by Tina Welling
A kind of calm entered my inner scenery then, accompanied by the realization that I was a person unto myself. That I would always wish to help others, but that such help needed from now on to rise from this deeper sense of being I had lately been exploring within myself.
I took a big, full breath of the warm air and smelled salt, fish and fuel. I looked at Daniel. He poured more coffee into my mug and a dollop of cream. How come I wanted to know this man? What was it about him that attracted me? I enjoyed his male interest in me and his alive awareness, yet overriding that swam a sisterly sort of interest tinged with concern. And him? Were his words of warning about Dad contrived to create an immediate intimacy between us? Because it accomplished that and perhaps I should feel leery. My face easily transmitted my thoughts, I’d been told, and Daniel was watching me.
“You don’t know me,” he said.
“No.” I set my mug down on the low table between us. “Are you dangerous?”
“I have been. I’m clean now. This bozo over here”—Daniel cocked his head behind him—“just hasn’t been assured yet.” He added, “You’re okay with me.”
I asked, “Is it a long story?” Figured I’d give him an easy out, if he wanted it. I could just finish my coffee and mosey on down the dock.
Daniel said, “True stories can be pretty short.” We watched a pelican fly to the pier, settle itself on top of a piling. “As a pilot, I flew drug interdiction for Customs, for the government, down along the Mexican border. Got into the department pretty young and was mentored by a man quite a few years older than me.”
Daniel appeared conflicted at the memory of this man and those early times. His eyes softened a moment, but then he adjusted his body’s relaxed position in the chair, switched his legs around, crossing his left ankle over his right knee.
“He taught me everything I needed to know to become a good pilot—I flew Black Hawk helicopters, the King Air, Citation jets—he sat second on all of them until I got as good as he was. He helped me get ahead in the office and eventually . . . he pulled me into his extra work on the side.”
“You mean . . .”
“Drug agents make the best drug smugglers.”
To sound polite and cover up my shock, I offered an excuse. “Did you need the money?” Not that an excuse would have absolved his actions for me.
“I didn’t need the money, even though it could have helped to send my daughter through medical school. I did it because I couldn’t say no. Because it was hard to refuse helping someone who had helped me so much.”
“So you have a daughter in medical school?”
“Jamie.” His smile was beatific. “She’s finished with her schooling now. Works in a clinic in India. Bodhgaya, big Buddhist place. Tends to as many stray dogs, after hours, as she does people during her workday and doesn’t know how she’ll ever leave, because the work will never end. She loves it.” He smiled at some inward images.
“Jamie’s a great kid and I had nothing to do with it.” He said, “Jamie’s mother and I separated shortly after she was born.”
“Are you still . . . um . . . smuggling or whatever?” This was not my language.
“Not for many years now. Got myself transferred off the border, cleaned myself up. Retired early, came down here, bought a boat.”
“And now you’re a fishing guide.”
“Yes, it’s good work.”
“And your bozo? He’s especially suspicious of fishing guides?” I was trying to sound offhand though I didn’t feel that way. I wanted to know more and was afraid Daniel wouldn’t continue if I sounded too affected by his story.
Daniel said, “Let me take you out. I mean now, on the boat. We’ll just cruise around the inner waterway. And I’ll tell you the rest.”
“Daniel, I don’t know you. You are being watched by someone who doesn’t care that he’s seen watching you, which suggests to me that he is on the side of the authorities and that you are not. I’m not going anywhere with you.”
“Right, I understand. But there’s no one you’d be safer with. Because Bozo is just one of the men watching.” Daniel raised his eyebrows toward the water. “There’s a guy on that small blue boat out there and a couple more on the go-fast boat sitting on the horizon. They’d be following, if that makes you feel better.”
The ridiculousness of that reasoning struck us both at the same time, and we laughed together. Something about this guy. He was either genuine—if you could call a professed double-dealer genuine—or he knew just what buttons to push to make me feel that I shared something with him that did not measure up to the short time we had spent together so far.
He said, “Okay, then let’s go below and scramble some eggs for lunch.”
“Nope.”
“Trust me, you’ll be fine.”
“Daniel, I’d be stupid to trust you. You lied to the United States government. Compared to them, I’m easy to fool.”
“Actually, you are much more discerning than our government. But, okay, down to the Turtle Nest, then. End of the marina. Bozo will be happy; he’s starving. I usually like to keep him waiting longer. If we went below, he’d be stuck on shore for hours. Here.” Daniel handed me his binoculars. “Check these guys out. I’m going to get my wallet and change my shirt.” Before he went belowdeck, he said, “Look at Bozo. It drives him crazy when you do that. Check out the blue boat; should be one guy on that in civies. The go-fast boat has two officers and they’re in uniform.”
“Really? ‘Go-fast’ boat? That’s what you call it?” Sounded like something little boys would say.
“Right. They go really fast. I’ll be back up in a few minutes.”
I lifted the binoculars and sighted. It always takes me a while to fool around with the focus and figure out where I’m looking. Started with the go-fast boat way out there—blue water, blue sky, blue water. There it was. Long and narrow, a cigarette boat. Two men in uniforms, both standing toward me, couldn’t see their faces. Then the blue boat—blue water, blue sky, blue water—got it. Could see the glint of sunlight off someone’s binoculars, but no face. Then Bozo. His face would be clear, if he lowered his binoculars. I saw he’d wised up some. Was wearing shorts—Bermuda khakis—with his long-sleeved white shirt, dress shoes and black socks. Somebody ought to start a school for these guys.
He was twenty-some pounds overweight, and those dress shoes were wingtips. Bozo dropped his binoculars and let me look at him straight in the eyes. He had a round face with wire-rim glasses, pale blue eyes behind them, sparse eyebrows. Couldn’t think of him as Bozo anymore and couldn’t glass him without embarrassment. He was a human being, and I had been considering him as an object of derision, maybe even the enemy. Daniel traveled in a strange world.
Yet I found it briefly—and ridiculously—thrilling to stare at these people, who were staring at me. As if I were experiencing my fifteen minutes of fame. Though most likely I was an object of derision. Or the enemy.
“Daniel,” I hollered, “now they know who I am.”
“Yeah, but, Annie.” He came up on deck, slipping his wallet in his back pants pocket and cell phone in his front pocket. “Now you know who they are, too.”
“Do you know his name?”
“Who?”
I tipped my head over toward the park.
“Oh, sure. His name is Burl Stocker.” Daniel looked at me mock-accusingly. “I shouldn’t have let you look at him up close. Now you’ll worry about him when it rains.” I laughed. “Just seemed you should know what he looks like, since he knows what you look like.”
“Have you incriminated me?”
“Possibly. That’s why I’m going to tell you everything. Really, I’m straight now. These guys are just checking the truth of that.”
“So they don’t believe you, either.”
Daniel laughed again; he had a good laugh, free and easy. “Come on, let’s eat. My treat.”
“No, I’ll pay for my own lunch.”
“I plan on doing all t
he talking; I’ll pay.” He took a look at me. “It’s not a date, married lady.”
We walked down the pier, both our dogs following; Daniel waved to Burl Stocker as we passed, and Stocker nodded back. We climbed steps to the restaurant hanging over the water and took a table out on the deck so the dogs could accompany us. We sat beneath a yellow-and-red umbrella. Daniel reached into his pants pocket and tossed his cell phone on the table. And that reminded me that I wanted to call Daisy. I told Daniel I was popping into the restroom. He said he’d order for me. There he was, again, with that natural intimacy. There I was, again, enjoying it.
Inside the restroom I phoned Daisy and told her what Daniel had said about Dad. Daisy said, “That’s the thing. I can’t decide whether Dad is acting as odd as always or whether he is too quirky for his own good and we should worry. Who’s Daniel?”
“Just some guy Dad and I met at the marina while walking one day.” Daisy was used to Dad engaging strangers in conversation.
“Oh, and then you saw him again?”
“Well, he and I are having lunch here at the pier.” I gave her the old we’re-just-friends line, then seriously assured her, before asking, “What happened with Candy/Brandy?”
“I was going to phone about that. Her name is Sherry and turns out she is not the one interested in Dad. She wanted to match him up with another one of her customers, an older woman, older than Dad even. And Dad is broken up about that, though he denies it. But clearly he has dropped into a very low place. He’s eating a lot of potato chips and watching golf all day on TV.”
I thought about how Dad had perked up over attracting a younger woman. Ready to use “scalping lotion” and take her to a restaurant that made his “wallet quiver.” He didn’t need this disappointment.
Daisy and I decided we probably should schedule a checkup sometime soon. We left it rather vague, since we couldn’t face the struggle we’d have with Dad to get him there. After Mom died, he swore off doctors—“All they say is bad news and all their medicines kill you.”
While Daisy and I wrapped up our conversation, I walked out to the entrance of the restrooms and watched Daniel order our food, pointing every once in a while to my chair. He was probably older than me by a few years, dark blond hair, curly like Art Garfunkel’s of Simon and Garfunkel, fine features, hazel eyes, well muscled. If he lived in Jackson Hole, I’d assume he was a climber. He had a bit of nervous energy, as if at any moment he might jump up, dive into the water, kick around fast, climb back out, just so he could sit still and talk a little longer. And he was bored with his life and not used to that. Normally I don’t like to be around bored people. Daniel, I liked to be around. I watched a waiter pour ice water into our two glasses at the table, and I said goodbye to Daisy.
“So what did you order for lunch?” I sat on the chair Daniel pulled out for me.
“Grilled mahi vera.” He sat back down. “Made with garlic, onions, parsley, oregano, cumin, chopped tomatoes, lime juice and olive oil.” He listed the ingredients as if counting on his fingers. “Got the recipe from the chef a while back. Keep meaning to fix it, but it’s easier to order it here.”
“That’s dinner, not lunch.”
“Next time I’ll take you to the Cooler, up the beach, and order the taco tot special. For sure, that’s lunch.”
“Taco tot?”
“A platter of Tater Tots smothered with nacho cheese, topped with ground beef, picante sauce, lettuce, tomatoes, sour cream. Four seventy-nine and it includes a medium drink. Your kind of place?”
“My dad’s kind of place. The price alone would win him over, though he’d haggle for a large drink, no extra charge.” I still had my phone in my hand, so I set it on the table, telling Daniel that I’d told Daisy about his concerns.
“What did your sister say about Skip?”
“She’s been uneasy, too, about some of his behavior; we thought it was depression.” I was struck that Daniel and I sat here talking about a condition concerning my father, when I hadn’t even mentioned it yet to Jess. Just to remind myself how much of a stranger this guy really was, I asked him to continue his story.
The waiter brought us a bottle of white wine. Daniel passed on the tasting and the waiter poured two glasses and left.
“So where was I?”
“Your mentor.”
“Parson Fields. I never knew my dad. For many years Parson was a good step-in. Took care of me during my early years in the department. I got on the take because I felt I owed the guy. But no excuses. I did it. Became disgusted with myself over my lousy ethics and put in for a transfer to get out from under his control and cleaned up my act.” Daniel turned his wineglass in a circle with his index finger and thumb. “I contributed to the misery in the world during my short time of running drugs. I’ve regretted that and worked at making amends.”
When talking about his mentor, Daniel seemed less animated, and I imagined a certain amount of grieving was involved in this relationship. Then he mentioned that Parson had experienced a brain aneurism a while back, though he’d come through it. I wondered if that was what he’d meant earlier about having seen the look of Dad’s eyes and skin color. I took a sip of wine.
“How do you smuggle drugs under the eyes of the governmental department in charge of catching smuggled drugs?”
“Easy enough, if you’ve got the right help. You catch eighty-nine percent of the drugs coming through and let the other eleven percent go by.”
“Go by?”
“You arrange to be elsewhere the night the run is scheduled. It’s a passive-aggressive crime. Offense through nonaction. Appeals to young, idealistic guys trying to please a superior, like I was.”
“So you’re saying these guys”—I gestured toward the go-fast boat—“are here from something that happened in the past?”
“Over a decade ago. But Parson is stirring things up again.” Daniel took a sip of his wine. “Let me back up. I worked on the Mexican border for ten, twelve years before Parson needed my help one night and I incriminated myself. Fifteen months later, I was able to transfer to the Canadian border in Washington State; shortly after that, Parson was promoted to a position in D.C. and life went on.”
“You stopped working with him. How come?”
“You mean besides the repulsion of looking in the mirror every morning? That and disappointment in my mentor aside, the game lost its charm fast. What happens is that the smugglers begin to call the shots. Once you start to work with them, they own you.” Daniel looked out over the white-painted railing of the deck toward the go-fast boat anchored on the horizon. “I don’t like to be owned.”
“Can’t you quit whenever you want?”
“No, ma’am, you cannot. You quit when the smugglers say you can. ‘Just one more time,’ they tell you. Again and again. They begin to take over by telling you which eleven percent to let through. They run the show from then on. And they’ve got you. They can turn you in at any time.” Daniel held his wineglass and wiped sweat off it with his thumb.
“Parson himself stopped playing games when marijuana smuggling switched to cocaine. A lot more money was at stake then. Things got nasty real fast. Contract killings, kidnapping.” Daniel paused for a sip of wine. “Thirteen years go by and suddenly the activity moves into my territory on the Canadian border. Same players. It got dangerous for me. An Internal Affairs investigation was heating up. I wasn’t sure how the probe would come out for me—I wasn’t involved, but my old contacts were, including Parson. I’d just turned fifty. So I put in for early retirement and left for India to get to know my daughter and assist her in the clinic. I kept quiet about where I was headed, hoping Parson wouldn’t attempt to contact me again.”
“But you needed your pension checks, didn’t you?”
“Right. I have direct deposit to a bank back in Washington State, a post office box in the Midwest and a forwarding system. Just covering my tracks. It was only a matter of time before the feds would find me. But they were not the probl
em—aside from Parson.”
“What brought you back to the States?”
“After a year or so with Jamie, I’d gotten word that Parson was dying. I decided to move back to the States since the threat of his interference with my life appeared over. I trained for my captain’s license down the coast in Stuart—Chapman School of Seamanship. Skip probably knows about it.”
“Oh, sure,” I said. “It’s quite well-known.”
“I bought my boat to start a guide business. Parson recovered. Next I hear from him, he wants to get back in the game. And wants me to partner with him. I turned him down flat, but Parson has sway with people on both sides, and it looks like he intends to pull in his credit with every one of them.”
Daniel shook his head. “Enforced retirement is age fifty-seven, a bit young for men used to aeronautical acrobats as a regular diet. I’ve had my own trouble with adrenaline addiction; took it out on working around the clock, helping Jamie at her clinic. Parson didn’t have another outlet. He stayed active for several years after his retirement, consulting, but was cut loose when he became ill. His whole life was his career. No family, no kids.”
While Daniel took a sip of his wine, he glanced inside the restaurant. He set his glass down hard. “Son of a bitch.”
My body straightened. “What? What’s wrong?”
“Look what that guy’s eating.”
“Who?” I followed Daniel’s stare through the double doors, toward the bar in the front of the restaurant.
“Stocker. He’s got so damn much mayonnaise on that ham-and-cheese sandwich, it’s dripping out the sides.”
I was startled. “You watch what he eats?”
“Somebody has to. He sure as hell doesn’t.” Daniel glared at Stocker’s image reflected in the mirror behind the bar. If somebody looked at me like that while I was eating, I couldn’t have swallowed. Stocker just dropped his gaze and continued chewing.
Daniel turned back to me. “I like to run six or seven miles in the morning, but I’d kill the guy if he tried to follow, so I run around the park in stupid circles, so he can sit on a bench and watch me. You know what he did yesterday? Bought an ice-cream bar from the vendor when he peddled past. Sat there eating it while I was running.”
