High Tide (2 page)

“I didn't see the tapes, so I have no idea what it's about. It's called
Raphael,
and I imagine it's about … Well, actually I don't know what it's about—I just heard about all this today for the first time.” Fiona took a deep drink of her gin and tonic.

“So why—?”

“Why has this man said he'd only sell to Davidson Toys if I personally go on a trip to Florida with him?” Usually Fiona's excellent manners would never allow her to raise her voice in public, but her confrontation with Garrett had nearly sent her over the edge.

“I don't know!” she half shouted, then quieted when Ashley put her red-nailed hand on her wrist. “All I know is that this Texas good ol' boy has requested that I go on a …” She
had to swallow before she could say the word. “A three-day
fishing
trip with him and a guide named Ace.” At that she downed the last of her drink then raised her hand to the waiter for a refill.

Susan was the first to laugh. It escaped out of the corners of her mouth in a way that was familiar to the other women. They'd often said that Susan's sense of humor had saved their sanity.

“‘Ace'?” Susan said, the corners of her mouth twitching. “Do you think he's one of those men who carry photos of his first wife, his second wife, and the third one in his wallet? And photos of all the kids from each marriage?”

“And each photo is at least twenty years old?” Jean said, laughing.

“Little Leroy in the photo is now serving five to nine for grand theft auto.”

They were all laughing now, and Diane ordered a high calorie cheesy thing to dip into with fried chips. So far they hadn't gotten around to ordering dinner.

“No, Ace flew a plane during World War Two,” Jean said. “He'll show Fiona his war medals.”

“Really, girls,” Ashley said. “It's Florida. He'll have skin rougher than the alligators he wrestles. And he'll call all women ‘honey' and ‘babe.'”

“And
his
tattoos were done before they were fashionable,” Diana said.

Fiona leaned forward. “As always, you're all off base. Ace is gorgeous: tall, dark, and handsome. He has everything except one little bitty thing.”

At that all the women laughed suggestively. “If it's little, I don't want it.”

“Oh, not that …” Fiona practically purred.
“That
is developed to the size of—Oh! here's the food,” she said, grinning, her green eyes sparkling.

Jean laughed. “Then the little part must be his—” Breaking off, she looked around the table. “All together now, ladies, one, two, three.” Lifting her arms in imitation of a bandleader, she directed the chorus.

“His
brain,”
they said in unison.

“You know, Fee,” Ashley said, her mouth full of chip and dip, “I could stand three days with some bronzed Adonis named Ace.”

“Puh-lease,” Fiona said. “I like a man to have something besides pectorals.”

“Not me,” Susan said, mouth full. “I never cared whether a man had a brain or not.”

“You'll care after the newness wears off—so to speak,” Fiona said seriously. “Then you'll be left with nothing. He'll run off with some blonde bimbo, and you'll be left—”

“Give me a break!” Diane said. “It's my birthday.”

“Right,” Fiona said apologetically. “It's your birthday, and all we're doing is talking about
my
problems.”

“Some problems,” Ashley said. “Three days in sunny Florida alone with a beautiful body with no brain and—”

“And good ol' boy Roy and another guy who cleans the fish,” Fiona said with a dry chuckle. “Meanwhile, Kimberly—”

“Aaaargh,”
came the collective groan.

“Okay, okay. I know. No talk of Kimberly allowed.”

“Yeah,” Susan said, “let's talk about something else altogether.”

“I agree,” Jean said.

For a few moments all the women were silent.

“So what's this Ace's last name? Or does he just go by ‘Ace'?” Ashley asked, running her fingertip around the rim of her glass.

With a sigh of reluctance, Fiona reached down to her briefcase, removed a paper, and scanned it.

“Montgomery. His name is Paul “Ace” Montgomery.”

One
 

“I refuse to accept it in that condition,” Ace said, glaring at the man who was holding out a clipboard and expecting him to sign the acceptance papers.

“Look, mister, I'm just the deliveryman, and nobody said anything about busted crates. So just sign it so I can get out of here.”

Ace kept his hands at his side. “Maybe you can't read, but I can,” he said. “The fine print on that contract says that once I accept shipment, it's my responsibility. That means that if it's broken, then it's my problem. But if I find out that it's broken before I sign, then it's your problem. Got it?”

For a moment the man stood there opening and closing his mouth. “Do you know what's in that thing?”

“I most certainly do, since I'm the one who ordered it. And paid for it, I might add.”

The man still didn't seem to understand. “So let's get it out of here so we can—”

“No,” Ace said. “We open it here and now.”

At that the man looked about him pointedly, as though Ace didn't understand exactly where they were. They were in the baggage claim area of the Fort Lauderdale airport. Right now there were only a few porters removing unclaimed bags from the carousels, but any minute the escalator to the left might start delivering a plane full of people. “You want me to uncrate the thing here? Now?” the man said quietly.

“Now,” Ace said firmly. “You put it in my truck, it's mine, so I have to pay for it if it's damaged, and I paid too much for it to—”

“Yeah, yeah,” the man said, bored, then turned to a skinny kid standing next to Ace. The kid was wearing the same gray uniform that the guy giving the orders was wearing. “He always like that?”

“Naw, sometimes he's a real pain in the neck.”

“I hope you're gettin' paid well.”

“Actually …” he began, but a bark from Ace stopped him.

“Tim! You want to get away from that end of the crate? I don't want one of my guys touching it until I see that it's working.”

With his back to Ace, the deliveryman grimaced. He was tired and hungry, and worse, he was alone. He'd have to uncrate the damned thing by himself all because of a little dent in one corner. Using a crowbar, he pried up one side of the fifteen-foot-long crate, and there, lying in a bed of Styrofoam
pellets was the remote control. With a wicked little smile that he made sure no one saw, he pocketed the control, then kept on uncrating. When he got to the other end, Ace was bent over the opposite end, peering inside, a frown of concentration on his face.

“Psst,”
the deliveryman said to the kid in the uniform. The label on his pocket said, Tim, Kendrick Park. “Tim,” the deliveryman said, then handed him the remote control.

“Is that what—”

“Quiet,” the man ordered. “Don't let him see it.”

“Yeah, sure,” Tim said, his eyes wide, looking like a kid with the world's biggest Nintendo game in his hands.

“Just don't push the buttons,” the deliveryman said, “ because the thing will start moving and it'll scare everybody.”

“Yeah?” Tim said, somehow managing to open his eyes even wider. But Tim could no more resist the temptation than Adam could. The minute the crate was opened enough to see inside the near end, Tim pushed the buttons—then was extremely satisfied when a woman behind him gave a yelp of fear.

“It's all right,” Ace said to the crowd as he looked at the first of what was probably a planeload of travelers arriving in the baggage claim. “It's not real. It's just a fiberglass alligator sent here from California, and we're checking it for damages.”

At his words the fear left their faces, but they showed no signs of moving closer to the baggage carousel. What some of them had just seen was what looked to be the enormous head of an alligator lift out of a wooden crate and snap its jaws at the man who was fearlessly putting his hands into the long box.

When no one so much as moved even an inch in the direction
of the luggage, Ace shook his head in exasperation, then turned and snatched the remote from Tim. “Would you help rather than hinder?”

“Sorry, boss,” Tim said, but he didn't look sorry. “I couldn't resist it. That thing sure does look real.”

“That's why it cost me every penny I had,” Ace muttered. “Now get on that end and check its tail. See if there's so much as a scratch.”

Now that Ace and Tim had taken over, the deliveryman was leaning against the back wall and using a pocket knife to trim his nails. “So how come you don't have a real alligator?” he asked. “You runnin' out of real ones down here?” He laughed at his own joke. “Too many handbags and shoes?”

Ace had to nearly push a woman aside as she leaned so far over to see inside the crate that she was in the way. “Kendrick Park is a bird sanctuary,” he said, as if that explained everything.

When the man looked puzzled, Tim said quietly, “He doesn't like to put things in cages, but alligators draw crowds.”

The man pondered that for a minute. “I see. So you thought that if you get a fake alligator you'll get tourists, but ol' Ivan here won't cry crocodile tears of loneliness. Right?” He was grinning at his little witticism.

When Ace didn't bother to answer, Tim said, “Exactly.”

“You about through with your inspection, Mr. Birdman?” the deliveryman asked.

“The damage on the crate is on the bottom. To do a proper inspection, we're going to have to take it out and look at its belly.”

“Just what my wife says to me every night,” the man said under his breath to Tim, who turned red and choked on his
laughter. At the moment his boss didn't look as though he was in the mood for jokes.

“Okay, Tim, get the tail. Careful. I don't want it hurt. Okay,” Ace said a moment later as he looked at the huge alligator replica stretched out full length on the floor. “It looks undamaged.”

“So you want to sign this now, so I can go get something to eat?”

“All right,” Ace said, stretching out his hand; then he took a deep breath before he signed the paper saying the terrifically expensive replica was now his responsibility. For a moment he glanced up at the plane passengers that were now surrounding them. They were silent, tired after their flight from New York, or maybe they were just awed at seeing what they had hoped to see on their trip to Florida. Whatever, they were just standing there watching this free show while suitcases went unnoticed, round and round on the carousel.

“Okay, so let's get him back in his box,” Ace said. “Tim, you get the tail, and I'll get the head.”

For a moment, Ace hesitated as he tried to figure out how best to get a grip on the beast. In the next second he inserted his hand, then his arm up to his armpit down the alligator's mouth. When a collective
“Ooooh”
went up from the watching crowd, he smiled. This was going to work, he thought. Over on the other side of the state, Disney was making a fortune with his fake animals, while farms here in Fort Lauderdale were barely able to feed their 450-pound 'gators. And getting ma, pa, and the kids to want to go see a flock of flamingos was a losing proposition—and he had the empty bank account to prove it.

As Ace and Tim were putting the giant fiberglass alligator back into the box, neither of them saw the inquisitive toddler slip between the suitcases and pick up the remote control that Ace had carefully set on top of his toolbox. The little boy, at eighteen months, just loved to push buttons.

“Bloody hell,” Fiona muttered as she disembarked the plane. She'd had a couple of hangovers in her life, mostly while in college, but nothing like this. Not only did her head hurt, but she could feel even the tiny bones in her ankles. She'd fallen asleep on the plane, and the attendant had had to wake her, which made her the last one off the plane.