The Lonely Silver Rain Read Online Free PDF Page A

was beside the marina building, a cement-block structure. I could see the slip where the Sundowner had been. It was gone, as I had expected. Luck comes floating by a morsel at a time.
    The interior was cleaner and brighter than I expected. There were floor racks of fish-oriented merchandise, a display case of reels, a wall rack of rods, a couple of coolers and along one wall a line of bait bins with a constant flow of running water through them. A heavy man in a stained canvas apron was skimming off some dead bait fish which floated on top of the water in one of the middle bins, using a small dip net, and dropping them in a bucket.
    "Make good chum," I said.
    He turned and eyed me. "That's what they generally get used for."
    "I meant that there kind, with the big eyes. They seem to cut up greasier than the others." He finished and dropped the dip net into the bucket and stood up. "What can I do for you?"
    "Has a fella name of Al been here looking for me?"
    "Who are you?"
    "My name is McGee."
    "Far as I know nobody has been looking for you."
    "He'll probably turn up. We would want to rent a boat. If he shows up. A green skiff like one of those out there would be fine. And twenty horse with a spare tank. Nothing fancy."
    "Do you want to rent one or don't you?"
    "Only if he shows up. Last time we were here we did good."
    "I don't remember you being here."
    "We didn't start right from this marina last time. It was one down the line. But we worked our way up this direction. Got some nice trouts off the grass out there."
    "If he shows up, how long do you want the boat for?"
    "We'd come in right at dusk. What would that be worth?"
    "If you start in the next half hour, call it thirty dollars plus the gas."
    "Little heavy, isn't it?"
    "Going rate. Leave your car here, you don't have to make a deposit."
    "It's the white pickup next to the power pole out there."
    He glanced out the window and nodded. He went over to the cash register to get his cigarettes. As he lit one I said, "You own this place?"
    "Me and the bank."
    "You got the kind of work I'd like to do."
    "What do you do, McGee?"
    "Construction. But it isn't like it used to be. Nobody gives a shit anymore. Slap it together and sell it off and hope the sucker don't fall down before you get paid off."
    "True, friend. True. I got a shipment of six reels in a couple weeks ago. Priced to sell at thirty-nine ninety-five each. Four of them defective. So I pay UPS to ship them back and I'll wait maybe two, three months for replacements or money back. I call up, I get to talk to a machine."
    "Well, there's still some damn good merchandise being made in this world."
    "Like what?"
    "When me and Al went fishing last time, let me see, that would be on Sunday, a week ago last Sunday, when we went by here a couple times I noticed you had a big custom cruiser in here. Looked rich and sassy and really put together. I'd guess at least fifty feet, maybe more. Right out there it was, at that last slip."
    "Good boat, but she wasn't kept up."
    "Shame to let something like that go downhill. What was the name of it?"
    "Lazidays. Registered out of Biloxi. Come across from Yucatan. A smart-ass redhead kid running it. Couple of girls aboard." He opened a blue notebook. "Kid's name was John Rogers. Came in Saturday night, took off Monday early. It was fifty-four feet. And it was a hog pen. When I saw how they were keeping her, I made them pay cash in advance."
    "They came across from where?"
    "Mexico, Yucatan. The redhead didn't tell me that. One of the girls, the blonde one, told me. She came in to buy beer and wanted to know if I'd take pesos. I said maybe, because my youngest, she likes coins. So I bought four different coins for a dollar. She kept scratching her legs and she said the bugs were terrible in Chetumal and I said where's that, and she waved west and said over in Yucatan there."
    "'I guess these days they check those boats out pretty good, the ones coming in from the west or the