Chapter 12
Twelve
Cap’s blank stare turns my mouth to a desert.
Somehow, I power on.
“My name is Rue. Rue Conway. My mother—” I clear my throat. Twice. “She told me about your profession recently.” He stares at me. “Or former profession.” Nothing. “And she gave me this—”
I pull the crumpled article out of my pocket, waving it like a flag.
He stares at it.
“And I was wondering if you would be able to tell me what you know about the missing gold. I’m here to find it.” I clear my throat—again—sweat rolling down my back and into my ass like a river in a canyon. “If you’re able.” With my exhale: “Sir.”
The amount of time he stares at me might be seconds or an hour; it’s hard to tell because I’m so nervous and thirsty and hot. So focused on keeping my legs in place and not running to the parking lot and driving straight back to Fontain.
Finally, he grunts then retreats into the boat, leaving the little door open.
I search the dock in hopes of someone materializing to tell me what to do; they do not.
“Come aboard,” Cap barks from inside.
I do as he says, climbing up four steps to get onto the boat then down four steps that lead to a big-ish room.
Unlike the exterior where the finishes are peeling and faded, the inside is pristine.
Teak and polished brass cover nearly every surface.
There’s a box fan blowing the mild scent of marijuana around, a small TV playing a muted black-and-white western, and a sofa with maroon cushions that leads to the elements of a miniature kitchen.
The only thing out of place is a director-style canvas chair in the middle of the room.
This odd seat is where Cap is perched, his wooden cane across his lap.
The cane that I now see has a topless mermaid carved into the grip, bare breasts so big they might as well be lightbulbs.
I try not to stare at it.
Or his missing leg.
Or the prosthetic foot that’s sun-bleached and stained by dirt around the artificial toes.
Or the portable tank of oxygen next to him.
Or the vape pen he takes a long drag from.
“Do I close the door or . . . ?”
“Called a hatch,” he says, gruff. “Leave it.”
Clutching the article and my purse, I sit on the sofa; a cry of a gull fills the air. “Your boat’s nice.”
He grunts, giving the floor a swift tap with the bottom of his cane.
My knee starts to bounce. He watches it. I still.
“Why are you called Cap?”
“Licensed captain. Flounder gigging work for tourists mostly. Crazy sons of bitches.”
I’m not sure if he’s talking about the flounder or the tourists. I also do not ask.
I glance around the room again. “So, you live here?”
Grunt.
“And a—” I swallow. “A treasure hunter?”
Tap, tap, tap goes the cane. “Used to be.”
The scenario of awkward was not one I prepared for.
“Do you do anything else?” I ask. “Work?”
“Don’t drive.”
On the small strip of kitchen counter, there’s a bottle of liquor and a half-eaten loaf of bread. In the little refrigerator, I’m guessing there’s food, leading me to ask, “How do you get groceries?”
“Underage dockhand gets ’em for me in exchange for cheap beer.”
My eyes narrow. “How do you get the beer?”
“Neighbor. Don’t like leaving the boat.”
Through the window, the neighboring sailboat is covered in metal wind spinners. A black cat appears on the railing, startling me.
“I’m a homebody too,” I offer.
The crease deepens between Cap’s eyes, but once again, he’s silent.
“When I’m not working, I mean,” I add. “Or meeting long-lost sperm donors.”
I smile; he doesn’t. Right.
In the distance, a boat rumbles, and we bob gently in the wake that follows, dock lines and boat bumpers creaking as we do.
I look around the room again, desperate for anything to get this man to warm up to me. “Do they call this a kitchen on a boat? Or a living room . . . ?”
“Galley,” he gruffs. He lifts his cane and swings it between opposite ends of the boat. “Fore and aft cabins. Pisser’s called a head.” He rams his cane on the floor with a residual tap, tap, tap, tap, tap. “Down there’s the bilge. Holds the engine. Everything worth a damn is with the engine.”
I look at the floor, struggling to envision what’s below it. “Neat.”
We regard each other. His bushy eyebrows sit straight across his forehead above his greyish eyes that are separated by deep parallel lines.
He’s not wrinkly, just soft, with grey-brown hair peeking out from beneath his captain’s hat and a same-colored whiskery beard covering his jaw.
On his gold necklace and buried deep in the tuft of his chest hair hangs a medallion with the profile of a woman’s face on it.
“About the gold,” I say, trying to move this little reunion along. “I was wondering if you could tell me what you know about it. And this Anson Burns you mentioned back when you were looking for it.” I offer him the article but he makes no attempt to take it.
“You have a family?” he asks.
“Um.” My eyes narrow. “Yes.”
Tap, tap, tap, tap. “Kids?”
I’m so thirsty.
“Yes.” He looks at me like that won’t be good enough, so I add, “A daughter. She’s seven.”
Tap, tap.
“Your mom?”
I clear my throat and blow a worthless breath up to my sweat-glued bangs. “Good.”
Tap, tap, tap.
Tap.
Tap.
“I never wanted kids,” he admits.
“Oh.” Teddy bear on a boat he is not. “Well then, I guess we can skip getting to know each other and talk about the gold.”
I chuckle; he doesn’t.
“What do you want it for?” he asks.
“Why do most people want gold?”
Silence.
Internally, I swear. Externally, I sweat.
“I’m broke,” I admit. “Our business—the antique store my mom and I have—got—” An unexpected laugh puffs out of me. “Fucked.”
At this, an amused twitch flitters across Cap’s stormy features.
“I guess I was just hopi—”
“You won’t find it.”
My brows pinch. “Why not?”
“Letter takes you to historically preserved sites.” He points his cane at the article in my hands. “How I got busted.”
“Okay, well what if we—”
“It won’t work,” he repeats in a more severe tone. “I tried for years.” He hacks out a cough and sets the vape pen on a small table.
Of all the scenarios I played out, him shooting me down wasn’t one of them.
“Maybe there’s a different way to look at it.
” I manage to keep my voice even despite the frenzied thoughts slamming against my skull.
“Maybe we could look at the clues—” I pause to let him correct my word choice, but as I’m learning is his preferred communication style, he says nothing.
“Or whatever. And come up with a different plan. A plan with something else.”
Silence.
“Okay,” I say slowly. “If you don’t want to get involved—which I understand—prefer it actually—if I just looked at the letter I coul—”
“No!” he bellows, loud enough it makes me jump.
“You ever been to Charleston before?” I have a feeling my fifth-grade field trip doesn’t qualify, so I shake my head.
“Then you don’t know nothin’ about this city.
Won’t understand the letter even if I gave it to you right now.
Plus, even if you did find it, the government owns it.
You turn it in, they’ll claim spoils of war. You’ll never get a cent.”
“That can’t be right.” I am now fully pissed and so thirsty I might die of dehydration. “Why would you spend your whole life looking for something you’ll never have?”
He snorts. “Ain’t called hindsight for nothing. Whole point is to make us see today better.”
“If this is your way of getting me to change my mind, it won’t work.” There’s as much heat in my voice as there is in the air. “I don’t have time. This-this-this is my whole plan. I have a daughter and-and bills, and Mom has a—” Nope. “Mole.”
His slow blink unnerves me.
As does the stretchy silence that hangs between us in this diabolical heat.
I take the four deepest breaths of my life and nearly ask to borrow his oxygen to get through them all.
“I know you didn’t know about me—Mom told me.
I don’t know if you think I’m some kind of-of estranged kid coming out of the woodwork who wants to take advantage of you, but I’m not.
I’m here because I’m in trouble. I’m in big, huge trouble.
And—” My voice cracks right in half and I pause to gather my thoughts.
I haven’t cried about any of this yet, I refuse to start now with a half-mute stranger dad.
“If you could just help, I will leave you alone. I will do anything you ask if you just tell me what to do.” I swallow. “I need this to work. Please.”
His ceaseless quiet is the most infuriating sound I’ve ever heard. He’s so quiet it makes the air hotter and my throat drier. If I didn’t need this money, I’d tell him to fuck the fuck off, but that isn’t an option.
He’s just looking at me.
In this heat.
After my kid forced me out of town.
While my bank account sits empty.
Like I didn’t just beg him.
I wipe my forehead.
Tug at the straps of my overalls.
Clear my throat.
This might be the part where I finally have a nervous breakdown.
“Excuse me,” I manage.
Quietly, I stand and march through the hatch. At the top of the boat, I look at the sky, reeling.
This is a great plan, yet it isn’t working.
This is my only plan, yet it isn’t working.
I’m shaking.
I’m sweating.
I’m failing.
I squeeze my eyes shut and try to breathe, but Cap’s unwillingness to help combined with this godforsaken heat has me flying toward the cliff edge of my sanity.
When I think I’m about to cry, a scream erupts out of my mouth and I let it fly.
Fists clenched at my sides on the top of this strange man’s boat, I scream as loud and as long as I can.
I scream until I’m out of air. And though it does nothing to improve my situation, it helps.
Like it’s been building up in my throat since Jeane Dixon’s crystal ball rolled into town and started knocking down the pins of my life.
Quietly, I return to my seat in the galley and look at Cap like nothing happened.
“You always do that?” he asks, unalarmed by my tantrum.