Once on deck, the damage looked, if anything, worse. “Holy crap, Robbie. This is terrible.” Bethany gave the older man a hug. “I’m surprised you’re not already trying to repair it.”
“Have to wait for the man from the insurance company, don’t I?” Robbie said, tugging fretfully at the edge of his worn wool pea coat. “Can’t so much as hammer a nail into a board until they take fifty zillion pictures, measure everything, make me repeat my story another seventeen times, tell me they don’t believe me, and then hopefully, cut me a check anyway.” He slumped against the side of the boat, his entire body a study in discouragement.
“About that story,” she said hesitantly. “Joe was in the bar and he was telling everyone you said, well - ”
“He said there was a monster,” Alexei chimed in, as though that was the kind of thing people said every day. “Was it a big monster or a little monster? What color was it? Did it have tentacles?”
Bethany thought he sounded more excited than a kid on Christmas morning, as though a monster - not that there was such a thing - was the best kind of present anyone could get. Looking at the huge hole, she suspected Robbie didn’t share his sentiments.
“Sorry,” she said. “Alexei isn’t exactly sensitive about other people’s feelings.”
“Hey,” the big man said. “I’m taking care of a gigantic ugly pregnant dog and a cranky crippled old man. I’m completely sensitive.”
Robbie coughed, clearly covering up a laugh. At least Alexei hadn’t offended him. That was something. Bethany shrugged, offering him a wry smile.
“There actually was a monster,” Robbie said, taking a pipe out of his jacket pocket and lighting it up. The smell of apple tobacco filled the air. “Not that anyone is going to believe me.”
She looked at the gaping wound in the deck again. Something had made it, that was for sure. And short of someone dropping a huge safe from a ten story building, the way they used to do in the old movies her dad liked to watch, she sure as shit couldn’t figure out what.
“What happened?” she asked. “Did you run into another ship?”
The old sailor snorted. “Weren’t nothing on the water out there but us, honey. We were coming back in after catching a pretty good haul when all of a sudden the boat gave this funny shake, like it had run aground on something. But we were in deep water, and there weren’t nothing to hit. I ran to the aft side and saw this long rubbery thing flopping around on the deck; I thought maybe one of the men was pulling some kind of practical joke until the damned thing wrapped itself around a spar and tore it right off the boat.
“Whatever it was, it was big. Really big. I only saw two of them tentacles, but what I saw was bigger than a grown man, and they weren’t but part of the way out of the water.” He shuddered. “I don’t ever want to see the rest of whatever they were attached to. One of the men who was on the other side of the ship said he saw what looked like a giant beak sticking up. Looked like an enormous squid to me, but I ain’t never seen no squid that could grow to that size. The thing tore open the deck over the hold like it was opening up a can of tuna, and rooted around inside like it was searching for something. Took a few fish, but I don’t reckon that was what it was after, since it left most of ‘em behind.”
He chewed furiously on the stem of his pipe. “Damned cod are still in there, rotting in the hold instead of making me good money selling them at market. Insurance guy was supposed to be here an hour ago, but it won’t matter none. Too late now.” He spat on the deck, then gave Bethany an apologetic look.
“I’m sorry, Robbie,” she said in a quiet voice. “This all sucks.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Alexei said cheerfully. “Sea monsters are pretty rare these days. Maybe you can get on one of those reality shows Calum watches.”
Bethany smacked his arm. It was like hitting a brick wall. With a rubber mallet. “Ow. No more TV for you, I mean it. Now unless you can think of a more helpful idea, I suggest we get out of Robbie’s hair. I have a bar to run, in case you’ve forgotten. And you have a crabby old man to deal with.”
“Um,” Alexei said. Which might or might not have been agreement. “Did you say the fish are still in your hold?” he asked Robbie.
“Yep,” the sailor said, sighing. “The ice is starting to melt down there, so you’ll be able to smell ‘em soon enough.” He turned and gazed down the length of the dock, as if doing so could conjure up the elusive insurance inspector.
“Mind if I go have a look?” Alexei asked, already heading in that direction.
“Help yourself,” Robbie hollered after him. “But if you hurt yourself down there, you’re on your own.” He blinked at Bethany. “He’s kind of an odd duck, isn’t he? Where did you find him?”
“In the bar,” she answered.
“That explains a lot.”
“You have no idea,” she said.
A few minutes later, a whooping noise echoed up from the hold and Alexei hauled himself over the crushed edge, holding on with one hand and tossing a couple of large cod with the other. The fish hit the deck with a wet, meaty thwap, almost hitting Bethany in the legs.
“Oops, sorry,” Alexei said, clambering the rest of the way up and ambling over to where Bethany was staring down at the cod at her feet.
“Any particular reason you’re throwing fish at me?” she asked in a milder tone than she actually felt.
“Look,” Alexei said, picking up the biggest one and turning it over so she and Robbie could see the other side. One huge finger prodded at a strange mark on the fish’s skin.
“What the hell is that?” Bethany asked. She put out a much smaller fingertip and touched it gingerly.
“That’s a damned sucker mark,” Robbie said, his voice a study in mixed awe and alarm. “But I ain’t never seen one that size in all my years on the water. It must be fifty times bigger than any sucker on even the biggest squid I’ve ever come across. Holy crap. It really was a giant squid.” He held up the fish gleefully. “I can’t wait to show this to that damned insurance guy. You shoulda heard him laughin’ at me on the phone.”
Alexei quirked an eyebrow and gave Bethany a look she couldn’t quite decipher, but which she figured boded nothing good for her peace of mind. “Can I keep this other one?” Alexei asked Robbie. It too bore the mark of an unusually large sucker. It was also starting to give off a distinct odor of not-quite-fresh fish.
Bethany scowled at Alexei. “You are not carrying that thing in my truck.”
“Got to,” he said. “I have to see a man about a bet.”
Oh, hell. This was not going to end well.
*
When his shift with Calum was over for the day, Alexei took the cod out of the fridge where he’d stuck it at Bethany’s insistence (wrapped in two layers of plastic bags) and drove his motorcycle over to The Hook and Anchor. Luckily, the man he was looking for was already there, sitting at a table with a couple of his cronies.
“Ha!” Alexei said, slamming the fish down between their beers. “Take a look at that.”