Arrow's Rest by Joel Scott (best way to read books txt) 📕

the short walk along the docks to Arrow might have proven unsafe. The old Monk McQueen yacht had plenty of accommodation: four cabins plus the master that Clarke and Merlynn occupied. They had been given the grand tour sometime around midnight, nautical phrases pouring out of Clarke in a steady stream as he showed them over the boat. He had taken some holidays and now appeared to be working nearly full-time on Legalese. The results were visible everywhere, from the gleaming engine room to the scrubbed decks and polished brass doorknobs and fixtures. He’d managed to get the long dormant genset up and running and had serviced the main engines.

It turned out the issues with the twin diesels were minor ones of neglect and delayed maintenance and not beyond Clarke’s limited skills. Armed with a grease gun and new filters, belts, and hoses, he’d achieved wonders. Clarke’s enthusiasm was infectious, and Jared had a dim uncomfortable memory of volunteering to help scrape and recaulk Legalese’s decks sometime over the course of the evening. That was a serious commitment even if the plywood underlay was not rotten. Which it most likely was. And in more than just a few spots.

“It’s right along here according to the chart,” Danny whispered. “Number eighty-nine. The door to the shed should be unlocked as he’s living aboard.”

“Tell me again why we’re going to look at this boat, in the dark, in the middle of the night,” Jared said. “What exactly are we hoping to find?”

“We’ll know it when we see it,” Danny whispered. “Keep your voice down, we’re here.”

Under the dim glow of the dock lights could be seen a piece of multihued cedar carved in the shape of a rainbow fastened to the door of a boat shed. They opened it and passed through.

Inside was another LED light, this one outlining the dim profile of a large ocean-going tug. The carvel planked hull was painted black, with green topsides and a white funnel smokestack with brass trim. Portlights were framed in gleaming brass, and the cabin doors had been redone in heavy carved teak. A massive upswept bow was covered with tires cut in half and fastened outboard down to the water line. The anchor winch was enormous, and another even bigger towing winch rose up from the shadows on her rear deck. As they crept down the dock towards the stern, they could see fresh grease gleaming from its fittings. Rainbow looked ready to be back plying her trade at a moment’s notice. A white painted crane overhung a tarped runabout on her bridge deck.

“We need to have a quick peek under that canvas,” Danny whispered. “Only take a minute. Keep an eye out.”

Before Jared could form a protest Danny was up over Rainbow’s rail and soundlessly rising up the ladder to the top deck. He lay in the shadows alongside the tender and unhooked the bungees and slowly raised the tarp. He slid his head underneath and then crawled the length of the boat. After a minute he lowered the cover again and refastened the ties. He glided down the ladder and over the rail and grabbed Jared’s arm and they left the shed.

“And is it there?” Jared asked in a low whisper.

“Yep,” Danny said. “Nice old mahogany Chris-Craft runabout.”

“Probably be more than one of those in the club,” Jared said.

“There could well be. But you know that’s the one.”

“Yeah,” Jared said. “That’ll be the one all right. No doubt about it.”

Chapter 20

The lawyer leaned against the railing on his West End apartment balcony and sipped from a glass of thirty-year-old single malt as he stared out over the city and thought it all through one last time. The more Sullivan analyzed his interactions with Albright over the last two years, the more he realized just how difficult it was going to be to extricate himself from their consequences. That was if he wanted to take his profits with him at any rate, and goddammit, he was entitled to that money. He’d worked like a dog for it, cut corners for it, even taken a chance of disbarment for it. He wasn’t desperate for the money, he’d made some good investments years ago and the penthouse apartment he’d bought for eight hundred K after the divorce was worth three times that now. Hell, maybe even five times what he’d paid for it — the Asians and Americans were jacking up prices every week. Some of those realtor assholes were pulling in over a million a year in commissions for Christ’s sake. Driving around in their shiny new Mercs and Bimmers. He’d planned carefully and done all his homework, put in all those late nights and weekends, and those bastards just fell into it.

It wasn’t right. If he didn’t get his payout on this last deal, he’d be just another guy amongst the well-to-do crowd, and he knew himself well enough to suspect that he couldn’t live with that. Especially when he knew that the golden prize was hanging out there now, just within his grasp. He wanted, no, he needed to be rich, private island fuck you rich, and by God he would be. He deserved it. It had seemed so easy at the beginning. He came from a blue collar working family, but had made a few connections at varsity and knew some influential people from his frat days. He’d graduated first in his law class, was the editor of the school paper his final year, and a star athlete. Not in hockey or football, but boxing, of all things. He’d gone out for it on a drunken frat night bet, and it turned out he was a natural with fast hands and a deceptive knockout punch. He was the first student from his alma mater to have a shot at the national college title. Doing pretty damn well, too, until he met that Black guy from Halifax in the semis and got his ass kicked. His nose was