The Music of What Happens by John Straley

Author:John Straley
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Crime Fiction
Publisher: Soho Press
Published: 2018-05-18T20:07:08+00:00

7

The next morning I woke up to the vibration of the engine, then the anchor chain rattling across the deck. I smelled the fa­miliar mixture of diesel fuel, mildew, and coffee. Music was coming from the radio: a thumping rap song about guns and cops. As I pulled my damp pant legs on I felt the Winning Hand move away from its anchorage and I heard the water lapping under the planking of the hull.

Teller was in the galley bobbing his head to the rhythm and spooning thick oatmeal with raisins into mugs.

“Hey! How’s the head?”

“Good. Good.” I took some coffee. “Where are we headed?”

He looked up to the wheelhouse and nodded. “Ask the skipper. She’s been quiet with me this morning.” He handed me a mug of oatmeal. “I should know better than to try and flirt with a scientist. Why not take this up to her?”

I climbed the steep stairs to where Jane Marie stood at the wheel. She didn’t look down at me as I came in. She was watching the mouth of the cove.

“There are rocks just south of the middle of the entrance. They are wrong on the charts. I have to pay some attention here.”

She waved for me to put the mug down and I set it on the chart. She scowled at me, then moved the mug to the flat shelf behind the wheel. The sky was purely blue this morning. There was no trace of yesterday’s fog. To the east, the mountains of the mainland had fresh snow near the tree line. The granite peaks were vivid in the sunlight. The water showed only the slight riffle of wind from the north. On one of the near islands, six sea lions rested on the black slabs of stone. As the Winning Hand passed to the south they slipped into the water, jutting their sleek heads back out on the surface, blasting air through their nostrils, and lift­ing their heads to watch us pass. They curled under­water and their hides were slick in the sun. Then they were gone.

She scanned the waterway with her binoculars.

“I’ve been thinking. I could drop you in Tenakee. You don’t have to be a part of this.”

“That’s true.” I sipped my coffee. The engine droned, shouldering away at the silence between us. I carefully put my cup down away from the charts. I said, “I’d like to stay. If that’s all right.”

She studied her course, scanning the distance, her hands making slight course corrections on the wheel. Because she wasn’t going to speak, I continued, “If they kidnapped him and you know who they are, the boy is in a lot of danger. Is that what you want?”

She turned her head. “No,” she said. Her voice wasn’t ironic but merely tired. The boat heeled slightly to port as we rounded the point of the anchorage. To the north there were streaks of low clouds near the surface. In the distance gulls circled like a broken mobile.

“Where are we going?” I asked over the engine noise.

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