Flush - Carl Hiaasen [62]
“Kids,” said my father, “say hello to your Grandpa Bobby.”
SEVENTEEN
“This is the U.S. Coast Guard. Petty Officer Reilly speaking.”
“Yes, I’d like to report a boat dumping sewage in the water.”
“What’s the name of the vessel?”
“It’s called the Coral Queen.”
“The gambling boat? At the Muleman marina?”
“That’s right.”
“Did you witness this violation personally?” Petty Officer Reilly asked.
“Look for a bright purple trail leading to Thunder Beach. But you’d better hurry!”
“Who am I speaking with?”
“Underwood. Paine Underwood.”
My second phone call was to the Island Examiner newspaper. This time I used my own name, not Dad’s.
Miles Umlatt remembered me, of course.
“It’s good to hear from you, Noah, but I’m sort of busy now. A bait truck just flipped over in Key Largo, and there’s live shrimp all over the highway.”
“Want a real story? A front-page story?”
Miles Umlatt said, “Sure, you bet.”
He was humoring me, playing along. I could picture the bored look on his pale splotchy face.
“All that stuff my dad said about Dusty Muleman? Well, it’s true. Every word.”
Miles Umlatt said, “I know how you must feel, Noah. If it were my father, I’d stick up for him, too—”
“You want proof? Get over to Dusty’s marina right away.”
“Why? What’s going on?” Suddenly he was interested.
“Ask the Coast Guard,” I said, and hung up.
Dad, Mom, and Abbey were in the living room, gathered around Grandpa Bobby. When I came out of the kitchen, he motioned for me to sit down beside him. For the first time I noticed his resemblance to my father—Dad was taller and heavier, but he had the same square chin and light green eyes.
Grandpa Bobby took out a small photograph, worn and creased from being folded and unfolded. In the picture, his curly hair was blond, not silvery, and there was no scar on his cheek. He was lifting some half-naked little kid high over his head. The kid was laughing and kicking his chubby white legs.
The kid was me.
“You were only two years old,” my grandfather said.
It was the first photograph of him that I’d ever seen. My parents had lost all their family albums when a tropical storm flooded our house on the night before my third birthday.
Grandpa Bobby passed the snapshot around. Then he carefully refolded it into a square and slipped it in his pocket. Turning back to me, he said, “You wanna go first, champ?”
“No thanks. You go.”
He took a slow sip from a coffee mug. “Lord, where do I start? I guess by sayin’ how bad I feel for keepin’ out of touch the last ten years or so.”
“Out of touch? Everybody thought you were dead!” Abbey exclaimed.
“I’m sorry, I truly am,” Grandpa Bobby said. “Paine, Donna—believe me when I say I had good reasons for stayin’ out of your life.”
I could tell that Mom and Dad were glad to have Grandpa Bobby back, but they were also kind of dazed and quiet. My sister wasn’t dazed at all, since she’d never met him. He had disappeared before she was born.
“It’s not a happy story,” he began. “One day a man came along, said he needed a captain to make a couple of trips down to South America. The money was right, and I didn’t ask many questions. Wasn’t like I didn’t know what to ask—I just chose not to. Anyways, the first run went fine. No problems with the second run, either. But the third time, oh man …”
“Were you smuggling drugs?” I asked. Even Abbey seemed shocked to hear me say it.
“No, champ, I’ve got no fondness for dopers. It was stones,” Grandpa Bobby said. “Little green stones called emeralds. But smugglin’ is smugglin’, and stupid is stupid. And that’s what I was—world-class stupid—because the guys I trusted turned out to be greedy, back-stabbin’ liars. Actually, face-stabbin’ liars.” He pointed ruefully at the M-shaped scar. “Anyways, the details don’t hardly matter. There was some serious ugliness, and yours truly had to go underground.”
Up close he didn’t look so much like a pirate—at least not the kind of pirate you see in the movies. His teeth were too straight and his manners were too good.
But he also didn’t look like the kind of grandpa you