Blood Tide

by Robert F. Jones

  “No net,” he said.

  “We don’t really need one,” the commodore said. “Who’d want to steal or sabotage our boats around here? We’re the island’s economy.”

  “What kind of paint is that?” The boats were painted green or dull black.

  “Stealth stuff,” Torres said, after looking for the commodore’s nod. “It absorbs radar signals where the angles of the hull don’t deflect them.”

  “Pricey boats, pricey paint jobs,” Curt said.

  “Our firm is amply capitalized,” the commodore replied, and laughed. “Our stockholders earn good dividends on their investment. We hope you’ll help us add to our profit margin.”

  “The best I can, sir,” Curt said.

  “Do you shoot, Captain?”

  “I’ve been off the hard stuff for years,” Curt answered. “Never really cared for needle drugs.”

  “I meant wing shooting. Game birds—pheasant, quail, doves, ducks.”

  “Oh, you mean like skeet? But on live birds, those pigeon shoots in Caracas or Bogotá? Up one goes, and bang, bang!”

  “No,” the commodore said. “Bang.”

  Curt laughed. “Never tried it. I’m fair with a handgun, though. Or an Uzi.”

  “Too bad,” the commodore said. “Billy doesn’t care for the sport, and it would be nice to have a shooting companion. There are jungle cock over on Balbal. I like to run over there when things are slow and enjoy a few hours of sport.”

  “Jungle cock? I thought they were illegal. I mean, you can’t even bring a few feathers, much less a skin, into the U.S., can you? Endangered species, or something.”

  “Not here. They’re abundant on Balbal. The feathers are very valuable, almost priceless, and the best kind for tying salmon flies.” The commodore had many friends back in Washington who appreciated his gifts of carefully dried jungle-cock necks, salmon anglers all in the corridors of power. Venial sins in a diplomatic pouch.

  “Well, heck, sir,” Curt said. “I wouldn’t mind learning. I’m not one of your bug-fucking hippie nature boys who wouldn’t swat a housefly. Wing shooting, hey? A real gentleman’s sport.”

  “Good,” the commodore said. “We’ll run out there this afternoon in one of the Thunders. Later, when it cools off a bit and the birds are moving. You can show me how well you drive a fast boat, and then carry my game bag. Two birds with one stone.” He chuckled.

  Pain in the ass, Curt thought. Now I’m this fucking gun-bearer. But he chuckled right along.

  They drove back to the bungalow in Billy’s dinged-up GMC Jimmy. It was painted gray, like a navy carryall, the kind you see around the whorehouses in Old San Juan when a carrier or cruiser’s in port. Curt liked what he’d seen so far of Lázaro—the wide, stone seafront embarcadero with its huge old flamboyant trees in blossom, coco palms tossing in the trades that washed it most of the day, little cantinas and shops lining the shaded paseos, a spindly towered mosque in town, and the big, square-spired cathedral overlooking the sea. It was like the Caribbean before it got nasty down there. Here people actually smiled at a white face, doffed their hats and called you Don.

  Lunch was cold roast beef—a bit stringy, Curt thought—and chicken salad with chopped coconut, grapes, and bits of what looked like mango or papaya mixed in. The crisp-crusted rolls were from the panadería on the waterfront. They ate on the lanai, to enjoy the sea breeze, and were served by little brown barefoot Tausuq boys in starched whites. Rosalinda, the commodore’s housekeeper, kept a watchful eye on the boys. She was a handsome woman, in her fifties, Curt guessed, and he wondered if the commodore or Billy was doinking her. There was a hint of the whore about her, the kind that really loves her work. A rare breed, indeed.

  “How do you like the roast beef?” the commodore asked.

  “Flavorful but a bit chewy,” Curt said. “What is it, carabao?”

  “Close, but not quite. Tamarau. A wild buffalo from over on Balbal. There’s a good-sized herd of them there still. Used to be abundant here on Lázaro as well, in the Spanish days, but the dons liked to ride them down on horseback and spear them. Tough customers, the dons. At least in their heyday. A tamarau’s no sissy, not like his poncey water buff cousin, the carabao. Sharp horns and a strong life. Took two rounds from a .375 Magnum to stop this guy, didn’t it, Billy?”

  Torres laughed.

  “Another one not so long ago killed a well-to-do Filipino client of ours from Davao. He’d knocked it down with one shot, walked up to have a look, then, when he turned away, it stuck him right up the backside. Like a toro bravo might an incautious matador.”

  Torres laughed again, with his mouth full, then patted his lips with the linen napkin and kept on chuckling.

  “Balbal, hey? Where we’re going to hunt birds this afternoon?”

  “That’s right,” the commodore said. “They’re often in the same cover together.”

  “A little bit hairy, isn’t it? Shouldn’t you bring a rifle?”

  “Just adds to the sport, Captain. Adrenaline’s good for the circulation. A healthy shot of it now and then reams out the blood vessels like Drano in a clogged sink. I’m sure it just gobbles up the cholesterol. How’s your cholesterol, Captain? Mine’s a bit high, but I think it’s in control now, out here.”

  “I haven’t had a physical lately,” Curt said. “Billy told me I didn’t need one to get this job.”

  “True,” the Commodore replied. “But we care about our employees’ health and welfare. Don’t we, Billy? Anyway, you won’t be getting much cholesterol from that chicken salad, in case you’ve been worrying. It’s jungle cock.”

  “Delicious,” Curt said.

  “Siesta time, gentlemen,” the commodore said.

  Billy Torres woke Curt from a restless sleep a little after three. Curt’s pillow was sweat-soaked despite the air-conditioning in the little stucco-walled guest house they’d assigned him. The commodore was waiting on the dock at the boat shed. One of the green-painted Blue Thunders rumbled and blatted beside the pier, its engines already warmed up. The commo stepped impatiently down into the boat and gestured at the gear piled on the dock. Curt handed it to him—a scarred pigskin gun case, a canvas game bag from which a few gaudy feathers flew, an El Al flight bag heavy with what felt like a case of shotgun shells. He cast off the bow and stern lines and jumped in.

  “Take her out, Captain Hughes.”

  Curt engaged the drive, crimped the leather-padded wheel, and touched the throttles. The Thunder spoke, the boat leapt forward.

  “Easy, Captain.”

  “She’s sensitive.”

  He took her out the channel blasted through the inshore coral, following mangrove pole markers, until they were in blue water. Balbal lay to the northeast, a high, darkly forested wedge-shaped island wearing a cap of afternoon rain clouds. He could see surf creaming on the beaches to Balbal’s windward side.

  “Straight for the centerline of the island,” the commodore shouted. “It’s ten miles to the near shore. I make it just three-sixteen P.M. NOW two-block them, and let’s go. All ahead full.” He gripped the holds on the padded dash and spread his stance. Curt nailed the throttles.

  The Thunder shot out like a dragster, up on the step in an instant. She rode straight, smooth, and bounceless despite the trade wind’s rough chop—as if she were on rails. When they’d run about half the distance, the commodore leaned over and yelled into his ear, “Now cut me a doughnut. Don’t touch the throttle.” Curt obeyed, his stomach suddenly clenching. Well, she was the commodore’s boat . . .

  The Thunder turned on her own tail in a smooth, tight, perfect circle. She scarcely heeled at all to the maneuver, but Curt’s instinctive lean into the turn almost threw him off balance when it didn’t happen.

  “Incredible,” he yelled.

  The commodore looked into his eyes and grinned happily. A great, big forty-year-old rich kid showing off his toys to the poor boy on his block.

  “Now to starboard,” he yelled.

 
Curt cut another doughnut, then wheeled back around and had a run at the Thunder’s steep wake. The boat skipped over it as if it were a crack in the sidewalk. She wasn’t much for fast—just a touch over sixty-five m.p.h. at red-line revs, ten slower than an Apache or even a well-tuned old Cigarette—but she was heaven for smooth.

  He throttled down as they neared the Balbal shore.

  “Six minutes and change,” the commodore said proudly. “With time out for coffee and doughnuts.”

  They anchored, bow to seaward, off a pink-flour beach and waded ashore, Curt lugging the gear. “Empty a box of those shells into the game pouch,” the commodore ordered as he assembled his shotgun. “Make it two boxes. Hand me those chaps.” He pulled a pair of green nylon tubes over his bare legs, securing them at his belt with snap straps. “There’s another pair in the bag,” he said. “You’d better put them on.”

  “What’re they for? Snakes?”

  “They wouldn’t turn a snake bite,” the commodore said. “But there’s other things in there that bite.”

  “I hate anything on my bare legs,” Curt said. “If it’s all the same to you—”

  “Your legs,” the commodore said. “Your funeral.” He dropped two shells into the slim, double-barreled gun, then snapped the breech closed. “Let’s kill some birds.”

  He pushed into the jungle.

  Back on Lázaro, Billy Torres walked casually out onto the dock where Sea Witch lay moored. He was whistling softly to himself, soothingly, trying to walk as nonchalantly as a tourist on an afternoon stroll. Torres did not like dogs.

  Brillo watched him from the shade of the wheelhouse, head between his paws. Silent.

  Why do I always draw the shit duty? Torres asked himself. I could have taken Hughes out in the boat, checked him out and all, while the commodore searched Curt’s sailboat. Dogs love the commodore. They’re always coming up to him to be scratched behind the ears. They don’t like me. They know. And I can’t even shoot the fucker if he comes for me. Then the kid would know someone’s been aboard her. Why shouldn’t he know? He’s working for us, isn’t he? We could say some Tausuq thief did it.

  He stopped at the gangway leading onto the cockpit. The dog was still silent, not even watching him now that he was behind it. One ear was cocked back at him, though. He put a foot on the gangway. The dog didn’t move. “Good boy, hey, you’re really a good doggy, aren’t you boy?” Nothing. No movement, no growl, just that ear, twitching once as Torres spoke. He took a step. Another. Watching closely.

  “You’re a good pooch, aren’t you, boy?” Torres lied. He knew the dog knew he was lying, even though it still hadn’t moved.

  He was across the gangway, onto the main deck, at the head of the companionway. “Good boy, atsa good doggy!” He was onto the ladder. Piece of cake—

  Then the dog was there—so fast that Torres caught only a red-brown blur—there at the head of the ladder. Filling the sky. All eyes and hair and teeth—very long, white, sharp teeth. The dog growled once, low and ugly, deep in its fire hose of a larynx. Torres bolted into the cabin and slammed the door, shot the bolt, staggered back and jabbed his kidney hard against a sharp edge of the mess table. He was hyperventilating, his heart pounding like an M60 machine gun with an endless belt of ammo. . . .

  But he was there, down in the cabin, where the commo said he had to go. Plenty of time for a thorough, leisurely search that would leave no traces. Plenty of time to take rolls of film with the Minox, if there was anything to photograph. More time than he could ever use.

  How the fuck do I get out of here?

  * * *

  It took Curt only five steps to realize he’d made a grave mistake. He should have worn the brush chaps. Thorns, nettles, vines that sucked at his legs like leeches even as they bit—he was ripped and stinging from his shorts clear down to where his Topsiders were filling with blood. Maybe it was just mud—there was plenty of that. And leeches, too. Real ones, not lianas. The commodore snapped them off his own arms and neck as he strode along, breaking trail. He was chattering away a mile a minute, asking Curt what he thought of the Thunder, how he liked Lázaro so far—he hoped Curt would be happy in his job; it’s a nice, friendly little island once the people get to know you. Hard to get laid, though, almost impossible, the way these Tausuqs guard their daughters. But Billy’d brought in some girls from Angeles, clean girls, all tested negative for AIDS, though it’s rampant there and at Subic as well. Inexpensive, too, in fact, he could have a freebie courtesy of the commodore—at least the first night.

  Every now and then something roared up from the green jungle gloom, and the commodore killed it before Curt could even react. The light little double was at his shoulder before the bird was off the ground. Pow! Pow-pow—nailed two that time. Pow! Pow! Each time he killed one, he looked back at Curt, puzzled at first, then exasperated.

  “Look” he said after he’d picked up two or three of them. “You’re supposed to be the retriever. Next one, you fetch it.”

  Aye-aye, sir. Or should it be woof-woof?

  Pow! “Fetch it, Captain!” Curt fetched. It looked like a Technicolor chicken, only smaller, harder-bodied, kind of like a banty cock, with long, sharp spurs.

  Pow-pow!

  “Double! Fetch ’em up, Cappy! Fetch dead!”

  The commodore shot one that fell and then took off running.

  “After him, Cappy! He’s a runner! Go fetch him up, boy—go, he’s getting away!”

  Curt finally grabbed the bird by its tail feathers, and when they pulled out, threw himself on top of it like a lineman on a fumble. It squirted out from under his chest and raked him down the cheek with one of its spurs. He grabbed it by the neck. It beat him and gouged his arms with its wings and legs.

  “Bite its fucking head off!” the commodore advised.

  Curt chomped—crunch. Blood and feathers . . .

  “Good boy, Cap!”

  On and on they pounded, with Curt beating the thick covers now at the commodore’s behest, arms, legs, neck, face ripped raw by thorns and stinging with acid sweat. He didn’t even bother with the leeches anymore. Maybe they’d kill him before the jungle did.

  “What’s the bag limit on these birds?” he finally asked the commodore. The commodore looked at him quizzically. Whoever heard such a dumb question?

  “Why, whatever I make it,” he said. “What’s the matter, game bag getting too heavy? You’re not wimping out on me, Captain, are you? Not turning into, what did you call them, a bug-fucking hippie on me?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Good.”

  A while later—ten minutes? An hour? Who cared—something dark and heavy went crashing off through a bamboo thicket to their right. The commodore looked at the ground, wrinkled his nose, sniffed the mildewed dead air. He touched his toe to what looked like a cow flop. Curt saw the deep indentations of cloven hooves in the mud.

  “Tamarau,” the commodore said. “Well, we’re almost back to the boat. They won’t bother us now.” And sure enough, a hundred leaden steps later Curt popped like a champagne cork out onto the beach. The brilliant light brought tears to his eyes. There was the Thunder, bobbing at her anchor line just ahead of them on the water. Curt could have sworn they were miles away from it.

  “Just bring the boat in here, bow first, while I take down this gun,” the commodore ordered. “And put those birds in the cooler under the console till we get back. Rosa will clean and skin them.”

  The saltwater stung. Small fish nibbled on Curt’s torn skin.

  * * *

  It was hotter than the proverbial hinges down in Sea Witch’s cabin. Billy Torres lay on Curt’s bunk, feeling the sweat roll down his ribs. He’d shot all his film, emptied a jug of warm water (nothing to drink in the reefer, which had no ice in it, anyway), tried to read one of the hundreds of books and diaries he found in the cedar chest at the foot of the bunk but found them all too arty (he was a Mack Bolan fan; even Louis L’Amour was too rarefied for his taste), and studied al
l the tapes and records without finding one C & W album. Then he heard Curt coming along the dock.

  “Hey there, Brill. Coulda used you this afternoon, boy. Balbal’s a ball breaker—your kind of country, Brillo boy. Hey, what you got down there in the cabin, boy? Good eats, hey? Okay, let me get past you now.”

  The hatch was bolted from the inside. Then it slid back and the door opened.

  Billy Torres was glowering at him.

  “Oh, hi, Mr. Torres,” Curt said, smiling. “Find what you wanted?”

  “What did you tell him?”

  “The only logical story,” Billy Torres said. He and the commodore were on the veranda, sipping their sundown stingahs. “I came aboard to check his mooring lines, and the dog chased me into the cabin.”

  “He bought it?”

  “What else could he do? Remember, he works for us. We could off him in a minute if we wanted, and he knows it. Anyway, it’s credible enough.”

  “What did you get?”

  “I shot the log page by page, the books—just the covers, titles, like that, but the books are legit. I don’t know about the records or tapes, he’s got no fresh batteries for the machine. A wad of old pictures of some broad, a hard-looking bitch with a crooked nose, and of what I guess is her as a kid, with her folks. And what looked like the broad’s diary, written in some old logbooks. I copied as much of that as I could before I ran out of film. Pretty boring stuff. Like the books.”

  “Where’s the pictures of the pictures?”

  “In the lab, drying still.”

  “Let’s go.” They walked across the wet lawn to the casita that was the photo lab. The door was unlocked, and Torres turned to the commodore, eyebrows up. Rosalinda was in there, dusting and emptying the trash cans. It was okay—III had cleared her and given her the key along with the job.

  “Could you come back later, Rosa?” the commodore said. “Gracias. Muy bueno, chicita.”

  “I’m sorry, Commodore Millikan,” she said, a bit miffed. “I wanted to clean up early so I can go to confession tonight at the cathedral. It’s Lent, you know, and we—”