Pardners

by Roy F. Chandler

  The new priest spoke in American English, and the Alpha Bravo team were pleased that it was clearly his first language.

  "Good afternoon, gentlemen and fellow Americans. I am father Adrian McGavic. I am a Catholic priest, and I serve our local congregation."

  Father McGavic placed a friendly hand on his footless companion's shoulder and added, "Supposing that you have not been introduced, this is a member of my flock, Pedro Alverez." The priest appeared to expect a retort but had to settle for noncommittal nods by both men.

  Father McGavic said, "I am here to translate for Pedro who has little English."

  Byrne spoke for Bravo and himself. His voice was without warmth or particular interest. "We understand, Father, what do you wish to say?"

  McGavic frowned. He was not receiving the friendly acceptance he had hoped for.

  Restoring his smile, the priest said, "I see that I must explain further. I am Pedro Alverez's confessor. I am familiar with what he wishes to say to you, and I believe that it would benefit all of us to hear his words—as best I can translate them."

  Father McGavic waited, his eyes holding on the American who had spoken. The speaker for both sailors was clearly unhurried. He studied Father McGavic, and both seamen examined Pedro Alverez—with more than casual interest.

  Finally, the speaker, whose name McGavic still did not know, nodded and said, "Step aboard Father, and bring Alverez with you."

  Relieved, the priest stepped over the safety rail and with the priest's translation, Pedro Alverez worked his way onto the gunnel and awkwardly levered himself into the cockpit.

  Byrne motioned their visitors to seats across the cockpit from him and Bravo. Then he waited.

  More than a little embarrassed by the chill reception, Father McGavic said, "If you will allow, Pedro will speak and explain, and I will translate his words into English."

  The footless villain gripped his wooden cross and struggled to speak words of which he was obviously ashamed.

  He said, "Many years ago, I did not know God. I was an evil man. I committed crimes too vile to list and too many to remember.

  "I killed the innocent, and I stole anything that I could escape with. I was without conscience and hungered only to gain wealth and importance."

  Alverez sighed, "I failed even on those things. I was a soul lost from God and doomed to everlasting hell when my boat came to this place."

  Alverez's eyes roamed across the Noisy Oyster, as the priest translated his words.

  "At that time, this fine and handsome boat also came to these docks, and I immediately planned on taking it for my own, and"—the murderer choked on his words—"I intended to kill all of those aboard."

  Byrne and Bravo listened intently—already knowing the story, but interested in how the crippled pirate would tell it. Again, they waited silently. The effort would be the pirate's. They would simply see how it all went.

  Alverez said, "I followed this boat to sea and attempted to board it. If I had succeeded, my men and I would have shot those I now speak to, and I would have thrown their bodies to the sharks."

  Alverez's knuckles were white from the grip of his fingers around his wooden cross. Sweat stood on his brow, and his eyes appeared numbed by the effort of describing crimes unforgivable. Byrne and Shepard waited. Father McGavic placed a calming hand on the pirate's shoulder, and Alverez steadied himself.

  Alverez continued. "I attacked this boat, but it accelerated so violently that my men were thrown to our deck. The bow of my craft rose in the air, and one of these men fired huge bullets through its bottom and water began rising almost instantly.

  "We three in the holed motorboat struggled to plug the many holes, and this boat disappeared into the night. We plugged and believed we might make it to shore when I looked up and saw this boat charging directly at my damaged craft. I seized a life vest and leaped clear as this boat smashed my craft into pieces and was gone into the dark."

  The memories were clearly haunting, and Alverez had to again pause to gather himself.

  "Part of my boat remained afloat, and I climbed onto it as best I could, but if I attempted to place all of my weight on it, the wreckage rolled, and I was flung into the sea. I floated on the piece of boat, attempting to hold my legs from the water because neither of my men had surfaced, and I expected that sharks had found them and would soon find me."

  This time, Alverez's sigh was profound. "And they did find me. For at least the first day I held my legs tightly curled. Sharks circled but could not strike.

  "During the dark of night I dozed, and a shark took my left foot as cleanly as would a machete. There seemed no attempt to drag me into the water. The shark simply removed my foot, and I knew then that I would quickly bleed to death, and I would die.

  "Yet, the bleeding stopped. No ship lights were within view, and if a boat had come close I had no means to signal. My end was near, but the sun rose, and I still lived. My thirst was beyond bearing, and the agony of my missing foot was worse than I could have believed. My body had weakened until I could barely grip my fragile raft."

  Alverez paused, but when he continued, his voice was stronger, and his words rang with sincerity.

  "Then, the Lord God came to me. I heard his words in my mind as clearly as you now hear mine, and they will forever live within me.

  "The Lord said, 'You are of the worst. You deserve nothing, but if you live, you will devote your life and your soul in payment for your sins beyond counting. You will forever beg forgiveness for your crimes, and you will serve me and all peoples for the rest of your days.'

  "Then, the voice was gone, but I had heard, and I believed then that I might be allowed to survive. Only moments thereafter, a shark took my other foot that I, in my weakness, had allowed to enter the water.

  "Yet, this time, I knew that I would not die. I knew that any agonies I might endure would be as nothing before what I would suffer if I failed the Lord's demands.

  "So, I lived. How I could live I do not know. I was unconscious when a fishing boat found me, somehow, still balanced on my fragile raft. I was brought again to this place. No doctors came to me, and I lay near death in the house of the fisherman who saved me. I was fed and cared for as best those poor people could manage, and again I survived.

  "Since those times, I have slept poorly because, in sleep, the jaws of giant sharks haunt my dreams, and my stumps seem on fire. I accept the pain and the fears because it is the Lord's wish that I suffer.

  "As the Lord has demanded, I have devoted my puny efforts to serving those around me. I have spoken of my sins in public, but no one has come to arrest me. I believe that the Lord intends for me to live as I am, helping where I can, without relief until my true time of death arrives."

  Alverez fell to his knees and raised his crucifix-clutching hands to his listeners. "I beg your forgiveness with all of my heart and soul. The man who wished you ill has died a thousand times, and no longer lives within this poor body."

  Father McGavic's voice stilled, and no others broke the quiet until Bravo said, "Oh hell," and in embarrassment and frustration he put away the pistol he had kept hidden but trained on the miserable Pedro Alverez.

  Father McGavic's eyes popped, and his surprised voice said, "Oh my!"

  Don Byrne stood so that he could dominate both priest and repentant sinner.

  Byrne said, "I am Doctor Byrne and this is Professor Shepard." Bravo's mouth dropped at the gratuitous title, but Father McGavic's eyes were on the speaker, and Alverez did not understand the words.

  Byrne said, "I will speak for both of us because it will make everything simpler." His voice could have frozen water.

  "We could with little compunction shoot Alverez dead. He was a murderous no good son-of-a-bitch. We recognized him when we arrived, and we have been pondering what to do about him."

  Byrne waved for Father McGavic to translate. His own limited Spanish believed the priest had repeated fairly. Alverez remained kneeling, but his body slumped in on itse
lf.

  Alpha continued in more moderate tones.

  "We can see that you accept this man's extraordinary divine visitation, and you believe he is a genuine penitent. We assume that you base your acceptance on observation of this man's actions over a lengthy period."

  Byrne waited for Father McGavic's translation and confirmation before he continued.

  "Therefore, we, too, accept his reformation and good intentions. We can, and we do forgive his efforts to kill us. We will, however, never forget them.

  "We have no right or responsibility to forgive his other acts, and we do not.

  "I will point out that if there is even a hint of a change of heart on his part, we will, in the blink of an eye, shoot Alverez stone dead."

  While the padre translated his words for the ex-pirate's understanding, Byrne looked at his watch as if judging his time. When the priest finished and Alverez had crossed himself numerous times and had resumed his seat, Byrne ended the conversation.

  Alpha said, "We will leave here in the morning. We do not intend to fish here again, and we hope that we never again lay eyes on Pedro Alverez. Assuming that we will not and that he remains faithful to the Lord's demands, we wish him well."

  Byrne shook hands with the priest, as did the silent Bravo. Neither offered a hand to the footless man.

  The visitors stepped from the boat, and Bravo chose to add his thoughts.

  He said, "Padre, suggest to Alverez that he not return to the dock until we have gone. Doctor Byrne is more forgiving than I am. The fact is, I would still prefer shooting Alverez twice in the guts and watching him float down the river to the sharks waiting just beyond the inlet."

  Father Adrian McGavic visibly paled. He gathered his robe and his companion and hustled from the marina.

  Byrne said, "Bravo, you are the ugliest Ugly American I have ever encountered. You scared a year of life out of that gentle Padre."

  Bravo only grunted, and after a moment, Byrne added, "Of course, you would only get one bullet into Alverez." Bravo looked up in surprise.

  Byrne finished, "The second round would be mine."

  Bravo nodded and closed the discussion. "You want a soft drink, pardner?"

  Byrne said, "Yeah, make mine a Mountain Dew. A Diet, if there is one."

  Chapter 24

  The Caymans

  The money had been covertly accepted, and their banker had assured them that their shares were even now being routed to their investment accounts.

  Comfortably slumped in the Oyster's cockpit, Bravo groused, "I don't feel any richer, Byrne. Once you've got enough to see you through hard times, more doesn't have the same impact."

  Alpha was disdainful. "What was that, Bravo, Freshman Philosophy-101? If more millions don't impress you, just give them to me. I'll put them to good use."

  Shepard was equally cynical. "Yeah, and what'll you do with your money? Probably change it into one ounce gold pieces and bury it deep in your mine where no one will ever use it or even find it."

  Byrne chose to turn serious. "You know, pardner, using our kind of money is a problem. If you try giving it away, some nosy schnook will wonder where it came from and will probably sic the IRS onto you. It's the same with giving big dough to charities, but I've got a plan."

  "Whoa, that implies you are going to give a lot of money away. Is that really what you are going to do, or are you just imagining?"

  "Well, maybe not a lot of money, but enough to make some differences where I want changes or improvements made."

  "So, what are you going to do?"

  "Before we go north, I am going to set up some sort of charitable trust here in the islands. I'll have to do it right now because our only contact for untraceable schemes is about to retire and disappear into Europe.

  "We can't believe that we are the only people he has helped out in nefarious money schemes, and he will want to be free and clear with no questions rising even in the distant future. My guess is that he will have new ID, and he won't be heard from for many decades.

  "My trust will be set up so that it will be impossible to discover where the money came from, and I will dole it out by anonymous directions via a secret password or something."

  "You'll get caught."

  "No, I won't. I'll also make my gifts small enough that no one will investigate. Part of the trick will be to make smaller, more frequent donations rather than one or two giant gifts that draw attention."

  "You'll get caught, and to save yourself you will rat me out, and we will spend the rest of our lives in Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary telling stories about how we found millions but acted just as stupidly as most other criminals do."

  Alpha laughed, "They'll never get me. I'll just hole up for a decade or two in my silver mine, but I'll write you now and then—most probably, you'll be in San Quentin prison in your left coast state of Collapsifornia."

  Bravo ended their entertainment. "I'll just tell Jesus Christus where you are, and he will go in and get you with his two-foot machete."

  Alpha's voice was bitter, "Yeah, good old Christus. We have to start thinking about him."

  Bravo groaned. "Why couldn't he have an ordinary name? I hate thinking about shooting and burying someone with his first name, and his second name isn't a lot better."

  Byrne said, "Steel yourself, pardner. This Jesus is MS-13, and that changes everything. If he hasn't gone back to LA or San Francisco, we will have to deal with him—permanently."

  Bravo said, "If he has helpers with him, you'll have to get a zoning variance and list your place as a cemetery."

  Alpha complained, "You are the guy who always wants to shoot 'em and bury 'em, Shepard."

  Byrne had a useful thought. "Look, at the Jesus Christus name problem from another angle. Just mentally pronounce his first name as they do in sloppy Spanish. Call him "Hayzoo" and it will make plugging him easier."

  Bravo liked it. "Yeah, Hayzoo. That is better." Shepard moved so that the Bimini top sheltered him from the hot Caribbean sun and shifted the conversation.

  "What's next, Alpha? We need a timeline that we can both work from. Christus may be gone, but if he isn't, nailing him will have to be top priority.

  "But Christus isn't all. We've been out of touch for more than two months, and my sheriff and both of your patients will be nervous. Believe it or not, Byrne, I've got a life beyond cleaning up the messes you make, and California needs me."

  Alpha ignored the two-patients jab, but his eyebrows rose in question. "You can go home, Shepard. Hayzoo Christus is looking for me. He thinks you are long dead."

  "We don't know that, Byrne." Shepard was irritated. "The sheriff hasn't kept my secret for this long, and Christus might have read the newspapers where I live. Christus could be lurking around my neighborhood waiting for me to show up."

  "Which means that when we get back to the States, you are going to hide out up at my place in Idaho until you think the coast is clear."

  "No, Byrne, what that means is that we are going up to your place and test the wind. We'll make a lot of calls and ask people what they have seen. In my city, there could be a battalion of Christuses hanging around unnoticed. Up in your wilderness, stray Mexicans will be remembered. If Christus isn't around there, we will have to decide what next to do."

  "Well, I'll call that Santos lawyer. What was her name?" Alpha remembered. "Yeah, April Santos, and see if they got to Christus. He might have gone home, and we won't have a worry."

  They sat and thought about it. The Oyster had been emptied of all supplies, and the batteries had been put on trickle chargers. The boat had been picked up by the marina travel-lift and deposited in special cradles Byrne had designed a decade or more past. Within a day or two, she would have her mast dropped, and a heavy cover would be laced over the boat and her supports.

  The Cayman Islands lay in the paths of too many hurricanes to simply haul a boat ashore and hope for the best. Byrne's cradles were reinforced concrete deeply bedded into the earth. Each three-foot-wi
de cradle was formed exactly to the hull's shape. A thick rubbery material lined each cradle and protected the Oyster's finish. Byrne's arrangement really did cradle the boat, and broad nylon straps tied the Oyster in place. Byrne could believe that his boat could survive any hurricane that blew through.

  Byrne sighed and suggested, "Maybe I should just move south and visit up north. Down here my things get taken care of, the weather is almost perfect. I am an honored alumnus of my medical school, and no one is hunting for my head. Who needs winter, anyway?"

  Bravo's shrug was eloquent. "Not me, pal. That's why I live in California. We've got everything you are mooning over, and it is in our own country. I don't mind taking a break down here, but I'm staying at home where people understand me and . . ."

  "It's true, nobody around here understands you, Bravo. These folks are tolerant of weird people, but I'm getting you out of here before they discover what an eight-ball you really are and drop you beyond the reef wearing twenty feet of log chain."

  Bravo said, "We are leaving all of the guns here, right?"

  "Yep, we don't need them up north, and we don't want the hassle of getting them back through customs."

  Bravo said, "So you get to use the guns that I paid for whenever you come down. What do I get?"

  Alpha had a ready answer, but he delayed it until they had clambered down the ladder attached to one of the boat cradles.

  "When we get back to Idaho, I will open my armory to you—as long as you don't carry my guns out to the coast. The limp-wrist liberals you live among would confiscate them or suffer cardiac arrest if they saw a real American's weaponry."

  They strolled across the marina before Bravo said, "I'm betting that damned Christus is still looking for you. He's probably working in your local car wash or picking onions right next door."

  Byrne's comment was pithy. "I hope you're right, Bravo. If he is, we'll use your plan.

  "We'll shoot and bury him."