Noble Lies

by Charles Benoit

  “The pirates?” the man said, “They won’t find us here.”

  Ngern looked around the space. It was much smaller than the room he had been sleeping in, and it was hot and smelled like a big truck. There was a backpack in the corner and an open can of Coke. “Is this where you live?”

  “No, I have a room,” the man said, pointing up. “A cabin on one of the upper decks. But I had to share it with some other men and I didn’t like them. They did not speak Thai and I think they made fun of me.”

  “Why?” Ngern said.

  “Because of my leg. And the way I talk. But that’s okay. I like to find places to hide, like this. Then I can stay hidden and watch people.”

  Ngern peered between the pipes. It was a good spot—you could see a lot and not be seen, unless someone came looking for you. “What will we do if the pirates find us?” he asked.

  The man shook his head. “They won’t. But if they do, I have these.” It was a gun but not like any gun Ngern had seen before, not at the house they made him stay at, or on TV, or in any of the movies. The bottom part looked right, with the grip and the trigger, but the top part was like a box and had a bright yellow square at the end.

  “Guns like these?” the man said, holding out the gun and patting several more that sat by his side. “They don’t kill people. They just knock them out. Did you see Star Wars? No? Well, they had guns like this. You pull the trigger and it shocks the person you aim at. Zap, zap, zap,” he said, taking out invisible enemies. “I found a whole locker filled with them down in the engine room. You want one?” He held one out to Ngern.

  The boy looked at the gun and shook his head. “No thank you. I want to go to my aunt now.”

  “Not now, later,” the man said, then saw the look in the boy’s eyes. “I promise. I will show you a way I found that will bring you close to the rooms. You can go everywhere on the ship, it’s easy.” He smiled.

  Ngern looked at the stack of guns. “Will you fight the pirates with these?”

  The man’s smile vanished. “If I have to, I will, yes.”

  The boy paused, thinking. He wet his lips, took a deep, shaky breath and said, “I will help you.”

  The way the man looked at him, Ngern thought he had said something wrong. The man’s eyes got watery and his head bobbed, but then he smiled bigger than ever and patted Ngern on the shoulder. “You are a brave boy,” the man said, saying each word slowly so it was clear.

  “Do you have a plan?”

  “Oh yes,” the man said, still smiling. “I think I do.”

  ***

  Mark ran a hand across the back of his head. His hair was dried and matted but the bleeding had stopped. The plastic baggie of ice had melted and the kitchen towel the cook had wrapped it in was dyed red with his blood. He had a pounding headache and the muscles in his neck were knotted stiff, but the nausea that often came with a concussion had faded and his vision had cleared. He was sitting on the floor of the dining hall, back against the wall just like the others. There were ten passengers—Pim and the boy not among them—and fourteen crewmen, one slowly bleeding to death from a gut shot; Mr. Singh sitting nearby, looking pale but determined to live. The tables and chairs were all pushed to the far side of the room and four gunmen, none old enough to drive, sat on a bench, their weapons loose in their hands but their eyes watching for any sudden movement.

  He didn’t remember, but he assumed that some of these men had carried him off the deck and up five flights of stairs to this room. And he assumed that somehow the cook had convinced the guards to get ice and towels for the wounded. A case of bottled water sat in the center of the room, and Mark found an empty bottle at his side that he didn’t remember drinking. The AC was off and the room was stuffy and hot, and other than the groans of the dying man and the mumbled conversation of the guards, it was quiet, just the steady hum of the ship’s engines far below. The pudgy captain and the officer in the baseball cap were missing, probably up on the bridge being forced to run the ship or, if Shawn had brought along his own pilots, dead and tossed overboard, just like Kiao.

  He should have seen it coming, should have lunged at Shawn the second he saw him, or gone at Andy, got the gun, unloaded a clip into both of them. It would have never worked, of course, Andy standing behind him expecting something like that, hoping for something like that, but he thought about it anyway. Shawn pulled the trigger but Mark knew who had really killed the old man.

  The four guards turned their heads to the open doorway and grinned as Robin came in the room. She was wearing a pair of sunglasses that were too big to be hers and a scowl that the guards read as authority. She crossed the room without glancing at them and stood in front of Mark.

  “Come on,” she said, angling her head back at the door. “I want to talk to you.”

  Mark looked up but didn’t move to stand. Instead he ran his hand across his head again, looking for blood on his palm. “I don’t think we have anything to say.”

  She sighed and put her hands on her hips and stared down at him. The oversized frames and dark lenses kept her eyes hidden. “I need to talk to you. I could tell them to bring you and they would, they’ll listen to me, but I don’t want that.”

  “Are you taking me to see Shawn?”

  “Eventually. But first I want to talk to you. Alone.” She paused and when he didn’t say anything, she added, “Please.”

  Back against the wall, Mark eased himself up. On the bench the guards stood too, looking at Robin. “It’s okay,” she said, the tone of her voice and her hand gestures translating the words. Mark kept a hand on the wall in case he lost his balance. He wasn’t as dizzy as he had feared but the nausea returned, and as they walked across the room he stooped to pick up a fresh bottle of water. He glanced at the faces of the others in the room but they all looked away.

  Robin led him down the hallway and out onto the small deck where yesterday he had helped the captain solve his crossword puzzle. The sky was overcast, but the sun was on their side of the ship. He squinted. His headache would come back now. He cracked open the plastic bottle and took a small sip, testing his stomach. The ocean stretched in front of him and he thought he saw a thin line on the horizon that might be land but it was too hazy to tell for sure. They both leaned on the railing and looked out at the water. He took a second, longer drink and waited.

  “It wasn’t supposed to be like this,” Robin said.

  “Yeah, you said that last night,” he reminded her. “Before your brother arrived.”

  She dropped her head and looked down at her hands. She let a breath out in a long sigh. Without looking at him she said, “I met Shawn about two years ago. I had just gotten laid off from some stupid office job and I had all these bills and shit so I was looking for a job, dancing in this club.” She knew she didn’t have to explain what kind of job so she didn’t. “Shawn was there, not working, just hanging out, and we got to talking. He had just gotten out of the county lockup. He didn’t hit on me or anything, we just talked. He’s real good at talking.” She chuckled. “But you know that.”

  Mark took a swig of water and said nothing.

  “So anyway, we started going out. It was great. He’s so much fun, he really is. Was. And he was so good looking.”

  “I guess that makes up for a lot.”

  “It did then. He was into small-time stuff, selling weed, boosting cars, some breaking and entering. He was really good at it, too. He made it seem so easy. He wanted me to quit the bar but it was sort of fun and the tips were great. I mean it wasn’t like you see in the movies, but nothing is I guess.” She reached over and took the water bottle out of his hand and took a sip. “We had a place together, an apartment. It was nice. We turned one of the bedrooms into a media room with this big-screen TV and everything. We used to watch all these heist movies, pretend it was us in the movie, getting away with it. Yo
u know that line you said to me, the one Shawn told you to say?”

  “Afghanistan bananastand.”

  “That was from a movie. It was like our special codeword. Instead of saying ‘I love you’ we’d say Afghanistan bananastand.” She paused. “I know, it’s stupid.”

  “We’ve all been there,” Mark said, leaving off the part about it being back in high school.

  Robin finished off the water. “Then one day he says he’s going to Thailand, says that I should wait behind and he’ll send for me. He emailed a couple of times the first weeks, sent a few postcards. Then…” She trailed off, took a deep breath and started again. “The dancers at the bar said he’s dumping you girl, and I said no, Shawn and I, we’ve got something special, and they said we’ll see. Then that Christmas I get an email. Just a hello, how you doing, but you know how it is. I read everything into it. For the first time in months I felt great. See? He didn’t run off, he didn’t dump me; I’m not just some dumb blonde he played like an idiot. Next morning I turned on the TV. I didn’t even know what a tsunami was.”

  They stood there, looking out at the water, not another ship in sight. He slid his forearm along the rail an inch or two until it bumped up against her arm. She didn’t pull away and after a minute she cleared her throat. “I’m sorry I lied to you.”

  “Yeah. Me too.”

  “I had to. If I told you the truth, if I had told you that I was a stripper looking to track down an ex-con boyfriend who had run off, would you have come?”

  He wanted to tell her that her story had little to do with his decision, but that’s not what she wanted to hear. “Probably not.”

  “The whole time I was here I kept telling myself that it would all work out, that it would be just like before, all I had to do was find him.” She shook her head. “Well I found him.”

  For a long time neither said a word, the whole ship surprisingly quiet. Mark watched a speck on the horizon grow into a freighter twice the size of the Morning Star, loaded high with shipping containers stacked like Legos. It arced south miles away and disappeared. Next to him, Robin tapped the empty water bottle against her palm. “Come on. We’re late.”

  She turned to go, but Mark stayed leaning on the rail. “What are you going to do?” he said.

  “I told you, take you to see Shawn.”

  He looked over his shoulder at her. “You know what I mean.”

  She was looking at him now, but the sunglasses still hid her eyes. She drew in a deep breath, held it, dropping her hands down to her side as she let it out. “I think,” she said, just loud enough to be heard, “that I’ve already done too much.”

  Chapter Twenty nine

  He had been on scores of tramp steamers and island ferries and everything from cruise liners to air cushioned landing craft, but this was the first time Mark had seen a cargo ship’s bridge. He knew not to expect a tall, oaken-spoked wheel or a double-handled engine control with words like Full Ahead framed in brass but he was still surprised by how bland it all was, starting with a bank of windows that slanted in on a long counter that looked like the soundboard for a stadium-sized concert. There was one man at the controls, a shaggy-haired Thai in a black Tupac tee shirt that he remembered seeing climbing over the rail of the fantail deck.

  The man sat in one of the two captains’ chairs, his thumb and forefinger resting on the edge of a small steering wheel that seemed right off a video game console. There were display screens all along the counter, most of them dark, the others filled with computer-generated dials and columns of numbers. Behind the captains’ chairs was a raised platform with a second counter, this one covered in unfurled maps and stacks of manila folders and a few empty beer cans. Curled up on the desk chair, one of the young pirates, open-mouthed and drooling, caught a quick nap, cuddled up to the shotgun he cradled in his arms. A second guard, this one wide-awake and jittery, watched as Robin led the way through the bridge, down a short flight of stairs and into a lobby-sized sitting room.

  It was a handsome room, lined with bookshelves and ringed with built-in couches, filled out with brown leather furniture and a flat-screen TV. There were ten men in the room, maybe more. Pirates sprawled out on recliners or slept on the carpeted floor. On one of the sofas, the captain, his wavy steel-gray hair matted down on one side with dried blood, sat next to the other officer Mark had seen, the slight man in the baseball cap. The cap was missing, along with his shirt. He looked tired but unhurt. They hid their fear well but there was no mistaking the look they gave him as he walked into the room. Cigarette drooping off his lower lip, Andy Cooper sat at the edge of an easy chair, clearing a space on a coffee table to field strip his assault rifle.

  “Where’s Shawn?” Robin said.

  Head down, Andy raised his eyes and looked at her. He took the cigarette out of his mouth, flicked the ash onto the carpet, set it back on his lip and returned to his weapon.

  “I said where’s Shawn,” she repeated, trying to sound tough, but failing.

  “Right behind you, babe,” Shawn said, coming in through the bridge, a pistol in one hand, a beer in the other. He waved the gun at an empty sofa as he walked past. “Have a seat.”

  Shawn set his pistol on a corner of the coffee table Andy had cleared, collapsing into a leather recliner. “What a night, huh? Overall, I’d say it went rather well. But you’re the military man there, Mark, what do you think?”

  “Not counting the civilian casualties?” Mark said, looking straight at Shawn as he spoke but thinking about the pistol that was two steps too far away.

  “Actually, we planned for worse, so in that respect, we did better than expected.”

  “You didn’t have to kill Pim’s grandfather,” Robin said, and Mark was surprised by the anger in her voice.

  “That one I’m laying on you,” Shawn said, pointing a finger at her. “What the hell you bringing an old man with you for? I’d expect that shit from Pim, but you? Oh, boy, here we go,” he said as Robin dropped her head into her hands, her shoulders bouncing with every silent sob. He smiled at Mark. “She’s good, isn’t she? She can turn on the tears just like that.” He snapped his fingers to make his point. “I don’t suppose she told you the whole story.”

  Mark shrugged a bored shrug. “She told me a story.”

  “Yeah, the one with the long-lost brother. Which I still can’t believe you bought.”

  Mark gave a slow nod. “Why don’t you tell me one?”

  “Nah, mine won’t be as good. I’d stick to the boring facts, like how Robin here was running a high-end car boosting ring when I met her, and how it was her idea to finance my little Thai adventure. Oh, and those emails where she told me that I should try to work out some sort of deal with the Phuket mob. Bet she left that out.”

  “You’re an asshole,” Robin said.

  “If I know our Robin,” Shawn continued, “she figured I hit a big score and just decided to cut her out, which, in fairness would have been true if the tsunami didn’t wash it all away; so she decided to come here and find me and see if she could get her share, one way or the other.”

  She turned to look at Mark but avoided his eyes. “Don’t believe him. He’s a fucking liar.”

  “We must forgive her, Mark,” Shawn said, eyes skyward in mock solemnity. “She knows she has only her looks and bedroom talents to get her through this cruel world and, well, those won’t last forever, will they? And I bet she’s still a bit upset about that little marriage thing. Robin darling, if it’s any consolation, I married the bitch as a cover. And for the access to the old man’s pharmacy.”

  “And the sex,” Andy said, giggling. He peered down the barrel of his weapon, then set it on the table and pushed the takedown pins into place, lifting off the lower portion of the rifle by the plastic pistol grip.

  “Is that an SA 80?” Mark said, pointing to the rifle.

 
; Andy kept his eyes down, working a screwdriver back and forth.

  “If that’s an SA 80,” Mark said, “you’re gonna wanna put your hand over the end of that receiver.”

  “Piss off,” Andy said, looking up at Mark as he pulled out the rear takedown pin, launching the spring-loaded recoil assembly across the cabin.

  “Told you,” Mark said, turning back to Shawn. “So, how much of what you told me was true?”

  Shawn stifled a laugh as Andy, fucking this and fucking that, retrieved the scattered rifle parts. “The truth, huh? Well obviously there’s no double secret UN police force. Well, there probably is, but I’m not in it. I do have a lot of connections with the Thai police, though. The ones I could buy off cheap, anyway.”

  Mark thought about the cop in the parking lot with his mirrored sunglasses and thousand-yard stare. At the time he had thought the cop was one of the good guys, the kind that earned the trust of higher-ups looking to clean house, the kind that did their jobs because it was the right thing to do. But he was wrong, the man was no better than the pirates and maybe worse. It was the first cop he had trusted in years and look where it got him.

  “The terrorists wanting this ship,” Shawn continued, “that’s true. The cash payment, true—and let me tell you, a million bucks goes a long way out here. Oil slick, yeah, probably, but you never know when you’re dealing with lunatics. What am I leaving off?”

  “What’s going to happen to Pim?”

  Shawn smiled. “Atta boy, Mark. True to form. Here we’re about to turn over a floating bomb to some crazy bastards and you want to know what’s going to happen to the whore.” He shook his head and laughed. “Well it just so happens that it all depends on you.”