He thought of Christina Marks. How did he get mixed up with such a serious woman? Unlike the others he had loved and married, Christina avidly pursued that which was evil and squalid and polluted. Her job was to expose it. There was not a wisp of true innocence about her, not a trace of cheery waitress-type optimism … yet something powerful attracted him. Maybe because she slogged through the same moral swamps. Crooked cops, crooked lawyers, crooked doctors, crooked ex-wives, even crooked tree trimmers—these were the spawn of the city bog.
Stranahan’s fingers found the stock of the shotgun, and he moved it closer. Soon he fell asleep, and he dreamed that Victoria Barletta was alive. He dreamed that he met her one night in the Rathskellar on the University of Miami campus. She was working behind the bar, wearing a pink butterfly bandage across the bridge of her nose. Stranahan ordered a beer and a cheeseburger medium, and asked her if she wanted to get married. She said sure.
The boat woke him up. It was a familiar yellow skiff with a big outboard. Stranahan saw it a mile away, trimmed up, running the flats. He smiled—the bonefish guide, his friend. With all the low dirty clouds it was difficult to estimate the time, but Stranahan figured the sun had been up no more than two hours. He dropped from the roof, stowed the Remington inside the house, and pulled on a pair of jeans so as not to startle the guide’s customers, who were quite a pair. The man was sixty-five, maybe older, obese and gray, with skin like rice parchment; the woman was twenty-five tops, tall, dark blond, wearing bright coral lip gloss and a gold choker necklace.
The guide climbed up to the stilt house and said, “Mick, take a good look. Fucking lipstick on a day like this.”
From the skiff, tied up below, Stranahan could hear the couple arguing about the weather. The woman wanted to go back, since there wasn’t any sun for a decent tan. The old man said no, he’d paid his money and by God they would fish. Stranahan said to his friend, “You’ve got the patience of Job.” The guide shook his head. “A killer mortgage is what I’ve got. Here, this is for you.”
It was an envelope with Stranahan’s name printed in block letters on the outside. “Woman with two black eyes told me to give it to you,” the guide said. “Cuban girl, not bad looking, either. She offered me a hundred bucks.”
“Hope you took it.”
“I held out for two,” the guide said. Stranahan folded the envelope in half and tucked it in the back pocket of his jeans. The guide said, “You in some trouble?”
“Just business.”
“Mick, you don’t have a business.”
Stranahan grinned darkly. “True enough.” He knew what his friend was thinking: Single guy, cozy house on the water, a good boat for fishing, a monthly disability check from the state—how could anybody fuck up a sweet deal like that?
“I heard some asshole shot hell out of the place.”
“Yeah.” Stranahan pointed to a sheet of fresh plywood on the door. The plywood covered two of Chemo’s bullet holes.
“I’ve got to get some red paint,” Stranahan said.
The guide said, “Forget the house, what about your shoulder?”
“It’s fine,” Stranahan said.
“Don’t worry, it was Luis who told me.”
“No problem. You want some coffee?”
“Naw.” The bonefish guide jerked a thumb in the direction of his skiff. “This old fart, he’s on the board of some steel company up north. That’s his secretary.”
“God bless him.”
The guide said, “Last time they went fishing, I swear, she strips off the bottom of her bathing suit. Not the top, Mick, the bottom part. All day long, flashing her bush in my face. Said she was trying to bleach out her hair. Here I’m poling like a maniac after these goddamn fish, and she’s turning somersaults in front of the boat, trying to keep her bush in the sun.”
Stranahan said, “I don’t know how you put up with it.”
“So today there’s no sunshine and of course she’s throwin’ a fit. Meanwhile the old fart says all he wants is a world-record bonefish on fly. That’s all. Mick, I’m too old for this shit.” The guide pulled on his cap so tightly that it crimped the tops of his ears. Lugubriously he descended the stairs to the dock.