Paul Levine - False Dawn

I was still casting when Charlie pulled in his second one, a blunt-headed iridescent blue female. I leaned back and rested awhile, watching Charlie enjoy himself. After a moment, I said, “I still can’t figure it out.”

“A little more wrist,” Charlie advised.

“Not that. What was I doing, trying to help Francisco Crespo or find out something about myself?”

“Either way, you tried to make a difference.”

“And either way, I still couldn’t tell the good guys from the bad. Every time I thought I knew, they changed the players or the rules.”

Charlie chuckled. “Things are seldom what they seem. Skim milk masquerades as cream. The new world order makes it even more confusing, Jake. It’s hard to realize, but old enemies are on the same side now. Still, there will always be loners like Foley and Yagamata, who are just in it for themselves, and an occasional throwback like Soto who thinks he can change the world by force. Most everybody else seems willing to let individuals control their own destiny.”

“But I didn’t do anyone any good. I didn’t save Crespo or Eva-Lisa. I didn’t save anyone.”

“Sure you did, Jake. You saved yourself.”

W e stayed the night at a rundown motel on the Gulf side, then got up at four A.M. for a second try. Except for the slap of water against the hull, it was quiet as a tomb as we headed out the channel. A velvet black sky was filled with diamonds, and a feathery breeze blew from the southeast. Charlie and I sat looking at the heavens in the silent comfort that two good friends can savor without self-consciousness.

When we reached what Charlie promised would be a hot spot, I baited my hook. Charlie tamped tobacco into his pipe and scratched at his beard. “You see my matches?”

“Too dark,” I said.

After a few moments, on the horizon to the east, an orange glow cut through the darkness.

“False dawn,” I said.

“No. That’s the real thing. Sun’s coming up.”

“Too early, Charlie. That’s the phony one. I remember.”

“Twenty bucks,” Charlie said, goading me.

“You’re on. In the meantime, tell me one of your stories I haven’t heard in a while.”

Charlie harrumphed. “Ever tell you about the Doomsday Rock?”

“What’s that, an engagement ring?”

“An asteroid big enough to cause an explosion a billion times bigger than Hiroshima.”

“Where is it?”

“Nobody knows. But theoretically, it has to be out there, hurtling toward us right now. The Earth gets hit by one every five hundred thousand years or so. The blast causes a dust cloud that changes the climate, kills off the plant life. It’s probably what did in the dinosaurs. To demonstrate the effect, imagine my bait box is an asteroid.” He leaned over and picked up the box. “You see this, Jake?”

“Of course.”

“Thought so,” he said, laughing.

I reached for my wallet, handed the old buzzard two tens, and told him to finish his story.