Trap Line - Carl Hiaasen [7]
“Now give me back the money.”
“No!” She lurched in the sand, dislodging with one foot a near-empty bottle that had been hidden by the canvas bag. “I need the money, Breeze. Charlie’s sick. Can’t work.”
“Drunk, you mean.”
“He ain’t. You think everybody’s drunk, don’t you? Charlie’s sick. It’s his heart. Doctor says he’s got to go up to the VA in Miami. It’s true, I swear it.”
Albury knew she was probably lying, not that it mattered. To get Laurie’s money he would have to wrestle her. It wasn’t worth it.
“OK, Peg, you keep the money. Just keep it.”
“It’s for Charlie, goddamnit.”
“Yeah. And stay away from the trailer. I’m changing the locks tonight, so your key’s no good anymore.”
Peg’s hand moved tremulously to her neck, where the key hung like a charm from a rusty necklace.
“God, Peg, you’re a mess,” Albury said in a whisper.
She was scrabbling in the sand for her bottle as he turned away.
ALBURY HAD a couple of stops to make, one at a sporting goods store, the next at the grocery. Then he parked at Key Plaza and hurried, six-pack under arm, across to the ball park. The lights were on already, and Albury was afraid the game had started. He arrived just in time to see Ricky walk to the mound.
It was a game of no particular consequence, and it had attracted only about a hundred people, mostly parents and girl friends. Albury slid into the bleachers behind home plate next to an angular black man in sandals and a white cotton shirt.
“Evenin’, Enos. How about a beer?”
“Thanks, Breeze. You cut it pretty close tonight, uh?”
“Been a poor day.” Albury gave a half-embarrassed wave to Ricky, who rewarded it with a big grin and a doff of his maroon cap.
Ricky didn’t look sharp. Some of his deliveries were higher than they should have been, the ball not moving as well as it might. Still, the first three batters went out weakly, and Albury felt himself beginning to relax. He leaned back, elbows propped on the bleacher behind him, savoring a tentative breeze that had sprung up off the Gulf.
“God, that feels good.”
“Yeah,” Enos said. “You know, that boy of yours is some kind of pitcher.”
“I think he can go all the way.”
“I believe you’re right.”
In the second, Buddy Martin, Enos’s son, stung Ricky with a sharp single off a curve nobody else on the field would have hit. Albury snorted.
“Maybe they could go all the way together. I’d rather have Buddy on the same team than hittin’ against Ricky.”
Enos laughed politely at the compliment.
“As long as he goes, Breeze. I don’t really care if it’s to baseball, to college, or to the Army. As long as he goes.”
“You and your boy fightin’?”
“Hell, no. I just don’t want him to grow up in this town, that’s all. There’s nuthin’ here, Breeze. It’s all the same as when we was kids, only less of it. And there wasn’t nuthin’ then. I don’t know why you came back. You had a good job.”
“Several,” Albury said.
“All places change, don’t they? It ain’t like we were still kids, fishin’ for grunts all day. You could live in this town then, Breeze. That was why I stayed. That was why you came back, too. At least you could live here, then. Now, well…”
“Now we got no excuse, Enos. No fucking excuse.”
They watched the game while they talked. Buddy Martin stole second, but died there as Ricky got the last out on a rifling fastball.
“You’re lucky, Breeze. You go out fishin’ every day. That’s all right. I wouldn’t mind that. But if you want to know what’s really happened to the island, come with me for a day, hauling the U.S. mail. Just one day. You’d see shit you wouldn’t believe.”
“I’m sure.” Albury felt like telling Enos about his traps, but he couldn’t bring himself to talk about it.
They drank another beer in companionable silence as Ricky’s team, the Padres, scratched two runs off the chunky rival pitcher, a lefthander.
“You know the Fletcher place on Frances Street?”
“Near the cemetery.”
“Yeah, right,” Enos said. “Garrett sold it for a hundred and thirty thousand yesterday.”
Albury sat up.
“Cash,” Enos whispered bitterly.