“Wanna bet?”
The fish fought hard, dogging back and forth across the flats. It made several more zippy runs-one between my ankles-before I was able to steer it to the beach.
My grandfather was right. It wasn't a jack. It was a fat pink snapper. Triumphantly he pointed at the black telltale spot on its side. “That's a muttonfish, Noah!”
“Sweet,” I said. It was the best snapper I'd ever caught. “How big do you think it is?”
He smiled. “How big do you want it to be?”
“Just the truth,” I told him.
“The truth? Six pounds,” he said, “but that's still one helluva catch on a bucktail jig from a shoreline.”
I held the fish still while Grandpa Bobby unhooked it. You have to be super careful because snappers can bite through a human finger, no problem.
“Noah, you hungry? I'm not.”
“Me neither.”
“Good,” said Grandpa Bobby.
He nudged the fish back into the water. It kicked its tail and tore off.
“Must be some kind of mystic Underwood karma,” he said. “This looks like the very same spot where I caught that nice mutton with your daddy, gotta be twenty-five, thirty years ago.”
“How big was yours again?” I knew it was either fourteen or fifteen pounds, depending on who was telling the story. I was curious to hear which version Grandpa Bobby was in the mood for.
He said, “Your daddy recalls it as fourteen on the button, and his memory's likely better than mine.”
“Still a beast.”
“Yeah, but you got your whole life to catch one bigger. You'll do it, too, there's no doubt in my mind.”
“Because of the karma?”
“Somethin' like that,” he said. “You done fishin'?”
“I think so.”
“Me too.”
We put down our rods and sat on the sand. With the change of tide a breeze had kicked up, blowing in from the direction of the lighthouse. We could see two tankers and a cruise ship, all northbound in the Gulf Stream.
Another loggerhead turtle surfaced in the chop off the beach. It was twice as big and crusty as the one I'd seen with Abbey and Shelly. This time, though, I didn't need to jump in and scare it away.
Today the water looked perfect, the way it was a million years ago, before people started using the ocean as a latrine. Today it was awesomely pure and bright, and totally safe for an old loggerhead to browse the grassy flats. Chow down. Chill out. Take a snooze.
“Don't be surprised,” Grandpa Bobby said, “if one sunny day you're swimmin' here at the beach-or maybe just takin' a stroll with some girl-when a certain magnificent forty-six-footer comes haulin' ass over that pearly blue horizon, yours truly up in the tuna tower.”
The thing was, I could picture the moment perfectly in my mind. All I had to do was close my eyes, and there was Robert Lee Underwood streaking across the waves in the Amanda Rose.
“Now, Noah, I'm not tellin' you to sit around and wait for me. That would be downright pathetic.” He laughed and chucked my arm. “All I'm sayin' is, don't be surprised when the day comes.”
“I won't,” I said. “Not even a little bit.”
TWENTY
The summer ended quietly, and that was fine with me. Rado came back from Colorado with an infected cactus needle in his chin, and Thom came back from North Carolina with spider bites in both armpits. I didn't have any gross wounds to show off, but I had the story of Operation Royal Flush to tell, which made both my friends wish they'd been here to help.
A few days after school started, a check for a thousand dollars arrived in the mail at our house. The check was made out to my father, who thought it was a mistake. It wasn't.
The Florida Keys are a national marine sanctuary, which means that the islands are supposedly protected by special laws against pollution, poaching, and other man-made damage. The sanctuary program offers cash rewards to anybody who calls in tips about serious environmental crimes.
Dad's reward was one thousand dollars.
“But I wasn't the one who phoned in about the gambling boat,” he told a man at the sanctuary office.
“Then it was somebody using your name and phone number,” the man said. “If I were you, Mr. Underwood, I'd keep the money and forget about it.”
I purposely hadn't told my father that it was me who called the Coast Guard on Dusty Muleman the morning after we'd flushed the dye. If Dad had known, he would have insisted that me and Abbey keep the reward.
We figured he could use the money to cover some of the damage caused to the casino boat when he sunk it. Dad still had to repay Dusty, even though Dusty had been busted.
So I felt pretty good seeing that check on the kitchen counter. It was a thousand bucks that didn't have to come out of my father's pocket.
Before long my sister and I were so caught up with school that neither of us thought much about the Coral Queen, or about what might happen to Dusty Muleman. We just assumed that the government would put him out of business-after all, he'd been caught cold, dumping hundreds of gallons of poop into protected state waters. It was one of the worst cases ever documented in Monroe County, according to the Island Examiner.
Meanwhile, something good was in the works. A bunch of the other fishing guides had written to the Coast Guard, saying Dad ought to be given one more chance with his captain's license. And to almost everyone's surprise, the Coast Guard agreed-but only if Dad finished his anger-control therapy and got a letter saying he was all better.
It was sweet news for our family. Although my father was making good money at Tropical Rescue, his patience for numskull behavior was running out. Almost every night he'd tell us a new horror story about some macho moron driving a go-fast boat aground and gouging a hundred-yard scar across the turtle grass.
I had a feeling it was only a matter of time before Dad towed one of those knuckleheads somewhere other than back to the dock; somewhere far away, where it would be a long, hot, miserable wait until anybody found them.
So we were really amped to know that Dad would soon be back in his skiff, guiding for bonefish and tarpon and snook. Almost overnight he seemed happy again, nearly as happy as when Grandpa Bobby had been here. Mom promised to take everybody out for stone crabs to celebrate when the big day arrived.
But less than a month before the Coast Guard was due to return Dad's license, more trouble kicked up. I came home from school and found a large splintered hole in the center of our front door. There was another hole in the kitchen door, and still another in the door of the hallway bathroom.
It was impossible not to notice that each of the holes was about the same size as my father's fist.
Mom looked frazzled when she came down the hall.
“What happened?” I asked.
She shook her head somberly. “Your dad got some bad news.”
My knees started to buckle-I was afraid something terrible had happened to Grandpa Bobby.
“It's about Dusty Muleman,” my mother said. “His lawyers worked out some sweetheart deal with the government. He's reopening the Coral Queen tonight, throwing a big party for the whole town…”
I should've been ticked off, too, but at that moment I was more worried about Dad.
“Mom, tell me he didn't use his bare hands on the doors.”
“Oh yes, indeed.”
Just thinking about it was painful. I said, “Who's teaching those anger-control classes-Mike Tyson?”
“It's certainly a setback,” my mother said unhappily. “They've been counseling your dad to get rid of negative energy the moment it enters his head. Somehow I don't think this is what they had in mind.”
“How bad is it?”
Mom motioned toward their bedroom. “He's resting quietly now,” she said. “Why don't you go have a talk with him? I've got to pick up your sister from her piano lesson.”