The cable was unhooked and the winch operator manipulated the levers. The winches made a high-pitched whine as the cable was recovered and the boom swung back aboard.
The taller man jumped down from the truck and walked toward the gangplank.
“You Canidy?” he said as he approached.
The thick accent clearly was Italian—probably Sicilian, Canidy guessed.
The man, a head taller than Canidy, looked to be about thirty-five and solidly built. He had an olive complexion, thick black hair that was cut close to the scalp, a rather large nose, and a black mustache.
“Yeah, I’m Canidy.”
“C’mon aboard,” he said, brushing past.
As Canidy followed him to the rusty pilothouse, the truck on the dock started its engine and with a grinding of gears began to pull away with the crates of fish.
Canidy saw that the deckhand who had been working the boom was now securing it and the cable, and the guy who had been on the truck had moved down the finger of the dock and was beginning to untie the starboard bowline from a cleat.
The tall man went to the steel door of the pilothouse, opened it, and went through it.
Canidy began to follow, but the man turned and pointed to the bow of the boat.
“You mind tending to lines?”
Canidy looked forward. “Sure,” he said.
“Come back when we’re under way.”
Under way? Where the hell are we going?
Is this godforsaken rust bucket really seaworthy?
Canidy shrugged and went back out the door, then to the bow.
He heard the sound of a motor struggling to start, then a rumble of exhaust, and he felt a vibration in his feet as a big diesel engine came to life. A moment later, there was another slow rumble, and the vibration from the deck was more pronounced.
The guy on the dock holding the bowline coiled it, shouted, “Line!” then tossed it aboard.
Canidy caught it, then recoiled it and secured it to a cleat.
The guy, after having pushed the gangplank aboard, was now at a cleat midway on the dock, untying the line there.
Canidy went toward him, stepping over the gangplank. As he got closer, the guy shouted, “Line!” and threw it.
This time, Canidy missed the rope.
It landed on the wet deck. He picked it up, and as he began to coil it he realized that this rope was markedly different from the first.
It had a cold slime on it, and it smelled of fish.
Shit! It’s the same slop that leaked from the crates!
His hands began to ache from the cold and wet.
He saw that the guy on the deck was now at the dock cleat at the back of the boat and very shortly would be throwing the line aboard. If Canidy didn’t get there first, that line was going to get slimed, too.
He quickly coiled the line in his hand, in the process slinging slop onto his pants.
Well, that’s what Lanza meant by dirty and wet….