For a moment Una held Falk’s hand, then smiled and let go, the warm Gulf air making them sweat on contact. She warned him about Gabriel. He could drive up any minute now.
Like I care, said Falk.
You should, she said. He could hurt you.
Falk shrugged. So could you. He gave her a look. Plus, I been hurt before.
Back inside the Black Tooth, the café’s fishnet-festooned bar was dark, Leon the bartender smoking a cigarette and moody behind the counter, the only customer Mr. Buzzy, the old one-legged black man leaning back from the table like a windblown oak, only the breeze warping him came from bottles.
Mr. Buzzy said he knew he shouldn’t be drinking this early in the day. But it was too late to stop now. Hell, I been doing it so long I can’t remember when I started. No point in getting downmouth now is there? What good is that?
His nose was purple-black, broken-veined, and shaped not unlike the saddest, smallest bell pepper. His hands shook when he spoke. Falk wanted to hold them to make them stop, but that was something you just didn’t do. He couldn’t imagine actually touching such wrinkled claws.
What Mr. Buzzy loved and what Mr. Buzzy knew how to do was to fish. He knew where to find the flounder, in the shallows, in the salt flats at night, perched in a skiff, an open-face saltwater reel under his thumb, a limber rod casting its thin shadow in the moonlight, tinged with gold where the Coleman lantern cast its glow.
He never spoke about children, wife or brother or sister, but everyone imagined his family must be miles away and dead most likely. All he had in the world was the brew he loved to drink and the fish he caught.
He gestured for Falk to come close.
You oughtn’t be out in public like that, said Mr. Buzzy. Wearing an apron like that. Like an old wartneck woman makin’ biscuit gravy. People start thinkin’ things. He spoke in a husky voice that descended into a phlegmy laugh.
Falk grinned and considered his food-besmudged apron. Right, you got a point. But, I mean, I can’t stop people from thinking, he said. If they commence to talking, you let me know.
I will do that, said Mr. Buzzy.
Falk asked if he needed another beer. Mr. Buzzy closed his eyes and said, Like a hound needs howlin’ lessons.
Tell me somethin’, he added. What you and that sugar-tush waitress gal doin’ walkin’ outside? Now don’t lie to me. He winked and waved his cane gently, like he expected a story not necessarily factual or accurate.
Falk explained about the enormous dead fish. How huge it was. How it had a white colt in its maw, probably drowned from the mustang herd on Isla Pelicano. What a strange and fabulous thing. The black eyes staring from beneath the green water’s lightspangled surface, the clownwhite lip skin peeling away.
That’s not a good thing, said Mr. Buzzy. No sir. Where is that fish? I need to see this with my own two eyes.
A quarter-mile down shore. Beside the Sea Horse fishing pier.
That’s too far, said Mr. Buzzy. He held up his stump, the empty sheath of his old khakis pinned back, his leg severed above the knee, the squat thigh muscular and unnatural looking through the faded tan cloth. How the hell am I supposed to get there with this thing? Tell me that.
Falk rubbed his nose and made a noncommittal sympathetic don’t-I-know-it-and-then-some face like he had no answer to a question such as that but he understood why it might be asked. He suggested perhaps a ride could be arranged.
Mr. Buzzy shook his head like he’d had enough, maybe too much. It’s gettin’ to be where a man can’t move from one place to the next without some advance plannin’ and strategizin’. Ain’t that the hell.
Falk asked Leon if they had a shovel out back or somewhere.
Why’s that?
Falk said it just didn’t seem right, letting the fish wash up on the shore like that. You know it would end up buzzed by flies, baked by sun, stinking to high heaven. Least he could do would be to plant it in the dark.
Mr. Buzzy nodded Amen and said, A horse be washin’ up dead in the mouth of a fish, now that’s a foretellin’. Bad things a-comin’.
Maybe if we bury it nothing bad will happen, said Falk.
What? said Leon. Are you stoned or just plain foolish? It’s worth money. Call the Smithsonian. D.C. White pages. They’ll know.
Mr. Buzzy frowned. Don’t tell those parks and wildlife bastards. Bloodsuckers. This is hush-hush, is what it is.
Falk absentmindedly started untying his apron strings. I need some better shots anyway. First I’ll take another roll or two. About sunset. The golden hour.
Leon fished a pack of cigarettes from his front pocket. I’ll help. We split the profits, fifty-fifty, capisce? You sell that to the AP wire service for money. I got a brother-in-law who works there. I’ll call and set up a meeting. Get some big bucks before the weekend.
You think?
A giant fish with a horse in its craw? I know.
Mr. Buzzy waved his cane in the air. Before they started spending all this money made off a big dead fish, could somebody head next door to the Speed-n-Go and get him a pack of smokes?
I’d do it my own self, he said, but at most I be half a man. His trembling barnacled hands, like the flippers of a hoary sea turtle, nudged a cluster of coins and bills on the table top.
Falk took the cash and stepped outside, his mind filled with the idea of big money and the lazy swirl of Una’s black hair, the bloom of her oleander-petal lips. In the sky above him floated laughing gulls like white paper kites.
2
AFTER WORK Falk and Leon drove a Purple Monster tow truck down Shoreline Drive to where the colossal zebrafish was beached near the Sea Horse Motel’s fishing pier. The tow truck had orange flames painted on the front fenders licking to the back, a metal ramp on the rear that lowered, trucker tramp mud-flaps, and a winch to haul the monster out of its seaweed coffin in Red Moon Bay.
By then it was dusk. The road was a chain of beached whale’s backs, barnacled with gravel and bumpy with potholes. The live oaks leaned away from the wind coming off Red Moon Bay, the palm fronds swayed and rustled. Leon pulled onto the shoulder, between the road and the shore. The smell of beached dead thing was so strong it radiated like heat waves off hot asphalt. In that light, dimming to gray fuzz surrounding the black silhouettes of the pier against the sky, the world was spectral and diminished.
The tide had receded, leaving most of the creature in the sand. The stinky colossus sloshed in the shallows like a beached gigantic tropical fish. The moon was low in the eastern sky above Red Moon Bay, catching a pink glow from the sunset, like lunar blush. Falk grimaced at the smell. He dropped the tailgate and pulled on work gloves. Cars sped by on Shoreline, and one honked in complaint, the tow truck straddling one lane.
Falk and Leon walked around the fish for a few minutes, then stopped and cooked up a scheme. Inside the truck’s cab they found a painting drop cloth, a sheet of clear plastic splotched with droplets of white latex wall paint. Falk unfolded it on the shore, beside the huge fish, as Leon maneuvered the winch hook into position. The wind turned the corners of the dropcloth back, so he weighed the ends down with shells.
Falk looked at the smelly tangle with reluctance. He figured it was worth something. To someone.
Leon said, If anyone asks, I had nothing to do with this.
While they were arranging the plastic drop cloth the Mustang County sheriff’s patrol car pulled onto the shoulder of Shoreline Drive.
Oh