T. Parker - Cold Pursuit

Da Rocha was breathing hard, but he smiled at the waitress who brought him his drinks. "How are you, Marilyn?"

"I'm good, Mr. da Rocha. How about you?"

"Old, fat, blind and crippled. But I answer to the name of Lucky."

"If I look as good as you at seventy-nine, I'm going to be a happy lady."

"Flattery." He laughed. "I love it."

"Guys want some dinner?"

"Bring me the usual," said da Rocha. "Bring him the usual, too."

Da Rocha watched her walk away. "I'd like to do it all over again."

McMichael couldn't think of anything to say to that.

"What I would try to do," said da Rocha, "is slow down and love more things. I only loved maybe a few things- fishing, Madeline, my kids and grandkids. But you look at all the things around you, I mean, look at this salt shaker…"

He touched the ordinary wooden shaker, then drank a slug of the fresh vodka. "The war hurt us. The navy needed our refrigerated boats to move food to the Pacific. Pretty much just took them- crews and all. When Italy declared war on us, the Italian boats all got grounded and the men weren't allowed to work, even on the waterfront. The Jap boats got confiscated, and the families got sent away to Manzanar. All the rest of us were moving supplies instead of fishing. Canneries didn't have nothing to can. Those guys with families didn't do so good. So after it was over, we were glad to be back to work. By 'forty-seven Pete was an owner-captain, three boats, good crews, making good money. But he saw things ahead of time, like smart people do. He saw that the purse seiners were going to catch more fish than the pole-and-line teams. He saw that the big boats were going to do away with the clippers and the owner-captains like him. Because one guy couldn't buy a two-hundred-and-eighty-foot super-seiner unless he had about twenty million bucks. It cost five-hundred grand just for the net. The net! And they had spotter planes and helicopters and electronics and gas freezers you wouldn't believe. One boat could carry two thousand tons of frozen tuna. Then, when the Santiago Declaration got signed in 'fifty-two- that kept us from fishing off of Chile and Central America – Pete figured that our whole industry was in trouble. That's when he started making his exit."

'Fifty-two, thought McMichael: Franklin 's fateful year. Pete seeing the writing on the wall and a thirty-three-year-old quarter-sharer demanding his money. "Fords?"

"That came later, but by 'fifty-three or 'four, Pete was getting out of fishing. He sold his clippers for shares in one of the seiners, but he put most of his money into land in San Diego. I found this all out later. He didn't tell nobody. Pete always had this secret side. He never told us what he was doing or said to us- hey, you guys better figure out a better way to make money, because this industry is going to collapse in the next twenty years. By the time the fleet was all super-seiners, we were the crews and we worked for shares, but it wasn't our business anymore. The owners, they didn't sail with you. You were just a hired hand. The catch got smaller. We had all those problems with the porpoise and the government. Everybody was canning cheaper than we were. We had to go farther and farther for less and less. Last San Diego cannery closed in 'eighty-four. By then, Pete was selling cars, getting his picture taken with politicians and baseball stars, all that."

The waitress brought the dinner: tuna steaks still red in the middle, mashed potatoes, a goofy-looking salad.

Da Rocha examined the fish, thoughtfully cut off a piece. "This ain't frozen. It's probably off a Mexican boat, maybe American. The fresh boat guys, they fly them to market in a helicopter. You get a good one- big and perfect meat- you can get big money from the Japs. The record is forty grand, last I heard. Forty grand for one fish . You could trade it straight across for a fuckin' Lexus. For sushi, you know?"

"I didn't know."

"Yeah, well, thank Dom da Rocha for opening your eyes."

"Thanks, Dom."

"How about some port after this?"

McMichael signaled for Marilyn. "Do you think Pete wanting to bring back the fishing was his way of setting things straight with you guys? Even though it would never work?"

"Part of it. The other part was, he just missed the old days. Like everybody. Maybe when he fell in love with the nurse he started thinking he was young again. Love makes you dumb. You know how it is. Hell, maybe you don't."

After dinner the waitress brought the glasses of port. McMichael drank the sweet wine, thought it hit the spot after rare tuna and tequila and beer. He felt relaxed but alert. "Who on the Port Commission was lined up against Pete?"

"Beats me. I don't even know who's on it. Down here on the waterfront, they call the Port Commission the Brotherhood. Imagine that. A goddamned Brotherhood of politicians and businessmen and scammers all working together like Santa's elves. I just know they were pissed at Pete. From the newspapers and TV."

"Pissed enough to have him killed?"

Da Rocha shrugged. "Why not? You get to be my age you realize that everything's true."

"Except the stuff that isn't."

Da Rocha shrugged. "Things have a way of changing around."

When he had finished his port, Da Rocha stared at McMichael through his thick glasses.

"I was on the Cabrillo Star back in 'fifty-two with Frank McMichael," said da Rocha. "We'd gone to nets on the Star by then- good, strong nylons ones, but hard to handle and expensive. This was before the Puretic Power Block to haul ' em in. It was a lousy trip. So we blamed it on the new guy- Franklin. Fishermen are like that, superstitious and always looking to blame somebody. He was nice enough. He was friendly to a point, quick with a story or a joke. And not bad for a quarter-sharer- he worked hard. But you get on a trip like that, three or four months out, hardly any fish, you're burning up fuel and patience every hour, it gets bad. Like there's a black cloud hanging over you, and you can't find fish. Then you finally do and every set you make turns to shit and you finally get desperate and make too big a set and you can't get the fish in fast enough to keep them from gettin' crushed in the net so you end up with a fifty-percent loss, maybe higher. We had some crew fights. Pete, he stayed up in his quarters, we hardly saw him. He was probably thinking of ways to get out of the business. Like I should have been. I remember seeing Frank at the Waterfront the night we came in, already drunk and complaining about not getting paid any. Pete should have paid him something. I mean, he didn't have to. What he did was standard procedure, you don't pay the quarter share on a bad trip, you take the gas and food out of it and subtract that from the share and guess what? On a bad trip the quarter shares don't get a thing. But we all knew Frank was hurting. He had the pub that went under and the family and even a full quarter share isn't much for a guy with debts and a family. Pete could have helped him. He didn't have to make him beg. I don't know what happened later that night on the boat, but it was too damned bad. Pete, man, I didn't see Pete for weeks after that. Nobody did. He sent out the Star with another captain, late November. The word was, he just stayed in his room and stared out the window. Then Victor got beaten up behind the bar. Pete loved Victor more than anything. More than money, more than his wife. The boy was only thirteen, big and strong and smart. Doctors said ruined forever, wouldn't develop right. So Pete went kind of sideways after that. I mean actually sideways. His mouth wasn't the same and one ear- I swear to God- it got lower somehow."

McMichael looked into the deep red depths of his port.

"I'm not sayin' Gabriel did it," said da Rocha. "But whoever did, really got Pete where it hurt."