by Lyle Howard
Geiger flashed a sly, toothy grin. "Geez, bud, that's never stopped you before!"
Cal threw his bar towel over his shoulder. "And it won't stop me this time either ... bud! You stop by on your next run, and I'll bet I'll even know her SAT scores by then."
The deputy patted his hand on the bar. "After losin' more than a hundred dollars to you in darts, I've learned never to wager against you!"
Mackey began concocting another very special daiquiri, one that would be on the house this time. "I'll see you in about an hour, Artemis," he said wolfishly.
Geiger took one last look at the redhead, nodded enviously at his friend, and trod his way dejectedly back across the sandy dance floor to the patrol car parked outside. Some guys had all the luck!
Five
Cal wiped his hands off on his dish towel and set the rag down next to the sink. "Mind the fort for me, will ya' Rosie?"
The middle-aged waitress slapped her order pad down on the top of the bar and began tying a food-stained apron around her waist. "God damn it, Cal, I can't make the big bucks working back here," she protested, squeezing her hefty girth through the opening to get behind the counter. "You gonna be long?"
Mackey grabbed a handful of cocktail napkins and the special delivery daiquiri. "Being long has never been a problem for me, darlin'," he said to her, with a wink.
"Fuckin' dreamer," the waitress muttered back, rolling her eyes doubtfully.
The crowd always seemed to part like the Red Sea whenever Cal stepped out from behind the bar. The younger girls, who routinely managed to sneak into the Shack with the help of some form of counterfeit identification, giggled and leered at the brawny bartender with all the naive reverence they usually afforded to rock and roll royalty. Whereas the more supposedly mature women tended to simply lose their trends of thought and begin downing their drinks like dehydrated athletes so they could request a personal refill whenever he strode past their tables. Oblivious to the actual intensity of arousal he elicited from the opposite sex, these absurd reactions always made Cal laugh to himself.
It was the same scenario every weekend "Uh, bartender," one disembodied woman's voice would call out as he'd make his way through the crowd. "Bartender, please ... I need to be filled up!" This type of exchange always seemed to preface a unanimous chorus of catcalls and whistles from the rest of the woman's drunken friends who were inwardly envious of her newfound bravura. This time, Cal just waved to them casually with his free hand and continued pushing his way toward the redhead's table.
"Excuse me,” he interrupted, as he reached his destination.
The enigmatic redhead never looked up at him. She was too busy holding an intense conversation with the old man in the wheelchair. They were both speaking rapidly in some clumsy sounding European dialect that Cal couldn't quite put his finger on. Cal cleared his throat.
The old-timer looked up, cocking his head from side to side and studying Cal as though he was a sculpture in a museum that he wasn't quite sure he fancied yet.
"I thought you might need another drink."
When she finally made eye contact, her face was the portrait of indifference. "We did not order another drink."
Cal flashed his most winsome smile, which at any other table would have started the women ovulating, but the empty stare he received in reciprocation melted his grin like a warm cup of ice cream.
"I just thought..."
She was a woman of very few words. "Go avay!"
This wasn't going to be easy. "But it's on the house!"
The old man grumbled something to her under his breath. "We do not want another drink."
Cal shook his head. "No, you don't understand ... it's free!"
She said something to the withered man as he exchanged curious glances between Cal and the redhead.
"If you really don't want it..."
The old man tapped one of his bony fingertips on the table in front of him.
"No, we will take it, thank you," she said graciously, "but I insist that we pay you for it."
I feel a nibble, Cal congratulated himself. "No, this one is my treat," he insisted, pulling up an empty chair to the table. "May I sit down?"
Not having the chance to decline, the redhead squirmed uncomfortably in her seat.
"I couldn't help but notice your accent before..."
To avoid any misinterpretation of the bartender's superficial manner, she translated Cal's remarks out of the corner of her mouth. The old man listened to her intently, his haunting grey eyes scrutinizing Mackey, his relentless gaze piercing through the trivial chitchat.
"Foreign accents intrigue me..."
The old man snickered upon hearing the come-on.
"What is it that you want, Mr. Mackey?" she asked, raising her voice slightly to be heard over the rock and roll.
Ah, a bite! Now start reelin' her in! "You remembered my name!" Cal said, sounding triumphant.
She pursed her painted crimson lips. "You shouted it across the bar at me! Surely everyone in here must know it by now!"
Cal suddenly felt self-conscious. "It's obvious that you're not from around here. Where are you visiting from?"
She translated the question and waited for an answer from the old man. As he spoke in short, curt sentences, his eyes and Cal's never broke contact. "We come from overseas."
Cal's forehead furled. "Overseas? Down here, everywhere is overseas! Wanna be more specific?"
She translated, and the old man's eyes narrowed into razor-sharp slits. His response came between wheezing, staccato bursts of breath.
"We like to consider ourselves citizens of no specific country. We are world travelers."
Cal smiled cordially, and nodded his understanding to the old man. "Well then, what brings you ‘world travelers’ to our neck of the woods?"
It was obvious that he had confused her with the jargon. "Neck of the woods?"
Cal tried again. "Yes, this place. What brings you here?"
She interpreted the question again, but this time Cal noticed that the old man wrapped one of his nearly transparent skeletal hands around her wrist as he responded. What didn't he want her saying?
Let’s face it ... fighting in Kabul hadn't scared Cal. Having been stung by a whole school of man-o-wars while swimming the Iron Man Challenge hadn't made Cal so much as whimper. Signing the second mortgage on the Shack hadn't fazed him either ... but this old bag of bones was giving him a case of the heebie-jeebies that would have made Buckwheat's eyes bug out!
"We had a breakdown," she answered, looking for the old man's approval. There was a barely discernible nod of his head. Did he really understand English?
"Breakdown? I've lost you," Cal said, as he watched the old man take a sip from his fresh drink. “What do you mean by breakdown?"
"Our boat had an engine ... how would you say ... malfunction?"
Cal snapped his fists apart in a physical gesture of explanation. "Yes ... malfunction, breakdown. It means the same thing."
She nodded thankfully. "And so, we must come into the nearest port for repairs."
From out of the horde of patrons a tall, beefy man dressed in an immaculately pressed dark suit found his way to the table and took up a position behind the old man's wheelchair. Cal looked up from his seat, and from this vantage point, it seemed as though the amazon's neatly trimmed hair was going to be sheared even shorter by the spinning blades of the ceiling fans.
"A friend of yours?" Cal asked warily.
She held out her hand to the giant. "This is Raimund. He works for us."
Cal gazed up at the behemoth and smiled, but Raimund remained expressionless. "A bodyguard?"
The woman shook her head. "I don't know this word ... bodyguard."
"Someone who is a protector," Cal explained.
She nodded. "Yes, Raimund protects us."
Cal stood up slowly, his eyes falling a minimum of three inches short of Raimund's starched white collar. "Pleased to meet you, Raimund," he said, extending h
is hand in friendship.
Raimund remained motionless, his hands clenched steadfastly behind his back. This guy’s a monolith, Cal thought, as he sat down again. "Not much of a conversationalist, is he?"
The redhead's morose demeanor never wavered. "Raimund only speaks when he has something important to say, Mr. Mackey. Obviously this is not one of those times."
Cal was beginning to think he was living through an episode of The Munsters, where everyone in the family was a ghoul and the daughter was the only normal one! "I’d be one happy bartender if more of my patrons lived by that credo!"
She translated to the old man, and it was clear to see that he was no longer curious about Cal. He had made up his mind ... he didn't like him. Sharply, the old man snarled his response, and it was becoming ever more apparent to the bartender that he had overstayed his welcome.
"Not that it is any of your business, Mr. Mackey," the redhead explained, "but as a child, Raimund was diagnosed with laryngeal polyps. After many hours of extensive surgery and months of chemical treatments he was, how would you say ... restored to full health?"
Cal apologized. "I'm so sorry, it was rude of me..."
The old man growled something to Raimund, causing the titan to back the wheelchair away from the table, the thin treads on the narrow rubber tires digging into the tracks already left behind in the sandy floor.
"If I've offended you in any way, I'm truly very sorry," Cal said, genuinely.
The old man waved toward the exit and Raimund effortlessly began pushing the chair through the sand in that direction. The redhead stood to leave as well, but Cal took her by the hand. "Don't go. I'd feel really terrible if I've offended your father. Stay awhile longer and let me make it up to you."
She rattled off something to the old man in their native language, but he ignored her as he vanished into the crowd. "You should not have angered him, Mr. Mackey!"
Cal never had an inkling that his witty repartee could get him into so much trouble. "I really feel awful about this. Now he's gonna think all Americans are jerks."
She struggled to free her hand, but Cal held it tight, now taking the time to notice how unusually pallid her skin really was close up. "Raimund is very close to him, Mr. Mackey."
Cal could tell that she was torn. There was a part of her wanting to stay, part of her wanting to leave with the old man. "But you heard me ... I tried to apologize to him!"
Her delicate palm was sweating in the bartender's grip. "I really wish that you had not come to our table."
Cal finally let go. "Why don't we try to forget about this whole mess and start over? What do you say?"
She didn't move. That was a good sign.
"After a good night's sleep, I'm sure your father will forget the entire ugly incident."
Her frown was as taut as a high-tension wire. "No, I'm afraid he will not so easily forget."
Cal suddenly felt awkward just standing around the table. People were beginning to stare. "You know, it's not fair that you know my name, and I don't know yours."
"My name is Rachel," she said, still gazing out nervously into the crowd.
"Well, tell me about the problem with your boat, Rachel," Cal said, trying skillfully to divert her attention.
She turned and looked at Cal as he pointed to her chair. Reluctantly, she sat.
"I do not know about such mechanical things," she admitted. "All I am sure of is that the engines began to make black choking smoke this afternoon, and our captain somehow managed to guide our boat into the nearest port."
"Your captain?" Cal smiled. "Just exactly how big is this boat of yours?"
She shrugged. "I do not know what you are asking."
"Would you say it's long as this bar?" Cal asked spreading his arms.
Rachel looked around sizing up the establishment, and shook her head. "No."
Cal knew the Shack must have looked pretty big to her. It was stupid to draw such a ridiculous comparison.
"The Nocturne is much bigger!"
Cal audibly gulped. "It’s larger than this building?"
She shrugged again innocently. "Three times as long and six times as tall, I would have to say."
"So just where did you end up docking this battleship of yours, Cooper's Marina up in Marathon?"
Her mouth felt dry. "Again, I do not understand what you mean.by Marathon?"
Cal pointed due north. "Marathon Key. Five miles in that direction."
Rachel took a sip of the daiquiri that had long since turned to slush. "No, we did not dock it there."
Cal was confused. "If your yacht is really as large as you say it is, then there aren’t a lot of places around here that could have accommodated you. I'm thinking that Cooper's has gotta be the closest."
The drink was cool and quenching and Rachel swallowed it freely. "We did not dock at this Cooper's Marina you keep mentioning."
Well then, her ship couldn't have been as big as she said it was, Cal rationalized. "Well, if not at Cooper's, then where?"
As the music in the Shack suddenly changed from the Mavericks to an old Bob Seger tune, she wiped her mouth dry with the back of her hand and pointed toward the back wall of the building. "Out there."
Cal could tell from the glaze forming over her eyes that the double shot of light Bacardi he had mixed into the drink was taking effect. "Where is ‘out there?’"
Her hand wavered as she pointed toward the Shack's illuminated rear exit sign. "Outside."
Cal did a classic double-take. "Out where? Behind my bar?"
She nodded.
Cal was so stunned, he could barely form the words. "Out back ... at my pier?"
Her head wobbled as she spoke, and she began to giggle. "There is something wrong with this? You own the dock? Should we have asked permission first?"
Cal stood up and pulled her to her feet. "Come on, get up!"
The room seemed to spin around as Cal yanked her out of the chair "Where are you taking me?"
He dragged her through the crowd, stopping only once to tell a waitress that he'd be right back. "We're going to take a look at this boat of yours!"
"What is the matter?"
The bartender used his free arm to plow his way through the mob, much like a salmon swimming upstream against the current. "Half my customers come here by boat, sister! If you think you're gonna take up most of my dock space with a crippled yacht, then you'd better think again!"
Together they ricocheted toward the exit like ball bearings in a pachinko machine. "Please, not so fast, you are making me dizzy," she pleaded, "you do not have to run, the Nocturne is not going anywhere!"
Cal busted through the exit doors into the salty night air with the redhead in tow. "That's what you think, sister!"
Two steps outside, and Cal stopped dead in his tracks. What was wrong with this picture all of a sudden? He had rested on this stoop countless times, on nights just like this one, to grab a breath of the bracing sea to clear his lungs from the caustic odor of cigarette stench inside the bar. Thousands of times he must have paused out here letting the benevolent westerly breeze dry his sweaty brow, letting the sounds of the cool jade water pacify his harried disposition. But the perpetual serenity brought about by the lapping of the gulf tide against the shell-filled shore was gone! The calm he had loved so much, had cherished like a safe haven, had been desecrated by the whirring of electrical generators, the coughing of massive engines, and the sputtering of bilge pumps. To add to the effrontery of this tragic event, not only had the disabled ship managed to abduct the sounds of Shangri-La, but it had also managed to pirate away most of Cal's visceral panorama as well.
It was as though the very moon and stars had been vacuumed out of the summer sky! The ship was so tremendous in size and painted so dark, at first appearance it seemed to block out most of the horizon! At nearly two-hundred-twenty feet long and three stories tall amidships, the Nocturne loomed above the sea like a raven-colored phantom camouflaged in the cloak of night. Sharing the probable
odds of being struck by lightning, this floating mansion had somehow haplessly managed to maroon itself not a hundred yards from the rear wall of the Paradise Shack!
"I ... I can't believe what I'm seeing here," Cal stammered, as he stepped down onto the narrow strip of beach.
The ominously dark ship had already managed to draw a crowd. New customers as well as some of the Hawaiian-shirted regulars shuffled along the shore, sand flapping from their sandals as they gawked and admired the regal-looking, black yacht.
At the far end of the concrete pier, a bright white beacon reflected out into the gulf, a locally-renowned signal to sport boaters who used it as a nautical reference point to find the Paradise Shack. As Cal peered out into the distance, he could just make out the red and green running lights of a twenty-four-footer bobbing gracefully in the radiance of the lamplight, its owner waving his arms to catch Cal's attention.
"Shit!" Cal grumbled as he made the short dash across the sand to the pier.
The owner of the boat cupped his hands around his mouth as a scantily-clad young female appeared by his side. "Where the hell, am I supposed to dock her, Cal? What is that thing, the Queen fuckin' Mary?"
Cal recognized the voice as belonging to one of the weekend regulars, Allen Bushkin, a high-browed Broward county lawyer with an overinflated ego to match his waistline. "Hang on a minute, Al. Let me find out what's going on here!" Cal shouted back.
Bushkin muttered something to the girl beside him and began steering the boat in a slow languid circle.
"You see what the hell you've done here?" Cal growled at Rachel who had just caught up to him. "This pier can usually hold two dozen boats the size of that one out there," he said, pointing to Bushkin's Bayliner. "Now, you've cut off half of my mooring space!"
