"Yeah, we worked ourselves to enough bone for a while, time to cut loose and party!" They watch Mad Jack zoom up to the stern of the boat and tie up with a brooding yet relieved look on his face. "Catch any, Cap?" asks Lockjaw. "Yeah, you must have caught the prize fish the way you tore up the water," adds Hallie. "Huh?" Mad Jack looks up distracted. "Fish? No, I didn't get a fish, damn it, I got lost and I ran into, into--boys, you won't believe this--I saw a goddamn bunch of..." "Hey, Mad Jack," calls a man with tight curly hair from the window at the side of the wheel house, "Tom's calling you on the horn. They're done counting the fish and they're gonna cut a check. Our check."
"Oh yeah, Toasty?" Mad Jack answers quickly. "OK, yeah, keep him there, tell him I'm coming, I gotta ask him what they decided about those gray cod cuts. I know we cut them wrong, but I would like some kind of money for them. Hell, they don't even give out cereal box coupons any more, I'm not giving any fish away." Mad Jack climbs up over the rail and strides through the bait shed housed on the rear of the boat past the coils
of rope and hooks stacked halfway to the ceiling. Beer cans lie about the ropes and bait. A bush of barbed wire hair escapes from out under Mad Jack's ball cap. The open green parka frames a big man, 250 pounds or more, with a red T-shirt that covers most of his belly announcing 'the Lucky One' in bold letters. Just inside the galley, four people sit around the kitchenette table or lean against the sink.
"Get a salmon? Get a trout, Cap?" asks Billy Goat. He is a tall skinny man with white blond hair under a railroad cap and a long white blond ribbon of a goatee flapping off of his chin. "Naw, naw wait till I tell you, ya won't believe it," Mad Jack waves striding into the galley. "Wait a minute, I'll be right back." He wades through the little party of his crew and into the wheel house where a bank of electronic gadgets, a large ship's steering wheel, and a battery of windows look out over the bow. "Yeah, Tom, I'm here, just got back, OK," he says grabbing up the microphone. The speaker crackles with a tired voice on the other end. "Yeah, Mad Jack, just wanted to let you know your check is waiting here for you for your fish, OK."
"Yeah, Roger on that, Tom," Mad Jack grins and he looks around at Toasty who is scratching at his light brown fuzzy beard that makes him look like a Kuala Bear. "I know it's only a piece of paper, but it carries a lot of weight, OK.
