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by Randy Wayne White

  Below, Tomlinson was on the VHF with Fort Myers Beach Coast Guard. He’d stuck his head above the ladder long enough to tell us that a search-and-rescue helicopter was being scrambled at the St. Petersburg base, seventy miles north. I’d tried to get him to change places with me—his eyesight is perfect; I wear glasses—but he insisted that he stay below.

  “Maybe I’ll see something down there that you can’t see from the flybridge.”

  In a search that seemed increasingly futile and random, it made as much sense as anything else.

  We had closed on the Viking. It drifted beam to the sea, only a few hundred yards away now. I entertained the mild hope that the two men had somehow caught up with their boat. Perhaps they were drifting with it, hanging onto the anchor line.

  Unlikely, but we’d soon find out.

  To my left was a thin charcoal smudge that I knew was Sanibel Island. Ahead, it was raining over Fort Myers Beach. I could see squall clouds dragging tendrils of rain across the water, sunlight oscillating through rain mist, the streaming light interrupted by clouds.

  I checked my watch: 5:03 P.M. We’d been searching for half an hour. The wind had a silver edge to it, blowing steadily from the southwest. It glazed the waves with icy light. I looked at Jeth, who simultaneously looked at me. Arlis remained steadfast at the wheel—still wearing his Bing Crosby hat; the orange life jacket we’d forced on him, an absurd touch.

  Jeth’s expression said, This is hopeless.

  I nodded. Hopeless.

  I knew Augie only well enough to dislike him. The other guy, Oswald, we had never exchanged a word. But to be adrift, alone, in a wind-glazed sea…night coming soon, and death soon after—I didn’t wish that hell on anyone…

  From below, I heard a unexpected banging sound.

  “Hey! Why’s he doing that?”

  Then we heard it again: a panicked banging on the pilothouse roof, Tomlinson signaling from below. Arlis backed the throttles and shifted to neutral, all of us turning as one. We heard the cabin door slam, then Tomlinson’s voice. “Stop! Turn around. They’re behind us!”

  He came charging up the flybridge ladder, still wearing the pirate’s bandanna that he always wore when diving. He turned and pointed, yelling, “See them, they’re right there! Don’t take your eye off them. Nobody take your eye off them.”

  Off what? I saw nothing but rolling waves.

  “Arlis! Give her some throttle, I’m losing them. Here—” Arlis stepped aside as Tomlinson jumped to the wheel. He popped the throttles forward and the trawler lunged into the next wave.

  Then I saw it: one of the six-foot-long Styrofoam noodles that had drifted slowly away from our wreck site because it was weighted with only half a cement block.

  How had I missed it? We’d passed it on our port side. My side.

  Clinging to the orange buoy were Augie and Oswald, waving frantically. They were wearing black wet suits and black BC vests—Tomlinson would’ve never seen them if it weren’t for the orange marker.

  “Okay, okay, I got ’em. I’ll steer.” Arlis was at the wheel again. “You boys find a boat hook. I’ll bring us alongside and you can pluck ’em out—and watch those two don’t piss all over you ’cause they’re gonna be happy as drowned dogs that we found them.”

  I started to suggest to Arlis that the safest way to approach the swimmers was with our beam to the sea—get upwind and we might drift down and crush them. But he cut me short, saying, “When I want your advice on how to pick up contraband in a big sea, I’ll send a telegram. Until then, you just shut your hole and do what I say.”

  Jesus. We’d left with Santiago, but it was Captain Bligh taking us home.

  Tomlinson wasn’t empathetic. “Contraband?” he said, very interested. “Mind if I ask—”

  “Mary-juana,” Arlis replied. “You know any other that pays as well? Back in the 1970s and ’80s, my pot-haulin’ business associates would drop bales from a plane and I’d fetch ’em out of the water. A’course, that was a hell of a lot harder than this. It was at night. Couldn’t use lights. More than once there was other boats out there, too, wantin’ to steal what was ours. Got so I could shoot pretty good in rough seas.”

  “No kiddin’,” said Tomlinson, impressed.

  The old man cackled and said, “Made enough money to buy Miami,” giddy enough to quote a fellow pirate. “Some of it really good shit, too.”

  A ugie Heller and Trippe Oswald—the guy had a first name—were so grateful to be pulled from the water that they probably did pee down their own legs.

  Oswald was bawling and Augie’s eyes were glassy—shock. Sledding up and down those waves, they’d gotten a glimpse of the abyss. There was something worse than death. It was a dark and random indifference. They’d given up. Been reduced by their own terror, and the two men couldn’t immediately resume their old façades.

  Both were shivering as they peeled off their wet suits despite the warm storm wind blowing across the Gulf from Yucatán. We gave them blankets, bottled water, and sandwiches. Put them at the settee table inside the pilothouse, while Tomlinson canceled the Coast Guard search and Arlis swung the trawler around hoping to catch up with the red buoy and recover our backup dive system.

  Oswald was a chatterbox nonstop talker: “Couldn’t swim another stroke, dude. My legs were like fucking cramping, and I even started praying, man. Promised God if He’d help me just this once that, no shit, I would like do anything He asked. Next thing I see is this beautiful fucking boat, almost on top of us…”

  I tuned him out within a minute.

  It was Oswald’s way of discharging fear. Humiliation, too. We were the assholes Augie had told not to dive his wreck. We were the dumbasses who knew nothing about maritime law. Bern Heller’s lawyers had warned us—the same lawyers, presumably, who’d figured out how to steal boats under the guise of admiralty salvage laws.

  It is humiliating to be saved by an adversary. And we’d saved them.

  Augie and Oswald were grateful—at first. Thanked us over and over; made weak, ingratiating jokes. They were in our debt because we’d saved their lives. Forever, man. Was there something they could do for us? Name it.

  Forever didn’t last, nor did their gratitude. It began to erode when the two men made their first experimental stabs at manipulating the other guy’s recollection of what they’d just experienced. The gradual process of reinvention also required that they distance their association with witnesses they couldn’t manipulate: us.

  Augie Heller was a man who was uneasy in anyone’s debt. Especially ours. He rallied quickly.

  “Know what I think? I’m glad you found us, but we would’ve made it. How long were Trippe and I swimming, only an hour or so?”

  I told him, “It probably seemed like an hour,” anticipating what was coming next.

  “Okay, so we were taking a break when you came along. We would’ve rested for a little bit, then swam another hour. Rest, swim, rest, swim. And we had the vests on. No way we could drown. What do you think, Trippe?”

  Oswald said eagerly, “You’re no quitter, Augie. No shit, when I started to lose it I thought you were gonna slap the crap out of me. And when you started to lose it, dude, no way was I gonna go off and leave you—”

  “I never lost it,” Augie interrupted, an edge to his voice.

  “Well…yeah, I guess now that I think about it…you didn’t really lose it—”

  “Neither one of us lost it. We stayed pretty cool out there.”

  “Yeah. I guess you’re right. We handled it pretty good.”

  Augie said, “What I was asking was, how long do you think it would’ve taken us before we made it to Sanibel? Doing what we were doing: swim, then rest, then swim some more. We’d of made it around eight or nine o’clock? It would be easier at night because we could have swam toward the lights. Climb up the beach and hitch a ride. Or call Moe with his pickup truck. We’d of had a couple of hours to spare before closing time.” Augie had a nasty laugh.

 
I was thinking: By 9 P.M., they would have been off Fort Myers Beach, bobbing toward open ocean and the Dry Tortugas, a long hellish night to endure before tropical hypothermia provided relief. Death would have arrived not long after their last dawn.

  “How drunk you think we’re gonna get tonight, Trippe? We’ll take the Viking back to the marina, hose her down, then you and me are hitting the bars, man! We’ll get Moe, too—can you imagine how that cowboy would’ve freaked if he’d been with us today? He’d of been taking shots at the damn waves.”

  Shooting at the waves? The two men exchanged looks, sharing an inside joke that I didn’t get.

  I sat listening as Augie switched subjects, eager to dismantle, then rebuild, the most painful facts before he had to face his uncle.

  “That shitty anchor on the Viking? How many times did I say we needed a new anchor?”

  “At least once, Aug. Maybe twice. That’s the way I remember—”

  “Twice, my ass. I told you umpteen times. I mentioned it coming out, but you probably didn’t hear. ‘We gotta get a decent anchor for this boat.’ That’s exactly what I said…”

  I was thinking: We gave up life in the trees, the ability to hang by our toes and scratch our own backs, for this?

  28

  Arlis and Jeth were above on the flybridge. We’d pulled astern the forty-three-foot sportfisherman. Had been drifting along with it, presumably while they discussed the best way to put one of us aboard—dangerous in a running sea—or how to snatch the Viking’s anchor line and take her in tow. I considered going topside to find out, but decided Captain Bligh could make the decision on his own.

  Tomlinson, Jeth, and I still hadn’t had a chance to talk about what we’d seen or found on the wreck and we couldn’t talk now because we didn’t want to share information with the two guys from Indian Harbor Marina. Tomlinson had found something interesting, though. Sizable, too, judging from the shape of his dive bag, which was on the stern deck. When I’d asked about it, he’d whispered, “Later. After we get rid of these two.”

  For the last ten minutes, he’d been standing at the pilothouse console, using the VHF radio to keep Fort Myers Beach Coast Guard updated on our progress. Emergency distress calls are treated seriously; they require a follow-up interview before an incident report can be closed. Tomlinson had cleared his throat a couple of times before I realized he was trying to get my attention. His way of communicating privately while Augie and Oswald chattered away.

  I turned. He was shirtless, the pirate’s bandanna tied around his head, wearing navy blue polyester dive pants called dive skins. He held up a warning index finger: Pay attention.

  I listened as Tomlinson interrupted Augie. “Hey, guys, we’re about to take your boat in tow, so there’s some stuff we need to get straight first—for the Coast Guard. Which of you is the legal owner?”

  Augie’s expression said: Why are you bothering me with this crap? “Our marina owns it, I guess. It’s corporate property. So that makes me captain. Is that what you’re asking?”

  Tomlinson had found the trawler’s papers in a black leather portfolio that was zipped inside a waterproof case. He was leafing through documents that looked like service records, warranties, documentation, a registration. Owner Bill Gutek ran a tight ship.

  Tomlinson said, “The same information I’ve got to give them about this boat”—he held the sheath of papers as an example—“they’re going to want for the Viking. And the Coast Guard has ways of checking if you give them wrong info. Are you sure the vessel’s registered in your marina’s name?”

  No, it wasn’t registered to Indian Harbor Marina. I could see it on Augie’s face. But he said, “Yeah, I’m sure. That’s how it’s down. Under the exact same name as the marina, tell them that. We’re the owners.” Augie’s tone saying, Whatever. He didn’t care that we knew he was lying.

  Tomlinson held his hands apart, palms up—sorry he was being such a pain in the butt. “The Coast Guard’s waiting for this stuff, man. If they go aboard the Viking, they’ll find the ship’s papers. They gotta match what you tell ’em. Or they’ll keep you at the Coast Guard station all night.”

  Augie’s expression: Shit, now we’ve got to deal with this?

  Tomlinson offered, “Or maybe…I’m just guessing here, but it’s okay to tell them if you’re not the owners. If your marina claimed it as salvage after the hurricane—the same way you got Javier’s boat?—then maybe you have a right to use it. It’s no big deal, man, if that’s how you got the Viking. But it’s gotta be the truth.”

  Augie was confused. “Javier?”

  “The colored guy who showed up with the gun,” Oswald said. He was chewing on his third sandwich. “That Pursuit with the twin Yamahas is his. Was his, I mean. Javier.”

  “Oh yeah, the green boat with the radar,” Augie said slowly. “I’d forgotten that part of it. Moe loves that boat.”

  “Oh yeah. Moe does…” Oswald left that hanging as he continued eating.

  They were exchanging private information.

  I said, “Is there something about Javier Castillo that we don’t know?”

  I got a shrug, and an indifferent shake of the head, before Augie looked at Tomlinson and said, “Okay, sure. If the Coast Guard has to know, our marina…no, the salvage company we contracted claimed those boats, all perfectly legal, and they can talk to our lawyers if they have any more questions. We just want to get the boat home, wash her down, and get a drink.”

  Tomlinson plays the role of the dope-addled hipster flawlessly because he is so often dope-addled. But he also possesses an extraordinary intellect. That big brain of his was working on something now. I sensed it. His low-key manner, playing the role: a burned-out flunky who was harmless, embarrassed because he had to ask questions.

  “Good. I’ll let the Coast Guard know. Doc? Arlis might need help topside. A couple extra hands to get a vessel that size under control.”

  Did he want me to keep Augie and Oswald busy while he spoke to the Coast Guard?

  In reply to my look, I received the slightest of nods. Yes.

  A ugie and Oswald followed me up the flybridge ladder in time to hear Arlis tell Jeth, “…that’s what I’m trying to get through that thick head of yours. If you’re ever on a boat that sinks—you can be five thousand miles offshore, it don’t matter—and if that boat happens to be carrying livestock, the first thing you do is find the pigs. You can drop a pig in the middle of an ocean at midnight and he’ll swim straight for shore. It’s a gift that a hog’s born with. Only the Good Lord knows why.”

  When Jeth saw me, his expression read: Help.

  “A horse? Don’t waste your time messin’ with a damn horse. Sheep and goats are almost as bad. Now, a dog, hell, a dog will chase seagulls, it don’t matter to him. A dog could swim forty miles of open water and just be touching the beach, but if a seagull flies over? A damn dog will head right back out to sea.

  “That’s why you always should open their pens quick on a sinking ship. These days, a lot of sailors aren’t aware of that information. A cat, now there’s an animal that’s aware. A cat is smart. Know how you can tell? That’s right—a cat will already be in the water, waiting to climb on the first pig that swims along—”

  Arlis knew that we were listening and couldn’t ignore us any longer. He paused and glared at me. “I suppose you come up here to tell me how to tie a knot. Or maybe you want to take the wheel and show me how to bow up to that vessel’s stern quarter gentle as a baby’s butt so one of you snotnoses can step aboard—”

  I interrupted, “Nope, you’ve got the helm, Arlis. But you don’t own that boat.” I pushed my chin toward the nearby sportfisherman. “This guy says he’s captain of the Viking, and he’s the one best qualified to say how we take her in tow. Augie’s going to stay up here and tell you how he wants it done.” I put my hand on Augie’s shoulder and pushed him a step closer to Arlis. “Go ahead. Tell Arlis what to do next.”

  I looked at Jeth—Let’s go—and fol
lowed him down the ladder. As we left, I lingered long enough to hear Arlis saying, “Hey, I recognize you now. You’re that spawn from Indian Harbor Marina. ’Member me? The night watchman you called Old Dude? You’re supposed to tell me how to handle a boat?

  “Why…you little penis-nosed twerp, you about knocked me overboard an hour ago. Just before I saved your ass—which I wouldn’t do again in a million years. Augie? I wouldn’t name a damn goat Augie, nor a horse neither, which is an even dumber animal, doesn’t come close to having the brains of a pig…”

  T omlinson was talking on the VHF when Jeth and I came into the pilothouse. He motioned for us to hurry, and pointed to a paper at his elbow as he said, “Thanks very much, Marine Operator. Go ahead and put that call through.”

  From the radio’s speaker came the sound of a ringing phone.

  Tomlinson was cheerful. Clear-eyed, too—unusual for this late in the day. He said, “I just finished talking to the Coast Guard. I told them the Viking was adrift, no one aboard, and that she was going to kill herself ashore in less than an hour—if she didn’t hit a bridge or another boat first. Does that seem accurate?”

  Through the trawler’s windows, I could see the sky bridge that connected the mainland to Estero Island and Fort Myers Beach, the horizon lifting and falling as we drifted. I nodded, and said, “Yes,” as Jeth said, “No doubt about it,” both of us aware of why he’d asked a question that had an obvious answer. Legalities were involved, and our responses might become part of the public record.

  Jeth and I hold the same commercial Coast Guard licenses: 100-ton ocean operators, unlimited range. In a court of law—federal admiralty court, for instance—the opinion of three licensed professionals would have weight.

  “Here.” Tomlinson tapped the printout he’d made at Sanibel Library while doing research on admiralty law. “I gave the Coast Guard the Viking’s documentation numbers and they found an emergency number for the company that owns her. Something called Boston Camera and Lexicon Software Analysis.”

  As I moved to look, I heard a man’s voice say through the radio speaker, “This is John MacNeal. The Coast Guard says you have information about a boat my company owns. I’m president and CEO, so I have full authority…”