Tuna Tango (2 page)

“I’d be right there with you … but I can’t. That building has been in my family for several generations. Look around; there’s nothing built over the water like that anymore. The Army Corp of Engineers and the city planners won’t let it happen. The only way I can use that building is to rebuild it like it is. And where it is.” He paused. “I’m looking to move the fish business over here. We’re by the railroad tracks now; used to work back in the day when everything went by train, but these days it’s all air freight. The neighborhoods run down and after the bubble burst a few years ago, the building’s not worth half what I refinanced it for.”

Will looked at him skeptically. “Rebuild it? That thing looks like a good blow would take it into the water.”

“It’s been through a few of those, but I had a marine engineer look at it, and he thinks it’s doable. I just need the right person. Someone open minded and creative.” He patted Will on the back.

Will looked at the building again with fresh eyes, now that it was all out in the open. It would be a challenge, and if he had to get a job, he might as well be his own boss. Besides, working on the water, across from Pass-A-Grille beach and on the intracoastal, wasn’t a bad location. 

The man must have seen his interest. “It’s yours. No bids, no budgets. Just keep it moving. I’ll give you free rein to do the work as you see fit.”

Will looked at the man. This kind of offer from almost anyone else would have pegged his bullshit meter into the red, but he’d known Lance for years. If a man’s character was represented in the way he fished, Lance was to be trusted. 

“Sounds good. What about plans and permits?” He hesitated, hating to talk money. “And you know I’m pretty broke right now. I can’t finance this and bill you. I need the money up front.”

“Will.” He looked at him. “You make this work, I’ll pay you cash. As far as permits, I’ll leave that up to you, but you’ve got to know that people are going to be watching this job, and not all of them are going to like it. There’s a bunch of people here that don’t want this to go forward; some want it torn down, and others are looking to buy it for themselves. So you’re going to have to watch your back.”

Chapter 2

Will opened the padlock on the door, if you could call it that. The slab of plywood, reinforced with two-by-fours, opened slowly, the rusty gate hinges squealing in resistance. They entered and started to look around, Sheryl staying close as they picked their way around the piles of debris scattered around the floor. 

Her green eyes were darker here because of the low light; again hauntingly similar to the color of the water. 

“Will. This is a really big job!” 

“Yeah, it’s a challenge, though.”

“You know how to do all this stuff? I mean your house in the Keys …” She paused. “It was really beautiful, all the finish work you did, and the design was really cool.”

He didn’t want to think about what he had lost, so he refocussed on the present. “I built some docks and stuff when I was just out of high school. It’s the same principle, just on a bigger scale. The biggest problem is getting some help.”

“There are some kids at the club that would probably work during the day for you.”

She had started working as a waitress several nights a week while taking classes during the day. Will was skeptical about hiring bar workers, knowing their penchant for late-night parties and sleeping all day. But he stayed quiet, not wanting to upset the tranquility with an argument. 

“I know an engineer that can help me get this going with the city. Guess I should start there.” 

“I’m so proud of you.” She leaned over and kissed him. 

He smiled, but was torn inside; he was pandering to her, but badly wanted her respect, and knew that he’d do anything to get it. 

Finally, having seen enough, he led her toward the door and outside. The building locked, they got into the old truck and were about to pull out of the lot when a black pickup pulled in. Music vibrated through the tinted windows and Will looked with disgust toward the hidden driver. Guys that drove trucks like that were invariably the same guys that owned speed boats. His theory was confirmed when the window slid down, revealing the same guy that had driven the boat the other day. 

A quick look and a head nod meant to be intimidating, and the truck screeched out of the parking lot. Will wondered if this is what Lance meant when he said to watch his back.

***

Will sat at the drafting table, waiting for Emerson to review his sketch. The old man had been old when Will met him working on one of his projects in the Keys, years ago. Surprised he was still working, he was relieved when he had answered the phone and agreed to meet. The office, once full of draftsmen, was now deserted—just a middle-aged Cuban lady working at an adjacent table. 

“Well, you think it’ll work?” Will asked after several minutes of silence.

Emerson didn’t appear to hear what he said, but continued to look at the drawing. Finally he looked up and took off his glasses. “I’d like to look firsthand, but from what you have here, it’s not a problem. The building is lightweight; little more than a dock with a roof. We need to beef up the substructure, so that’s going to be a challenge, working on the water, but this kind of thing is right up your alley.”

Will breathed in relief that the old man was onboard. That had been the biggest obstacle in his plan. If Emerson had declined, the project was dead. Younger engineers were over cautious, and would insist on tearing down the structure. Rebuilding the piers and beams wouldn’t be easy, with the structure overhead, but it
could
be done. He had spent a sleepless night figuring out different approaches to accomplish it, and then brought the plans with his ideas to Emerson.

“I need help with the permit too,” he said, hoping the comment would slide by without resistance. Emerson had a contractor’s license so old that it was back in the single digits. As long as he’d kept it active, though, Will hoped he would sign the permit papers as the contractor of record.

“Well,” Emerson started, “we’ve done it before, don’t suppose it’ll hurt.”

Will smiled. “Want to take a ride and check it out?”

***

Will sat on the seawall next to the building and checked his dive gear. He had spent the morning measuring and sketching the existing structure, using his paddleboard to float underneath to check the beam sizes and spacing. Now he needed to have a look underwater and check the condition of the piers that supported the structure. 

He spit in his mask and rinsed it from a bottle of water sitting next to him, put the fins on over his booties, and lowered the mask onto his face. Carefully, he kneeled onto the board floating next to him, and used his hands to paddle out to deeper water. He wasn’t sure what the bottom looked like or how dangerous it was, so he moved the board to one of the piers at the end of the building and tied the leash around it. Confident the water was at least six feet here, he slid off the board. His head slid under, and he looked around the murky water and drifted with the outgoing tide. A slack tide would have been better for visibility, but he was here now. Finning back toward the board, he reached onto it and grabbed the dive light. 

The beam cut through the silted water, showing the first pier. He raised his head out of the water and took a large breath, then dove to check the pier’s base. The pole was old, he saw, and covered with barnacles below the water line, making it impossible to see any decay without chiseling the mollusks off the wood. That would be difficult to do without tanks or solid footing so he moved on.

The next line of poles were several feet closer to the seawall, and he encountered the same conditions. At the next row, he was able to kneel in the sand and place his face in the water, the bottom only two feet deep. Able to work without the strain of constantly surfacing for air, he took the dive knife strapped to his calf and began the tedious process of chipping the mollusks off the old wood. 

Slowly, the old, treated wood revealed itself. Scar marks from the knife showed clean, unblemished wood, and he was able to poke the knife directly into the pier now. With a picture of the main floor of the building in his head, he realized that this was one of the areas the floor sagged. His suspicions proved accurate as the knife slid easily into the wood, indicating that it was rotten. The building was sagging because its support structure was failing.

As he was about to climb out of the water, though, something else caught his eye—the shine of chrome in the parking lot, visible between the foot-high gap between the floor structure and seawall. Mask pulled back on his head, he took off his fins and stood hunched in the small space. 

Two massive legs stared back at him. 

“What do we have here, Jacque Freakin’ Cousteau? Nobody in their right mid dives in that shit. You looking for old Jose Gaspar’s lost treasure, or what?”

Will thought about sliding back into the water to avoid a confrontation, but his choice was made for him when he glanced up and saw two beady black eyes staring at him. 

“Come on out of there. I think me and you need to have a talk,” the guy with the eyes said.

Reluctantly, Will crawled out from below the building, his only relief being that he could now stand erect. “Something I can help you with?” He looked past the man at the truck; it was the same black truck that cruised through the day before. He couldn’t help but notice the blonde hair blowing in the air conditioning from the passenger seat, almost translucent in the sun.

“Me and you gotta reach an agreement here. You’re the same guy that was over here with the old man the other day. What’s he got up his sleeve?” The guy paused, and looked toward the girl in the truck.

She caught his look and whined, “Can we go now? I’m hungry.”

“Shut up, bitch. I’ve got business here.” He turned back to Will, who couldn’t avoid staring at the girl. “You want a piece of that? She’s yours. Now back to business. Old Lance has his timetable and I have mine. You see, I can get a little impatient about slow work.” He winked. 

Will was about to nod his head in acceptance when he glanced at the girl and noticed the piercing blue eyes staring at him. 

“Gregori, I thought you were the mayor,” the girl interrupted.

“I already told you to shut up. I’m all the mayor you need.” He looked back at Will, his face and neck red. “Oh. So he’s got you to try and rebuild this piece of shit, eh? Just get it done. And I’ll be checking on you, if you get my drift.” 

Before Will could respond, he turned and walked toward the driver’s-side door of the truck and hopped in. The tail pipes roared as he accelerated out of the parking lot, horns blaring as he cut off several cars.

Will stood there in his booties and board shorts, not sure what to make of the man, then gathered his gear and placed it in the large metal toolbox he had set inside the building. Surely the guy was just blowing smoke, hoping to scare him. He’d worked for impatient customers before but this kind of job wasn’t something you could rush. He checked his watch, changed, and locked up, hurrying to make his appointment with Emerson at the building department.

***

As he drove, he planned his next step. Removing the old piers would be expensive and potentially dangerous, and the structure would have to be shored up while the pole was cut. Not a big deal in itself, but removing the fifty-year-old pile from the clutches of the seabed was another problem. His idea was to leave the existing structure alone, replacing only the exposed wood that was rotten. A new support structure would be built underneath it, oversize beams spanning between new poles. And that would be that.

Chapter 3

Will sat at the bar and nursed his beer, watching Sheryl as she worked the crowd. She cast a wary look his way when she passed by. Several weeks ago there had been an incident where he had a few too many beers and almost gotten her fired. Since then, she had forbidden him from hanging out. This time though, she had given him a pass in order to meet Kyle and Dick. But she clearly was keeping an eye on him. He had been there for an hour now, waiting for her shift to end. Ybor City, the old cigar center of Tampa, now converted to a nightlife hub, was just starting to get busy. The old brick buildings had been renovated into bars and restaurants frequented by the college students from nearby University of South Florida, as well as the local youths, and the area often turned into a drunken brawl on weekend nights.