Leslie didn’t say what it was for, just that it would play a role in their plan. To Thorn it resembled an oversize lobster trap.
Thorn stepped over to Wally as he was hauling in the handline, once again the entire rig snarled in a mad tangle of loops and netting, the lead weights knotted in a clump.
Six times he’d failed, but each time Wally dragged the net to shore, methodically untangled it, and hurled it again—failing, failing, failing, but on a compulsive mission to get it right.
Thorn asked Wally if he wanted to walk through it one more time.
“Fucking thing is impossible.”
“Loop the handline around your left wrist, then take the line and make even coils, and hold the horn of the net in your left hand.”
Wally followed the instructions with the grim focus of a child tying his shoelaces for the first time.
Thorn walked him through it again. Wally’s face was flushed from the exertion, the waxy skin shining and his brutish eyes crinkled with focus. Wearing yellow Bermuda shorts and a black T-shirt and leather sandals with white socks, Wally struck Thorn as oddly childish, as if perhaps a mangled gene had scrambled his code. His focus shifted continually while he glowered and muttered below his breath as if reciting some profane nursery rhyme.
“Okay, last step. Reach down, pinch the skirt about midway, and take one of the sinkers between your teeth.”
“This is where I fuck up. You need three hands.”
Wally lifted the edge of the net and bit on one of the lead weights that fringed the bottom, the rest of the net balancing precariously in both hands.
“You’re almost there. Now rotate to your left, pull the net back, and throw it like hitting a backhand in tennis. Release everything at once, except the handline.”
Wally pivoted left and swung back around, lofting the net out into the cove. It swelled open nicely this time, a ten-foot, perfect circle parachuting into the water and sinking fast.
“Now hit the handline hard and haul it in.”
“I did it,” Wally yelled. “Hey, Pauly, I fucking did it.” Wally dragged the net up onto the beach. A couple of finger mullet flopped on the sand at his feet and wriggled back into the dark water of the cove. “Hey, Pauly. I caught some goddamn bait. Look at this shit. I’m fucking Hemingway.”
While Wally wrestled with the net, Thorn edged over to Flynn and said, his voice low, “I’m making a break. You with me?”
Flynn swallowed hard as if slugging down a dose of bitter medicine.
Thorn lay a hand on his son’s shoulders and Flynn tensed at his touch. “This stunt won’t work. You’ll go to jail, people could get hurt.”
“You’ve done worse.”
“And I regretted it later. We need to get out of here.”
“Go ahead. I’m staying.”
“You’re making a mistake.”
“You’re a goddamn bully, you know that?” Flynn gave Thorn a shove and stepped away.
Hell, the kid was right. Flynn was an adult. Years of tough decisions behind him, a mature, sensible man who’d succeeded in a competitive business. Which was a shitload more than Thorn could say.
Sure, without meaning to, Thorn had become an authority on twisted fucks like Wally and Pauly and the brutal games they played. But what kind of expertise was that? What rights did it give him to dictate to Flynn?
Maybe, in the last year, all those mumbling monologues Thorn had carried on with an absent Flynn had seduced Thorn into believing he and his son had forged a real connection. When the fact was, Flynn Moss was still a stranger. Aside from biology, Thorn wasn’t the kid’s father in any meaningful way. He was just a guy who’d stumbled into the young man’s path.
Thorn’s adoptive father, Dr. Bill Truman, had guided Thorn with little more than a nod, a rare word of support or praise, never a heavy hand. Thorn’s notion of manliness, his sense of honor and loyalty, were not forged from strong-armed discipline or overbearing lectures.
Then again, could he just let this gang of zealots put Flynn’s life in peril? Wasn’t that the crucial job of any father, to protect his kids? Wasn’t that the whole goddamn point of parenting? Take all necessary actions to spare the kid pain even if the kid was an adult, even if bullying was required?
When Pauly had all four kayaks nosed into the water, the four of them spent a few minutes stowing the rods in the tight compartments, then one by one they climbed into the cockpits and settled in. Thorn arranged the cast net in the forward hold.
They rowed out of the cove and into the narrow creek that snaked to the bay. Wally leading, Flynn following close, with Thorn tucked in behind his son. Thorn glanced back to see Pauly bringing up the rear, paddling strongly and easily.