Six berths down from Real Shame, where Pete Hubble breathed his last, was a fifty-three-foot workhorse Hatteras sports fishing boat christened Don’t Ask. This was a craft used to take serious fishermen out into the deeper bowl of the Gulf, where the marlin and shark (hopefully) provided thrills at an exorbitant hourly rate. Don’t Ask belonged to an oddball friend of Whit’s, a man known to most people simply as Gooch. Gooch did not socialize overmuch. He was unfailingly polite and ethical in his dealings with other guides, the marina, and his clients, and admired for making small loans to guides who frequently needed a cash boost at the end of the month. Most of Port Leo was happy to give him his privacy, because Gooch was ugly and big and had a hard, no-tolerance light in his glare that explained his boat’s name. Whit had only found him to be generous, loyal, and slightly east of sane.
For twenty minutes Whit had been mired in quicksand conversation with the marina manager, who could tell him nothing new about Pete and Velvet. The manager, who smelled slightly of soured baby formula and had an unnoticed glob of infant burp on his shoulder, explained that Real Shame had begun docking at Golden Gulf only five weeks ago and its bills were paid by check mailed from a company in Houston, TDD Holdings. The arrangement had been handled by an elderly man in a wheelchair who apparently worked for TDD, name of Anson Todd, and the manager had not seen Mr Todd again since the Shame docked. As for Pete and Velvet, they had not mingled much with the other marina residents, nor had they caused any trouble. Whit left the office, spotted Gooch on his boat, and headed down the T-head.
‘An honest man would be at work by now,’ Whit said as he came aboard.
‘I chose to use this day for reflection and self-improvement.’ Gooch grinned, showing slightly uneven teeth. ‘I gave myself the day off. I figured you’d be back down here soon enough. You still holding the cops’ dicks for them so they can pee straight?’
Kindness demanded one say Gooch was simply not handsome. His face was too gaunt for his body and married a too-prominent, bumpy nose with small, muddy brown eyes. He kept his sun-streaked hair cut short in a military burr. But he was powerfully built, stone-carved arms and legs, the kind of physique that encouraged burly bar patrons to keep observations about Gooch’s unfortunate face private.
‘Coffee, Y’Honor?’ Gooch asked.
‘Please, with milk and sugar.’
Gooch pointed toward the galley.
‘You’re the embodiment of the service economy, Gooch.’ Whit fixed his own cup and went back up to the deck, where Gooch gobbled his way through a leviathan bowl of Cap’n Crunch.
‘You want some?’ he asked through a milk-dripping mouth.
‘No, thanks.’
‘Screw your stepmom yet?’
‘My father and Irina are very happy, thanks for asking.’
‘And you’re very miserable,’ Gooch said.
‘You’ve got to make some more room on this wall for your diplomacy awards,’ Whit said. ‘I didn’t see you docked here last night when duty called.’
‘I spent the evening over in Port Aransas playing poker. I didn’t sail home until this morning.’
‘Were the gossips awake?’ No hen yard could compare to marina liveaboards for rapid-fire rumormongering.
‘All I’ve heard is that the guy on Real Shame shot himself in the mouth. Now it’d be a real shame indeed if that hot little number living with him on the boat really did it and got herself sent to girly prison, where she could never experience the joys of Gooch.’
‘You’ve met Velvet?’
‘Her name is Velvet?’
‘Velvet Mojo.’
‘Stripper or actress?’
‘An adult-film director.’
Gooch set down his cereal bowl. ‘No, we haven’t met. Cute but rough. Like a mare that’s been rode hard and put up wet, like my dad used to say.’
‘Who would know about them here?’
Gooch shrugged. ‘They kept to themselves. Not much for fishing and not much for boating. I saw them docking once. They needed about five people to help them dock properly.’ He considered. ‘Probably they talked with Ernesto.’ Gooch went to his radio and spoke briefly. He left the radio on to hear the chatter of the working fishermen and guides across St Leo Bay and beyond. Whit could hear three or four male voices, joking, chattering, one complaining about a dearth of redfish, someone asking that a poker game be rescheduled for tomorrow, someone else hailing Captain Bill. ‘Ernesto’s the marina handyman. He sees the cops coming, he hides, so I bet no authority figure has taken a statement. He’ll be down in a second. So spill details.’
Whit told Gooch, who he would trust with the launch keys for America’s nuclear arsenal, what he knew thus far about Pete Hubble.
Gooch laughed. ‘Lucinda Hubble walks around town like she’s got a coal lump up her ass and none of us are good enough to sniff the diamond. Her boy’s off making fuck films. I love it.’
‘You’ve got to quit being overly sympathetic to people, Gooch.’
‘I wonder if this Velvet was planning to ply her trade here.’
‘Please don’t tell me you want to audition.’
Gooch tapped his unshaven chin. ‘It’s an interesting moral dilemma. Most men pretend to have fantasies straight out of a porn movie, but how many would actually walk the walk and show their worth in front of rolling cameras?’
‘Not me. I’m too shy.’
Gooch watched Ernesto Gomez hurry down the T-head. ‘I, on the other hand, have a decided lack of inhibitions. I would be a natural, strutting among the starlets. But I wouldn’t do a porn film either.’
‘Why not?’
‘Anytime you see a blue movie, remember this: those women were once somebody’s baby girls. Do you think a single one of them thought in kindergarten: Gosh, when I grow up, please, God, please let me be smart and talented enough to be a porn star? No way. They’re Barbie dolls who got bent along the way.’
Whit sipped his coffee. ‘Pete Hubble was a kid once, too.’
‘So he had some deep-seated shortcoming, and he was proving he was a so-called real man. Or maybe he wanted to piss off Mommy. Or maybe he wanted to just lose himself and forget some nasty shit. This concludes our Psych 101 lecture.’ Gooch shrugged. ‘I feel as sorry for him as I do for the women.’
‘Even though he got to sleep with more women than you or I ever will? Combined?’
‘So he screwed hundreds of women. You think he got to sleep with them? No, Whit. No real kissing, holding, enjoying each woman for her unique sparkle in her eyes, the taste of her skin, the shape of her lips when you bring her pleasure. No. It was assembly-line sex. No, thanks.’
Gooch stood and invited Ernesto Gomez in rapid-fire Spanish to come aboard. Ernesto was in his fifties, with a moon-wide face centered by a nervous smile. His left eye wandered slightly, and he kept that side of his face turned a bare angle away. In Spanish, Gooch offered him coffee and asked if they could converse in English as Whit’s Spanish was execrable. Ernesto nodded and kept his tight grin locked in place.
‘Judge Mosley grew up with the man who died,’ Gooch added.
Ernesto frowned in sympathy. ‘Very sad, yes.’
‘Did you notice many visitors to his boat?’ Whit asked.
Ernesto glanced at Gooch, who murmured in Spanish and nodded reassuringly.
‘Pete had a few visits. A rich-looking lady. A teenage boy. The dirtbag.’
The rich-looking lady was probably either Lucinda or Faith. The boy was no doubt Pete’s son Sam. ‘The dirt-bag?’ Whit asked.
Ernesto’s face wrinkled in distaste. ‘Si. Bossy, no respect, young, too good for everyone else. Has Porsche but keep it dirty, don’t take care of it.’
‘You know this guy’s name?’ Gooch asked.
Ernesto shook his head. ‘Sorry, Gooch. He come here once, twice a week, over the past month or so. Take the boat out for all the day, come back at night. Fishing I suppose. One time they argue, I’m fixing rot two boats down, I hear them. Laughing, yelling. Much drinking.’
‘What did they argue about?’
Ernesto murmured to Gooch in a low torrent of Spanish. Gooch patted him on the knee. Ernesto glanced back at Whit.
‘Money,’ the old man said. ‘Money to be paid to Pete.’
‘This man owed Pete money?’
Ernesto considered and scratched his lip. ‘I think that how it was.’
‘Yet you said they were partying together.’
‘Not yesterday, not after arguing.’
‘Can you tell me what they said?’ Whit asked.
Ernesto grimaced. ‘They talk too fast for my English. But dirtbag all red in the face. I hear them yelling, I come over to the boat, want to be sure all is okay. I see through the windows. Dirtbag took swing at Pete, but Pete, he strong and big. Dirtbag just heavy, has hands of man who never works. Pete pushed him down. Dirtbag left, very angry.’
Ernesto, pressed, gave a more detailed description of Dirtbag: heavyset, around five-ten, blondish, late twenties or early thirties, thinning hair, bright clothing, always loud.
‘The teenage boy you saw – do you know a young man named Sam Hubble?’
‘No. I saw the boy once, yesterday at lunch. I guess skipping school.’
‘Any others you can remember?’
‘Yeah, short guy last week. Handed me a piece of paper on his way to Pete’s boat, blue and red and white, talked plenty. Smelled like mints, too much mints, you know?’
‘That sounds like your esteemed opponent Buddy Beere,’ Gooch said. ‘Isn’t he an unrepentant Altoid sucker?’
‘This paper, what did it say?’ Whit asked.
Ernesto waved hands. ‘Wanting folks to vote. You see all those signs around now.’
‘Campaign flyers from Buddy,’ Gooch said. ‘That savvy bastard, courting the illegal immigrant vote.’
‘Did you hear anything last night?’ Whit asked.
‘No, nothing until the cops came. I was asleep.’
‘You ever see any young women coming around to his boat?’ Whit asked.
Ernesto nodded. ‘Yeah, I forgot, with that preacher. The one on TV with the big muscles. He brought lady with him. But she big and scary, big muscles, like a man with titties.’ Ernesto glanced back toward the marina office. ‘Mike be mad I not working.’
‘Don’t worry about Mike,’ Whit said. ‘Have the police talked to you about this?’
Ernesto appeared stricken. ‘No, please, mister, no policia. I don’t know nothing about nothing.’
‘It’s okay. Don’t worry,’ Whit soothed. ‘One other question. The woman named Velvet. You see her around much?’
Ernesto smiled. ‘Velvet. Yes. She bakes good chocolate cookies. Every few days give some to me.’
Velvet baking cookies. Whit tried to summon the image and pictured a hausfrau in a leather apron and stiletto heels.
‘You ever see her bake an eclair?’ Gooch asked with a leer. Ernesto looked confused, so Whit asked: ‘Did she and Pete get along okay?’
‘Sure, yeah.’
‘She mess around with any of the guys around the marina?’ Gooch asked.
‘No. She nice.’ Ernesto put the bright smile back on. End of commentary.
‘Gracias. I appreciate it, Ernesto.’ Whit shook his hand. Ernesto hurried back toward the marina office.
‘I’m guessing the rich lady was Lucinda,’ Gooch said. ‘Unless there’s a bored matron around here in need of sexual servicing. Your stepmother, for instance.’
‘Funny, with a hint of vicious.’
‘You could outdo Pete Hubble on the annoying-your-relatives scale if you do your Oedipus impersonation, Whitman.’
‘Jesus, Gooch, you’re a crank. I’m finding a place to live right after the campaign…’
‘Ah, yes. The campaign. Waging a fierce one, aren’t you? I particularly enjoyed your interview on Face the Nation.’
‘Are you done?’
‘Whit, please campaign today. The thought of Buddy Beere at the bench makes me want to move to a judicially sound country. Like Cuba.’
Whit’s cell phone buzzed. ‘Hello?’
‘Whit? It’s Faith.’ She sounded crisper this morning, less frayed with shock.
‘How are you?’
‘We’re holding up. Lucinda finally slept last night; Sam slept with me. To just get his dad back and then… it’s a hard thing for a kid.’
‘I need to talk to y’all. For the inquest.’
‘Would this afternoon work for you?’
‘Yeah. How about four?’
‘Fine.’ Her voice lowered. ‘I wish I could see you… just us. I could use a hug. Or something stronger.’
He didn’t flirt back, watching a gull alight on the bow of Real Shame. ‘How’s Sam handling this?’
‘My son is a tightly controlled mass of nerves. He’s upset but he doesn’t want to show that he is. His father did matter to him, even a lousy SOB like Pete.’ Her tone turned bitter. ‘A father always would.’
‘What can I do to help?’
He meant to help Sam, but Faith took the inches and made them miles. ‘Please just… hurry us through all this legal rigmarole. Don’t drag it out with a public inquest hearing. Help me protect Lucinda and Sam from what is sure to be unpleasantness, Whit. You’ll do that for me, won’t you?’ Her tone, usually cool, even in wriggles of heat, took on a slightly cajoling tone.
‘I’ll do what I can.’
The quiet stretched. But she finally said, ‘I appreciate it. I’ll see you at the house later.’
Whit clicked off his phone. Gooch studied a tidal chart and yawned.
‘I must have a gift certificate for unwanted advice. Do this, do that. Rule it’s suicide. Don’t hold a formal inquest.’
Gooch raised a crooked brown eyebrow. ‘Rule how you please. Judge, and screw ’em if they can’t take a joke.’