Suddenly, with a muffled thud, a gangplank drops from the green Luhrs onto the sturdy gunwale of Moondance.
It’s a well-padded thing, surfboard-wide, with filthy carpet fragments nailed through soft foam to a long flexing beam, down which strides a black-haired woman in black cargo pants, a black windbreaker, and a handgun holstered to her hip.
She’s aboard Moondance before Casey can get to the gangplank and pitch her into the sea. He doesn’t even try, believing her comrades might just shoot him. Mae approaches the woman, mouth open and tail wagging.
Up closer, Pistol Girl looks younger and bigger than she did coming down the plank. She’s got a yellow muff around her neck, pulled up over her nose, fierce dark eyes and fair skin, black nylon pants rolled above her knees, bare feet.
She spreads her legs for balance and holds out her hand.
“Give me the phone, Stonebreaker.”
“You weren’t joking about no video,” Casey says.
“I don’t joke.”
Casey holds up his burner but doesn’t break eye contact with her. Then backhands the phone into the ocean. Laughing and hooting, the pirates empty their pistols at the doomed device. The fusillade sends geysers of whitewater into the air, and spiraling tubes of bubbles down through the blue.
Mae tries to head past him for a better look but Casey hooks a hand through her collar, falls on top of her, and pins her to the deck.
Hoots and laughter.
“Maybe you already posted,” the young woman says, squinting down at him.
“Maybe.”
“Stand up and act brave.”
He does.
Her eyes are almost black above the yellow gaiter. They study him. “I came into the Barrel bar. Not long ago. Left you a big tip.”
“Thanks so much.”
“You don’t remember.”
It’s hard for Casey to see this pirate chick in the laid-back and upscale Barrel. He orders Mae to stay, and unhooks his fingers from her collar.
“You owe me big money for that phone,” he says, exaggerating its value. Feels guilty. Casey hates to lie. Even to a shark finner.
“Maybe I’ll come to the Barrel again and pay up,” she says.
“If you do, I’ll make you a Barrel Bomber so strong they’ll have to carry you out.”
“Why?”
“Payback for torturing sharks.”
“I don’t fin. Others fin. Illegal but very profitable. I can’t talk them out of it. I fish tuna, like you do.”
She lifts the hatch of the cold well, looks at his catch, nods. Gives Casey a dark-eyed stare and drops the lid.
“I’m more in the business side of things,” she says. “Marketing and sales for King Jim Seafoods. I do the books. Graduate of UCLA. I am Bette, with an e at the end.”
“Okay.”
Gives Casey another long look. “Hmph. You think you’re superior. I know who you are, Casey Stonebreaker. From all your socials. A surf star. Big waves. Pretty in magazines. Great abs.”
He doesn’t know what to say to this.
“I’m going to reverse out of here and head home. Tell your people not to shoot me.”
“Don’t file a police report. I am serious. Maybe I’ll get you a new phone.”
“You should.”
“Zai Jian, Stonebreaker.”
Casey surfed a river mouth in China once, a promotional gig that paid him a few thousand dollars. Memorized maybe ten words.
“Zai Jian,” he says.
The crewmen and — women point their rusty weapons at Casey as Bette strides back up the gangplank.
4
In the lull before the Barrel happy hour, Casey sits at his bar with Mae at his feet, editing and posting his pirate video across all his platforms. He does a more thorough introduction right here at the bar, with his phone up on a tripod. Makes sure his hair is perfect and there’s no food between his teeth. The art directors for his advertising shoots always want that messy Casey Stonebreaker hair and the killer smile. Pecs and buns for sure. He’d rather look brooding and serious, as a daredevil big-wave rider should, but, hey, whatever pays the bills, Casey believes: Basically, he’s a happy dude, so why not smile?
He sends private messages to his friends at Shark Stewards and California Fish and Wildlife. They will make life miserable for the crew of Empress II if they can find her. Pretty big “if,” Casey knows: even Coast Guard cutters and copters can only do so much reconnaissance of a functionally infinite ocean.
The shark-finning clips are gruesome and saddening. All that pain and death of living things so men get their dicks up, Casey thinks. The CF numbers on Empress II are clear, though probably counterfeit. Hits and follows and likes are pouring in.
He also sends video to Craig Lockabie at CFW whose Special Operations Unit makes busts on Southern California’s open ocean, harbors, and marinas. They used to surf against each other in contests up and down the coast.
Craig — BOLO for nine armed, shark-finning pirates down around Desperation Reef. Throw the book at ’em, brah.
Lockabie calls right back, gets the GPU coordinates where Casey spotted Empress II, tells Casey he’ll hit Desperation Reef and the rest of San Clemente Island tomorrow. Casey hears him keyboarding in his suspect descriptions.
“We’ve heard of Empress II and the finning, Casey. You’re our second witness. Appreciate the tip.”
“They’re armed to their teeth,” says Casey, picturing the bullets zipping into the water as his phone sank into approximately a hundred and fifty feet of ocean. He’s still nervy about that. Actually, more like creeped out and jittery. Funny, he thinks now, that his first fear when the shooting started was for innocent, curious Mae.
“I’ve only got one cruiser and two patrol boats,” says Lockabie. “But we’ll do what we can.”
“Good luck, brah.”
“You might want to stay off that water until we round up these people.”
“No chance of that! The Barrel needs its catch of the day.” But even as Casey says this, he feels a tug of dread about being back on the water after having outed these pirates on his socials. His guts feel bunched up. He could borrow a gun from Brock but he hasn’t fired one since he was a boy — a BB gun.
“Casey. I have a serious question now.”
“My man.”
“How are you looking for the Monsters of Mavericks?”
“Top shape and ready. I surfed Todos Santos on that freak south last month. Forty feet but basically blown-out mush-burgers. I’ll do good at Mavericks if the waves show up.”
“And Jen and Brock?”
“Can’t speak for Brock. He’s been pretty busy saving the world. Mom’s ready, though. She’s a monster on that jet ski of hers. And her surfing looks real good.”
“She’s, what, forty?”
“Forty-six. Tons of training though. Great shape.”
A pause.
“Good luck to you all.”
“We will need waves.”
“December’s the month,” says Lockabie.
It’s another evening crush at the Barrel.
His mom is in a red sleeveless dress and white sneakers, greeting guests, checking in at tables, bustling between the kitchen and the bar and the front desk. Beyond the second-floor deck, the Pacific advances to shore in small waves that fizzle to whitewater.