by Tom Clancy
“Hungry!” Pam replied.
“And we’re getting a couple of screws today,” Kelly added with a wink.
“What?” Pam asked.
“Propellers,” Kelly explained. “For Sam’s boat.”
“Screws?”
“Sailor talk, trust me.” He grinned at her, and she wasn’t sure if she could believe it or not.
“That took long enough,” Tony observed, sipping coffee from a paper cup.
“Where’s mine?” Eddie demanded, irritable from lack of sleep.
“You told me to put the fucking heater outside, remember? Get your own.”
“You think I want all that smoke and shit in here? You can die from that monoxide shit,” Eddie Morello said irritably.
Tony was tired as well. Too tired to argue with this loud-mouth. “Okay, man, well, the coffeepot’s outside. Cups are there too.”
Eddie grumbled and went outside. Henry, the third man, was bagging the product and kept out of the argument. It had actually worked out a little better than he’d planned. They’d even bought his story about Angelo, thus eliminating one potential partner and problem. There was at least three hundred thousand dollars’ worth of finished drugs now being weighed and sealed in plastic bags for sale to dealers. Things hadn’t gone quite as planned. The expected “few hours” of work had lingered into an all-night marathon as the three had discovered that what they paid for others to do wasn’t quite as easy as it looked. The three bottles of bourbon they’d brought along hadn’t helped either. Still and all, over three hundred thousand dollars of profit from sixteen hours of work wasn’t all that bad. And this was just the beginning. Tucker was just giving them a taste.
Eddie was still worried about the repercussions of Angelo’s demise. But there was no turning back, not after the killing, and he’d been forced into backing Tony’s play. He grimaced as he looked out of a vacant porthole towards an island north of what had once been a ship. Sunlight was reflecting off the windows of what was probably a nice, large power cruiser. Wouldn’t it be nice to get one of those? Eddie Morello liked to fish, and maybe he could take his kids out sometime. It would be a good cover activity, wouldn’t it?
Or maybe crab, he told himself. After all, he knew what crabs ate. The thought evoked a quiet bark of a laugh, followed by a brief shudder. Was he safe, linked up with these men? They—he—had just killed Angelo Vorano, not twenty-four hours earlier. But Angelo wasn’t part of the outfit, and Tony Piaggi was. He was their legitimacy, their pipeline to the street, and that made him safe—for a while. As long as Eddie stayed smart and alert.
“What room do you suppose this was?” Tucker asked Piaggi, just to make conversation.
“What do you mean?”
“When this was a ship, looks like it was a cabin or something,” he said, sealing the last envelope and placing it inside the beer cooler. “I never thought about that.” Which was actually true.
“Captain’s cabin, you think?” Tony wondered. It was something to pass the time, and he was thoroughly sick of what they’d done all night.
“Could be, I suppose. It’s close to the bridge.” The man stood, stretching, wondering why it was that he had to do all the hard work. The answer came easily enough. Tony was a “made” man. Eddie wanted to become one. He would never be, and neither would Angelo, Henry Tucker reflected, glad for it. He’d never trusted Angelo, and now he was no longer a problem. One thing about these people, they seemed to keep their word—and they would continue to, as long as he was their connection to the raw material, and not one minute longer. Tucker had no illusions about that. It had been good of Angelo to make his connection with Tony and Eddie, and Angelo’s death had had exactly the effect on Henry that his own death would have on the other two: none. All men have their uses, Tucker told himself, closing the beer cooler. And the crabs had to eat too.
With luck that would be the last killing for a while. Tucker didn’t shrink from it, but he disliked complications that often came from killing. A good business ran smoothly, without fuss, and made money for everyone, which kept everyone happy, even the customers at the far end of the process. Certainly this load would keep them happy. It was good Asian heroin, scientifically processed and moderately cut with nontoxic elements that would give the users a rocketship high and a calm, gentle descent back to whatever reality they were trying to escape. The sort of rush they would want to experience again, and so they’d return to their pushers, who could charge a little extra for this very good stuff. “Asian Sweet” was already the trade name.
There was danger, having a street name. It gave the police something to target, a name to chase after, specific questions to ask, but that was the risk in having a hot product, and for that reason he’d selected his associates for their experience, connections, and security. His processing site had also been selected with an eye to security. They had a good five miles of visibility, and a fast boat with which to make their escape. Yeah, there was danger, to be sure, but all life was danger, and you measured risk against reward. Henry Tucker’s reward for less than a single day’s work was one hundred thousand dollars in untaxed cash, and he was willing to risk a lot for that. He was willing to risk far more for what Piaggi’s connections could do, and now he had them interested. Soon they’d become as ambitious as he was.
The boat from Solomons arrived a few minutes early, with the propellers. The doctors hadn’t told Kelly to keep Pam busy, but it was a simple enough prescription for her problems. Kelly wheeled the portable compressor back onto the dock and started it up, telling her how to regulate the airflow by keeping an eye on a gauge. Next he got the wrenches he needed and set them on the dock also.
“One finger, this one, two fingers, that one, and three fingers, this one here, okay?”
“Right,” Pam replied, impressed with Kelly’s expertise. He was hamming things up a little, the rest of them knew. but that was okay with everyone.
Kelly climbed down the ladder into the water, and his first job was to check the threads on the prop shafts, which appeared to be in decent shape. He reached his hand out of the water with one finger up and was rewarded with the right wrench, which he used to remove the retaining nuts, then handed them up one at a time. The whole operation took only fifteen minutes, and the shiny new screws were fully attached, and new protective anodes set in place. He took his time giving the rudders a look, and decided that they’d be okay for the rest of the year, though Sam should keep an eye on them. It was a relief, as usual, to climb out of the water and breathe air that didn’t taste like rubber.
“What do I owe you?” Rosen asked.
“For what?” Kelly took off his gear and switched off the compressor.
“I always pay a man for his work.” the surgeon said somewhat self-righteously.
Kelly had to laugh. “Tell you what, if I ever need a back operation, you can make it a freebie. What is it you docs call this sort of thing?”
“Professional courtesy—but you’re not a physician,” Rosen objected.
“And you’re not a diver. You’re not a seaman yet, either, but we’re going to fix that today, Sam.”
“I was at the top of my power-squadron class!” Rosen boomed.
“Doc, when we got kids from training school, we used to say, ‘That’s fine, sonny, but this here’s the fleet.’ Let me get the gear stowed and we’ll see how well you can really drive this thing.”
“I bet I’m a better fisherman than you are,” Rosen proclaimed.
“Next they’re going to see who can pee the farthest,” Sarah observed acidly to Pam.
“That, too.” Kelly laughed on his way back inside. Ten minutes later he’d cleaned off and changed into a T-shirt and cutoffs.
He took a place on the flying bridge and watched Rosen prepare his boat for getting under way. The surgeon actually impressed Kelly, particularly with his line handling.
“Next time let your blowers work for a while before you light off the engines,” Kelly said after Rose
n started up.
“But it’s a diesel.”
“Number one, ‘it’ is a ‘she,’ okay? Number two, it’s a good habit to get into. The next boat you drive might be gas. Safety, doc. You ever take a vacation and rent a boat?”
“Well, yes.”
“In surgery you do the same thing the same way, every time?” Kelly asked. “Even when you don’t really have to?”
Rosen nodded thoughtfully. “I hear you.”
“Take her out.” Kelly waved. This Rosen did, and rather smartly, the surgeon thought. Kelly didn’t: “Less rudder, more screws. You won’t always have a breeze helping you away from alongside. Propellers push water; rudders just direct it a little. You can always depend on your engines, especially at low speed. And steering breaks sometimes. Learn how to do without it.”
“Yes, Captain,” Rosen growled. It was like being an intern again, and Sam Rosen was used to having those people snap to his orders. Forty-eight, he thought, was a little old to be a student.
“You’re the captain. I’m just the pilot. These are my waters, Sam.” Kelly turned to look down at the well deck. “Don’t laugh, ladies, it’ll be your turn next. Pay attention!” Quietly: “You’re being a good sport, Sam.”
Fifteen minutes later they were drifting lazily on the tide, fishing lines out under a warm holiday sun. Kelly had little interest in fishing, and instead assigned himself lookout duty on the flying bridge while Sam taught Pam how to bait her line. Her enthusiasm surprised all of them. Sarah made sure that she was liberally covered with Coppertone to protect her pale skin, and Kelly wondered if a little tan would highlight her scars. Alone with his thoughts on the flying bridge, Kelly asked himself what sort of man would abuse a woman. He stared out through squinted eyes at a gently rolling surface dotted with boats. How many people like that were within his sight? Why was it that you couldn’t tell from looking at them?
Packing the boat was simple enough. They’d stocked in a good supply of chemicals, which they would have to replenish periodically, but Eddie and Tony had access through a chemical-supply business whose owner had casual ties to their organization.
“I want to see,” Tony said as they cast off. It wasn’t as easy as he’d imagined, snaking their eighteen-footer through the tidal swamps, but Eddie remembered the spot well enough, and the water was still clear.
“Sweet Jesus!” Tony gasped.
“Gonna be a good year for crabs,” Eddie noted, glad that Tony was shocked. A fitting kind of revenge, Eddie thought, but it was not a pleasant sight for any of them. Half a bushel’s worth of crabs were already on the body. The face was fully covered, as was one arm, and they could see more of the creatures coming in, drawn by the smell of decay that drifted through the water as efficiently as through the air: nature’s own form of advertising. On land, Eddie knew, it would be buzzards and crows.
“What do you figure? Two weeks, maybe three, and then no more Angelo.”
“What if somebody—”
“Not much chance of that,” Tucker said, not bothering to look. “Too shallow for a sailboat to risk coming in, and motorboats don’t bother much. There’s a nice wide channel half a mile south, fishing’s better there, they say. I guess the crabbers don’t like it here either.”
Piaggi had trouble looking away, though his stomach had already turned over once. The Chesapeake Bay blue crabs, with their claws, were dismantling the body already softened by warm water and bacteria, one little pinch at a time, tearing with their claws, picking up the pieces with smaller pincers, feeding them into their strangely alien mouths. He’d wondered if there would still be a face there, eyes to stare up at a world left behind, but crabs covered it, and somehow it seemed likely that the eyes had been the first things to go. The frightening part, of course, was that if one man could die this way, so could another, and even though Angelo had already been dead, somehow Piaggi was sure that being disposed of this way was worse than mere death. He would have regretted Angelo’s death, except that it was business, and . . . Angelo had deserved it. It was a shame, in a way, that his gruesome fate had to be kept a secret, but that was business, too. That was how you kept the cops from finding out. Hard to prove murder without a body, and here they had accidentally found a way to conceal a number of murders. The only problem was getting the bodies here—and not letting others know of the method of disposal, because people talk, Tony Piaggi told himself, as Angelo had talked. A good thing that Henry had found out about that.
“How ‘bout crab cakes when we get back to town?” Eddie Morello asked with a laugh, just to see if he could make Tony puke.
“Let’s get the fuck outa here,” Piaggi replied quietly, settling into his seat. Tucker took the engine out of idle and picked his way out of the tidal marsh, back into the Bay.
Piaggi took a minute or two to get the sight out of his mind, hoping that he could forget the horror of it and remember only the efficiency of their disposal method. After all, they might be using it again. Maybe after a few hours he’d see humor in it, Tony thought, looking at the cooler. Under the fifteen or so cans of National Bohemian was a layer of ice, under which were twenty sealed bags of heroin. In the unlikely event that anyone stopped them, it was unlikely that they’d look farther than the beer, the real fuel for Bay boaters. Tucker drove the boat north, and the others laid out their fishing rods as though they were trying to find a good place to harvest a few rockfish from the Chesapeake.
“Fishing in reverse,” Morello said after a moment, then he laughed loudly enough that Piaggi joined in.
“Toss me a beer!” Tony commanded between laughs. He was a “made man,” after all, and deserved respect.
“Idiots,” Kelly said quietly to himself. That eighteen-footer was going too fast, too close to other fishing boats. It could catch a few lines, and certainly would throw a wake sure to disturb other craft. That was bad sea manners, something Kelly was always careful to observe. It was just too easy to—hell, it wasn’t even hard enough to be “easy.” All you had to do was buy a boat and you had the right to sail her around. No tests, no nothing. Kelly found Rosen’s 7 x 50 binoculars and focused them on the boat that was coming close aboard. Three assholes, one of them holding up a can of beer in mock salute.
“Bear off, dickhead,” he whispered to himself. The jerks in a boat, drinking beer, probably half-potted already, not even eleven o‘clock yet. He gave them a good look, and was vaguely grateful that they passed no closer than fifty yards. He caught the name: Henry’s Eighth. If he saw that name again, Kelly told himself, he’d remember to keep clear.
“I got one!” Sarah called.
“Heads up, we got a big wake coming in from starboard!” It arrived a minute later, causing the big Hatteras to rock twenty degrees left and right of vertical.
“That,” Kelly said, looking down at the other three, “is what I mean by bad sea manners!”
“Aye aye!” Sam called back.
“I’ve still got him,” Sarah said. She worked the fish in, Kelly saw, with consummate skill. “Pretty big, too!”
Sam got the net and leaned over the side. A moment later he stood back up. The net contained a struggling rockfish, maybe twelve or fourteen pounds. He dumped the net in a water-filled box in which the fish could wait to die. It seemed cruel to Kelly, but it was only a fish, and he’d seen worse things than that.
Pam started squealing a moment later as her line went taut. Sarah put her rod in its holder and started coaching her. Kelly watched. The friendship between Pam and Sarah was as remarkable as that between himself and the girl. Perhaps Sarah was taking the place of the mother who had been lacking in affection, or whatever Pam’s mother had lacked. Regardless, Pam was responding well to the advice and counsel of her new friend. Kelly watched with a smile that Sam caught and returned. Pam was new at this, tripping twice as she walked the fish around. Again Sam did the honors with the net, this time recovering an eight-pound blue.
“Toss it back,” Kelly advised. “They don’t tas
te worth a damn!”
Sarah looked up. “Throw back her first fish? What are you, a Nazi? You have any lemon at your place, John?”
“Yeah, why?”
“I’ll show you what you can do with a bluefish, that’s why.” She whispered something to Pam that evoked a laugh. The blue went into the same tank, and Kelly wondered how it and the rock would get along.
Memorial Day, Dutch Maxwell thought, alighting from his official car at Arlington National Cemetery. To many just a time for a five-hundred-mile auto race in Indianapolis, or a day off, or the traditional start of the summer beach season, as testified to by the relative lack of auto traffic in Washington. But not to him, and not to his fellows. This was their day, a time to remember fallen comrades while others attended to other things both more and less personal. Admiral Podulski got out with him, and the two walked slowly and out of step, as admirals do. Casimir’s son, Lieutenant (junior grade) Stanislas Podulski, was not here, and probably never would be. His A-4 had been blotted from the sky by a surface-to-air missile, the reports had told them, nearly a direct hit. The young pilot had been too distracted to notice until perhaps the last second, when his voice had spoken its last epithet of disgust over the “guard” channel. Perhaps one of the bombs he’d been carrying had gone off sympathetically. In any case, the small attack-bomber had dissolved into a greasy cloud of black and yellow, leaving little behind; and besides, the enemy wasn’t all that fastidious about respecting the remains of fallen aviators. And so the son of a brave man had been denied his resting place with comrades. It wasn’t something that Cas spoke about. Podulski kept such feelings inside.
Rear Admiral James Greer was at his place, as he’d been for the previous two years, about fifty yards from the paved driveway, setting flowers next to the flag at the headstone of his son.