Salty Sky (14 page)

The men’s eyeballs stayed a foot apart. Cale was curious. When would the big man release the girl’s arm? Was he smart enough to put the girl between them before he did?

One of the Bahamas, whom Cale had tracked in his peripheral
vision, stepped between the two men and peeled the Jerseyite’s hand from the girl’s arm by turning his thumb outward.

The Bahama finished leashing the black T-shirt with one hand and thumbed out $1,000 from a large cash clip pulled from his shirt pocket with the other. The Bahama handed the cash to the flybridge goddess, who had squeezed in beside him, whispered something to her, and returned to the bar with one hand dragging the black T-shirt with him.

Maybe he was the Don. Don Bahama was a silly name, though. Cale guessed the flybridge girls now wouldn’t finish their cruise. He definitely heard the words
hotel
and
fly
in the whisper. What a tragedy for someone with that appearance and smile to live the kind of life she had settled for. The Bahamas and the bodybuilders headed to the far side of the bar’s deck.

The forty-five seconds of conflict sucked the life out of the cornhole game. Blake and Van decided to take the girls—with whom Cale still hadn’t exchanged names—clubbing. The goddess the Bahama handed the money to was so stunning that Cale wasn’t sure he could get his name out if she asked. Of course, as Sherpa, stevedore, and bodyguard, he was just here to work, so no worries. He stepped into a new role as tour guide and walked the group to the turnout, where a taxi waited. Van keyed Cale’s address into his phone’s map function before hopping into the backseat.

Now that he was walking alone, the heat and lack of breeze on the road made Cale head back to the waterfront, and a small marina’s sailboats drew him down the gangway. He loved sailing. Well, loved the idea of sailing. Flapping sails, swinging booms, and rope burns killed the actual love of sailing. He did like being at anchor, though. Or even tied up to the dock. Maybe he liked camping.

The gangway had knee-high louvered lights. They did a great job illuminating everything below ankle height. Each boat slip had hose water, drinking water, and shore power. All of the boats appeared to
be less than fifty feet. Most were docked stern-to. It was a mid- but rising tide, and the lines were slack. A forty-eight-foot trimaran occupied the end slip. The boat’s technology was mind-blowing, unrecognizable to a sailor of fifty years ago. Automatic reefing systems for mainsail and genny. Pointing and spinning antennas for the GPS. Other electronic systems that he couldn’t identify also covered the masthead. A sailor could empirically know the weather, depth, tides, wind speed, and fish location. Yep. Probably a real-time Bloomberg console too.

The trimaran’s red and green running lights were off. It was named
Tri Again
. Home port: Hamilton, Bermuda. Big taxes registering a boat in Bermuda. Canvas and steering were controlled from the center cockpit. Currently, it was snapped tight. Soloing the Atlantic on
Tri Again
seemed reasonable. The journey might not be fun, but Cale knew he’d enjoy the anchorage in Spain.

He wasn’t sure whether he felt or heard the footsteps on the gangway, but something made him turn in time to see the Jerseyite who’d grabbed the flybridge girl. He was peeling off his shirt and setting it on a white fiberglass dock locker thirty yards away. He emptied his beer’s contents on the dock. Shame on him, Cale thought, wasting beer that way.

They locked eyes. The Jerseyite growled, “I don’t want your redneck blood on my shirt or any beer splashed on me.”

You see, those invariably unintimidating and unwitty comments were why Cale didn’t speak before an altercation. The scariest pre-altercation stance he’d seen was a silent twenty-one-year-old Mike Tyson staring down his woofing opponent while getting the referee’s instructions. No referee tonight, but Cale doubted this would last the ninety seconds it took a young Iron Mike to dispatch his opponents.

“You want to swim? Might cut youse-self on the barnacles. Youse might find them real sharp when you’re scrambling around. Might be your best option. Of course, I’ll greet youse when you
come to shore, so you might have barnacle cuts and still need a new face. Without fifteen friends and a hundred witnesses around, youse look like you want to mind your own business. Why so quiet? Too scared to cry uncle?”

He spit the word
uncle
like it was distasteful.

Quite the monologue. Cale was tempted to deliver an equally long response. Maybe the Gettysburg Address?
Four score and seven years ago, our fathers
… Or perhaps Mark Antony’s speech at Caesar’s funeral.
Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears, for we come to bury Caesar, not to praise him
. But he figured the humor would be lost on his audience. Probably the historic and literary references as well.

The big man rolled his neck side to side. He circled his shoulders. He shook out his arms. Maybe he was here to do calisthenics.

Cale watched the empty beer bottle in the Jerseyite’s right hand. He cupped the bottle’s neck in the webbing between his index finger and thumb. Cale knew the big man would be better off throwing a straight punch than swinging a roundhouse with the bottle at the side of his head. The bottle would hurt a lot less than knuckles to the chin and provided more time for Cale to move or block. He chose not to share the advice.

The approaching footsteps’ cadence embedded in Cale’s brain. His breath slowed. He slid his right heel twelve inches behind his left, his left toes pointed at the big man, his right toes pointed sixty degrees right, knees bent, and his weight balanced. His left hand rested on his thigh, his right arm slightly bent and his thumb on his board shorts’ waistband. A six-foot-three, 210-pound rattlesnake waiting for the lumbering six-foot, 250-pound bull.

A rattlesnake could always strike a bull. But was there enough venom to bring it down? What’s with the mental commentary? Nobody was placing bets. Stay focused. Cale tried to remember he’d lost a couple of these before. (Yeah, but that was when he fought fair.) Big man, be smart, still time for you to turn around. Cale pondered
making a small offering to the big man’s pride to try and stop the altercation. Even saying something innocuous like, “Hey buddy, I got no truck with you” might divert the energy flowing to this intersection, but Cale couldn’t bring himself to do it.

The big man now rocked his torso as he continued forward. He lifted his fists. Right hand slightly out wide ready to swing the upturned bottle. He closed in. Cale took two quick steps, split the upraised hands, and unloaded on the sternum.
Boom!
He grabbed the big man’s hair with his left hand. He pulled the head downward and brought his right elbow up, crunching the eye socket.
Boom!
Cale kept his left hand on the back of the meaty head. Grabbed, straightened, twisted, locked the right arm at the wrist, dragged him past and toward the ground. Cale gambled and dropped onto the locked arm.
Crack!
He rolled onto the enormous back and slammed an elbow into the right ear.
Boom!
The broken left eye socket bounced off the deck boards.
Thump!
The big man was out cold.

Bounding up, Cale scanned for danger. A nonpartisan witness, he hoped. The other two big men, he hoped not. The pounding heart told him to leave the destroyed big man. Adrenaline in overdrive. Body twitching. Slowly, he left the old fight-or-flight reptilian brain. He embraced the cognitive mammalian brain’s return. He reminded himself to breath in through the nose and out through the mouth. His lungs filled with the smell of salty sky, and he relaxed.

There were questions to be answered before he’d know exactly how to proceed. Who were these guys? Bad drunks mooching a trip from a fading playboy? Were they the Bahama’s bodyguards? Thugs wreaking havoc up and down the Atlantic seaboard? Good guys with wives and kids gone overboard on a guys’ trip? That could describe a few of Cale’s friends this weekend. Did the other meatheads and Bahamas know where this dude was? Nobody expected Cale here. The big man must have tracked him from a distance without being noticed. The thought that he had grown so obtuse as to not notice a
two hundred fifty-pounder hiding behind lampposts made Cale feel soft around the middle and jowly around the neck.

The big man was breathing, but needed a hospital. Cale took the big man’s cell from his shorts pocket, dialed 911, and held his nose talking to the dispatcher. “I need an ambulance on the docks at Lumina Marina.” The dispatcher asked for clarification. He repeated the need and location then tossed the phone into the channel.

Doubling back to the bar, Cale grabbed a Bud and sat. He noticed Mr. Julep in the parking lot smoking a cigarette. No smoking in bars in North Carolina—how’d that happen? Philosophically, it was a horrible law. Practically, it was very nice. The Mrs. returned from the lavatory even more talkative with her husband away. Reseated, her leg once again pressed against Cale’s, despite the extra space at the table.

She put her hand on his arm and asked him, “Our hero has returned. Weren’t you scared?” He wondered how she knew, and he tensed up. She continued, squeezing his forearm, “Over there, when the big guy was yelling at the girl and you ran in to break it up.”

He relaxed, now knowing what she meant. Cale answered, “Maybe. I really didn’t think about it.”

Mrs. Julep added, “Don’t you think that whole group—the old guys in particular—look like guys in the mob?”

Cale didn’t acknowledge that he had the same thought. He heard the ambulance whine increase and then cease. He used the beer bottle as an ice pack on his knuckles. The ambulance lights weren’t visible. The street and parking lots to the north were on the west side of the buildings, and the patio was on the east, overlooking the waterway. Cale scanned the crowd for the Bahamas and the other big guys. They stood at the bar, getting animated in their review of the baseball game. The old guys seemed to have made friends with their neighbors. Nobody seemed anxious for the missing bodybuilder.

Fifteen minutes later, the ambulance siren hadn’t restarted. A good sign the damage wasn’t too bad. Although that arm had to be broken.
Of course, if the ambulance didn’t leave with the big man, he would return to the bar, and then it would be best to be gone. Cale paid the waitress for the table, which included the Juleps’ bill. Of course, you’re welcome, ma’am. No, no thanks necessary. Ah, sure, here is my card. Dan rounded up the bachelor party members, less Blake and Van, and the men cast off. It was ten thirty. They would be home in twenty minutes—probably too early to get a bachelor party to call it a night, but worth a try.

12

WHEN THE SUN
ducked fully behind the horizon, the captain hoisted the dinghy back on deck with the crane. Joe clicked on the overhead lights and started reading while Tony rummaged around for his glasses, which he belatedly realized were pushed up on his head.

After a few minutes Tony said, “Hey, Joe, is it me, or is it quiet downstairs?”

“Must be time for the big boys to get their evening attire ready. I think they’re in their cabin doing
om
s to make sure they’ll make the right clothing choice.”

“Hmm. Black jeans and a black crewneck T-shirt or black jeans and a V-neck T-shirt? You think to get in those sausage-skin jeans they wear they help each other pull up their zippers with pliers?”

“As much as they talk about getting action, would they need to call one of their buddies to help them get out if something did happen for them?”

“Nah, they would go Incredible Hulk-style and flex their quadriceps until … pop … nothing but ripped clothes.”

After a few more laughs, the conversation lapsed, and the captain could be heard finishing the departure preparations. Joe enjoyed the relative solitude and felt a little sentimental gratitude toward Tony for coming on the trip. He could shed a tear if he kept the thought
in his mind too long. He laughed softly to himself and went back to his book.

Once it was started, the trip into the marina was quick. The captain drove the boat at about half its cruising speed yet still kicked up a big wake. The captain believed the inland waterway was a highway. If you wanted a dock on the side of a highway, that was your problem. Joe didn’t know enough to agree or disagree but noted the angry dock owners they left in their wake. Even if it made no sense to put a dock on the side of a highway, it wasn’t the dock owners’ fault. They’d just bought the most convenient spots they could afford. The blame should go to the local politicians who approved the construction. But they were just responding to their constituents’ desires and increasing the ad valorem tax base at the same time so they could fund the schools and the sheriffs’ offices. So it wasn’t really their fault either, but the fault of developers like Joe, who made money on the deals. But was it really the developers’ fault? Weren’t they just responding to what the market wanted and the laws allowed?

Joe found this a pretty good example of the tragedy of the commons. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could go back and turn the Intracoastal Waterway’s banks into national parks? Vladimir Putin could make it happen today and not even worry about compensating the current dock owners. Joe worried slightly that America’s government was showing Putin-like tendencies, drifting toward fascism under a socialist banner. Federal and local governments seemed to show systemically less respect for the Fourth Amendment in the name of security and used eminent domain for reasons as thin as increasing the ad valorem tax base.