“Hey, bébé,” Vincent called, “we got word what you up to an’ we been waiting on the bank for you to come down. We coming along.” He pointed downriver with a bent cigarette.

“Can you keep up?” she asked.

Vincent bowed his back and pulled in his pointy chin. “Mais, we got two Black Max’s on the back of this thing and can cover more water than a freakin F-14.” Emile turned with the Larousses toward dead water against the bank. They were all stopped not very far above Paul’s house. Etienne’s father came out of the cabin and looked down at the big speed hull.

“You get that thing out in big waves, it’ll stick like a dart in a big roller and sink.”

“Aw, no, man.” Victor seemed insulted. “You talk like this thing’s one of them little boats they serve a banana split in.” He shook his head. “This here’s one of them Bostom Whaling boats. You can cut it up with a chain saw and walk home on the sawdust, yeah.”

“Bullshit.”

“Oh yah,” Vincent said, idling down his engines. “What about that torpedo boat you running there? It got so many dents in it, it look like my tante Lizette’s thighs. Excuse me, Colette.”

“You’re excused.”

“Hot damn, you good-lookin’,” Victor said.

“Like your teeth,” she told him.

Victor tilted his head back and smiled broadly at the sun.

“Hey,” Emile called. “We going straight out and turning west along the marsh. You could go east and search the south side of the big island. It’s all shoals there and you draw less water than me.”

“Awright,” the twins said in one voice. Vincent looked downriver and stuffed his T-shirt into his dungarees. “It’ll be high tide in two hours, so we can cover that pretty much.”

Emile looked over at the twin Mercurys as they trembled and jerked. “Them engine pretty fast?” Colette tried to say something, but it was too late. The outboards dug into the river like steam shovels, pushing the Unsinkabelle’s bow up to forty-five degrees. By the time the boat planed off, the Larousses were half a mile away, the tips of the propellers dusting the water.

Emile shook his head. “Damn, they already there.”