Harbinger: Ania Trilogy, #0

By Frank Zafiro and Jim J. Wilsky

The Prequel to the Ania Series!

Set on the sunny Gulf Coast of Florida, Harbinger centers around two lifelong friends and fishing charter boat partners, Boyd Tomlin and Hicks Ledoux. Boyd is the serious one who always makes sure things get done, and Hicks is the carefree one who always makes sure everyone has a good time.

But times aren't so good. They are struggling to get charters, and bills are coming due. In desperate need of money, they consider smuggling drugs to make ends meet. By chance or fate, they meet two beautiful sisters who will change everything—a young Ania and her kid sister Karolyn. Hicks is immediately attached to the brash, confident Ania while Boyd gravitates toward Karolyn.

As romance blossoms, Boyd and Hicks quickly find themselves embroiled in the world of illegal drug trade, romance, danger and violence lurking around every corner.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Code 4 Press
• Release date: Nov 22, 2023
• ISBN: 9798224373604

Frank Zafiro

Frank Zafiro was a police officer from 1993 to 2013. He is the author of more than two dozen crime novels. In addition to writing, Frank is an avid hockey fan and a tortured guitarist. He lives in Redmond, Oregon.  

Book preview

ONE

Boyd

The sky is a clear, dark cobalt blue as the daylight fades. The sun just went down, but its soft golden glow lingers on the boats and calm water of Gulf Pointe Marina. Going to be a half moon tonight, and I can see its outline up there already. I work my stiff neck around a little and look down at the deck below me. Everything is done.

Hicks and I have already scrubbed and washed the boat down. The bait wells are clean, tackle and gear stowed, rods have new lines and are ready in their holders. Even our little galley is squared away.

Dusk is my favorite time of day and even more so on this Friday evening. Earlier, we had only our second charter of the entire week. A pain-in-the-ass father and his two whiny, spoiled sons out on their first ever deep-sea fishing trip. Probably their first fishing trip of any kind, period.

Bottom line, though, Hicks put them on fish all day, as he always seems to do. Today it was mostly Spanish mackerel and bonitos, but the youngest boy also hooked a good-size kingfish. We had to help him so he wouldn’t lose it, and he whined about that, too. They caught more than enough to get their fair share of excitement.

The lunch we served them, on the other hand, was a little disappointing according to the discerning tastes of the oldest son, who was probably twelve or so. All in all, though, I suppose they were satisfied and had a good time. As satisfied as a snake lawyer from New York City and his two brats are going to get, anyway.

I shift in the captain’s chair on the bridge of our boat, the Harbinger, and it squeaks a little protest. I look at the few wispy clouds in the west that are now only a burnt orange and try to enjoy the beauty. Sipping on another ice-cold Dos Equis that was going down good, I set the bottle back in the holder and resist finishing it just yet.

The big ice chest is down on the deck, which isn’t very convenient when you’re doing some serious beer drinking. It doesn’t matter, since this is my spot. I like sitting up here and looking around. Watching the weather, whatever it may be. Looking at the lights of Fort Meyers, the causeway over to Sanibel Island. I watch the people on the docks and on their boats. I can think better in the big chair.

As the light continues to fade, the pole and berth lights of the Marina are blinking on one by one. The rows of boats are gradually lit up. Some of these boats are just trophies. Look at me boats, as we like to call them. They get used maybe three or four times a year by folks who don’t even live here. Just toys for people with money to burn. People who are really just grown children who get bored quickly. Other pleasure boats here, though, are at least out on the water almost every weekend. Then there’s boats like ours. Working boats.

Many are sitting quiet, still, and dark. There’s a number that still have crew guys washing them down, cleaning up and doing prep work for tomorrow’s business. Something Hicks and I don’t have. We’ve got a six-hour charter booked for Wednesday of next week but nothing in between. And nothing after that. No email inquiries to answer, or phone messages to follow-up on. Zero.

And right on cue, my phone laying on the padded console next to me vibrates and the screen lights up. I finish my beer while standing to twist and stretch my back out a little. Definitely not answering, but I pick it up to look at the number displayed and recognize it immediately. Just not in the mood to talk to anybody right now, let alone my dad.

He’ll be wanting to talk about the customer we had today, whether we caught fish, and whether the boat is ready to go for the next run. Was the customer happy and will he be back someday. Now, Hicks would have answered it with a smile on his face, and he would have obliged my dad. He would have talked about the day. He’d play the game, say the right things, but he would have glazed over the real issues.

Not me.

I grab my empty bottle and head down the metal rungs that I’ve gone down and up more times than I can count. Down on deck, I get another beer, open it, and take a slug. I check the rods in their holders, open the clean bait wells, and check the tie downs…as if I’m going to find something out of order. Then I pace around the deck and talk to myself a little more.

Again, the phone hums and vibrates in my pocket. Dad wants to talk, and I feel guilty about that, but the conversation that needs to be had never happens. What Dad won’t want to talk about is how we need to advertise more, how the Harbinger needs a full refitting right down to the cracked vinyl seat I was sitting on up there. The boat basically needs new everything.

Back in the day, our business, Fish-On Charters, was one of the best in the Fort Meyers area. My father, Ben Tomlin, and Dan Ledoux, Hicks’ dad, had a winner. They were downright prophets when they named the boat Harbinger. Good things did come. The calendar was full. Hell, potential customers sometimes needed to be turned down and referred to one of the other charter boys out here. They made good money around these waters, and even better legends.

That was a good fifteen, twenty years ago, though. Competition kept coming, not only in numbers of boats but in what they had to offer: the amenities, equipment, and such. They caught up to our dads and then ran by them like they were standing still.

The phone stops and I try to hang up in my mind too. Maybe not think about this situation for a bit. Best I can do though is just push it back in the corner for now, because the problem is not going away. Bottom line, we’re damn near broke and the money won’t get spent to turn this thing around. I can see that coming as clear as any reef.

Heading back up the ladder to the bridge now. I settle back into the cracked vinyl chair again and sip the cold beer. Looking blankly at the dash of instruments and gauges, I remember that today we had a little glitch in the GPS that we’ll have to check out closer tomorrow. It’s always something, always.

I can feel my mood getting darker, and I’m glad to be alone. Having no one else around, even Hicks, is just the way it needs to be sometimes.

Hicks is pretty much the only guy in this world I want to be around, and we are almost always together, always have been. But earlier, when he headed over to Sanibel to hit a few of our haunts, I passed. Just one of those nights where I need to completely check out, I guess.

Three boat slips down, the big twin inboards of the Sea Witch cough and then rumble to life. Earl Early Loomis is the owner and captain. He’s been running his charter business for over twenty years. An old friend of our fathers, as well as Hicks and me.

Early just bought that boat less than a year ago, a new Cabo that had been hardly used by the previous owner. The hours on it were so low that he must have paid top dollar. Not saying it isn’t worth it, but damn.

I can see him up on his bridge, but the light is fading fast now. As if he knew I was thinking about him, he does a half turn and waves, then salutes me. I salute him back. It’s a little routine we have, and it at least brings a half smile to my face.

Early isn’t frugal and money doesn’t wear a hole in his pocket, that’s for sure, but I think that’s also what has made him successful. Got to spend money to make it and all of that. His charter business is good, always has been through the years. Steady business, his boat is out on the water more than it’s sitting here.

I take another pull on my beer and sigh. It’s one of those still nights where there isn’t a whisper of wind and the temperature is just right. I lean back and close my eyes for a second, but the constant deep gurgle of the Sea Witch’s engines eventually brings my head back up.

I mean hey, there is no denying that I love boats and love being on the water. Besides the military, the Corps, it’s all I’ve ever really known. On the other hand, it’s also a fact that I’m getting burned out on this business struggle and the burnout is growing.

My eyes float back to the right, over to the familiar noise of those idling boat engines. For some guys, guys like Early over there, that boat or the next one is literally his entire life. It’s his house. It’s everything to him. The fishing business is his past, present, and future.

He’s never been married, has no kids or even relatives. I think he’s originally from Arkansas or some damn where, but he sure as hell ain’t never leaving here. He’d rather be dead and no doubt would be, within a year, if he didn’t have his charter business.

The Sea Witch’s running and deck lights come on now. Early throttles it up a little, then down again. He’s getting ready to head out somewhere. Not unusual. He goes out all the time, even later than this sometimes.

He’s told me more than once that on calm nights he likes to cruise around, have a few drinks and think about things. Just last week we were swapping stories about our worst customers. He winked at me and said, I’ll tell you what, Boyd, when I go out at night and just cruise around a bit…well, it’s like good medicine to me. It heals whatever is ailing me.

I guess it’s kinda like me sitting up here on the bridge. Early is a man of the water and I suppose I am, too. I think the difference between him and me is that to him, this is not really work. It’s almost as if he’s on a permanent vacation. To me, it’s all work, it’s a job. A job I’ve grown to hate, I guess.

He wouldn’t dream of being anywhere else, doing anything else. When and if he does dream, I’m sure they’re good and he remembers them. In all of them, Early is probably on the water, on that boat, and he’s catching that once-in-a-lifetime blue marlin. Or some clueless customer has lucked into hooking a huge grouper, or some damn thing.

When I dream, and that’s pretty much every night, they don’t have anything to do with that. They are bad much more often than good. The only blessing is that they’re hazy and fragmented. I don’t really remember them; I just know it wasn’t good.

I raise my beer to drink and get nothing but a little foam. I stare at the empty bottle and draw the analogy. I’m running on empty as well.

The moving lights of the Sea Witch grab my attention as Early slowly pulls out his slip. Like a white ghost, he glides by our row of docked boats and steers toward the mouth of the marina. From there, he’ll make his way out into the bay. Even beyond that maybe, to open water and a two or three-hour little cruise down the coast. Whatever, who knows.

The only thing I do know is that I need another beer, and I head back down the ladder. Just as I reach the ice chest, I hear Early throttle up to a third out there in the dark water. He’s cleared the no-wake zone now and is free to run.

Gotta admit, I will always love that sound and the carefree feeling it brings with it.

As I go back up to the bridge, my mind just won’t allow me to ease up. I start counting things off that we need to do tomorrow with each rung I climb. I’m all about symbolism and irony, I guess.

TWO

Hicks

"Do you really own a ship?"

She had to shout it to be heard over the musica Cubana in the place. That made her face so close to mine that I’m sure she felt my cheek muscles flex when I smiled. Well, ’course I do, darlin’. Lying about such things is a capital offense down here.

She laughed. Giggled, actually. I put her at twenty-three, but she could just as easily be an up-jumped nineteen-year-old. Either way, she was comfortably legal, certainly fun, and right in that perfect notch that is my wheelhouse—good-looking enough to be pretty, but not enough of a knockout to think the world owed her everything.

We moved to a patio table. The music still spilled out of the open windows, but conversation was possible here.

What kind of wine do you like? I asked her.

She shrugged. White.

I waved at the waiter, a new guy I didn’t recognize. He still made it over quickly enough. That’s what I liked about this place. Great service.

Sir?

I ordered a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc. I’m sure she thought it was something exotic or mysterious. My guess was that she grew up in a world where Chardonnay was just another word for white wine, and no other varietals existed.

Not that I wouldn’t have preferred a good beer instead. Anything but the Mexican piss-water Boyd drank. I mean, I liked Mexican beer, but Dos Equis was never a taste I could acquire. Besides, the girls in places like this one tended to think they were supposed to drink wine if they weren’t having something with an umbrella in it, so I rolled with it.

We talked about her senior year of college that she spent abroad, which further confirmed her age, until the wine came. The waiter and I went through the ritual of the taste and the pour while she looked on. These sorts of social dances were mostly bullshit in terms of substance, but on another level, they mattered a lot, so I mastered all the steps. It wasn’t that hard.

We toasted Florida, vacations, and new friends.

So, are you, like, the captain? she asked over the rim of her glass.

I shook my head. My partner and I are co-captains.

She pursed her lips. A ship can have two captains at the same time?

No.

Then…

Well, technically, I’m the first mate, I admitted. But I’m the majority owner of the boat and the business.

She looked perplexed. Then why aren’t you the captain?

It’s not like the military. Captain is a job, not a rank. I drank some of the wine, letting it roll around in my mouth. True, beer was better, but there was a certain appeal to a good wine. The taste buds really stand up and pay attention. I swallowed, then let some air in to savor the finish.

So the captain of your ship works for you?

It’s a boat, I corrected gently. "The Harbinger."

Ship, boat, tuh-may-toh, toe-maw-toe.

I smiled easily. Funny how in this world some things are incredibly important to some of us and don’t matter even the tiniest bit to others. Makes you wonder if there’s some objective truth about it out there in the universe or if the whole goddamn thing is just perspective.

"Harbinger, she repeated. Did you pick the name?"

Nope. My dad did, though.

What’s it mean?

So much for college abroad, I thought. It’s a sign. Or an indication. As in, things to come.

Ohhhh, she said, nodding. Like a gypsy lady.

I laughed. I suppose. I imagine there are a lot more boats out there with ‘gypsy’ in the title, anyway.

I still can’t believe you own the boat but you’re not the captain.

The captain pilots the boat, I explained. He handles navigation, checks weather patterns, currents, all the technical stuff.

Sounds boring.

It’s important, but yeah, it’s boring as hell. I widened my smile, giving her my full wattage. I may be Florida born and raised, but one thing I made sure to pick up on the rare visits my dad took me on to Louisiana was a trace of that soft Cajun drawl. I’d much rather enjoy the company of my guests and put them on the fish so they can go home happy.

You send a lot of people home happy, do you?

Without fail.

I’ll bet.

You’d win.

She finished her wine and I poured us both another glass. A light dance number floated out the windows and I asked her to dance.

Here? She glanced around the patio area. No one else was dancing.

Right here, I said. These people won’t mind a bit.

The idea had a hint of the forbidden to it for her, I knew. I wished the thought of violating minor social conventions still had any sort of thrill for me, but those days were long past.

We stood and found the rhythm of the music, standing close but not linking hands just yet. She avoided my gaze at first, but then seemed self-conscious about the others around us and so she focused her eyes on me. The locked stare grew slowly in intensity, building tension as the song progressed. By the end of the song, I had slid my hand around the small of her back, and our chests brushed lightly together. I soaked in the heat that radiated off her body and the heady scent of her perfume.

When the song ended, we sat down to some scattered clapping. She tried to seem embarrassed, but I could see she was more exhilarated than self-conscious. Most of them were.

The last of the wine gave us both about half a glass. I held the empty bottle above her glass, letting the last few drops dribble out. Time for another, I said, my tone somewhere between a statement and a question. I always shot for casual but suggestive with that tone. Safe, but with the promise of a little danger, if you wanted it.

She did. How far’s the beach from here? she asked.

Close, I said. Down here, the beach is never far, no matter where you are.

I want to walk on the beach. I want to feel the sand under my feet.

I waved at the waiter and made a check signing gesture. He brought the bill a few moments later and I gave him my credit card.

She sipped the remainder of her wine, making lots of eye contact and smiling. How do you stand living here? I mean, all this paradise?

It’s a rough life, I joked. But I manage.

I just want to live here forever. It’s so gorgeous.

You fit right in.

Such a charmer.

I shrugged. There’s nothing charming about telling someone the truth, is there?