Patterson gave a heavy sigh. “So what do I do now?”
The question threw Henry completely. Patterson was the handler—he made the plans and called the shots. Patterson was supposed to tell him what to do, not the other way around.
Henry spread his hands and shrugged. “Wish me well?”
CHAPTER 4
There were bigger, fancier, more powerful boats moored at the Buttermilk Sound marina but as far as Henry was concerned, none of them was as classy as the Ella Mae.
Made in 1959, she was one of the smallest vessels at the marina, but her hull was polished wood. In Henry’s opinion, this put her several levels above the fiberglass bath toys anchored here, no matter how big or fancy or expensive they were. Her wood hull meant she was higher maintenance, too, but in Henry’s experience, that was true of anything worth having.
Henry steered Ella Mae over to the dock with the fuel pumps and filled the tank. When he was finished, he straightened his Phillies cap and headed for the booth in front of the marina office. To his surprise, there was someone new on duty today, a pleasant, smiling woman, dark-haired, pink-cheeked, and heart-wrenchingly young, wearing a Buttermilk Sound polo shirt. She removed her earbuds as he approached.
“Good morning!” she said in a cheerful, sincere voice that made Henry think she actually believed that.
“Hey,” Henry replied. “What happened to Jerry?”
“Retired.” She beamed. “He couldn’t take any more of this bustling place. I’m Danny.”
“Henry.” He wasn’t sure he’d ever been this young, even when he’d been this young. “I owe you $23.46.”
“So what are you fishing for?” Her eyes widened as he handed her a hundred dollar bill.
“Peace and quiet. And mackerel.”
She kept smiling as she made change. “So I guess you’ll be heading to Beecher’s Point?”
Jerry had never been so nosy. Maybe she thought getting acquainted was part of good customer service. “Is that what you’d recommend?” he asked, a bit archly.
“Seems like a nice enough day for it,” she said.
Before Henry could respond, a bee flew past him. Reflexively, he took off his hat and snapped it sharply, catching the bee in mid-buzz. It fell to the deck.
“Wow,” Danny said as she got up to peer over the counter at the dead insect. “Not much of a live-and-letlive guy, I take it?”
“I’m deathly allergic to bees,” Henry told her. “So, are you a student? Or just a fish-whisperer?” He jerked his chin at the textbook on the counter; the cover photo was one of those arty shots that made jellyfish look ethereally beautiful.
“Working my way through grad school,” she said. “Marine biology.”
“UGA, Darien?” he asked.
She made a small fist-pump. “Go Dogs.”
“Well, be careful,” Henry chuckled. “There are some dogs on these docks, too.”
“Nothing I can’t handle,” she assured him, her voice brisk, as she put her earbuds back in. Henry loped back to the Ella Mae, feeling like a prize fool. There are some dogs on these docks, too—what the hell was that? If he was going to go around giving fatherly advice to young women, he should get some felt slippers, a cardigan with leather elbow patches, and a goddam pipe. Maybe he’d better run back and tell her to look both ways before crossing the street on her way home. She might need the reminder, being so young and all.
He glanced at his watch. Nope, there wasn’t any more time for making a fool of himself; he had somewhere to be.
An hour or so of solitude listening to Thelonious Monk while the Ella Mae swayed on the calm water smoothed out Henry’s disposition considerably. Out here there was no age or retirement, no missed shots or saying dumb-ass shit to pretty young women at the marina office. Just the hard-salt cool air, the ever-so-gentle rocking motion of the boat, and the unique sound of Monk at the piano. The way Monk played, you didn’t just hear the music, you felt it. The man attacked the keys, producing something that was more than music—music-plus. Only Monk could do it.
Out here, Henry was able to relax in a way he never could on land. He didn’t care to be in the water at all, not one little bit. Being on the water, however—that was a whole ’nother story; Henry thought it had to be as close to heaven as a living person could get. He pulled his Phillies cap down low and let himself fall into a light doze—or what he thought was a light doze. When he heard the sound of engines approaching and sat up, he saw the sun had climbed a little higher in the sky.
The engine noise grew louder, a deep, full sound; something big was in the vicinity. Henry leaned over the starboard side of the Ella Mae and splashed his face with seawater to wake himself up. As he turned to reach for a small towel on the passenger seat, he saw the yacht coming toward him on the port side.
Henry recognized the make if not the exact model of the craft. It was favored by millionaires who were blessed with a sense of style as well as money. The small, canopied upper deck where the helm was located was just large enough to accommodate the pilot and a companion. Some pilots, however, preferred to have the helm all to themselves, like the man Henry could see up there now, throttling down the engines. He maneuvered the vessel alongside the Ella Mae, making it bob around like a cork on an incoming tide.
The man cut the engines and smiled down at Henry. Henry recognized him even though he hadn’t seen him in over two decades and grinned back at him.
The lower deck of the Scratched Eight was downright elegant; wide, cushioned seating ran along the polished wood walls on either side, drawing Henry’s eyes to the wet bar, which was also polished wood. The bar seemed to preside over everything; next to it on the starboard side, a set of stairs spiraled down below deck. Henry thought it looked like a mansion that had been converted into an ocean-going home-away-from-home. For all he knew, it could be—it was the sort of thing Jack Willis would do.
Jack looked every bit the lord of the floating manor in an open white shirt, floral board shorts, and boat shoes. While the years hadn’t been as unkind to him as they’d been to others Henry knew, Jack had definitely aged. He was still as quick to smile as he’d been back in the day but the lines around his eyes were from worry, not laughter. His jawline had softened and he was thicker through the middle but he hadn’t lost all his muscle; he moved with the unconscious, easy physicality of a man who hadn’t spent most of his life sitting down.
Henry felt a surge of awkward self-consciousness and wasn’t sure why. Jack had the same green spade on his wrist, so it wasn’t like either of them had to pretend with each other. Maybe it was knowing Jack would also be taking note of how he’d changed over the years.
He had been astonished when he’d answered the phone the night before and heard Jack’s voice on the other end. He had disappeared from Henry’s radar when he had decided to go into business in the private sector. Jack had wanted him to come along but Henry had declined. Every now and then, Jack would send him a postcard, usually of some gorgeous beach resort with a short message scrawled on the back: Wish you were here—don’t you? Sure you won’t reconsider?
After a while the postcards stopped coming and Henry figured Jack had finally decided to take no for an answer. The last thing he had expected was a phone call with a request to meet. Not that he’d been unhappy about it—as soon as Jack had given him the coordinates he had been looking forward to seeing him again. And now all of a sudden he was like some clueless boot who didn’t know what to do with his hands or where to look.