Flush

TWELVE

My parents were so thrilled to find Abbey that they couldn't even pretend to be mad about her sneaking out the bedroom window. They made us go to bed as soon as we got home, but she was up early the next morning, insisting on showing the videotape that she'd made at the marina.

I was impressed by what my sister had tried to do, but she's no Steven Spielberg. The tape was so dim and shaky that it was almost impossible to see what was going on.

Abbey was bummed. She scooted closer to the TV and pointed at the fuzzy image. “There's the hose! See, they're dropping it right in the water!”

Dad asked, “Honey, where were you hiding-up a telephone pole?”

“Tuna tower,” my sister said over her shoulder.

It was a cool idea, actually. A tuna tower is the tall aluminum platform that sits above the cockpit on a deep-sea charter boat. The captain climbs to the top so he can spot game fish crashing bait from far away. It would have been a perfect roost for secretly filming the casino boat, except for a couple of problems.

First, Dad's video camera wasn't one of the newer models, so the picture was lousy when it was dark outside. Second, my sister never quite figured out how to zoom the lens, so everything on the tape was extremely small and grainy. You could make out the profile of the Coral Queen, but the crew looked like June bugs crawling around the deck.

“It's not your fault,” Mom told Abbey, “it's the camera's.”

“But I can still see what they're doing-can't you?” My sister stabbed her finger at the TV. “That's the hose from the holding tank right… there.”

“Now I see it,” I said.

“Me too,” said my father.

We really weren't sure what we were looking at, but we didn't want to hurt Abbey's feelings. She popped the cassette out of the camera and announced, “All we've got to do is take this to the Coast Guard, and Dusty Muleman is toast!”

Mom and Dad exchanged doubtful glances. Neither wanted to be the one to tell Abbey that her videotape was useless.

“I know what you're thinking,” said my sister, “but they've got supercool ways to enlarge the image and make it crystal clear. The FBI and CIA do it all the time-they can count the zits on a terrorist's nose from a mile off!”

A car door slammed in the driveway, startling us. We don't get much company at seven in the morning.

Mom looked out the window and said, “Paine, it's a deputy.”

“Oh, not again,” Abbey groaned.

“Try to stall him,” said my father. “Noah, come with me. I'll need your help.”

We hurried down the hall to my parents' room, Dad locking the door behind us. The electronic bracelet was hidden beneath the bed, along with the tools he had used to remove it. I held the heavy plastic collar around his right ankle while he worked feverishly with needle-nose pliers, a screwdriver, and a hex wrench.

“Hold extra still,” he whispered. “One little slip and I could break the transmitter.”

From the living room we heard the low tone of the deputy's voice, politely saying, “No, thanks. Really, I'm fine.” It sounded like Mom and Abbey were trying to feed him breakfast.

Moments later I heard my mother's footsteps, followed by a light rap on the door. “Paine, are you up yet? There's a gentleman from the sheriff's department here to see you.”

“Be out in a minute,” Dad drawled, trying to sound sleepy.

From the intense way he was gripping the tools, I knew my father truly didn't want to go back to jail-but that's where he was headed if we didn't get the bracelet clamped back on his ankle.

“Almost there,” he murmured, pausing to wipe the palms of his hands. Both of us were sweating, we were so nervous.

There were more footsteps in the hall, only this time they were too heavy to be my mother's. This time the knock on the door was sharp and impatient.

“Mr. Underwood? Open up, please, this is Deputy Blair from the sheriff's office. Mr. Underwood?”

Another hard knock.

I motioned for Dad to hurry. He looked up, smiled, and made an “okay” sign with his fingers.

When I let go of the bracelet, it held fast to my father's leg. The police would never know it had been unfastened for a night, or so we thought.

Now the doorknob began to jiggle. On impulse I grabbed up the tools and rolled under the bed.

My father opened the door. “Sorry to keep you waiting, Officer, but I was putting on some clothes.”

“Step this way, sir,” I heard the deputy say, in a tone that wasn't particularly friendly.

My dad was an awesome fishing guide. Everybody in the Keys said so. Tarpon, bonefish, redfish, snook-Dad was dialed in on all of them. He could put his customers into fish when the other guides were getting skunked. My mother said it was a special talent he inherited from Grandpa Bobby.

We all knew how much Dad missed being out on the boat every day. He never complained, but he was basically miserable driving a taxi up and down the highway. Three different times he'd gotten rear-ended by other cars while crossing one of the bridges. That's because he always slowed down to stare out at the open water. He couldn't help himself-scoping out the tides, the depth, the wind direction, all the things that were important if you were hunting fish.

After the third accident, my father's boss at the cab company got on his case. Dad pointed out that, technically, none of the rear-enders had been his fault. It had always been the other drivers who'd gotten the tickets, for following too close.

But his boss didn't care. It was costing him money every time the cab was off the road, in the body shop. “One more crash,” he'd warned my dad, “and you're fired.” The guy acting like he was Donald Trump.

I had a hunch he wouldn't hold Dad's job open after what happened with the gambling boat, and I was right. When Mom called the taxi company, the owner told her that he'd hired a new driver the day my father got arrested. Mom told us that she didn't blame the guy-he had a business to run. Still, I knew she was worried. The bills were piling up, and her paycheck wasn't nearly enough to cover them all.

It would be a while longer before Dad could start searching for a new job, because now he was back in jail.

I don't know if Dusty Muleman ratted him out, or if the electronic ankle bracelet was programmed to send a certain signal when somebody messed with the lock. In any case, the sheriff ordered my father hauled in again, for “tampering with a court-ordered monitoring device.”

He wasn't in a great mood when I went to visit.

“This is really getting old,” he said wearily. “You didn't have to come today, Noah. This place is the pits.”

In a way I was glad to find my father depressed, because that was a perfectly normal reaction to being in jail-and Dad acting normal wasn't something you could take for granted. He was a much different person from the happy camper I'd visited there only three weeks ago.

“I bet your mother's really ticked off,” he said.

“What for?” I said.

How could any of us be mad at him? The only reason he'd pried off the stupid ankle monitor was so that he could leave the house to hunt for Abbey. Any father would have done the same thing if one of their kids had disappeared in the middle of the night.

“Mom's trying to get hold of Mr. Shine,” I said.

“Tell her not to bother. They're only keeping me for forty-eight hours,” Dad said, “to, quote, teach me a lesson. Talk about a waste of tax dollars!”

“What should we do with Abbey's video?” I asked.

Dad shook his head. “God bless her, she really tried. But you saw the tape, Noah. If we took it to the Coast Guard, they'd laugh.”

He was probably right. “So what now?” I asked, and mentally tried to brace for whatever new scheme my father had dreamed up.

He cut a dark glance toward the broad jowly deputy, who was leaning against the door. The man was thumbing through a motorcycle magazine, but I assumed he was listening to every word we said.

“It's over, Noah,” my father said with a sigh. “I'm done with Dusty and the Coral Queen. I just want to come home and live a quiet, seminormal life.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

I searched his face for some familiar hint of mischief, but it wasn't there.

“I know when I'm beat. I know when the ball game's over,” Dad said.

If he was putting on an act for our babysitter-deputy, it was a good one. He looked totally tired and fed up, and his voice rang flat with defeat.

“Abbey's little adventure was the last straw,” he said. “She risked her neck just to prove I was right about the casino boat. But you know what, Noah? Being right isn't worth squat if you're endangering the people you love. If anything bad had happened to your sister last night, I'd never forgive myself. Never.”

I shuddered to think what that creepy Luno might have done if he'd caught Abbey sneaking around with the video camera.

Dad leaned forward and lowered his voice. “Look, I wasn't trying to be some kind of hero when I pulled the plugs on Dusty's boat. I was only trying to stop him from using the ocean as a cesspool. And it backfired, okay? So now-”

“Time's up.” The deputy slapped shut his magazine.

My father squeezed my arm. “Things'll be different when I get home. That's a promise, Noah.”

I left the jail with mixed-up feelings. I wanted things to be different at home, for Mom's sake, but I sure didn't want Dad to make himself into a whole different person.

Yet maybe there was no other way.

Later Abbey and I packed a lunch and rode our bikes to Thunder Beach. It was one of those bright hazy days with no horizon, when the sea and the sky melt together in a pale blue infinity. The heat rippling off the dead-calm water made the lighthouse seem to flutter and shimmy in the distance.

We sat down on the warm sand and ate our sandwiches and shared a bottle of water. I tried to gently tell Abbey the truth about her videotape, but she was one step ahead of me-as usual.

“It stunk, I know,” she said. “I already erased it.”

“You had a cool plan. It's not your fault it didn't work out.”

“Yeah, whatever.”

When I told her what Dad had said at the jail, she got quiet for a while. Finally, she said, “So that's a good thing, right? Him promising to behave.”

“I guess. Sure.”

A cherry-red speedboat went tearing past the beach, then made a tight circle and roared back in our direction. The driver was a muscle-bound guy with so much gold hanging from his neck, it was a miracle he could sit up straight. He slowed to an idle and shouted something to a large blond woman who was sunning herself alone, about fifty yards from Abbey and me. The speedboat's engine was so loud that we couldn't hear what the man said, but the woman got up and sweetly motioned him to come closer to shore. When he did, she beaned him with a beer can.

“Whoa, baby!” Abbey exclaimed. “She could play quarterback for the Dolphins!”

“I think I know who that is,” I said.

The speedboat took off at full throttle, the driver heaving the beer can over the side. When he rooster-tailed past us, he was scowling and rubbing his forehead.

“You know that lady? Oh, don't tell me.” Abbey peered curiously at the blond sunbather. We were too far away to be able to see the barbed-wire tattoo, or the hoops in her ears.

“Follow me,” I told my sister.

Shelly was shaking the sand off her towel when we walked up. She was wearing a neon-yellow swimsuit and round mirrored sunglasses. Her face was smeared with so much zinc oxide that it looked like she'd fallen nose-first into a frosted cake.

“Well, if it isn't the amazing young Underwoods,” she said.

“What did that guy in the red boat say to you?” Abbey asked with her usual bluntness.

“He asked me for a date, sort of,” said Shelly. “But he needs to work on his manners.”

“You sure nailed him good,” I remarked.

“Trust me, he deserved it.” She winked at Abbey. “Now if he was Brad Pitt and not some loser gym monkey from Lauderdale, it's a whole different story. I'd be sitting beside him right now, speeding off to Bimini.”

I told Shelly that Dad was back in jail.

“That really bites,” she said. “You guys want somethin' to drink?”

Abbey took a Coke, but I said no thanks. I noticed the beer can that Shelly had used to clobber the speedboat driver floating about twenty yards off the beach.

She frowned. “Man, I hate litterbugs.”

“Me too,” I said, and started wading out.

“Hey, stud, where do you think you're going?”

“To get the beer can. It's no big deal,” I said.

“It is too a big deal,” said Shelly. “Check out the water, Noah.”

I glanced down and felt my stomach pitch. The shallows had a darkish yellow tint. Strands and clots of foul, muddy-looking matter floated here and there, around my legs.

“What is it?” Abbey asked.

“Something seriously gross,” I said. Now I could smell it, too.

“Then get out!” Abbey shouted.

“That'd be my advice, too,” said Shelly. “And pronto.”

As disgusting as it was to be wading through the Coral Queen's toilet crud, I couldn't leave that beer can out there to float away.

Whenever my father takes us out on the boat, he always stops to scoop up trash that other people have tossed overboard-Styrofoam cups, bottles, chum boxes, plastic bags, whatever. Dad says it's our duty to clean up after the brainless morons. He says the smart humans owe it to every other living creature not to let the dumb humans wreck the whole planet.

So what we Underwoods do is pick up litter wherever we see it.

Even when it's drifting in sewage.

When I came sloshing with the beer can out of the shallows, Abbey stepped back and said, “Noah, that is so nasty!”

“I guess it's true,” Shelly said, “that the nutcase doesn't fall far from the tree.”

“What does that mean?” I asked.

“It means you're just like your old man. Here, gimme that thing.” With two fingers Shelly plucked the can from my hand and held it at arm's length, like it was radioactive.

“Notice the dent,” she observed with a chuckle. “Gym Monkey must've had a hard noggin.”

She dropped the can into a tall trash barrel. Then she turned back to me. “I told you Dusty was dumping again, didn't I?”

It wasn't like I'd forgotten. From where Abbey and I had been sitting earlier on the beach, the water had looked normal and safe. Once you stepped in, though, it was a different story.

Shelly said, “Okay, Nature Boy, now you run straight home and scrub yourself down in a hot shower.”

“Don't worry.” I was already busy scraping at my legs with a sea-grape leaf.

Abbey stood at the water's edge, gazing out in heavy silence. Shelly put an arm around her tense little shoulders and said, “Let's hit the road, kiddo. Before your flaky brother gets any more bright ideas.”

Abbey turned to me. “The fish are gone. Those little green minnows we always see here.”

“They'll be back,” I said, “when the water clears up.”

Suddenly a loggerhead stuck up its knobby brown head. It might have been the same one that I'd seen that day with Thom and Rado, but I couldn't be sure. One turtle head looks a lot like another.

“No!” my sister cried out. “Noah, do something!”

The loggerhead obviously didn't know it was swimming in filth. I began jumping and clapping my hands together, trying to spook it away from the beach, but that didn't work. The turtle floated lazily at the surface, blinking up at the sun.

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 more excitement from us,” I told my sister.

“She won't have to know a darn thing,” Abbey said, “because next time we'll do it right.”

The “we” was a given. I wasn't about to let my sister go anywhere near that marina again without me.

We unlocked our bikes and started pedaling home in the thick July heat. I knew I stunk from the crappy water, but Abbey claimed she didn't smell a thing. I kept thinking about how easy it was for Dusty Muleman to get away with what he was doing. With so many big boats on the water, nobody had been able to trace the pollution along Thunder Beach directly to the Coral Queen.

Or maybe nobody had tried hard enough.

It was time that somebody did.

“We can't get Dad involved in this, either,” I said to Abbey. “He's had enough trouble already.”

“Definitely.” She grinned. “Noah, does this mean you've got a plan?”

“Don't get carried away,” I said, which ought to be the Underwood family motto.