Chapter 17 #2
That seemed to perk her up a bit. “Are we going now?”
“After breakfast,” Ida Belle said. “Your antics got Fortune and I out of the house without coffee again. I swear I’m going to give you a curfew, but instead of giving you a time that you have to be home, it will be a time you have to wait until you leave the house.”
We had breakfast at Francine’s, then headed back to Ida Belle’s for her to pick up supplies, and she was being very cryptic about exactly what those supplies included.
She came out of her garage with a plastic case about two feet square and eight inches high.
I’d seen about every weapon known to man and couldn’t come up with a single one that fit in a case with those dimensions.
I worried a bit about it but not nearly as much as I would have if it had been Gertie toting around a secret weapon.
I insisted on inspecting Gertie’s handbag before we started out, and after removing a Taser, two of the four pistols she had, and an entire honey-baked ham, I had the purse weight down to a manageable fifteen pounds or so and the weapons equivalent to that of small country.
I checked my full-sized nine and my mini in my foot holster and we headed out to the airboat.
“Are you just going to drive right up to the pier and look at his boat?” I asked as we took our seats.
“I have a plan,” Ida Belle said. “Trust me.”
Famous last words. I yanked three life jackets out of the storage bench and handed one to Gertie.
“I’m not wearing a vest,” Ida Belle said.
“Calm down, Michael Phelps,” I said. “The extra is for Gertie to sit on.”
I pointed to the bottom of the boat in front of the bench and Gertie groaned.
“Why don’t I get to ride in the seat?” she complained.
“Because I only have one ice pack and you commandeered it,” I said. “And if you sit on the bench, we run a high risk of having to fish you out of the water. Trust me, you’re safer in the bottom.”
Gertie grumbled some more but put the life jacket in front of the bench and sank down on it.
If we were going to keep using my boat for potentially dangerous ventures, I was going to have to look into putting a legitimate seat down there for Gertie.
Either that or side rails on the bench. Maybe a racing harness.
We set out for the Swamp Bar, and I couldn’t help feeling odd about approaching the place in daylight.
I’d always preferred the cover of dark for missions, but after last night’s boat-thieving adventures, my guess was Whiskey would have someone watching the pier at night now.
Probably his father, who usually served as a bouncer of sorts.
He might not be able to manhandle most of the crowd in the bar, but I had no doubt he could pick off boat thieves with a gun and never even have to stand up to do it.
He could just sit there and wait, like using a deer lick.
Besides, we didn’t want to wait until night to look into this.
I couldn’t say why, exactly, but I knew that things were about to reach a head.
We needed to zero in on the truth now, because I had a feeling it would either explode in the town’s face or slip away before we could pin it down.
Neither was a good option, especially with Petey’s future on the line.
I knew Ida Belle said she had a plan, but the closer we got to where I thought the Swamp Bar was located, the more antsy I got.
It was a marsh. Yes, there was high grass and clumps of trees, but given that the bar was on pylons, someone could see a good distance across the area surrounding the bar if they were standing on the front porch or looking out a window.
Added to that, the airboat wasn’t exactly stealthy when it came to sound, and noise carried across the marsh something fierce.
We rounded a corner in the channel we were traversing and I spotted the bar in the distance, rising up out of the grass.
We were probably within hearing distance, especially if someone was outside.
I was just about to force Ida Belle’s plan out of her when she cut the engine on the boat.
She hopped out of her seat and grabbed an oar from the side of the boat, motioning to me to grab the other.
“We’re going with the tide,” she said, “so it should be easy to get us farther up. That clump of trees at the bend will hide us from anyone at the bar, even if they’re looking from a window.”
We started rowing until we reached the trees, which put us about fifty yards away from the bar. Close enough to get a good look at things with binoculars, but not so close that we couldn’t get away. If this was Ida Belle’s big plan, I approved, but I didn’t see the reason for all the secrecy.
Ida Belle put the oar back in the holder and reached down to open the mystery case she’d brought on board. “Now for the fun part.”
I leaned over to look inside the case as she opened it, expecting her to pull out some military-grade binoculars, then smiled when I saw the contents. “A drone. So much better than binoculars.”
“I assume you’ve used them before?” Ida Belle asked. “Just probably much better than what I could get off the Internet.”
“A couple times,” I said, “but my missions usually depend on complete invisibility. A drone flying around sort of gives you away and I’m tasked with getting close enough to get information or kill, so it defeats the purpose.”
Ida Belle nodded. “Well, in this case, I figure we only need to get close enough with it to see if the boat is there, and we can fly it over the bar so it can’t be seen from inside.
Worst case, Whiskey sees it and starts shooting, but from this vantage point, we’d be long gone before he could get to his boat and attempt a chase. ”
“His boat wouldn’t stand a chance against the airboat, anyway,” Gertie said. “I can’t believe you got one of these. I’ve been thinking of ordering one. I’m dying to try it out.”
“No way,” Ida Belle said. “I’m flying the drone. If I have a heart attack or otherwise lose the use of my hands, then Fortune takes over.”
“I never get to do anything fun,” Gertie said.
“You assaulted a man with darts last night, then stole a boat,” I pointed out.
“This morning, you scared people so badly they’re probably listing their house with a real estate agent as we speak, and all because you thought it would be a good idea to walk an alligator like a dog.
Now you’re going to tell me that you don’t get to have any fun? ”
“Okay, maybe a little,” Gertie said. “But all of those things were stuff you would have told me not to do if you’d known ahead of time.”
“And they all turned out so well,” Ida Belle said drily. “You’re making our point.”
“Fine,” Gertie said. “Go on and play with your toys.”
Ida Belle pulled the drone out and handed it to me, then accessed the flight app on her phone. “Hold it flat in your palm, above your head,” she instructed. “I can launch it from there.”
I positioned the drone as she requested and a couple seconds later, the propellers started to spin, eventually reaching enough speed to lift the drone from my hand. Ida Belle sent it up and off to the right, approaching the bar from the back, which had the fewest windows.
We all leaned over to see the camera feed on her phone as she directed the drone to the bar. When the drone got close enough to the bar for the camera to capture a good amount of space, she turned it slightly to the left in order to scan the pier.
“Only one boat there,” Gertie said, “and it looks like Whiskey’s.”
“Is that him walking in the parking lot near the pier?” Ida Belle asked.
I squinted at the phone and shook my head. From the camera’s viewpoint, I couldn’t see his face but the cadence didn’t look right. “I don’t think so,” I said. “This guy lumbers when he walks. Whiskey has a slow stride but smooth.”
The guy looked up enough for us to see his face, and Gertie gasped. “It’s Buck.”