Wolf Point (13 page)

“I was only—” T started to explain himself but stopped abruptly when he realized what he was doing. “I never as
much as dreamed it,” he said calmly. “All through the trial, it was a mystery. It never even occurred to me.”

“All the years you took,” she said. “I was nothing to you. None of us were.” She drew a quick, sharp breath. “I’m not sorry. I’d do it again.”

T opened the kitchen door and then walked away from it, indicating that she should leave.

At the door, Alicia regained her composure. “It was wrong,” she said, “but I’d do it again, to get away from you, to make a new start.” She added, just before she turned to leave, “And you
did
download that picture.”

T couldn’t look at her. He went into the living room with his glass of wine. He was sipping it and staring at the wall when he heard her drive away.

The sound of running water came from the bathroom in the cabin, and T pushed himself up to his feet. He looked out the bedroom window to the river, where the sun was shining brightly now on water that was calm and blue. It was heating up outside, turning into a gorgeous summery fall day. T took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, shaking off the weight of memory, and then left the cabin and started down the embankment to the river.

Lester pushed the boat out into the water and then nearly capsized it when he jumped in. It was sunny and hot, and he had taken off his jeans and boots in order to keep them dry while he waded among the rocks untying the bow and stern
lines from a pair of submerged anchors. T had watched him do this, interested in the proprietary manner with which he approached the boat in particular and the whole fishing outing in general. As the boat drifted away from the rocks with T sitting quietly in the bow, Lester pulled himself up from his knees, where he had landed awkwardly, grabbing at both gunwales to steady the boat. He took a seat by the outboard and went about pulling on his pants. T was finding it hard not to look at his black bikini underwear, the crotch of which pictured the striped head of a roaring tiger.

“One of the girls gave them to me,” Lester said as he stood to zip up.

“The girls?”

Lester looked as though he thought about explaining for a brief second and then decided against it. He handed T a fishing pole. “You know how to fish?”

“I used to fish right here,” T said, taking the pole. “I lived in Syracuse and we’d come out here to go fishing.”

“No kidding? Right here? This very spot?”

“It’s possible. It was a long time ago.”

“So you can tie your hook on, and bait and cast and all that stuff?” Lester placed a battered tackle box on the center thwart, between them. “Guy loaned us this,” he said, referring to the tackle box. “Look at all this shit.”

The box opened to reveal three tiers divided into a dozen compartments, each containing an assortment of lures, hooks, and various colorful tackle. Lester picked up a sparkling red plastic worm and observed it for a second. “How are you supposed
to catch anything with this?” he said. “Where’s the hook?”

“Rubber worm,” T said. He found the appropriate hook and threaded it through another worm, a purple one. He held it up for Lester to see.

Lester spit over the side of the boat. “We never used fake worms,” he said. “They any good?”

“I seem to remember they were pretty good,” T said. “Let’s see.” He tied his line to the hook, fastened a pair of split weights toward the end of the line, and tossed it into the water.

They both watched and listened as black line spooled off the reel.

“We mostly just used bait and a few artificial lures,” Lester said, his eyes fastened to the fishing line where it disappeared into the water. “My dad used to take me all the time when I was little. We’d go to the lake mostly. We’d catch bream.”

“Never heard of bream,” T said. He flipped the bail arm back on the reel as he felt the weights hit bottom. “What kind of fish are they?”

“Fish fish,” Lester said. “I don’t know.” He went about tying a clip to his line and putting on a small silver spoon.

The boat drifted slowly, parallel to the shore. T watched the red cabins slide past as they came up on cabin 6. The bright brass number nailed to the back door caught the sunlight and gleamed.

“We used to have a cabin on the lake,” Lester said dreamily. He leaned back and expertly cast his spoon out toward the center of the river and then reeled the line back in slowly,
moving the tip of the pole occasionally to change the action of the spoon.

“You look like you know what you’re doing.”

“Like I said…” He pulled in the spoon and then cast it out again. “I always liked fishing with lures. My dad was strictly a hook-and-worm fisherman. That and a trotline. Man loved to run a trotline out behind the cabin, drink beer all night, and get up in the morning to see what he caught.”

T could feel the weights on the end of his line bumping along the bottom. They caught on something, providing him a surprising jolt of adrenaline before he recognized the constant pull as a snag. He jerked the pole slightly and it came loose. The jolt was surprising because he didn’t imagine that he gave a damn about catching a fish. In fact, he hoped he didn’t, as he had no desire to go through the slimy process of pulling his hook out of a fish’s mouth. “So a trotline’s what?” he said. “Like a net?”

Lester laughed and said, “You are not a Southern boy. A trotline’s a bunch of plastic milk jugs or soda bottles or whatnot tied together with a rope, and the bottles have hooks and lines tied off them.”

“Where’s the sport in that?”

Lester shrugged. “Don’t know about sport. My daddy loved to go out there in the morning, though; see what he caught.”

“He doesn’t anymore?”

“Died of a heart attack when I was in middle school.”

“Sorry to hear that.”

“Been a long time.” Lester reeled the spoon in, unclipped it, and searched through the tackle box for another lure.

“You sure that outboard works?” T asked. “I’d hate to have to row back to the cabin.”

“It’ll work,” Lester said, preoccupied with examining the various bright-colored jigs and spoons and fish lures. “Besides,” he added, “I’d do the rowing.” He looked up from the tackle box. “I’m the young man here.”

“I’m hardly decrepit.”

“No. But you are old.” He picked out a marmalade-orange diving fish and clipped it to his line. “It kind of pisses me off,” he said, holding the fish in one hand and the pole in the other, hesitating before casting. “It kind of pisses me off that you get the girl.”

“Is that what happened?” T said. “Did I get the girl?”

“Look like it to me.” He cast the lure out behind him, toward the rocks on the shore. “You’re older than my father would be if he were alive,” he said. Then he added, “We’re drifting nice. We should catch something.” He pulled the lure back in and then cast it out again. He nodded toward T’s fishing pole. “Ain’t it kind of boring, just letting your line drag in the water like that?”

“I’m okay,” T said. “It’s the way old guys like to fish.”

Lester grinned and gave the tip of his pole a jerk.

T said, “I’m actually more interested in hearing what you have to say than I am in fishing.”

“Say about what?” Lester asked. “About you?”

“About what you want,” T said. “About what we’re doing here.”

Lester spit over the side of the boat again. “You want to get right down to business, huh? You don’t want to fish a little bit? Relax?”

“We’re fishing,” T said. “Tell me what happened with the drugs.”

“With the coke?”

“I thought Jenny said speed.”

“Crank?” Lester said. “What did she say?”

“Why don’t you just tell me?”

Lester pulled back slowly on his fishing line, as if testing the feel of the lure. “If you get a bite,” he said, “you need to jerk the tip hard, set the hook.”

T nodded and watched, waiting for Lester to get around to the story.

“Basically, I screwed up,” he said. “Guy I share a house with, named Lyle, hooked up another guy, named Short Willie, with some college kids from UT who were selling what was supposed to be, I don’t know, some kind of supercrank, or some such shit like that.”

T said, “The guy’s name is Short Willie? Are you putting me on?”

Lester looked perplexed for a moment. On the shore, near the rocks, a blue heron waded in the water. The boat drifted out farther from the shoreline. “His name’s Willie,” Lester said, “and he’s only maybe five four, five five. But he’s built
like a tank, and he even thought you were thinking what you’re thinking about his name, you’d wind up buried someplace in the Smokies, along with a lot of other guys.”

“Really? He’s that bad, huh?”

“Shut the fuck up and listen. Okay? Tom? Aloysius?”

T put his fishing pole down, wedging the butt under the rowing thwart. He crossed his arms.

Lester tossed his lure toward the shoreline angrily, let it sink a moment, and then began reeling it in. “The money was in the house, forty thousand, sitting there in a cardboard box. I set up a deal with some Mexicans to buy coke with the forty, and then I was going to sell it to this rich asshole I know for almost twice that. Guy’s name’s Walter Lyse. His family owns half of Chattanooga.”

“And the Mexicans ripped you off.”

“I had good reason to believe they were trustworthy,” Lester said, pulling the lure in and snapping it out again with a flick of his wrist. “Walter I’ve been dealing drugs to since I was in grade school. The whole thing should have been over in less than an hour, the money back in the box; I’m about thirty thousand dollars richer.”

“What happened with the Mexicans?” T said. “Describe it to me. Where did you meet them? What did the place look like? How’d they rip you off? Did they have guns? How many of them were there?”

“Fuck,” Lester said. “You think I could make this shit up? I met them at the Super 8 off I-24. Ordinary motel room with a television hidden inside a dresser across from a king-size bed
and a little round table by a window and pictures of trains on the wall, if I remember right. I walked in, said something brilliant like, “Hey, dudes.” There were three guys in the room, two sitting facing me on the bed, one of the guys on the bed with a blue do-rag, the other guy bald. I’d guess they were all three of them in their thirties. The one who opened the door for me—I had the money under my arm in a shoebox—looks out into the hall, doesn’t even close the door. He puts a knife to my throat, takes the box. On the way out the door, the bald guy kicks me in the balls so hard I swear to God I go blind for a minute. While I’m on the ground moaning, one of them frisks me, and that’s it. By the time I can stand up, they’re gone.”

T picked up his pole again and began taking in line. Behind him, the first cabin was slipping away.

Lester said, “You’re looking doubtful, T. You’re looking like you don’t believe me. What do you want me to do? Describe their tattoos? Fine. The guy with the knife—”

“What I’m finding hard to believe,” T interrupted, “is that you’d go into such a thing with no protection. No guns. Nobody with you. That’s not how it is in the movies. Plus, the huge discrepancy in what you’re buying it for and selling it for. These things, they don’t—”

“I told you, I screwed up.” He pulled in his line and turned to look at the outboard as if he were considering firing it up. “Still,” he added, “I had reason to believe I’d have no problem with the Mexicans. And I don’t carry a gun. People that carry guns get shot. I couldn’t bring anybody else into it
because if it ever got back to Willie, I’d be dead. And also, I was greedy and didn’t think I needed anybody else. So. That’s what happened.”

“All right,” T said. “Tell me one more thing.”

“We’re heading out toward the middle,” Lester said. He looked back and forth quickly from the shore to a big island in the middle of the river. “What do you think? We weren’t having any luck along the shore…”

“Why not?” T said. “Just keep your eyes out for the big ships. They can sneak up on you.”

Lester shrugged and turned his attention to the tackle box, picking up and examining a silver jig with a blue feather.

“How did you know the Mexicans?” T said. “Just explain that to me, and then we can drop it. How did you know these Mexicans? Where did you meet them? Why did you think there’d be no trouble?”

Lester didn’t answer for a second. He seemed to flush slightly.

“Because,” T pressed, “
Mexicans
—it’s awfully generic, don’t you think?”

“Look,” Lester said, “it’s what happened. I didn’t know them. I knew of them. From some guys I know. Guys connected with my dancers.”

“Guys you know…” T said. He felt his fishing line come up off the bottom as they moved out into the deeper water, and he flipped the bail to let it play out again. “Listen,” he said, “so? What? What is it you’d like me to do?”

“You can loan us the money to pay back Short Willie.” Lester dropped the silver jig over the side of the boat and watched it in silence a moment as the blue feather disappeared into the depths. “I mean,” he continued, “I’m not going to bullshit you and say we have any idea when or how we can pay you back, or anything like that. We’re both fucked for money right now. But, you know, at some point, when things turn around in my life—”

The current was picking up as they moved farther from the shore. T looked away from Lester and watched the line of cabins grow smaller. “So I’d give you a check for forty thousand dollars,” he said, “and you’d, what, go find this Short Willie and give him his money back? You and Jenny would take the money and go back to Chattanooga?”

“Checks don’t work in my world,” Lester said. “You’d need to get us the cash.”

“So, cash,” T said. “You take the cash and you and Jenny’d go back to Tennessee?”

“We’d have to get the money back to Willie somehow. We’d make some kind of deal, I guess.” Lester’s expression turned genuinely worried as he apparently considered how to give the money back. “Fuck knows what’s happened to Lyle,” he said. “He didn’t have anything to do with my shit, but— If Lyle’s still around, we might could go through him.”

“To get the money back to Short Willie?”

“If Lyle’s not rotting in the Smokies somewhere.”