Carl Hiaasen - Flush

I burst out coughing like I was having a seizure. I couldn't help it.

“Apologize?” my father said numbly.

“Yes, Paine, we had this discussion the other night.” Mom's tone was pleasant but determined. “You and Dusty have known each other too long to let this kind of situation get out of control.”

“Donna's right,” Dusty said. “All those years we fished out of Ted's, we never had a problem.”

Dad was steaming, but there wasn't much he could do. Dusty had promised to drop the criminal charges only if Dad agreed to behave. Mom must have figured that this was as good a time as any for Dad to start acting remorseful, even if he didn't mean it.

“Fine,” my father said stiffly. “I'm sorry for sinking your boat.”

“Apology accepted.” Dusty smacked on the cigar, and his shifty gray eyes swung to me. “Son, I heard from Jasper Jr. that you've been givin' him a hard time.”

“You're kidding, right?” I said.

Dusty shook his head. Dad looked at me curiously.

“No, it's the other way around,” I started to protest. “He and Bull…”

“He and Bull what ?” asked Dad.

“Nothing.”

“Noah, what's going on?” my mother said, like she'd already forgotten about my black eye. I figured she just didn't want to stir up more trouble, with Abbey missing and Dad's future freedom in Dusty Muleman's hands.

Still, I had to bite back the urge to tell everything that had really happened between me and Jasper Jr. Dusty was clearly enjoying himself at my expense. He knew the truth, too. I could see by the way he smirked.

“I know it's gettin' more and more like Miami down here,” he said, “but a boy still ought to be able to go fishin' without having to fight his way home. Don't you folks agree?”

“Absolutely,” said my mother, although this time I detected a slight chill in her voice. When she glanced at me, I knew that she didn't believe a word Dusty Muleman was saying.

I also understood that she expected me to suck up my pride and do what was best for the family, as my father had done.

“Tell Jasper Jr. it won't happen again,” I said to Dusty.

“That's the spirit.” He gave me a gloating wink.

The door swung open and Luno appeared. Up close the man was even taller and uglier than I remembered. His slick bald dome glowed pink in the pale light, and his smile was as crooked as his nose. A swatch of dirty-looking gauze was taped on one of his branch-sized forearms, probably where my sister had chomped him. In one hand he carried a walkie-talkie like Dusty's; in the other hand was a half-empty bottle of beer.

“What's up, chief?” he said to Dusty.

“You seen a young girl hanging around the docks tonight?”

“Girl?”

“Little kid,” Dusty said. “Curly brown hair, if I remember right.”

“Ash blond,” corrected my mother.

Luno's shark eyes flicked to the wound on his arm. I wondered if he'd ever admitted to Dusty that he'd been bitten by a pint-sized trespasser. I also wondered if Luno recognized me as the one who'd slugged him that night on the charter boat.

If he did, he didn't let on. His gaze revealed nothing but icy and casual indifference, and I had no doubt he was capable of anything-even killing Lice Peeking.

Dad didn't seem even slightly intimidated by the bald-headed goon, which is one of my father's problems. Sometimes he doesn't know when to be afraid.

“No girl here tonight,” Luno said with a shrug.

“We want to look around for ourselves,” Dad declared.

Dusty said, “Luno says she's not here, she's not here. You can take it to the bank.”

“Please,” said Mom. “We won't be long.”

“Suit yourself. I got nothin' to hide.” Dusty took the cigar out of his mouth. “So, Paine, I meant to ask you-how're the anger management classes goin'?”

Part of the deal for Dusty dropping the charges was that my father would sign up for “professional counseling.” Dad thought it was ridiculous, of course.

My mother said, “We've got an appointment with a therapist in Key Largo, as soon as Paine gets off house arrest.”

“Outstanding!” said Dusty.

“Yeah, I can hardly wait,” Dad mumbled.

“Listen, man, you can't go around sinkin' other people's boats just because you get some wacko idea in your head,” Dusty told him. “You need to get a grip. Seriously.”

“He will,” Mom said.

My father's face reddened.

“Let's go look for Abbey,” I said.

Luno went along, probably to make sure that we didn't go snooping anywhere Dusty didn't want us to go. We traipsed from one side of the basin to the other, up and down the charter docks. Dad and Mom kept shouting my sister's name, but the only response was some crazed dog barking its head off-a big old German shepherd that one of the captains kept chained on his boat.

When we returned to the ticket shack, the light was off and Dusty had gone. Luno leaned against the fender of his beat-up station wagon and folded his beefy arms.

“See? Girl no here,” he said. “You go away now.”

Mom and I turned to leave, but Dad didn't move. He stood there nose to nose with Dusty's goon. It was too dark to make out their expressions, but the tension in the air was like the hot static buzz you feel before that first clap of thunder.

“If anything's happened to my little girl,” Dad warned in a low voice, “I'll be back for you and your boss man.”

Luno grunted out a harsh chuckle and rasped something in a foreign language. Whatever he said, it didn't sound like he was the least bit worried by my father's threat.

Mom spoke up. “Paine, let's go.”

Being a sensible person, she was nervous in Luno's presence.

“Paine, please,” she said again. “It's late.”

Slowly Dad pivoted his shoulders and began walking away. Feeling the heat of Luno's glare, the three of us trudged down the dirt road. Mom and I kept swatting at mosquitoes that were buzzing around my father, who hadn't bothered to use the bug spray. He didn't seem to notice the annoying little bloodsuckers, or maybe he didn't care.

Once we were safely inside the car, my mother took a deep breath and said, “All right, Noah, where should we look for your sister now?”

Unfortunately, I didn't have a Plan B. I'd been so sure she'd gone to spy on the Coral Queen that I hadn't even considered any other possibilities.

“Let's just drive,” Dad said glumly, fiddling with the switch on his spotlight.

In the glow from the dashboard his face appeared to be covered with odd black freckles-but then I realized that the freckles were actually more mosquitoes, too gorged with blood to fly away.

“Maybe Abbey went home already,” I said hopefully. “She's probably already back in bed, sleeping like a log.”

Mom nodded. “Yes, that's where we should go next. She'll worry if she sees my car is gone.”

“And what if she's not there? What then?” Dad asked.

“Then we call the police, Paine,” my mother said with a hitch of anger.

There wasn't much to discuss after that. Mom drove slowly up the dirt road, away from the marina. Dad couldn't get the spotlight working, so he started cussing and pounding on it with the heel of his hand. Finally he just gave up and flipped on the radio.

My mother had to make a wide turn onto the Old Highway, to avoid hitting a possum. She stepped on the gas and rolled down the windows to blow out the bugs.

Dad was sunk down in the passenger seat, his head bowed. Mom was humming some old Beatles song, trying to act as if she wasn't all that worried, but I knew better. She was doing 52 in a 30-mile-per-hour zone, which for her was some kind of speed record.

We had gone maybe a mile or two when I spotted a flash of something in the distance along the side of the road, something larger than the usual Keys critters.