Lawrence Block - Enough Rope

“Look at us talking,” the man said, “and here you’re not catching bass while I’m busy not catching crappie. We might as well announce that we’re fishing for whales for all the difference it makes.”

A little while later Mowbray retrieved his line and changed lures again, then lit another cigarette. The sun was almost gone. It had vanished behind the tree line and was probably close to the horizon by now. The air was definitely growing cooler. Another hour or so would be the extent of his fishing for the day. Then it would be time to head back to the motel and some cocktails and a steak and baked potato at the restaurant down the road. And then an evening of bourbon and water in front of the motel room’s television set, lying on the bed with his feet up and the glass at his elbow and a cigarette burning in the ashtray.

The whole picture was so attractive that he was almost willing to skip the last hour’s fishing. But the pleasure of the first sip of the first martini would lose nothing for being deferred an hour, and the pleasure of the big man’s company was worth another hour of his time.

And then, a little while later, the big man said, “I have an unusual question to ask you.”

“Ask away.”

“Have you ever killed a man?”

It was an unusual question, and Mowbray took a few extra seconds to think it over. “Well,” he said at length, “I guess I have. The odds are pretty good that I have.”

“You killed someone without knowing it?”

“That must have sounded odd. You see, I was in the artillery in Korea. Heavy weapons. We never saw what we were shooting at and never knew just what our shells were doing. I was in action for better than a year, stuffing shells down the throat of one big mother of a gun, and I’d hate to think that in all that time we never hit what we aimed at. So I must have killed men, but I don’t suppose that’s what you’re driving at.”

“I mean up close. And not in the service, that’s a different proposition entirely.”

“Never.”

“I was in the service myself. An earlier war than yours, and I was on a supply ship and never heard a shot fired in anger. But about four years ago I killed a man.” His hand dropped briefly to the sheath knife at his belt. “With this.”

Mowbray didn’t know what to say. He busied himself taking up the slack in his line and waited for the man to continue.

“I was fishing,” the big man said. “All by myself, which is my usual custom. Saltwater though, not fresh like this. I was over in North Carolina on the Outer Banks. Know the place?” Mowbray shook his head. “A chain of barrier islands a good distance out from the mainland. Very remote. Damn fine fishing and not much else. A lot of people fish off the piers or go out on boats, but I was surfcasting. You can do about as well that way as often as not, and that way I figured to build a fire right there on the beach and cook my catch and eat it on the spot. I’d gathered up the driftwood and laid the fire before I wet a line, same as I did today. That’s my usual custom. I had done the same thing the day before and I caught myself half a dozen Norfolk spot in no time at all, almost before I could properly say I’d been out fishing. But this particular day I didn’t have any luck at all in three hours, which shows that saltwater fish are as unpredictable as the freshwater kind. You done much saltwater fishing?”

“Hardly any.”

“I enjoy it about as much as freshwater, and I enjoyed that day on the Banks even without getting a nibble. The sun was warm and there was a light breeze blowing off the ocean and you couldn’t have asked for a better day. The next best thing to fishing and catching fish is fishing and not catching ’em, which is a thought we can both console ourselves with after today’s run of luck.”

“I’ll have to remember that one.”

“Well, I was having a good enough time even if it looked as though I’d wind up buying my dinner, and then I sensed a fellow coming up behind me. He must have come over the dunes because he was never in my field of vision. I knew he was there — just an instinct, I suppose — and I sent my eyes as far around as they’d go without moving my head, and he wasn’t in sight.” The big man paused, sighed. “You know,” he said, “if the offer still holds, I believe I’ll have one of those cigarettes of yours after all.”

“You’re welcome to one,” Mowbray said, “but I hate to start you off on the habit again. Are you sure you want one?”

The wide grin came again. “I quit smoking about the same time I quit work. I may have had a dozen cigarettes since then, spaced over the ten-year span. Not enough to call a habit.”

“Then I can’t feel guilty about it.” Mowbray shook the pack until a cigarette popped up, then extended it to his companion. After the man helped himself Mowbray took one as well, and lit them both with his lighter.

“Nothing like an interval of a year or so between cigarettes to improve their taste,” the big man said. He inhaled a lungful of smoke, pursed his lips to expel it in a stream. “I’ll tell you,” he said, “I really want to tell you this story if you don’t mind hearing it. It’s one I don’t tell often, but I feel a need to get it out from time to time. It may not leave you thinking very highly of me but we’re strangers, never saw each other before and as likely will never see each other again. Do you mind listening?”

Mowbray was frankly fascinated and admitted as much.

“Well, there I was knowing I had someone standing behind me. And certain he was up to no good, because no one comes up behind you quiet like that and stands there out of sight with the intention of doing you a favor. I was holding onto my rod, and before I turned around I propped it in the sand butt end down, the way people will do when they’re fishing on a beach. Then I waited a minute, and then I turned around as if not expecting to find anyone there, and there he was, of course.

“He was a young fellow, probably no more than twenty-five. But he wasn’t a hippie. No beard, and his hair was no longer than yours or mine. It did look greasy, though, and he didn’t look too clean in general. Wore a light blue T-shirt and a pair of white duck pants. Funny how I remember what he wore but I can see him clear as day in my mind. Thin lips, sort of a wedge-shaped head, eyes that didn’t line up quite right with each other, as though they had minds of their own. Some active pimples and the scars of old ones. He wasn’t a prize.

“He had a gun in his hand. What you’d call a belly gun, a little .32-caliber Smith & Wesson with a two-inch barrel. Not good for a single damned thing but killing men at close range, which I’d say is all he ever wanted it for. Of course I didn’t know the maker or caliber at the time. I’m not much for guns myself.

“He must have been standing less than two yards away from me. I wouldn’t say it took too much instinct to have known he was there, not as close as he was.”

The man drew deeply on the cigarette. His eyes narrowed in recollection, and Mowbray saw a short vertical line appear, running from the middle of his forehead almost to the bridge of his nose. Then he blew out smoke and his face relaxed and the line was gone.

“Well, we were all alone on that beach,” the man continued. “No one within sight in either direction, no boats in close offshore, no one around to lend a helping hand. Just this young fellow with a gun in his hand and me with my hands empty. I began to regret sticking the rod in the sand. I’d done it to have both hands free, but I thought it might be useful to swing at him and try whipping the gun out of his hand.

“He said, ‘All right, old man. Take your wallet out of your pocket nice and easy.’ He was a Northerner, going by his accent, but the younger people don’t have too much of an accent wherever they’re from. Television, I suppose, is the cause of it. Makes the whole world smaller.