Bucket of Fish Page 6

  When I got home, Carl the iceman was just cleaning out our ice chest. He then went out to the truck, chipped out a 25-pound block and brought it back in on his shoulder. He glared at me like he was mad.

  “Where’s your mom.”

  “She’s at work.”

  “Well, tell her I’m going to have to shut her down again if she doesn’t pay me next week. This is getting old.”

  “She’s off next Tuesday,” I said, “she can pay you then.”

  “I’ll be busy, tell her to leave the money under the flower pot by the front door.”

  “OK, or I’ll run it over to the icehouse in the morning.”

  “Thanks Walter.”

  I didn’t even know he knew my name. This is just great. Now three of the four guys involved in the murder of a person know my name. They are about to murder someone else. I was thinking it might be a good time to run away from home for about ten years. I’d do it, but I don’t have enough money for the steamship ticket. I think hiding under those covers may be the best plan after all. This school year I think I’m going to work real hard trying to find a new best friend. Just about anybody will do – if they promise not to get me killed.

  Chapter 26

  Sally and I sat on one end of the float while Sharon and GB jabbered away on the other. I looked over and frowned, wondering what in the world they were working up now. Sally had a red bathing suit on and it was hard to keep from looking at her. She was real tan -- she’d been down at the beach almost all summer. She sort of leaned in next to me and put her hand on my shoulder.

  “I think George Bailey really likes Sharon,” she said, “I think they a make a good couple, don’t you Wally?”

  It was funny -- somehow I didn’t care if Sally called me Wally. If she kept her hand on my shoulder like that she could just call me anything she wanted to. It was such a nice day --the sun was sparkling on the water and the taste of the saltwater on my lips felt good. I was sorry that summer would soon be over and I’d trade sitting on this warm float with Sally for a drafty classroom with the big clock above the door moving slower than GB ran. I snapped out of it the minute I thought of GB.

  “Sally, we gotta go.” Sharon said.

  The two girls were going over on the late afternoon steamship for the day on Friday. Sharon’s mom was visiting her sister and they were going to go shopping for school at one of the big department stores in Los Angeles.

  “Don’t forget what I said, George Bailey.” Sharon said.

  “I won’t, thanks Tharon.”

  Sharon gave him a quick kiss and dove in the water. He looked over at me like his eyes work going to pop out of his head. Sally laughed, turned and kissed me on the cheek and dove in after her. GB and I just looked at each other.

  When I finally recovered, I scooted over next to him by the corner of the float.

  “What were you guys talking about anyway?” I asked GB.

  “Huh, oh yeah, well, she thinks we should drop a note to the bar owner – leave it under the door after he locks up.”

  “Heck, he doesn’t close the place ‘til after 2:30 in the morning and opens real early too. I don’t think the guy ever sleeps—especially not on Labor Day weekend, besides who’s going to write it. I don’t want Officer Hollis finding it and tracking down my handwriting.”

  “You’ve seen too many movies Walt, Officer Hollis isn’t Sherlock Holmes you know.

  “Maybe not – but neither are you.”

  “Thanks, Tharon figured it out. We’ll do one of those notes like kidnappers use where we cut out the letters from different magazines and stuff, and paste them in. We’ll have to come up with a good message so he believes it.”

  “What are we going to do – tell him to hide somewhere on Tuesday.”

  “No, we’ll tell him to take the steamship on Monday.”

  “It’ll be sold out you dummy, that’s Labor Day.”

  “I know, we figured that out, you and I will have to buy a ticket and include it in the envelope. When the case is finally over. I’m sure he’ll thank us and pay us back. Or we can get the money back from the reward.”

  “You are nuts, at this exact moment I have a net worth of 35 cents.” A one-way ticket is $2.50. Where are we going to get that much money?”

  “Don’t worry, I have most of it—Sharon gave me 75 cents – just give me a quarter.”

  I wished my mom was a dentist like GB’s dad. I guess that was stupid --after all, who ever heard of a girl dentist?

  Chapter 27

  We ran out to the steamship terminal and bought a one-way ticket for the Monday boat. I knew we needed to write a long note so we could convince the guy to be on that

  boat. We decided to go back to GB’s garage and work up our warning note. We could use one of the newspapers.

  “I’ll grab some old magazines from my house, I think there’s a couple of old Life’s and a Saturday Evening Post.” GB said.

  “That should be enough – we ain’t writing a book --- we’ll probably just say – “Take the boat or you’re a dead man.”

  “I think we’ll need to say more than that Walt,” he said, looking at me like I was a complete moron.

  So we set up in the garage. I cut words like “boat”, “important”, “that”, “you” and others that we thought would work. Our final letter took several tries it read:

  Important information:

  For owner of bar--

  Murderers plan to kill you on Tuesday. This is fact. You will die. Take Monday boat or dead for sure. Ticket inside. Police bad. Pay us later if alive.

  Friends

  I insisted on the “pay us later.” It worked good and was all one phrase from a refrigerator ad in Life Magazine. We glued the message together and only had to write “ers” after “Murder.” We found that word in a headline in a rust colored Los Angeles Times that was used to protect an old mirror in GB’s garage. The note looked pretty good. We attached the ticket with a paper clip and put it all in a large manila envelope from Dr. Bailey’s office supplies. We had to use some black paint to cross out the George T. Watson DDS, with his office address on the return address part.

  We glued “Bar owner only” on the envelope. It took awhile to find another “bar” but we took one from a candy bar ad.

  Tomorrow was Saturday. We were sure the owner would want to make all the money he could make over the Labor Day Weekend, but if the letter scared him to much, that would be OK too. He could always take an earlier boat.

  “The earlier boat would be less crowded,” GB said, “but he might as well sell as much beer as he can since he may need to stay away for a little bit.”

  “Yeah, I’ll deliver the envelope, it’s closer to my house, I’ll set my alarm for 5:00AM and drop it off when I go fishing in the morning.

  “That’s a good idea – plus the fish might be biting better then.”

  Chapter 28

  I walked down the alley behind the Samoa Bar. The back door was too tight for the envelope, so I ran around to the front. There was a one-inch gap at the threshold, I looked up and down the street and slid the envelope under the door. After quickly digging up some sand crabs and putting them in my paint bucket, I ran out onto the pier and set up at my usual spot. I was excited -- I usually didn’t get started this early and figured the fishing might be better. I was just getting ready to bait my hook when Billy Condon and his friend, Fred, walked up.

  “You’re here early Wally – did you’re mommy make you a nice little lunch too?” Billy said, looking at my paper sack. Billy sneered, he was 15 but had whiskers and everything. He was about two inches taller than me. His face was all freckles and he had one eye that always looked to the left. He always sort of sneered when he talked.

  “Yeah, she did,” I said, trying to laugh.

  “Well my mommy forgot to make mine – I’ll take yours.” He said, turning and laughing at Fred.

  I tried to laugh him off, but he reached down and grabbed my lunch. He started to wa
lk away when I noticed his bucket.

  “Hey Billy, it’s OK, you can have my lunch, but where did you get that bucket?”

  “Whataya mean, ‘Where did I get this bucket,’ It’s mine -- you jerk.”

  “That’s OK,” I was shaking I was so excited, “ I just want to look at the bottom of it for a second.”

  “Huh – I got my bait in it – you ain’t looking at the bottom of my --------bucket!”

  “C’mon Billy,” I said approaching him, “You took my lunch, I just want to look real quick at the bottom.”

  I grabbed for the bucket, tried to turn it so I could see the bottom and dumped his bait, knife, and some sinkers on the wood deck of the pier. One round sinker rolled off the side into the water.

  “What the ------?” Billy yelled and pushed me hard down on to the deck. I scraped my elbow and felt a big splinter cut into my arm. I grabbed the arm. It was bleeding.

  My eyes were watering. Billy was down on the deck retrieving his stuff and putting it back in the bucket.

  I jumped up, ran over and tried to turn it over again. He pushed me down even harder, picked up his bucket and started walking out to the end of the pier. I don’t know what happened, I guess I just wanted to see the bottom of that bucket so bad. I ran up behind Billy, tackled him to the ground and just started swinging my fists like a windmill.

  Billy turned around, and threw me off, while trying to cover his face. All of a sudden he went even crazier than me – kicking and windmill punching. I connected one punch to his bad eye. He hit me hard in the forehead, knocking me down. I got up again and started for him. It was all a blur. There was snot coming out of his nose, he was bleeding and snorting like a horse. We went at it again for what seemed like forever. The next thing I knew, I was on the ground again. It was over. I lost.

  “Here jerk, here’s the damn bucket, go ahead and take a look at it.” Billy said throwing it down at me. His bait, cut anchovies, hit my shirt and face. I wiped them off, turned the bucket over, saw my initials –WJ—on the bottom and ----smiled.

  “What’s the matter with you Wally --- you better not tell your brother.” He said, suddenly remembering Gus.

  “I –I won’t Billy, don’t worry,” my face hurt as I tried to talk. “It’s my --my bucket, where’d you get it – that’s all I want to know?

  “I didn’t know who’s it was, I was walking up the alley and taking a shortcut to my house. I found it by some trashcans. There were corbina near it, they were still wet and everything – I took ‘em home and cooked ‘em.”

  His eye was real puffed up --- he looked terrible. I knew I looked worse.

  “Keep you’re damn bucket Wally.”

  “I don’t want it Billy – you keep it – but my damn name is Walt !”

  “Keep it Walt.”

  Billy grabbed my paint bucket. He exchanged the contents of the two buckets, threw my lunch back into my bucket, and then he stumbled off the pier wiping his face with a dirty rag. Fred followed behind him, carrying both of their fishing poles and the paint bucket.

  GB rode past them on his bike. When he got to me his eyes looked like baseballs.

  “What happened?”

  “I got in a fight with Billy Condon.”

  “You got in a fight with Billy Condon – and you’re still alive?”

  “I think I gave him a black eye.”

  “Well that’s just great – cause he gave you two.”

  “That OK --- he had my bucket – those guys don’t know anything about WJ.”

  Chapter 29

  I was so happy, but my face hurt like heck. I could tell Billy Condon wouldn’t ever mess around with me again. He had won the fight, but I was pretty sure he wouldn’t ever want to do it a second time. GB walked up to my house. We figured everything would work out OK now. The bar owner would get on the steamship. Curly D. would leave on Wednesday, and we would be back in school. Sure, the murderers of the beer distributor would get away with it, but at least we saved one life. When we walked into the kitchen, my mom was at the sink. Gus had his back to us and was eating some cereal. My mom turned, looked at me, and ----screamed. Gus turned around.

  “What happened to you?”

  “I got in a fight with Billy Condon.” I said, as my Mom came over and started washing my face with her apron.

  “I’ll kill him, where is he?” Gus said.

  “No, I promised him you wouldn’t hurt him. It was mostly my fault and he doesn’t look too good himself.”

  “Really --- what happened?”

  I told him about the bucket, but not about Billy taking my lunch. I painted Billy in the best light I could – I sure didn’t want Gus to defend me anymore. He finally promised not to do anything but wanted to see Billy’s black eye. He walked out.

  My mom took some ice out of the icebox, wrapped it in a clean dishtowel and pressed it gently against my eyes. She tried to scold me for fighting but she was too worried about me to get too mad. I took the dishtowel ice bag and went into my bedroom with GB. He sat on the bed while I held the bag to my face.

  “Maybe I’ll run down past the Samoa Bar and see if he’s open. He might have closed up and went somewhere to hide until the steamship leaves. You wait here, I’ll be right back.”

  I didn’t argue. It only took him about 5 minutes to run down and back.

  “He’s still open – I guess he decided to make as much money as he can this weekend. The bar is packed already.”

  “That’s good, he’ll need the money.”

  “Do you want to go to the show tonight, I was going to take Tharon –maybe she can check to see if Sally wants to go.”

  “Oh great, with me looking like this? – I ain’t leaving this room ‘til school starts on Tuesday.” I said, still holding the ice bag over my eyes.

  “It’s probably not that bad, let me see it Walt.”

  I took the ice bag off, sat up and tried to look at George Bailey. He was all blurred -- maybe the ice had frozen my eyeballs. When I finally focused in – his eyes looked like baseballs again.

  “Maybe you thould wait until Wednesday to go to school Walt, they never do much on the first day anyway,” he said.

  GB hung around ‘til lunchtime. My Mom made us some peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. We had them in my room along with cold lemonade and an apple. I was starting to feel a little better. When GB finally left, I put my head back on my pillow and fell asleep.

  Gus came in the room about three and I woke up.

  “How’re you doing little brother?”

  “I’m doing OK, you didn’t do anything to Billy did you?”

  “Oh, heck no, his mom wasn’t going to let me in the house, she said she was going to call Officer Hollis and turn you in for beating up Billy,” Gus laughed, “I swear, he looks just as bad as you do—maybe worse.”

  “Officer Hollis, oh great – that’s just what I need. He looks bad, huh?”

  “Don’t worry, I calmed her down, I told her how bad you look and that you’re younger and smaller. I’d call that one a draw, Walt.”

  “A draw,” I smiled, it was also the first time Gus ever called me Walt.

  Chapter 30

  “Get up Walter, it’s time for church.”

  “Huh?”

  “I’ve been thinking, I’m not having a son of mine turn in to a hoodlum. You’re going with me to church.”

  “Mom, c’mon, I haven’t gone all summer. You’ve got it all wrong -- the guy I fought is the hoodlum, not me. Fact it’s a miracle he didn’t kill me.”

  “Walt is right Mom.” Gus said.

  “I don’t care – you’re going too, Augustus.”

  “Huh? I’m going fishing.”

  “Not today, I mean it, both of you, get up and get dressed ---NOW!

  We both jumped out of bed. Mom was great usually, but when she started yelling in her drill instructor voice – it was best to snap too.

  “Wear your new shoes Walter – you too Augustus.”

  No one
else in the world would even dare to call my brother Augustus – no one. But he was even moving faster than I was. I combed my hair and looked at the two black rings around my eyes.

  “Mom, wait ‘til you see me, you ain’t going to want to go anywhere with me. I look like a raccoon.”

  “It’s not ain’t --- it’s aren’t --- it serves you right acting like some street thug -- hurry up!”

  So Mom, Gus and I marched down the street and in to the back pew of St. John’s. I saw several guys from school, including a couple of Billy Condon’s pals. I couldn’t believe that their parents made them go too. I thought if they ever went to confession, the priest wouldn’t have any time left for anyone else. I looked over a couple of pews and recognized a familiar hairdo. Suddenly, like she knew that I was looking at her, Sally turned around, looked at me and nearly fainted. My Mom saw her.

  “Who is that girl Walter?”

  “Her name is Sally – she’s in my class.”

  “That girl is your age?”

  “Yes.”

  My mother quickly crossed herself and started mumbling some prayers. Gus gave me a quick jab in the side.

  “Not bad little brother.” He whispered.

  When the time came, I decided to skip communion. There was no way I was going to walk all the way up to the altar rail and back with two black eyes. My Mom glared at me.

  “I haven’t been to confession Mom.” I remembered vaguely from my Sunday school classes that you were supposed to go to confession before you went to communion.

  “Well don’t go then—I’m sure you have plenty of sins,” She hissed as she got up to go. “You better not for sure, Augustus.”

  When church was over, as we were walking down the stairs, I happened to spot Officer Hollis waiting for the next mass with some lady. As I walked past him he said.

  “Nice shoes Walter, did you run into a truck or something?” He wasn’t smiling.

  “How does Officer Hollis know your name?”