Desperation Reef

The two boats then post up a little behind him, one to port and the other starboard. No names, no numbers. With big Empress II at the apex, they’ve got Casey in a bobbing triangle. Moondance rocks steeply in the wakes.

Casey sees three people on each newly arrived boat. Men and women both. The ones on the Luhrs look Asian but it’s hard to tell with the ball caps and bandanas and gaiters. Aboard the Bayliner are a husky Latino or maybe Middle Eastern guy, a lanky Black man, and a wiry red-headed white dude with both arms sleeved in tattoos. Casey can’t guess what nationality the women are.

From the Luhrs, a female voice cuts through the rattle of Casey’s idling engine:

“Hands up, surf dude!”

Most of the crew on the Bayliner and the Luhrs draw handguns and point them at Casey.

Whose guts drop and knees freeze. Hates guns. He got robbed once in Todos Santos, Baja, at gunpoint, and to his humiliation, peed. These pirate pistols look big and rusted. His brother, Brock, has much better guns than these, Casey thinks. He has no defenses except the flare gun, stowed back in the cabin. And two long fillet knives, sharp as razors, secured under the lid of the bait well, a gaff and a fish billy. None of them a match for guns. And there’s no way he could stab somebody or stick them with that gaff anyhow.

Suddenly, with a muffled thud, a gangplank drops from the green Luhrs onto the sturdy gunwale of Moondance.

It’s a well-padded thing, surfboard-wide, with filthy carpet fragments nailed through soft foam to a long flexing beam, down which strides a black-haired woman in black cargo pants, a black windbreaker, and a handgun holstered to her hip.

She’s aboard Moondance before Casey can get to the gangplank and pitch her into the sea. He doesn’t even try, believing her comrades might just shoot him. Mae approaches the woman, mouth open and tail wagging.

Up closer, Pistol Girl looks younger and bigger than she did coming down the plank. She’s got a yellow muff around her neck, pulled up over her nose, fierce dark eyes and fair skin, black nylon pants rolled above her knees, bare feet.

She spreads her legs for balance and holds out her hand.

“Give me the phone, Stonebreaker.”

“You weren’t joking about no video,” Casey says.

“I don’t joke.”

Casey holds up his burner but doesn’t break eye contact with her. Then backhands the phone into the ocean. Laughing and hooting, the pirates empty their pistols at the doomed device. The fusillade sends geysers of whitewater into the air, and spiraling tubes of bubbles down through the blue.

Mae tries to head past him for a better look but Casey hooks a hand through her collar, falls on top of her, and pins her to the deck.

Hoots and laughter.

“Maybe you already posted,” the young woman says, squinting down at him.

“Maybe.”

“Stand up and act brave.”

He does.

Her eyes are almost black above the yellow gaiter. They study him. “I came into the Barrel bar. Not long ago. Left you a big tip.”

“Thanks so much.”

“You don’t remember.”

It’s hard for Casey to see this pirate chick in the laid-back and upscale Barrel. He orders Mae to stay, and unhooks his fingers from her collar.

“You owe me big money for that phone,” he says, exaggerating its value. Feels guilty. Casey hates to lie. Even to a shark finner.

“Maybe I’ll come to the Barrel again and pay up,” she says.

“If you do, I’ll make you a Barrel Bomber so strong they’ll have to carry you out.”

“Why?”

“Payback for torturing sharks.”

“I don’t fin. Others fin. Illegal but very profitable. I can’t talk them out of it. I fish tuna, like you do.”

She lifts the hatch of the cold well, looks at his catch, nods. Gives Casey a dark-eyed stare and drops the lid.

“I’m more in the business side of things,” she says. “Marketing and sales for King Jim Seafoods. I do the books. Graduate of UCLA. I am Bette, with an e at the end.”

“Okay.”

Gives Casey another long look. “Hmph. You think you’re superior. I know who you are, Casey Stonebreaker. From all your socials. A surf star. Big waves. Pretty in magazines. Great abs.”

He doesn’t know what to say to this.

“I’m going to reverse out of here and head home. Tell your people not to shoot me.”

“Don’t file a police report. I am serious. Maybe I’ll get you a new phone.”

“You should.”

“Zai Jian, Stonebreaker.”

Casey surfed a river mouth in China once, a promotional gig that paid him a few thousand dollars. Memorized maybe ten words.

“Zai Jian,” he says.

The crewmen and — women point their rusty weapons at Casey as Bette strides back up the gangplank.

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