Arctic Fire (13 page)

“I have to be,” Jack answered simply. “That’s just the way it is.”

Lisa gazed at him for several moments, and then she turned and trotted into one of the bedrooms. A few moments later she was back, cradling her two-month-old son in her slender arms. He was wrapped snugly in a blanket and sleeping soundly, but Jack could see the tiny features of his handsome face as well as a shock of jet-black hair protruding from beneath his blue knit hospital cap. This little boy was her first child.

Lisa held the baby out and smiled. “Here, you hold him.”

Just the thought of doing that sent Jack’s heart rate into the stratosphere. He’d only held babies a few times in his life, and he’d been sweating profusely after only a few moments each time.

“Oh, no, I don’t think so.”

Lisa laughed as she pressed the little boy against Jack’s chest. “Make sure you support his head.”

“OK, OK.” He took a deep breath as he gazed down at the tiny human being resting in his arms. “Well, hello there, little Jack,” he said quietly. “It’s nice to see you again.”

S
PEED
T
RAP
was eating dinner by himself at the crumb-strewn table in the galley of the
Arctic Fire
. Tonight it was two hot dogs and some baked beans that had been sitting in a big, uncovered pot on the stove since yesterday afternoon, undoubtedly attracting all kinds of attention from bacteria. Even in the frigid air on the Bering Sea, those nasty creatures survived. So he’d zapped his helping of beans and the two hot dogs in the microwave that was on the dishwasher beside the stove.

The ship would make Akutan in a few hours to unload a second excellent haul of kings—not quite as big as the first, but enough to make him another fifty grand. And he was using these last few minutes of downtime to put some much-needed energy into his system. He’d eaten nothing for thirty-six hours because they’d been hauling traps back on board almost nonstop, so right
now any food at all looked good to him. Even things he wouldn’t touch on land with someone else’s ten-foot pole.

“Hey, little brother.”

Speed Trap glanced up as he stuck the last bite of the first delicious mustard-covered hot dog into his mouth. “Hey, Grant,” he said through the mouthful. His older brother was so tall he had to stoop constantly when he wasn’t outside. “What’s up? Other than your head on the ceiling.”

“Funny, you little hemorrhoid.”

“Shut up.”

Grant took off his jacket and hung it over the back of the chair opposite Speed Trap’s. On the back of the jacket was a large, multicolored image of the
Arctic Fire
cresting a wave and the name of the ship written in script beneath the image. Last Christmas, Captain Sage’s wife had made the jackets for all four of the ship’s regular crew members.

“I should take you up on deck and hang you over the side, you little shit.”

“Try it,” Speed Trap shot back. “See what happens.”

Speed Trap had never gotten into a fight with Grant, and the truth was, he never wanted to. Grant was huge and mean. As far as Speed Trap knew, he’d never lost a fight. And when he got drunk, he looked for them. That was when Grant caused riots because people started stampeding out of his way.

“I’m serious.”

“Shut up, little brother. You know I’d kick your ass.”

After grabbing the biggest bowl he could find from the dishwasher, which hadn’t been run in a week, Grant moved to the stove and ladled a healthy portion of beans into the dirty dish. After that, he grabbed some saltine crackers from the cupboard and sat down at the table in the chair opposite Speed Trap’s without bothering to nuke his helping. He’d always had an iron stomach, and the fact that the beans had been around for a while didn’t
bother him at all. He didn’t care that they were cold either, Speed Trap knew. Grant’s priority when it came to eating was simply getting the food into his mouth and then his stomach as quickly as possible.

“Hey,” Grant said as he shoved the first spoonful of beans past his teeth, “you just beat your DUI and your resisting charge over in Seward. How ’bout that?”

Speed Trap had been about to start in on the second hot dog, but when he heard Grant’s headline the bun’s forward progress came to an abrupt halt an inch from his mouth. “What?” He put the bun slowly back down on his plate and broke into a broad smile. “Really?” But his smile faded quickly. Grant was always teasing him or lying to him about something, and Speed Trap was worried that he was being stupid and gullible and just taking the bait one more time. He figured Grant was going to bust out laughing at him at any second. “Damn it, are you bullshitting me?”

“Nope. This is straight dope, dude. I was up on the bridge, and I overheard Uncle Sage talking to somebody on the phone about it. The shit’s been taken care of. All your charges were dropped. You don’t even have to go to court. They even gave you your license back. It’s nuts.”

Speed Trap gazed at Grant for a few moments, then finally decided he wasn’t being set up for that sucker punch after all. “Why? I mean they had me dead to rights. When I went to first appearance the morning after I was arrested, the judge laughed at me. He told me with my record I’d get at least six months in the slammer, probably a year.”

Grant shrugged. “I don’t know what to tell you, pal.” He gulped down several heaping spoonfuls of cold beans and then stuffed a couple of saltines in behind them. His eyes rolled back in their sockets, like a shark’s did when its jaws closed down on prey. “Weird things like that always seem to happen on this ship,” he said through his mouthful of food. “Know what I mean?”

“Yeah, like how about all those brand new traps that were waiting for us on the dock in Dutch after we put off that first load in Akutan? To replace the ones we lost in the storm, right? I figured we’d be in Dutch for at least a week waiting for new stuff.” Speed Trap shook his head. “So what happens? One day in port and we’re out of the harbor and back on the crab.”

“Exactly,” Grant agreed. “Nobody gets traps that fast. No fucking way.” He stared at the microwave for a few seconds. “What about that guy we picked up in the raft west of St. Paul last year during the opilio season? That was insane.”

“Yeah, that was insane.”

“I mean, there’s nothing at all on the radio about that guy. No heads-up from the Coast Guard boys, no chatter from any of the other boats. Then boom, there he is in the middle of the Bering Sea, waving us on from the raft and tapping his watch like he’s late for a dinner party.” Grant’s eyes narrowed. “The weirdest thing about it all was that Sage didn’t seem surprised. It was like he knew the raft was going to be there.”

“Think he did?”

Grant hesitated. “I’ll tell you this, little brother. We’ve never, and I mean
never
, dropped traps anywhere near that area of the Bering Sea before. Not during the king hunt or the opilio season. Even before you started crabbing with us we didn’t.”

“And the test line we sank out there wasn’t very long,” Speed Trap added, referring to the line of traps Sage dropped in places they were unfamiliar with to see if crabs were foraging on the bottom. “Uncle Sage doesn’t drop many test lines to begin with, but when he does, they’re longer than that. You know?”

“Yup.”

“It was like he dropped that line to make us think he was into that spot, that he thought it could be a honey hole, but he really wasn’t. It was more like that was our excuse to be in the
area. I mean, when we pulled the traps back up there were crabs in them.”

“But we didn’t stick around. Yeah, I’m with you.” Grant reached across the table, grabbed Speed Trap’s hot dog, and took a huge bite—which was nearly half of it—before tossing what was left back on his younger brother’s plate. “You know that guy stayed in Sage’s room until we got back to Dutch too. He never came out once. Not that I saw, anyway. Sage doesn’t let anybody use his room, not even Dad.”

“And when we got to Dutch,” Speed Trap said, pulling his plate far enough to one side that even Grant’s long arms couldn’t reach what was left of the hot dog, “he was off the boat and gone as soon as we got to the pier. He actually jumped off the boat before we even tied up.” Speed Trap looked down at his plate dejectedly. “And we’ve thrown those greenhorns overboard,” he mumbled. “That’s the worst thing of all, Grant.”

Grant chuckled dispassionately. “That’s just because Sage and Dad want to save some money, little brother. That’s just them being big old bastards.” He finished the beans by picking up his plate and tilting it so they dribbled into his mouth. “You and I didn’t see any of that money, did we?” he asked when the last bean was gone. “Technically, we should have split Troy’s share, but we didn’t. I got eighty-one grand. What did you get?”

“Same.”

“I rest my case. Throwing those greenhorns over the side is just about the money. And we’re not the only ship that does it.”

Speed Trap remembered the terror he’d felt as he was hanging off the side of the
Arctic Fire
in that storm by what seemed like nothing more than one thin strand of the yellow safety harness. And that incredible sensation of overpowering relief that had rushed through his body when Troy had pulled him back on board. For a few incredible moments he’d actually loved Troy Jensen.

A little while later they’d thrown him overboard.

“Troy was a good guy. That’s all I know.”

“So he saved your life,” Grant said callously as he stood up and the spindly chair he’d been sitting in fell over behind him with a loud crash. “Who cares?”

“What do you mean,
who cares
? I care. I care a lot. It sucked that Uncle Sage threw him over, and it sucked that Dad helped him do it. It sucked that you did too.”

Grant pointed a long, menacing finger down at his younger brother. “You keep your damn mouth shut about it. Don’t you say anything to Sage or Dad, or anybody else for that matter. You hear me?”

“I hear you.”

“You better hear me, and you better not say anything. Or you’ll be next. Got it? Well,
do you
?” Grant shouted when he didn’t get an answer immediately.

“I got it!” Speed Trap shouted back. “Christ! Give me a break. I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for Troy Jensen. Don’t you get that?”