A Fine Cast of Characters - J. Dane Tyler [11]
“Wh-who … who are you?” Danny said, and his vision blurred with acrid saline. “Jesus Christ, who are you?”
The figure rose to full height, and with slow deliberate movements, pulled a gun from behind his back. “Me? I’m the copyright protection method. Thief.”
Danny wept hard. For a moment.
Lucky Caller Seven
Chapter 1
Kelly sat on deck with the maritime wind in her dark blond hair, the salt smell in her face and the sun shining on her skin.
Life didn’t get much better than this. This particular aspect of “this”, anyway.
The chartered boat sat lolling on the waves, bobbing on the gentle sea like a cork, and Kelly felt the first tug of sleepiness on her eyelids. The two-man crew—Skipper Steven Flanagan and Mate Willy Jurgen—worked with a couple of overweight, balding business men at the transom, instructing them for the umpteenth time on how to handle the lines and keep them from crossing, how to seat the heavy rods in the harnesses, how to strap into the fighting chair, and so on. The crass, middle aged braggarts cocked their Wal-Mart fishing hats, strung through with “lucky” lures, and laughed until their faces reddened at their own inappropriate and humorless jokes. The crew joined in with polite enthusiasm, tolerating them long enough to collect their pay and have done with the blowhards.
Kelly, on the other hand, wasn’t having as much fun as she hoped.
She didn’t know what to expect when she called WTNZ. It sounded nice. A four-day, three-night fishing trip off the coast with two of “sea fishing’s foremost experts to teach you the ins and outs, tips and tricks, all while on a luxury charter fishing boat with a small passenger list, so you get the personalized attention you need to master the art of ...” blah, blah, blah. It seemed simple enough. Kelly loved fishing, and she loved country music, and all she had to do was be lucky caller seven.
She figured she had no chance of winning. She’d never won anything so grand before. And besides, she thought while the phone rang in her ear, there had to be a catch of some kind, right? No prize so nice would just be free, right?
Well, Kelly turned out to be right. The trip didn’t include air fare, if necessary, to the port city from which the craft would launch. It wasn’t a solid four days on board, either. They would set out each morning and return every evening, and the guests stayed at a local motel. Not being in a high-resort area, the motel wasn’t the Ritz-Carlton, but it was clean and run by a nice elderly couple during the day. The night shift, Kelly found, consisted of a huge bear of a man with a shaved head, fading tattoos and a mustache denser than most toupees. He was built like a bullet and when seated, was taller than Kelly’s diminutive five-foot-three figure. He eyed her with something that might’ve been desire, but Kelly tried to avoid passing the front desk at night.
This was the last day of the trip. She hadn’t caught a thing. No one had. She suspected the so-called “experts” were nothing more than a couple of yokels who offered the lowest rental rates in the area. WTNZ, being cheap, paid them their rate plus a little stipend to pretend to be “world-famous experts” on ocean fishing. All they do is take fat business men out for a day of beer, sandwiches and sunburn, turn around and come back in. They go to different, pre-determined locations the same distance from shore each time, say they’re “finding the fish” or whatever load of crap they feed, and then go back to land. If the passengers happen to catch something, great, and if not ... well, they get paid either way.
Kelly had never heard of either one of the “experts”.
She returned her gaze to the leather-bound book on her legs, jotting on the half-filled page in front of her. She’d kept a journal most of her life and was so excited about the trip—at first, anyway—there was no way she’d leave it behind.
Last day of the trip. Thank Goodness! It’s been miserable so far. Bad fishing, bad company,