Flush - Carl Hiaasen [20]
“Time’s up,” the jowly deputy said to me. He jerked his head toward the door.
“Everything’s gonna work out just dandy,” my father said. “You’re doing a great job, son, but no more sneaking around at night—especially with your sister. You hear me?”
He stood up and tucked the chess book under his arm. The orange jumpsuit had no pockets—I guess the sheriff didn’t want prisoners carrying anything that couldn’t be seen.
“Oh, I almost forgot,” Dad said. “Channel 10 is running my interview tonight on the five o’clock news! Be sure to tell your mom.”
“Cool,” I said, though I was seriously tempted to rush home and break the television.
After lunch I sat down under a tamarind tree and waited for Lice Peeking. I had a story ready for when Mom asked me why he was taking the skiff. I planned to tell her that Dad was loaning it out for a few weeks. The truth was more complicated, and Mom wouldn’t have approved.
After an hour or so I got restless. I walked around to the backyard and climbed up the trailer and sat down in the skiff. I started thinking about all the great times we’d had—Dad, Abbey, and me—on our sunset trips. My mother wasn’t keen on fishing, but she was always happy when we’d come back with a cooler full of snappers. Abbey said Mom was just relieved that we’d gotten home in one piece, but I think it was more than that. Mom really loved it when we were doing things together—she and Abbey fixing the salad and potatoes, Dad and me cleaning the fish.
Those nights are the best times ever. My mother’s always waiting on the front stoop when we pull into the driveway, and the first question she asks is: “Did you see the green flash?” Abbey says Mom’s only kidding, but I think she really believes in it.
And my father always gives her the same answer. “Maybe next time,” he says, “but it won’t happen, Donna, unless you come along.”
But she usually doesn’t. The skiff is kind of small for all four of us.
After a while Abbey came outside and hopped in the boat with me. I told her that Lice Peeking was late.
“Maybe he chickened out,” she said.
“For twelve thousand dollars? No way.”
“Maybe Dusty Muleman offered him more if he kept his mouth shut.”
Leave it to my sister to think of something like that. From what I’d seen of Lice Peeking, I didn’t think he’d sneak back to Dusty in hopes of a better deal. Lice had seemed perfectly satisfied with the idea of taking Dad’s boat and selling it.
“He’s probably still working on his statement,” I said.
“Or his hangover,” said Abbey.
“Maybe I’d better go check on him.”
“I’ll come with you.”
“No, Abbey, you need to stay here in case he shows up for the boat.” More important, I didn’t want her to see Lice Peeking passed out drunk in that smelly trailer, if that’s where he was.
“If you’re not back in an hour,” my sister said, “I’m either telling Mom or calling the cops.”
“Whatever,” I said. One was just as bad as the other.
I grabbed my bike and headed full speed down the old road. I’d had a bad feeling about Lice Peeking from the beginning, and now it looked like I might be right. If he was Dad’s best hope for a witness against Dusty Muleman, we might be in deep trouble.
Halfway to the trailer park it started pouring, and I was drenched by the time I got there. I knocked so hard that the door swung open.
Dripping like a dog, I stepped inside. The TV was blaring—some station that shows country-music videos all day long. I turned it off and called out, “Helloooo?”
Nothing.
“Anybody home? Mr. Peeking?”
From the rear of the trailer came a muffled thump-thump of footsteps, and I tensed up. I was ready to run if Lice came out bombed or acting crazy.
But it was Shelly who walked up the hall, all alone. She looked red in the cheeks and not very happy. She was wearing the top half of a blue bathing suit and a Hawaiian-style wraparound skirt. Her brassy blond hair was pinned in a bun, and she was limping. I noticed that her