Well, I said, which was a very good start considering I had absolutely no idea what I might say next. Happily for me, just as I realized nothing resembling a coherent answer was going to come out of my mouth, Cody’s rod tip jerked savagely. You have a fish! I said, and for the next few minutes it was all he could do to hang on as the line whirred off his reel. The fish made repeated ferocious, slashing zigzags to the right, the left, under the boat, and then straight for the horizon. But slowly, in spite of several long runs away from the boat, Cody worked the fish closer. I coached him to keep the rod tip up, wind in the line, work the fish in to where I could get a hand on the leader and bring it into the boat. Cody watched it flop on the deck, its forked tail still flipping wildly.

A blue runner, I said. That is one wild fish. I bent to release it, but it was bucking too much for me to get a hand on it. A thin stream of blood came from its mouth and onto my clean white deck, which was a bit upsetting. Ick, I said. I think he swallowed the hook. We’ll have to cut it out. I pulled my fillet knife from its black plastic sheath and laid it on the deck. There’s going to be a lot of blood, I warned Cody. I do not like blood, and I did not want it in my boat, not even fish blood. I took the two steps forward to open the dry locker and get an old towel I kept for cleaning up.

Ha, I heard behind me, softly. I turned around.

Cody had taken the knife and stuck it into the fish, watching it struggle away from the blade, and then carefully sticking the point in again. This second time he pushed the blade deep into the fish’s gills, and a gout of blood ran out onto the deck.

Cody, I said.

He looked up at me and, wonder of wonders, he smiled. I like fishing, Dexter, he said.

Dexter 2 – Dearly Devoted Dexter

CHAPTER 10

B Y MONDAY MORNING I STILL HAD NOT GOTTEN IN touch with Deborah. I called repeatedly, and although I became so familiar with the sound of the tone that I could hum it, Deborah did not respond. It was increasingly frustrating; here I was with a possible way out of the stranglehold Doakes had put me in, and I could get no further with it than the telephone. It’s terrible to have to depend on someone else.

But I am persistent and patient, among my many other Boy Scout virtues. I left dozens of messages, all of them cheerful and clever, and that positive attitude must have done the trick, because I finally got an answer.