by Lee, Edward
“Guten nacht,” Anna bid.
“Goodnight,” Lethe said, and then he walked away, leaving five one-hundred-dollar bills on the table to cover the tab.
««—»»
“Eh man, all done here,” said the lanky black man, who headed the marina crew, as he handed Jason an invoice for the work. The man in the army issue jacket that said EMMERSOM was all teeth under his mustache.
Jason signed it and handed it back. “Heavy son a bitch.”
“Damn straight. Weighed more than my Uncle Albert.”
“What’s that?”
“Took twelve of us pall bearers, and he was in a pine box. The old bastard ate fried clams three times a day at Benny’s when he was workin’ the dock. You ever had a plate of fried clams at Benny’s, man?”
“Uh, no,” Jason replied.
“Pile of clams bigger than your head. No wonder Uncle Albert weighted four-fifty when he kicked.”
Jason didn’t give a hoot about Emmersom’s uncle, but he knew what he was getting at. He felt the flush in his cheeks and a cold razor’s edge work up his spine. He had to admit, the crate looked like it could hold a coffin. “Tell me, you saying you think that’s a coffin?”
“I think nothin’, but whatever is in that thing ain’t secured, like machinery would be, you dig?”
Hmm. The crate was meticulously packed, a steel box on the outside, which stood to reason considering what Lethe claimed to be in it. But—
Jason shuddered. A hazy chill of old childhood dreams came back.…ashes to ashes, dust to…
“Man, you all right? You look pale.”
“Just a long night.”
“With that bouncy little German thing? Shee-it, I’d probably look pale too,” Emmersom barked. Jason just smiled and let it go. But the chill hung on as they stood a moment more to look at the huge crate now secured in the master stateroom.
“And it was a perfect bitch gettin’ down here, hadda practically take the whole companionway apart and put it back together.”
“Hey, better you than me,” Jason laughed.
Emmersom displayed his middle finger. “And just what kind of a fuckin’ nut’d wanna do that anyway?”
Lethe, Jason thought. A nut? “I wouldn’t necessarily call him a nut. Eccentric, maybe. And what are you griping about, man? The four bills I gave you to haul this thing down here came from him.”
“Next time, keep it. And what’s this shit? Says on the shipping invoice it’s a ‘anteekee’ footstand,” Emmersom remarked. “What dah crap’s a footstand, man?”
“It’s a,” Jason began. Then he frowned. “Don’t ask unless you want to hear a lot of shit about King Richard’s ransom note.”
“Shee-it.” Emmersom chuckled, lit a butt. “Well I’ll tell ya what it ain’t. It ain’t a box full’a drugs.”
Jason looked at him. “Yeah?”
“That thing weren’t off the pallet one minute ’fore the Harbor Police were all over it with them dope-sniffin’ dogs of theirs. And the mutts couldn’t’a cared less about it. Couple of ’em wouldn’t even go near it.”
Interesting, Jason thought. A bit relieving too. Everything was fine…
So why didn’t he feel fine?
“Anyway, thanks, man,” he offered. “Thanks for getting this big hunk of shit down here. I’ll see ya in a few weeks.”
Emmersom smiled again, shaking his head. “Shee-it. A fuckin’ footstand?” Then he left for abovedecks.
Two hours later, Jason and Anna had topped off the fuel and water tanks and were underway.
Yeah, Jason thought at the helm, watching Anna bend over the mooring box. Everything’s fine.
««—»»
Jason had taken the first salon aft of the bridge, giving Anna the first full shift at the Betruger’s wheel. It was night somewhere off the Washington coast. His stateroom was lit by a red night-vision light. It gave a ghoulish feeling to the room. Naked, he climbed out of the king size bed and stretched. The cabin door opened. Anna was illumined in red. Her blonde hair fell behind her shoulders. She wore jeans cut off above her pockets which revealed tight thighs and muscular calves. Whenever Anna stood up she flashed bikini lines.
Jason didn’t see his pants. “My turn,” he commented.
“Ja,” she said, stepping toward him. She crossed her arms and skimmed her T-shirt over her head. Her long fingers lightly slid down her shoulders and over her breasts. They stopped for a moment to linger on the nipples. She stroked the valley between and the bottoms of those domes and moaned, “Ja, your turn.”
Jason could feel himself stiffen in the night air as Anna’s hips swayed from side to side. Her cut-offs slid down. Then those long elegant fingers slid through the dark patch between her golden red thighs. “Ja, your turn.”
She took his hands and placed them on her breasts. They were round and firm; the nipples raised beneath his caresses. Anna’s fingers ran down his sides, then up to his erection. He moaned as she descended, lightly kissing his chest, nipples, the underside of his ribs. Her tongue tickled him above his hips. Lower, she explored. Her hair teased his penis. She kissed the inside of his thighs, then her tongue was working around his circumcision…
Jason moaned and lay back on the bed as her tongue, teeth, and lips worked in unison. The cool air struck his member as Anna released him and kissed her way up his body, gently massaging him with her breasts. “Ja, your turn.”
Thank God for autopilot, Jason thought.
She straddled his hips and bore her sex down atop him. Jason thrust his hips upwards into a very wet, hot Anna. They both moaned… He ran his hands over her breasts as her gyrations became manic. “Ja!” she cried. “Your turn!”
Then her lips pulled back to reveal elongated teeth that looked sharp as roofing nails.
Jason screamed as she bit into his neck…
He leapt awake with a hollow cry, bathed in sweat. The engine’s drone was soft, hypnotic. A slight swell rocked the vessel. Jesus, what a dumbass dream. In the dark stateroom, Jason felt around for his jeans. An LED clock read 1:40 a.m. Out in the companionway he tugged his shirt over his head and watched Anna on the helm. They were in a following sea. The port aft end of the vessel would raise slightly, then dip. Their motion was constant. If it had been an oncoming sea, he would have felt a bumping motion.
Jason steadied himself along the bulkheads as he walked aft to the master stateroom. If there was something loose in Lethe’s crate, a following sea might cause the container to slide and damage the bulkheads. The stateroom was easily larger than his. Its king-size bed sat in a recessed floor, and was topped by a canopy whose floral design matched the bedspread. By comparison, the oblong box which sat in front of the bed seemed small. Jason circled the box looking at how it sat. So far it hadn’t moved. He squatted down and tried to see what it would take to move something this massive. His arms and legs strained at the smooth, cool, dead weight. His face grew hot, temples pounded, a groan escaped him; but it wouldn’t move. Shit, he thought. Maybe it is Emmersom’s Uncle Albert.
The container was 7 X 3 X 3, exactly. Footstand, huh, Lethe? It was time to see this mystery cargo. Jason gripped the under side of the lid and grunted. The cold metal lid wouldn’t move. Again he walked around the container, running his fingers under the lip. Nothing. No seams, no welds, no latches of any kind. This was turning into a weirder trip than he thought.
He considered using a crow bar to pry it open. Out of nowhere he was swept by a wave of nausea. His knees buckled,…ashes to ashes, dust to… He clicked off the light and closed the door behind him as he ran for the deck. The cool ocean air braced him and the moment passed.
It was quarter of three in the morning when Jason relieved Anna. She was grateful to be off early. A million faint points of light speckled the black heaven. The Pacific Ocean mirrored the dark void of space as the Betruger plowed its way through the sea. Jason’s heart slowed to a steady beat. Calm took control as he reestablished their position.
An hour
later, they were just south of Seattle when he noticed Anna on the side deck staring out into the ocean. What’s she doing up here now? he wondered. She only went to bed an hour ago.
“Couldn’t sleep?” he called out.
She didn’t answer. She kept wiping her eyes. When she finally turned, he was startled to see her so wan. She looked like she did in the dream. And when he finally asked what was wrong, she said something about a bad dream, too. Her face was that of a child, who after waking from a nightmare, didn’t want to go back to sleep.
(ii)
Called him Wire. Smalltime thief, bigtime headcase. Lotta crank ‘n speed ‘n angel dust had turned what was between his ears into bad meat. Got the nickname in K.C. Detent—doing eighteen months on a GTA—on account he was skinny, like a piece of wire. Earned some more nicknames he’d just as soon forget on his second sendup: “White ‘N Tight” and “C-Block Boy-Cherry.” That was at Walla Walla, the state slam. Had to do three on a nickel for burglary. Fuckin’ animals. Lotta times the players traded him between block bulls for cigarettes. “You my bitch t’night, White ‘N Tight!” he’d been told too many times. Wire’s poor bowel had been the depository of many an ejaculation.
Raped lots of chicks in his day, and killed two guys once on a burn pickup, back when he was dealing. Fuck dealing nowadays—too many cowboys, and a lotta fuckin’ Jamakes had taken over. This county, shit, first offense dealing coke or frog got’cha a mandatory pound in the state cut, no parole. Ain’t no way ol’ Wire was going back to that shithouse. Jacking was a safer gig if you’d got it up the ass many times as Wire; some of those players had cocks big as fuckin’ rolling pins. He’d been jacking small stuff five years now and was doing all right, had a coupla good fences in SeaTac. Boat shit was always big in the fall, ya rip stuff in the fall that people’ll want in the spring, give the shit time ta cool down. And a town like this, shit, one fuckin’ marina after the next, boats all over the fuckin’ place. Pretty penny numbers was shit like fishing sonar, depth-finders, and these new digital map things, whatever the fuck they were. CD-Rome, something like that. Ya keep active, ya do all right, plenty of dust money, which was fine for Wire.
Carried a small folding knife—an Almar. Sharp stuff, it’d do the job. Had a three-inch blade so if the pigs shook him down they couldn’t burn him on the knife laws. Anything three-inch or less was in the books as a penknife. Didn’t sound big, but ya hold one to some chick’s throat and she’ll bend over fast, Wire could tell you. Figured he owed it to the system ta rape chicks, after all the times he’d gotten raped in the joint. So fuck it, he didn’t give a shit long as he got a nut off.
With boat shit it was easy down here at Shilshole most of the boats belonged to Boeing engineers or Microsoft execs who used their boats one or two weekends a year. Lotta the marinas let their security contracts expire end of October, so usually he didn’t have to worry ’bout any of these night watchmen chumps. Wire parked by Charlie’s and walked over to B-Dock at the big marina next to the restaurant. Figured he’d hit a row of cabin cruisers.
Didn’t figure on seein’ the chick.
Off-the-wall shit. He was about to shag a padlock when he felt something weird. Weird night, too. Cold and real breezy. The moon was real low and white. Wire turned, crowbar in hand, then he hunkered down in the coaming.
What the fuck?
See, this chick was standing at the end of the dock. Buck naked, too, which didn’t make no sense ’cos it was cold. She looked wet. Had this split-tail just come out of the water? Naw, that’s fuckin’ impossible, she’d freeze ta death. Wire’s drug-cooked brain was at least functional enough to realize that.
But she was beautiful.
Wild red hair, dynamite body, legs, hooters. This chick was one hot number. So what the fuck’s she doin’ standing naked on a fuckin’ pier in the middle of the night?
This was a good question. Wire, however, did not deliberate upon it. All he knew was this: he was gonna get inta this chick’s shit good. Oh, yeah. He was gonna do a cock number on her like she’d never fucking forget.
She was just standing there straight as a mooring stull, staring up into the black sky.
Wire was getting hard just looking at this weird chick. Her skin was white, almost like light. She had the big dark stick-out kinda nipples and an ass that wouldn’t quit. Suddenly she turned and stepped onto one of the boats.
Wire made his move. Fuck the fuckin’ inordinate inexplicabilities, he was gonna get down. He opened up his Al-Mar and snuck past the dock. The moon made his shadow look like a slinky wire.
She’d climbed aboard a 24-foot cabin cruiser called WE’RE AWEIGH. Nice looking boat, and well-equipped. Maybe when Wire was done plugging this broad till her shit came out her ears, he’d knock the boat over for its depth-finder ‘n shit. Two birds with one stone, ya know? But when he peered over the gunwale, he couldn’t fuckin’ believe it!
The chick was doin’ the job herself!
Wire couldn’t see what she had, but she was breaking the lock off the door to belowdecks. Just like that—Crack! and it was off. Then she stepped down into the cabin and turned on the light.
Wire couldn’t make heads ner fuckin’ tails of this shit. Naked chick, wet like she just come outa the water, bustin’ into boats. But if indeed she were a fuckin’ thief, like Wire, she was not possessed of much between the head-handles. Gotta be plain-ass stupid to turn on the cabin light when you’re jacking shit off a boat at midnight.
She was looking for something, Wire realized next, not jacking. She was rummaging through the cabin slots, tossing things to the floor. Towels, sandals, tubes of suntan lotion, shit like that. She was bending over, and Wire was gandering that big beautiful tail-end on her, and he could see that gorgeous rack of tits swaying back and forth as she continued to rummage. All he could contemplate was this beautiful body and what he was gonna do to it in about two seconds.
But what was she looking for?
Clothes, he realized then. She’d found a pair of cutoff jeans, and slipped into them. Then she found a T-shirt that said THE KORT HAUS TAVERN on it. Before she could put it on, Wire stepped over the sheer line and thumped down into the cabin.
The chick turned, unsurprised. Wire stared at her rib melons, his thumb running along the smooth steel of his Al-Mar.
“Hello,” she said.
Wire’s sneer went lax. He felt funny all of a sudden; he felt prickly. There was some scent that reminded him of animals or something. “Them shorts, sweetcakes? Get ’em the fuck off,” he articulated. He turned the knife, which glinted meanly.
“Are you a sinner?” she asked.
What the fuck was this shit? “Get the fuckin’ shorts off, honey, or I cut ’em off. I got no time ta fuck around. We can do this hard or easy. Your choice.”
The chick smiled. “Easy,” she decided.
Oh yeah, oh yeah, was the only thought that could traverse Wire’s PCP-pocked gray matter as she stepped back out of the cutoffs. Wire gaped. He’d raped tons of chicks, some of ’em real hot numbers, hot bods, but never anything like this. Uh-uh. This was some cut of meat. Just looking at her Wire thought he might blow his juice right in his grimy jeans. The mere outline of her in the cabin light, the sleek curvy shape of her—Wire had never fathomed such an intricate and concise ideal of fuckin’ physical pulchritudity.
But that all-of-a-sudden funny feeling began to grow, like some fucked up heat way-way down in his gut. What was it? He tried to concentrate, he tried to look at her face, but he couldn’t see it, not really anyway. There was something about her eyes—huge, rich dark-brown or dark something, he wasn’t sure—that obscured him, and more and more it did indeed seem that she was made of light. She was so fuckin’ gorgeous he coulda shit.
But what had she said? Are you a sinner?
“You don’t need that.” She meant the knife. “It’s been a long time for me.”
“The fuck you talkin’ about? I—”
“Come here.”
&
nbsp; Now something was really fucked up. He was staring at those high, big-as-croquet-balls tits on her, that dynamite flat waist and big dark bush. He felt summoned, he felt screwed in the eye by some overpowering call of desire. Next thing he knew, Wire—a sociopath, an amoral streetscum thief and rapist—was making out with this chick bigtime. They both seemed to melt together onto the cabin floor, swooning in each other’s arms. This wasn’t no fuckin rape—this was passion, something quite foreign to Wire, so foreign, in fact, so remote from the scope of his scumbag drug-infested brain-cells-fried- like-bacon life that he could scarcely fuckin’ contemplate it. She was all over him, her warm sweet lips dressing him with kisses as she peeled his duds off. Her tongue slipped around in his mouth, and those big dark nipples got so hard they felt like pebbles against his chest, and all Wire could do was lie back and let this tough, brick shithouse chick smother him with her kisses and caress him into a vortex of pleasure like he’d never known.
She reached down—her hand was so hot—and all she had to do was lay one finger on Wire’s torqued-up throbbing works, and that was all she fuckin’ wrote. Wire’s spunk shot out of him before he even knew he was coming. Aw, fer shit’s sake! Some rapist! He felt like a fucking idiot. Yeah, ol’ Wire really tore this bitch up, huh? Yeah, he really jammed it to her. Blow my nut before I even get it in her stuff. You’d think I was some fuckin’ thirteen-year-old or something. Regardless of the circumstance, he felt absolutely fuckin’ humiliated. “Don’t worry,” she consoled. Her hands stroked him, caressed him. Had he been a bit more introspective he’d have realized it was the first time he’d been really caressed in his life. “Time means nothing,” she said.