I thought of offering him Dad's fishing skiff, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. It was a cool little boat.
“Let me talk to my father,” I said.
“You do that.”
“Will you at least promise to think about it?”
“You listen here,” Lice Peeking said. “What do I care about baby sea turtles? I got my own daily survival to worry about.”
He pointed to the door and followed me out. I was halfway down the steps of the trailer before I got up the nerve to ask one more question.
“How come you don't work for Mr. Muleman anymore?”
“Because he fired me,” Lice Peeking said. “Didn't your old man tell you?”
“No, sir, he didn't.”
To keep from wobbling, Lice Peeking braced himself with both arms in the doorway. His face was pasty in the sunlight, and his eyes were glassy and dim. He looked like a sick old iguana, yet according to my dad, he was only twenty-nine. It was hard to believe.
“Ain't you gonna ask why I got canned?” he said. “It was for stealin'.”
“Did you do it?”
“Yep, I sure did.”
“How much?” I asked.
Lice Peeking grinned. “It wasn't money I stole from Dusty,” he said. “It was Shelly.”
“Oh.”
“What can I say? I needed a lady with a big heart and a valid driver's license.”
I said, “I'll be back after I see my father.”
“Whatever,” said Lice Peeking. “I'm gonna hunt down a beer.”
My mother says that being married to my father is like having another child to watch after, one who's too big and unpredictable to put in time-out. Sometimes, when Mom and Dad are arguing, she threatens to pack up our stuff and take me and Abbey out of the Keys to “go start a normal life.” I think my mother loves my dad but she just can't understand him. Abbey says Mom understands him perfectly fine, but she just can't figure out how to fix him.
When I got back from the trailer park, my mother was in the kitchen chopping up onions. That's how I knew she'd been crying. Nobody in our family likes onions, and the only time Mom ever fixes them is when she's upset. That way she can tell Abbey and me that it's only the onions making her eyes water.
I knew she'd been to the jail, so I asked, “How's Dad?”
My mother didn't look up. “Oh, he's just dandy,” she said.
“Is there any news?”
“What do you mean, Noah?”
“About when he's getting out.”
“Well, that's entirely up to him,” Mom said. “I've offered to put up his bail, but apparently he'd rather sit alone in a cramped, roach-infested cell than be home with his family. Maybe the lawyer can talk some sense into him.”
Of course I couldn't tell her what my father had asked me to do. She would've raced back to the jail, reached through the bars, and throttled him.
“Think they'll let me visit him again?” I asked.
“I don't see why not. It isn't as if his social schedule is all booked up.”
From the tone of her voice I knew she was highly irritated with my father.
“I spoke to your Aunt Sandy and your Uncle Del,” she said. “They offered to call him in jail and try to talk some sense into him, but I told them not to bother.”
Aunt Sandy and Uncle Del are Dad's older sister and brother. They live in Miami Beach-Sandy in a high-rise condominium with a gym on the top floor, and Del in a nice house with a tennis court in the backyard. This is a sensitive subject at our home.
Several years after my grandfather disappeared in South America, a large amount of money was discovered in a safe-deposit box that he'd kept at a bank up in Hallandale. Nobody ever told Abbey or me exactly how much was there, but it must have been a lot. I remember Dad talking about it with my mother, who always wondered how a charter-boat captain could afford to put away so much cash. She had a point, too-nobody we knew ever got rich in the fishing business.
Anyway, Grandpa Bobby had left instructions that the money was to be split evenly among Sandy, Del, and my father, but Dad wouldn't take a nickel. My mother didn't argue about it, either, which made me think there must have been a good reason for steering clear of that cash. Aunt Sandy and Uncle Del were more than happy to take Dad's share, and they've been living the high life ever since.
“They wanted to send some hotshot Miami lawyer down to handle his case,” Mom said, “but I told them it wasn't necessary.”
“You're right. It's not such a big deal.”
“That's not what I said, Noah. It is a big deal.” She scraped the chopped onion bits into a bowl, which she covered with plastic wrap and placed in the refrigerator. Later, when she was alone in the kitchen, she would empty the whole thing into the garbage.
“I'm at the end of my rope with your father,” she said.
“Mom, everything's going to work out.”
“You children need to have food on the table! The mortgage needs to be paid!” she went on angrily. “Meanwhile he's sitting in jail, talking about fighting for his principles. He wants to be a martyr, Noah, that's fine-but not at the expense of this family. I won't stand for it!”
“Mom, I know it's a rough time-” I said, but she cut me off with a wave of her hand.
“Go clean up your room,” she said. “Please.”
Abbey was waiting at the top of the stairs. She put a finger to her lips and led me down the hall to my parents' bedroom. She cracked open the door and pointed.
There, lying open on the bed, was my mother's suitcase. Not her vacation suitcase, either, but the big plaid one.
“Uh-oh,” I said in a whisper.
Abbey nodded gravely. “She's serious this time, Noah. We've got to do something.”
THREE
By the time they let me visit my father again, the Coral Queen had been pumped dry, mopped clean, and refitted with new gambling equipment. I was hoping Dad wouldn't ask about it, but he did.
“No way!” he exclaimed when I told him that Dusty Muleman was back in action.
“They must've had twenty guys working on that boat,” I said.
My father was crushed. “I should've taken it out and sunk it in Hawk's Channel,” he muttered, “or the Gulf Stream.”
Luckily we were alone in the interview room. I assumed that my father had convinced the big jowly deputy-and probably everyone else at the jail-that he was harmless and fairly normal. He was good at that.
“Mom heard you might get transferred to the stockade in Key West,” I said.
“Not anymore,” Dad reported in a confidential tone. “The lieutenant here likes me. I'm teaching him how to play chess.”
“You play chess?”
“Shhhh,” my father said. “He thinks I do. Hey, how's Abbey?”
“All right,” I said.
“Tell her to hang in there, Noah.”
“She says you need professional help.”
Dad sat back and chortled. “That's our girl. Did you go see Lice Peeking?”
I described my visit to the trailer park. My father wasn't surprised that Lice turned down the old truck and wanted money in exchange for providing evidence against Dusty Muleman.
“Dad, how are we going to pay him when…”
“When we're flat broke? Excellent question,” my father said. “See if Lice will take my bonefish skiff. It's worth ten or twelve grand at least.”
Secretly I'd been hoping that one day Dad would give me that boat. It was an original Hell's Bay with a sixty-horse Merc, a really sweet ride. Sometimes, late in the afternoon, my father would take me and Abbey out fishing. Even if the snappers weren't biting, we'd stay until sunset, hoping to see the green flash on the horizon. The flash was kind of a legend in the Keys-some people believed in it and some didn't. Dad claimed that he'd actually witnessed it once, on a cruise to Fort Jefferson. For our fishing expeditions either Abbey or I always brought a camera, just in case. We had a stack of pretty sunset pictures, but no green flash.
“You sure you want to give away the skiff?” I asked.