Of Sea and Cloud (20 page)

I am sure of myself.

What will you do?

I will run the pound.

Jason straightened in his chair and lifted his shoulders up near his earlobes then settled. Nicolas's son lacks vision?

He lacks vision, yes. He's a fisherman. Good fishermen are simple and they are greedy. Like sharks. They have to be.

Nicolas's death seems to benefit you, Osmond, Jason said and waited for Osmond to respond.

After a full minute Osmond said, Don't.

All right. Forget that for now. I'll tell you what, Jason said and stood and looked out the window at the harbor. What if we stop all of that loss? It was Nicolas who hated change, wasn't it?

Osmond sipped his drink.

What we do is drain it and dredge it and rebuild it. We wire in aerators and we make it the nicest lobster pound in the fucking world. You have big tides there, plenty of clean water and not a drop of fresh water. What limits us is size and size is always negotiable.

Osmond stared at him.

Here's the other thing, Jason said. What's wrong with the market? The price is gone, right? That's because there's too much product, plain and simple. All this talk about Icelandic banks pulling processor funding from the Canadians, and the goddamned cruise lines cutting back—that shit's all well and good, but that doesn't matter to me. What matters to me is basic economics. Supply and demand. You highlining bastards catch a ton of lobster or more a day. Maybe two or three tons. You can't expect the demand to keep up with that, Icelandic banks and cruise ships or not. You got all these agencies and promotion councils spending all your money on marketing and bullshit when all you need to do is slow down. But you won't do that because your ball-size depends on how many bugs you catch.

Jason wiped his forehead.

But what exists in this shitty market are little niches, Osmond. Little niches that pay as well as ever. You'll always get top dollar for top quality. Period. That's a word you never, ever hear in the fisheries.
Quality
. Most guys catch a ton of product and three quarters of them are hollow and their tomalley tastes like mud. That won't sell, especially with the Canadian processors offline.

Osmond crossed his arms. You're rattling, Jason. Say what you need to say.

Jason smiled.

Good pound lobsters are a premium, but you knew that.

Osmond waited. He thought about Julius. He thought about the future and this was it.

Jason looked around and lifted his arms in the air and his voice was a whisper. It's about water, Osmond. Clean, cold water. That's where the market is. Here we have no space and we have no water. You have the water and the room and you have the catch coming in. I talked with Benji Beal. I can buy his wharf right now. We can rebuild the pound and build a seawater tank house next to it. We grade our own product. Top to bottom. We run the show on that coast. Fuck Iceland. Fuck Canada.

Osmond swirled the sake around his glass and finished it in a gulp.

I just visited my buyer in Japan, Jason said. I can move some high-end lobsters, Osmond, but they want to know those bugs come straight out of the fucking seawater. They don't like these swimming pool pump house bugs. My man says he can taste the fake saltwater in them. He says the tomalley sucks. They want cold saltwater product but they want a lot of it and they want it to be consistent and perfect. The Chinese are the same. They want to slap a spiny little two-claw bastard on a plate and say that Osmond Randolph caught this thing yesterday and it's still wet as a happy whore.

Osmond stood and looked out the opposite window. Rows of crates strung together by their beckets filled the tank below. He wondered about Benji selling the wharf and he wondered about Nicolas and he wondered about the strange unrolling of the future but as he did so he saw his own destiny and that of his grandchildren together align like a star cluster turned constellation. I wouldn't want to eat these tanked lobsters either, he said.

Jason crossed the room and stood next to him and clapped his hand on Osmond's back. Neither would I, my man. Neither would I. Think it over.

The fishermen in that harbor won't like the idea. Not one bit of it.

Why not? At the very least, they'll get the same price as any other wharf.

It's change, Jason. They don't trust change. Especially from someone from away. They'll never trust you.

Not until I pay them half again as much as the next guy.

Osmond nodded. They won't like it. If you pay them more they'll think you're setting them up for something. It's always the same story. Good promises then a good fucking.

But you, Osmond? Do you like it?

I wouldn't say that.

Jason sat back down and swiveled his chair around so he faced Osmond. There's a new crowd of fishermen out there, Osmond. The younger generation. They got a hot nut to catch product and they got a hot nut to sell at top price. Their allegiance isn't the same as their fathers'. They go where the money is. Money talks to these guys. They have big boats and they watch too much television.

Osmond looked around the room. He sighed. I know it, he said. They've lost faith, and it is a shame. But in the harbor they listen to Virgil and Captain Bill and those two have faith in things that no longer exist.

Much like yourself.

Yes. Like myself, Jason. I don't like change but I accept it. Technology has changed and the market has changed so we must change. Virgil and Bill, they will fight it. They think we are still an isolated harbor surrounded by an endless sea. They don't know this is a global economy. They do not know the world exists. Their faith evolved from their grandfathers and earlier and they hold on to that because it is what they understand. And in a manner, I envy them. But my faith is in something larger than history or tradition.

Jason grunted. What is your faith in, Osmond?

Osmond rolled his shirtsleeve up and exposed a white arm and he clenched the arm with his hand and the fingers were long and strong and he squeezed the arm until his veins rose into ridges beneath the skin. There, he said. There is my faith, Jason. Blood and blood alone.

Jason yawned and scratched the inside of his thighs. Daniel will take you to your hotel. Leave your rig here. And one more thing.

Osmond rolled his sleeve down. He felt empty as if he'd sold something he treasured.

This thing with the skull in the pound—whatever the fuck it is, I don't care. But I want to know this: Did your grandson harm Nicolas? Julius Wesley. I'll find out for myself but I want to hear it from you. I like to understand my business partners.

Osmond stood. He placed his glass on Jason's desk. He left the room and went down the steep metal staircase and found Daniel in the front office. Daniel drove him into the city to a hotel and let Osmond out on the sidewalk. He handed Osmond a keycard.

They'll pick you up at six.

Yes, said Osmond and as he watched Daniel enter traffic and disappear into the city's corridors he pictured an underwater landscape built of ledge and cave and canyon and he pictured lobsters rushing about the streets.

He stepped into the building.

There was an atrium in the lobby with several fountains surrounded by artificial aspen trees. Water noise echoed throughout the room. Osmond carried a single black leather bag and wore a black overcoat. He took the elevator up six flights and went down the hallway and opened the door.

The shower was running and he could hear the exhaust fan. He shut the door and set his bag down and took off his boots and coat. He went to the window. The curtain was open and the view was over the south side and he saw old brick buildings and stone churches. He stood looking out over the cold city and watching the steam and smoke rising in tendrils from the rooftops until the shower stopped and the bathroom door opened.

Osmond didn't turn around. He felt her arms wrap around his waist and her head lean against his spine as her fingers dug into his stomach. He looked down at the long thin fingers so dark brown they were nearly black.

Do you remember what you said to me the last time we saw each other? she said.

Of course I do.

I didn't think you would.

You are the only woman left in the world, he said.

You're so full of shit, she said and smiled as she turned him around. She was six feet tall and her forehead came only to his lips. Her hair was long and wet and brushed straight back over her scalp and she was naked. Beads of water remained on her shoulders. She didn't wear any jewelry except a silver chain above her hips which held a silver pendant below her navel.

Osmond set his hands on her shoulders and ran them down her arms and rib cage and followed the silver chain with his thumb and middle finger. He gripped the pendant. Below his fingers lay a thin strip of black hair.

I'm happy you still have this, he said and released the pendant.

She unbuttoned his shirt and worked it down over his shoulders and arms. She pulled his T-shirt off and his skin was like salt next to her dark skin and his chest and shoulders were covered in thick gray hair. His back was torn with old scars and she traced her fingers over the scars and he had the brief memory of kneeling shoulder to shoulder beside his brother with their father behind them holding the small flagellum and he twisted his shoulders away from her touch. She undid his pants and kneeled down and pulled them over his feet. She stood and her mouth was slightly open so he could see her white teeth and pink gums and the red tip of her tongue.

He gripped her hips and ran his hand over her stomach and breasts and around her waistline and down her ass and he lifted her to her tiptoes and kissed her chin. Then released her. Her nostrils flared. She ran her hand between his legs and gripped and she searched his face for what was wrong and he said, Later.

He pulled the blankets off the bed and lay down and she stretched out next to him.

• • •

Osmond and Renee met Jason outside the hotel. Jason held his arm around a Japanese-Hawaiian woman he introduced as Turtle. She wore a silver fur coat and hid her chin and mouth in the collar. It was dark but the city lights were bright against the wet pavement and their breath rose like street vent steam.

Turtle stuck her hand out for Osmond to shake. He took it and she squeezed him harder than he would have thought possible. She looked him in the eyes and said, You're a big bastard too, aren't you?

Osmond held her small hand and looked at Jason and Jason laughed.

Jason had a car waiting and they climbed into it. Jason didn't say anything to the driver. They sped through the city and turned down an alleyway and stopped beside a dumpster. They climbed out and the driver opened an oversized metal door and they walked into a wooden hallway stained dark with tobacco. There was no door on the men's bathroom and they could smell urine and see the stainless steel trough that lined the wall. The trough was filled with pissed-over ice and cigarette butts. An Elvis poster hung on the wall but it had long since been tattooed with graffiti.

Jason led them down the hallway and past a kitchen with a service window. The barroom was crowded and filled with smoke and the walls were lined with photos of old men like wainscoting and on the wall beside the service window hung a breakfast-all-day menu. A young man who looked to be a weightlifter leaned on his elbows in the window. He wore a tank top and a bandana drenched in sweat.

Jason passed before the weightlifter's field of vision and the man nodded and came out a side door and pushed through the crowd then unlocked a door that led to a wide wooden staircase. The step treads were covered in rubber mats. The weightlifter held the door as the four descended the stairs then shut it behind them. Osmond heard the lock slide home. The staircase was lit by a single dirty bulb hanging from an overhead wire.

At the bottom of the stairs Jason opened a door and they entered a small speakeasy with a bar in one corner and several round black tables. The back of the bar was the glass wall of a pool-sized fish tank. A topless woman dressed as a mermaid swam back and forth and took periodic breaths from a tube camouflaged as seaweed. Underwater bulbs shone blue from the tank and lit the room in waves of light.

The bartender walked around the bar and took their coats. Renee's midriff and silver pendant flashed as she sat down.

Jason still wore his cutoff sweatpants and white lab coat and rubber boots.

The bartender brought two bottles of sake. She set them in front of Jason and he grabbed her by the hip and pulled her to him. She wore a black cocktail dress. She bent to hear what he was saying then nodded and left. Turtle leaned over to Jason and gripped his thigh in her fist and whispered, Easy with the hands there, Big Man.

Jason nodded. He pulled her fist from his thigh and held it in his hands.

Minutes later the bartender returned with a platter of tilefish taquitos. The taquitos were slices of fish the size of silver dollars pounded flat with rice flour then fried until they curled. Raw tilefish was piled inside each curled slice then topped with pickled cucumber and jalapeño slaw.

Jason ate one. He licked his thumb and forefinger. As I was saying, Osmond, he said. This is the thing. The Japanese are the market. Right now the Italians have them. They have the lobsters and the fish so they have the Japanese market. But the Japanese don't like to deal with them.

But they like you.

Right now a few of them do and as long as I provide the best product it will stay that way. They only want one thing and that's quality. The Italians don't understand that. They're slobs. They eat too much sauce to understand. They have the fish but they manhandle them. They ruin their tuna and swords and then they soak the battered pricks in olive oil and tomato sauce like it's fucking gnocchi or something. They have no sensitivities. The Japs are venomous pricks, and the more venomous a creature is, the more sensitive it is. Wouldn't you agree, Turtle?

I would, she said. She grinned and wiped a sliver of cucumber from her chin. But that doesn't mean that you're not full of shit, Big Man.