Wood’s Revenge
A Mac Travis Adventure
Steven Becker
The White Marlin Press
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Epilogue
Author’s Note
Thanks for Reading
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1
Protected by the roof over the large walk-around deck, Mac watched the wind-blown waves from the living quarters, and smiled, thankful for the relief from the heat brought by the rain. The house, built on concrete piers, provided safety against storm surges, possibly the most dangerous element, of the hurricanes common to the Florida Keys. This storm was not one of the dreaded cyclones that would force him to evacuate to the mainland, rather it was a large squall, accompanied by a perigean, or king tide. Having it blow through at high tide left the island vulnerable. Only a half dozen feet above sea level at its highest point, his home could easily be flooded from a storm like this.
Mel sat on the couch reading a book, ignoring Mac’s anxiety as the water started to invade the clearing where the house was built. Mac had just put the finishing touches on the house that Wood, Mel’s father, had originally built twenty years ago. He had been laboring on and off for almost a year to rebuild the structure damaged in a turf war with a rogue CIA agent. Several times he’d run out of money, but a recent adventure had netted enough to finally finish the job.
“Water’s past the mangroves,” he said, raising his voice slightly to counter the staccato sound of the rain pelting the metal roof.
“We’re ten feet up. Shouldn’t be a big deal,” Mel said without looking up. She had grown up here and understood storms and tides well enough to know when to freak out and when not to. Fairly infrequent, king tides occurred during a supermoon when the earth was at its closest point to the sun. The tides were predictable and the height known ahead of time. The only wild card was what a storm could add to it—and this was a strong one.
“I’m going to check the boats,” he said, opening the screen door.
“Whatever makes you happy,” she replied.
He grabbed the bright yellow slicker from a hook outside the door, put it on, and headed down the steps, eschewing his flip-flops, which would be worthless in the muck. Barefoot, he started along the worn path toward the trail leading to the small beach where the boats were kept.
He thought about Mel’s mood as he walked. Lately she had been melancholy. The house was done, but it wasn’t her dream as much as his. He knew she could only take so much of the Key’s lifestyle before craving the activity of the mainland. Over the years he had learned when she needed something to sink her teeth into—and it was getting to be that time. At first it had been hard to let her go, often blaming it on himself and his inability to make her happy. Now, he knew it was just the way things were.
She was a lawyer, well connected in both the political and civil rights arenas, having prosecuted for the ACLU and Davies and Associates for years. He knew she missed the work.
The trail degraded fifty feet from the house, turning to ankle-deep muck as he hit the tide line. Slowly he waded into the water, careful to slide his feet and not step on one of the myriad of dangers brought in by the storm. It took almost five minutes to traverse the hundred-yard path. With every step the water became deeper and the muck thicker, sometimes sucking him almost thigh-deep into the ooze.
Finally, waist-deep in water, he reached what used to be the high-water line. The boats were still drifting together, tied to a single line reaching into the water attached to a lone pile, its top barely breaking the surface in the lull between waves. He had prepared as best he could for the freakishly high tide, but not the sudden squall. The twenty-one-foot center console was rafted to the forty-two-foot lobster boat with large red fenders placed between them to mitigate the effects of the waves. Off the stern of the trawler was an anchor line he had run out yesterday, using all the scope he had, to prevent the boats from swinging.
Assured that they were safe, he looked up at the sky, hoping the storm would ease up soon. It stared back at him like a woman, not giving any clues. Backing away from the tidal pull of the open water, he retreated to the tree line. The water was only calf-deep there, and he stood, watching the scene in front of him.
The mainland, usually a blurry line on the southern horizon, was hidden by the heavy rain. He’d heard some parts of the West referred to as Big Sky Country; this was what he called big water country. The small atoll surrounded by shallow flats lay five miles from Marathon on the Gulf side of the Keys. From the backside of the island he could see several other small islands and, on a clear day, the tip of Big Pine Key. From where he stood, he could see three hundred degrees of uninterrupted water—a view you could only get from an island in the middle of nowhere.
Marathon was shielded by a large squall, and out to the north he could see smaller scattered storms. Burdened with heavy rain, their dark clouds touched the water. They were fewer and farther between and he noticed the sky lightened beyond them. He estimated that high tide was right about now and breathed a sigh of relief that the worst was over.
Trufante and Pamela sat at the bar on the second floor of the two-story tiki hut next to Key’s Fisheries, watching the storm approach. The bar looked out over the Gulf, allowing an unobstructed view of the weather. Fat drops of rain blew into the opening behind the counter and the bartenders hurried to drop the clear canvas curtain to protect them from the brunt of the rain.
Storms were just another excuse to party in the Keys. The boats were all in their slips with extra lines added, and the bored captains and mates were in the bar drinking tomorrow’s tip money. The atmosphere became more boisterous as the alcohol flowed.
“We need to go dance,” Pamela said, swaying to the Jimmy Buffett song playing on the house speakers. “You promised we could go to a real dance club in Key West.”
“Shoot, girl, it’s not but three in the afternoon,” he said in his heavy Cajun drawl and baring his thousand-dollar smile. “Them bars don’t get hot till double-digit time.” He looked around the room. “I’d be needing a bump if we gonna party that long.”
“You know I would put it on the credit card if I could,” she said, sucking her mojito through a straw.
“Yeah, babe, just beer till the first, I get it. Need the weather to break and I’ll find some cash work,” he said, draining his beer. It was
still a mystery to him where she got her money from, but the first of the month was always a party, however as the days wore on, more and more went on the credit card. Making matters worse, the weather had been bad for almost two weeks now, first blowing from the north with a late season cold front and now this damn tide thing. They said it only happened every few years, but the timing sucked.
“No worries, babe. We’ll get down there next month,” she said, sliding her empty glass toward the bartender.
Trufante was feeling awkward these days. The story going around was that he was living off her, and that made him uncomfortable. His view was that he did what he did, and if she wanted to kick in and bring the party to the next level, that was cool—but not required. Living in her comfortable house and drinking imported beer were nice perks, but he’d been up and down enough to know it didn’t really matter, and nothing lasted forever.
“These are on Jeff,” the bartender said, placing fresh drinks in front of them.
Trufante looked down the bar, saw the bright orange hair, and nodded his head in thanks. He knew he’d have to go talk to him, but for now he’d enjoy the drink and avoid the man that bought it. Keys fishermen fell into two classes, with a large gray area between them. The first group played by the rules and usually survived, but were always near the edge. The second group were a different lot, often relying on smuggling or poaching, either from laziness or just a general disregard for the law. In the Keys when things got bad the ranks of the second group swelled. The fisheries, divided by the chain of islands into the Gulf and Atlantic zones had different regulations. Add in the federal and state demarcation lines and you often didn’t know where you were or what the rules were. Both locals and tourists played this to their advantage. Mac could have written the book on the first group. That guy had more integrity than you could shake a gator tail at. Jeff was the opposite—trouble.
“Got to get this over with,” he said to Pamela, who was bopping to some song only she heard.
Trufante walked through the crowded bar, the air stale and humid. The storm curtains might have kept the water out, but they cut off the breeze at the same time. It was raining hard now, and the crowd shifted slightly to avoid the drops coming through the palm frond roof. He slid through the group, fist-bumping some, and avoiding the looks of others, until he stood face-to-face with Jeff.
There wasn’t much Trufante liked about him, except for the few instances he had scored a big payday for the Cajun. His shoulder-length frizzy hair was supposed to look sun bleached, but the word was it was permed and highlighted. His teeth were too white and the diamonds he wore in both ears were too big to be real.
“Trufante,” he started. “That babe’s still putting up with your sorry ass?” He looked down and tipped his drink in Pamela’s direction.
Fortunately she was lost in her own head and missed it. “What you got goin’ on?” Trufante asked, wanting to cut to the quick and get this over with. One round was not going to buy Jeff much time.
“Word is you could use some cash. Lookin’ like the back end of the month is hard times for you and the little woman,” he said, eying Pamela. “How the hell did a hillbilly like you land a babe like that?”
Trufante asked himself that question every day. “Just the old Cajun charm,” he said, showing his grin that looked like the front end of a Cadillac. “Now what you got?”
“Look here.” Jeff moved close. “This tide’s bringing some fish down from the north. Some would say it’s an easy catch. What do you say we go drag some nets out on the Gulf side when the wind quiets down some? Should be a good payday.”
Trufante stared him down. “Those are red tide fish. That shit ain’t good, dude.”
“No, no, no,” Jeff said, sipping his drink through the small straw. “These is just easy, if you know what I mean. The tide’s going to pop those floodgates up in Miami like a cheerleader’s cherry. The fish are just gonna take the ride.”
“That’s not exactly a quality catch,” Trufante said. High tides and storms often brought trouble from up north. Once the floodgates holding the contaminated water from the sugar plantations opened, the fish would be pushed south. Usually the flood and fish kills ended well before the Keys, but this tide and the storm winds from the north were likely to push them farther south and west.
“Dude, this shit’s gonna happen so fast they’re still gonna be good,” Jeff said. “You in or not?”
Trufante looked down the bar at Pamela. Bringing in a pile of cash for a day or two’s work would surely make her happy and hold them over until the first of the month. It might also stop some of the rumors that she was supporting him. “Two days is all.”
Jeff stuck out his hand to shake on the deal. Trufante ignored it and moved down the bar to Pamela. Two more fresh drinks awaited, and he knew he had struck a deal with the devil.
2
Trufante looked out over the calm Gulf waters. It was a marked change from yesterday. The strong current was all that remained of the storms that had passed through. To hold their position, Jeff had to constantly gun the engine of the twenty-four-foot open-deck lobster boat to counter the tide.
Dropping back to neutral, the cloud of black smoke from the old diesel cleared, revealing the latest haul of fish flapping on the deck among the empty beer cans the two men had drunk. Both men quickly used shovels to scoop the fish into baskets where they would ice them down. Grabbing another beer, Trufante took his position in the patch of shade cast by the small wheelhouse. But the effort was mostly futile. The commercial fishing boat was all deck, with just the small wheelhouse forward.
“Ready for another run at ’em?” Jeff asked.
“Hell yeah,” Trufante said, counting the money rolling in. Reluctantly, he left the shade, tossed a large buoy overboard, and started feeding the weighted net over the side of the boat. Soon a line of Styrofoam buoys floated behind them. Jeff idled across the current until the last buoy was thrown over, then turned and went back to the beginning of the line.
“Think we ought to drink a beer and give it a few minutes,” Trufante said.
Jeff looked at the sun, sinking toward the horizon. “I guess. We only got ’bout two more hours of daylight. We need to make the run in at sunset with the rest of the tourists.”
Trufante knew he was right. He looked around, seeing the reflection off a distant boat’s windshield. They were about twenty miles off the backside of Marathon in thirty feet of water and had kept a lazy lookout all day. Continuing to keep an eye on the area, he knew if the boat came any closer, they would have ample time to ditch the nets and pick up the rods sitting in their holders for just such an occasion.
There were no other boats this far out, and only a half dozen private planes landing and taking off from Marathon’s small airport could possibly have seen them. Still, the reflection made him wary.
Florida Fish and Game was who they needed to avoid, and running in at night they would be visible from miles away. Even the most dim-witted enforcement officer would know with this kind of boat, this time of year, there was no way they were on the level. Lobster and stone crab were out of season, and most commercial fishermen were after the schools of dolphin fish riding the Gulf Stream current on the Atlantic side. The water was too warm for grouper or snapper, and, in short, there was no reason for them to be here.
“Right on,” Trufante said, pulling the first buoy in. He forgot about the reflection, knowing immediately from the weight that the net was loaded. It took both men to bring the captured fish aboard, and, after the last buoy was in, they sat on the deck toasting a fresh beer.
“We move fast, we can get one more run. This is too rich to pass up,” Jeff said.
Trufante had his doubts they could sell what was already aboard. He moved upwind, away from the rotten stench of the fish drifting toward him on the breeze. Normally fish would stay fresh for almost a week if properly iced down. These were only hours out of the water and putrid. No buyer would purchase them whole—the
easy way to sell them. Instead, they would have to filet every one of them, then run the meat through a bleach water solution. Maybe if they froze them they could pull it off, but fresh, there was no way they would pass the sniff test of a good or a moral buyer.
The cause was known to most of the local fishermen. The heavier-than-normal rains had caused Lake Okeechobee to swell, forcing the South Florida Water Management District bureaucrats to open the floodgates. The downstream effect from the high levels of pollutants and fertilizer in the water was deadly, causing red tides and fishing closures along the southwest coast of Florida. These were the same fish, swept out of the closure areas by the tide.
“You got someone lined up to take these?” Trufante asked, rising and shaking out the net.
“Think I would have come all this way with your sorry Cajun ass for company if I didn’t have a buyer?” Jeff spat overboard. “I got this covered.”
Thinking about Pamela’s reaction when he walked into the house with a stack of hundreds was all the motivation he needed. Trufante tossed the first buoy over. He was skeptical, but it would only take another half hour. There was still enough daylight and plenty of beer left to make the trip back. The full length of the net was overboard and Jeff had turned to retrieve it when he saw half the string of buoys disappear.
“Snagged something,” Trufante called out. It was not uncommon for floating debris or even a turtle to drag part of a net underwater. Just as the words were out of his mouth, the rest of the buoys were sucked under the surface. “Something big,” he added, waiting for the floats to rise again.
Jeff circled back. A rip was visible on the surface, showing where the submerged net line still disturbed the current. Trufante leaned over the side, trying to see what was going on, but the water was cloudy from the storm. “We got enough fish, we can ditch it,” Trufante said.
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