Extinct (5 page)

Letting his feet settle toward the bottom and his shoulders rise, he kept staring. The tooth’s age was evident, the normally ivory surface having turned darker with time. But once, however long ago, a huge …

His gaze went back over his shoulder toward the speedboat. Though knowing how ridiculous his thought had to be, he kicked his flippers, propelling his body back toward the sunken craft.

Reaching its side, he lifted the tooth on top of the hull and pressed the pointed end down into a puncture at the beginning of a slash. The puncture was so wide that had he not continued to hold the tooth it would have fallen through to the sand beneath the hull. His thought
had
been ridiculous. Now the other diver swam up beside him. Rhiner held the tooth out flat in his hand. He saw the man’s eyes narrow behind his faceplate.

The shadow began to creep over them.

They jerked their faces toward the surface as one.

Above them, the rounded hull of the forty-one continued to swing around on its anchor line, extending its wide shadow farther out across the bottom.

*   *   *

Alan slowed his Jeep as he neared the stoplight at the west entrance to the Broadwater Beach Hotel and Marina. In past decades a sleepy luxury stop for yachts traveling the Gulf between New Orleans and Mobile, the complex now operated at a more frenetic pace as the Broadwater Beach Hotel and Marina—and President Casino. Alan turned into the marina.

Shaped in a wide, deep square, with enough area of water at its center to allow even the largest yachts to make a complete turn, the complex’s sides and near end featured the much-photographed concrete-roofed slips that gave the vessels nestled under their shadows protection from the weather. He turned his Jeep toward the charter fishing boats lined side by side at the marina’s northwest corner, drove into a parking space in front of the slips, and stopped.

The first person he saw was Carolyn’s father. He stood in the fishing cockpit of a thirty-four-foot Silverton, one of the older boats there with the sailboat-like curving lines of craft built in the sixties and seventies. He held a wrench in one hand and a five-gallon can in the other. His large frame was clothed in a yellow jumpsuit with smears of grease down its shoulder. He was looking toward his feet, turning around and around slowly, as if he had dropped something small and was trying to find it. At that moment, he looked toward the Jeep and waved the wrench in greeting. Alan stepped to the concrete, lifted his sports coat from the Jeep, and walked behind the boats toward him.

“Dr. Freeman.”

Slipping the sports coat on over his shoulders, Alan nodded his greeting. “Mr. Herald.”

“Thinking about going fishing?”

“Sort of.”

“Well, you’ve come to the right place. Best charter boat captain on the coast. She always finds fish.”

She?

“Woman’s intuition,” Mr. Herald added, nodding at the craft’s name,
Intuitive,
stenciled across its rear. “Works every time.” He grinned. “Of course maybe with a little help from all the expensive locator equipment she’s put onboard. Carolyn said she met you last night. Oh, yeah, I really do appreciate Dr. Hsiao letting me bring the boys by.” His expression turned serious. “Terrible about those children at the river. Have they found them yet?”

Alan shook his head.

“Terrible,” Mr. Herald repeated. “Here yesterday morning and then gone just like that.” He shook his head sadly, then walked toward the side of the cockpit to come up out of the boat onto the narrow concrete walkway running back toward the parking area.

As he did, Alan looked at the wide beam of the boat, setting backed into its berth with little room to spare to its sides. A woman’s touch would be more than adequate in the deft maneuvering it took to dock such a craft during crosswinds and the changing current created by rising and falling tides—a woman surgeon’s delicate hands could be more exact than a male surgeon’s. But there were also the bulky rods and reels to be handled, and a gaff not only used to snag a fish as it was reeled close to the boat, but then to lift that catch from the water over into the cockpit when some of the larger species could routinely weigh forty to fifty pounds or more. He could visualize a
big
woman being up to the task, but Carolyn couldn’t weigh much more than a hundred fifteen to a hundred twenty pounds. On the other hand, a captain could remain always at the controls and leave the heavy work to a mate. He looked at the large frame of Carolyn’s father, who had stopped before him. He imagined he was looking at the mate.

Mr. Herald pulled a soiled rag from his hip pocket and scrubbed his hand vigorously. But it remained dark with grease. He shrugged and smiled instead of reaching to shake hands. “You said
sorta
thinking about going fishing?”

“I need to catch a few red snapper—females.”

Mr. Herald grinned. “You care about the sex?”

“I need females to spawn. And they can’t be injured. So we’d have to use a net instead of a gaff to bring them on board.”

“Bringing them back alive,” Mr. Herald mused. He looked into the cockpit. “There’s the cooler, maybe.” It was a fiberglass container built into the front of the cockpit against the cabin. It was a little over five feet long and two feet wide. “Possible we could get a couple in there. We would have to cushion the box. Maybe use foam rubber. They’d still be fighting it, trying to get out, and probably at each other. I wouldn’t guarantee they’d five after we got them back here. But if you want to pay for the charter, that’s the business Carolyn’s in.”

Alan nodded. “I’ll tranquilize them—but I don’t know if a couple will be enough.”

Before Mr. Herald could respond, a figure stepped out of the rear door of the boat’s cabin. It was one of the boys from the boxing team, the thin Vietnamese named San-hi. He was barefooted, had his khaki pants rolled halfway up his skinny calves, and a long shirt hanging down past his waist. He held a rag and bucket in his hands. “Mr. Herald,” he said, and nodded back across his shoulder. “It’s clean as I can get it. You want to inspect it?”

“Clean as you can get it?” Mr. Herald asked.

“Yes sir.”

“Then I don’t need to inspect it, do I—if you can’t get it any cleaner.”

“Same here,” a voice said from the far side of the cabin. Armon’s stocky, dark shape came around the rail. Dressed in jeans and a T-shirt stretching to contain his muscular shoulders, he also held a bucket and rag. He pointed at the rail. “How’s that?” he asked.

The rail glistened as if it had been shined with polish. In fact, the whole boat did.

“Looks fine, Armon. I guess I owe you two a meal now.”

“Not to mention the fifteen bucks apiece,” Armon said.

Mr. Herald smiled. “So long as you let Carolyn think I did this all myself.”

“No skin off my bal … teeth,” Armon said.

Mr. Herald stared at him.

“Teeth,” Armon repeated.

“You all wash up so you don’t look like a couple of bums when I take you in.”

Armon’s eyes went to the grease across the shoulder of Mr. Herald’s jumpsuit. San-hi smiled. “Come on, Armon.”

They stepped inside the cabin.

As they did, Mr. Herald said, “Here’s the boss now.”

Alan looked across his shoulder as Carolyn drove a Ford Ranger into the parking space next to his Jeep.

She stepped outside in an orange sundress exposing her tanned shoulders.

Her son was with her.

Alan couldn’t help but stare at the boy.

CHAPTER 6

It was as if Alan was watching himself as a small child walk toward him. Paul’s hair was thick and dark like his own, his coloring not quite as dark as Carolyn’s, more like mine, Alan thought. He visualized the scrapbook photograph his aunt had of him the day he entered the first grade. Carolyn leaned to say something to the boy as they came toward the boat.

The boy nodded—and looked directly into Alan’s face.

Alan moved his gaze back up to Carolyn as she stopped in front of her father.

“The boss,” Mr. Herald repeated, and nodded down at Paul.

Carolyn said, “Paul, this is Dr. Freeman.”

The boy reached out his hand, and Alan shook it.

“Dr. Freeman wants to charter your boat,” Mr. Herald said.

Carolyn smiled politely. “What date do you have in mind?”

Alan took his eyes away from the boy’s. “Tomorrow would be fine, if that’s all right with you.”

“I’m sorry, but I’m booked for the weekend.”

Her father said, “I thought you still had tomorrow open.”

“Filled it a few minutes ago,” Carolyn said and looked down at Paul. “So Monday would be the earliest possible time, Dr. Freeman. I’m sorry. You might try the other captains, but I don’t think you’ll find a boat not already booked—the weekends are our busiest times.”

“Is it clean enough?” her father asked.

Carolyn looked at the boat. “You did a perfect job.”

San-hi and Armon smiled at each other. Paul stepped around his mother and walked toward the two boys.

Mr. Herald waited until Paul was out of hearing, then spoke in a low voice. “How has he been doing?”

Carolyn shook her head. “He was having fun at the bumper cars, and then suddenly wanted to leave.”

“It’ll come and go for awhile.”

She nodded.

“Well, I have to get San-hi and Armon home,” he said. “I’m going to pick them up a sandwich. You want me to bring you one back?”

“No. I shared a po’boy with Paul.”

Alan looked toward the boy. He was smiling at something one of the older boys said. At that moment, Paul’s face turned toward his, and Alan smiled pleasantly back in his direction.

“Do you want to check with the other captains?” Carolyn asked.

“I can wait until Monday,” Alan said, bringing his eyes back to hers.

“He’s going to stick hypodermics in red snappers,” Mr. Herald said and grinned. “Has to be females. Let him tell you about it.” He looked toward San-hi and Armon. “You two ready?”

Armon smiled and rubbed his thumb and forefinger together in Mr. Herald’s direction.

Mr. Herald frowned.

They started toward his pickup.

“Thank you for cleaning the boat, Daddy,” Carolyn said, and then her eyes came back to Alan’s. “Hypodermics?”

He explained why he needed the fish as her father and the boys drove off in the pickup. When he told her about needing to rig up some way to bring them back unharmed, she looked into the cockpit.

He said, “Maybe I could bring one of the smaller fingerling tanks down here and we could figure out a way to mount it on the forward deck.”

Carolyn nodded. “We would need to put something under it to cushion it. To protect my deck as well as make the ride smoother for the fish. Whole-day rate starts about as early as you want. Give me a time and I’ll meet you down here Monday morning with what you bring and we’ll see if we can fashion something that’ll work.”

He nodded, then looked at Paul, his back to them as he stared down into the water between the
Intuitive
and the boat beside it. Alan thought for a moment. He glanced at his watch. “It is about lunchtime. You sure you wouldn’t care for something?”

Carolyn shook her head.

“I’m hungry,” Paul said, turning in their direction.

“You just had a po’boy,” Carolyn said.

“I’m hungry anyway.”

Alan looked toward the marina restaurant and lounge at the far end of the line of boats. Music from its outdoor speakers floated back through the air to them and people crowded the tables arranged around the outside of the main structure. “We could catch something down there or back in the Broadwater.”

“I want to eat in the hotel,” Paul said. Alan noticed the boy was looking at him instead of his mother.

“Paul, Dr. Freeman isn’t—”

“I don’t mind at all,” Alan said.

“Mother?” Paul asked.

“Okay,” she said in a low voice.

*   *   *

She said nothing more as they walked toward the hotel. Alan glanced down at Paul as the boy came around to his side and walked at the same pace as he did. Alan noticed Carolyn glance down at Paul once—and the barely perceptible tightening of her jaw.

*   *   *

They took a table by a window overlooking the tiered swimming pool across a patio from the restaurant. Carolyn sat directly opposite Alan, and Paul sat in the chair to their side. “You want the buffet?” she asked.

Paul shook his head. “A chicken sandwich.”

“Only tea for me, please,” she said to the waitress.

“I want a Coke,” Paul said.

“Tea and a chicken sandwich will be fine,” Alan said.

“Separate checks,” Carolyn said.

“I’ll catch it,” Alan said.

“Separate checks,” Carolyn repeated. Alan looked at her. She didn’t look back at him.

As the waitress walked away Paul asked, “Can I buy some gum?”

“After you eat.”

“I won’t chew it until then.” He held his palm out across the edge of the table toward his mother.

Alan started to reach into his pocket, but didn’t.

Carolyn handed Paul a dollar from her purse.

He slipped from his chair and hurried toward the front of the restaurant and the hotel lobby. Alan watched him for a moment, then looked back at Carolyn. She turned her gaze out the window toward the pool. He stared at her for a moment.

“I don’t know any way to be but blunt,” he said. “Have I done something to put you off?”

Carolyn’s face came back around to his. “Paul wanted to eat with you because you look a lot like his father.”

Before he could respond in any way, she said, “I’m not married.”

He looked at her wedding ring.

“I wear it so men chartering my boat don’t keep trying to corner me against a bulkhead. Chartering is how I make my living, I can’t afford to be telling my customers off. And some of them wouldn’t leave me any other choice. It usually works except with the worst of them.”

She didn’t specifically say he was one of them, but her glance at her ring and back at him said it for her.

Irritated, and at the same time amused, he lifted the side of his mouth in a sarcastic smile.