Fishermen's Court

by Andrew Wolfendon

  I can hold on like this indefinitely, I think, if the stench doesn’t kill me. Or can I? It suddenly becomes glaringly obvious to me: the water is getting deeper. Listening carefully, I pick up a sound I didn’t notice before. The whooshing of water through a hose or pipe. Not a garden hose, either, but a big fat inch-and-a-halfer, by its sound.

  The chamber is being pumped full of water. Those twisted fucks.

  The thought sends me into physical panic. I start thrashing my legs and making terrible sounds with my throat.

  Stop! Calm down. I need to get up the stairs, that’s all. Up. That’s doable. Up the stairs.

  Of course, even if I manage to do that, and then somehow, miraculously, open the hatch—with no hands, mind you; ha—my buddies are still waiting for me topside.

  But if I stay down here I’m going to drown. So up the steps it is.

  One minute at a time, Finn. Just get through the next minute.

  Shinnying my hands sideways along the bottom bar of the step structure behind me, I am able to inch my way around to the front of the stairs. My ass is now up against the bottom step. After much contortion and pistoning of feet, I somehow push my butt up onto that first step. I rest and breathe through the wet gag, listening to the water rush in through the hose/pipe.

  Through sheer willpower, I push my ass up two more steps. My head bumps up against the hatch with a loud thud.

  Fuck! I freeze, waiting to see if the sound has aroused any attention from above.

  No footsteps approach.

  The water is now covering my feet at all times, I notice—whichever way the boat is leaning. This chamber is filling up fast. Come on, come on, Finn, do something.

  I push my head up against the hatch and am surprised to find it opens. Is gravity the only force holding it closed? I quietly lower the heavy hatch back down into its frame and wait to see if my topside buddies have noticed the sound or motion. No reaction.

  I push the hatch open with my head again, this time by a foot or so. I hungrily pull in a lungful of cooler air through my ick-soaked gag. I wait for my captors’ feet to come running. They don’t.

  I push my ass up onto the next highest step, holding the hatch open, awkwardly, with my head. One more stair and I should be able to roll over onto the deck and be free of the hold completely. It’s going to hurt like the bejaysus because the heavy hatch cover is leaning all its weight on me.

  And my kidnappers are probably standing around the hatch in a circle, grinning at each other, waiting for me to make my move. But I’ve got to do it. No choice.

  In a fast tumbling maneuver—which hurts as anticipated—I roll free of the hatch and onto the deck. The hatch slams loudly shut.

  Again I hold my breath in dread. Again, no feet come running.

  I realize that somehow, in rolling out of the hatch, my blindfold came free. It ripped right off my head. Yes, there it is, stuck to a splinter on the side of the hatch. I can see!

  I look around. The deck is unoccupied. I pull in a few grateful breaths as I lie on my side, relishing the partial escape I’ve just pulled off. The relative dryness of the deck prevents me from sliding as the boat rocks in the waves.

  From what I can see from here, the boat appears to be a mid-sized fishing vessel.

  Next task: figure out a way to get my wrists and legs untied.

  I wriggle my way to a tie-down cleat and use it to pry off the bungee cord that’s around my ankles. I then writhe and twist my legs until my calves can move a bit more freely. Over the next several minutes, I’m able to squirm out of all the leg bungees, using the cleat as an aid.

  Next, I back up against the rusty corner edge of an old motor casing and use it to saw through the rope binding my wrists. It takes a while, but at last my hands are free.

  I stand and stretch my arms. I rip the wet gag off my mouth and fill my lungs with pure, unfiltered ocean air. It tastes more delicious than French champagne.

  Now I’m able to take a walk around the deck, using handholds to steady myself against the pitching of the boat. I see it’s a trawler I’m on. The smaller boat that brought me here has departed, and I seem to be alone on this vessel—which, I note, is anchored at the outer reach of the bay, well beyond the harbor.

  I spot a slop sink with a faucet and rinse my face and hands with the running seawater, then make my way to the wheelhouse. It’s a trashy little room containing the steering wheel, the boat controls, a two-way radio, and the fish-finding radar gadgetry, in addition to a dozen scattered Mary’s Lunch coffee cups, a plastic fryer-oil bucket full of men’s magazines, some coffee cans containing rusty fishing hardware, and several wall plaques bearing gems like, “It’s almost beer-thirty,” “S.S. Boobie Bouncer,” and “I’m a drinker with a fishing problem.”

  The engine and electrical system are key-operated, like a car, but the key isn’t in the ignition; why would it be? I discover I can’t operate the radio without the key.

  Looking around, I spot a small metal basket attached to the wall. A catchall for to-do items, looks like. Moving closer to it, I see a familiar object inside: my confiscated wallet. Underneath it sits a plain white envelope, unsealed. With a sick sense of foreboding, I open the envelope. When I realize what I’m looking at, my feet turn into deep-sea sinkers. I’m weighted to the deck.

  The envelope contains printouts of three newspaper articles about the 1999 accident on Carlisle Road and the follow-up investigation.

  Delusional my ass, Miles.

  Keen to learn whose boat I’m on, I snoop further. I find a compartment in the piloting console that contains the boat’s paperwork. When I see the name of the owner, I tug in a breath. I should not be surprised, but I am. Clifford Treadwell.

  Cliff. Jeannie’s Cliff.

  I drop my ass into the captain’s seat to steady myself against the rocking of the boat—and the rocking of my universe. Hold on, hold on. Does this mean Cliff Treadwell and Edgar Goslin know each other? Those two worlds should not be connected in any way, except in my own mind and experience. And yet here they are, brashly intersecting with one another in reality—the world of Musqasset, a remote island off the coast of Maine, and the world of Edgar Goslin, a low-life creep from Wentworth who was involved in a freak accident eighteen years ago in which I played a role.

  What is the hidden root system connecting them?

  A theory begins to assemble itself in the dark folds of my cerebrum. It is a theory that makes my gut feel poisoned. And yet it would explain not only the link between Cliff and Goslin but also Jeannie’s guilt and discomfort with me.

  The theory soon gels from wild hypothesis into near certainty.

  Here are the facts whose logical connection I cannot ignore: Jeannie believed, for years, that I caused the accident in 1999. Jeannie was having an affair with Cliff when I left the island. Cliff hated me. Jeannie was livid with me at the time. She admits to having done something hurtful to me after I left. She even implies that she blabbed off to someone about the accident.

  Conclusion—and really, you’d have to be a concussed sea cucumber living in a dark cave not to see it: Jeannie told Cliff about me and the accident. Cliff, thrilled to have found a way to make my life miserable, did a little research, just as I did, and learned about Edgar Goslin. The two men, being birds of a dysfunctional feather, hit it off, and Bob’s-your-uncle, a partnership was born. Why they waited so long to take action against me remains unexplained, but one fact seems inescapable: Cliff and Goslin are working together, and their connection occurred through Jeannie.

  The tectonic plates shift again as another fundamental assumption crumbles. From jump street, I have assumed my troubles began in my kitchen in Wentworth and followed me out to Mus
qasset. But what if that assumption was ass backwards? What if, instead of escaping from my problems by coming to Musqasset, I was running toward them? What if, all along, Musqasset has been reaching out its tentacles and pulling me into its tooth-lined maw?

  If so, then, weirdly enough, my father was the one who set it all in motion. After all, it was he who concluded, years ago, that I was guilty of manslaughter. Angie got her ideas about my guilt from him. Angie told Jeannie, then Jeannie told Cliff...

  As I think about the cascading implications, I suddenly feel—bizarre as it sounds—acutely drowsy. Maybe it’s emotional fatigue, maybe it’s reluctance to face my fate, maybe it’s fish-rot fever, or maybe it’s the ceaseless rocking of the boat like a damn cradle, but I drop off to sleep right there in Cliff’s “captain’s” chair.

  . . . . .

  I awaken some time later to an urgent realization. My captors didn’t leave me in the fish hold to die. If that was their intention, they would have done the job more decisively. No, they left me there to torment me, to break me. Which means they will be coming back to finish their business.

  I must prepare for that eventuality. How? Well, for starters I need to do something about the alarming odor clinging to my skin and clothes. I don’t see any spare clothes around, so I grab a canister of Boraxo from the sink, climb down the hull ladder, and jump into the ocean. Holding onto the ladder railing at all times, I peel off my clothes—now dyed a nasty reddish brown—and scrub them with the soap powder. Not an eco-friendly thing to do, but...

  Now that I’m in the water, I weigh the idea of swimming for shore. But the boat is anchored pretty far out, and the seas are still rough. I might be able to make it, but is that my best move? Right now I’ve gained a strategic advantage by escaping from the hold. My captors won’t be expecting that. I’ll have the element of surprise in my favor when they return.

  I climb back on deck, wring out my newly laundered clothes as best I can, and put the wet items back on my body. They’re freezing cold, but I hardly notice. Embarking on a weapons search, I find several fish-skinning and filleting knives. I select one with a six-inch blade that’s all business. I lash it to my shin, near the ankle, with a Velcro strap I find.

  I make mental note of a brutal-looking gaff hook with a long handle hanging on the outer wall of the cabin. Might come in handy at some point. God, I hope not.

  Before I’m able to construct a real plan, I look toward shore and see a small metal boat with an outboard motor laboring over the rolling waves.

  It’s them, coming back.

  Chapter 32

  If there was room in my psyche for fear, I’d be terrified, but there is room only for strategizing. The seeds of a plan start to gestate. It’s one that’s going to require a lot of luck, but I don’t have the time—or, oh yeah, the mental resources—to concoct MacGuyver-level crap.

  Taking a page from my tormentors’ book, I find a spool of heavy-gauge fishing line, cut a length of it with the knife, and shove it into my pocket. Then I return the envelope with the news stories in it to the “to-do” basket, under my wallet, wipe the captain’s seat clean, and straighten up the wheelhouse a bit, so it looks exactly as it did when I entered; i.e., like drunken dogshit.

  Next, I creep across the deck, trying to keep a low profile. I gather up all the bungees I removed from my legs and search for more. Luckily, Cliff is a bungee-and-duct-tape kind of guy, and I find a huge stash of the cords in one of his low cabinets. I gather fifteen or twenty of them and place them all in a bucket on deck for handy access, keeping a couple in my pocket. I quickly wipe up the bloody footprints and puddles I’ve created.

  I gulp in a lungful of fresh air and descend into the foul-smelling hold, leaving the hatch open to allow daylight in. The stench hits me like the flat of a shovel as I get my first clear look at my former prison. As I surmised, it’s a small chamber, maybe seven by ten feet or so, lined with molded plastic. It’s almost half full of murky, brownish water, with dozens of dead pollock floating in it. The flow of water through the hose seems to have stopped. The pump must have been on a timer, or else there’s some kind of float-device shut-off valve.

  Fortunately for my plan, the steps have a metal handrail on either side. I tie the length of fishing line tightly across two support posts for the handrails, at shin height.

  I climb back upstairs, shut the hatch after me, and duck under a tarp covering a piece of deck equipment. I slip the knife out of its Velcro leg-strap and wait.

  . . . . .

  I hear the engine of the small craft shut off and the men clamber up the hull ladder and onto the trawler’s deck. From my low vantage point, I can see their feet moving about but not their full bodies. They’re all wearing rubber boots.

  There are three guys, as I more-or-less expected. Three is my lucky number. One of them says, “I’ll check on Fuckface,” and throws open the hatch to the hold. I mentally cross my fingers as he starts down the steps. Just as I hoped, I hear a muffled “Aaaagh!” as he trips over the fishing line I tied there and plunges into the bloody fish-water with a splash.

  “What happened?” shouts one of the guys on deck.

  “I fuckin’ fell, that’s what!” a muted voice from below shouts back. “Aww, Jesus! FUCK! Hey, where the hell is he?”

  “Huh?” yells one of the deck guys, and then, in act of stupidity worthy of Yosemite Sam’s dumber brother, he scampers down the steps to check out what happened to his buddy and me. Then, blammo, just as the first guy is yelling, “Hey, watch out for the—,” guy number two falls. With a splash. Amazing. A twofer. Now there’s only one bozo left on deck. As I peer out from under the tarp, I see he’s a tallish dude. He is hovering near the hatch, looking down.

  I note he’s wearing a slicker. The color? Davy’s grey.

  This is my chance. I’ve always wondered: if I needed to attack someone in cold violence to save my own skin or someone else’s, would I be able to do it? I’m about to find out.

  I spring from beneath the tarp and charge across the deck, keeping my footfalls silent. Just as Davy Grey becomes aware of movement behind him, I jam on the brakes and grab him by the neck using the same chokehold that was used on me not long ago.

  “Don’t fuckin’ move,” I growl, placing the point of the knife against his bearded cheek. “And don’t make a sound.” I take a couple of sideways steps, dragging him with me, until I can reach the open hatch with my foot. In a swift move, I flip the hatch closed, then drag the guy on top of the hatch cover with me, trapping the other two guys below. Luckily I’ve got my sea legs by now, because the boat is still rocking and rolling to a lively backbeat.

  Okay. As of this moment, I have control over all three of these assholes. Aren’t I awesome? Right. Well, I won’t be able to maintain status quo for long. Second law of thermodynamics and all. I need a plan.

  “Stand right there or I will stab you,” I instruct the bearded guy. He nods and I release him just long enough for me to dash over to a coiled chain I scoped out earlier. Holding the knife in my teeth, I quickly drag the heavy coil onto the hatch. That should hold the men below, temporarily.

  Wielding the knife in my hand again, I whip my attention back to Davy Grey. It’s only now I get a look at his face; his recently grown beard was throwing me off from behind. It has more white in it than I’d have expected, but still the man is irritatingly handsome.

  “Hello there, Cliff,” I say, “Long time no see.”

  “Not long enough,” he replies, flashing me a grin that somehow comes off as both shit-eating and menacing.

  “You and I are going to chill for a while and shoot the breeze,” I tell him. “So I want you to walk over to the deck rail”—I point to my intended spot—“and sit with your back against that
post.”

  “What if I’m not in the fuckin’ mood?” he asks.

  “I WILL CUT YOUR FUCKIN’ FACE OFF!” I shout, lunging at him with the knife, my eyes wide and my teeth bared.

  He drains of color and shoots his hands up in surrender. Sometimes good ol’ crazy is the only way to get a person’s attention. He turns and marches docilely to the rail. I can hear his buddies yelling from the hold and thumping against the hatch. The weight of the chain coil is holding them below for the moment, but...

  Cliff sits on the deck, facing me, as instructed. I dash over to the bucket where I placed the bungees and grab a handful of them. I order Cliff to join his hands behind the post; he complies. I put the knife in my teeth again, and he permits me to reach through the rail and bind his hands together. Next, I bungee his feet and legs together, then wrap a couple of the bigger cords around his torso and the rail post, securing them snugly.

  Now: what to do about his buddies? I could pile more weight on the hatch cover and keep them trapped below deck, but I feel an urge to confront them all together, to get to the bottom of this thing once and for all. I crab-scuttle over to the hatch, drag the chain coil off it, then scuttle back to Cliff. Holding the knife against his neck, I wait till one of his buddies throws the hatch open and starts to emerge. He’s a wiry guy with zero body fat who looks as if he’s spent a lifetime running around on fishing boats. He’s painted head-to-toe with bloody water.

  “I’m going to kill your friend,” I say calmly but loudly while Wiry Guy is still on the steps. “Unless you do exactly what I tell you. ...Step out of the hatch.”

  He looks at us both, wide-eyed and frozen, but Cliff snaps, “Do what he says,” and Wiry Guy complies.

  I order the third guy out of the hold using the same technique. He’s a gym-jacked dude who is probably Chokehold—and might very well be Goslin himself. Holding the knife-point against Cliff’s neck, I order Wiry Guy to grab some bungees and tie Gym Bob to the railing post beside Cliff’s. Spurred on by Cliff’s enthusiastic encouragement, both men cooperate. Next I tie Wiry Guy, the same way I did Cliff, to the post after that.