Follow the Sharks by William G. Tapply Page B

right here, in my pocket.”
    “We’ll want it.”
    “Fingerprints and so forth.”
    Stern’s laugh was ironic. “Sure. All the up-to-the-minute technology of the Bureau’s at our disposal. We’ve got buildings full of computers. Scientists hunched over test tubes and electron microscopes.” His voice was low and conspiratorial. “Listen. We hope to hell they call again, okay? We hope they decide to give us back the boy. Because so far they’ve done everything right, you know? And we’re sitting around with our thumbs up our fannies while they call all the shots. So don’t get too optimistic, okay?”
    “That’s really encouraging,” I said.
    “You’re a big boy. You should know how it is.” He paused. “Hang on a minute, will you?” he said. I could hear Stern talking with somebody. A sudden gust of wind blew a cool mist on my face. Then Sam Farina’s voice came on the phone.
    “Hey, Brady?”
    “Yes, Sam?”
    “Look, thanks, huh? For what you’ve done.”
    “What I did was easy. You’ve got the hard part.”
    “Yeah,” he said softly. “Yeah. This is hard. Still, thanks.”
    “Gotta go,” I said. “It’s raining. We’ll be in touch.”
    “Jan needs you, my friend.”
    “Right.”
    I replaced the phone and dashed for my car. The wind was bouncing the branches of the big oak trees behind the gas station, and fat raindrops rattled off the hood of my BMW. When I pulled out into the eastbound lane of Route 2, the rain came driving in hard, angled sheets, and even with the wipers on high speed the headlights barely cut twenty feet through the downpour.
    I wondered if E.J. Donagan, wherever he was, was afraid of the thunder.
    When I got back to my apartment, I kicked my shoes into a corner, dropped my jacket and tie onto the sofa, and found a can of Molson’s in the refrigerator. I padded over to the glass doors that overlook the harbor and slid them open to let in the clean smell of ocean and rain. I stood out on my balcony for a few minutes, sipping my ale and breathing deeply. I waited for the knot in my solar plexus to unravel.
    I couldn’t get E.J. Donagan’s freckled smile out of my mind. I remembered the bright July day the previous summer when I had taken E.J. and Jan with me for a day on the ocean. Charlie McDevitt, my old Yale Law School chum, kept a boat moored in Gloucester. Charlie navigated and E.J. and I trolled for bluefish while Jan stripped to her bikini and sunned herself on the forward bulkhead. Charlie chased the humpback and finback whales that basked near the surface eight miles out on Stellwagen, and out there where the sky formed a big bowl over the ocean we circled the Moonie tuna fleet that lay at anchor. Clouds of gulls swirled and darted in their chumline. E.J. climbed up into the tower and played at being a pirate. “Land, ho!” he called out, and Charlie yelled back, “Avast, me hearty.” “Yo, ho, ho and a bottle of rum,” laughed the boy.
    On the way in E.J. hooked a blue. The powerful fish threatened to drag the skinny little kid over the side, but he hung on stubbornly while I clung to his belt. Charlie threw the twin motors into neutral, and we rolled and pitched on the deep swells. E.J. pumped the rod, reeling when he could and giving line when the fish insisted, gaining more than he lost. When he finally had the fish alongside, I said, “Oh, he’s a beauty. Twelve pounds easy.” I reached for the gaff.
    “No, don’t,” said E.J.
    “It’s the only way,” I answered. “You can’t bring them aboard any other way. Likely to throw the plug into your face. They have teeth that’ll slice your finger right off.”
    “I want to let him go.”
    By now Jan was standing with us. She leaned close against me, one arm thrown carelessly around my waist, looking into the water at the fish. Her skin felt warm and moist against my arm.
    “We can bring him home for your grandmother to cook,” she said to her son.
    “No. Let him go.”
    “Okay,” I