He makes an amused sound. “Still willing to drop everything to chase a pie in the sky treasure, though.” He pauses. “Do I have a reason to be worried?”
“No.” I have a spool’s worth of towel thread tangled around my fingers. “Of course not.”
We talk for a few more minutes, but it’s only after we hang up that I register he called my plan for saving everything pie in the sky.
And it’s only when Nash’s headlights finally paint the walls of the shed after midnight that I let myself fall asleep.
Twenty-Two
“You’re early,” Cap says through an annoyed grunt. He buttons a single button of his shirt and eyes my cutoff overalls. “And dressed like Jed Clampett again.”
“Says the man who dresses like he’s from the cast ofGilligan’s Island.” I squint at the sun from my position on the dock next toThe Gypsy. “And Jed Clampett wore suspenders, not overalls.”
A breeze creates a fury of clangs from the metal windchimes on the neighboring boat.
“What’s that guy’s story?” I ask.
“Metalworker.” Cap slaps the captain’s hat on his head and adjusts the oxygen tubes in his nostrils. “Artsy shit, mostly. Some jewelry work. Used to make knives, I think. Smelts.”
“Never met one of them.” I study the arms of a sun-like spinner hypnotically twirling in the breeze before turning back to Cap. “You ready for another fun day of looking for gold?”
Grumbling, he sits to put on his shoe then disappears into the boat, reappearing with a coffee can in his hand. He fumbles to lock the door then limps his way onto the dock, scowling.
“You always ask so many damn questions this early in the morning?”
“I’m an early riser.”Who had to evacuate her squatter’s shed before the unknowing owner woke up.I raise the cups in my hands. “And I brought coffee.”
The $6.16 felt worth it this morning. And since the change was the exact amount I had living in the bottom of my purse, I took it as a sign. Plus, if my life comes down to needing $6.16, I’m already screwed.
He eyes me but doesn’t reach for a cup. Instead, he hobbles to the metalworker’s boat and beats against a window with the lidded coffee can, the contents clattering loudly with the motion.
“Danimal,” Cap barks. “You up?”
“Danimal?” I ask.
A wild-haired man with dreadlocks and no shirt slides open the window, a cloud of marijuana smoke pluming out around him.
Cap gestures with the coffee can.
Danimalnods, takes the can, then slides the window closed.
“That was weird,” I tell Cap.
He grunts, throwing pills down his throat with a slug from his flask before snatching a coffee from my hand.
Okay.
“What do you take the pills for?”
“Everything.” He takes a long sip of coffee, seemingly immune to the fact that the liquid is still too hot for human consumption.
“You’re kind of grouchy in the morning,Dad,” I tease.
His next grunt soundsalmostamused.
“You feel better today?” he asks once we’re driving.
“Don’t feel worse.” I take the first sip of my black coffee and pretend it’s as good as yesterday’s London Fog. It isn’t, not bya long shot; it assaults my tongue like a bitter attack. I take another sip. “Yum.”
