Boosting - Chapter 10

After Frank had removed the 'snake', Joe had tested the speedboat by taking her on an out-of-control, stomach churning, speed run, up and down the lake for several turns. Eventually, he killed the throttle and turned back to Frank who was lounging across the back seat again. "She seems fine. Let's tie her off on that buoy over there and do some fishing."

"Okay."

So Joe took the boat at a moderate speed towards the orange buoy, and as he got closer, ceased the forward thrust so the boat coasted the remainder of the way, until he was almost nose-to-nose with the floating, soccer ball like object. He eased the wheel around and the rudder gently turned the boat until her side was to the buoy.

Frank reached out and spun the ball until the ring was around his side, and after two attempts, managed to tie the boat off using a round turn knot with two half hitches. "I'm out of practice!"

"I'm impressed you remembered at all."

Ten minutes later and they were both sitting in the boat after baiting up their hooks and casting them into the water.

Joe glanced across at Frank, who was nearly opposite him, stretched along the bench seat. Joe was emulating his pose, but across the passenger seat with his ankles crossed on the driving seat. "How long has it been?"

"How long has what been?"

"Since we last did this – fishing, I mean."

"Aw man, it's gotta be…what…three years or more?"

"We oughta do this more often." Joe carried on surreptitiously watching sideways as Frank harrumphed softly and started showing a close interest in his reel, spinning the handle backwards and forwards.

Joe scratched his chin thoughtfully and ventured forth with: "But do you know what I really miss, dude?"

There was a pause before his brother responded, warily. "What's that?"

"Spending time with you at work."

"Joe—"

"—Because it's not the same without you."

Frank looked away and seemed to be looking in the direction of the cabin, but Joe could see the muscles working feverously at the side of his jaw. "Joe, I…can't do it."

"Do what?"

"What you want me to do." Finally he turned to look back. "The work thing, it's too hard."

"Why, what's holding you back?"

Frank opened his mouth and Joe held his breath waiting for him to respond, but it slowly shut again and an almost frustrated look crossed his brother's features, quickly covered up a second later with a shrug. "I wish I knew."

But Joe wasn't fooled for an instant. Frank had given himself away with that look he'd tried so quickly to mask. He'd had something to say, all right, but had pulled himself back from the brink. Joe felt irritation rising. "What are you hiding now?"

"Hiding?"

"Yeah, what are you hiding?" Joe laid the rod down against his legs, forgotten for the moment and rested his arm across the back of the seat. "That's the way you used to look at me before. I thought at the time that it was down to Callie, but it wasn't the break up, was it? Well, maybe at first, but later, it was because you had this memory stick squirreled away. And look at the trouble your secreting got us into. Don't make the same mistake again!" As soon as the speech was out, Joe wished he could have bitten his own tongue off.

Frank had blanched at Joe's comments and his head had gone down, eye contact lost. "Do you think I don't know that? Do you think I'm not regretting what I did every single second of the day? I know the damage I caused and if I could take it back, I'd do it in an instant." His voice dropped to such a quiet tone that Joe had to strain to hear him. "If I had a time machine, I'd go back. I'd even sacrifice Nancy and me to do it, and that was the only good thing that came out of it."

Joe now understood how deeply Frank was regretting his actions, even to the point of being willing to lose Nancy to turn the clock back, and she meant more to Frank than anything else. Over the last few weeks, she'd barely left his side and he'd clung to her for support. She'd been his rock, walking in his footsteps and catching him when he'd fallen – and she'd had to save him so many times as he'd tripped and plummeted.

"Is that why you don't feel you can come back to work, in case you get into a situation like that again?" Joe asked, more gently this time.

Frank looked over his shoulder towards the shore and then down at his reel again. "Partly—" he raised the rod up to move the hook and emulate the movement of a fly.

"What if…HEY! I got a bite!" Joe suddenly said, the initial tug of a fish causing the rod to jerk in his lap. He forgot what he was going to say and sat up straighter pulling up his rod, feeling it getting yanked about even more strongly. He started slowly reeling in.

Then Frank started to get excited as well. "Unbelievable, I got one too!" and raised his own rod to start reeling.

"Tonight we eat like kings, dude!" Joe shouted. "This must be one huge fish, it's fighting me all the way."

"Mine too, Bro! What have we caught, a pool of sharks?"

Joe observed Frank giving his rod a massive pull, and at the same time, his own rod was almost ripped from his fingers. He started tittering and began letting the twine slowly out on his reel in time with Frank reeling in.

"What are you laughing at?" Frank asked, fighting to land his catch.

"I think this is a case of 'the one that got away'!"

"Yours might have, but I've still got mine firmly hooked," Frank said, and then changed his mind as he saw exactly what his brother meant – his hook had finally emerged from the water, but instead of the large fish he was expecting to be snared and struggling, it was another hook…Joe's hook. "Huh?" He stared at it in amazement for a few seconds, and burst out laughing himself. "I caught a 6'0" monster!"

"Well I did better than you, I caught a 6'1" ugly mother…and it was THAT big!" Joe said, pulling his hands wide to demonstrate how big his 'fish' had been.

"Less of the 'ugly mother', bro, everyone knows I'm the looker of the team!"

"Keep telling yourself that—"

Frank reached to catch onto the twine and began untangling their hooks. "I think we both know there's some level of truth in what I said. Every day you have to validate your looks to yourself by chatting up every attractive girl you come into contact with. And if they don't respond, it drives you crazy! You're always over compensating."

"That's not true! I can't help it if the ladies find me irresistible, the work I put in is minimal."

"Keep telling yourself that," Frank shot back, using Joe's own phrase against him. "The work you put in isn't 'minimal'. Look at all the weight training you do. It's not to keep fit because there are much better exercises that will do that, it's to pile on the muscle, cause it makes you look better."

Joe couldn't help it; he glanced admiringly down at his own bicep and flexed it slightly making Frank laugh at him. He was starting to wonder whether his brother actually had a point. "You can talk, dude, you do tons of exercise yourself!"

"Yeah, but the difference is, I actually do it for fitness reasons, and the martial arts is for the job. Yours is for vanity and to impress the girls."

"Well, in that case, you might as well give up the kung-fu. It's not like you'll need it anymore, is it? Stop tryin' to psychoanalyse me, Frank."

"I'll stop as soon as you do. Don't think I don't know why you brought me here. The second Nancy was out of the way, you pounced. I hate having people rooting around in my head and I especially don't like being coerced into having it forced on me! Not nice is it?"

Joe didn't have any defence, but at least now the gloves were off, and bare knuckles were up. He wasn't about to allow his brother to be aware of his revelation at being second-guessed. "I suppose I oughta be surprised that you've worked out my intentions, but I'm not, because you're the king-o manipulation, ain't you, big brother?" It was a stinging blow.

Frank's eyebrows shot up. He was obviously back footed by Joe's from-the-hip attack. "I didn't want to…when I…I only—" but his speech ground to a halt and he turned away suddenly, dropping his rod onto the floor.

Joe continued. "What I don't understand, Frank, is that you were so keen on me getting myself sorted out after Iola died, you practically dragged me to my counselling sessions every week for those six months. But you, you're a closed book. Why can't you practice what you preached to me? It's like you're mentally paralysed by something. I wish you'd give me the chance to help you figure out what it is."

Frank drew his legs up and continued staring in the opposite direction. "I'm not like you, Joe. You're a better person than me," he confessed.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"You're in tune with yourself, stronger, whereas I don't even know what's happening to me."

"Well let me help then!" Joe implored.

Frank's head shook just slightly and Joe suspected that the head movement had been involuntary, but he'd seen it nonetheless.

"Can we drop this, I'm getting a headache?" Frank muttered, and then, as if to illustrate the point, he made a big play of rubbing his forehead with the back of his hand and grimaced.

Joe started a slow clap. "Bravo, brother. Nice acting!"

"Leave me along, Joe, I'm not talking about it any more." Frank pushed himself from the seat and leaned over into the driver's position to shove Joe's feet off, and scooted over and into the chair. "I'm goin' back to the cabin. My head hurts. You can do what you like, bro."

Now that Frank was right next to him, Joe could see that his eyes were glazed over and listless. "You have got a headache, haven't you?"

"That's what I said." Frank said and momentarily lifted a hand to push his palm against his left eye. "I wasn't lying."

Joe felt like a complete heel. "Move over, let me drive."

"No, it's okay, it's not that bad. The sun's low in the sky and I've been looking into it the whole time. It's my own fault, I should have moved."

"A headache isn't a punishment, you don't have to struggle. Let me drive."

"Nah, it's okay." Frank flashed Joe a grateful smile and started the engine up.

Joe sighed, but leaned over to unhitch the rope from the buoy. "All clear."

Frank pushed the throttle forward and the boat started to move. About half way back, it started to cough. "Oh no – what's happening now!?" Frank wondered and they shared bemused looks. And then the engine stopped completely. "Oh joy!" Frank attempted to get it started again, but it wasn't having any of it.

"I'll go and take a look," Joe said, and made his way sternwards.

"Watch out for snakes!" Frank said, unhelpfully.

"You're goin' to get miles out of that aren't you?" Joe asked as he unhitched the engine again and tipped it forward.

"It's been good value so far. Can you see what the problem is?"

"Not yet." Joe unscrewed and dismantled the most obvious problematic parts and wiped them with his shirt before putting them back. "Try her again, Frank," he instructed finally.

Frank turned the engine over, but it was still the same. "The engine's not waterlogged is it?"

"Doesn't appear to be."

"Dammit! I'm comin' over." So Frank made his way back to take a look. He needed only to take a cursory glance. "Ah, I've found the problem—"

"Is it fixable?"

"Yep, and it's the easiest fix you can imagine – or it would be if we weren't drifting out here. She's run out of gas."

"What?!" Joe gasped and looked to find that his brother wasn't pulling his leg. "But the gauge is indicating that the engine's half full!" he leaned over the front seat and tapped the dial. As soon as he did that, the needle moved to zero. "Brilliant – a faulty reading. We're stranded. Now what are we goin' to do?"

Frank stood up and started removing his sweater. "The only thing we can do, I'm goin' to go and get the spare fuel from the boathouse and bring it back. You're goin' to stay with the boat and make sure she doesn't drift too far."

"Man! Are you crazy?"

"A little."

"You can't go swimming in that, what about your leg?"

"What about it? I've been swimming every other day for weeks, I could give a sea lion a run for its money." Frank sat and pulled his boots and socks off. "Stay here and don't do anything stupid."

And Joe watched with his mouth open as his brother, without another word, stepped up onto the bench seat, and shallow-dived straight off the side and into the water, so smoothly that he barely caused a ripple on the surface. And, if Joe's mouth could have opened any wider it would have, because Frank suddenly rose up free of the water and turned around to face him sheepishly. He was standing in barely three feet of water and he looked like he was freezing - neither of them had taken into account how frigid the water was at that time of the year.

"Say nothing!" Frank said through chattering teeth, his hair plastered down against his scalp and his transparent, white t-shirt soaked and clinging to his torso, jeans heavy with water.

Joe burst out into loud, uncontrollable guffaws. Hooting so helplessly that his stomach muscles started to cramp up, to the extent that his laughs were being interposed by uncontrollable groans of pain, but he couldn't stop.

Wordlessly muttering, Frank waded around to the front of the boat to grasp onto the line and start manually towing Joe and the boat in towards the boathouse.

*****

Con Riley was checking the stolen Ford Fairlane's paperwork again. "Good, the Chief has provided the owner's contact details. I'll give him a call and find out what this car might have that the others don't, or else I could end up with twenty of the things – as nice as they are, my garage will only hold two cars!"

After a conversation with the owner (who was absolutely thrilled that the Agency was on the case and that his car wasn't going to be forgotten about), Con was able to glean the information that this particular car had a modern CD player in it, but that it was covered by a false front plate to make it look like the original. "That'll make it a cinch to identify!"

By 6.30 pm, Nancy had about reached saturation point with uploading Con's requests. She'd set up an email address so that if someone decided to offer him the collectable Ford, they would have a way of contacting him without the crooks knowing whom they were dealing with.

Now it was a waiting game, for the both of them.

"Drew, I don't think we can do any more," Con decided and stood up to stretch. "Let's call it a day."

"I agree. Vanessa is waiting at the houseboat for me, we decided to go out and eat tonight. Why should the boys have all the fun?" She began turning off Fenton's computer.

"I like the way you think!" Con said lifting her coat down for her to slip her arms in.

"Thank you," Nancy said and went to retrieve her bag from under the desk. As she arose, a phone began to ring from within and she started in surprised. "That's the hot phone." She was referring to the prepaid cell that Frank had bought for her when they'd teamed up to outwit the Pandora Posse.

Nancy excitedly retracted it from her purse. "I gave the dealerships this number, rather that the offices or my own," she explained quickly and hit the green button. "Hello…yes, this is Lucy speaking…Yes, I am looking for a Chevrolet Corvette convertible, your friend wasn't mistaken…really? Oh, it sounds perfect – what color is it?…racing green…" her voice dipped slightly in disappointment. "…What about the inside?…" she continued, unperturbed. "…Black leather seats? And the carpet, it's that usual dark grey color I suppose?…Black as well huh?" she laughed. "…You know what us girls are like when it comes to colors…can I come down and see it, tomorrow if possible?…Great, let me get something to write on and I'll jot down the address."

Con had already snatched a pad and pen from off the desk and was shoving it in front of her.

She grabbed the pen and started scribbling. "Okay, got it. Tomorrow it is at ten. See you then." Nancy thoughtfully turned off phone. "That was interesting. It didn't sound like Frank's car at first as the bodywork is green, but the carpet being black makes it worth checking out."

Con was nodding in agreement. "It's certainly worth having a look as they could have already given it a re-spray. I'm glad to be comin' with you, though" he decided, holding open the door and exiting afterwards and locking up. "I wouldn't want you meeting up with a stranger on your own."

Nancy started down the stairs. "It's never a problem, Con, it's part of the job."

Con dropped a hand on her shoulder, stopping her from descending any further and resulting in her turning slightly to look back. She found him gravely staring down at her. "If anything was to happen to you on my watch, I fear Frank's kung-fu kicking feet would come into sharp contact with a sensitive and soft part of my body, and I don't rate my chances of beating him in an unarmed fight, even with him having an injured knee.

"Frank doesn't even know I'm helping you."

"C'mon, Drew, cut me some slack. I'm an old fashioned kinda guy and a gentleman at heart, and you're, well, a girl who's young enough to be my daughter. You can see my dilemma, can't you, kiddo? It's an age thing – humour me!"

She eyed him silently, her face emotionless.

"Don't give me a hard time with this—"

"I see your point, I won't do anything alone," she finally capitulated. "But you need to realise something – sometimes being a female in our line of business has its advantages." She tipped her head on one side. "You'll learn!"