“So, that’s fifteen hundred on the button, you fucking pirate.”
“I’m giving you ten percent as a favor, dick weed.”
“Twenty five,” Mickey said.
Jones laughed.
“Make it twenty,” Mickey said, letting it slide a little.
“Fifteen,” Jones said. “You don’t have a leg to stand on, Mickey.”
“Twenty and you pay for gas and air fills on the scuba tanks.” Mickey grinned at him. “That’s a freebie, Darrel, and you know it. Cost you three hundred and fifty bucks and you got a grand and change in your pocket without even getting your dick wet.”
“Who’s the fucking pirate around here?” Darrel asked. “How about my first born. You want her, too?”
“If she’s above the age of consent, maybe.”
“She’s ten, and not nearly as unreasonable as you are.”
“Well, you could always do it yourself,” Mickey said, turning away.
“All right, cock sucker. You got me,” Jones said.
Mickey turned back. “Anything else you’re not telling me?”
Jones looked suddenly cagey. “Might be some bottom jobs come out of it.”
Scrubbing boat bottoms underwater wasn’t rocket science. Mickey laughed. “Tell you what, Darrel. I’ll give you fifteen percent of any cleaning jobs I get for a finder’s fee.”
“Half,” Jones said.
“Twenty percent, same as I’m getting on the props, only the other way around. And I get the zinc jobs.”
“That’s chicken shit. Ten bucks apiece. You can have it.”
“Damned right I can.”
“Job pays when the props go back on. You get that, right?”
“Pays half when I deliver them to you and half when the stay nuts are torqued,” Mickey said. “Don’t fuck with me, Darrel. You know how this works. Cash money. No checks for the Mickey. Right?”
“Asshole,” Jones said without heat. “I’m only doing this because I’m in a bind. My back’s fucked up and I just can’t do this shit anymore.”
“Shouldn’t have told me that,” Mickey said with a grin. “Shit’s going to cost you twice as much next time.”
“Fuck you, twice as much,” Jones said. “Now, you get me those props chop-chop, because I need the week-end to work them over. You good with that?”
“I’ll check my schedule,” Mickey said dryly. “Tomorrow’s free, I think.”
“It ain’t free, whatever it is,” Jones said, like it hurt him.
Mickey rode away feeling downright cheerful. It felt good to be actually doing something again, rather than filling out useless job applications on computers with sticky keys in offices that smelled of old coffee and despair. He had Linus Davidson’s money, and maybe four or five hundred more that was all but in the bank. If he was lucky, there’d be more.
It made him wonder what had changed.
Chapter Five
“That’s not a job,” Sandy said, putting a little sympathy into it, with just a dash of disappointment on top for flavor. Not up to par, she meant. You can do better, she meant. When are you going to work? That’s what she really meant.
“Four hundred and change in three days,” he said, feeling the old anger at being put on the defensive. “That damned sure beats what I made in the last couple of months.” And that didn’t include the three hundred and twelve dollars from Linus Davidson’s wallet, which was hidden in his garage tool box.
“I know, baby,” she said. “It’s just I know you can do better if someone would just give you the chance.”
“You want to complain because I’m bringing some money in?” Mickey asked, clenching his fists behind his back. “How about I cut my wrists for you, too?”
“Oh, that’s not what I meant!” “Yeah, it fucking was,” he said.
“No, really, I...”
“Be best you just stop talking right now.” He wanted to slap the shit out of her. It was about all he could do not to.
Sandy blinked at the sharpness in his voice. Her face went blank for a moment, then she closed her mouth with a snap and turned her back on him, stiff as a damned plank. She wanted to talk about it, start one of those interminable ever-so reasonable conversations that went on and on until the wee hours and made everybody miserable while solving exactly nothing. Mickey was done with that.
He went to drag Cindy out of the tub. The kid was a water rat from the get go – any water, beach, pool, tub, or even rain puddles. She got that from her old man. Mickey rinsed the bubbles off her and applied the towel before sending her off to put on pajamas. He stayed in the bathroom to rinse the tub and collect Cindy’s toys into the blue plastic basket. Then he filled the bath again with a second bubble bath and called out to Sandy.
“She’s on the porch, Daddy,” Cindy said. “And you didn’t dry my hair enough.”
“Go get Mommy,” he said. “I’ll find you a fresh towel for your hair.”
Sandy came after a minute and looked at the tub and then, briefly, at Mickey. “I’m just going to have a shower,” she said in that reasonable tone with a little sullen under it for emphasis. Sandy was big on those layered responses. She got a fresh towel and went to work on the three year old’s hair.
“Tell your Mommy to take her bath,” Mickey said.
His daughter put her fists on her hips and said, “You have to, Mommy, just like me. And if you’re a good girl then Daddy will take us both to the beach on Saturday.”
Sandy gave Mickey a murderous look over the top of Cindy’s head and said, “Of course, I’ll take my bath, darling. Just as soon as we finish making your hair beautiful.”
Mickey turned and went back to the kitchen to pour a cup of coffee and have a cigar on the back porch. Three cigarette butts were ground out in the ashtray. Sandy only smoked when she was mad or drunk, and he knew which one it was this time. And three cigarettes one right after the other said that she was
really
mad. Well, fuck her. She’d just better get used to it.
Later, they tucked their daughter in and Sandy disappeared into the bathroom. Mickey waited in the hall, and in about a minute, heard the gurgle of water as she opened the drain in the tub. He knocked gently and went in. Sandy was smoking another cigarette by the open window, all of her clothes in a pile on the floor.
“Very pretty,” he said, and reached to stop the tub drain again. He tested the water and turned on the hot spigot to warm it up.
“What the hell is the
matter
with you?” she asked, watching him.
“Keep your voice down.”
“I don’t want to take a bath, Mickey.”
“Nyah, nyah, you can’t make me?” He grinned at her. “You love bubble baths, Sandy. They relax you.”
“I’ll decide when...”
“How about a glass of wine?”
“Damn you,” she said in a flat voice. “Who do you think you are?”
“Just a guy pouring wine for his wife,” he said, ignoring her tone and the circumstances. “I’ll bring you an ashtray.”
Sandy lifted the toilet seat and dropped the cigarette butt deliberately into the water as if she was making some huge point. “I don’t need an ashtray,” she said. It was a petty thing to do, and even she seemed to realize it.
“Stop being such a mule,” he said softly.
Sandy’s eyes narrowed in sudden fury. “Why, you...!”
He didn’t let her finish, just closed the door behind himself and went to pour wine into a stem glass. He took one of the pebbled glass ashtrays down from the cupboard and carried them both back to the bath. Sandy was in the tub when he got back.
“I hope you’re satisfied,” she said acidly.
He put the wine and the ashtray down on the side of the tub and found her cigarettes and lighter in the pile of her clothes. She leaned her head back, ignoring him pointedly. Mickey left her to it.
“Gotcha again, sweetie,” he said to himself, walking away to get his dive gear ready. There wasn’t going to be any sex after that little set-to. Sandy would see to that. He was okay with it for the time being. Let her stew.
When the alarm went off in the morning, Mickey got up to fix the coffee. It was only five o’clock, but he wanted a decent head start on the day. The truck was loaded, so all he had to do was clear the cobwebs out of his head and get on with things. Easier said than done. Two months on his ass, he’d developed some bad habits. Sitting around drinking coffee in the mornings being one of them.
While the coffee perked, he got down on the floor and groaned through leg lifts and pushups, did some stretches and then some squats to wake his legs up. He was sweaty and short of breath by the time he finished, and could only do seven chin ups on the bar outside. That sucked.
After a shower, he went naked back into the bedroom with coffee in one hand, planning to get dressed. Sandy was sleeping on her side with the covers kicked off. She’d worn the most frazzled granny gown she owned to bed, making yet another pointless statement, in Mickey’s view.
He liked to watch her sleep, the way her face settled into calm and looked sweet and untroubled like it had when they were first married. Christ, that seemed like a hundred years ago. She was nearly twenty-five, but if the family genes were anything to go by, she wasn’t going to show any age for a long time. Her mother was in her late forties, and you just flat couldn’t tell how old she was if you didn’t know.
The stupid granny gown had bunched up in the night so that her hips were bare and Mickey got some wood, just looking. She was some piece, that was for sure. And worth fighting for, although bushwhacking Linus with a baseball bat really hadn’t been much of a fight.
Mickey wasn’t sorry. The fucker deserved what he got, screwing around with other people’s wives. Plus, Linus was nine years older than Sandy’s father, and that didn’t sit well either, for some reason. Either way, though, you pay if you’re going to play, that was the rule. And badass FBI agent or not, Linus Davidson had damned sure paid.
Fuck this, Mickey thought. I’m getting laid.
He put his cup down on the nightstand and was glad that he’d already brushed his teeth. Sandy squirmed a little when he snuggled up to her, not waking. Maybe dreaming a little, or at least feeling him there. Mickey stroked her back and her hips until she shifted a little and woke about halfway up.
“Leaving already?” she mumbled.
“Got something for you before I go,” he said, and nuzzled the back of her neck. “Just ease up on your knees, honey. You don’t even have to help.”
She mumphed and grumbled under her breath, but did as he asked. Mickey got up and slid the meat to her from behind. She gasped and made that little yipping noise as he went inside, and then gushed warm around him even though he’d gone in dry. He held her hips and fucked her nice and slow. It was so relaxed that he reached over for his coffee and finished it without missing a stroke. Sandy didn’t even notice.
When the coffee was gone he put the cup back and held her hands pinned together at the small of her back like he did the night before. She let him do what he wanted, he gave her a good thrashing and spurted as deeply into her as he could and thought while he did it that he was going to fuck her in the ass one of these days whether she liked it or not.
“Don’t forget to reset the alarm,” she said, still groggy with sleep, but sounding like she didn’t really mind it too much.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said. “I’ll leave your money on the dresser.”
“Very funny.”
It was an old joke, but not so bad, all things considered. Mickey used to say that he was lucky to have married Sandy, because if she’d been a hooker, he couldn’t afford her. She’d always thought that was funny.
Chapter Six
Palm Beach in the morning was a beautiful place. Mickey found the address and gave his name to a metal box beside a gated driveway. He was told to drive around the house and down to the docks, and found a lot of work going on.
A narrow little work barge with a skinny jib crane on deck was pulled up to the seawall and half a dozen people were staring down at it with frowns on their faces. Mickey unloaded his dive gear and went out to the boat, a sixty-foot sport fisherman with more teak than a lumberyard. The owner met him down there.
“I’m Pete Oliver,” he said. “You the diver Jones sent for my props?”
“Yes, sir.”
This old boy was no pink-skinned corner office guy. He had a shock of sun bleached hair and that deepwater mahogany tan you don’t get without a lot of time out on the ocean. He was about sixty, strong looking, and had clear blue eyes.
“Hope you have better luck than this bunch,” he said, tipping his head toward the crew beside the barge.
“Problem?”
“Seawall repair,” Oliver said, pulling a face. “Going okay until this morning, then busted a winch first crack out of the box. They need a welder and don’t have one.”
“You mean a welding machine, sir, or a welder?”
“Both, either.” He cocked an eye at Mickey. “You weld, son?”
“Yes, I do,” Mickey said. “Machine’s on the truck.”
Oliver grinned. “You’re my new hero, Mickey, you surely are. Come here, I want you to meet some people.”
A tall, good looking guy in expensive pants stood on the seawall with two women. All three of them were improbably good looking. One woman was dark and slender. The other a high-end bottle blonde with biggish tits. Oliver introduced them to Mickey.
“Phillip Carlyle, my architect,” he said. “And these are his engineers, Nadine Olson and Motýl Falk.”
“Mah...?” Mickey said, caught by the blonde’s name.
She smiled easily and said it again, mah-tee-yell, or something similar. “It’s Czech, means butterfly,” she said. “Don’t worry; I’ve been explaining that to people since I was about three years old.”
Both women, Mickey noticed, had rings in their noses. Odd. Pretty, but odd to see two of them together like that. “What seems to be the problem?” he asked.
Carlyle pointed to the boat. “Broken weld, I think,” he said. “Better ask the guys down there.”
One of the guys on deck squinted up at him. “Goddamned weld was perfect,” he said. “Did it myself, and I just don’t know what happened.”
“Mind if I have a look?” Mickey asked.
“Might as well, everybody else has.”
A heavy wire winch had been welded to a wide steel plate to distribute its weight. The plate was bolted to the barge deck in six places, and the weld had broken ugly and jagged along its length.