by Henry Carver
I walked up to the dream window, pushed my face up against the bars. There was a meadow full of wild flowers in full bloom just outside. Snow-capped mountains loomed in the distance, and I could taste a fresh breeze.
Vise-like arms snatched me back from the window, pushed me to the floor, pinned me down. A thick cigar pressed ash-end first into my arm. I started screaming, scrambling away. Ben Hawking stood above me, a thick oily scar that he never wore in life lancing down his face and neck. He grabbed me by the wrist, pulled me to my feet, burned me again. Then he handed me the cigar, rolled up his sleeve, displaying the soft white inner side of his forearm.
He pointed at the spot. He wanted me to use it as an ashtray. He wanted me to burn him.
I puffed the cigar in my hand, sitting on the beach in Puerto Vallarta. Carmen handed me a freshly made Mai Thai. She wore a rose-colored string bikini, looked more beautiful than I had ever seen her. Horror dripped inexplicably down my spine. The Mai Thai transformed, suddenly a Bloody Mary. I looked again, and Carmen’s face had thinned until her cheekbones were blades. She grinned at me, and a red hole opened in her chest, clamped shut like a mouth, opened again and sucked wetly at the air.
Behind her sunset torpedoed the horizon, a slow-motion explosion in sickening tangerine. I watched it dance, the flames licking closer and closer until I could feel the heat on my face and hear the crackling of my fat. My face burst open; my sweet sticky juices finally ran clear.
I rolled over, clawing desperately at my face, cupping my hands to catch my insides and planning to stuff them back into my cheek. Something changed. My guts took on a dry quality. I looked down at them, and—
Sheets.
Sheets and a crumpled blanket soaked in sweat.
Carefully, I reached up to touch the hole in my face, but it had disappeared. The heat on me was real enough. Sunlight squirted through my small porthole and directly onto the head of the bed.
Someone banged on the door. My eyes had crusted shut during the night, and I picked at them, finally settling on the band-aid solution. I pulled them open quickly, ripping free a couple lashes in the process.
Someone banged again. The door rattled in its frame.
“Coming!” I shouted. Someone shouted something back that sounded like vaguely like the word breakfast.
I stood, expecting nausea, but was pleasantly surprised. I tested a few steps carefully, then slipped into a pair of well-worn jeans. Besides some muscle soreness, I felt great. And hungry.
I made my way out into the galley, but no one was there. The smell of cooking meat wafted down the stairs toward me, and I bounded up onto the deck.
All four of my passengers were tucked around the little fold-out table at the stern, the plates in front of them steaming. Carmen stood up and kissed me on the cheek, lingering just a bit too long. One chair was open, and I jumped into in, my mouth watering.
My fingers on one hand maneuvered the fork, and I used the fingers on my other hand as a guide, started to shovel eggs and bacon into my mouth.
“Sir, please, a moment,” Carlos said.
My fork paused in midair, the chunk of egg speared there jiggling gently. I closed my mouth, chewed, swallowed. “Don’t call me sir,” I said.
“I have to thank you. You saved our lives—I am in your debt.”
“Oh hell yes, mate,” Rigger spoke up. “Here, let me shake your hand.” One of his arms had been tied up in a sling, but he extended the other, meaty and slick and covered in crude tattoos, and we shook.
I studied his face. He was smiling hard, squeezing my hand, pounding me on the shoulder like we had been friends forever. Carlos had come off as humbly grateful, but Rigger’s eyes seemed dead back behind the irises, and I wondered about him.
“So, tell us what happened already!” Ben had found himself in an adventure, and had no intention of missing the gory details.
“Not much to tell,” Rigger said.
“Come on,” Ben pressed him.
“Well, it was a fishing trip,” Carlos said. “Rigger here and I are friends, from way back, and when I ran into him, and he found out I owned a fair-sized boat, we decided to catch up out here. The weather really snuck up on us.”
“Looked to me like you were foundering before that,” I said. “That bow had been taking on water even before we showed up.”
“Sure, I took us too close to the rocks, we hit something I guess. I would have been able to fix it, only the storm started brewing, and then we saw you. I guess you know the rest.”
“How about that arm, Rigger?”
“What about it?”
“Dislocated?”
“Yeah.”
“How?”
He eyed me. “Trying to fix the boat, mate. I slipped.” Those dark eyes of his narrowed a bit, and I tried my best to look blankly curious. I was asking too many questions, I realized.
Carmen put a hand on Rigger’s shoulder. “You really were in a state last night. I hope we’ve managed to balance the pain and your awareness.”
“Thank you, ma’am. It still hurts, but I’ll get by.”
“And thank God,” I said, “that no one got seriously injured. Someone could have been killed.”
Rigger’s face formed quickly into an expression of thankfulness flavored with the pain of my hypothetical, a perish-the-thought type look. I was impressed. “You said it, Captain. Thank God.”
“Well, speaking of that arm, we’re a bit out of radio distance to call for help, but I think we can get you back on land by the end of the day.”
“Please,” Rigger said, “that isn’t necessary. I understand this is some kind of early honeymoon for you two,” he gestured with his fork in the general direction of Ben and Carmen, “and we wouldn’t feel right ruining it.”
“Nonsense. You’re hurt, and we’re happy to help,” Carmen said.
“No, no, no, it just doesn’t feel right. Am I right, Carlos?”
“Si,” Carlos said, his face blank.
“How long were you planning on being out here, anyway?”
“Oh, a couple more days,” Ben said.
“Let’s compromise,” Rigger said. “Maybe you could put up with two stowaways for the rest of the trip, and just drop us off on your way home. What do you say?”
Ben looked at Carmen. Carmen shrugged a kind of permission, and he looked excitedly back at the two men. “It would be our pleasure. I mean, what a story,” he said.
I watched Rigger make the appropriate thank yous, but it was Carlos’s face that worried me. It had gone dead as stone, and privately I thought he looked like a man dreading something but trying to hide it. Like a man resigned to it—whatever “it” was.
I shoveled the rest my eggs, pushed the chair back, declared I would be getting a drink on the sundeck in front of the bridge. “Sorry about your boat,” I said to Carlos.
He couldn’t look at me, but his face didn’t even flinch.
Chapter 8
WE SPENT THE day sunning ourselves, drinking cold beers out of the cooler, and talking. Rigger and Ben traded stories of the Australian outback and Las Vegas respectively. I listened to them laugh, fast friends already, and fished off the stern.
For lunch I presented las delicias del mar—delights from the sea—cabrilla, a kind of sea bass, grilled with new potatoes and asparagus. Ben revealed a hidden cache of expensive, chilled white wine. We ate and drank, and afterward I cracked the seal on one of my bottles of cheap scotch.
The storm had blown away some of the covers and awnings, and eventually the heat of midday drove us below decks. The chart table was the perfect place to talk and do belts of liquor. After the third one I reached into the overhead compartment and dug through dusty rolls of paper, came out with a map of the Islas Marias and the surrounding area. It refused to smooth out, always curling, until finally we had to weight down the corners with shot glasses.
Carmen picked an inlet off the map, one marked as having a sandy beach. I went above decks and motored in t
hat direction, located the gap in the rocks, a natural breakwater, and anchored the Purple twenty yards off of a white sandy beach backed by swaying palms.
The boat horn blared at the touch of a button and everyone made their way above decks to see where we’d ended up. I could hear the oohs and ahhs from my chair on the bridge.
The day passed. Between the five of us, the level of amber fluid in my scotch bottle descended like an elevator.
Four in the afternoon, the hottest part of the day, hit everyone hard. Carmen and Ben were stretched on the beach. Carlos had disappeared into the palms half an hour before, muttering that only gringos would stay in the sun during siesta. Rigger was propped up in my dirty canvas deck chair, injured arm elevated, snoring loudly.
I had carefully tapered my drinking starting during lunch. I’d had only a glass of white wine, then filled it again and again with cold water. Likewise, my scotches had been light on the scotch side of things, though I kept insisting on toasts and heavy pours for anyone around me.
The past few hours had passed with me sitting in my chair at the helm, studying the inlets of Carmen’s sweating body through a pair of heavy, military surplus binoculars. I glanced from her to Ben, checked the treeline for any sign of Carlos.
Nothing. Rigger still snored.
The moment seemed right.
I placed each foot carefully, making my way down the ladder, skipping one rung I knew would squeak. I ended up on the stern, right next to the head of the stairs, and made a quick few steps around the superstructure to get a look at Rigger. He hadn’t moved, and his snoring was loud as ever.
I crept back around the white fiberglass walls and down the stairs, stopping just below deck and glancing around once more. The sink was stacked with lunch debris, the chart table laid with maps, glasses, the empty scotch bottle. The Purple creaked serenely as it swayed like a hammock in the breeze.
I tiptoed down the hall, pushed at the third door down. It lead to the second guest stateroom. The room sat all the way up at the bow and had an odd triangular shape that made it smaller than the other guest room. It reminded me of the fourth bedroom of a three bedroom house, up in some kind of converted attic and dormered to the point of being uncomfortable. Our new guests were sharing this narrow room, but so far I hadn’t heard any complaints.
The door knob twisted in my hand, then ground to a halt short of a quarter-turn.
The bastards had locked it, I realized. The keys to the rooms were hung on a hook inside each, labeled clearly, as the doors couldn’t be locked even from the inside without one. Since no one was in there, the door must have been locked from the outside, the key pocketed. Rigger or Carlos must have it tucked safely away somewhere. I had no extras, except in my locker back at the marina. No one had ever lost one before. Of course, if they had I would have just kicked the door in. Boat doors are paper thin, designed for privacy more than security, with an eye on keeping down the weight.
For a second I thought about doing just that, breaking it down. Even my thin-soled shoes would smash it to pieces at a stroke. I needed to be a little more discrete than that, I knew. Coming back to the door broken down would send the wrong message to Rigger and Carlos. And if this suspicious feeling in my gut amounted to anything, keeping those two in the dark would be more important than ever.
I probed the edge of the thin wood with my fingers, searching for a tiny gap though which I might reach the latch, but the door melted into the bulkhead just as though they had been made as a single piece. There had never been a need to jimmy the lock before; I had no idea how.
I needed the key.
Each stair on the way back up on deck seemed to groan under my weight. Up in the sun, I glanced quickly towards the beach.
No change there. Carmen had flipped onto her back, but Ben hadn’t moved.
I used each foot on the other and pushed my canvas boat shoes off by their heels. Barefoot, I made slow progress along the narrow port walkway, pressing myself into the shadows there. The boat turned a bit on her anchor line and my hiding place swung out into the sun. With no other choice, I moved out fast and low, taking quick, muffled strides.
Rigger still snored in my drinking chair, his face turning red either from burn or booze. I had to hope he had the key—if it was in Carlos’s pocket I would lose my only chance—and that I could find it without waking him up.
Keys are often kept in the same pocket. The particular pocket varies from person to person, but that same pocket is always reserved for keys, even between pieces of clothing. I had noticed on myself that it was the left front pocket, because it was secure (and so made them hard to lose) and because I was left-handed. And because no one likes to sit on a set of keys. Rigger’s arm in a sling limited him to one side. His right arm was free, so the keys would be on that side.
My legs spread wide underneath me as I crouched, balance my highest priority. I needed to lean over him but not touch him in any way. I stood four feet away, then two feet, and finally I was standing right over him.
The boat twisted on her anchor line again. We rotated, and my shadow passed over Rigger’s face. He stopped snoring.
I froze.
Rigger snuffled at the air, a wildebeest spooked by a scent, and for a moment I felt sure to be caught. Then he settled his weight to one side, let out a great sigh, and started to snore again.
His right side lay a bit lower now, a little more under him, but it seemed I could get to it. I reached out and slipped my index and middle finger into his pocket. I pushed them in, and felt nothing.
The pocket was tight, and I waited for Rigger to exhale. Just then, I pushed them in a little farther. A fingernail struck what felt like the little labels hanging from each key. Using a scissor action with the two fingers, I grasped it and tugged.
The key came free. Rigger kept snoring.
I left quickly, light on my feet, and made my way back to the guest state room and opened the lock, slipped inside and clicked the door shut behind me.
The cabin stank.
The reek came at you just inside the door, the body odor of two men in need of a shower and who needed desperately to wash their socks. Or burn them. Underneath that odor a foreign, bitter smell flowered up at me. It reminded me of the taste of drinking water from old copper pipes.
I searched through the dirty clothes thrown all around—Ben and I had lent the men new ones—and through all the displaced bedding. I didn’t see what I was looking for, and frankly, there was no real place to hide it. The room was too small. I searched the space again before I realized where it must be stashed.
A small utility hatch sat right up at the tip of the bow. It gave access to the space between the inner and outer hull here at the front.
I approached it, stopped for a second, looked up. I thought of Rigger less than four feet away. He sat above this very spot.
The hatch had a little wheeled locking mechanism, and I spun it, then popped the door open. The smell of rotting copper poured out of the small, contained space. It was distinct by not exactly unpleasant. I stuck my arm in, reached down, and felt canvas.
The duffel bag.
My arm yanked up on the strap. I had almost forgotten the weight of it, so heavy it had nearly dragged me down to the bottom of the sea. It took me a second, but I wrestled it up out of its hiding place and laid it carefully on the floor. I glanced around me, though of course there could be no one else in that small room, then tugged down the industrial-grade zipper.
The zipped moved easily. The bag gaped at me, a fine-toothed mouth. I pulled a tiny flashlight out from my pocket and clicked it on.
I looked inside.
Money.
Lots of money. I recognized Alexander Hamilton right off, and Grant floating around in the green. Franklin made a cameo appearance here and there.
American currency, thick stacks of it, filled the bag. In the puny circle my flashlight made, the light green bills seemed grimy and brown. I picked up one stack and riffled through it. T
hat coppery smell assaulted me again, and this time I recognized it: blood. The money had been soaked in blood, so much of it that bag’s trip through the sea had only swirled the stuff around, saturating the bills before drying again.
I examined the stack in my hand, realized the currency strap on it was marked. The bills weren’t new, I could tell that just from their wrinkles and frayed corners, but they had been brought into a bank as part of deposits and the bank had counted them carefully into these stacks of twenties, fifties, and hundreds. Most of the little piles in the bag were purple wrapped twenties, marked as two thousand dollars each, but there were brown wrapped packets of fifties labeled as five thousand each.
The packet I held was banded in a distinct mustard color. It was all hundreds. Ten thousand dollars, the outside said.
An incredible amount of money, but what really interested me about the currency strap was the little black stamp inked onto it. Those stamps were added by all banks, a kind of signature, and it clearly stated the name and location. The name of the bank this money had come from was writ large for all to see: Banco United.
Ben Hawking’s bank.
“Senor Conway?” a voice called.
It was Carlos, back from his shady siesta. It sounded like he was already up on deck, headed for the top of the stairs.
Things had changed. Whatever Rigger and Carlos had been doing out here on the water, it was bigger than a fishing trip. And it was bigger than shooting one man in the chest.
I dropped the thick stack of bills into the bag, pulled the zipper closed, heaved the bag up onto my shoulder and stuffed it down between the hulls. The access panel slammed shut—too loud, damn it—and I spun the wheel until it clicked. Only a few more seconds remained before it would all be over.
“Senor Conway?” Carlos ducked to avoid bumped his head, walked into the galley area, and saw me.
I waved a hand in greeting. “Hey, Carlos. How was the island?” I asked, sitting at the chart table and studying a map.
“Muy bonita,” he said, and walked to the door of his stateroom. He reached out, grabbed the knob, twisted. It didn’t budge. After all, it was locked.