Lassiter 03 - False Dawn (42 page)
Read Lassiter 03 - False Dawn Online
Authors: Paul Levine
So why did I let Charlie talk me into a ride on his old Boston Whaler?
To talk.
We said to heck with the flats and headed into the ocean in fourteen hundred feet of water, seeking a measure of solitude. Charlie had the binoculars out looking for osprey and frigate birds feeding on small fish at the surface. In the food chain hereabouts, the dolphin—the bluish gold fish, not Flipper the marine mammal—chase tiny fish to the surface where the birds eat them.
We follow the birds and find the dolphin, which, with any luck, will be in Granny Lassiter’s frying pan by sundown.
I used a light spinning rod baited with a yellow feather and came up with some seaweed. Charlie used mullet and got a strike from a five-pound dolphin. It jumped, fought, ran, fought some more, skipped along the surface, then gave up. Charlie hauled it in, wriggling, and tossed it into the cooler. “
Coryphaena hippurus
, a magnificent animal. Fast and full of fight.”
I was still casting when Charlie pulled in his second one, a blunt-headed iridescent blue female. I leaned back and rested awhile, watching Charlie enjoy himself. After a moment, I said, “I still can’t figure it out.”
“A little more wrist,” Charlie advised.
“Not that. What was I doing, trying to help Francisco Crespo or find out something about myself?”
“Either way, you tried to make a difference.”
“And either way, I still couldn’t tell the good guys from the bad. Every time I thought I knew, they changed the players or the rules.”
Charlie chuckled. “Things are seldom what they seem. Skim milk masquerades as cream. The new world order makes it even more confusing, Jake. It’s hard to realize, but old enemies are on the same side now. Still, there will always be loners like Foley and Yagamata, who are just in it for themselves, and an occasional throwback like Soto who thinks he can change the world by force. Most everybody else seems willing to let individuals control their own destiny.”
“But I didn’t do anyone any good. I didn’t save Crespo or Eva-Lisa. I didn’t save anyone.”
“Sure you did, Jake. You saved yourself.”
W
e stayed the night at a rundown motel on the Gulf side, then got up at four
A.M.
for a second try. Except for the slap of water against the hull, it was quiet as a tomb as we headed out the channel. A velvet black sky was filled with diamonds, and a feathery breeze blew from the southeast. Charlie and I sat looking at the heavens in the silent comfort that two good friends can savor without self-consciousness.
When we reached what Charlie promised would be a hot spot, I baited my hook. Charlie tamped tobacco into his pipe and scratched at his beard. “You see my matches?”
“Too dark,” I said.
After a few moments, on the horizon to the east, an orange glow cut through the darkness.
“False dawn,” I said.
“No. That’s the real thing. Sun’s coming up.”
“Too early, Charlie. That’s the phony one. I remember.”
“Twenty bucks,” Charlie said, goading me.
“You’re on. In the meantime, tell me one of your stories I haven’t heard in a while.”
Charlie harrumphed. “Ever tell you about the Doomsday Rock?”
“What’s that, an engagement ring?”
“An asteroid big enough to cause an explosion a billion times bigger than Hiroshima.”
“Where is it?”
“Nobody knows. But theoretically, it has to be out there, hurtling toward us right now. The Earth gets hit by one every five hundred thousand years or so. The blast causes a dust cloud that changes the climate, kills off the plant life. It’s probably what did in the dinosaurs. To demonstrate the effect, imagine my bait box is an asteroid.” He leaned over and picked up the box. “You see this, Jake?”
“Of course.”
“Thought so,” he said, laughing.
I reached for my wallet, handed the old buzzard two tens, and told him to finish his story.
Reversal (formerly 9 Scorpions)
Coming Soon — The Rest of the Jake Lassiter Series
Fool Me Twice
Flesh & Bones
Available Now in Both Print and Ebook Formats
Coming Fall 2011
Lassiter
(in hardcover and an e-book, from Bantam Books)
The author of 14 novels, Paul Levine won the John D. MacDonald fiction award and was nominated for the Edgar, Macavity, International Thriller, and James Thurber prizes. A former trial lawyer, he also wrote more than 20 episodes of the CBS military drama “JAG” and co-created the Supreme Court drama “First Monday” starring James Garner and Joe Mantegna. The critically acclaimed international bestseller “To Speak for the Dead” was his first novel. He is also the author of the “Solomon vs. Lord” series and the thriller “Illegal.” His next novel, “Lassiter,” will be published in hardcover—and as an e-book—by Bantam in Fall 2011. Visit Paul Levine on the Web at
http://www.paul-levine.com
.
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Copyright © 1993 Paul J. Levine
Cover design by Aaron Kowan
Ebook design by Rob Siders
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from Nittany Valley Productions, Inc.
Edition: December 2010