Gina Cresse - Devonie Lace 02 - A Deadly Bargain, Plan C (3 page)

Chapter
Three

A
huge golden r
etriever came trotting down t
he dock to greet me,
tail wagging
and
happy as a kid with a new best friend.  A red bandana was tied around his neck and a collection of round metal tags hung from his collar.  I reached down and patted his big head.

“Well, hello there.”  I fingering through the tags on his collar in search of his name.  “Los Angeles County Dog License, Long Beach Veterinary Clinic rabies tag, Fishing License?”  I chuckled.  “Let’s see, here’s one. 
Texaco.
  Is that your name? 
Texaco?”

The big dog wagged his tail even harder and let out one affirmative bark
,
then
he turned, ran up the dock, retrieved a yellow tennis ball from a bucket, brought it back and dropped it at my feet.

“Oh, you want to play.  Okay.”  I picked up the ball and tossed it a few yards up the dock.

“What kind of sissy throw was that?”  A gruff voice came from inside a small shack-like structure with a beat-up sign designating it as the office of “Tex and Clancy’s Marine Salvage.”

A salty old codger meandered out into the sunshine as he scratched the gray stubble on his face.  The large man wore an old pair of denim overalls with a thread-bare T-shirt underneath.  A logo, barely visible on the faded blue shirt, showed the image of a whale and some words I couldn’t make out.  His gray hair was cut in a butch with a top so flat you could probably sit him in my dinghy in a storm, balance a shot of whiskey on his head, and never spill a drop.  A large hole in the toe of his red-and-white-plaid deck shoes revealed that he didn’t wear any socks.  A red bandana, like the one around Texaco’s neck, hung out of his back pocket.  He pulled the cloth from his pocket and wiped some grease off his hands
,
though too late to keep the black smudges off his face where he’d rubbed it.

“
Ain’t
you ever thrown a ball for a dog before?”

“Well, yes.  I just didn’t want it to go in the water.  Then he’d lose it.”

“Aw, heck,” he grumbled
,
and then he picked up the ball and threw it eighty feet out into the harbor.  Texaco took off at a full gallop, made a flying leap off the dock, and swam for his prized toy.  Once he grabbed it in his big
mouth, he turned and made a bee
line for a ramp-like structure at the end of the pier that allowed him to get back on
to
the dock.  I watched as the hundred-pound animal barreled up the walkway toward us, water flying in all directions.  He stopped dead in his tracks at the man’s feet, dropped the ball, took one step back, and shook four gallons of salt-water out of his coat, drenching the man.

“Dang it, Tex!
  You know I hate when you do that.”  He dried the sp
r
ay from his arms with the bandana.  “That’s enough
swimmin
’ for one day.  You go put your toy away.”

I watched, incredulously, as the dog picked up the ball, trotted up the dock, and dropped it in a bucket next to the office.

“That wouldn’t be Tex, of Tex and Clancy’s Marine Salvage, would it?” I asked.

“It most surely would.
 
Who’s
wantin
’
to know
?”

“I’m
Devonie
Lace.  You must be Clancy?”

“Bright girl.
  Better cover you up so the sun can shine.”  He held out his half-dried hand for me to shake. 
“Clancy
McGreggor
, at your service.
  What can I do you for
—
Devonie
, you say?”

“That’s right.
I read you
r notice in the San Diego paper
—the one about the abandoned vessel you found.”

He scrutinized me. 
“You
the owner
?”

“No. 
Just curious about the boat
—
and your business.”

He squinted at me. 
“
Devonie
.
  What kind of name is
Devonie
?  Don’t believe I ever heard that before.”

I flashed him my most charming smile.  “My grandfather’s name was Devon.  After he died, my parents wanted to name their next son after him
—
only I came on the
scene with all the wrong parts—
so they added
the ‘
ie
’, and there you have it.
Devonie
.”

“Huh.
 
Whatever.
  Sure you
ain’t
with the Marshall’s office?”

“No, sir.
  I’m a treasure hunter, just like you.”

Clancy burst out in a loud laugh.  “Treasure hunter?  What gives you
that idea
?”

“Don’t you scout around all day looking for stuff that others might consider wrecks or junk and try to turn a profit on it?”

“I do that, some.  Mostly, I go out looking for non-skilled, half-wit, common-senseless sailors who get themselves up to their eye-brows in salt-water predicaments and need to be rescued, towed,
and slapped silly
.”

I bit my lip and stared down at the toe of my deck shoe, which was busy tracing the seam of a plank.  I hoped he hadn’t witnessed my entrance into the harbor and my near collision with the cattle boat.  “So, you rescue these people, and they pay you?”

“Yep.
 
Most of ‘
em
, anyway.
  Sometimes I
gotta
convince ‘
em
my services are worth the fee.  Sometimes I can’t convince ‘
em
.  Sometimes, I keep their boats,” he said, a wide smile spread across his face.

“Is that what happened with this one?”  I pointed to the
Little Maria
tied next to my dinghy.

Clancy looked at me through those squinting eyes, again.  “You
kidding?
 
A boat like that?
  Person could make a darn good living with that boat.  No one in his right mind would let some marine
salvor
claim it for a measly salvage award. 
Ain’t
a thing wrong with
her.
  Just found her, abandoned, out about ten miles off Catalina.”

I looked the boat over f
rom bow to stern.  He was right.  N
ot a thing wrong with
it that
I could see.  “Isn’t that a little strange?  Why would someone just up and leave it?”

“Got me.
  I’d bet the guy was out diving alone and ran into a school of shark
s. 
Gotta
be crazy
to dive alone.
  Never know what you’re
gonna
run into out there.”

“How awful.
  Sharks, you think?”

“Could be.
  Probably never know for sure.”

“So you just find a boat like this, out at sea, tow it in, and if no one claims it, it’s yours?”

“Well, sort of.
 
Ain’t
quite that simple.
  Lot
s of procedures you
gotta
go through.”

“What sort of procedures?”

“First of all, you
gotta
wait six months before you can do anything.  Then, you
gotta
make an honest effort to find the owner.  That’s what the notice you read in the paper was about.  If no one shows up after thirty days, you apply for a certificate of title.  You pay any fees that are due, and
providin
’ you
ain’t
made anyone mad at you down at the Commission Office, you become the new mamma.”

“Cool.”  I felt the rush of treasure-hunter blood race through my veins.  “I guess no one has shown up to claim this one?”

“Not yet. 
Got one more day before I can file my application.
 
Had me nervous when you showed up asking about her.
  Thought for sure you were
gonna
tell
me your name was Maria and she was named after you.”

“Sorry I scared
you.  Mind if I take a look at her?”

Clancy scratched his stubbly chin and eyed me again.  “
S’pose
it couldn’t hurt, if you just
wanna
look.  I better show you around, though, so you don’t get in any trouble.”

We climbed over the rail and toured the deck of the b
oat.  There were no frills
. 
Just a no-nonsense, practical vessel with a job to do
.
  N
o fancy drink
holders,
no elaborate stereo system, no polished brass or chrome, no plush reclining deck chairs, no sleeping quarters. 
Nothing like my
Plan C.
 

A large trunk, shoved under a bench in the corner of the deck, caught my eye.  A big rusty lock secured the latch.

“What’s in the trunk?” I asked.

Clancy scratched his head.  “Don’t know. 
Ain’t
looked.”

“You haven’t looked?  How can you do that?”

“Just
ain’t
looked yet.  No point.  Not till it belongs to me.”

“I could never do that.  I’d have to know what’s in there.”

Clancy snickered.  “That’s a woman, for
ya
. 
Gotta
stick your nose in everything.”

“That’s right.  I’ll give you fifty dollars for it, just as it sits.”

Clancy coughed as if something went
down the wrong pipe. 
“
Fif
—
fifty?
  You don’t even know what’s in it. 
Could be empty.”

“W
ill you take fifty?”

He shoved his hands in his pockets and studied the old trunk.  “
Ain’t
really
mine
to sell yet.  Probably wouldn’t be right.”

“It’ll be yours tomorrow.  I’ll give you seventy-five.”

I spotted the glimmer of a twinkle in Clancy’s eye.  He gazed at me with new-found admiration.  I think my wheeler-dealer spirit surprised him.

“I’d be a fool to sell it, not knowing what’s inside. 
Could be full of gold.”

“Could be, but then again, like you say, could be empty
.  T
hen who’d be the fool
—
the one who turned down cold hard cash for a worthless trunk?”

Clancy grinned. 
“Fine.
  It’s yours, if you can come up with a hundred bucks, cash. 
Don’t want no
paper work with this one.”

I stepped closer to the trunk and inspected the rusty lock.  “I’ll give you eighty-five.  That’s my top offer.  What do you say?”

“Cash?”

“Cash.”

“Deal.”

“Great!”  I pulled my wallet from my purse and sorted through the cash.  “You have change?”

“Got change in the office. 
Olive’ll
get it for you.”

“Olive?”

“My wife.
  She takes care of the business details.  She’ll have change.”

I followed Clancy up the dock to the run-down shack he called an office.  The whether-beaten exterior hadn’t seen a paintbrush in years.  The faded letters on the sign over the door were barely visible. 
A half-dozen
nets hung, haphazardly, from rusty nails and hooks arbitrarily placed in the walls.  A cool breeze picked up the scent of sea air and decaying seaweed and carried it to my nose.  

Inside, the office was not in much better condition.  The green indoor-outdoor carpet was worn through, exposing spots of wooden flooring beneath.  What I could see of the walls, under dozens of posters and old photos of men standing next to big fish hanging by their tails, needed paint just as badly as the exterior. 

I followed Clancy through a doorway into a smaller office.  A woman sat at a desk piled high with stacks of papers
,
notebooks
,
two-dozen pencils
,
four empty coffee cups
,
miscellaneous boat parts
,
two fishing reels
,
and an out-of-place computer monitor, glaring a gray window with a big red warning symbol in the middle of the screen.  She had her back to us and wasn’t aware of our presence.  Texaco lay on a blanket next to her desk, watching her gawk at the computer screen.