"Or halibut," says Lockjaw encouragingly. "You in on the three-day halibut opener in a few weeks, Blaine?" Again Blaine nods. "Yeah Blaine," counsels Mad Jack, "cheer up, that halibut opener alone should set you back on your feet. Just ask 'Halibut Johnson' here, isn't that right, Hallie?" "You got it, Cap," answers Hallie leaning back against the rail of the boat. "Remember that big one I yanked in, Cap, the biggest damned fish we ever landed, I'm not kidding, Blaine, that mother stretched the width of the boat. We had it laid over the top to the cooler there," he points at the large square platform that takes up most of the area of the open deck space to waist level. It forms the cover hatch to the big cold-storage box below deck. "That baby stretched over the top of the cooler with its head touching the rail on that side and its damned tail hanging over the box to the rail on this side here. Made us a little money, I should say." "That's right," Mad Jack takes up, "that was a mighty fine trip. Three different fish houses were dickering with us over the radio on the way in to Kodiak. That manager that company, what was it called, Fish Guts Limited or something, anyway he took us all out to dinner and left the charge card open at the bar. Boy, that was

a mistake! We started buying rounds for everybody at the bar. We racked him up a $900 bill that night. We settled on a price. The boys here each made $8,000 a piece more because we wined and dined with the ante.

The skiff comes scooting back up to the boat with its two passengers and all eyes measure their arrival. A thick smooth leg kicks up over the rail, two white plump hands grab the same, and Molly heaves up onto the boat. She is a sturdy young woman with nice features, a wide horsey mouth, and big boobs. She is not bad looking at all, but the impression is elbowed to second place by her loud, direct, and brassy manner. She starts complaining after only the third step on her way to the carton of beer.

"Man," she laments in her wide-mouthed drawn-out way of talking, "those creeps wouldn't even drop me off here on the way to the village. The fucking first mate said, "what do you think I am, your taxi service?' and he kept going to the village. Do you know what they did to me, Mad Jack? Tom fired me over nothing. I didn't even do anything.," she takes a large pull on her beer. "This is the fifth time I didn't do anything. And every time I get a bunch of shit," she tosses back her white-blonde nearly shoulder length hair and barges on, "he didn't even give me a chance to explain, he just said they couldn't use me anymore--and I worked my ass off for them!"