Free Hard Road by J. B. Turner Page A

back some more beer. “But my heart’s set on becoming a Marine. An officer.”
    â€œYou any idea what it entails?”
    â€œA bit.”
    â€œYou know the motto at the Officer Candidates School at Quantico?”
    â€œNo, I don’t.”
    â€œ Ductus Exemplo .”
    The kid shrugged.
    â€œLook it up. It’s Latin.”
    Ron smiled blankly.
    â€œI really need to speak to your dad, now. Is his boat nearby?”
    Ron shrugged. “Yeah, he’s gotta nice new berth down the marina. Walking distance. Man, he’ll freak when he sees you.”
    Reznick drove the Jeep – with the man he should have killed still in the trunk – to a parking garage, three blocks away. He popped open the trunk. Luntz was still out of it and probably would be for a few more hours. Locking the car, he headed down to the beachfront.
    A short while later, he walked past the Elbo Room bar on the corner of Las Olas Boulevard and South Atlantic Boulevard, the sounds of whoops and cheers and thumping music from the bar spilled out into the warm, humid air.
    He walked on for a couple of hundred yards, the lights of the yachts and restaurants at the marina in the distance. A few minutes later, along a wooden gangway to Dock E beside the Intracoastal Waterway, right beside the dock master’s office and the fuel dock.
    An old black guy, cigarette at the corner of his mouth, hosing down the decks of one of the boats nearby, nodded to Reznick.
    â€œYou down to do some fishin’?” he asked. “If you are, you’re too early. But I’m taking my boat out at first light if you wanna come back and do some serious fishin’. Snared fifteen marlins yesterday alone.”
    The smell of fish bait, kerosene and barbecued meat hung in the muggy air. It reminded him of night fishing with his father when he was a boy, his father reminiscing about Nam, the Mekong and his buddies who hadn’t made it home, trying not to think about his next shift at Port Clyde Foods sardine cannery. He’d always hated his factory job. He’d wanted Reznick never to work in any of the Rockland fish packing plants. He’d once invited him in to watch him work. The smell made him sick. He remembered watching the dead eyed expression of his father – so different from his pictures back from Vietnam. He’d worked at the packing tables using a pair of sharpened knives to cut the heads and tails off the fish coming in, and packing them in cans, being bellowed at by a weasel foreman. His father could never answer back as he’d never work in any of the plants in Rockland again if he did. It was piecework, so the faster he went, the more money he made. He’d worked from 7am until 10pm straight every day, with hardly any breaks. It was there and then that Reznick vowed he’d never do that job.
    Reznick saw the lights from a nearby yacht partially illuminating the dock. “Maybe next time.”
    â€œYou got a boat here?”
    â€œLooking for a friend of mine. Harry Leggett.”
    The black guy pointed to the pristine fifty-foot yacht berthed nearly twenty yards away. “That’s Harry’s boat. Damn fine it is too. Went out fishing with one of his friends around noon, cooler full of beer. But I was gone when they must’ve come back. Harry and his friend probably sleeping it off.”
    â€œThanks for the tip.”
    â€œAny time,” he said, mopping the deck of his boat.
    Reznick walked further down the gangway and climbed on board the yacht, using the aluminum rails to help him on. The slight swell made him feel sick. He never did have good sea legs.
    Bait tanks and tackle storage boxes lined the cockpit. In the center, a fighting chair mounted on an aluminum-reinforced plate for marlin fishing.
    Reznick knocked on a small window on the cabin’s doors. He got no answer. He tried a couple more times but still nothing. He peered through the window and looked around a