Gone Fishin'

Gone Fishin’

I love afternoons like this:  Hot Mexican sun, tempered by the waters of Cabo San Lucas - feels great.  I’m lying in the hammock, strung between cabin stanchions on the deck of the Reel Fine.  I see them approaching down the dock toward me.  I know they’ve come to see me.  They don’t look and linger around like tourists.  These two guys know where they want to go.

They’re coming for me.  You can just tell.  One is big, about six four with the kind of solid bulk associated with NFL linebackers.  He trails behind the other guy.  That one has the beefy look of a weightlifter that hadn’t touched the iron in many years and had the beginning of a paunch.  Both men sported open shirts, hairy chests, and enough gold chains to open a Diamonds International.  The shorter guy led the way with the gait of one in charge, the boss.  His features were hard, with a slightly squashed nose as if he’d done a few bouts in his younger days.  They looked to be in their fifties with faces that reflected all the pampered grooming money could buy.  But there wasn’t a facial treatment that could hide the rough nature of these two.
They stopped at the back deck of the Reel Fine, and looked at me.

“What can I do you for, gentlemen?” I said.

“You Captain Rodgers?” the shorter one asked.  His voice sounded like the rumble of a worn cement mixer.

“That’s me, Jolly Rodgers,” I said.  Nobody cracked a smile.  My little pun had gone so far over their heads it probably got a nosebleed.

I jumped from the hammock, looked at them and said nothing.

“I’m Ben,” the “boss” said, “and this is my associate, Alfredo.  He likes to be called Al.”

I looked at Ben and Al.  Whatever these two guys did for a living, I’d bet it wasn’t selling insurance.  Not the traditional kind anyway.

“We want to go fishing,” Al said.  His voice was soft, kind of high-pitched for coming out of such a behemoth.

“Well, that’s what we do,” I replied.  “What are you guys after, how long you want to stay out?”

“Overnight, we got two days left here,” Ben said.  “I want big game, marlin, sword, sail, big tuna.  I usually go out of Sheepshead Bay in New York, got my own boat, but there ain’t no fish like that in New York waters.  You got to go all the way to Montauk for that.”

I didn’t want to correct him and say that last I’d heard, Montauk was still part of New York.  I’d guessed their accent correctly, anyway:  Brooklyn all the way, John Gotti country.

“Sure, I can do that for you,” I said.  “It’ll cost you five hundred, plus a two hundred bucks fuel surcharge and a hundred for the mate.  Eight hundred US in all, cash or charge.”

“That’s kind of pricey.”

“A bit.  But if you got here and know my name, you been asking around, so you already know I’m the best and can deliver.  Up to you. Don’t matter that much to me.”

“Nervy fucker, ain’t you?” Ben said.

“Not more than you.”

He grinned at me.  He reminded me of something that should be caged.  Nevertheless he held his hand out.  I took it and we shook.  He turned to Al and nodded toward me.  “Pay the man,” he told Al.

The big guy reached in his pocket and pulled out a roll that could have funded a third world country.  He peeled off eight one-hundreds and handed them to me.

“How long till we get going?”

“Come back in an hour and a half and we’ll roll.”

I called Lupe on his cell phone.  I try to use Lupe exclusively.  He’s the best mate I’ve ever worked with.  His voice barely carried over the background racket of screaming kids and Spanish rock music.  Lupe’s house is right outside town.  He lives there with his wife and about a hundred kids.  I know for a fact there’s only six, but it always sounds like a hundred.

“Got work, overnight.  You ready?”

“Madre de Dio,, I thought you’d never call.  Si, I’m ready.  I don’t know which I need more, the money or the silencio.”

“We got two customers, big hombres.  So pick up enough food, a case of Coronas and bait.”

“When?”

“Right now.”

“See you in a half hour, pandejo.”

I keep Reel Fine’s fuel and water tanks filled.  It didn’t take me long to make final preparations.  I put on a light sweatshirt that reached below my waist.  I wondered about that choice.  I mean, I knew it was a bit chilly at night, but I had to admit to myself why I chose that particular garment:  It would conceal the snub-nosed thirty-eight.

Lupe showed up right on time, and I helped him load the boat.           We’d barely finished when Ben and Al walked up.  I introduced them to Lupe as we cast off the lines and got underway.

We motored through the harbor, passed approximately a couple of billion dollars worth of luxury sports fishing yachts, all of them US, in sharp contrast to the decrepit local crafts – contrast, that’s Cabo San Lucas all the way.  Outside the harbor I weaved through a fleet of small boats and tenders from the four huge, anchored cruise ships.  Moments later we were in the open ocean and I cranked the throttles to cruising speed. 

Reel Fine is an old, thirty-six foot lap strake Chris-Craft.  I restored her myself with new power systems and electronics.  I’m real proud of her - me and the other owner, the Bank of New York.

I ran her from the flying bridge for about two hours.  Someone came up the ladder and I saw it was Ben.  He took the seat next to me.  I had the front covers opened so the wind blew through the bridge.

“Mind if I smoke?” Ben said, in the manner of someone who didn’t give a shit what you minded.

“Go ahead,” I replied.

He took a fat, expensive looking cigar from his jacket and one of those little tools they use to cut the ends.  He turned to pitch the piece out.  I grabbed his arm.

“We don’t throw shit overboard,” I said, and pointed to a bucket.  He grinned and tossed it in the bucket.  It took a few tries until he finally lit the cigar.

“So what’d you do before you started fishing for money?” he asked.

“Back in the day I was on the job.  NYPD.”

Ben leaned back and gazed toward the weakening sun.  Evening would come pretty fast now.  He looked back at me, grinned and pointed with his cigar.

“Now I know who you are.  Captain Jim Rodgers, Fort Apache, the Bronx, until that little mix-up.”

“You know your NYPD history, Ben.  What do you do?”

“I’m a businessman.”

“Uh uh.  How about your pal back there, big Al?”

“He’s my associate.  Businessman too.”

“Well ain’t that nice.”

“Sure is, and speaking of being nice, when we gonna go fishing?”

“I’m looking now.  Time’s not right.”

“How come?”

Good question.  I have a tough time answering it because I’m not sure myself.  I look at current patterns, the way a chop develops against the wind, depths and soundings from the electronics and I just kind of know where the big game fish lurks.

“I’ve got a feeling for it, Ben.”

“Oh yeah? Well I got a feeling like I don’t wan to tool around here all day.  Let’s drop the lines and try right here.”

“It’s your dime.  Don’t blame me if it don’t work.”

I came down to the deck and helped Lupe prepare the outriggers.  We placed four big white poppers on wire lines and set the engines at trolling speed.  I knew we wouldn’t get anything here.  Ben would probably get bored and we’d move on.
I was wrong.  Suddenly one of the outriggers tensed and line whistled out like we snagged a nuclear sub.  Ben let out a whooping holler as we strapped him in the fighting chair, anchored the rod in the cup and handed it to him.  Lupe climbed the bridge and took the controls while I’d help and coach Ben.  Al sat on the bench and looked bored.

I could tell Ben was experienced in big game fishing.  He handled the rod like a pro.  Over a hundred yards of line had gone out and over the next hour he brought back half of it.

The sun dropped, and darkness came fast as it does in tropical latitudes.  I turned on the deck floodlights and watched Ben fight this big fish.

Something wasn’t right.  It took me a while to figure it out because I’d never seen anything like it.  Normally fish will fight with erratic bursts.  They will pull to right, left, head for the boat.  Some species like swordfish and sharks have even been known to attack ships.  That’s why a skilled person to control the boat from the bridge is so important. 

Nothing like that happened.  The wire stayed straight as the longitude lines on my charts.  Ben would reel in yards, pause, and the line would go right out again and stop.

A quarter moon rose and we closed in on ten o’clock.  Weak moonbeams silvered the top of distant waves while Reel Fine’s deck lights rendered the azure waters to black and white.  I felt something - a strangeness - as if we’d hooked something never meant to be fished.

“Take a break,” I told Ben.  “Let me work it for a while.  I’ll holler for you if I close it in.  You’ll be the one to land it.”

“Yeah, okay,” he said.  “I’ll make myself a sandwich.”  There was something in his eyes, a sort of unease that our mutual machismo would never allow to turn into fear.  We both knew something wasn’t right.

I sat in the seat, planted my feet in the brackets, and started reeling in the line.  The drag was set to max.  I noticed the orange marker on the wire as it wound in the reel.

Lupe came down from the bridge and stood beside me.  “I got it on auto-pilot.  What’chu got on the end of that line, boss?  I never seen nothing like it.”

I shook my head and didn’t answer him.  The feeling of it was wrong, all wrong.  I pulled on the rod, reeled in, pulled and reeled.  The pressure was steady.  No jerking, no sudden slackening, no upward runs for a jump - just a steady pressure as if whatever held the other end of that line had us hooked instead of the other way around.  I continued pulling and reeling.  The green marker passed.  I had pulled in fifty yards.  Suddenly the pressure increased to an unbearable pitch and the line whistled out.  The orange marker came out of the reel and the line suddenly stopped.  Whatever was on the other end had run out just fifty yards – the exact amount I had reeled in.  I felt my arms shake and it wasn’t just from the exertion.  What the hell was on the other side of that wire? 

After a while Ben returned to the fighting chair.  We were now just past midnight.  The wind had died completely and a mist floated on the flat ocean.  There was a smell of decay in the atmosphere that I’d never smelled before out here.  Like something died and haunted that spot of water. Lupe had returned to the bridge and Al dozed in the cabin.  Ben’s arms glistened with the effort of the fight.  Sweat rolled down his features and the expression on his face was that of a gladiator about to decapitate an opponent.

“I’m closing in on it.  Come on you fucker, I got you now, come to poppa.”

He was right.  The line was down to the last few yards.  Soon we’d be able to see what we’d dredged up from some unimaginable lair. 

I stood and felt the air thicken about me.  Suddenly I wanted to run, to be anywhere but here.

“I’m cutting the line, Ben.  Let it go.”

He looked up at me with feral eyes that held a touch of savage madness.  “You do, and I’ll cut your fucking throat.”  At that moment I had no doubts that he would.

“Wake up that moron, Al.  Tell him to get his ass over here, now.”

I did as he said.  Al came out of the cabin and took his seat on the bench.

“Get the gaff,” Ben screamed.  I saw he was down to the last few feet of line.

I took the gaff and got close to Ben.  He unbuckled the straps and kept a death grip on the rod as the line arrowed straight down into the still water.  Little plumes of mist erupted as it whipped back and forth from the tension.  Down below, at the end of that line, something powerful waited.

With every nerve screaming, I leaned over the transom at the same time Ben did. 

We both saw it at the same moment.

There are things that should never come to the light, a fearsome darkness meant to hide in realms where insanity dwells.  At that moment I felt a raging hell brushing the sore edges of my soul with leathery wings.

I jumped back at the sight of the horror below.  My left foot slid on the wet deck and I went down hard.  I heard Ben let out a muffled gurgle, as if fear had robbed his very breath.  He dropped the line and jumped back finally finding his voice.

“Shoot it, Al, shoot the fucking thing.”

I got up and held the side of the fighting chair.  The rod remained wedged in the cup, held by some demonic tension from the thing in the water.  I saw Al to my left.  The big man’s face held a puzzled kind of fear.  He was just reacting to his boss’ terror as he pulled the biggest handgun I’d ever seen:  A Desert Eagle fifty caliber. 

I didn’t have time to wait for Al.  Something told me that even that awesome weapon would be as effective as pissing into Niagara Falls.

I yanked the cutting tool from its holster on my belt, reached over and cut the line.  I felt my hands shake, I wanted to scream, but I knew that giving in to fear would make the horror in the water even more real.  In that direction laid a final, raging madness.

I lunged at the deck controls and jammed the throttles forward.  The turbo-charged Cummins responded immediately, the propellers bit hard, and Reel Fine leaped forward like an enraged beast.  My heart thumped as loud as the diesels while the distance opened between that accursed patch of sea and us.

Al tucked the gun back in his jacket.  Lupe came down the ladder from the bridge.  Neither had seen it.  They didn’t have a clue as to what happened.

“Que passa, boss?  You look like El Diablo’s after us.”

I shook my head.  “I’ll tell you later,” I said, but I never did.  “Take the helm and get us the hell back to Cabo.”

He shrugged, said okay, and throttled back to cruising speed, heading back to port.
I looked over at Ben.  He leaned against the cabin door and his legs buckled. He would have slid down to the deck if Al didn’t hold him.

I walked over to him.  Ben’s face was the color of old sewage.  His skin felt like something long dead.  Both eyes rolled in his head so only the white showed. 

“Wh..wh..what’s wrong with him?” Al said.  I got the feeling that outside of a bar fight or shootout, Big Al was pretty much useless.

“Move, let him down,” I told Al.  We put Ben on the deck.  I opened his shirt and put my fingers on his neck.  His pulse felt like a weak spring releasing whatever little energy it had.  I turned to Lupe who watched us from the helm.

“Call the Coast Guards at Cabo.  Get a helicopter, he’s having a heart attack.”

I worked on Ben for fifteen minutes.  I’ve got first aid training like any cop, but this was way beyond my skills or anyone else’s for that matter. 

I stood and told Lupe, “Cancel that helicopter.  He’s dead.”

**
         
I’m sitting on the patio of the tiny condo I rented.  I can see Reel Fine from here, moored at its dock.  I haven’t been back there since that night, two days ago.  I’ll return to it, eventually, but not for a while.  Earlier I called William.  Born in Britain, he’s the coroner for Cabo San Lucas.  I let him fish on my boat free when I’ve booked big parties.  He gives me information not everyone will get.  “James,” he told me, “it was a heart attack for sure, but none like I’ve ever seen.  That man’s heart blew up like a melon dropped from an airplane.  What the bloody hell happened out there, anyway?”

I didn’t tell him.

I pop the cap on my third Dos Equis, squeeze a slice of lime in the neck and take a pull just as my cell phone rings.

“Uncle Jim?” the voice says on the other end.

“Mandy, how ya doing, sweetie?”

I’m probably the only one who can all her Mandy and sweetie in one sentence and get away with it.  She’s my niece and the toughest woman I know.  Her name is Amanda Blake, Detective Sergeant Amanda Blake, NYPD, one of my contacts with the job.

“I’m fine,” she replies.  “But what’s going on with you?  Customers dying on your boat and all.”

“How’d you know that?  Since when does a tourist getting a heart attack in Mexico make news in New York?”

“Since that man is Benjamin “Chains” Morelli, that’s when.  Didn’t you know who he was?”

“Not a clue.  Should I?”

“You really don’t know, do you?”

“No.”

“You been off the job too long.  What happened out there?”

Good question.  All I knew was that I should have seen a fish at the end of that line and instead found a nightmare so frightful and bizarre I couldn’t begin to explain it to her.  I held my breath and the cell phone as if they were somehow linked.  I tasted ashes in my mouth that the strong Mexican beer couldn’t wash away.

“Uncle Jim?”

“I’m here, Mandy.  So what’s with this guy?”

“Tell you what, I’ll mail you some info.  You’ll understand when you get it.”

It came the next day:  a UPS envelope from Mandy.  It contained several newspaper clippings.  The man who’d introduced himself as Ben was featured in several of the articles.

The late Benjamin “Chains” Morelli was the least savory of a group that had taken over the rackets from the old Consoli crew at Howard Beach.  He held the nickname “Chains” from his rumored predilection for making peace with rivals by taking them fishing on his boat out of Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn.  He was about to be indicted for the murder of an “associate.”

An informant’s testimony suggested that recently, he’d taken the unfortunate man fishing.  When they were far enough out on the ocean, he’d overpowered the victim, wrapped him tight in about two hundred pounds of chains, and dumped him overboard – alive.  Underworld rumors held that it was not the first time, hence the nickname “Chains.”

I felt it coming like a change in air pressure preceding a storm.  Before turning the next page I knew what I would find.  I remembered the look in Ben’s eyes in those seconds between the horrid vision in the water and the explosion of his heart.  It was the terror of a man seeing the depth of a dark, eternal abyss with the full knowledge he’s about to be plunged into it like a lobster in boiling water.

I turned the page and the face looked out at me from the paper.  He looked to be just entering middle age.  Heavy brows, hair slicked back, eyes that held a measure of arrogance, and yes, contempt.  The article said the face belonged to Ben’s latest victim, a man he had sent plunging to bottom of the sea wrapped in chains.

It wasn’t a creature of the ocean that I saw when I looked over the transom that night.  It was a human head, alive with a demonic energy.  The apparition was the size of a basketball.  The eyes filled with a burning rage, the mouth moved in silent underwater curses.  The steel line disappeared in its gullet holding it fast with dreadful power.  The head seemed to grow out of a dark, amorphous shape, and connected to that shifting darkness were other heads with hatred burning from their features.  Our line had dredged a collage of horrors from the bowels of hell.  But that first head, it’s features burned in the synapses of my brains.  The sight will remain imprinted in my memory to my last breath.  And now I recognized the features.

It was the face of Ben’s last victim, the man he drowned from his boat a few weeks ago.

I don’t think I’ll go fishing for a while.