A Case of Vineyard Poison (6 page)

There are sometimes so many four-by-fours on the weekend beaches that it seems like downtown Edgartown. Ah, for the golden days of yesteryear, before everybody and his dog owned a four-by-four.

Because of the cars and the flocks of people, Zee and I usually didn't fish on weekends except very early in the morning when only the regulars are out. Amateur Hour is not our idea of a good time. But this was not a usual weekend, since we had obligations to our guests, so the next morning, after cleaning up last night's dishes, I put two extra rods on the roof rack of the Land Cruiser, an extra tackle box in the back, and ice in the fish box. Then Zee and I made sandwiches for four and stuffed them, with chips, half-sour pickles, beer, wine, iced tea, and cookies, into my big cooler. I added two small floating wire baskets and two quahog rakes to our collection of gear. If we couldn't find a place to get some bluefish, we'd go for some littlenecks or steamers. There is never a time when you can't fish for something or other on Martha's Vineyard.

I got into my dashing spandex bathing suit, and Zee slid into her itsy-bitsy white bikini—larger than three postage stamps, but not by much—and after putting on shorts and shirts over this daring beachwear, we were ready to roll.

“No more all-over tans for a few days,” I said. “Too much company.”

“Alas,” said Zee, sliding her feet into her Tevas. They were good-looking feet. Maybe Pushkin had the right idea. On the other hand, Zee's other body parts were equally stimulating.

Quinn and David Greenstein did not make an appearance until well after nine. Both had abandoned
their city clothes for shorts and shirts and both looked city pale. June People not yet exposed to the Vineyard sun. We fed them smoked bluefish, red onion, and cream cheese on bagels, washed down with coffee just touched with cinnamon to smooth it out.

“Okay, you guys,” said Zee, when they were done, “we've missed two tides already. Time to hit the beach. You can't catch any fish from this porch.”

“Sorry to hold you up.” David Greenstein had a white-toothed smile. “I was starved. And that was the best night's sleep I've had in longer than I can remember.”

“The Island Sleepies at work,” Zee said almost shyly. “I'm just kidding you. You can sleep as late as you want to. It's your vacation.”

“I'll be up earlier tomorrow.” Again the flash of those white teeth. I wondered if he'd also won the Tchaikovsky international smiling competition. It seemed likely.

Zee's smile was just as bright. “If you plan on swimming, which is a good thing to plan, you'd better put on a bathing suit.”

“I've already done that. I was so advised by Mr. Quinn.”

“You lay out a winning breakfast,” said Quinn, wiping his lips and ogling Zee. “Did I ever tell you that if you just had a lot of money I'd consider using my famous Irish charm to win you away from this guy who claims he's your fiancé? I'm sure he'll never appreciate you as much as I do.”

“I did have a lot of money once,” said Zee, “but I don't have it anymore. It's too bad you weren't here last weekend, when I was rich. You missed your chance.”

“Bad timing has been a Quinn family curse,” said Quinn, getting up and starting to clear the table. “Tell me everything.”

David Greenstein got up and started helping.

“You don't need to do that,” said Zee. “You're guests.”

“Yes they do,” I said. “If we're going to get down the beach before noon, we've got to get started.”

“I used to do this all the time when I was living in Evanston,” said David Greenstein. “If I had time to cook these days, I'd still do it.” He piled plates on plates, and hooked fingers through the handles of coffee cups, and headed for the kitchen, followed by Quinn.

We were in the Land Cruiser driving south before Quinn got back to the issue of Zee's fleeting riches. While we crawled through the A & P traffic jam, she told him her tale.

“And the bank says it was a computer glitch, eh?”

Zee nodded. “My hundred thou was there for the weekend, but was gone on Monday. That's all I know. Sic transit moolah. I presume that means our relationship is over. Sigh.”

“Oh, I don't know,” said Quinn. “Maybe we can still work something out.”

Going on through Edgartown, Zee played travel guide for David Greenstein. She pointed out Cannonball Park, so called because of its six-inch muzzle-loading cannons and its stacks of twelve-inch cannon balls, and confessed that she hadn't the slightest idea why the cannon balls and cannons weren't the same size.

“Why is that?” she interrupted herself to ask me. Zee sometimes thinks, or pretends to think, that I know more than I do.

“It's like those big vee formations that geese fly in,” I said. “One arm of the vee is almost always longer than the other one. You know why?”

“I'm not sure that I want to hear this,” said Zee, suddenly suspicious. “Oh, all right. Why?”

“Because the long arm of the vee has more geese in it.”

“Haw!” laughed Quinn. When he was really amused, he put two haws in a row.

“That's how it is with these cannons and cannon balls,” I explained. “They aren't the same size because the cannon balls are bigger than the cannons.”

Zee, who was sitting beside me in the front seat, turned back to David Greenstein. “Now you see what you've gotten yourself into. A week of jokes like that and you'll be begging to get back on the recital circuit.”

“I've heard worse,” he said. “In fact, I've told worse. Maybe we can have a bad joke contest sometime. Of course Quinn won't be allowed to compete because he tells the worst jokes in the world and would win hands down.”

“That's because I'm an ace reporter for the
Boston Globe,”
said Quinn. “My whole career is a joke. Compared to me, you guys are just amateur jesters.”

We took a right on Pease Point Way, rolled past the cemetery and the fire and police stations, and drove on out toward Katama. The road was full of mopeds whose riders were headed for South Beach, and the bike path was full of bikers going the same direction. It was a beautiful sunny day, so I thought all of the travelers had the right idea.

Zee kept up her travelogue as we drove down past the farm on the great plains, the condos and new houses by the Herring Creek, and, at the end of the pavement, through the crowds of cars, bikes, and people at the beach. I slipped into four-wheel-drive and we headed east over the sand toward Chappy.

We drove along the inside track, following the south shore of Katama Bay. There were clammers and quahoggers in the bay, and a lot of four-by-fours parked or
moving along the beach. It was a busy day. To our right, along the ocean shore, the air was full of kites. Still, the beach was uncluttered compared to the places where two-wheel-drive vehicles could go.

There was, as expected, a huge gathering of trucks and Jeeps down by the clam flats near Chappy. The families belonging to them lolled under beach umbrellas or were busy getting sunburned as they heated their grills, flew their kites, and tossed their footballs.

“The movable feast, also known as the portable parking lot,” Zee explained to David Greenstein. “One of the ironies of being an islander is that you never have time to enjoy the place the way the tourists do. All week, while the tourists are touristing, the islanders are working. So on weekends they make it up, and come down here to party.”

We passed onto the Wasque reservation, going along the narrow road through the dunes, past Swan Lake, where once or twice we've seen otters swimming among the ducks, geese, and swans, and out onto Wasque Point. There, the four-by-fours were parked side by side while beyond them the fishing rods were bending.

“Fish!” cried Zee, pointing. “They're getting fish, Jeff!”

Indeed they were. A lot of people were on, and others were up at the Jeeps, taking fish off their lures.

I swung over and drove along behind the parked trucks. I didn't see many that I recognized. Most of the regulars had moved out. The dozens of fishermen standing shoulder to shoulder, making their casts, were almost all amateurs. Crossed lines seemed to be the order of the day. A lot of fish were being caught, but a lot of gear was being lost, too. I looked at Zee and raised a brow.

She shook her head. “Zoo city. You'd take your life in your hands trying to fish in that crowd. Let's keep going.”

Quinn said, “How about trying the yellow shovel?”

“Okay,” I said.

“The yellow shovel?” asked David Greenstein.

Zee explained. “The yellow shovel is a spot on the beach. Years ago, we knew a guy named Al Prada who got a kick out of picking up toys he found lying on the beach. I guess he had boxes of the stuff in his garage. Anyway, one day we spotted him fishing just up East Beach a way, in a place we don't normally fish. He had a fish on, so we stopped and got a couple ourselves. It turned out that he'd stopped because he'd spotted a kid's yellow plastic shovel lying on the sand, and while he was there, had decided to make a few casts. Ever since then, that spot's been the yellow shovel.”

“Of course, the yellow shovel itself is long gone,” I said. “In Al Prada's box of junk, probably.”

“But the spot's still there,” said Zee, “and we get fish there now and then. We're going to give it another shot now. The chances are there won't be a crowd, and we can introduce you to the joys of surf casting without running the risk of having some greenhorn hook us instead of a fish.”

“I'm a greenhorn myself,” said David Greenstein.

“No, you're a Greenstein,” said Quinn.

“Not down here,” said Zee. “Down here he's my cousin Dave from New Bedford. Right, Dave?”

“Sounds good.”

“You speak any Portuguese, cousin Dave?”

“Sorry. No Portuguese. Does that mean I can't be your cousin any longer?”

“Not a bit. My own brothers can't speak Portuguese, and I'm getting worse at it every year. No, you'll pass, with or without the language.”

“I know French and some German and a little Yiddish. Will that help?”

“A Yiddish-speaking Portagee, eh? Well . . .”

“Okay,” said Dave. “No Yiddish.”

We arrived at the yellow shovel and got out.

Dave looked around. “How do you know where you are?”

“You just drive along until you're there,” I said. “You've read the sign: There ain't no other place that looks like this place, so this must be the place.”

“Ah.”

“You do this a couple of times, and you'll know,” said Quinn.

We got the rods off the roof. My rod and Zee's are eleven-and-a-half-foot graphites with Penn reels. Mine doesn't have a bail. My other rods are fiberglass, also with Penn reels. Zee had and I had Roberts plugs on our lines, and I'd put Spoff's Ballistic Missiles on the lines of the two fiberglass rods. Everybody had a thirty-inch leader.

Dave hefted his rod and raised a brow. “A little bigger than a fly rod,” he said.

“I'll teach you everything I know about these things,” said Quinn.

“That shouldn't take long,” said Zee.

“Women shouldn't be allowed to fish with the men,” said Quinn. “Come on, Dave. We'll go down the beach a way so when we screw up our casts, we won't bother J.W. and his lady friend.”

They went off to the right.

Zee made her cast and hadn't taken two turns on the reel when a fish hit her plug.

“Wahoo!” she yelled, and set the hook.

Up the beach, David Greenstein turned and looked at her. I couldn't blame him. He may have been around the world a dozen times, but he had never seen another woman like Zee.

He watched her bring the fish In. His eyes were bright. As she carried the fish up to the Land Cruiser, she glanced at him and grinned. He raised a fist into the air and pumped his arm in a victory signal. She raised her rod and shook it in answer. They both looked happy.

I went down to the water's edge and made my first cast. The plug arched far out and hit with a satisfying splash. But no fish hit the plug as I reeled in.

Quinn was not only a good fisherman but a good teacher, and David Greenstein, fly fisherman of yore, was a quick study, so it was not long before Dave's casts were beginning to reach out to where the fish were waiting. And it was not much longer before he had his first hit. His rod bent, but as fast as the fish was on, it was off again.

He shook his head and said a few words I had heard fishermen use before when their fish said good-bye.

“You'll get the next one,” said Zee, as she hauled in her third or fourth.

And he did. A few casts later another fish hit his plug, and this time Dave set the hook and brought him in. A nice seven-pounder that fought him all the way to the beach.

“I believe ‘wahoo' is the right word this time.” He grinned at Zee, and dragged the still-fighting fish up to the Land Cruiser.

By that time there were nine other fish lying in the shadow of the truck, and it was high noon.

“What a relief to finally be able to add one to the pile. I was beginning to think I'd never get one.” Dave looked at the fish. “What will we do with them all?”

“First we'll put them in the fish box so they'll stay cool,” said Quinn. He cocked an eye at me. “What do you think? We want some more, or will this do it?”

“It's up to you,” I said. “You're the guests. You want to fish some more, get right at it.” I turned to Dave. “None of these will go to waste. When we get home, I'll stuff yours and maybe another one, and bake them for supper. Any others that we have, I could give to some people who like fish but can't make it to the beach, or I could sell. But today I'll fillet the ones I don't cook, so I can smoke them later. So catch as many as you want.”

Dave was happy. He looked up at the sun. “How about one more before lunch?” He shook his rod. “Wow! I love it!”