Salvage

by Stephen Maher

  He ran back to the cockpit, corrected his course, lashed the wheel in place, and went below again, where he cleaned his nose with hydrogen peroxide. In the mirror he looked gaunt and terrible, with two black eyes and a nose that was raw and bleeding. His neck was bleeding. He had Falkenham’s blood on his chin. He cleaned himself as best he could, squealing and yelping as he daubed at his wounds and inspected his testicles, which were sore and swollen. He ate some Tylenol, the bottle rattling in his shaky, clumsy hands, and changed into dry clothes, dug out a bottle of rum, and went to the cockpit with his cellphone.

  He had a long drink of rum and called Angela.

  His voice sounded weak and hoarse and nasal when he said her name.

  “What’s wrong, Phillip?” she asked.

  “Falkenham got ahold of me, Angela,” he said. “He and the Mexicans worked me over a bit, but I got away.”

  “Oh my God, Phillip, are you OK?” she said.

  “Not too good right now, Angela,” he said. “Not too good. They’re going to try to kill me tomorrow. If they do, they told me they were going to come after you next, put a knife to your belly.”

  She was silent.

  “Angela, you need to get the fuck out of here for a while,” he said. “These boys isn’t playing. Get in the fucking car and go someplace where nobody knows you. Don’t tell nobody where you’re going, and if you hear that I’ve turned up dead, or disappeared, don’t come back.”

  He could hear her crying on the line. He cried, too, then, and covered the phone so that she couldn’t hear him. He took another drink of rum and stared out into the inky darkness ahead of the boat.

  “Angela, you got to tell me you’re gonna do that, OK?” he said, his voice choking.

  “I’ll do it,” she said. “Be careful. Don’t let them kill you.”

  “I know, baby,” he said. “Listen, though. If they do find my body full of holes, call Constable Léger at the Chester RCMP. Don’t tell her your name, but tell her I wanted her to know that I believed Bobby Falkenham and four Mexican gentlemen were trying to kill me. All right?”

  He killed the connection before she could hear him crying.

  He had a smoke and a drink of rum and got himself under control, and then he called Hughie Zinck.

  Saturday, May 1

  IN 1985 THE DEPARTMENT of Fisheries and Oceans built a fishing harbour at Rocky Point, at the tip of the d’Agneau Peninsula, with a stone seawall and three concrete piers.

  The idea was that fishermen from the little coves on both sides of d’Agneau Harbour would give up the little rickety wooden wharves and stages they’d built in front of their houses and fish out of Rocky Point, which would be more convenient for fish buyers and department inspectors.

  The Zincks, who had always had the bottom half of the d’Agneau Peninsula to themselves, watched sullenly as fishermen from around the bay drove up and down the potholed gravel road in front of their ramshackle houses. They kept their old wooden Cape Islanders moored in the snug cove at Lower Southwest Port d’Agneau in front of their houses, where they could keep an eye on them.

  Fishermen from around the bay found that their gear and catch weren’t safe at night at Rocky Point. They’d come back to find their diesel had been siphoned, lobsters stolen from the underwater storage pens, and bullet holes in the cabins of their boats.

  Then, in the summer of 1986, a spring gale tore out half the seawall. The government finished an even more modern harbour on the other side of the bay, and soon the concrete piers at Rocky Point were abandoned.

  The Zincks moved in after the other fishermen moved out, tying up their boats along the innermost pier and letting the outer piers act as a seawall, the waves washing over the concrete in any kind of sea. Thanks to a cousin at the head of the bay, they always knew when the fisheries inspectors or Mounties were on their way down Peninsula Road.

  Soon the point was littered with old plastic fish boxes, discarded pallets, rotting lumber, and bits of old traps, boats, and engines. In the summer of 1990, young Jimmy Zinck tore the sign off the big steel DFO shed and spray-painted ZINCK POINT on the side with rust paint. When the sliding steel door stopped working, the Zincks tore it off and replaced it with unpainted wooden doors, like on every fish shed they’d ever built.

  The Zincks — three brothers and two cousins — waited for Scarnum inside the shed, smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee spiked with black rum. When they spied his mast coming up the bay, they went down to the pier and waited for him there, holding double-barrelled 12-gauges.

  Scarnum, pale and tired after sailing all night, waved to the boys, then rafted his boat up alongside a beat-up Cape Islander.

  He shook hands with Hughie on the dock.

  “What’s wrong with your fucking face?” said Hughie.

  Scarnum gave him a hard look. “Falkenham and his Mexican friends got hold of me,” he said. “Damn near killed me.”

  Hughie gave him a hard look back. “We find out you been fucking with us, we’ll finish the job for them,” he said.

  Scarnum looked at the hard faces of the Zincks and nodded. They all wore fishing coveralls and they all had the same haircut.

  “I know that,” he said.

  Hughie stared at him for a minute, then nodded. “So, there’s five of ’em?”

  “That’s right,” said Scarnum. “Four Mexicans and Falkenham. Jimmy was bringing in coke for him. Jimmy was pushing for a bigger piece of the action and fucking Falkenham’s woman, so Falkenham had the Mexicans kill ’im. Jimmy went out, thinking he was picking up another load of coke. One of the Mexicans tried to push him in the water so people would think he drowned, but he threw the Mexican in instead. So they shot him, but he managed to get away.”

  Scarnum looked out at the water. “He had three bullet holes in him, but he gave ’em the slip,” he said. “Come on to ’er, opened the throttle up all the way, tried to make it to land. Ended up fetched up on the Sambro Ledges. Swam to the fucking beach and died there.”

  He looked at the Zincks. “He was a tough one, that boy,” he said.

  “How come they’re after you?” said Hughie.

  “They think I have the coke that was on the boat,” said Scarnum. “But I don’t. I don’t know where the fuck it is. Bottom of the fucking ocean, most likely. They tried to cut me, shot at me with a machine gun, smashed my nose, put a knife to my throat. Look at the fucking bullet holes in the side of the boat. I keep telling them I don’t have their fucking cocaine, but they won’t stop.”

  “How do you know they’re coming here?” said Hughie.

  Scarnum reached into his pocket and pulled out the little transmitter.

  “They put this on my boat,” he said. “Only found out two days ago. How they been tracking me.”

  Hughie took the little thing in his big, calloused hand and looked at it.

  “Jesus,” he said. “And it sends a signal to them?”

  “They got a little receiver,” said Scarnum. “Like a GPS, shows my location on a map. Or they can look on the internet.”

  “How do you know they’re using it?” asked Hughie.

  “Last night, before I called you, I anchored off Herman’s Point, near Mader’s Cove, and paddled ashore. I wanted to know for sure if they were tracking me. I hid in the bushes until they come up in a black SUV. Falkenham got out first, walked up to the beach, looked at a little receiver in his hand. The Mexicans got out, they stand around talking. They leave one of the Mexicans hid in the bushes, case I came ashore. They got hold of me when I tried to sneak back to the boat. They smashed up my nose, put the knife to me but I got away from them. It was the third time they come for me. I’m lucky to be alive.”

  He told them how he escaped from the Mexicans in Halifax, how they chased him in a speedboat, and how he choked one of them, and what he said.

  “You say these boys got machine guns?” said Hughie when Scarnum was done.

  “Yuh,” said Scarnum. “Two of them. Little things. Like a
machine pistol. And these boys are the real deal. Hardass cocaine cowboys. Likely been in some gunfights.”

  He looked at the five men in their overalls. “You want, I can jump on the boat, sail out of here, stick this fucking thing on a container ship bound for Hong Kong, and sail away for a good long time,” he said. “I’m not gonna fuck around with these boys anymore and I won’t blame you if you don’t want to.”

  Scarnum suddenly heard the theme to Hockey Night in Canada. It was Hughie’s cellphone.

  Hughie held it to his ear, listened, grunted, and then closed it.

  “They just turned down the road,” he said. “Gives us ten, fifteen minutes.”

  He turned to Scarnum. “You take that thing and get on the boat,” he said. “Close it up and wait for them. If they send Falkenham down to try to get you to come off, tell him no. Act scared. Then he’ll bring the Mexicans down. We’re gonna wait in the shed. The minute they step on the wharf, we open the doors, shoot them in the fucking back.”

  Scarnum said nothing for a minute, then shook his head. “No,” he said. “I don’t need to be on the boat. I’ll put the transmitter on the boat and wait with you fellows in the shed.”

  “No,” said Hughie. “You’re going on the boat. Not much of a trap with no bait.”

  Scarnum looked away, then back at their hard faces. “Those fellows get a hold of me, they’re gonna put the knife to me,” he said. “Cut me up. Falkenham told me they like to cut one of a guy’s nuts off, tell him if he wants to keep the other one, he’ d better talk.”

  Hughie laughed. “B’y, it wouldn’t last long, anyways,” he said. “They’ll only use the knife till you tell them where you hid the fucking cocaine,” he said. “Then they’ll shoot you.”

  “I don’t have the fucking cocaine,” said Scarnum.

  Hughie looked at him skeptically. “I was thinking about what you said at the funeral,” he said. “And I remembered one thing Dad said about the old Newf. Said he was a bit tight with a nickel, eh. Tighter than an eel’s ass, he said. These fellows is after you cause you got their cocaine. Jimmy’s cocaine. We’re gonna kill ’em for you because they killed Jimmy, but don’t pretend you don’t have the coke.”

  Scarnum shook his head. “The old man was tight,” he said. “Went through hard, hard times in Newfoundland as a boy, his whole family near starved. I’m not like that. I wouldn’t risk my life for a bit of cocaine. There was no cocaine on the fucking boat.”

  “Get on the fucking sailboat, Phillip,” said Hughie. “Close it up and don’t come up till the shooting’s over.”

  Scarnum bit his lip, looked up the road, looked at the Zincks, then nodded his head. “All right,” he said. Then he looked at the five men. “Turn off your cellphones,” he said. “One of them things rings at the wrong minute, you’ll be full of holes.”

  He watched them dig into their pockets and pull out their phones.

  “You ever have buck fever?” he asked. “You been waiting all day next to a buck rub, then when the cocksucker finally walks up the path and looks at you, you got such a big fucking hard-on that your hands start shaking and you forget to flick the safety, or forget to look through the sights, or you pull the trigger guard instead of the trigger, and next thing you know you’re looking at the fucking thing’s white ass a quarter mile away?”

  He stared at them all. “These Mexican boys won’t have buck fever. These boys is bandidos.”

  Then he went and got on his boat. “Shoot straight,” he said.

  “Don’t worry,” said Hughie. “We’ll fucking shoot straight.”

  Scarnum saluted him, then went below. He turned the boards to the main hatch to his cabin around backwards, so the hasp for the padlock was on the inside, and locked it. He went to the V-berth and closed the handles on the Plexiglas hatch in the ceiling. He made sure the curtains were closed on all the portholes.

  He got his big hunting knife and sat down in the salon. He put the transmitter on the table in front of him and sat and stared at it. He took his bottle of black rum from a cupboard in the galley and sat back down and took a big drink from the neck. He lit a cigarette and took another drink of rum.

  He got up and put the rum away and sat back down. Then he put his elbows on the table, clasped his hands in front of him, and closed his eyes and prayed.

  He was still praying when he heard the faint sound of wheels on the gravel road. He sat stock-still then and listened very carefully. He went to peek out a porthole but he couldn’t see anything but the white fibreglass hull of the lobster boat next to him.

  He sat back down and took the knife out of its sheath.

  Soon he heard a thump, the sound of someone jumping onto the lobster boat.

  “Phillip?” It was Falkenham.

  Scarnum heard him walk back and forth along the deck of the lobster boat.

  “Phillip, I know you’re here,” he shouted. “You locked the hatch from the inside.”

  Scarnum said nothing.

  “Phillip, come on out,” Falkenham shouted. “I want to talk to you. I know you’re in there. Come on out. Stop this foolishness.”

  Scarnum answered then. “How’d you know I was here?” he said.

  “Never mind that,” said Falkenham. “A little fucking bird told me. Come up. Drop your cock and grab your socks. We need to have a little chat, mano-a-mano. I’m trying to save your ass here, kid, and you’re not giving me much help.”

  “You can talk from there,” said Scarnum. He got to his feet and moved toward the bow.

  “Fuck off with this foolishness,” Falkenham shouted. “I’m running out of fucking patience. These Mexicans are gonna fucking kill you. I told them I’d try to talk to you one more time. Because of Karen. You understand, you stupid cocksucker? Because of Karen. You think I want to fuck around with this shit?”

  Scarnum said nothing.

  “Phillip, you fucking bit my fucking ankle so bad it’s all swollen. You dumped us in the fucking water. You stole a whole load of cocaine that don’t belong to you. I can’t fucking believe I’m still trying to save your life, but I am.”

  Scarnum stood below the mast, between the salon and the forward cabin. He stuck his head into the salon and shouted, “What do you want?” and then pulled his head back.

  “I want you to come up and talk to me,” Falkenham shouted. “I want you to tell me where you hid the fucking cocaine. Then the Mexicans will leave you alone and you can waste the rest of your life however you want. You got about ten seconds to get up here.”

  “I don’t have the fucking cocaine,” said Scarnum.

  “Yes you fucking do, and we both fucking know it,” said Falkenham. “You want to end up like Jimmy? You think Jimmy was glad, in the end, when he bled out on the fucking beach? You think he was happy that he risked his fucking life for some cocaine? Huh?”

  “All right,” said Scarnum. “I’ll come out. Wait a minute.” But he didn’t move.

  “Now, Phillip,” said Falkenham. “Get your arse up here right now, out the forward hatch, with your hands up, or I’m gonna shoot up your fucking boat.”

  Then Scarnum heard the rattle of the little machine gun.

  “You hear that?” shouted Falkenham. “You come up right now or I’m gonna start shooting. I start, I won’t stop until I shoot you or I fill your boat so full of holes that it sinks. Now.”

  Then he fired a short burst down through the deck of the boat, from the stern forward. The bullets left a row of holes through the deck and through the teak floor of the salon.

  “Now!” he shouted. “Now. Out.”

  Scarnum dropped his knife and cried out, “Stop! OK. OK. Stop. Don’t shoot. Jesus. I’m coming out.”

  He flipped open the hatch and stuck his empty hands out.

  “That’s it,” said Falkenham. “Come on out, Phillip.”

  Scarnum stuck his head out of the hatch. Falkenham was standing on the deck of the lobster boat, pointing the machine gun at his head.

  Scarnum
was crying. “Don’t shoot me,” he said. “Fuck. Don’t shoot me. I’ll tell you where the fucking cocaine is.”

  “All right,” said Falkenham. “It’s gonna be OK. Come up out of the boat, onto the deck, and close the hatch.”

  Scarnum could hear water bubbling into his boat. He hauled himself onto the deck, and closed the hatch, keeping his eyes on Falkenham, moving very slowly.

  He was still crouched over when he heard the first shotgun blast. Then there was a series of blasts and the rattle of a machine gun. Falkenham jerked his head up and gaped back down the wharf, a look of shock and horror on his face. The Zinck boys had kicked the doors to the shed open and opened up with their shotguns, shooting the four Mexicans in the back, and the men fell dying on the dirty concrete deck of the wharf. Even full of shot, the fat Mexican had managed to half turn and fire his machine pistol, and Hughie had to shoot him several times, point-blank, before he fell.

  Scarnum dove at Falkenham when he looked up at the sound of the shots. He launched himself from the deck of his boat up onto the deck of the lobster boat, driving his head into Falkenham’s soft abdomen. Falkenham, knocked from his feet, brought the machine pistol down on Scarnum’s head. Scarnum scrabbled at the deck of the lobster boat with his feet and pushed himself on top of Falkenham. He elbowed him in the nose hard and grabbed hold of the stock of the machine pistol. He punched Falkenham in the face over and over again until his grip loosened on the machine pistol and Scarnum was able to wrench it free. He rolled off him then, onto his back, and kicked him off the deck of the lobster boat with both legs. Falkenham gave a sharp groan as he hit the deck of the sailboat and then splashed into the water.

  Scarnum looked down the wharf. The four Mexicans were on the dock, dead or dying. Hughie stepped over each man in turn and fired an extra shell into the back of their heads, making sure they were dead. One of his cousins vomited. Hughie walked up the wharf, shotgun levelled.

  “Where’s Falkenham?” he said.