Robert Jones - Blood Tide

“A little bit hairy, isn’t it? Shouldn’t you bring a rifle?”

“Just adds to the sport, Captain. Adrenaline’s good for the circulation. A healthy shot of it now and then reams out the blood vessels like Drano in a clogged sink. I’m sure it just gobbles up the cholesterol. How’s your cholesterol, Captain? Mine’s a bit high, but I think it’s in control now, out here.”

“I haven’t had a physical lately,” Curt said. “Billy told me I didn’t need one to get this job.”

“True,” the Commodore replied. “But we care about our employees’ health and welfare. Don’t we, Billy? Anyway, you won’t be getting much cholesterol from that chicken salad, in case you’ve been worrying. It’s jungle cock.”

“Delicious,” Curt said.

“Siesta time, gentlemen,” the commodore said.

Billy Torres woke Curt from a restless sleep a little after three. Curt’s pillow was sweat-soaked despite the air-conditioning in the little stucco-walled guest house they’d assigned him. The commodore was waiting on the dock at the boat shed. One of the green-painted Blue Thunders rumbled and blatted beside the pier, its engines already warmed up. The commo stepped impatiently down into the boat and gestured at the gear piled on the dock. Curt handed it to him—a scarred pigskin gun case, a canvas game bag from which a few gaudy feathers flew, an El Al flight bag heavy with what felt like a case of shotgun shells. He cast off the bow and stern lines and jumped in.

“Take her out, Captain Hughes.”

Curt engaged the drive, crimped the leather-padded wheel, and touched the throttles. The Thunder spoke, the boat leapt forward.

“Easy, Captain.”

“She’s sensitive.”

He took her out the channel blasted through the inshore coral, following mangrove pole markers, until they were in blue water. Balbal lay to the northeast, a high, darkly forested wedge-shaped island wearing a cap of afternoon rain clouds. He could see surf creaming on the beaches to Balbal’s windward side.

“Straight for the centerline of the island,” the commodore shouted. “It’s ten miles to the near shore. I make it just three-sixteen P.M. NOW two-block them, and let’s go. All ahead full.” He gripped the holds on the padded dash and spread his stance. Curt nailed the throttles.

The Thunder shot out like a dragster, up on the step in an instant. She rode straight, smooth, and bounceless despite the trade wind’s rough chop—as if she were on rails. When they’d run about half the distance, the commodore leaned over and yelled into his ear, “Now cut me a doughnut. Don’t touch the throttle.” Curt obeyed, his stomach suddenly clenching. Well, she was the commodore’s boat . . .

The Thunder turned on her own tail in a smooth, tight, perfect circle. She scarcely heeled at all to the maneuver, but Curt’s instinctive lean into the turn almost threw him off balance when it didn’t happen.

“Incredible,” he yelled.

The commodore looked into his eyes and grinned happily. A great, big forty-year-old rich kid showing off his toys to the poor boy on his block.

“Now to starboard,” he yelled.

Curt cut another doughnut, then wheeled back around and had a run at the Thunder’s steep wake. The boat skipped over it as if it were a crack in the sidewalk. She wasn’t much for fast—just a touch over sixty-five m.p.h. at red-line revs, ten slower than an Apache or even a well-tuned old Cigarette—but she was heaven for smooth.

He throttled down as they neared the Balbal shore.

“Six minutes and change,” the commodore said proudly. “With time out for coffee and doughnuts.”

They anchored, bow to seaward, off a pink-flour beach and waded ashore, Curt lugging the gear. “Empty a box of those shells into the game pouch,” the commodore ordered as he assembled his shotgun. “Make it two boxes. Hand me those chaps.” He pulled a pair of green nylon tubes over his bare legs, securing them at his belt with snap straps. “There’s another pair in the bag,” he said. “You’d better put them on.”

“What’re they for? Snakes?”

“They wouldn’t turn a snake bite,” the commodore said. “But there’s other things in there that bite.”

“I hate anything on my bare legs,” Curt said. “If it’s all the same to you—”

“Your legs,” the commodore said. “Your funeral.” He dropped two shells into the slim, double-barreled gun, then snapped the breech closed. “Let’s kill some birds.”

He pushed into the jungle.

Back on Lázaro, Billy Torres walked casually out onto the dock where Sea Witch lay moored. He was whistling softly to himself, soothingly, trying to walk as nonchalantly as a tourist on an afternoon stroll. Torres did not like dogs.

Brillo watched him from the shade of the wheelhouse, head between his paws. Silent.

Why do I always draw the shit duty? Torres asked himself. I could have taken Hughes out in the boat, checked him out and all, while the commodore searched Curt’s sailboat. Dogs love the commodore. They’re always coming up to him to be scratched behind the ears. They don’t like me. They know . And I can’t even shoot the fucker if he comes for me. Then the kid would know someone’s been aboard her. Why shouldn’t he know? He’s working for us, isn’t he? We could say some Tausuq thief did it.

He stopped at the gangway leading onto the cockpit. The dog was still silent, not even watching him now that he was behind it. One ear was cocked back at him, though. He put a foot on the gangway. The dog didn’t move. “Good boy, hey, you’re really a good doggy, aren’t you boy?” Nothing. No movement, no growl, just that ear, twitching once as Torres spoke. He took a step. Another. Watching closely.

“You’re a good pooch, aren’t you, boy?” Torres lied. He knew the dog knew he was lying, even though it still hadn’t moved.

He was across the gangway, onto the main deck, at the head of the companionway. “Good boy, atsa good doggy!” He was onto the ladder. Piece of cake—

Then the dog was there—so fast that Torres caught only a red-brown blur—there at the head of the ladder. Filling the sky. All eyes and hair and teeth—very long, white, sharp teeth. The dog growled once, low and ugly, deep in its fire hose of a larynx. Torres bolted into the cabin and slammed the door, shot the bolt, staggered back and jabbed his kidney hard against a sharp edge of the mess table. He was hyperventilating, his heart pounding like an M60 machine gun with an endless belt of ammo. . . .

But he was there, down in the cabin, where the commo said he had to go. Plenty of time for a thorough, leisurely search that would leave no traces. Plenty of time to take rolls of film with the Minox, if there was anything to photograph. More time than he could ever use.

How the fuck do I get out of here?

* * *

It took Curt only five steps to realize he’d made a grave mistake. He should have worn the brush chaps. Thorns, nettles, vines that sucked at his legs like leeches even as they bit—he was ripped and stinging from his shorts clear down to where his Topsiders were filling with blood. Maybe it was just mud—there was plenty of that. And leeches, too. Real ones, not lianas. The commodore snapped them off his own arms and neck as he strode along, breaking trail. He was chattering away a mile a minute, asking Curt what he thought of the Thunder, how he liked Lázaro so far—he hoped Curt would be happy in his job; it’s a nice, friendly little island once the people get to know you. Hard to get laid, though, almost impossible, the way these Tausuqs guard their daughters. But Billy’d brought in some girls from Angeles, clean girls, all tested negative for AIDS, though it’s rampant there and at Subic as well. Inexpensive, too, in fact, he could have a freebie courtesy of the commodore—at least the first night.