The Lawyer's Lawyer

PART TWO





Eight Years Later

October 2001

Bass Creek, Florida





Chapter Fourteen



Jack, will you get me a beer while you’re down there?” Henry Wilson asked his friend Jack Tobin as he sat in one of the captain’s chairs at the stern of the thirty-two-foot Sea Ray with a fishing pole in his hand. It was a calm, sunny day on Lake Okeechobee. The fish were jumping but they weren’t biting.

Jack was in the galley frying hamburgers for lunch. It was just the two of them, as usual on a Saturday afternoon.

“Sure, Henry. Can I get you anything else, like an extra cushion for your chair or a frosty mug for your beer?”

“Just the bottle will do, Jack, but hurry up, will you?”

“You’d better be careful. You don’t want to mess with the cook,” Jack said as he handed Henry his beer.

“I forgot about that rule. Don’t spit on my burger. By the way, Bobby Flay, when are we eating?”

“Why? Do you have something important to do out here on the lake that I don’t know about?”

The lake was empty. There wasn’t a boat in sight.

Henry took a sip of his beer.

“You never know. It’s kinda like these fish. One of them is going to show up in this boat sooner or later.”

The banter went on like that all day. They were an odd couple, to say the least, and the origin of their friendship was even more unusual. Henry had been a prisoner on death row with eight weeks to live when Jack became his lawyer. Eight weeks later he was a free man. Jack’s wife, Pat, was sick at the time, and she eventually died. Henry had helped Jack through those bad times, and they’d been close friends ever since.

Henry lived in Miami and Jack in a small town called Bass Creek that bordered the lake. Henry came up most weekends and they usually went fishing. It was a good-sized boat, but there was barely room for both of them. Henry was a six-foot-five bear of a man and Jack was six-foot-two although he was much thinner.

“You need to put some meat on those bones,” Henry told him when the burgers were cooked and Jack was sitting next to him. “Maybe you need to add fries and onion rings and some ribs to these meals.”

Jack laughed. He had a good appetite but he worked out almost every day and stayed slim. Besides, nobody could eat like Henry.

“The women like me just the way I am, Henry.”

“What women? I haven’t seen you with a woman in ages. Probably ’cause they think you’re too skinny. I don’t know about your white women, but black women don’t like skinny men. Won’t even look at you twice.”

Henry had unknowingly hit on a sore spot. Jack had been feeling a bit lonely lately and thinking that perhaps it was time for him to find a companion to share his life. There would never be anyone to replace his late wife, Pat, but he knew Pat didn’t want him moping around the house either. She wanted him to be happy. He couldn’t see her but he knew that she was the one pushing him out the door.

“I’ve been thinking about moving, Henry.”

“Where the hell did that come from?”

“I don’t know. Don’t get me wrong. I love Bass Creek but it’s dead. And there’s only so much fishing a man can do.”

“I hear you, brother. You’re still a young man and, frankly, there are too many memories here that might keep you from starting fresh. Where were you thinking of going?”

“I don’t know. I’ve just thrown it out there to the universe and I’m going to wait to see what comes at me in the near future.”

“You know I love you, Jack, but you’re weird. What the hell is that—you’re going to wait for the universe to throw something at you? Is that some kind of religion you and Pat cooked up in that little cove of yours?”

Henry had heard many stories about Jack and Pat’s special place, a little cove hidden off the Okalatchee River near where the river intersected with the lake. They claimed that they communed with nature and the spirits there. Henry had never visited it because it had been so special to them.

“You might call it that, Henry. Just look around. Out here where man has not been, it’s perfect. Didn’t the Indians look to nature as their god?”

“You’re a good lawyer, Jack, but that’s a bad argument. Look what happened to the Indians. They suffered more degradation at the hands of the white man than my people did. And that reminds me, what am I hanging around with you for?”

They both laughed and took a sip of their beer.

“The Indians did real well when it was just them and nature.”

“Okay, Jack. You’re entitled to think whatever you want. I just hope you don’t wait too long for some bird to come whispering in your ear.”