Conner Samson bounced a check for a dollar draft in
Salty's Saloon and decided it was time to get serious
about looking for work.
Sid, the eternally bald and surly bartender, set the draft
beer at Conner's elbow and handed him the phone from
behind the bar. Sid took Conner's check and frowned at it
before crumpling it into a tight wad and tossing it over
his shoulder. He wiped the length of the bar with an old
rag, muttering in his amiable cranky way.
"Thanks, Sid."
"Yeah, yeah."
Conner looked up again at the TV hanging over the bar to
see if the nightmare were true. Maybe the whole thing had
been a bad hallucination. The score: Atlanta 6, St. Louis
7, and Chip Carey telling everyone about the outfielder's
error, which had cost Conner five hundred bucks.
Hell.
Salty's saloon was old and dark and filled with quiet
regulars who wanted to watch sports, nurse drinks, and be
left alone. Conner's kind of place. Salty's had been
through a few transformations, a disco, a Chinese takeout
place, a pool hall. A wooden cricket bat still hung on the
wall from the brief period Salty's had masqueraded as an
English pub. Conner liked the current incarnation. Neon
beer signs, a jukebox nobody played, a TV with a ball game
always on, and cheap suds. And Sid. A crusty, retired
Marine, but a good guy who knewthe names and life stories
of all his regulars.
Sid glanced at the television, shook his head. "You got
the worst luck of anybody I've ever known." He was still
shaking his head as he stacked clean glasses behind the
bar.
Conner drank his beer and looked at the phone.
He didn't want to make the calls yet, so he stalled, paged
through the Wall Street Journal. DesertTech was up three
points. A friend of a pal of a guy somebody knew had
suggested the stock a week ago. Conner kept tabs. The
stock was going up and up. That would have been great,
except Conner hadn't bought any. He'd been trying to put
some bets together, get a stake so he could buy a hundred
shares. Then the stupid fucking Atlanta Braves . . .
"I guess you ain't a millionaire yet," Sid said.
"Would I be in this dump if I were a millionaire?"
"Yeah, I sorta think you would," Sid said. "My sister owns
an alpaca farm in California. Says it's the latest thing."
"No animals."
"They always need guys on the offshore oil rigs."
"I want my money to work for me. Not the other way around."
"Yeah, but it takes money to make money."
"That's clever," Conner said. "I'm going write that down."
"Oh, blow it out your ass."
Conner couldn't stall anymore. He dialed Harvey Sterling
at Sterling's Bail Bonds. Harvey sometimes paid well
whenever he sent one of his guys to chase down a skip.
Conner didn't consider himself a tough guy or anything
like that, but he was tall and had some shoulders, and
sometimes just the sight of a big guy standing there would
keep somebody from running or putting up a fight. Harvey
didn't have any work for him. Conner left his number in
case anything changed.
Next, Conner dialed Ed Odeski at Gulf Coast Collections.
He really didn't want to, but repossessing cars for Odeski
was usually worth a couple of bucks. Last time, Conner had
to hot-wire a Jaguar. The delinquent owner had caught him
in the middle of the job. He hit Conner, and it hurt a
lot. Conner hit him back a few times, but it didn't seem
to bother the guy. They went on like that for a little
while. By the end, Conner had managed to get away with the
car. What he got paid for the repo almost covered the cost
of his stitches.
"Gulf Coast Collections," said the secretary.
"Tell Ed it's Conner Samson."
"Hold please."
Conner held.
Ed's gutter ball voice came on the line. "You must need
work, Samson."
"What? A guy can't call up an old buddy?"
"No."
"Okay, so I need work."
"Ain't got none."
"Come on."
"None."
"Awwwwwww, come on." Sometimes just being pathetic was the
best way to get a job out of Ed. He liked to save most of
his repo work for a squat little hunk of meat he called
his kid brother. "I'm not picky here, buddy. I just need
some folding money."
"No. You always bust up the cars. Bring them back all
banged." He was from Albania or Lithuania or some kind of
ania. Conner always forgot where, but Odeski's accent was
thick with spit.
"It was only that one time," Conner said.
"All headlights smashed real good."
"The guy had a tire iron. He was trying to cave in my
skull."
"So you hit him with car."
"The light was green."
"Then you back over him," Ed said. "Smash up taillights
and bend the bumper."
"I was going back to see if he was okay. It wasn't my
fault, man."
Ed sighed, the sound of a hippo sitting on a beach
ball. "You wait. Stay on phone."
Conner waited again, wished for the tenth time he had a
cell phone.
Sid brought another draft. Conner waved the checkbook,
arched his eyebrows into a question.
"Yeah, right," Sid said. "Don't make me laugh."
Conner mouthed "thanks" at him.
Ed came back on the line. "Okay, I got something. Maybe
good for you. You got pencil?"
Conner reached over the bar for a pen, spread a napkin to
write on. "Go ahead."
Odeski told him a phone number. "This man might have work
for you, Samson. You call. His name is Derrick James.
Okay. You call. Okay?"
"Okay."
"You call," Ed said. "Tell him my name. Ed Odeski."
"I'll tell him," Conner said. "Thanks, Ed."
"Is nothing." He hung up.
Conner called Derrick James next. He had a business in
Mobile, boats and marine supplies, etc. James said to
drive out and see him the sooner the better.
Conner said he was on his way.
James Boat & Nautical Supply was tucked away at the grimy
end of the industrial shipyards in Mobile. Traffic was
light, and Conner made the trip on I-10 over the Bay
Bridge in just under an hour. James had an office in back
of the big, warehouse-size shop. The girl behind the
counter directed Conner down an aisle of big nets and
winch equipment. He found the door all the way back and
knocked.
"Come in."
Conner went in.
"You must be Samson," he said.
"That's me."
"Derrick James." They shook hands, and James motioned
Conner to a chair across his sad little desk. The office
on the whole looked dark and uninteresting, a five-hundred-
year-old computer buzzing its tale of obsolescence. A
nautical chart of the Gulf Coast on the wall behind him,
yellowing at the edges.
James was so tan and crusty, his face looked like a
catcher's mitt. Well-groomed salt-and-pepper hair. Big,
white horse teeth. He was trim, tall, wore khaki shorts
and a Hawaiian shirt with too many buttons undone. He
sported a nifty shark-tooth necklace. Somehow, he was
making believe he wasn't at the tail end of his forties,
maybe fifty.
Conner became aware he might be looking at himself in
twenty years. Conner was just as tall, not quite as tan
but almost. He'd picked a few strands of premature gray
out of his black hair just two days ago. He ran a hand
along his angular jaw and frowned. James had shaved more
recently than he had.
"I know Ed Odeski pretty well," James said. "I trust his
judgment." He opened his top desk drawer and fished out a
manila folder. "He said you were the man for the job."
"I'm your man."
James opened the folder and slid a color picture of a
sailboat across his desk. It wasn't a real picture.
Printed on computer paper, but it was clear, and Conner
could see the boat fine. A nice sloop, maybe five years
old, thirty-six feet, one mast and a spinnaker. Nice
lines. An athletic blonde sat in the cockpit and waved, a
bright and happy Sunday sailor. She had nice lines too.
Conner tossed the picture back on the desk.
"That's the Electric Jenny," James said. "Good-looking
vessel, huh?"
Conner agreed she was a good-looking vessel.
"And she's got the works," he said. "New radar, GPS, depth
finders. Hell, she's even got that new state-of-the-art
air-conditioning. You know how hard it is to keep a boat's
air-conditioning up and running with the salt air and
everything?"
"I know."
"Sleeps seven, no problem."
"Nice." Get on with it.
He shuffled papers again, came out with a statement,
columns of numbers. "I held the note on fifty-eight
thousand dollars. He bought the Jenny in March, made five
payments but missed his last one August first."
"He's only late on one payment?"
James said, "I took the boat as collateral on a shitload
of equipment for some guys who were starting a marina.
They went belly-up, and I got stuck with her. I was glad
to hold the note as long as somebody was making payments.
But I ain't the Federal Reserve. I want my money on time.
I got my own bills."
James shoved a stack of papers to one side, revealing an
expensive-looking cherrywood humidor. He flipped it open
and grabbed a cigar. A Macanudo. He bit off the end and
spit it in the trash can, stuck the cigar into his mouth
without removing the band. He lit it with a disposable
lighter. Conner raised an eyebrow.
James nudged the humidor toward Conner. "Want one?"
"Please." Conner plucked one out of the humidor between
thumb and forefinger, bit the end, clamped the cigar
gently between teeth. James lit it, and Conner puffed it
to life. Oh, baby. Conner's budget had him on Swisher
Sweets, the Pabst Blue Ribbon of cigars.
"Thanks," Conner said, and meant it.
James waved away the gratitude. "I probably wouldn't be so
hot to sic a repo man on the guy, but circumstances make
me think we need to act fast."
"How so?" Puff-puff.
"Believe you me, I'd much rather have Folger just pay on
time than go through the hassle of taking the boat back.
So I had my girl out front call him. A friendly reminder."