by Ed Teja
The inspector nodded at Walter. “I’m releasing that sailboat the men rented to come over here. I’d appreciate it if you could contact the bareboat company and tell them those folks ain’t gonna finish their charter, and see about getting it out of our waters — ”
Walter rubbed his chin. “What about Mr. Davis’ boat — the extra boat that we don’t know who owns, I mean? It can’t just sit there.”
“I suppose if someone wanted to figure out who this Davis character is, and if they think it important enough to track down some next of kin, then it gonna be their problem, although —” he looked at me again. “Seeing as there wasn’t no one on it when you pulled it off the reef, seeing as the lady you thought you saw couldn’t have been there, then you two might want to claim salvage rights.”
“That works,” Bill said.
“It does?” I looked at him to see if he was joking. “Do we really want to get involved with another project? I mean, we are going to be rather busy hauling dead meat north.”
“That sweet ketch could be worth a fair piece, Junior, and we could use the money.”
“True, but before we can sell it, well, it is going to need a lot of work.”
“Jeff and I have a plan,” he said.
I caught that smile. “You two have been scheming behind my back, plotting things.”
“Anticipating possibilities,” Bill said. “I was chatting with Jeff about what might be possible if we got our hands on that boat.”
Jeff grinned. “Seeing as it is slow season and the yachties are mostly headed home, it’s a good time,” he said.
Bill nodded. “Jeff’s best friend runs the boatyard, and he is quite open to a deal… just on the off chance something like this were to happen.”
“A deal is good,” Walter mused.
Jeff was rubbing his hands together. “They’ll provide the haul out and labor.”
Bill pushed his chair back, looking pleases with himself. “We use some of this unexpected windfall, the dead meat run, to pay for materials. Jeff will supervise the work and see about selling the boat. Then we have a three-way split of the proceeds.”
“Brilliant,” I said.
Without getting up, Bill feigned a bow. “Of course, it is.”
The inspector put his hands on the table, palms down. “So, people, that’s about it—a complete summary of a bunch of stuff which, apparently, now didn’t seem to happen at all. And unless anyone got any loose ends, more unowned boats, or dead bodies I don’t know about yet, that’s the end of this meeting.”
“Sounds pretty good to me,” I said. “But what about your constable that Donna killed? If all those people died in boating accident, what’s the official word on how he died?”
He sighed. “That’s been a troublesome point and had me wishing there was some way to make that right. The best I could do was get the government to award him a medal and his family a pension for his courage and getting killed in the line of duty. And to make that happen, he had to be killed by an unknown assailant.” He twisted his mouth. “That will be keeping it as an open case.”
“Sad,” I said.
“How about a four-way split on the boat?” Bill asked.
“What do you mean? I asked.
“When we sell the boat, we could give his family a share of the money,” Bill said. “If that would help.”
Jeff nodded and the inspector looked at me. “What do you say, Martin?”
“I’m for it,” I said.
“Any other things?”
The others shook their heads.
The inspector stood. “Well, then, if we are all agreed to say nothing more about the events what didn’t take place on St. Anne, or anyplace else, we can get on about our business.” He beamed. “For me, the nicest piece of doing things this way is that there ain’t any paperwork to do when nothing happened.”
“Part of me feels it’s wrong to bury the facts,” I said. “Cover-ups always strike me the wrong way.”
Gazele poked me in the ribs with an elbow that I suspect she had sharpened for that purpose. “Seems a lot worse to me to let the world hear that we got professional killers coming to we island. That would make tourists afraid to come here and spend they money, which is just foolish, when there ain’t no real danger no more.”
“There just ain’t no good reason for that kind of fuss,” Walter said.
The others nodded at the accepted wisdom and the group scattered.
Naturally, there would be chatter about what had really happened, gossip related to the shootings and the death of the constable would flourish around the island for a time; stories would be told, events exaggerated, and things blown out of proportion. And, like so many things that happen in the islands, the truth would eventually, slowly disappear into the quicksand that was history down here. No one recorded such things. No one, apparently, wanted the events recorded, honestly or not. Current events became folklore, and the players confused. In a year, the real events would be as murky as the hull of a sunken ship, overgrown with soft coral, home to reef fish.
From where I sat, that fate provided a huge improvement over seeing the details replayed, continuously, interminably analyzed on the nightly news, and going viral on social media. Far better.
29
After the meeting broke up, I went to my favorite table and asked Sally to bring me a plate of chicken and coleslaw. I ate it, not really tasting a thing while my brain wended a desultory path through current events and I stared out over the yacht basin, seeing absolutely nothing but the thoughts inside my head.
After a time, Bill came over, landing his bulk noisily in a chair and putting a frosty bottle of Caribe beer in front of me.
I picked it up, appreciating that it was cold, and that Bill was content to be patient, to wait for me to initiate any conversation. With time, food, beer, and his calm presence, my thoughts settled.
“So, after all that angst, the life and death actions, it seems nothing actually happened,” I said.
“Nothing official,” he said.
“Seems wrong.”
He chuckled. “Why is that wrong? When have you ever thought anything official was important? As I understand the story, the distance between reality and official, the wide gap between the factual and the actual is a major part of why you are an ex-SEAL and not a SEAL SEAL.”
The way he put it almost got me to laugh, but his point was sharp and it stung. “True enough.”
“So, looking at all these events that didn’t happen, we can at least take a lesson from them. Or we should try to.”
“Really? You want to turn a combat episode that shouldn’t have happened, officially didn’t happen, into a teaching moment?”
“Sure. See, it seems to me that it’s useful to acknowledge that while you can follow the Martin Billing’s code, where you try to rescue every damn person who needs it, you got to see that your efforts don’t necessarily save them,” Bill said.
“True enough,” I said. “I got that much.”
“So why are you down?”
“Because that isn’t the point.”
“No? If it isn’t, I have to say that threatens my self image as the philosopher king in these parts. And if it isn’t, then what is the point, pray tell?”
I considered the question. What I meant had been clear in my head, but Bill’s question made me see all the twists and turns it involved. Still, this was Bill asking. and he deserved an answer, even if it wasn’t comprehensible, even if it wasn’t at all anyone’s business but mine. And I wanted him to understand. “I think it’s about balance,” I said.
“Karmic balance?”
“Something along those lines.”
“All the compulsive rescue shit is about karma?”
“Right. I’ve done some dark things in my time. Hell, I did some dark things today.”
“To a good end,” he said. “You shouldn’t feel bad about the methods you used when your heart is pure.”
“I’m not convinced of the validity of that. In the light of day a sentiment like that stinks of rationalization. I’m far from certain that my own heart is pure in any respect. I do what I think is right and I always seem to have my own ‘good’ reasons, my own justifications for my actions.” I sat back and looked at my friend.
“Any particular actions?”
“You know, I doubt I really had to stick my knife in Donna. I know plenty of other ways to stop a person from taking a kill.”
“She was a pro. Besides, you are talking hindsight,” he said. “It’s easy to look back and see you had options, but you can’t know what might have happened had you picked a different one than you chose. Hell, Junior, that can start you down a slippery slope into an alternate universe. Besides, the very act of stopping and considering all the options available might have made whatever you picked too little, too late.”
“It’s not so much the action I chose, as my reaction to it.”
"His eyebrow rose up. “Do tell.”
“The truth is, at that moment, I didn’t mind gutting the bitch in the least.”
“First of all, cutting into her from the back is technically not gutting her. Secondly, and more to the point, the fact that you didn’t mind doing it doesn’t make it wrong or worse, or even bad.”
“The problem is that I grew up being taught that the law decides whether a person should be killed… not the individual. Just because the SEALS had a much different philosophy and trained me to kill first… I’m an ethical mess.”
“I ask you to keep in mind that in this case, the law, the duly constituted authorities, agreed with your decision and the result.”
I sighed. “Because it was convenient for them to do so.”
“And you think it’s different other times, for other people?”
“I find it annoying, is all. I satisfied their current, self-serving idea of the greater good, a pretty damn hollow greater good, that went no further that sanctioning several deaths to let some damn mob-connected businessman live and save another minister from public embarrassment.”
“A businessman won’t last long if the mob really is after him. That bounty is probably still on his head. Hey, maybe we could —”
“Forget it. And with that cheerful thought, I’m brought to the realization that I killed a person simply to postpone a murder. Now it will happen in someone else’s backyard. That doesn’t make me feel any better.”
Bill snorted. “I’m not trying to make you feel good about killing people, Junior. You should always agonize over that. But I agree with the quote: ‘There is a certain right by which we may deprive a man of life, but none by which we may deprive him of death; this is mere cruelty.’”
“Who said that?”
“Friedrich Nietzsche, of course. And he didn’t even know about the bounty on the man’s head.”
“I have to tell you that after all this talk, I’m not feeling a damn bit better about things, here.”
“Like I said, that’s not the task at hand. I’m just here to remind you that you have to accept that when people make certain choices, such as threatening your loved ones, you must and will act. I get your pain, but consider that of people who won’t act, won’t take a life, and see loved ones die, or suffer as a consequence.”
“If you ever thought about a career as a trauma counselor, I suggest you rethink it.”
“You and me aren’t the kind of folks that respond to comforting words, Junior. I suppose there is solace to be found in such things, but it is ephemeral. You should take your comfort in the knowledge that you are willing to act when you think it is necessary. And, if the action turns out to be wrong, that’s a shame. Nothing more. And in this case, you acted properly.”
His sincerity got to me — a little. Bill didn’t spout platitudes, and he had his own darkness. In my mind, that earned him a lot of latitude when talking about such things. He’d been there, deep in his own darkness, and walked out into the light on his own.
I was certain that Joseph Conrad, one of Bill’s heroes, a writer he insisted I read, would have been proud of him
“Fine.”
“Are you sure your problem isn’t simply sexism?”
“What do you mean?”
“Why is the death of Donna more important than Nate’s or Nick’s? If you’d killed either of them, would you be as remorseful?”
I winced. “That hurts, amigo. It cuts me to the quick.”
He laughed. “Accurate zingers can do that.”
Gazele glanced over at our table from the bar and winked at me. Bill chuckled. “If it’s solace you are looking for, right over there is walking, talking solace of the finest possible kind.”
“Point taken,” I said, waving at the luscious woman.
“And, as for Donna, you said it once before.”
“What clever and insightful thing did I say?”
Bill shook his head, smiling as Gazele grabbed a bottle of rum and headed for our table.
“Back when we came across her damsel in distress act on the reef, it was you who told me that she was just a woman in HARM’s way. The way I see it, that kind of sums up her significance to either of us. We gave her a helping hand; she tried to bite it off, and you struck back. If that happened again, I hope you’d do the same.”
Gazele’s delicate hand stroked my arm as she sat beside me, her other hand setting the bottle on the table. Bill grabbed it and poured drinks. “I got Sally closing up tonight. You gonna stay here and drink with Bill, or go with me to my place?”
I slipped an arm around her waist, let my hand pull her closer. “Oh, I want to go to your place. I definitely choose that,” I said. “Let’s have a short one and get out of here.
She leaned her head against my arm and her warmth rushed through me.
“That’s the right answer,” she said.
THE END
SPECIAL THANKS
I’ve read that all authors exist and work within an ecosystem. Once I figured out what that meant, I had to agree. During the creation of this book, my ecosystem was incredible and deserves some credit. Dagny provided emotional support, provocative art, good thoughts and reminded me to keep working. Derek Stephen McPhail and Jeff Porter read the work before it was ready for human consumption and provided feedback. And Robert Peterson and I traded endless emails on the travails of a writer’s life, complete with outrageous ideas, impossible suggestions, and generally made it unlikely I could find a box, much less think inside it.
And, although I’ve never met him, thanks to James Scott Bell for his writing books and courses. They provided great food for thought and experimentation. Unless I’m fooling myself, they led to some insights. James, when we meet, I’ll buy the drinks (just the first round, you make more than I do).
<<<<>>>>
IN HARM’S WAY is Book Three in the Martin Billings series.
You can get Book Four: A VIABLE THREAT from Amazon (in Kindle Unlimited).
They want to kill a US Senator
While sitting peacefully at anchor at idyllic St. Anne, an assault team tries to board IRREPARABLE HARM in the middle at night. Martin and Ugly Bill show their displeasure by sending them packing and sending a message to their boss. Finding out that the boss is a US Admiral who has a strange way of sending an invitation to talk doesn’t make them any happier. When they learn the subject of the conversation is a viable death threat against Senator Polly Jeffries, Martin’s ex-wife, they decide to listen.
Listening to his story leads to getting involved with a hair-brained, off-the-books mission to cut the threat off at its knees, but it also means working with the Admiral and a tough DEA agent named Amy Pfiefer, who elbows her way to the table by threatening to blow the whistle on the op they are planning if they don’t let her play.
It’s all a normal day in the life of your average freighter captain… at least Martin would like to think so.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ed Teja is a writer, a poet, a musician, and a traveler. His stories and poems are about the places he knows, places that lie in the margins of the world, and the amazing, often strange, people he meets between the cracks. Learn more at edteja.com
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