Chapter - 37 PASSING SHIPS
"FIVE CENTS, FIVE CENTS, this is SPLITFINGER, ovah." Sidearm spoke
into his CD mike. He was pulled up under the trees by Old Man
Sawyer's turnaround in Nicky's car, smoking a Swisher Sweet and
flicking the ashes out the window..
"Go SPLITFINGER," Nicky came right back.
"FIVE CENTS, Mr. Sunshine just roll past heyah in his chariot.
Looked like a whale an a woman with him. Ovah."
"10-4, SPLITFINGER," Nicky replied. "I'll try callin him in about
one-five minutes, out." Probably nobody monitoring a scanner at
this hour, but it never paid to be too chatty on open CB channels.
"DEUCES copy," came Sumner's voice out of the airwaves. He wasn't
even going to use his TWO PLUS TWO handle to give anything away.
But when Nicky dialed Sonny's number on the island, nobody answered.
She tried on and off for the next half hour, until someone picked
up on the partyline and told her to "shut the fuck up."
By then Janet and Jumbo were all tangled up in Suzy-Q's big brass
bed, and weren't about to answer Sonny's phone on a bet. They
weren't sure if that double ring was his, anyhow. Partyline phones
were only supposed to ring at the number dialed, but they were
notorious for ringing through to everyone.
Sonny had dropped the new lovers off in his dooryard, saying,
"See if you can work the kink out of those springs on the brass
bed, willya?" Then he'd spun right out and headed back to the
bridge. Jumbo and Janet had come into the kitchen, giggling like
school kids, and seen the note for Sonny stuck under the phone,
but had assumed it was personal business, and left it lie. Jumbo
swept Janet off her feet and carried her up the stairs, both laughing
foolishly.
Sonny 'd parked in the Co-op lot, and rowed out to SUZY-Q. As
his pram bumped alongside, he'd called out, "Buster? You theyah.
It's me, Sonny." He didn't want to startle the ratholer, and get
a knife in the side. Buster had been awful jumpy lately, and no
telling what the beating had done to his imagination.
"That you, Loot?" Came a whisper over the rail.
"It's SONNY, Buster," he said distinctly, "Sonny. Like the guy
who owns this boat."
"Or at least acts like he does," Sonny thought. His absent wife,
SUZY-Q actually held the papers, and he hoped she didn't do anything
rash about that, in her anger.
"Oh.. uh .. yeah.. OK, Sonny," Buster said, and Sonny climbed
aboard with the painter in his hand. "We goin fishin, Skipper?"
Buster asked.
"Sorta," Sonny replied. "We got a bone to rebury."
Buster look a little better, Sonny noticed. His face was still
a symphony of black and blue, with crusted scabs here and there,
but the little man was standing upright, and seemed eager to get
with the action, whatever it was.
Sonny tied the pram to the mooring pennant which was led aft on
the starboard side from the big bow cleat. Then he put in his
key and turned on the glowplugs. While they were hotting up, he
dug out a pack of smokes and offered one to Buster. They lit up
and inhaled deeply. After a couple of minutes, Sonny hit the ignition,
and SUZY-Q stuttered into life. He ran her up until she smoothed
out to a steady idle. Sonny switched on the running lights and
the RADAR.
Buster look a question at him, and Sonny nodded yes, so Buster
jumped up on the port rail, swung around onto the narrow side-deck,
and scuttled forward to cast off the mooring. "She's away," he
called. Sonny put SUZY in gear, and rounded into the reach, headed
east.
The tide was still rising, and with the wind, so the seas were
flat in the reach. After SUZY was clear of the moored boats, Sonny
gave her the gun, and they thundered along the Smithport shore,
a glowing phantom in the fog to anyone who could see their lights.
Sumner couldn't see them where he was holed up between some big
boulders by Sawyer's Cove, but he heard SUZY go past outside.
"FIVE CENTS, FIVE CENTS this is DEUCES, you copy?" Sumner said.
"10-4 DEUCES," Nicky came back.
"Sounds like a Sunshine wagon headed east, repeat, Sunwagon headed
east." Sumner reported.
"FIVERS copy," Nicky said.
"Me too," said Sidearm. All three went back to their midnight
vigil, wondering what Sonny was chasing at this time of night.
What could it be besides a barrel of coke, and if that, why now?
Buster wasn't asking questions. He was just happy to be on the
go again, instead of hiding out in SUZY-Q's cabin. He stayed up
on the foredeck for a good long time, letting the blowing fog
soak his hair and run down his face. Buster didn't have too many
moments of peace these days, and the coke he'd snorted with Jumbo
had left him so jangled and wrung out that the voices in his head
simply wouldn't shut up. But right now, the big diesel rumbling
under him, the fog streaming past, and SUZY sashaying over the
waves, soothed him, and he could almost forget his demons. When
he climbed back onto the work deck, his eyes were bright, and
he had a twisted grin on his face.
"Keep her on this headin," Sonny said, indicating Buster should
take the wheel, and when he did the skipper walked back to the
stern and pulled a covered tub out from under the after deck.
It was his measured sacks of salt. He took one out, and a bunch
of baling twine, restowing the rest. Sonny carried the materials
up and set them on the cabin top, behind the windshield. The two
men stood silently side-by-side as the fishboat raced into the
dark. Sonny reached down and pointed to the side door on the RADAR
screen, just a blank space between too phosphorescent echoes,
and Buster changed their heading slightly, to aim straight for
the slot.
"Even if Sidearm and Sum've made a deal," Sonny thought, "It won't
do any harm to disappear the barrel for another 24. Be better
to make a transfer after the race is over, anyhow. Mebbe the wait'll
sweeten the broth."
He took over the con as they came up on the side door, and slowed
SUZY down until she was just on the step, taking a careful compass
heading for the deep hole, and switching on the big spots. But
as he got deeper into Bunker's Hole he was startled to see a hint
of lights up ahead.
"What the fuck?" he said aloud, and backed the throttle right
off. SUZY settled into her bow wave and pitched slightly as the
following wave ran under her. It WAS lights. Some damned sailboat
with her mooring lights on, sitting right on top of his stash.
"Now here's a pickle," he thought to himself, approaching the
sailboat. A yawl, he could see now. "Do you spose...?" he wondered.
Sum had said the boat they'd almost run down was a big Concordia
yawl. Sonny didn't know too much about yacht lines, but this was
a big yawl. "What odds?" he thought.
And there was his buoy. He could see it glimmering faintly in
the spotlit brilliance, maybe 25 yards off the yawl's stern. He
had a quick decision to make. Haul it and reset it under the eyes
of this boat? They'd probably never figure out what he was doing.
Take it somewhere else? Leave it lie? The odds of someone messing
with it tomorrow were pretty small.
Sonny was about to sheer off, and let sleeping dogs lie, when
someone came out of the companionway hatch on the sailboat, and
waved a cowboy hat at him, indicating he should come closer. Sonny
hesitated, not certain he wanted to show his face to these strangers,
then he shrugged and aimed to come up alongside. Buster ducked
below out of sight, acting spooked.
"Y'all fishin kinda late, ahntcha?" the cowboy asked after Sonny
had backwatered SUZY up to BALI's side, and hooked the boats together
with the gaff. Sonny saw that the big cowboy had a livid slash
across his face, still quite fresh.
"Yeh," Sonny said. Now another man, with quite a big nose, came
up from the sailboat's cabin.
"Like ships passing in the night," Big Nose declaimed.
"Y'all dint happen to see ahr dingy, did ya?" the cowboy drawled.
Sonny now noticed that the yawl didn't have any tender in evidence.
"Nope," Sonny shook his head. "You need any help?"
"No, we all raght," the cowboy said. "Got someone else heppin
us. Jes bein hopeful."
"Sorry to heah about it. I'll keep and eye and eah out," Sonny
offered. "What kinda dingy?"
The two sailors paused. " "A Whitehull?" Cyr asked, trying to
remember what Caldwell called it.
"Whitehall?" Sonny asked, wondering why these guys wouldn't know
the style of their own dingy. Or maybe he'd misheard.
"Yessuh, a purty lil Whitehall," the cowboy answered, "but a wayward
hussy."
Sonny laughed. "You got CB?" he asked.
"No, just the radiophone," Big Nose responded, hoping he'd gotten
that one right.
Sonny was even more convinced these two weren't the owners of
this BALI. Maybe someone else was asleep below. "If I hear of
it, I'll put in a call to the marine operator for you," Sonny
said. "Showah you don't need anythin?"
The two sailors shook their heads. Sonny unhooked the gaff, nodded
at the strangers, then revved up SUZY and ran her out the other
door, circling back toward Smithport.
"Something screwy there, " he thought. Maybe these were the smugglers
after all. If so, they were sitting right on top of the coke,
and didn't have a clue. Sonny laughed aloud.
"Ain't life a caution?" he said to himself.