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boys."
    "And Gloria," Meyer said. "I have to face that. She's going to feel bitter toward me. I asked Hack as a personal favor to take Norma and Evan out in the Keynes a few times. He said he was glad to do it. With the HooBoy laid up, he felt restless unless he could get out on the water once in a while."
    He went trudging off to put on some clothes. He didn't have much choice. All his treasured old shirts and pants and jackets had blown up along with his boat.

Five
    DAVE JENKINS was twenty-two, and he was a guide down in the Keys, an expert at fly-rod fishing for tarpon, at stalking the wily permit, at outsmarting bonefish. I had heard he was beginning to pick up a reputation after surviving the early attempts of the locals to run him off. They play rough down there. He had come up as soon as he heard. And Bud Jenkins, the twenty-year-old, had come down from Duke University. He was there on full scholarship.
    Hack and Gloria lived in a two-bedroom frame bungalow on a county road a long way east of the city. They had an acre of flatland, two big banyan trees near the house, a pond with Chinese white geese, and an electrified fence around the pond area to keep the predators away from the geese. There were almost a dozen vehicles parked in the drive and in the yard, several of them the big glossy pickups that charterboat captains favor, with tricky paint jobs and all the extras. A gabble of small children was racing about in the mud. Miss Agnes, my ancient blue Rolls pickup, looked odd parked with the modern machines, like an old lady in a bonnet at a rock concert.
    The small house was packed with people. I could see them through the windows, moving around. The intense competition of the fishing folk was dropped whenever tragedy struck.
    There was a shallow front porch with a slanted roof, an obvious afterthought. Two steps led up to the porch level. As we approached the steps, the screen door burst open and Rowland Service; the T-man, our recent visitor, came out at a dead run, with big Dave Jenkins so close behind him it took me a half second to realize, as I was stepping back out of the way, that Dave was running him out, with one hand on the slack of the seat of the pants, the other on the nape of the neck. Service's eyes and mouth were wide open. Dave gave him a final giant push and stopped at the edge of the steps. Service landed running, but leaning too far forward for balance. He made a good effort, though, and galloped about thirty feet from the steps before diving headlong into the wet grass.
    Warner Housell, the staff person, came sidling out, carrying both dispatch cases and trying to look inconspicuous. An ingratiating smile came and went, over and over, very swiftly. Dave made a feint at him and stamped his feet. Housell made a bleating sound and sprang off the porch and trotted out to where Service was getting up, dabbing at the mud stains on his knees.
    "Hey, Trav," Dave Jenkins said. "Meyer."
    Housell and Service got into their economy rental. Service was apparently talking angrily and Housell was shaking his head no. They drove off. "What happened?" I asked.
    "They came a couple minutes ago. The big one was trying to hush up the little one, but the little one, he asked my mom if maybe Daddy was blowed up on account of he was mixed up in some kind of drug action. He asked her a little bit mean and a little bit loud, and I got my hands on him before one of the other men tried to kill him. It broke her up some. Miserable little scut. Drugs! It took Daddy seven months to set aside enough for the engine work on the HooBoy, so he wouldn't have to borrow at no high rate. Drugs? Daddy was dead against it. Remember, Trav? He came on those three bales of pot floating out there near Sherman Key over a year ago, and he picked them up and brought them in and turned them over to the narcotics guys. He had no charter aboard. Who was to know? Mom said he hadn't even had a taste of booze since he got born again twenty years