Paul Levine - Trial and Error

Victoria signaled the waiter for a refill on the wine. “So, if Bobby figured that the dolphins are back at the park, wouldn’t those two guys figure the same thing?”

Steve knew.

The lights were on in their house, but pulling into the driveway, he knew.

As he walked toward the front door, Victoria pulled up in her car.

Steve unlocked the door and called out Bobby’s name. No answer.

Steve knew the house was empty.

He knew that Bobby’s bicycle would be gone, too.

He knew that Bobby was headed for Cetacean Park. He just didn’t know how long a head start the boy had.

The wind was in Bobby’s face. Riding over the bridge to Key Biscayne always took longer than riding back to the mainland because the wind came off the ocean. Tonight, it wasn’t bad. Warm and moist, the breeze like a washcloth.

Bobby had left the house just after Victoria drove off to meet Uncle Steve for dinner. Now it was dark, a half-moon was rising over the Bay, and he pulled his bicycle into a strand of scrubby pine trees adjacent to Cetacean Park.

Uncle Steve had let him down again. Two hours ago Bobby told his uncle that Spunky and Misty had to be back at the park. That’s the only thing that made sense. His uncle promised to do something about it. Then he called back later. He said the FBI would get on it Monday.

Monday!

Right now, Grisby could be loading Spunky and Misty into tanks for transport. Just like he’d done before when he’d brought the dolphins from California. Bobby had found photographs of Undersea World. The shots of Spunky were difficult to make out, a lot of water splashing. But one photo of Misty was unmistakable. The little notch in her fluke and her pink belly gave her away.

Bobby imagined what might be going on right now at Cetacean Park. Those two men from Hardcastle could be there. Pissed off at the double-cross. Ready to kill Grisby. Kidnap the dolphins, sneak them off to the warfare center in San Diego, turn them into freaks and assassins.

My best buds.

This was his only chance, or they’d be gone forever. Didn’t Uncle Steve say that men always did whatever had to be done, no matter the risk? Especially for those you love.

Well, I love Spunky and Misty, and I’m their only hope.

Bobby worked his way to the dock, listening to the whisper of water in the channel. No dolphins. He wondered what time Uncle Steve and Victoria would get home. They’d be hacked off. But it wasn’t his fault. Uncle Steve should have gotten the dolphins back, or at least he should have tried harder. But he was so caught up trying to prove his stupid client innocent, he forgot about the dolphins…and about me.

“Family comes first.” That’s what he’d always said. But he was still a lawyer, and Bobby sensed a conflict between obligations to the family you love and the scumbags you represent.

A splash in the channel, but it was just a small fish leaping, the moonlight catching its phosphorescence. No Spunky. No Misty.

Bobby followed the channel toward the main building. During the day, a busy place, with a souvenir stand, a food court, and a dolphin video playing on a flat screen. Growing more narrow, the channel wound inland past the building under an umbrella of leafy palms. It ended at a spillway that came from the quonset hut Mr. Grisby called “the infirmary.”

The building was thirty feet high, made of corrugated metal. The roof was elevated by wooden rafters, leaving an open breezeway that ran the circumference of the round building. Bobby could see lights through the breezeway, and he could hear men’s voices.

He climbed a ladder that ran up the side of the building. Halfway up, Bobby recognized Mr. Grisby’s voice, but couldn’t make out the words. Then a shrill metal whistle. Bobby knew the sound. Mr. Grisby trained dolphins with blasts from a whistle.

The ladder stopped at a metal catwalk just at the breezeway. By standing on his tiptoes, Bobby could see down into the building. There was Mr. Grisby, on a platform no wider than a diving board. Two men stood at the perimeter of the tank. A smaller man in cowboy boots and a black T-shirt. Tough-looking dude. And a larger man with blond hair, muscles not as well defined.

Mr. Grisby tooted the whistle and Spunky and Misty jumped in unison, landed, then paddled upright on their flukes, looking like ballerinas.

“Watch this, gentlemen. I think you’ll be impressed.”

Grisby knelt down and grabbed a large nylon sack that lay at his feet. He opened the drawstrings, and something tumbled out of the sack and into the water.

A body in a green-and-brown camouflage uniform.

“Shit.”

Steve slammed the heel of his hand against the steering wheel.

From the top of the bridge, nothing but twin rows of red taillights in front of them. At the bottom of the span, two police cars and a tow truck blocked the eastbound lane. A Hummer sat diagonally in the roadway, a deep-hulled sailboat splintered across the lanes, where it had fallen off its trailer.

“What now?” Victoria asked.

“We walk. Or run. C’mon.”

Steve pulled the car as far off the roadway as he could, and they started on foot. A jog at first. They’d both changed clothes after dinner. Victoria was in her workout attire: Nike stretch pants, running shoes, and fitted top. Steve wore khaki shorts and an old Hurricanes baseball jersey.

Once off the bridge, they were able to cut through the picnic areas that lined the causeway, just yards from the shoreline. Their path was lit by hundreds of headlights from the traffic jam. White gulls trudged along the beach, digging for toenail crabs.

“This is all my fault,” Steve said as they jogged alongside each other.

“What is?”

“Bobby. I’ve been too self-absorbed. I haven’t paid enough attention to him.”

“You’re a wonderful father to him, Steve. Bobby adores you.”

“I haven’t been consistent. At first, because of everything he’d suffered with my crazy sister, I didn’t want to deny him anything. Then I thought maybe I was overprotecting him, so I backed off. Now I just don’t know. I’ve lost all sense of balance.”

“All parents learn on the fly, and you’re doing fine.”

“If I were doing so great, he’d be home right now.” Steve shot a look across the Bay in the direction of Cetacean Park. “If anything happens to him…”

His words hung in the humid air, and they ran in silence for another few moments.

Just after they’d left the house, Steve had called FBI Agent Parsons again on her cell. This time, she sounded even more exasperated. “Your twelve-year-old nephew has ridden off on his bicycle, and you think it’s a federal case? Is that it, Solomon?”

She hung up on him.

Next, Steve called the Miami Police Department and got through to a desk sergeant. When it became clear that Bobby hadn’t been snatched, and that he’d been gone less than two hours, Steve could feel the officer’s interest level wane. Following procedures, the sergeant said to call back in the morning if the boy hadn’t returned.

“Do you know what first attracted me to you?” Victoria said as they neared the collapsed trailer and sailboat.

“My musk cologne?”

“Your love for Bobby. The risks you took to rescue him. The way you put him first. With all your faults, you’re still the kind of man a woman wants to father her children.”

“What faults?”

“C’mon, Steve. Let’s pick up the pace.”

They broke into a full run, Steve shortening his stride just a bit to match hers. Victoria ran athletically, smoothly. They were in perfect rhythm, perfect sync, and moving fast.