Bad Monkey

“Yeah, yeah.”

“Sharks!”

“I heard you,” Yancy said to himself. He advanced in long splashy strides toward the weary pooch and scooped it up.

Now what? he wondered. If he carried the animal all the way to Eve, she would surely recognize him despite the sunglasses and SPF 75 war paint. And instantly she’d know why he was there—to build a murder case against her.

“Thank you, mister! Thank you!” she bleated across the shallows.

Yancy responded with a modest-seeming wave. He set Tillie back in the water and pointed her toward the spot where Eve awaited: “Now be a good little rodent and swim to Momma.”

But the pup wouldn’t go; it spun around and thrashed its way back to Yancy, nosing into the crotch of his shorts. He tried a second launch with the same outcome. Tired Tillie was done for the day.

Now Yancy had no choice. He couldn’t abandon the dog to a certain drowning, nor could he take her ashore and risk exposing his identity. So he turned and headed up-island across the flats. In one hand was the fly rod; in the other sat Tillie.

“Hey! Hey, you! Where are you going?” Eve cried.

The wind resumed blowing and her voice faded. Yancy glanced back and saw that she’d been joined by her boyfriend, glowing like a harbor buoy in his orange poncho. Together the couple was stork-stepping along the rocky ledge, trying to keep parallel with Yancy. It wasn’t difficult to do; the water was now up to his thighs. Shells and sea urchins crunched beneath his wading booties, and once the bottom skated out from under him—a half-buried stingray, streaking seaward in a gray plume of marl.

As soon as Grunion reached a sandy stretch, he broke away from Eve and began to run, his poncho flapping like an unzipped tent. Yancy knew what was coming. Fifty yards down the beach, Grunion veered ninety degrees and sloshed into the shallows on a course of certain interception. Both of Yancy’s escape options were problematic—returning the opposite way, toward Eve’s house, or heading out to the deep, rough water. He wasn’t blind to the irony of his dilemma; he didn’t even like runty dogs. A pertinent question was whether pet-napping would be considered a felony or a misdemeanor in the Commonwealth of the Bahamas.

Yancy elected to stand his ground, submerged though it was. He secured Tillie in his fanny pack and rapidly stripped line from the fly reel. As Grunion splashed closer, Yancy spoke up in a defective Irish accent: “Git away from me, y’arsehole!”

Then he began arcing the tapered line in fluid loops back and forth over his right shoulder, using the robust breeze to extend his distance. Visually this motion recalled the virtuoso fly-casting scenes in A River Runs Through It, his father’s favorite movie, except that Yancy’s target was a human being, not a rainbow trout.

Shining on the end of his leader was a saltwater pattern called a Gotcha, size 1/0, tied on a stainless steel hook honed to surgical efficacy. Yancy stung Poncho Boy on the bridge of his nose, drawing a dark comma of blood. Grunion swore and backed off awkwardly. The next cast pricked an unshaven cheek and the one after that whip-snapped just shy of his left eyelash. Grunion, who showed no sign of recognizing Yancy, became preoccupied with self-protection. As if buzzed by hornets, he flailed one beefy arm in front of his face.

And on that arm was the large gaudy watch Yancy had seen before, on the wrist of his assailant on Big Pine. He was sure it was the same Tourbillon missing from the severed limb of Nick Stripling.

“Call yer dog to come!” he huffed at Grunion.

“What?”

“Ye heard me, dumb shite. Gawn and call yer bloody mutt!”

Yancy deftly kept the fly whistling through the air and with his left hand reached back and lifted the clueless canine from the fanny pack. He plopped her in the water and nudged her toward Grunion. On the beach, a hundred yards away, Eve Stripling paced and whinnied.

“Tillie, come!” Grunion commanded.

The addled pup swam in circles.

“Tillie! Over here! Tillie, yo!”

Pitiful, Yancy thought. He stopped casting and tickled the dog’s rump with the tip of the rod. To Eve’s boyfriend he said: “Try’n whistle, ye eejit.”

Grunion whistled and Tillie’s cornflake ears pricked.

“Now clap yer hands,” Yancy said.

The man didn’t clap; he whistled again. This time the puppy turned and paddled on a zigzag course toward the sound. “Good girl! Good girl!” Grunion hollered. Minutes later he was gathering Tillie from the waves.