Flush - Carl Hiaasen [12]
So I reeled in my line and made my way up the slope, toward the highway.
“You did what?” Abbey said when I told her what happened. “Geez, you’re as whacked as Dad.”
“I didn’t sink their stupid boat. They sunk it themselves.”
Abbey muttered in exasperation, “If this keeps up, we’re gonna get run out of town. Mom’ll have to put the house up for sale.”
“Jasper Jr. spit on me,” I said.
“What happened to your eye?”
“He did that, too.”
After examining my bruise, Abbey seemed more sympathetic. “From now on, don’t go anywhere without Thom or Rado,” she advised.
It would have been a sensible plan, except that Thom’s family was heading to North Carolina for the rest of the summer, and Rado was going camping in Colorado with his mother and stepdad. Thom and Rado were my best friends, and without them I was basically on my own.
Mom came into the bedroom, and the first thing she noticed, naturally, was my black eye. I told her the whole story—Abbey hung around to make sure. My mother was real angry, but I begged her not to call Dusty Muleman and tell him what Jasper Jr. had done.
“It’ll just make things worse,” I said.
“What could be worse than getting punched and spit at?” she asked.
“Lots of things. Trust me, Mom.”
“Noah’s right,” Abbey said.
“We’ll discuss this later.” My mother’s mouth wasn’t moving much when she talked, which meant she was still mad. “Noah, please go wash up. There’s a gentleman waiting in the living room to speak with you.”
“Who is it?” I asked. “Is he from the police?”
“No, from the newspaper,” Mom said, making that sound even worse. “Apparently your father thought it would be a brilliant idea to have an article written about himself. He sent the reporter here to ‘interview’ you.”
Abbey rolled her eyes. “You’ve gotta be joking.”
“I wish I were,” said my mother. “Hurry up, Noah, and put on a clean shirt, please. I don’t want you looking like some sort of juvenile delinquent.”
“Then you ought to put some makeup on his shiner,” Abbey suggested.
“No way!” I said.
But it was too late.
The reporter’s name was Miles Umlatt. He was thin and blotchy, and his nose was scuffed up like an old shoe.
Mom had stationed him on the sofa so he could set up his tape recorder on the coffee table. On his lap he held a lined yellow pad that was covered with scribbles.
I sat down in the tall armchair where my father usually sits. Mom had dabbed some flesh-colored powder around my black eye, and she must have done a good job because Miles Umlatt didn’t seem to notice. He asked what grade I was in, what sort of hobbies I enjoyed, did I own a dog or a cat—the usual stuff. He was pretending to be nice, but I could tell it was a real chore. He was dying to get to the juicy parts.
“I understand you’ve been to visit your father,” he said finally. “That must’ve been tough.”
“Not really.” I was trying to sound kind of cool and bored.
“Yes, well, this isn’t the first time your dad’s had a scrape with the law, is it?”
“No, sir.”
“What do you remember about the other times?” he asked.
I just shrugged. It was amazing that Mom had left me alone in the room with this guy. I knew she was hovering somewhere nearby, but at least for now I was free to say what I wanted.
“I found an old clipping about the Carmichael family,” Miles Umlatt said. He held up the photocopy to show me.
“That was a long time ago,” I said.
“Only three years.”
“Are you sure?” I asked, although three years sounded about right.
Here’s what had happened, the way my father told it: The Carmichaels drove their forty-foot, gas-hogging motor home all the way to the Keys from someplace up in Michigan. They were too cheap to rent space at an RV park, so they parked along Highway One near the Indian Key Bridge and camped there for three nights.
Which would have been no big deal, except for the way they treated their dogs—they had two chocolate Labrador retrievers that rode along with them