heard Carly again.
“Over six feet? How much does it weigh?” she asked.
“I don’t have a scale big enough on board. We’ve got it on ice and are going to meet with a broker right now since we don’t have a cooler big enough to put it in.”
“Tony, that’s amazing. You know that’s like a goldmine, right?”
“I figured it was worth some cash,” I said.
“Just ‘some cash’ he says. Irish John knows what ‘dis fish be worth!” Irish John called, loud enough for Carly to start giggling.
“How much is it worth?” I asked him.
“’Tousands,” he said, cackling.
“Thousands?” I asked into the phone.
“We'll figure it out math wise,” Carly said, but I could tell she was typing, I could hear the clacking in the background. “Right now Bluefin is going for between eight to sixteen dollars a pound. If you have a hundred-pound fish, you’re looking at least eight hundred to sixteen hundred dollars.”
“It’s a lot more than a hundred pounds,” I said, my mouth suddenly dry.
“Fish so big, ‘dis dummy asshole can’t pick it up! He needed the block and tackle,” Irish John called.
“You can’t… how big you think it is?” Carly asked.
“I could deadlift about four hundred by the time I left prison,” I told her. “It’s bigger than that.”
She whistled, making the connection sound staticky. “You only caught the one?”
“Naw, we got a big cooler full of blackfins also.”
Irish John was grinning ear to ear.
“Enough about fishing, what’s new around town?” I asked, hoping to change the subject just so I wouldn’t count my chickens before they came home to roost.
“Well, Miss Josephine has asked about you and your fishing buddy. I told her when I last saw you that the two of you were headed toward Louisiana to fish. She wished Irish John would have been on the mainland, but she was glad you took him off the island and away from the storm.”
“The waves been bad?” I asked her.
“It’s that and the storm surge. I know it was almost nothing by us, but out on that island, with nothing to break the water up, nothing to break the wind… it wouldn’t be safe to be out there all alone.”
“He wasn’t planning on sticking out there for this storm. Besides, I think if we can fish like this once a week or so, I might have a permanent first mate.”
“Only if Irish John does the cooking,” he called.
“What’d he say?” Carly asked, chuckling.
“Only if he does the cooking. Apparently, I’m a horrible cook.”
“You aren’t that bad,” Carly said the same time Irish John called, “You’re not horrible, but you’re not Irish John good!”
“Listen, I’m talking to her,” I told him, shaking my head.
He made a motion as if he were zipping his lips.
“Anyway, I wanted you to know that—”
The call dropped. I looked at the phone and saw there was no signal. Shit. I pocketed the phone and stretched out again.
“She hang up on you?”
“Lost signal,” I said. “She’ll call back. Things are good back at shore. The storm hasn’t been horrible. Miss Josephine has been asking about you.”
“Womenz,” he said under his breath, but loud enough to be heard.
“You going to continue to pretend you don’t like her?” I asked him, turning sideways so I could see him better.
“Irish John like her plenty. She even likes Irish John, but it is something ‘dat cannot be more than an occasional … date.”
“Date? Is that what you call it?”
“She’s a respectable woman. She wants to make sure Irish John doesn’t get sick. She thinks Irish John is a charity case. Me!” he said, tapping his chest. “Irish John can’t convince her ‘dat he’s living the life he wants to live. If she can’t believe that, how can one trust his heart to her?”
“You know, neither of you are getting any younger,” I told him quietly. “Might want to think about it some time.”
“How old you think Irish John is?” he asked, turning to me.
“I don’t know. Late sixties? Early seventies?”
The blue streak of obscenities that flew out of his mouth was amazing at first, but when I started laughing and holding my sides it got even more inventive, his bare feet stomping on the deck to emphasize every curse. Something about hats and shoes and making me eat a double dose, plus there was a goat, monkey, and wombat of all creatures thrown into the nearly two-minute stream of curses.
“Mark from the docks said you were around Crystal River when his dad was in college, about the time he was born. You told me you were already grown when you came to America, so simple math and some guesswork…”
“You not too far off,” he said after running out of steam. “Irish John is seventy-three, but you don’t tell anybody!”
I made the same gesture he had earlier, zipping my lip. “So does that mean Miss Josephine is robbing the cradle, or is it the other way around?”
He flipped
the hammock over, but hitting the deck on my ass only made me laugh harder.
Chapter Twenty-One
The fish weighed in at 572 pounds, and they offered me $11 per pound. I was stunned even though I had an idea it could be big bucks. It was almost $6300 dollars they were offering.
“If we go direct, we get better price. Why not put ’dis to auction?” Irish John asked the broker.
“Hey—”
“No, Irish John make deal,” he said, waving me off.
“$11 a pound is a good price. We have to leave room for—” the broker was saying, but Irish John didn’t give him a chance to finish.
“We want $12.50 a pound,” Irish John said, “or we can go to next point, twelve miles down coast. I hear they pay top—”
“Okay, $12.50,” the second man with the broker said. “I’ll write you a check, unless you want to give us a discount for a cash sale?”
Irish John looked at me, a grin breaking through his tough guy look.
“Our home port has the tropical storm going on right now,” I said, speaking up. “Bank will probably be closed for a day or so, and it’d be nice to have some … cash … to refuel and resupply. How much of a discount do you want?”
“Say, take $500 off what we’d owe you, for cash price?” the second man offered.
I looked at Irish John, who dropped a wink in my direction.
“Okay, deal.” I held my hand out and shook with the two men who were suddenly smiling.
“’Dats how we do ‘tings,” Irish John said, smacking my shoulder a couple of times.
“Hey, I’m happy,” I said as the second man pulled out a black lock box and began counting out hundred-dollar bills.
After checking his count, we waved and got back in the boat, ready to head to the fuel docks to top off. We hadn’t used the motor much beyond motoring in and out, mostly drifting, but we had used up a lot of fuel. More than I had anticipated.
“I thought we were supposed to give them our info, do some paperwork?” I asked.
“’Dere’s a reason why there was no paperwork and a cash discount,” Irish John said with a sly grin.
“You mean black market stuff?” I asked him.
“Yes,” he said nodding, then, “Dammit, we should have remembered to sell Blackfin!”
“I got the impression they only had eyes for the big fish.”
“True. Probably. Dammit. Irish John getting old,” he said, sitting on the side of the boat near me as I motored into the marina proper.
“So what do you think that fish was really worth?” I asked him.
“Probably $7500 or $8000,” he said without hesitation. “You get good price. No paperwork, no questions, and they get the difference.”
“So you negotiating the price, you had this in mind?” I asked him.
“Most of ’dese brokers will make deal like this if it is good enough. Instead of $6300, you have $6500 and two new friends who will now come running whenever you get big fish. Irish John wasn’t joking when he said he could get better price, but fish might spoil while we wait, and they had cash. Besides, we not black market. Only ones might break law are brokers who ‘lose’ paperwork. Not lawful fishermen.”
“Irish John, you haven’t had a fishing license in years, and you’re talking about being a lawful fisherman?”
“Better watch it, Tony,” he said, shaking a finger at me, “or Irish John will make you eat your hat.”
“Want to tie up for the night?” I asked him suddenly. “Get some restaurant food, some drinks at a bar somewhere? Celebrate?”
Irish John’s eyes lit up, and he nodded.
“You know half this money is yours,” I said, patting my pocket.
“You hold onto it. Irish John does not need money now. If I need some, though, I know a big dummy asshole who will give it to me, yes?”
“You sure do,” I said, choking up a bit. “You’re my family now.” A friend and a father figure.
“Shut up, before you make Irish John want to drink even more!” he said, shaking his hat at me.
The sun was the first thing I noticed, and the headache was the second. Irish John had had more than double what I’d had to drink, but the world seemed to be rocking and rolling, and it was making the little drummer in my head bang away behind my eyeballs. It took practice when hungover, but I got out of the hammock and unclipped it, rolling it into a ball to store in the cabin later on so it was out of the way on the back deck of the boat.
“Looks like ’dat storm pushing up here,” Irish John said from the depths of his own colorful hammock.
“The news didn’t say it had moved up here last night.” I remembered the weather reports at the bar we had stopped at to get some food and drinks.
“Tropical storms push weather,” he said, then I saw him moving as if he was rolling back onto his side.
I went below and used the head and hosed myself down with cold water before changing my clothes. When I came out of the small cabin, Irish John was already in the galley, a pot of coffee started. I wasn’t hungry, having indulged last night quite a bit, but the caffeine would do wonders for my pounding headache. I never used to get a hangover with as little as I drank. I wondered if it could be because I had been slightly dehydrated from being in the sun. Or I could just be getting older. I was sure it was the first option, though; the second just scared me.
“You ’tinking about drifting south now?” Irish John asked me.
“What do you think? The main part of the storm was yesterday. We could go out again and try to hook up with another big tuna?”
“Ahhh, so you did get the fishing bug in you. Nice fat roll of money, a paid for boat, and no place you have to be.”
“Yeah. Do you think it’s always that easy, though?”
“No. There are boats that go out fishing for those kinds of fish and make a living. Irish John is not a fisherman who’s been successful like that more than few times when younger.”
“I know…” I let my words trail off. The urge was there to do it again, but since we were really close to shore, and I had signal. “Hey, I should give Carly a call back.”
“Not a bad idea,” he said, turning to the sink to rinse the pot out.
I thumbed in Carly’s number and waited and waited and waited. It finally rang and then went immediately to voicemail. Was her phone dead? I tried again. It rang twice, then went to voicemail. Maybe she was busy? I thumbed out a quick text.
Hey, it’s Tony. You wouldn’t believe how the rest of the day fishing went! Maybe headed that way soon, I think. We have some ten to fifteen-pound blackfins in a cooler to sell as well. You doing okay? Sorry we got cut off last night, I think I lost signal. Call me.
“She no answering?” Irish John asked, sitting down finally, his own big mug of coffee in front of him.
“No. I sent her a text. You want to call Miss Josephine and tell her you’re okay?”
“I… yes, perhaps Irish John should.”
I started to hand over my phone when it rang, startling me so badly I almost dropped it. I answered it hurriedly, seeing Carly’s number. “Hey, babe, how you doing?”
“Hi, is this Tony I’m speaking with?” a strange woman’s voice came out of the phone.
“Yes, who is this?” I asked.
“I’m a nurse at Crystal River Trauma Center. What is your relationship to the woman this phone belongs to?” Her words seemed to be booming, loud, thunderous.
“What’s going on? Is she okay?” I asked, suddenly a feeling of dread going through me.
“Sir, what’s your relationship please?” She was insistent.
“I’m her boyfriend,” I said. “What’s going on?”
“There’s been an incident, and she’s alive, but in the ICU. She was brought in with no identification and somehow the phone was missed with her clothing until it started ringing. Can you come in and get in touch with the family?”
“What’s going on? What’s wrong with her?” I asked in a panic.
I slid into the seat Irish John had vacated. I could hear him up top doing something.
“She was… I think there was a car accident, and she was shot. She lost a lot of blood, but she came out of surgery okay. Right now, she’s… I really should have you come in. I don’t feel comfortable telling you this over the phone.”
“She’s alive, and she’s okay?” my voice cracked.
I felt more than heard the big engine fire up and felt the boat moving. I grabbed Irish John’s mug before it slid off the small table and waited for an answer. I could hear murmuring in the background.
“She’s alive, and for now, she’s stable. We’re holding her in a medically-induced coma to give her a chance to recover from the surgery. Can you get a hold of her family for us?”
“She’s an only child. If you have her phone, you should have her parents’ numbers saved. I don’t. Their names are—”
“Just found them in the contact list. Can I add your number as somebody to contact if things change rapidly?”
“Yes, please. I’m on a fishing boat near Pensacola. I don’t know how long it’ll take, but I’m sure I can get there tonight.”
“That’s fine. I’m sorry you had to find out this way, Tony. Can you give me your girlfriend’s name and address?”
I almost smacked myself across the forehead and gave her the information.
Irish John had heard how my phone call went and had gotten us cast off and the boat started. I felt like I had been in a daze and wandered around the boat, stowing gear, knowing we weren’t fishing. I didn’t talk. I didn’t need to. Irish John would look over at me a time or two, but the hours flew by quickly, almost as quickly as the fuel needle. At full throttle you could see the gauge almost wobble and move, or maybe I was just paranoid. I didn’t want to spend an hour stopping somewhere and refueling if I didn’t have to. We must have brushed with the outer edge of the storm because it had been raining and blowing for almost two hours now.
“Tony,” John said, breaking the silence, “when we get to Franklin’s, you take off. Your damn phone loud, boy, but I heard enough to know you need to go. I will take care of fishes and boat. Then I’ll find my way to you.”
