Sleep with the Fishes Read Online Free Page B

didn’t really expect him to seek employment so much as find him the smallmouth bass. No need for Sid to visit him in Newark. He would be back often enough, rod in hand. As would, in time, Warden Lachfurst. And maybe one or two trout-mad members of the parole board.
    So in effect, Sid had cut a deal with the prosecutors for a short sentence, with the Camuchis for eliminating anybody who would possibly come after him, and with the anglers on the parole board for the ability to relocate to a fishing outpost.
    Ballard Cabin was a simple affair—bedroom, living room, kitchen, and screened porch facing toward the river, out over an embankment. The outside was shingled and painted brown, with forest green trim. The inside was knotty pine adorned with paint-by-number oils, numerous floor lamps, and two resident examples of taxidermy—a pickerel and a deer head that tendered the eerily ingratiating leer of the Great Bear Transmission logo. The cabin was nestled under a stand of white pine, and from the embankment at the back porch, overgrown grass and saplings cluttered the sweep down to a stony shoal and light rapids. Abutments from a washed-out bridge stood on each shore just downstream.
    Sid sucked in the piney air and exhaled the prison stench. Now and again he took a sip of coffee as he admired the peaceful surroundings. But it wasn’t long before he heard a truck drive up the road and turn down his neighbor’s drive.
             
    An Eldorado with a “Semper Fi” bumper sticker was waiting for Russ when he returned to his trailer. Russ marshaled his cheeriest demeanor and pulled up next to his visitor.
    “How-do. I’m Russ Smonig. Ready to try for some shad?”
    Russ hopped out of his truck toting the white breakfast bag. The iguana-like man leaning on the Eldorado stepped forward.
    “I should say so! Been here twenty minutes. Was about ready to bug out. Don’t know why you had roll call so damned early if I was just going to come stand by this shed. And what’s this about
trying
for shad? By golly, Smonig, if you can get shad for that partner of mine, you’ll get shad for me.”
    Russ just kept smiling. “Now that’s the spirit! Well, we’re wasting time. The boat’s all loaded, down by the river.”
    The Iguana croaked, pushing up his sleeves. “Now hold it, Smonig. Seventy-five bucks for a half day, right?”
    “That’s right.”
    “From the time we hit the water, I assume?”
    “O.K., yes, that’s right.” The cheery smile was withering.
    “Well, let’s get this thing organized first, d’ya mind? I got rods here an’ I need to know which weapon to take. And ammo—I’ve got salmon flies. But if I run outta bullets I expect you to resupply me at no extra cost.”
    “Excuse me.” Russ blinked. “You want to fly-fish for shad? It’s really a little early in the season for that. The water’s high. You’d need a full sink line and…”
    “Smonig, you shoulda told me that over the phone….”
    “Well, when your partner was here we used spinning tackle. I assumed you wanted to do the same.”
    “Smonig, I never, ever, use spinning tackle.”

    A squirrel small enough to fit in a coffee cup ventured forth from the nest in the porch rafters and spied on Sid for some time before drawing near.
    Sid sipped his instant coffee, viewed the river, and kept an eye on the inquisitive young squirrel. At the same time he monitored the tone of garbled conversation from his next-door neighbor’s, which was out of view beyond a stand of tall weeds, a serviceberry hedge, some bulrushes, and a lopsided willow. Fly reels whizzed and clattered, doors creaked and slammed, two men conversed in earnest. At long last the activity subsided.
    As Sid tried to figure where the activity had gone, he felt a tentative twitching on the shoulder of his bathrobe. Whiskers brushed his graying sideburn and a rapid wuffling filled his ear. The pup squirrel was searching his ear for pine nuts.
    Years of wariness, both in