“Howdy, darling. You wouldn’t know a man by the name of Harrison now, would you?”
“I might.”
He laughed, wiped his forearm across his jaw.
“He must favor a smartass then, if you’re any indication. He here or not?”
Harrison came forward from the tree line.
“He is. He may even have a set of ears on him.”
“Glad to hear it. I was worried you’d gotten shy on me.”
“Nope. Looks like you’re missing something in your hand though.”
The man laughed again, went back out to the jet ski where his blonde girlfriend handed him a bulky envelope sealed in a Ziploc bag. He opened the seal and counted out five hundred-dollar bills, laid them there on the beach towel next to Delilah’s feet.
“A gift for your little redneck mermaid then.”
Delilah picked up the cash and folded it into the cleavage of her top. Harrison fished the weed out of the backpack and set it on the beach.
“That’s a pile of fun right there,” the man said as he sat down in the sand and slit a Case knife blade up the plastic seam. “Come on, everbody. A party of one ain’t no party at all.”
The other three came out of the water and joined him. The other man from the jet ski had a small glass pipe. He was fat and had a permanent scowl. His woman giggled when she plopped down so hard it looked like it hurt. She grabbed the pipe, packed it and they each took a hit.
“Pretty fucking solid, brother. I’ll have to say I didn’t really know what to expect. You mind sharing some of those beers? We’re fresh out.”
“Sure. We’re about to leave anyhow.”
“Come on now,” the man said. “Why is it I get the feeling you two think we smell bad? We just come up here and dropped half a grand and you don’t even want to spend a little fellowship. That seems decidedly uncharitable.”
Harrison had already seen the shape of a revolver tucked in between the man’s shorts and life vest. He gathered the beers and handed them over.
“Get yourself a couple,” the man told him. “You and the mermaid both. Maybe she’ll loosen up a little bit with a touch of lubricant in her.”
The girls tittered.
“She’s fine. I told you that we’re both fine.”
“Boy, the way you say it seems more like you’re telling me to go fuck myself. What do you think, Taylor? Am I imagining it or does it sound like this wayfaring stranger is telling me to fuck myself?”
The one called Taylor grunted, pawed at the sand. Harrison picked a beer for himself and squatted a few feet away from the others, sipped and waited.
“That’s better. I feel relaxed now. I don’t feel like I’m being rushed. A terrible thing for a man to feel his leisure is rushed.”
The man took a deep toke from the pipe before passing it along. Harrison wondered how long the man had stood in front of a mirror working on his hardboiled personality. Every gesture and word like something he’d gathered from a pulp paperback. He’d seen what happened to men like that, men who acted as though the force of their bluster would make up for their lack of attention, their failure of intelligence.
“I’ve noticed something about you,” the man said.
“You have?”
“Yessir. I’ve noticed your eyes. They don’t look like the eyes of someone who lets much get by him.” He reached down and patted the grip of the pistol. “I saw that you noticed the old hog leg here just as soon as I stepped up on the beach. But you acted like you didn’t notice it. Didn’t want me to know that you knew. I find that pretty interesting. I find it interesting that you’d still stand there and act like you were the one in charge of how things were going to transpire despite the fact that you knew I was holding the cards that mattered. That tells me you’re pretty confident. Tells me you think you don’t have too much in this world that gives you any concerns. And I’ll tell you, that makes me think you’re a dangerous man. The kind of man that makes me think it was a prudent idea to come out here toting a piece in the first place.”
“You’ve got it all figured out, sounds like.”
The man smiled, shifted so that he could draw the handgun from his waist and set it in the sand beside him.
“I don’t mean nothing by that,” the man said. “I just want to sit here and be comfortable. I hope you don’t mind?”
“I’m just sitting here.”
“That’s true. You are just sitting here. Not a troubled thought in the world, I’ll bet. You look like somebody who may have spent plenty of time sitting and waiting. Probably know the inside of a small room pretty well, huh?”
“You got a point you want to make?”
“I’m just getting to know my friendly drug dealer. There’s nothing wrong with that, is there? I’m a friend to the working man. There’s no reason why people can’t discover common ground across class lines.”
The man showed a small file of hygienic teeth.
Harrison cut his eyes to Delilah, told her to get their stuff in the boat. She bunched the towels and began to load the remaining cooler. Harrison slipped the backpack over his shoulder and turned to go. He was already walking when he heard the footsteps of the man behind him, heard him exclaim, “Now hold on, you goddamn dumb redneck . . .”
Harrison pivoted and grabbed the man’s wrist above the pistol, twisted down sharply so that the gunman lurched over Harrison’s planted foot. They went to the ground hard with Harrison on top, the pistol kicked loose. Delilah was there within a moment, holding the gun on the others who were mute with shock. Harrison pinned the man between his legs and rained down half a dozen quick punches on the man’s unguarded face. The man’s eyes went distant and sleepy with concussion. Harrison stopped when his hands began to register hurt, sat there over the unmoving lump while he leveled his breath.
“Was this worth it? Was this fun for you all?” Harrison shouted to the others. Though they did not answer, he took their silence to mean they thought it was not. He grabbed the pistol from Delilah and tossed the remaining cooler into the boat, started the engine and wheeled out of the channel and around to the island’s point. As they passed he could see that Taylor and the two women remained sitting where they were, looking at the fallen man but afraid to approach him, as if his condition was somehow communicable. Harrison tossed the handgun in the water and throttled up. The bow rose.
“You could have killed him,” Delilah said into his ear so she could be heard above the noise of the engine.
He nodded.
She kissed him at the back of his neck, put her hand over his sun-cooked thigh.
“I wish you would have.”
WHEN THEY returned to the compound some of the men had dragged a big Weber grill around to the side and were grilling ribeyes and tight cylinders of corn in aluminum foil. The smoke moved over the big back lot. Jonathan stood sweating over the flames with a long fork, stabbing the cuts and flipping them over every few seconds.
“That smells good,” Delilah said.
“You go ahead and get you some,” Harrison told her.
“You