The Inside Passage (Ted Higuera Series Book 1) (15 page)

Port McNeil, Canada

After more than a
week in the wilds of Canada, Port McNeil seemed like the big city to Ted. In
reality, it was a small fishing village, clinging to the northeast shore of
Vancouver Island. Sheltered by Malcolm Island to the east, white houses rose on
the hills above the bay with larger, one and two-story commercial structures
making their way down to the waterfront.

Chris and Ted
lowered the main sail and took in the jib while Meagan drove. To Ted’s relief,
the engine hadn’t missed a bat since Jack’s last fix. Christ brought the
Defiant
into her slip and Meagan and Ted leapt ashore with the mooring lines.

“Would you look at
that floating gin palace?” Ted tied the stern line to a cleat. “It must be over
a hundred-feet long.”

A shiny white
mega-yacht loomed over all the other vessels in the harbor.

“
Pegasus,
out of Calais,” Meagan read the name boards. “He’s a long way from home.”

“
She’s
a
long way from home,” Chris corrected. He shut down the engine and began stowing
running gear. “Boats are always a she.”

“I was talking
about the owner, dufus. The guy who brought it here.”

“Let’s go ashore
tonight,” Ted said. “I’ll buy. I can’t wait to feel solid ground under my
feet.”

“That’s okay.” Chris
coiled down the jib sheets. “My dad gave me some money for stuff like this.”

****

“Women! What’s
taking her so long? Ted paced the dock, frequently looking at his watch.

“She has to make
herself beautiful.” Christ sat in the cockpit smiling.

Ted couldn’t wait
to go ashore.

After what seemed
like an eternity, Meagan emerged from the companionway hatch in a low-cut
cashmere sweater and tight jeans. A push-up bra made the most of her small
cleavage.
For a skinny white chica, she’s not half bad.
A gold pendant
in the small of her throat and matching gold earrings said she was ready for a
night of fun.

Ted looked at
Chris. Their T-shirts, jeans and sneakers looked sloppy by comparison.
What
the hell, we’re way up in Canada.

“You ready, boys?”
Meagan stepped onto the dock.

“What, you think
you’re going to the royal ball tonight?” Ted asked.

“I just want to
look good when I go ashore. That’s all.” With that, she turned, flipped her
designer purse over her shoulder and started off down the dock, leaving Chris
and Ted staring in her wake.

****

Ted had never seen
a place like McCarthy’s Tavern. Loud music played on the juke box, dim lights
hid the sawdust covered plank floor. Patrons shared rows of wooden picnic
tables in the crowded room. Every surface in the bar was carved with names,
initials and messages. Ted learned that Tom loved Jenny and that for a good
time he could call 250.956.1343.

Bowls of peanuts
sat on each table and patrons threw the shells on the floor. A wooden barrel in
the corner held plenty more peanuts in case the bowls ran empty. A battered old
bugle hung from a faded red cord over the bar. The horn’s tarnished bell
twisted back so that the opening faced the bugler.

“What’s the horn
for?” Ted asked the ruddy-faced bartender as he ordered their beers.

“That’s an old
McCarthy’s tradition. If you can blow the horn, you get your beer for free.”

“I played in the
band in school. I can blow that horn.”

This should be
an easy freebie.

“You sure you
wanna try? Legend says if you try and can’t blow the horn, something bad’ll
happen to you.”

“Hey, dude, this
is one
hermano
who isn’t superstitious? Give me the horn.”

The bartender
reached over his head and removed bugle.

“You’re really
sure you want to try this?”

“Just give me the
horn.” Ted felt a flush of heat in his face.

“Ladies and gentleman.
. .” The bartender rang a ship’s bell suspended over the bar. “This strapping
young lad wants to give McCarthy’s magic horn a try.”

All conversation
in the bar stopped. People snickered, picked up their beers and crowded around
him, but not too close.

“Be careful, son,”
the bartender said. “You might want to down your beer first, just in case.”

“CHUG A LUG,” the
crowd shouted.

Amazed at being
the center of attention, Ted downed his beer in one draught.

“CHUG A LUG, CHUG
A LUG, CHUG A LUG,” the crowd cheered.

“Like I said,
legend has it that if you try to blow McCarthy’s horn and fail, something
bad’ll happen.”

“Give me the damned
horn.” Ted felt the sudden rush of alcohol in his system.

The bartender
pulled the battered bugle back. “Are you sure you really want to do this?”

Ted grabbed the
horn, took a deep breath and put it to his lips.

“ONE, TWO, THREE.
. .” the crowd chanted. At the count of three, Ted pursed his lips and blew a
mighty blast into the horn.

“SPWEETTT!” The
horn belched a cloud of flour from its opening, covering Ted from head to foot.

****

Seattle

”I want to miss as
much of the pre-sailing bull shit as possible.” Harry leaned back in the tan
leather passenger seat of his young associate’s Chevy Tahoe. Harry turned to
look over his shoulder at his bride to be. “Let’s just get on board and get to
our cabin.”        

“Fine with me.”
Candace nodded her approval.

Geoff Wright, one
of Harry’s new associates, seemed nervous.
I guess it’s to be expected,
Harry thought,
sucking up to the boss for the first time
. Geoff was one
of what Harry liked to refer to as “his piranhas.” A team of hungry young
litigators who would climb over their mother’s graves to get a chance to strip
a hostile witness’ bones bare on the stand.

Intelligence
wasn’t enough, although they all graduated at the top of their classes from the
best law schools. Harry wouldn’t even interview anyone who wasn’t in the top
ten in their graduating class.

Good looks didn’t
make it either, even though any of the “piranhas” could have graced the cover
of
People
magazine. They had to have that something special that made
the jury want to believe them, to fall in love with them. And, they had to have
ambition. They had to be willing to work eighty-plus hours a week and sweat
blood for the firm. For him.

Would Chris
make it?
Harry wondered, not for the first time, if his son could swim with
these fierce creatures?
Like the old song says, he’ll have to get tough or
die.

It’s a hell of
a legacy I’m leaving for my kids. To make it in this world, they’re going to
have to abandon all the humanity that their mother drilled into ‘em.

“Mr. Hardwick,
we’re here.” Geoff pulled up to the curb. “Let me help you with your luggage.”

“That’s okay,
Geoff. Candace and I can handle it. You can’t leave the car here anyway, it’ll
get towed.”

Scandinavian
Cruise Lines had decked out the Bell Street Terminal for the gala event. Red,
white and blue bunting hung from the tall glass walls. A small band played in
the atrium. TV crews and still photographers circulated everywhere.

This reminds me
of the opening scene in
Titanic
,
Harry thought.
When they were
getting ready to set sail.

The maiden voyage
of the
Star of the Northwest
was a major event. Harry recalled that some
young adventure movie actress would be cutting the ribbon for the inaugural
sailing. Her good-looking but talentless husband would be along for the trip
too.
Hollywood couples, all style and no substance.

“Security here is
as tight as at the airport.” Candace passed her luggage through the X-ray machines.

“I guess they’re
on a heightened security alert.” Harry removed the laptop from his bag and
placed it on the conveyor.

“Would you step
out of the line please?” The dumpy female TSA agent asked Harry.

“What the hell? Do
I look like a terrorist?” Harry knew that nothing could be further from the
truth.

“We’re wanding
every tenth person going through the line today. If you’ll just please stand on
that mat.”

“You know that
this is a violation of my Fourth Amendment Right against unreasonable search
and seizure.” Harry’s blood began to boil.

“Harry!” Candace
grabbed his arm. “Please, they do this all the time. Just calm down.”

“Just because they
do it, it doesn’t make it right. I’m itching to get a chance to take the
Patriot Act to the Supreme Court.”

“Sir. If you’ll
just stand on the mat.”

Harry started to
say something, but Candace put her finger over his lips and pushed him towards
the mat.

“Don’t ruin this
moment for us,” she whispered.

As the wand passed
over Harry’s right knee, it buzzed.

“I’ve got a metal
plate in my calf. Old football injury.”

“I’m going to have
to pat you down sir.”

Harry smiled.
“Shouldn’t you at least take me to dinner first?”

The TSA agent had
apparently heard that line before. She ignored Harry’s comment and patted him
down. Finding nothing objectionable, she said, “Okay, sir, you can pass.”

“Do I have to tip
you for this?”

“Harry!” Candace
grabbed his arm and pulled him away. The couple eventually made their way up
the gang plank

“Wow! Would you
look at this?” Candace did a full three-hundred-sixty-degree turn taking in the
ship’s atrium.

Harry scanned
room. Thick burgundy carpeting offset the teak paneled walls. He saw brass trim
everywhere. Six marble columns rose three stories to the skylight above. In the
center of the round room, directly under the skylight, a Sixteenth Century
fountain from Florence, Italy, reputed to have been designed by Michelangelo
himself, flowed. The walls dripped with Renaissance art and sculptures filled
backlit alcoves.

“I hear that they
have a Picasso and a Renoir for sale in their art gallery, for those that go
into that kind of stuff.” Candace gawked at the opulence.

Harry was
unimpressed, even though the cruise lines had spared no expense.

Port McNeil, Canada

 “What the hell .
. .” Ted sputtered and wiped his eyes clean. “What’s with this?” Laughter
roared throughout the bar. Ted’s face felt like it was on fire. He reached for
the bartender.

“Easy, bro.” Chris
grabbed Ted’s arm. “It’s all in fun.”

“Yeah, well it
ain’t no fun for me.” Ted pulled away from Chris and blew flour from his lips
and nostrils.

“Here you go,
son,” the bartender handed Ted a bar towel. “Congratulations, you’re not a
tender foot anymore.” He handed Ted another schooner of beer. “On the house,
all night long, for you.”

Ted poured the
beer down his flour coated throat.

“Here’s to Ted
everyone.” The bartender raised a glass. ”He’s one of us now.”

“TED,” the crowd
shouted and began stomping their feet and banging on the tables. “TED, TED, TED
. . .”

Ted stood stunned.
He flashed back to his high-school football days. For an instant, he wanted to
go into his touchdown dance. Then an attractive young woman took the bar towel
from his hands. “You missed a spot.” She wiped his left eye, smiled at him,
then turned and walked away.

As the patrons
returned to their seats, Chris found three empty seats in the corner.

“Hey, partner, you
going to join us?”

Ted looked at the
pretty girl’s backside and hesitated, then he glowered at the bartender who
took a sack of flour from under the counter and reloaded McCarthy’s horn.

“Yeah, sure.” Ted
slowly followed Chris. “I’d like to be here when the next sucker tries that.”

****

Meagan noticed the
three men at the next table had not taken part in Ted’s initiation ceremony. As
she and the boys walked to their table, she realized that the good looking, middle-aged
man was sizing her up. He was older, but he certainly wasn’t a creeper. He
smiled boldly at her and she returned a flirtatious smile.

The three men
seemed so out of place. What were they doing here?

Two of the men
appeared to be Middle Eastern, with those towel things on their heads; an older
one and a young one, not much older than Meagan herself. The third man was
obviously not Middle Eastern. He was as out of place in the cheap waterfront
watering hole as the two foreigners. In a blue blazer and light blue silk
shirt, he might as well be from Mars.

The older man and
the good dresser talked quietly while the young one just listened. From time to
time Meagan picked up snippets of conversation. French, they were speaking in
French.

The young man didn’t
take part in the conversation. When the older man stopped and talked to him,
the old guy spoke in badly accented English. The old guy was translating for
him. The young man obviously didn’t speak French. He didn’t seem important to
the conversation anyway.

Frenchie removed
something from his breast pocket and handed it under the table to the old guy.
The old guy pocketed it and nodded to the young Arab. The young man slipped an
envelope to Frenchie.

The two Middle
Easterners had soft drinks in front of them. The Frenchman had a schooner of
beer. None of them touched their drinks. The young man occasionally cracked
open a peanut, but didn’t throw the shells on the floor. He had a neat pile of
shells in front of him on the table.

“Where are we
going to go from here, Chris?” Meagan turned her attention back to her
companions.

“I thought Nelson Inlet sounded cool.” Chris replied. “Jack said it wasn’t too far from here.” He
cracked open a peanut and carelessly tossed the shell on the floor.

“But there’s nothing
there.” Meagan sipped at her beer. “He said not many boats go up there because
there’s not much to see.”

“Yeah, but the hot springs sounded good.” Chris cracked another peanut.

“I’d be up for the
hot springs.” Ted leaned back on his bench. “It’d be fun to go swimming in hot
water.”

Just like a
man.
“You just remember the part about skinny dipping.” Meagan threw a
peanut at Ted. “You just want to see me in the buff.”

“Yeah, like I
ain’t already seen what you got. . .”

Meagan felt the
heat rising in her face.

“Look, there’s an
open pool table.” Ted stood. “You guys up for a game?”

“Sure, I haven’t
whipped your ass in a while,” Chris replied. “Meg, you want to play?”

“No,” She waved
him away. “You guys go ahead. We’d need a fourth to make it a real game anyway.”

Chris and Ted took
their beers to the pool table, leaving Meagan alone at the table.
They
couldn’t handle it when I handed them their asses.

****

“Your friends,
they have deserted you?” asked the man from the next table. Meagan hadn’t
noticed when the two Arabs left. The man spoke with a heavy French accent. He
spoke slowly, as if every word were carefully chosen.

“They’re just
going to play a game of pool.”

“And you do not
play?” The good-looking Frenchman rose from his seat.

“I play all right.
I just don’t want to bruise their fragile male egos.”

“You are not only
a beautiful woman, but very considerate as well.” The Frenchman eased himself
into Chris’ place without asking permission. “I play very badly; perhaps if we
teamed up it would be fair, no?”

The movements of
his hands mesmerized Meagan. When he spoke he accented every word with a toss
of the wrist or a wiggle of his fingers. His smile melted Meagan in her chair.
There was something so Continental, so urbane about him.

“I, I guess so. .
. “

“Come, let us join
your friends. My name is Yves Bouhier.”

“I’m Meg. . .
Meagan . . . I guess so . . .”

“It is good to
meet you, Meagan I Guess So.” It seemed to take him five minutes to pronounce
her name. It rolled off his tongue like music.

“May we join you,
mes
Amis
?” Yves asked as they approached the pool table.

“Chris, Ted, this
is Yves,” Meagan said. “He says that he’s a bad player. Want to team up? Eight
ball?”

Chris stared
quizzically at Yves for a moment, then looked at Megan. She nodded her head.
C’mon
Chris, this’ll be fun.
She willed him to agree.

“Sure. . . ” Chris
reached below the table for the rack. “I gotta warn you though, Ted’s a real
shark.”

Sweet
,
Meagan thought. She pumped her fists in a quiet gesture of victory.

“Then it will be
my pleasure to be beaten by the best.” Yves reached for a cue.

Chris racked up
the balls.

“I could not help
but overhear. You are planning on going to Nelson Inlet, no?”

They scratched for
break and, to Meagan’s delight, she won.

“We were talking
about it.” Chris made a show of chalking up his cue. “We haven’t really made
any firm plans yet.”

“You must be the
captain then,” Yves said to Chris. “I would not recommend Nelson Inlet. The fjord, it is deep right up to the shore. There is no place to anchor. It is two-hundred
feet deep close in. You would have to tie off to a tree on shore.”

The movement of
Yves’ hands as he pantomimed anchoring almost hypnotized Meagan.

“And there is
nothing much to see,” Yves continued. “The walls are so steep there is no place
to go ashore. I have cruised all over this area in my
Pegasus
. There are
many more pleasant places to cruise.”

“Where would you
go?” Meagan asked.

“Cross the Straits
to the Broughtons. They are a cruising paradise.”

Meagan broke,
scattering the balls over the table. The one ball went in.

“Odds.” Meagan
lined up her next shot. She sank the nine ball. With no good lie for her third
shot, she put the cue ball where Chris couldn’t possibly sink anything.

“Did you say
Pegasus?
”
Ted asked. “That monster on the end of the pier.”

“She is my little
indulgence, yes.”

Meagan noticed
Yves’ obvious pride in his ship.

“Wow,” Ted said.
“She must be over a hundred feet long.”

Chris missed his
shot.

“She is forty-two
meters to be exact,” Yves said. He missed his shot.

Megan couldn’t
understand why Yves tried to put the seven ball in the side pocket when he had
an easy shot on the five ball.

“That is about one-hundred
and forty feet, I believe.” Yves looked up from his missed shot and gave a slight
shrug of the shoulders. “Would you like to see her?”

“You betcha.” Ted
sunk the four ball. “I’ve never seen anything like that before.”  Ted missed
his next shot.

Meagan smiled as
she lined up her shot.
Easy pickings.

“She looks fast just
sitting at the dock,” Ted continued.

“She is my friend.
She was designed for speed. I hate wasting time. She will do seventy-five knots
on a calm sea.”

“
Dios mío
. That’s
faster than most speed boats.”

“I come from a
family of sailors.” Meagan picked up the hint of disgust in Chris’ voice.

Chris smacked the
cue ball so hard that it skipped off of the table.

Meagan had already
heard Chris say “If God had intended for man to go faster than eight knots, he
would have made the wind blow harder” more times than she cared to recall
.

“Yes, sailing, it
is a very creative sport.” Yves scooped the cue ball off of the floor.

Meagan admired the
view as he bent over.

“To take the wind,
to shape it and bend it to your will. It is very satisfying, no?”

“What do you do
for a living?” Chris smirked when Yves missed another shot.

“I deal in surplus
industrial equipment. I buy it from companies that no longer need it and sell
it to companies that want it.”

“It must be a good
business.” 

Meagan picked up
on the sarcastic tone of Chris’ words.
He doesn’t like Yves.

Yves gave a Gallic
shrug of his shoulders. “I do all right.”

Meagan’s next shot
was a stretch. She wasn’t tall enough to reach, so she sat on the edge of the
table.

“Hold on, chica.”
Ted slapped a bridge onto the pool table. “Rules say you have to keep one foot
on the floor.”

She took the
bridge and coolly sank the three ball, tossing a sarcastic smile Ted’s way.

The game continued
until closing time. Yves, contrary to what he said, was an excellent player.
Meagan was delighted when they won game after game. 

 “You must come
aboard the
Pegasus
.” Yves said as Meagan returned from the ladies room.
“Let me show you my yacht and give you a, how you say, night hat?”

“Night cap,”
Meagan corrected.

“
Oui
, a
night cap.”

“No, I don’t think
so,” Chris said. “It’s late and we’re tired. Maybe another time.”