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As to who named Key Montaigne’s population center Fishback, and why, Carver would have to ask somebody who knew about pirates, Fern said.
    He was sitting in a window booth in the Key Lime Pie restaurant, eating the day’s special, broiled shrimp with salad and a baked potato. He’d driven through the town, consisting primarily of a main street, called Main Street, on which were lined weathered, low buildings housing bait shops, bars, a hardware store, Laundromat, barber shop, supermarket, and various other assuagers of needs and yearnings.
    At the foot of Main was the town marina, where dozens of docked pleasure boats bobbed on the gentle waves, along with several commercial fishing boats and a lineup of charter boats for tourists to hire for deep sea fishing. There wasn’t a lot to do on Key Montaigne other than fish, eat, and drink, and the tourists the island attracted usually weren’t interested in theme parks and water slides. Plenty of tourists walked the streets, skin still pale from northern climes, sporting souvenir T-shirts with cameras slung around their necks, but there were few young children with them. The families with kids were farther north, seeing Disney World and Universal Studios and learning about the wonders of citrus.
    Where Carver sat he could see a section of Main Street, the small, flat-roofed building that called itself Food Emporium Supermarket, and on the corner a freshly whitewashed service station with a single work bay and two pumps. NORTON’S GAS ’ N’ GO, read the sign over the pumps. Effie’s father’s place. It was a self-service station. A bearded man in a sleeveless gray shirt was pumping unleaded into a dusty black pickup truck, glaring at the pump’s price and gallon meters as if he held a grudge against them. There was a pyramid of Valvoline oil cans at a corner of the building, the kind of display you seldom saw anymore. The work bay’s overhead door was open, and a Ford Escort was up on the rack getting its oil changed. Carver was glad he hadn’t ordered anything fried.
    Loud voices drew his attention back inside. The Key Lime Pie restaurant was long and narrow, with round tables on one side and a counter with red vinyl stools on the other. Struggling air-conditioning and half a dozen ceiling fans kept the temperature down and cast flitting shadows over the red-checkered tablecloths and green and brown tiled floor. Beyond the counter was an arch with a swordfish mounted above it. Through the arch Carver could see into the adjoining lounge, where several men sat or stood at the bar. Most of them were wearing jeans or shorts and T-shirts and had deep tans. One of them, a short, stocky guy with an oversized blond mustache that lent him a fierce expression, was arguing vehemently with a man wearing a loud red and yellow tropical shirt with a parrot pattern, who was slouched on a bar stool facing away from Carver. Yellow Mustache was getting madder and madder, while the man in the garish tropical shirt seemed to be ignoring him. Carver couldn’t understand what was being said. Something about shipwrecks, he thought. He popped his last broiled shrimp into his mouth and sat chewing, waiting to see what would happen.
    The man on the stool slowly swiveled around and stood up. He was about average height, built blocky, and wore his hair shaved almost short enough to classify him as bald. His loud tropical shirt was untucked and might conceal a weapon. The thick, tan forearms that protruded from the wildly colored short sleeves were so covered with tattoos they almost looked like an extension of the busy-patterned shirt. A colorful snake coiled up one arm. The other arm sported what looked like an anchor and a topless hula dancer.
    With the tattooed man standing staring at him, Mustache suddenly was quiet. The evening had turned serious. The guy with the tattoos grinned at him, then in a quick motion grabbed his belt buckle and lifted and twisted, drawing Mustache’s pants tight