He looked at her and rubbed his caterpillar stubble. “You that gal threw T-Bub Thibodeaux out on his ass.”

“I guess I’m famous. Start the engine.” Just like that, she said it, as if it were an easy thing to say.

“That was a good boy.”

She ignored the past tense of the statement. “Good for what?”

He picked up a gas line from a six-gallon tank and plugged it into the engine, squeezing a rubber bulb built into the hose. Pulling out the choke, he motioned with a mocking bow to Colette to give the starting cord a pull, grinning around his cigarette as though she wasn’t strong enough. She saw that she was dealing with someone who had never sold a woman anything. She wanted to get him off balance.

Colette put her back and shoulder into the pull, and the engine stuttered alive at once. She listened to it for a minute, shifted it into forward and reverse, watched it throw water, and then cut it off. The little shed filled with choking blue smoke, and she walked outside. “You guarantee it?”

“You know I do.”

“How much?”

“Five hundred.”

She spun around. “That’s too much. It may be in good shape, but that engine’s twenty years old at least.”

“That’s what it’s worth,” Shapley said, reaching for another cigarette, eyeing her carefully.

“Does it have transistorized ignition?” Paul had told her to ask this.

“Uh, no. It’s got points.”

“That’s a pain in the ass to fix when you break down out on the water.”

He looked back at the shed. “I guess I could take a little off.”

“The paint’s all faded and the mixture knob is broken off.”

“How much you got to spend?”

“I’ve got cash.”

“You got four fifty?”

“Hey,” she reached out and thumped Shapley on the shoulder with her middle finger. “It’s not worth four fifty. Lodrigue will let me have one for three hundred in that size.”

Nelson Shapley laughed nervously. “But it won’t last you but a year.”

“Maybe that’s all I need out of it,” she said, backing up two steps toward the street, putting her hands in her back pockets.

Shapley’s eyes disappeared for a moment in cigarette smoke. “That’s a real desirable engine, that twenty.”

“Aw, bullshit. It’s not big enough for a commercial fisherman.”

“How much money you got?” He took a long drag, eyeing her jeans.

“Now if I told you that, I’d be plenty stupid.” She turned from him and cocked her hips but did not walk away.

Shapley ran his dark fingers through his graying hair. “You know, everybody’s got to make money. I’ve got to eat.”

Something in his voice made her smile and she turned around. “I’ll give you three fifty for your old Johnson. You ought to be able to eat on that for a while.”