Chapter 30
Music has started up again on the patio, encouraging the crowd to withdraw from the dining area and be merry once again. My mind is in turmoil. I can hardly concentrate on our unexpected guest, who of course I should be gratified for the opportunity to question.
“That is generous of you, sir,” Eva tells Mr. Gotze as he inspects what his two hundred dollars have netted him. The three of us sit at the end of a table where servants have cleared a space. Eva orders a plate of food for the newcomer and keeps the talk flowing while I collect my wits.
I could strangle both Koa and Nash for dragging their feud into this arena, when so much is at stake. Koa was supposed to be keeping Nowhere safe, not picking fights. And Nash—what will our clients think, a president engaging in such a trivial squabble?
The party could’ve hit the skids.
At least no punches were thrown.
Eva presses a hand to my arm, waking me from my anger. She is like one of the cooling stones Cookie drops in the stew to keep the pot from boiling over.
“All for a good cause, though I’m not a fan of sea wolves.” His tongue has a sharp way of spinning words, like stones across a pond. He smooths the crumpled hankie and lays it across the table from him, as if to keep an eye on it. His cool gaze snaps to mine. “Of course, you know that.”
“Sir?” I ask.
“You can’t drop a hook in Far West Bay without me knowing.” As he chews, he throws quick glances over his shoulder, as if someone might be creeping up on him. “If you violated the gentlemen’s agreement, I will no longer need to honor it either.”
I can feel my face redden. “I was just out for a jaunt. No salmon was taken.”
“Heard you snooping around about Harry Tang,” he continues. The interpreter, Wai, with his face like a moon, appears in my head. “Now, why would you be interested in him?”
I work my tongue. “Mr. Sanders was killed in the same manner as Mr. Tang. Do you not find that remarkable?”
His long thready eyebrows stretch higher.
“I think when you make a deal with the devil, the devil’s bound to collect one day.
I’ve seen Harry in his absurd canoe. It’s dangerous to paint a canoe green, but he didn’t care about danger.
He’d feed them fish with his hands. It was unnatural, the power he had over them.
” He glances at the sea wolf hankie again and shudders.
My birthmark suddenly feels as obvious as a neck iron. Have either of the men noticed it? As casually as possible, I pull a good handful of hair to cover it.
“Wouldn’t surprise me if he caused the Salmon Calamity, which nearly bankrupted me.” Mr. Goetz yanks his tie, throwing another look behind him.
I wet my lips. “So what was this deal with the devil?”
Eva has somehow produced her notepad from a hidden pocket and is writing in it.
Gotze shrugs. “All I know is, one day he and Dakon both quit on me; then they’re swimming in money, and then Harry’s dead. Whatever deal they made, it cost Harry sooner than later, and Dakon later than sooner.” Gotze glugs his wine, Adam’s apple punching in discreet intervals.
Eva scribbles Theory B on her notepad and circles it: Mr. Sanders and my father were killed by the same person.
If Mr. Gotze blamed my father for the Salmon Calamity, he might’ve killed my father in revenge, or for the more practical reason of preventing him from inciting the sea wolves again.
When Mr. Sanders got too close to the truth, did Mr. Gotze end him as well?
A chair screeches back, and suddenly Mr. Tavernish has joined our conversation. The two island bosses slap each other’s backs and call for more libations as if they are the proprietors here. I force myself to sit tall like Eva.
Mr. Gotze gestures at me with his glass.
“So, Lucy, let’s get down to brass tacks.
I didn’t come all this way to spend two hundred dollars on a rag.
As a showing of goodwill between our companies, we’d like you to reinstate the fishing derby.
My men have been downright angry over it,” he says with indignation, as if he wasn’t the one who canceled it.
“It’s well-known you have a salmon problem,” he sails on. “Maybe a derby is what you need to stir the waters back up.”
“Get back some self-respect for your fisherman,” adds Mr. Tavernish, jerking his chin toward where Gilly seems to be ranting at anyone who comes near. The Englishman tops off his and Gotze’s glasses. The men do love their spirits, especially when they come from Mr. Sanders’s cabinets.
“Maybe you’d like to call your man Sveyn over,” says Gotze with exaggerated patience, as if he is talking to a child.
Anger stiffens my lip, and I squeeze wrinkles into my dress. “Perhaps the reason I have a salmon problem is that you are shooting at sea wolves, driving them into the East Sound.”
A gleeful snort bursts from Mr. Tavernish’s mouth. “Watch out, Gotty, the jellyfish has a stinger.”
“Your Rifles shoot pests like wild pigs,” Gotze sneers, his sharp shoulders jumping. “Why should sea wolves be any different?”
A crash makes us all jump. The band grinds to a halt. People yell, and I hear a table being knocked over. Someone yells, “Get him!”
The party just hit the skids.
I spring to my feet and run toward the melee, trying to avoid those running the other way.
On the patio, Nash and Koa are facing off. Mouth bleeding, Nash cradles his hand from a punch he must have just landed. Koa shakes off the pain. His face becomes gleeful, like a hound released on a fox. He’s no longer wearing his jacket, and a patch of blood stains the front of his shirt. His?
“Pound away,” Nash snarls, flipping back his hair.
His collar is ripped—Koa’s work, clearly.
“We shall all rest easy tonight knowing that the man responsible for keeping us all safe has come unhinged. Course, it can’t be easy pining away for the girl who buys your bread, as they say. Rather pathetic, if you ask me.”
Nash’s badgering tongue will get him killed.
“Stop! Stop, you bucketheads!” I insert myself between the two, though the fight just moves around me as if I’m not there.
Koa has a wild look in his eye. Red and another Rifle attempt to grab him, but he shakes them off and lunges at Nash.
The two fall into a heap, knocking over a set of drums. A cymbal crashes to the floor.
Shrieking guests clear the floor as Koa and Nash, each grabbing at the other’s neck, roll unevenly across it. A string of lanterns is yanked down.
I jam my hand into the pocket of my gown, catching a finger. But at last my grip finds the pearly handle of the Double Dee. I raise it in the air. Pow.
Compared to the boom of a rifle, the small handgun barely barks. But it is enough to cause the two asinine roosters to lift their combs. Red and the other Rifle quickly separate the men.
“Saved your hide,” Koa spits at Nash, then storms away.
Guests hold their elbows; some stumble away in various states of confusion and shock. Sveyn and Boots attempt to calm people. The staff don’t bother to conceal their disappointment, faces long and whispering. A mess of broken glass and flowers is strewn about the patio.
“Your watchdog ruined a good shirt,” Nash says darkly, panting. His chin is cut, and a bruise is forming over his left eye. He dabs his mouth with his sleeve. “You don’t have a sea-wolf hankie on you, do you?”
I jab a finger at his nose. “I trusted you to help the business, not turn it into a circus! Bad enough that you waltzed in last minute like the king of England—”
Remembering the eyes on me, I draw myself up, trying to recover some dignity.
Our controversial client, Zephyr, stands a few feet away, mustachio twitching, arms folded tightly. “Shameful.”
And with that, Nowhere’s biggest fish swims away.
“The good news is,” Nash ventures, “Prosper said yes to a date at Rooster Cove tomorrow.”
I grimace, seeing only the shards of my shattered plans before me.
Eva brings me the speaking trumpet. Shunning Nash, I step around a fallen stool and address the moving crowd.
“Our dear guests, I am sorry to bring our evening to an early close. For those staying with us, Red will escort you to your rooms, and for those of you leaving tonight, Sveyn and Boots will show you back to your boats.”
All that work, all that expense, gone to waste.
I hand Eva the trumpet. “I need to talk to Koa.”
She sets off in one direction. I march down the sea path to the Peace Rock.
It must be past nine o’clock, judging by how the light falls through the cloud cover. I console myself that the party would have ended soon anyway, but it doesn’t take away my anger.
Koa is sitting on the Peace Rock, drinking out of a bottle of whiskey from who knows where. He holds it out to me. “You had a drink with him. How ’bout one with me?” His eyes climb up my dress to my face, and he gets to his feet.
I half laugh, though the words send a shiver down my body. He is drunk or getting there, but I can’t help remembering the bold way he touched me during target practice. Course, it can’t be easy pining away for the girl who buys your bread, Nash remarked.
I take the bottle and fling it as far as I can toward the sea. It doesn’t actually make it there, but lands ten feet away with a clunk.
“Do you know what you did?” I demand.
He laughs. “Yes, I evened up his face.”
“Unbelievable. You know how much this cost. What’s at stake.” I can feel tears coming. “This is just like the Dry House. You do what you want. It doesn’t matter what I need.”
“That city rat was begging for it, waving his money like he owns the place,” he says, looking toward where the bottle landed.
I let out an angry growl and swing at him.
Before my hand reaches his face, he catches my wrist. With an angry grunt, I lash out with my left, but he seizes that one too. Slowly—almost tenderly—he lowers my arms behind my back, holding them there.
I could wrench free, but I don’t.
He pulls me close, bending over me, his alcohol-soured breath laced with something wild. His lips trace a hot path from my forehead to my nose, and as my protests become curses, he licks those curses away, then kisses me deeply.
It is like following a rare bird into a dark forest—making me tremble with fear, and a little happiness.
“I’m firing you,” I gasp once we come up for air.
“Later,” he mumbles, kissing my neck, making my insides ache. He loosens his grip, and my traitorous limbs pull his head closer. My body seems to have lost contact with my mind, and I feel myself falling, faster than a diving murrelet.
As his lips press more deeply, all the thoughts carving deep tracks in my head—seals and Specialties, lost business and lost souls—float away.
The grind of an engine pierces the fog in my head, and through the blur, I glimpse a boat approaching across the water. It is the sheriff’s olive-brown steamer, the Forthright. My ardor cools. So he has arrived early, bringing his unwelcome news.
“Stop,” I sputter, and all the worries come rushing back.
“Nope,” Koa growls, holding me tighter.
“The sheriff is here, you brute.”
He sucks in his breath and at last lets me go, a pained look on his face.
What am I doing? Everything is wrong.
“I need some distance from you,” I say, feeling hot and chilly at the same time. The business is crumbling, and a killer is on the loose. Instead of supporting me, Koa has made things worse. “Have Red make the reports from now on.”
I straighten my gown, which seems to be missing some buttons. Shunning Koa, just as I am shunning Nash, I steer my feet toward the marina, somehow feeling the night has just begun.