Flush - Carl Hiaasen [49]
“Uh, I just came over to say I was sorry,” he said. “Real sorry.”
I set the grocery bag full of dye bottles on the sidewalk. My sister stood behind me and said, “Is this some kind of sick joke?”
“No way.” Bull shook his head forcefully. “I’m righteously sorry—for everything, dude.”
He was looking straight at me. “All the times me and Jasper hassled you, it was wrong, okay? Bogus and wrong.”
“What’s going on, Bull?”
“Nothin’! Why you ask me that?”
“Because all of a sudden you’re Mister Huggy Bear. It’s very weird.”
“Come on, Underwood, can’t a dude say he’s sorry and be real? What’s the problem?”
Bull was getting frustrated, and I didn’t want to push him too far. “Okay, we’re cool,” I said. “You say you’re sorry, I believe you.”
“Excellent.”
“Well, Idon’t believe you,” Abbey cut in. “Either you’re faking it, or you’ve had a total personality transplant.”
Bull’s long, dull face pinched in confusion. “Whaddya mean by that? What kind a ‘transplant’ you say?”
“Never mind,” I said. “What about Jasper Jr.?”
“Oh yeah, I almost forgot. He’s sorry, too.”
“Really? Then where is he?”
Bull hitched his shoulders. Dark half-moons of sweat had appeared in the armpits of his faded Harley-Davidson T-shirt.
“He couldn’t come, but he wanted me to tell you it won’t never happen again,” Bull said. “We won’t beat on you no more.”
“That’s nice. Next you’ll be sending me flowers.” Naturally, Bull didn’t catch on that I was being sarcastic.
“I’d really like to hear Jasper Jr.’s apology in person,” I said.
“Fat chance,” mumbled my sister. She picked up the grocery bag and lugged it inside the house.
Bull just stood there, sweating through his shirt and staring down at his enormous bare feet. It sounds strange, but I felt sort of sorry for the guy. He’d quit school and left the Keys to be a big baseball star, but here he was back on the rock, bagging groceries and hanging out with losers like Jasper Jr.
“Come on, man. Tell the truth,” I said, though it wasn’t in Bull’s nature.
He looked up slowly. “Underwood, who’s the freaky old man? The guy in the woods?”
“Just a friend,” I said, thinking: a friend and total stranger.
“Where’d he get that wicked-bad scar on his face?”
“He doesn’t talk about it,” I said, hoping that Bull would think I was tight with the pirate guy.
“Thing is,” Bull said, “he told me and Jasper to … well—”
“What?”
“He told us to tell you we was sorry for what we done to you and your little sister. He was real clear on that,” Bull said. “But when it come time, Jasper just flat wouldn’t do it. He said he didn’t care what some crazy old bush rat told him.”
“What else did the old man in the woods say?” I asked.
Bull turned and checked over his shoulder, his eyes moving up and down the street. “He said not to screw up again. He said he’ll be hangin’ close, and don’t never forget it.”
Bull’s visit finally made sense. He’d come to apologize because he was terrified not to.
“You’ll tell him, won’t you, Underwood? Tell him I stopped over and said I was sorry. When you see him again, I mean.”
“Sure, Bull. When I see him again.”
Though I wondered if I ever would.
After lunch my sister and I headed for Shelly’s place to deliver the food dye and review our plan. Even though she came to the door wearing the nappy pink robe and carrying a plastic razor, we could tell that she was in better shape than the day before.
She waved us inside and cheerfully resumed shaving her legs at the kitchen sink, a procedure I’d never witnessed so up close and personal. The way Shelly did it wasn’t quite as glamorous as in the TV commercials. Whenever she nicked herself, she’d cuss like a biker and wipe away the blood with her pinkie. Abbey watched in fascination but I felt kind of weird, so I turned away and pretended to be enchanted by the scummy aquarium. I could hear the razor blade scraping across Shelly’s skin as she said, “So—we’re good to go?”
“What about Billy Babcock?” I asked.
“Don’t worry, I got that all figured out.”
But I was worried.
If Billy was at the Coast Guard station when the sewage spill was reported,