The Beach Girls Read Online Free PDF Page B

guess I was looking for laughs when I took Leo Rice on. Funny damn thing. It happened last Tuesday. Rice had come in on Friday in that crappy Higgins. Kept to himself. Didn’t try to buddy up to anybody. We get tourists coming in here who think just because they own a boat they can come barging right into a group of us like old friends. So we give them the chill.
    Anyway, I had a charter last Tuesday and Ron Lamarr was going to crew for me and he didn’t show up. I should know better than to depend on that crazy kid. Anyhow, I was outside the men’s shower room bitching to Billy Looby about having no help. This Rice was in the shower room and I guess he heard me through the window. He came out and said he’d be willing to help if I could use him.
    I looked him over. He seemed to be in good shape.
    “What do you know about it?” I asked him.
    “Absolutely nothing,” he said, staring me in the eye. “If you explain what I have to do, I’ll try to do it. It’s a chance for me to learn more about handling a boat.”
    I looked at him and I wanted to laugh out loud. This was the same type joker who gave me such a hell of a rough ride in the Navy. Gold on their damn sleeves. Looking at you like you were some kind of new animal. Hated the bastards, every one.
    “You last a whole day and you get a buck an hour, Rice.”
    “You don’t have to pay me.”
    “If I pay you, you’re working for me. I’ll pay you. See you over on the boat in two minutes, buddy.”
    The charter was four guys from a supermarket convention. Rice was purely a mess around a boat. I was yelling at him before we got clear of the dock. He didn’t even know how to cast off a line.
    On the run out to the edge of the stream I set the pilot and went back and taught him how to rig tackle and sew bait. He was all thumbs. We got into a mess of dolphin. Those supermarket boys were tougher than they looked. And they weren’t feeling any pain. They yelled and whooped, and most of the time for maybe four hours we had two on at once. I worked the rear end right off that Leo Rice. I wanted to see him quit. There was something about his eyes, something uneasy, that made me think he’d quit. And about the set of his mouth.
    He chopped his hands to hamburg on the raw ends of the leader wire he didn’t break off right. He busted his back and blistered his hands gaffing big angry dolphin and releasing them. He untangled snarls and sewed bait and opened beer while the sun burned him and the chop bounced him around and the sweat ran into his eyes. In mid-afternoon the chop got worse and two of the supermarket guys got sick and only one made it to the rail, so that was a mop job for Rice. They wanted to come in so I brought them in. Soon as they paid off and left, I had Rice wash the boat down, and then I showed him how to rinse and lubricate the gear and stow the tackle.
    When he finished I figured the time on him, and handed him eight bucks. He hesitated and then took it in his chopped-up shaky hands. He looked grayish under his tan and he stood on the dock sort of bent over a little.
    “Once was enough, hey?” I said.
    He looked at the boat and then he straightened up all the way and said, “Will you need help tomorrow, Captain?”
    I had a half-day charter for the morning and I hadn’t contacted Ron yet. If Rice was asking to be busted down, I was his man.
    “Show up at seven, buddy.”
    He nodded and shuffled off. I figured him for too pooped to eat. He’d fall in the sack fast.
    Rice was one of the sorriest looking things you’d ever want to see when he showed up at seven. You could tell the way he moved he was stiff all over. The charter showed up. Damn nice kids. A little Mexican couple with honeymoon written all over them.
    I moved over to the gas dock and topped off the tanks. Rice handled the hose as if he was a hundred and three. But on the way out, without being told, he broke out the tackle and went to work on the bait. The sun limbered him up,