real estate office or perhaps in the family den. A tidy deposit would be forthcoming, divided by the captain and mates, and a few months later the client would receive via UPS an exquisite six-foot sailfish, painted cobalt blending to indigo and airbrushed with lateral dashes of silver and gold. The replica, manufactured by the taxidermist from a standard plaster cast, would be fixed in a lifelike leaping pose, its sharp bill aimed toward the clouds and its tall dorsal fin regally flared.
Of course by then the real sailfish had been recycled profitably and eventually dumped overboard, having decomposed to chum after five or six fake captures. It was a scam to be saved exclusively for the most witless of tourists, but it worked often enough to have been passed along over decades among a certain low-pirate class of sportfishing crews.
Charles Phinney didn’t learn of the trick from Captain Keith Fitzpatrick but, rather, from a stranger who’d approached him one evening at the Garrison Bight Marina while he was hosing down the Misty Momma IV . There was, however, a twist.
“It wasn’t a dead sailfish they wanted him to hook on the line,” Madeline told Yancy. “It was a dude’s cut-off arm!”
“Jesus.”
“I told Charlie it was the grossest thing I ever heard and he’d be crazy to do it. But he was gonna make three thousand cash.”
“Three grand?”
“I’m not shitting you,” said Madeline. “So he said okay.”
“And got paid?”
“Same day, in hundred-dollar bills. He made me swear not to tell anyone. He said they told him it was only a practical joke, no big deal. The arm came off a dead body from some mortician school.”
By now she was lapping a third vodka tonic. Yancy felt like having a stiff one, too, but he wanted to be able to remember every word. He’d write it all down as soon as he got home.
“The night before,” she said, “in Charlie’s apartment? We were so fucking nervous we got stoned out of our heads. I mean baked , okay? He had the … you know … in this big ice cooler, I’ll never forget—”
“Wait, Madeline, who gave Phinney the arm?”
“Someone brought it to the dock that same night, when he was alone on the boat. Anyway, the cooler—Charlie asks do I want to see the you-know-what and I said no freaking way, you asshole. But he takes the thing out, right? And it doesn’t look real but at the same time it’s too gross to be fake. And we both, I don’t know why, we just start laughing. He’s swingin’ the thing around like a baseball bat and I’ve got this half-calico kitty cat, Sheeba, all the fur on her back is stickin’ up. Charlie and I both just fell out, it seemed so damn funny. Sounds pretty fucking twisted, I guess, but it’s not like we put it up on YouTube or nothin’.”
“So it was really good pot,” Yancy said. Bonnie Witt’s reaction to the severed limb had been not so jolly, though, in retrospect, they hadn’t laughed very much as a couple. Again he asked: “Who brought the dead arm to Phinney?”
“Here’s the worst,” said Madeline. “We’re so trashed, Charlie grabs the middle finger on the hand, right? The bird finger? And he bends it up like this, so it looks like the dead dude is flippin’ us off! I ’bout peed my panties. But then he stuck the thing in the freezer and next morning it was all iced up, and he couldn’t bend the finger back ’cause he was afraid it would snap off. So that’s how it stayed when he took it on the Mis ty.”
“Captain Fitzpatrick didn’t know anything about this, right?”
“You kidding? He would have gaffed Charlie in the nut sack.”
She wanted another cigarette so Yancy followed her outside. He stood upwind and gulped the salty fresh air. The inside of Stoney’s smelled like fried sweat socks.
“Who else did Charlie tell about the arm?”
“Nobody but me,” Madeline said emphatically. “Soon as he sobered up he got semi-paranoid about it. But the money, you know, that
Of course by then the real sailfish had been recycled profitably and eventually dumped overboard, having decomposed to chum after five or six fake captures. It was a scam to be saved exclusively for the most witless of tourists, but it worked often enough to have been passed along over decades among a certain low-pirate class of sportfishing crews.
Charles Phinney didn’t learn of the trick from Captain Keith Fitzpatrick but, rather, from a stranger who’d approached him one evening at the Garrison Bight Marina while he was hosing down the Misty Momma IV . There was, however, a twist.
“It wasn’t a dead sailfish they wanted him to hook on the line,” Madeline told Yancy. “It was a dude’s cut-off arm!”
“Jesus.”
“I told Charlie it was the grossest thing I ever heard and he’d be crazy to do it. But he was gonna make three thousand cash.”
“Three grand?”
“I’m not shitting you,” said Madeline. “So he said okay.”
“And got paid?”
“Same day, in hundred-dollar bills. He made me swear not to tell anyone. He said they told him it was only a practical joke, no big deal. The arm came off a dead body from some mortician school.”
By now she was lapping a third vodka tonic. Yancy felt like having a stiff one, too, but he wanted to be able to remember every word. He’d write it all down as soon as he got home.
“The night before,” she said, “in Charlie’s apartment? We were so fucking nervous we got stoned out of our heads. I mean baked , okay? He had the … you know … in this big ice cooler, I’ll never forget—”
“Wait, Madeline, who gave Phinney the arm?”
“Someone brought it to the dock that same night, when he was alone on the boat. Anyway, the cooler—Charlie asks do I want to see the you-know-what and I said no freaking way, you asshole. But he takes the thing out, right? And it doesn’t look real but at the same time it’s too gross to be fake. And we both, I don’t know why, we just start laughing. He’s swingin’ the thing around like a baseball bat and I’ve got this half-calico kitty cat, Sheeba, all the fur on her back is stickin’ up. Charlie and I both just fell out, it seemed so damn funny. Sounds pretty fucking twisted, I guess, but it’s not like we put it up on YouTube or nothin’.”
“So it was really good pot,” Yancy said. Bonnie Witt’s reaction to the severed limb had been not so jolly, though, in retrospect, they hadn’t laughed very much as a couple. Again he asked: “Who brought the dead arm to Phinney?”
“Here’s the worst,” said Madeline. “We’re so trashed, Charlie grabs the middle finger on the hand, right? The bird finger? And he bends it up like this, so it looks like the dead dude is flippin’ us off! I ’bout peed my panties. But then he stuck the thing in the freezer and next morning it was all iced up, and he couldn’t bend the finger back ’cause he was afraid it would snap off. So that’s how it stayed when he took it on the Mis ty.”
“Captain Fitzpatrick didn’t know anything about this, right?”
“You kidding? He would have gaffed Charlie in the nut sack.”
She wanted another cigarette so Yancy followed her outside. He stood upwind and gulped the salty fresh air. The inside of Stoney’s smelled like fried sweat socks.
“Who else did Charlie tell about the arm?”
“Nobody but me,” Madeline said emphatically. “Soon as he sobered up he got semi-paranoid about it. But the money, you know, that
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