“Not personally, but I do have a pretty extensive collection of his movies. I've seen Enter the Dragon at least ten times. I even have the original VHS copy of Game of Death. It's too bad he died before they finished filming it. They had to use stock footage and body doubles, and it just wasn't the same. Now if they had CGI back then, it would have been a totally different movie.”

  “Uh, yes, I'm sure it would,” I said hurriedly, ”Maybe I had better check on Captain Caleb.”

  Caleb was still on the ground, moaning softly. He struggled up to a sitting position as I approached.

  “Are you okay?” I asked.

  “Gimme them keys! You're my wife, dammit!”

  “I'm not your wife,” I said, helping him to his unsteady feet.

  Captain Caleb squinted at me through bleary eyes.

  “Hey, you ain't my wife, are you?” He said with with a look of confusion. Then his face flushed. “Then what the hell are you doin' with my keys?”

  I sighed. Buff had finished putting the dazed bouncers in his van and I led Caleb over to him.

  “Do you have room for another passenger? I think he needs a doctor, or at least a psychologist.”

  “I think he needs to sober up more than anything else,” Buff replied, taking the Captain by his arm, “But I'll leave him with Dr. Brad while I drop his two friends off at the station. Brad will make sure he's okay and turn him loose once he's not too drunk to take care of himself.”

  “That sounds like a good idea.”

  “Say, do you need a ride to your Aunt's place?” Buff asked. “I'm going to be passing by there and there's plenty of room in the van.”

  “Oh no thanks,” I replied, “I was just-”

  I froze. Gavin! In all the excitement I had totally forgotten about Gavin! He could be anywhere by now; I had to find him before it was too late!

  “I mean I was just about to do, uh, a little shopping,” I stammered, backing away quickly. “I've got to pick up a few things for Aunt Sam, but thanks for the offer.”

  “Anytime,” Buff said as he led Captain Caleb to the van. “Have fun!”

  I rushed back into the casino and frantically searched among the crowds at the slot machines and gaming tables for Gavin, but he was nowhere to be seen. Where was he? He couldn't have gone out the front door or I would have seen him. Did the EZ Money Casino have a back door? I noticed a red faced man in a Hawaiian shirt sitting at one of the slot machines with a bucket of quarters in his lap.

  “Excuse me,” I said. “Is there another way out of here?”

  “Sure is!” he replied jovially, pointing toward the back of the building. “Just follow that row of slot machines all the way to the end and you'll see a green door that say 'Not an Exit'. That's the exit.”

  “Thanks!” I said, hurrying off.

  “No problem! I've had to sneak outta here a few times myself!”

  The exit that wasn't an exit opened onto another dusty alley cluttered with empty beer bottles, cigarette butts and other debris that I tried not to examine too closely. I hopped, skipped and jumped over the obstacle course of junk until the alley opened onto a rickety dock lined with a row of scratched and dented speedboats. A nearby sign read “Boat Rentals” with a large splotch of rust conveniently covering the price. The roar of an engine caught my attention and I watched helplessly as one of the speedboats pulled away from the dock with Gavin sitting in the back seat. Our eyes met and he smiled and gave me the finger. I felt a surge of anger and for a second I was going to return the gesture, but I decided to be the bigger person and let it go. Besides, he was too far away to see me now anyway.

  I wanted to kick myself. It had never occurred to me that Gavin might actually leave the island. For all I knew, he was going to meet with his accomplice and disappear, along with any chances of my bringing him to justice! But I wasn't done yet; if Gavin could rent a boat, then so could I. There were still plenty of speedboats tied to the dock. There must be somebody around here to pilot them. At the other end of the dock a saw a group of dirty, unshaven men wearing captain's hats sitting on rusted metal barrels. They were smoking and passing a beer bottle around. One of them said something I couldn't hear and the whole group laughed raucously. A particularly sketchy member of the group took a large fishing knife out of his boot and began picking his nose with it.

  A news reporter's voice began playing in my head: “The unemployed school teacher was last seen entering a boat with a bushy haired stranger. A small reward has been offered for any information on her current whereabouts....” Okay, forget the boat rentals.

  Suddenly it dawned on me. Nick! He had a boat! Why hadn't I thought of him sooner? If he could just get here fast enough... I dialed his number and ground my teeth as it rang six times before he finally answered.

  “Nick! I need you now!” I said breathlessly into the phone.

  “Well, that didn't take long,” Nick replied. “What was it, my charm? My boyish good looks? My rugged manliness? Or was it all three? The whole Nick Delaney package is hard for any woman to resist.”

  I wanted to reach through my phone and strangle him.

  “I need your boat,” I said through gritted teeth. “Gavin is having a secret meeting with someone, maybe the murderer! I followed him to the Doldrums, but he rented a boat and left. I need you to get over here as fast as you can before I lose him!”

  “You're in luck,” Nick replied, “I'm not too far from the Doldrums. I'll be there in five.”

  Of course, “five” turned out to be twenty minutes. I was standing at the edge of the dock, tapping my foot and trying to stave off a nervous breakdown when Nick pulled his boat up with a decided lack of urgency.

  “The cavalry has arrived,” he said. “Did you see where Gavin's boat went?”

  “Yes!” I replied, pointing in the direction I had seen Gavin leave. “He went that way- I mean mostly that way, but a little to the left- My left, not your left- sort of West I guess? But he definitely went that way.”

  “So, somewhere in the Gulf of Mexico?”

  My shoulders slumped. Nick was right. Gavin could be anywhere by now. For all I knew, he and his mysterious partner were in Mexico by now or half way to Brazil or whatever country is south of Brazil. Geography was never one of my strong suits.

  “Never mind,” I sighed, “I've lost him.”

  “Actually,” Nick said with a knowing smile, “Gavin may not be as lost as you think.”

  “If this is another one of your jokes-”

  Nick place a hand on his heart and raised his other hand in the air, holding up two fingers. “I give you my word as a boy scout that I'm serious,” he said solemnly.

  “You were a boy scout?”

  “As far as you know. Anyway, Gavin may not be so hard to find; there's nothing much to sail to just West of here other than a handful of small uninhabited barrier islands. They're barely islands at all really, more like little blobs of sand with a few palm trees on them. Tourists sometimes pay for a boat to take them out to one of these islands for an afternoon of fishing or solitude or whatever. It might be just the place for a secret meeting, don't you think?

  “Well what are we waiting for?” I said, not even trying to conceal my excitement. “Are you going to help me on board or not?”

  “Okay, okay,” Nick laughed, extending his hand. “Do you mind if I pilot the ship or are you commandeering the captain seat, too?”

  I gave Nick my best withering look. “Do you have binoculars or something?” I asked. “I want to see who Gavin is meeting, but if we get too close the the island he might see us.”

  “There's a pair in the tackle box in the corner. Help yourself.”

  Nick gunned the engine and pulled away from the dock as I rummaged through the tackle box. I discovered a small plastic pair of binoculars that looked more like a toy than an actual optical device.

  “Are you serious?” I said incredulously, “This is all you've got?'

  “Don't knock them; my father gave them to me when I was 10 years old. He got them for free with a 3 year subscription to a sports magazine. They're practically a family heirloom.”

  I sighed and looked through the lenses. I had seen reading glasses stronger than this. “How far can it magnify?” I asked as I fumbled with the focus dial.

  “I think it goes up to 2x.”

  I wanted to bang my head against something, but every available surface was wet and it would probably just make my hair frizzy.

  It didn't take long for us to reach the first island and even without the aid of Nick's family heirloom I could see that there was no one there. We had no luck with the next island either. As Nick steered toward the third island, a flat sandy outcropping in the water with a cluster of palm trees in the middle, I began to feel doubt creeping in. What if Gavin wasn't on these islands? What if the boat was just a ruse and he had doubled back to Archibald Falls after he had lost me? He could be anywhere by now. Maybe I'm not cut out for this detective stuff after all.

  “We've got company,” Nick called, breaking into my thoughts.

  I looked at the upcoming island and sure enough, I could make out two figures on the beach. Squinting through the binoculars, I could see a man and woman sitting on the sand with their arms wrapped around each other, engaged in the sloppiest make out session I had seen since senior prom. As Nick brought the boat closer and they became a little less fuzzy, I recognized the man as Gavin and the woman was... Dawn?

  Dawn! The same Dawn that had dumped Gavin for his own father? The same Dawn he was calling a gold digger just days ago? And now they're recreating the beach scene from “From Here to Eternity”? What the hell was going on here?

  I leaned over the side of the boat to see if I get a better view. Nick yelled, “...lean over...more” and I leaned over more. The next thing I knew, I was under water with the binocular strap choking me. When I came to the surface there was a life ring next to me and Nick was hollering at me to grab onto it. He pulled me onto the boat and said, “Why in the hell did you lean over the edge of the boat when I told you to not lean over any further?”

  “Thanks for asking if I'm all right,” I said. “I thought you told me to lean over more.”

  “Well, I didn't, and you're not all right. The wind has picked up and you'll be lucky not to catch pneumonia in those wet clothes.” Nick went over to some compartments at the side of the boat and took out a package that had something shiny and silver in it. “Here, wrap this around you till I can get you some dry clothes.”

  I looked at it. “You want me to wrap myself in tin foil? I'm wet, not a baked potato.”

  “No, it's a survival blanket. It'll keep you warm.”

  “But what about Gavin?”

  “What about Gavin? You want me to drop you off so you can question him mid-make out?”

  “Oh no, I guess not,” I said dejectedly. “This whole thing is so messed up.”

  “That's an understatement. Right now I'll get you to the lighthouse so you can shower and change clothes.”

  “Why do we have to go to a lighthouse? Can't I just go back to Aunt Sam's?”

  “The lighthouse is just a few minutes away. We'd both be drenched before I could get you to the B&B,” he said.

  “But won't the lighthouse keeper think it's weird when we show up and ask him for dry clothes?”

  “There isn't any lighthouse keeper,” Nick said. “Well, technically I guess you could say that I'm the lighthouse keeper. I live in the lighthouse.” He could see I had a lot of questions, and said, “Just wait until you see it.”

  A minute later we rounded a bend on the coastline, and Nick pointed toward the shore. At first I couldn't see anything but a grove of palm trees running up a small hill above the beach, but then I made out a round two story red brick building nestled among the trees.

  “What's that?” I asked.

  “That's the lighthouse,” Nick replied.

  “That's not a lighthouse.”

  “Not a good lighthouse, no. About 50 years ago the mayor of Admiral Archibald Falls commissioned a new lighthouse on the island, which was going to be the tallest lighthouse in the whole state. But when the architect the mayor hired designed the building, he had a typo in his notations and instead of giving the builders a plan for a 200 foot tall tower, he gave them one for a 20 foot tower. Of course there was a lot of controversy and lawsuits all around, and the architect claimed the builders messed up the plans on purpose because they were afraid of heights, but when all was said and done Admiral Archibald Falls had a lighthouse that wasn't even as tall as the trees around it.”

  “How did you end up living there?” I asked.

  “Well, when I moved down here and bought the fishing trip business from Brody I planned to share the apartment above the shop with him. It's a nice big two bedroom apartment, plenty of room for both of us, but Brody has this habit of bringing his work home with him. Almost every inch of that place has some greasy engine part sitting on it. I'm not the neatest guy in the world, but it was too much for me. I asked Harlan Ringo if he knew of an apartment that I could rent and he offered to rent me the lighthouse with an option to buy. Apparently he's been trying to unload it for a long time, so the price was great.”

  “So do you have to turn the light on and off, or whatever lighthouse keepers do?”

  “According to Harlan, in the event of an emergency Mayor Croaker can order the light turned on, but since you can't see the light through the trees it's pretty pointless, so she never orders it turned on.”

  Nick pulled the boat alongside a small dock in front of the lighthouse, and helped me get out. I followed him across the beach and up a stone path to the door of the lighthouse. The wind was whipping around the point and I was shivering in spite of the blanket wrapped around me, so I was relieved when we finally got inside.

  The interior of the lighthouse was much different than I expected; the living room we entered was spacious and bright, with a modern-looking kitchen just beyond it beside a staircase leading up to the “tower”. On the other side of the kitchen was a hallway leading down to a pair of doors.

  “The linen closet is the door on the left,” Nick said, pointing down the hall. “You can find some towels there and I'll get you some dry clothes from my room.”

  I followed Nick down the hallway and opened the closet door while he went through the opposite door, which led to his bedroom. The towels were on the top shelf of the closet but on the shelf below that I saw stacks of dishes and glassware, while the bottom shelf held only a box of baseball cards. I turned to ask Nick about his unusual storage arrangements but I immediately forgot that when I noticed an adorable orange tabby cat curled up in the covers at the foot of Nick's unmade bed.

  “Oh, she's so cute!” I said. “I didn't know you had a cat.”

  “She sort of came with the lighthouse,” Nick replied as he rummaged through a big cardboard box on the floor beside the bed. “I found her in this room when I first moved in. She wasn't much more than a kitten at the time. One of the panes of glass was missing from the bedroom window, so I guess that's how she got in. I took her around to all the houses up and down the street to see who she belonged to, but nobody recognized her or knew where she came from, so now I own a cat.”

  “What's her name?”

  “Katrina, or 'Kat' for short.”

  “You named your cat Kat?”

  “Okay, so I didn't have a lot of great ideas for pet names. I hadn't planned on having one, y'know.” Nick stood up and held out two bright orange t-shirts with “I'm a great catch!” printed on the front in big white letters. “Delaney's Fishing Trips, established 1897” was printed beneath that in smaller type. “This is all I have in womens' sizes. Which do you want, small or medium?”

  “Medium,” I said. “You're full of surprises today. 1897, huh?”

  “It's supposed to say 1987, which is when Brody's old boss first started the business here. The phone number is wrong too, so I'm stuck with a whole box of them that I can't sell. That's what I get for letting Brody call in the order to the screen printer. You'll be the first one to ever rep the Delaney Fishing Trips name with one of these shirts.”

  “I'm honored.”

  “I don't have any pants in your size, but there's a pair of pajama pants in the drawer with a drawstring that you can probably tighten enough to wear. Just leave your wet clothes in the hamper and I'll toss them in the dryer while you're in the shower. I can try to dry off your shoes, too. Where are your shoes?”

  “At the bottom of the ocean.”

  “Oh, well, I'll see if I can find you some flip flops or something.”

  After I came out of the shower I put on the clothes Nick had left for me and sat down on the end of his bed to dry my hair. Beside the box of t-shirts on the floor was another big cardboard box, which seemed to be full of miscellaneous tools and bric-a-brac. Overflow from the hall closet, I supposed. A picture frame in the box caught my eye, and when I looked closer I saw that in the frame was a law degree with Nick's name on it. I didn't recognize the name of the school; was it real or some kind of novelty thing he had printed out? Somehow it was hard to picture Nick wearing a suit and tie and arguing cases in a courtroom. Just picturing Nick doing anything in a suit and tie was tough enough.

  I walked out into the living room and saw Nick coming out of the kitchen with two cups of steaming hot coffee. “I thought you could use this,” he said. “I got out some cheese and crackers too, in case you're hungry. Bourbon barrel-smoked cracked-pepper cheddar okay with you, or do you prefer bacon muenster?”

  “Wow! You're a real cheese connoisseur,” I said as I sat down on the couch. “I've never had those kinds of cheese.”

  “Me neither. My mom has a credit card with The Wisconsin Cheese Man and she has them ship stuff down here. For some reason she has the idea that I live on a deserted island in the middle of nowhere so she has to send food. I've sent her dozens of pictures of the island but I haven't convinced her that we're fairly civilized down here. It's okay though because the cheese is great.”

  “So, are you really a lawyer?”

  “Ah, you saw my diploma. Yes, guilty as charged.”