Mean High Tide (Thorn Series Book 3)

by James W. Hall

  "Frank Witty," the fishing guide said.

  "And I'm Sylvie," she said.

  Frank put out his hand and they shook.

  "And just how witty are you, Frank?"

  "Not too," he said.

  "Good," said Sylvie. "I prefer being the witty one."

  He was looking at her with a mild heat growing in his eyes. Her outfit doing its job, her eyes holding on to his. Sylvie let her mouth come open a crack. Moved her tongue around inside her mouth just a little, exploring her teeth. The guy adjusted his breathing.

  "You from around here?"

  "No," she said. "I'm not from around anywhere."

  "I sure haven't seen you in this dump before."

  "Till tonight I hadn't sunk this low."

  Frank smiled and Sylvie smiled back.

  The bartender set Sylvie's shot glass and beer mug down in front of her, and the fishing guide reached into his wallet and pulled out some bills and gave them to her and she left.

  "So why'd she leave you?" Sylvie said. "You unfaithful?"

  "Hey, I just met you. That's personal stuff."

  "I go for the throat," Sylvie said. "That bothers you, maybe you should play darts with your friends."

  The blond guy glanced over at his buddies for a second or two. Then brought his face back around and looked right into her eyes and said, "She found another guy."

  "Hurts you to admit it, doesn't it?"

  "Damn right it does."

  "You do anything to the guy? Fight him, anything like that?"

  "I did, as a matter of fact."

  Sylvie hummed her appreciation.

  "You hurt him?"

  "Not very much, no."

  "He hurt you, Frank?"

  "A black eye. Broke a tooth."

  "Let me see."

  Frank pulled back his lip with a thick finger and showed her an incisor that had lost its point. She took a sip of her beer.

  "He must've cut his hand pretty bad on that tooth."

  "Yeah, I guess I hurt him after all."

  They both smiled. Getting along. On the same side.

  "So what do you like, Frank Witty?"

  "What's that mean?"

  "You know what it means. What do you enjoy doing in your secret life?"

  He thought for a second, then very quietly he said, "What? Like in the bedroom?"

  "Any room. Doesn't have to be just in the bedroom. You can enjoy things all over the house. Outside even. Haven't you ever enjoyed a woman out in the tall grass before?"

  Frank Witty didn't say anything. Overloaded. Brain on the fritz. Eyes getting hazy.

  "So what do you enjoy, Frank? Come on, tell Miss Sylvie."

  "I like lots of things."

  "Name one."

  He had another sip of his beer. Looked to his left and then his right. Brought his voice down.

  "Something I do to her or something she does to me?"

  "A thing she does to you. Something none of the other girls will do for you."

  He had another swallow of beer, looked over at his friends again, then back at Sylvie, and leaned close to her.

  "How much is this going to cost me?"

  Sylvie drew in a patient breath.

  "Frank, Frank, Frank. Is that how hard up you are? You looking to pay for some love and affection?"

  "I'm sorry."

  "You should be."

  "I feel like an idiot."

  "So tell me, Frank. What do you like her to do?"

  Frank ran his finger around the rim of his beer glass. He swallowed back a small belch.

  Frank said, "Well, she could put her finger . . . You know. Wiggle it around."

  Sylvie looked at him for a moment. The guy trying to smile.

  "A finger up your butt, that's what you like?"

  He swallowed. Things happening too fast for Frank Witty, but just the right speed for Sylvie. Two nights, three, that was all this guy was going to take.

  She said, "That drives you crazy, does it?"

  Frank Witty stiffened and glanced around to see if anyone had heard. Apparently not, because he leaned in again, getting into Sylvie's breath stream. Taking her eyes off his, she reached out, picked up her Wild Turkey, had a sip, and then a slug of beer. Let go of a gasp of pleasure. Came back around so she was smiling into his face.

  "We have to talk about this here?" he said. His face with some extra color now. Sweat growing on his forehead.

  "This is where we are, Frank. Couldn't very well talk about it somewhere else, 'cause this is where our bodies happen to be at the moment. It's a law of physics, I believe."

  "I meant, do you want to go somewhere else? Place where we could . . . you know, talk private."

  "Is that what you want, Frank? You a big talker, are you?"

  "I can talk fine. I can do other things too."

  "I bet you can. A big guy like you."

  "Damn right, I can."

  "Is that why she left you for the other guy? He a better talker than you?"

  Frank tightened his eyes.

  With both hands Sylvie lifted off her cowboy hat and put it on the bar.

  Frank Witty stared at her hair for a moment, then said, "What happened to you?"

  "Nothing happened. That's my style. You don't like it?"

  She mussed her hair.

  "It's unusual. It's different."

  Frank's buddies were looking over at the two of them now, and Sylvie leaned out around Frank, smiled at them, made guns of both her hands and fired off a half dozen rounds at them. The guys looked away.

  Up on the stage, the country music group started in again. Some banjo music, then some guitar, a little bass. A fiddle. Noise building up.

  "So, Frank, now you decided you don't like Sylvie anymore 'cause she's got an unusual haircut?"

  "I didn't say that. It's just, I never saw hair like that before."

  "I got a personal style," she said. "It's not your everyday look."

  "No, it's not."

  "What kind of hair do you like, Frank? Long, straight? Short, curly? Red, black, blond? What's your ideal?"

  "It doesn't matter, the color."

  "Black's okay? Like mine?"

  "Black's good. Black's fine."

  "How about length? What's your fantasy woman got?"

  He thought about it for a moment, taking his eyes out of action. Then he swung back around, looked at her again and said, "Bangs across the front, and real long and straight, like hippie-chick hair, down to her butt. That's what I like."

  "There's that butt thing again. You're a real butt-crazy guy, aren't you, Frank Witty? Just anal as hell."

  Frank reached out abruptly and finished his beer. He set his beer glass down and rubbed a finger down each side of his nose like he was wiping the oil away.

  "If Sylvie were to grow her hair down to her butt, would you like that? Would that turn you on?"

  "It'd take a long time for you to do that."

  "Oh, I'm young. I got years and years to grow my hair any length I want. It wouldn't take that long to get it to my butt. A few years, maybe. It grows fast. You like fast hair, Frank?"

  "You're making fun of me," Frank said. "You asked me what kind of hair I liked and I told you and then you twist it around to call me an asshole. Mock me."

  Sylvie smiled at him, put her left hand over his right.

  "Are we arguing, Frank? Are we having our first big fight already?"

  "Maybe I should go play darts."

  But he didn't move his hand out from under Sylvie's.

  "How about we go off somewhere, Frank? You and me and my finger? Somewhere out in the dark?"

  "You're doing it again, making fun of me."

  "I'm asking you if you want to go with me. Out into the night. Do you? Into the tall grass."

  "Yeah, okay," he said. "I guess so."

  "Okay? You guess so?" Sylvie shook her head. "You're a real passionate guy, Frank, aren't you? A real hot-blooded type."

  Sylvie's hand was still res
ting on top of Frank's.

  "I can be passionate."

  "Sure, Frank, whatever you say. You're the expert on Frank Witty. I'm just learning."

  "I don't like sarcasm," he said. "My wife was sarcastic and it drove me crazy. I could never tell for sure what she was saying. The bitch."

  Sylvie slid her pointing finger between Frank's fingers. Drew it out again, snaked it back in, rubbing against the crotch between his fingers.

  "Okay, then, I won't do that again. I won't be sarcastic with you. I respect your wishes. That's the kind of girl I am. You tell me what you like, what you don't, I can change to suit. Kind of like a cloud, Frank. Like a cumulus. Your own personal cumulus."

  Frank looked at her, eyes drifting down her red spandex, then coming back up. The doubt dying away. No curves on Sylvie, just a stalk of a body. But it was doing something to Frank Witty.

  He stared forward at the window that looked out at the small marina. He seemed to be looking into her reflection over there. Then he said her name aloud. Sylvie. Said it like he was getting used to the word in his mouth. Preparing himself to say it a lot more.

  "But before we get any further along," she said, "you got to know one thing up front."

  Frank cranked his head around, put his eyes back on hers. Looking anxious, probably thinking she was going to tell him she was diseased. The bluegrass band was starting to pick up speed and volume, so Sylvie leaned in close to Frank's ear and said, "I got a father."

  He drew back, uncertain.

  "So?"

  "I thought I should tell you."

  "A father?"

  Sylvie nodded ominously. Sliding her finger back and forth between Frank Witty's fingers, increasing the pace.

  "Everybody's got a father."

  "Not like mine."

  "He strict with you or something?"

  "Strict," she said. "Yeah, you could call it that. Strict is a good word for it."

  "Fuck him," Frank said. "Fuck your old man. You're an adult. You can do whatever the hell you want to."

  Sylvie took her hand off Frank's. Two nights, three at most. This guy might even be willing to take a stab at it tonight. But hell, she didn't like to push things. Sex first, then when she had the guy drowsy and warm, she'd begin to whisper more about her daddy.

  "You know how you can get rid of that thing?" Sylvie tapped the white rim of flesh where Frank's wedding ring had been. "There's only one surefire way I know of."

  "How's that?"

  "Get somebody to suck it," Sylvie said. "Have her suck and suck that finger till it's all tight and smooth again."

  He looked at her for half a minute without breathing.

  "Let's get out of here."

  "Lights, camera, action." She smiled brightly, coming down off her stool, stepping away from Frank. She made her left fist into a camera, held it in front of her left eye, peeping through the opening in the middle of it, and with her right hand she pretended to crank the thing. Focusing it on Frank Witty. He stepped away from the bar, looking directly into her lens, then glancing nervously around at his pals.

  "You coming, or what?"

  "Oh, no, I'm not coming yet, Frank," Sylvie said, still cranking, squinting through her fist at him. "But believe me, once we get started, it won't take Miss Sylvie long."

  She opened her hands and made the camera disappear. Then put her cowgirl hat back on, and followed Frank Witty across the dance floor and outside to the gravel parking lot to his blue Ford Bronco. Lights, camera.

  Action.

  CHAPTER 7

  When Thorn woke Monday morning, his cerebellum was trapped inside someone else's skull. Way too tight a fit. And his bed was canted to the side, almost spilling Thorn onto the floor as he lifted himself upright to survey the room. Too much sunlight, too much heat, nothing in focus. He clenched his eyes and eased back down on the mattress. Chunks of brick filled his pillow, and overhead, the beams of his ceiling sweated dark insects. His mouth was caked with what felt like bits of clay and iron and his tongue had been breaded and left too long in the sun.

  Groaning, he rolled onto his side, opened his eyes cautiously. Directly ahead of him outside his north window, there was a mockingbird on the branch of a sea grape. It was hopping in place, making small bleats of rage. As Thorn watched, the bird noticed him, and it turned, set itself firmly on the branch, leaned in Thorn's direction and shrieked like the rusty brakes of a locomotive.

  Thorn sat up, dropped his legs over the edge of the bed. He leaned forward, lowering his head into his hands. He was naked, his clothes dumped in a pile near the door. Around him, his sheets were soaked and smelled as rank as old grave clothes. His hair was sticky. And now a helicopter had appeared inside his skull, and was trying to lift off with too heavy a load, its blades whupping, chipping at bone.

  He kneaded his temples, and with the quiet focus of prayer, he willed the chopper away. He breathed carefully, holding himself still, groaning a mantra of self-loathing. And when he thought he had everything settled back into place, he stood.

  All around the bedroom, their possessions were laid out neatly, exactly as they had been when the two of them had left this room Saturday morning. A shelf of books, fishing gear, clothes on hangers, lamps with nautical lamp shades, a horse conch they used as a door jam.

  He gazed at it all as he padded toward the john. Everything in its normal place, but today the heartbeat was gone from it.

  Behind him, the mockingbird screamed one more time and exploded into flight, off to torment some other late-morning sleeper. The helicopter, its whup-whup fading, also moved away into the soundless distance.

  In the bathroom he swayed before the mirror, staring at his image. Eyes bloodshot and swollen. Deep gullies grooving his cheek, his flesh puffy, with a jaundiced tinge. His hair was wild and matted as if he'd gone for weeks without touching a comb to it. Looking wretched and unwell, but still better than he felt.

  His hands wavered to the edges of the lavatory to steady himself, and he upended a plastic drinking cup. Looking down at the countertop, his hands crabbed and palsied, Thorn with great concentration managed to set it right.

  And there beside the cup was her roll-on deodorant, her glass ashtray full of bobby pins, a clear plastic box crammed with lipstick and makeup. And next to the toothpaste was her hairbrush, with a tortoiseshell handle, dark bristles.

  He stared at it for a moment. And when he gripped it by the handle and picked it up, and held Darcy's brush out before him, a cold shadow spread through his bowels. He felt the silence in the house, its pressure straining against his eardrums as though he'd sunk suddenly into the depths of a dark sea.

  Snarled in the bristles were three strands of her honey-red hair. While he studied them, the hush deepened. And after a moment more, with numb fingers, Thorn plucked one of the hairs free. He set the brush down and pinched each end of the hair and stretched it taut. He held it up to the light coming through the transom window. The hair so sheer it might have been made of glass. Sheer but strong.

  He wrapped it two, three, four times around his first finger, wrapped it as tight as it would go. Then closing his eyes, he rubbed that finger against his cheek and he tried to call up one sensation of her, the sound of her voice in the bed beside him, a snapshot of one of her many smiles. But there were too many moments jumbled, too many exquisite mornings waking warm beside her in the half-light, too many afternoons out of sight of land, the water stretching away brilliantly in every direction, and far too many evenings, grilling their catch, wine on the porch, books in bed, their shoulders touching as they read, and later, on so many nights, the books tumbling to the floor. Staying there till morning.

  He unwrapped the hair from his finger, set it carefully on the counter. He picked up her brush again, lifted it, and ran it tentatively through his coarse hair. His eyes blurred and began to burn, and all at once he was there again in the skiff on that hot noon two days ago, fighting the tarpon, flushed with the pleasure of a tricky catch, turning aroun
d and seeing her, fifteen yards to the east of the boat, Darcy floating faceup, lifeless in the still water.

  It was not the first time Thorn had been grazed by death. Oh, no. Apparently, he'd been born under the star of calamity. On the very day he was born, his parents were forced off the road by a drunk, and drowned in Lake Surprise. Though somehow baby Thorn had managed to survive. And then, just a few years back, his adoptive mother, Kate Truman, was murdered by a gang of jackals who had wanted to bulldoze the last hundred acres of wilderness in Key Largo. Kate fought them hard and openly, and lost her life in the process. Thorn hunted them down, exacted his bloody revenge.

  And then only two years ago, Darcy's brother, Gaeton, was killed. Thorn's oldest friend, tortured then shot while working undercover with the FBI. Again Thorn untangled a snarl of corruption and lunacy. The only good to come from that incident was that he'd fallen in love with Darcy Richards. And she had fallen in love with him.

  His life had been nothing but a long succession of violent episodes, and each of them in turn had shaken Thorn down out of his stilt house and thrown him back into the turbulent and chaotic world. More violence than was his or anybody's due. Yet one tragedy had not vaccinated him against the next. Today he was still as susceptible, still as unprepared as he had been each time before. No authority on pain, still a goddamn amateur, flailing wildly, dragged down helplessly into a whirlpool of rage and desolation.

  Thorn stared at himself in the mirror, and brushed and brushed at his scalp till it was hot and raw, until for the first time in years a rumble of anguish rose up through him too powerful to oppose, and it broke into his throat. His eyes burned, but he clamped his jaw tight and swallowed it back, his face turning to iron.

  It had happened once too often. He had let himself love one more time, let himself grow soft, vulnerable. But that would not occur again. When this was finished, he would climb up into his house, nail the door shut. And, by god, he would keep his Smith & Wesson oiled and cocked, his heart as cold and dense as marble.