Carl Hiaasen - Flush

“I just thought of something,” she said. “If we're stuck here on the boat, who's gonna call the Coast Guard on Dusty Muleman?”

“Good question.”

“Know what? This really bites.”

“Yeah, it does. I'm sorry, Abbey.”

“What for? We tried to stop something bad, and it didn't work. Doesn't mean we were wrong to try-Noah, are you listening to me?”

I wasn't.

“What are you staring at?” Abbey demanded.

“A boat,” I said, “unless I'm so whacked out that I'm imagining things. I swear it's coming this way.”

My sister shot to her feet.

“You see it, too?” I asked anxiously. “Or is it a mirage?”

“Nope, it's the real deal.”

“Outstanding!”

We started waving and hollering like a couple of dweebs. This time, though, it actually worked. Pushing a frothy wake, the boat headed straight at us.

It wasn't a big one, maybe a twenty-four-footer, but it might as well have been the Queen Elizabeth . Abbey and I had never seen a more glorious sight.

Two figures, both of them hatless and wearing wraparound sunglasses, stood at the console under the T-top. As the boat drew closer, it slowed down and banked slightly, revealing large orange lettering on the side.

TROPICAL RESCUE, it said.

“Noah, is that who I think it is?” Abbey asked weakly.

“The one and only.”

“You want me to start sobbing and shaking?”

“Not yet,” I told her. “First let's see how pissed off he is.”

“Is that Mom with him? Please tell me it's not Mom.”

“No, Abbey. Mom usually wears a shirt.”

We quit waving and cupped our hands to our eyes, trying to see the bare-chested person through the glare.

With relief Abbey said, “Oh good, it's a man.”

“Yeah, but guess who.”

“Who?”

“Check out the scar, Abbey.”

She gasped. “This is so insane.”

The man riding with my father was the old pirate.

We were speechless as the towboat idled up to the dinghy. Dad tossed a rope, which I hitched to the bow cleat.

“Hey, guys,” my father said. “Long night?”

We nodded lamely. The stranger stood next to Dad, smiling and fingering the gold coin on his neck. He seemed to be studying us closely.

Dad helped me and Abbey aboard the towboat. Then he pulled us close and squeezed like he might never let go.

“Are you two okay?” He examined us from head to toe, and seemed pleased to find no bullet holes, shark bites, or missing limbs.

“We're good,” I told him. “Just a little thirsty, that's all.”

The old pirate guy handed each of us a cold bottle of water.

“Who are you?” Abbey asked him without even saying thanks. “I'm sorry, but it's driving me crazy.”

The stranger took off his sunglasses and glanced over at Dad. It wasn't exactly a sad look, but there was something heavy about it.

“Kids,” said my father, “say hello to your Grandpa Bobby.”

“This is the U.S. Coast Guard. Petty Officer Reilly speaking.”

“Yes, I'd like to report a boat dumping sewage in the water.”

“What's the name of the vessel?”

“It's called the Coral Queen .”

“The gambling boat? At the Muleman marina?”

“That's right.”

“Did you witness this violation personally?” Petty Officer Reilly asked.

“Look for a bright purple trail leading to Thunder Beach. But you'd better hurry!”

“Who am I speaking with?”

“Underwood. Paine Underwood.”

My second phone call was to the Island Examiner newspaper. This time I used my own name, not Dad's.

Miles Umlatt remembered me, of course.

“It's good to hear from you, Noah, but I'm sort of busy now. A bait truck just flipped over in Key Largo, and there's live shrimp all over the highway.”

“Want a real story? A front-page story?”

Miles Umlatt said, “Sure, you bet.”

He was humoring me, playing along. I could picture the bored look on his pale splotchy face.

“All that stuff my dad said about Dusty Muleman? Well, it's true. Every word.”

Miles Umlatt said, “I know how you must feel, Noah. If it were my father, I'd stick up for him, too-”

“You want proof? Get over to Dusty's marina right away.”

“Why? What's going on?” Suddenly he was interested.

“Ask the Coast Guard,” I said, and hung up.

Dad, Mom, and Abbey were in the living room, gathered around Grandpa Bobby. When I came out of the kitchen, he motioned for me to sit down beside him. For the first time I noticed his resemblance to my father-Dad was taller and heavier, but he had the same square chin and light green eyes.

Grandpa Bobby took out a small photograph, worn and creased from being folded and unfolded. In the picture, his curly hair was blond, not silvery, and there was no scar on his cheek. He was lifting some half-naked little kid high over his head. The kid was laughing and kicking his chubby white legs.

The kid was me.

“You were only two years old,” my grandfather said.

It was the first photograph of him that I'd ever seen. My parents had lost all their family albums when a tropical storm flooded our house on the night before my third birthday.

Grandpa Bobby passed the snapshot around. Then he carefully refolded it into a square and slipped it in his pocket. Turning back to me, he said, “You wanna go first, champ?”

“No thanks. You go.”

He took a slow sip from a coffee mug. “Lord, where do I start? I guess by sayin' how bad I feel for keepin' out of touch the last ten years or so.”

“Out of touch? Everybody thought you were dead!” Abbey exclaimed.

“I'm sorry, I truly am,” Grandpa Bobby said. “Paine, Donna-believe me when I say I had good reasons for stayin' out of your life.”

I could tell that Mom and Dad were glad to have Grandpa Bobby back, but they were also kind of dazed and quiet. My sister wasn't dazed at all, since she'd never met him. He had disappeared before she was born.

“It's not a happy story,” he began. “One day a man came along, said he needed a captain to make a couple of trips down to South America. The money was right, and I didn't ask many questions. Wasn't like I didn't know what to ask-I just chose not to. Anyways, the first run went fine. No problems with the second run, either. But the third time, oh man…”

“Were you smuggling drugs?” I asked. Even Abbey seemed shocked to hear me say it.

“No, champ, I've got no fondness for dopers. It was stones,” Grandpa Bobby said. “Little green stones called emeralds. But smugglin' is smugglin', and stupid is stupid. And that's what I was-world-class stupid-because the guys I trusted turned out to be greedy, back-stabbin' liars. Actually, face -stabbin' liars.” He pointed ruefully at the M -shaped scar. “Anyways, the details don't hardly matter. There was some serious ugliness, and yours truly had to go underground.”

Up close he didn't look so much like a pirate-at least not the kind of pirate you see in the movies. His teeth were too straight and his manners were too good.

But he also didn't look like the kind of grandpa you usually see in the movies. His belly was still flat and his muscles were hard, and he was brimming with some strange wild energy. You could tell he'd never spent a minute of his life dozing in a rocking chair.

Dad asked, “What happened to the Amanda Rose ?”

That was Grandpa Bobby's fishing boat, which he'd named after his wife, my grandmother. I never got to meet her because she passed away when my father was just a kid, about Abbey's age. Some sort of rare cancer, Mom told us. It was one of the only things my dad wouldn't talk about. Not ever.