Red Tide (Billy Knight Thrillers 2)

He blushed. This time it was definitely embarrassment. “I don’t have much to do with the store. My dad mostly runs things.”

I was right. For somebody so good at figuring out people, I was sure screwing up my own life.

“I really do mean it,” he went on. “I’m really, uh, you know. Thanks a lot. Um, thank you.”

“Forget it,” I said. “Tiny’s been wanting this for a long time.”

“Tiny? His name is Tiny?”

“Yeah. I think it refers to brain size.”

He snickered. “He’s got a little evolving to do, that’s for sure.”

“Have a seat, Rick,” I said. “It’s going to be a long night.”

Rick settled down beside me. “Um, actually, I probably won’t be here very long,” he said. “Which is why—you know.”

“Let it go, Rick,” I said, getting just a little tired of the ponderous gratitude. It’s not something spoiled rich kids are good at, so they generally tend to overdo it.

“Sure,” he said. “Just—sure.”

It turned out he got the deep tan from ocean racing. It was a rich man’s sport, running the massive floating engines across the Gulf Stream to the Bahamas and back at impossible speeds. I’d made one of those runs with a friend once, as a last minute substitute for a drunken navigator, and for a week afterwards I walked bent over, my back twisted and throbbing from the pounding waves give you at that speed.

Some people like that. Rick was one of them. His uncertainty dropped off when he talked about his boat, the way he positioned the big fuel tanks to improve the trim, a new way to get more from his carburetor.

After about forty-five minutes of ocean racing a guard appeared on the better side of the bars. “Richard Pearl?” he called.

Rick stood up, looking embarrassed again. “My dad’s got some pretty good lawyers,” he said.

“I guess so.”

He shifted his weight from foot to foot for a moment. “I’m sorry I can’t spring you,” he said. “But if there’s ever anything I can do—I mean, I definitely owe you one.”

“Forget it,” I said.

“No,” he told me, looking very serious. “I mean it. I owe you. You ever need anything, I owe you. Anything at all. Look me up.” He flashed a smile. “There’s only one Pearl in these waters,” he said, using the slogan from his dad’s store. “On Star Island.”

“Come on, Pearl,” the guard said, and Rick was gone, turning at the last minute to add, “I mean it.” Then he was gone down the hall with the guard.

I leaned back and closed my eyes again, sinking right back into thinking of the mess I’d made with Nancy.

The night seemed to last a lot longer than it was supposed to. My hand was throbbing along the knuckles, and I was cold without my shirt. I’d left it on the floor of the bar. I had known the holding cell would be air-conditioned to a frosty 68 degrees, but at the time, cold had seemed better than wearing a vomit-soaked shirt all night. Now I wasn’t so sure.

I was too cold to sleep so I sat and thought. After a while I got up and paced the cell, hoping the walking might keep me warm.

I thought about a big turtle I’d seen a week and a half ago. He’d come up just ahead of my boat and I’d almost lost my charter over the side when I turned fast to dodge him.

And I thought about Nancy, how things had turned bad and what I might be able to do to make them right again. I wondered if maybe she would be willing to consider all that had happened as meaningful dialogue. It didn’t seem likely. I wondered if I would ever see her again.

I remembered my trip to Los Angeles last year when I’d met her. I’d ended up in the drunk tank there, too. I’d been framed for drunk and disorderly by a corrupt cop, and as I sat in a much dirtier cell I had thought about Nancy then, too. It seemed to me I’d spent way too much time sitting in drunk tanks thinking about Nancy Hoffman. I wondered if it meant anything. It probably did. I thought about asking the bald captain but he was still asleep. But what the hell. If it did mean something I probably wouldn’t like it.

They let us out early the next day. The court appearance was a month away. We all promised we’d be there. I shook hands with the bald charter captain. Tiny was still trying to fit his belt back into his pants. I figured it would be a bad idea to offer to help. I left.

At this early hour of the morning Key West was deserted, almost as if a plague had swept through and taken away all the people, leaving only stray dogs and cats and the smell of stale beer. In the half hour it took me to walk home I saw nobody except a few joggers, and from the serious and strained looks on their faces as they jogged by, they might have been running from the plague.

Nancy was mad. I knew she was mad, but maybe what had happened to make her mad was good. Maybe it would give us a starting place to really talk out our differences. After all, the main reason I was hanging out in the Moonlight Room was that I was not happy with our relationship. Now that this had happened she would know that. We had something definite to talk about.

I wondered what I could say to Nancy to make it right. I remembered reading somewhere that every great disaster is actually a blessing in disguise. You just have to know how to look at it the right way, to turn your disadvantage into a strength. It might have been Sun Tzu, that wise old man who wrote The Art of War. Maybe I could do that with the bar fight, turn it into a new strength. Sun Tzu was always right about these things.