Flush - Carl Hiaasen [43]
Abbey began to shake and cry. Shelly told her not to worry, turtles were tough customers. “They’ve been on this old planet a lot longer than we have. They’re survivors,” she said.
“Not this one,” my sister sobbed. “Not if she gets sick from the bad water.”
Abbey was right. Absolutely right.
So I charged back into the waves, kicking and splashing and hollering like a lunatic. It wasn’t the brightest thing I’ve ever done, but it definitely got that loggerhead’s attention. In a fright it ducked under and scooted off, leaving only a boiling swirl.
This time nobody said much when I came out of the dirty water. Abbey looked like she wanted to give me a hug, but she was understandably reluctant to get slimed. Shelly just shook her head in disbelief and tossed me a towel.
Together we trudged down the beach to a paved lot where her Jeep was parked. “Promise me you’ll go home and wash up,” she said.
“Promise,” I said.
“And, Abbey, promise me that you’ll try to keep your brother from getting into more trouble.”
“You bet,” Abbey said halfheartedly.
Shelly looked around to make sure the three of us were alone, which seemed obvious since her Jeep was the only car in the lot.
“I’m going to tell you guys somethin’, but you don’t know where you heard it, okay?” She leaned close, and the air turned to pure tangerine. “There’s a man who works at the Coast Guard station, a civilian named Billy Babcock. He’s got a major gamblin’ problem, you understand? He’s addicted to it.”
“You mean like drugs,” Abbey said.
“Yeah. Or booze,” said Shelly. “Billy can’t stop betting, no matter how hard he tries. Blackjack, dice, roulette, you name it. He’s a regular on the Coral Queen, like, four nights a week. Sometimes more. You see where this is heading?”
I did. “Does he owe Dusty money?”
Shelly nodded. “Big-time. So much money that Billy couldn’t pay it all back if he lives to be a hundred.”
“So he’s repaying it another way.”
“You got it, Noah,” Shelly said. “Every time the Coast Guard gets ready to pull a surprise inspection on the Coral Queen, Billy Babcock calls Dusty the day before to warn him. That’s why they never catch ‘em emptying the tank.”
Abbey flopped her arms in dismay. “So Dad was right after all. Dusty is being tipped off.”
“Hey, you didn’t hear it from me,” Shelly said.
“But—”
“Shhhh!” Shelly pointed toward a white pickup that was rolling into the lot.
The truck pulled up and parked near the Jeep. Stamped on the door of the cab was: DEPARTMENT OF PARKS AND RECREATION.
A man in a tan uniform got out and gave us a friendly nod. From the bed of the pickup he removed a small sledgehammer, a half dozen metal posts, and a stack of cardboard signs.
“You folks on your way to the beach?” he asked.
“What’s up?” said Shelly.
The man showed us one of the signs. DANGER, it warned in big letters. BEWARE OF CONTAMINATED WATER.
Beneath those words, in smaller red lettering, it said: SWIM AT YOUR OWN RISK.
“Contaminated with what?” asked my sister, acting as if she didn’t know.
“Human waste,” said the man from Parks and Recreation. “We got a call from a guy who was fishing out here this morning. The health department came and sampled the water—it tested off the charts. You all might want to try Long Key, or maybe Harris Park.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Shelly said, playing along.
After the man went off to post the warning signs, my sister and I said goodbye to Shelly and began walking to our bikes.
“Noah, what you did back there for that sea turtle, that was very …”
“Dumb? I know.”
“No. Cool,” Abbey said, “in a really twisted way.”
“Thanks, I guess.”
“We can’t give up on this,” she added grimly.
“Now you sound like Dad.”
“Well? You’re the one who went into that scuzzy water—twice! Doesn’t it make you furious?”
“Yeah, it does.”
Furious and sick at the same time. But I thought of Abbey’s spying mission the night before, and what a disaster it could have been. I’d never forget the cold-blooded look in Luno’s eyes when he saw us standing in Dusty’s ticket shack.
“Mom doesn’t need any