Galveston, suffice to say, didn’t take the news well. He shut down entirely. At first I tolerated it, but then it became ridiculous. He started to not show up for work at all, or when he did, he would lament over his loss. Galveston was a mess.
I tolerated it for as long as I could, but when our clientele began to become the dudes he had met in Vegas over the weekend, I had to intervene. Galveston had lost his fire. He became tougher and tougher to reach, showed up to work in basically his pajamas, and I wasn’t sure the guy had combed his hair in weeks. He had become a bearded mess, bordering on vagrancy.
It didn’t help that I was in a normal, loving relationship with someone that had worked for us for the past two years. Jane joined us in the early days as our office manager, and I had fallen for her immediately. Her acting career in the theater had taken off right about the time I received my private investigator license (my attempt at legitimacy for the business). Galveston wasted two years planning meetings with Elizabeth, and the remainder of that time he spent doing a half-assed job of working for our company.
I knew it wasn’t easy for him to see how happy Jane and I were together, but my patience was growing thin. Jane and I tried to help him get over this descent into the doldrums and figured time would heal whatever wounds he had. But boy, were we wrong.
The time had come to intervene more forcefully. Our business was on the line, and I couldn’t make it work without him.
Galveston was an expert on investigation. He knew how to assess a situation and how to get the information we needed to keep our clients happy. He was essential in our success and there was no way I could run the business without him.
“Jane, can you call Galveston? Tell him he has to come in today.”
“What reason should I give him?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Tell him I have some depressive music I want to give him, or better yet, tell him we want to talk about Elizabeth. That ought to get him here in about ten minutes.”
“You got it boss,” she said sweetly, giving me a sly wink.
“We have to get this guy back on track, come hell or high water. Enough is enough.”
“Just go easy on him,” she said tenderly, sort of scolding me for being insensitive.
“I promise, I will,” I said nodding my head. “But if he doesn’t come around, I might have to break his legs.”
Jane laughed and began to dial the phone. We needed Galveston back on planet earth. We would soon need his skills in a desperate way.
-Chapter 2-
Dimitri awakened with one of his fellow crew members bending over him.
“Sir,” the seaman said to him, shaking his shoulder lightly.
Dimitri could only make out a blurred figure, but as he woke, he saw that he was in one of the storage rooms near the galley. He managed a grunt as he strained upward, but was stopped by the excruciating pain coming from his leg.
“It’s okay, sir,” the man continued as he saw Dimitri open his eyes. “They put us in here. Most of us,” he finished slowly.
“Help me up,” Dimitri ordered.
The men around pulled him to a sitting position with his back supported by the steel wall.
As Dimitri regained his faculties, he began to pick out faces in the dark room. He slowly did a count of the crew that surrounded him. Out of twenty-three he counted fifteen crewmen. He had each man give his name and position so he could get a mental count of who was still missing. Those that weren’t accounted for included two from the engine room, two cooks from the galley, two men who would have been on a safety patrol, Pi the Third Mate, and the captain.
The time was 8:14 in the morning, and the men were crammed in a small room lit only by a bulb on the back wall. Dimitri noticed that everyone was untied and the binding on his hands had been taken off. The men were clearly frightened. These were not pirate waters like the approach to the Gulf of Aden near the coast of Somalia in the Indian Ocean. Dimitri had been through an encounter in that area. This was the Pacific, between Hawaii and the Pacific Rim. He could not recall an intrusion in this ocean in recent memory. He knew the dangers of a possible boarding by pirates but never thought that it could happen here.
Dimitri tried to calm the men as he fought through the excruciating pain. Some of the crew had scrapes and bruises from the roughing up a few hours before, but thankfully none like his. Olaf, the resident emergency medical technician, tended to Dimitri as best he could by reapplying a fresh tourniquet while attempting to keep the Chief Mate comfortable. Dimitri realized his wounds were not life threatening and the gunshot had been very precise. The pirates could have easily killed him in his tracks.
The hours ticked by slowly and the crew heard no noises outside the door as they awaited their fate. The men began to tell the story of their capture. Most were rounded up at gunpoint from their bunks and herded into the room. A few tried to flee but were smacked down quickly while trying to get out the door. No one saw faces or heard talking from the intruders. They agreed that it was a precision operation; these were not run-of-the-mill pirates. These were highly trained mercenaries or military personnel, and that made Dimitri worry even more.
The men were hungry, tired, thirsty, and many needed to use the bathroom as the hours continued to pass. They were being housed in the galley dry storage room, where most things were canned, but there were a few boxes of crackers that Dimitri ordered to be shared among them. He also ordered another necessity; a latrine that would be set up at the back of the room.
Just as the men were finishing the final touches on the bucket that would serve as their new bathroom, they heard a clatter of footsteps near the door. The men grew quiet as the footsteps stopped. Suddenly there was a loud rap on the door, steel on steel.
“Step back from za door or jou vill be shot,” the voice ordered forcefully from the other side. “Do jou understand?” the male voice asked.
“Yes. Yes, we do,” Dimitri called, “We are all back from the door.” He motioned for the men to move to the back of the room.
The men shuffled closely together and moved as far back as they could. Without warning the door swung open and the brightly lit area outside the room flooded into the dimly lit space, causing the men to wince from the change. As they strained to see past the light, three men came into view, each clad in all black carrying an assault rifle with the gun barrels pointed in their direction.
“Who iz ze second in command of zhis vessel?” the first man through the door asked forcefully.
“I am,” Dimitri answered, looking up at the man from his sitting position, “Dimitri Petsoro, Chief Mate of the Trusian.”
“I hope jou vill be more cooperative zhan jour captain,” the man said directly to Dimitri. “Jou are now in command of jour men. I hope jou vill control zhem or zhey vill suffer za same fate as jour captain.”
Dimitri was shocked at the implication of what the man had said.
“What have you done?” he asked with a tremble in his voice.
“Ve have had to dispose of him. He iz dead. He did not comply vith our vishes,” the man answered without emotion.
Dimitri couldn’t respond. His mouth ran dry, and he looked at his crew. They stared blankly at him in a state of shock and dismay.
The lead man continued. “Now here iz the procedure. Jou vill listen to everything I say. Ve vill take two men at a time. Jou vill be allowed to use the facilities and ve vill give you vater. If anyone tries to try our patience, zhey vill be shot. Do jou understand?”
“Yes. We will do as you say,” Dimitri answered. They had no choice but to follow.
He knew his men were in no league with these mercenaries. They simply had to wait out whatever it was their captors had in store for them.
Slowly the men were taken two by two, just as the lead pirate had said, until the entire group had been able to relieve themselves. When they had all gathered back in the room, the pirates pushed a few boxes of food and water through the door. As the men crouched around the boxes and
handed out the food parcels, the remaining crew members who had been missing were led in. Most of them were bruised and bloody but in acceptable shape. Dimitri finally saw Pi come through the door and he breathed a sigh of relief. The crew had survived the ordeal so far, but unfortunately the captain had been lost.
“His first voyage on a new ship and this happens,” Dimitri thought to himself.
The pirates did not say another word and exited the room. A steel bolt locked the door with a heavy clank.
“Pi, are you okay?” Dimitri asked quickly as the man sat down with a heavy grunt.
“I okay. No good, no good,” Pi repeated, looking Dimitri in the eye.
“What happened to you?”
“They tie me up on bridge. I don’t know what they say. I don’t know language. More and more men come. I count ten, maybe twelve, maybe more. Then they move me here.” Pi rubbed his hands and the noticeably red area around his wrists.
The men from the engine room and the other crew on duty had a similar story. They told Dimitri there was no talking, just a few whispers and more men dressed in black. The crew began to talk amongst themselves, the fear palpable in their voices. Dimitri knew he had to fight through the pain in his leg, which was becoming worse minute-by-minute, in order to support his men.
“We will get through this,” he told his crew. “For now we must keep up our strength. Clear those boxes near the back and try to get some sleep. There is nothing we can do without more information. Our company has probably been notified and the military is on their way.”
Dimitri tried to sound strong and commanding, but he knew they were in grave trouble. “What could they be after and where were they taking us? It was a suicide mission to commit an act of piracy in these waters. The military will reign down on them,” he thought to himself, the question swirling in his head. He then came to another ghastly thought, “what if our company or the military didn’t know we had even been hijacked?”
-Chapter 3-
Jane finished her call to Galveston and looked at me with a smile on her face.
“So what did say? Is he coming?” I inquired.
“Of course. I have amazing persuasive powers over the opposite sex. You should know that.”
“Oh, I do. Here’s my wallet and the keys to my car,” I joked with her.
“Very funny. I told him we wanted to see him and he said, ‘okay, I’ll be there in ten minutes.’ Now give me ten dollars.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I answered mockingly, reaching for my wallet. “Now what did you really tell him.”
“I said we wanted to talk about Elizabeth and how she wronged him.”
“Beautiful. Oh, that’s good. He probably raced out of his house without putting his clothes on,” I responded.
“Yeah, we’ll see him in no time.”
We wasted time with small talk while we waited for Galveston‘s arrival. He loved to talk about his problems and lately that was all he could focus on. I contemplated the best way to handle this in my head. My main goal was to bring him back to earth, or at least in the stratosphere.
In seven minutes flat he moped through the door with his head down and shoulders slumped forward. My joke about leaving the house without his clothes on was pretty accurate. He had on a pair of gray sweats along with a wrinkled button down shirt that wasn’t even buttoned correctly. His hair looked like it hadn’t been combed in days; the front poking up like he was a member of the 80’s band, Flock of Seagulls. It appeared he hadn’t shaved in weeks, or he made some half-hearted attempt, because one bearded side was noticeably thicker than the other. Galveston plopped down on the nearest chair and let out a heavy sigh.
“How you doing, sunshine?” I asked sarcastically.
He managed only a grunt and a shrug of the shoulders. He stuck out his legs, and I noticed he had on a dirty pair of sneakers with a pair of mismatched socks. I pulled up a chair near him while Jane took up a position behind her desk.
“So, you guys wanted to talk,” he said meekly, keeping his head down.
I looked at Jane and rolled my eyes. She smiled and gave me a look with her eyes to go easy on him. I would try, but I had had it up to my eyeballs with his demeanor.
“So, uh, Galveston, we wanted to talk to you about what you’re going through,” I started, trying nicely to hold back anything negative. “I’ve been getting some strange calls from some of your contacts. They are, to say the least, interesting.”
“Yeah, just a few I ran into here and there.”
“I have to admit, I’m a little disconcerted about the direction our business is going. You’ve been non-existent lately, and to be honest, you look like hell.” Jane flashed me a quick glance and condemning look. I relaxed slightly before continuing. “I need you to run this business. I know you’re upset,” I said rather condescendingly, “but I think—we think—it’s time to move on.”
“So if I get this right,” Galveston replied, “you don’t want to talk about Elizabeth?”
My ease immediately turned to rage and frustration.
“No, damn it!” I shouted at him while Jane shook her head from side to side. “Look at yourself, you’re a mess. You haven’t shaved in weeks. I have no idea when you last took a shower. I mean, come on man, you couldn’t even put on the right pair of socks, and good lord, you have on two different shoes.”
“They were the ones closest to me,” Galveston said sheepishly.
“Exactly!” I yelled at him again. “You just don’t care anymore.” I said each word loud and slow, as if that would make things sink in.
“So we’re really not going to talk about Elizabeth?” he said directly to me.
“No! No! No!” I yelled again. I turned and put my hands in my hair as if I was going to pull it out. “I can’t,” I said to Jane who got up from the desk.
“Dan,” she started softly, “what Roger is so eloquently trying to say is that it’s time to let Elizabeth go. It’s over, she’s moved on, and it’s time you did the same. We care about you, and we don’t want to keep seeing you like this.”
“I still have a chance to get her back, right?” Galveston said to Jane.
“No, honey, she’s over you. She won’t return your calls or emails. She has moved on.” Galveston slouched farther in his chair.
“It’s like we’re talking to a crazy person,” I stated aloud, still facing the wall away from the pair.
“You’ve never lost someone like this!” Galveston yelled at me.
“Finally, some life out of him,” I said, whirling around. “He’s not dead. Amazing.”
“I have to sit here and watch you two prance around with each other. You don’t know what I’m going through. You never supported us,” Galveston said defiantly.
I pushed back a chuckle at how ridiculous his statement was.
“Support what? Some fake relationship? She drove you crazy. You never saw her for more than a few days every few months. You were just a distraction for her while she found someone else to settle down with. You were her gigolo. She brushed you off at every turn.”
The gloves had come off, and I was popping on all cylinders. Jane sighed and headed back to her desk.
“You better watch your mouth,” Galveston threatened.
I walked close to Galveston and bent down.
“She was slumming it with you and laughing at you the rest of the time. Hell, she’s probably laughing it up now, showing her fiance all the crazy emails you send her. You know, the guy she had been seeing for over a year while you two were supposedly together?”
“I said, you better watch it, or we’ll have to step outside,” Galveston responded with a sneer.
I leaned in closer, getting nose to nose with Galveston and whispered, “She’s a tramp.”
Now, in truth, I actually liked Elizabeth. I didn’t hold it against her that she had to get on with her life, but Galveston needed to be provoked. This was reckoning time.
Galveston stood bolt upright and looked me stra
ight in the eye. “I’m going to kick your ass.”
“Let’s step outside then,” I responded quickly.
Galveston marched to the door and flung it open. Jane put her head in her hands.
“Oh, just go kill each other,” she said dejectedly, giving up on trying to mend the situation. I gave a nod of my head and followed Galveston out the door.
Galveston was already waiting on a small grassy area outside the office door, grunting expletives to himself. I hadn’t seen him this active in months, so if nothing else, I at least would get him to do some exercise. Just for fun, I decided to fuel the flames further.
“I bet she took her new boyfriend to all the places you two had been, and they probably had a good laugh,” I said as I got within earshot.
This sent him over the edge. Galveston ran towards me and tackled me onto the grass, knocking me on my back. He continued to say all sorts of expletives as we wrestled on the ground. He had put on a few pounds and still had a good amount of strength. I managed to push him off and got to my feet as we began to circle each other in a grappling hold.
“I’m sure that new hubby of hers enjoys looking at her great body just like you did,” I managed to say between breathes, fanning his rage.
Galveston tried to hit me in the face, but flailed wildly, hitting me in the chest instead. I countered with an elbow to his stomach, which temporarily knocked the wind out of him. Galveston’s normally competent technique for self-defense was flawed due to his lack of practice. Usually he could drop me in a few seconds, but he was so out of shape and balance that he milled about like a drunken frat guy.
Unbeknownst to him I had been training in many types of martial arts and self-defense for the past year. I had never been in better shape. I would have never attempted something like this if Galveston had been in his prime.
Daniel Ganninger - Icarus Investigations 02 - Peeking Duck Page 2