The fisherman, sitting nearby, told himself that rich guy had about seven and one-eighth seconds to make things right, because Bertha would pretty quick start to flame. The fisherman actually made a bet with himself and checked his watch. Then he noticed general movement toward the door. The outdoors guys, the fishermen and loggers and linemen, the men who understood weather, were bundling their ladies out and into the night… except it wasn’t night yet, it wasn’t even mid-afternoon.
“If you ever need a job,” rich guy told Petey, “look me up.” Rich guy, though totally ticked, could not control his admiration. “So what’s it gonna cost?”
“I’m gonna miss this joint.” Petey watched the rapidly thinning crowd, saw players bent over pool tables, saw butterflies perched on the bandstand and looking absolutely smashing from a distance. He saw a cluster of rich guys pretending to pay close attention to the pool tables. He saw hookers jiving a couple of uneasy loggers, and he saw hustlers packing up their cues; because hustlers may not know a lot about weather, but they know when a hustle is busted. “I been thinking,” Petey told Bertha. “There’s a nice joint for sale in Tacoma.”
Bertha looked the place over, looked at Petey with all kinds of personal questions, stuff that couldn’t be asked except in private. “Why?” She looked at her bar like a thing already lost, her voice puzzled and sad.
It turned into the greatest moment of Petey’s life. Probably. “It’s time to cash out,” he said gently. “I don’t mean to tell you what to do, and there’s stuff we’ve got to talk over.” He paused. “This running the road gets to a guy. Being dead is a pain, but it was a cover for the hustle. These guys bought hustlers, but they couldn’t buy me. I had to fix it where I wasn’t a threat.” He looked at rich guy, then back at Bertha. “He and his buddies own half the real estate for miles around. They own absolutely everything for three miles around you. They’re putting in another housing project, plus they’re buying the legislature. It’s a matter-a-time until the road gets widened, and that much road construction means tons and tons of money. More than we would ever need… “ he paused, blushed all the way from his hairline to his bald spot, because that “we” had slipped out. “…not worth the hassle,” he muttered. “Take the money and run.”
Bertha caught her breath, sharp, caught it again. That “we” had gotten to her. That “we,” right here in the middle of a pool tournament, in front of lots of people; that “we” had come out in public when it couldn’t be said in private. Bertha tried to remain normal. “How much?”
“More than enough. Enough for two joints, if needed.” Petey reached in his jacket pocket and pulled out papers. “You can argue duress,” he told rich guy, “but you’d have to do it in court which means it would be public.” Petey laid papers in front of rich guy. “Take your time. Talk to your boys. If you try to leave, the hookers will get affectionate.” Petey actually touched the back of Bertha’s hand. “Dirty pool,” he said, “but not as dirty as what they tried to pull.” To rich guy he said, “A lawyer wrote that up. The promissory note is for thirteen thou. The other is a binding offer.”
The guy looked it over. Whistled. “It’s steep,” he said calmly, “but do-able.” He looked at Bertha. “You want to sell?”
Bertha, who had already forgotten pool tournaments, bar worries, wrecks, troubled friends, and a dead or dying cop, nodded. Bertha planned a wedding and a move to Tacoma.
“I’ll be double-durn,” the tow truck kid said, “it’s the bust that turned into ice cream.” He touched the fisherman’s shoulder. “I’m outta here. You want a lift?”
The fisherman, who had nowhere to go, and who could not protect those he loved, looked at a joint now stripped of hustlers, outdoor guys, their ladies; stripped of just about everyone except butterflies and hookers and rich guys, plus a couple bartenders and, a ‘course Petey and Bertha who, it appeared, would soon be left alone.
“Sure,” he said to the kid. “You’re headed for Olympia. Let’s go there.”
Storm Surge
Until the kid turned it off, radio yammered breathless. The subject was a zone of weather hovering midpoint along the Canal. The radio guy made bad jokes, sparked and fizzed, then phoned National Weather Service. The lady at weather service came up with a big, “Don’t know?” but that was okay. The radio guy didn’t listen. Neither did the tow truck kid. He had his hands full.
By the time the Dodge rolled a half-mile south of Beer and Bait the road went black as the sky. Wind crashed and young cedars bent nearly flat while the tops blew out of young fir. The fisherman thought of the sea and told himself he had seen brighter midnights. Rain pulled power from darkness, and speed dropped to ten m.p.h. as the truck rocked and tried to blow sideways beneath the wail of wind. Wipers slowed under overflooding rain. Above barnyards, mercury lights peeked through darkness. They were tiny spots of blue in an eternity of night and rain. Occasionally an oncoming truck crept past, headlights blue and steaming. Headlights of the Dodge turned the roadway into a blue path between gray shoulders that lay like shrouds. Water crashed and tumbled in the ditches, rose, washed across the road, gnawed at the roadbed.
Twice the kid had to pull over. Twice the kid turned off the lights to avoid a rear-ender. The first time the kid had to pull over because windshields went solid with rain. The second time he pulled over, fisherman and kid looked at each other, showed commendable calm in the middle of fear.
“I gotta stop. We weigh too much. The back end is rocking, front end is lighter.” The kid kept his head, even if no one, nowhere, had ever been in rain so great a pickup bed filled too quick to drain. This was not land-based stuff. This kind of stuff happened on open ocean.
“Don’t do it,” the fisherman said. “Wait it out.”
“I gotta.”
“Then don’t get on the lee side. You’ll get blown away. Take my word.” The fisherman felt the weight of age, the weight of helplessness.
“I gotta do it.” Before he bailed from the cab the kid set the heater on high. When he jumped from the cab to let down the tailgate, the voice of storm screamed the high-pitched wail of Banshee, or even greater, a scream of Fury. The fisherman knew from the sound, more than the feel, that wind made up to sixty-five or seventy out there; and hurricane force is seventy-five.
The rear end of the truck lightened as the bed drained. The kid had pulled it off. When he jumped back into the cab, water flowed from him. The fisherman shrugged from his jacket as the kid stripped to the waist, and the heater blew like a champ. The kid huddled into the dry jacket. “Cold,” he chattered. “Cold as a well digger’s hindey.”
Only once before, and that at sea, had the fisherman seen lightning in the middle of a snowstorm. As they pulled back onto the road, rain turned to blown snow, nigh thick as a New England blizzard. Snow hit the wet roadway and turned to ice. Lightning crashed above the snow, blue, blue, wickering as wind dropped to fifty knots, then forty. When thunder boomed, the pickup recoiled from shock. Snow crossed the road, piled in the forest, and the Dodge crept across ice like a truck on tiptoe.
The fisherman figured that in thirty minutes they had come under two miles. He figured, if the kid could hold on, they would drive out of the mess further south. The fisherman mourned his failings, and wondered if he should not be headed in the other direction; headed back toward Annie. Then he told himself this whole business really did run on rails. He just couldn’t figure who had laid the track.