Dan stood up, went over and put the coffee on. “No sugar?”
“None.”
“Okay,”
I decided now was as good a time as any to ask a favor. “Can’t exactly hold a coffee cup with my hands tied,” I pointed out.
He looked as if he’d completely forgotten that his right-hand man had trussed me like a patsy at a second-rate magic show. He plucked a large serrated knife from the block next to the small sink and came over. I tried to ignore the fact that it would be just as easy for him to slide it between my ribs. But with a quick sawing motion, my hands were free.
He kept on talking. “But what I don’t get is why you went and met with him in the casino.”
“I didn’t have anything else to go on, just a name. That’s all they send me with, these editors; cheeky little upstarts.”
“And the name they gave you was Michael Connelly’s?”
“Yes. Why wouldn’t it be?”
“He doesn’t own those boats. He owns the casino. He certainly acts like he does, but that doesn’t mean he does. He tells people he does; also doesn’t mean he does. Did you do some digging, look at the records, see who actually owns those boats, who has the records on paper?”
I felt a pull constricting in my throat. I hadn’t done any of that. A couple years ago I’d never have let such an important detail slide. When had I lost my edge?
When I’d started looking out at the world through the bottom of a shot glass, that’s when.
“Do you want me to tell you who does? No, I won’t do that. You don’t deserve to know. What kind of investigative journalist do you claim to be, can’t even find out the basic information?”
I didn’t answer him, didn’t say anything, just sat there. He was right, of course. I hadn’t wanted to be here from the start. I hadn’t put much effort in, just followed up on the one lead that I had—the name. I hadn’t done any digging, any research; and, since I’ve been back at the paper, hadn’t looked for anything. What was I doing here? I should’ve been home by now. But no, no, my editor wouldn’t let that happen. And now, now I was mixed up in something with Gemma Jones and her husband and their child, both missing.
We sat in silence for a few moments. Finally, the coffee was ready. He handed it to me. A little burnt, a little black. I asked for a dash of milk.
“I thought you wanted it black.”
I shrugged. The point wasn’t worth arguing. “So, what’s with all the theatrics?” I asked.
“Theatrics? I just needed to talk.”
“You know Gemma Jones?” I prodded.
He looked mighty pleased with himself. “I know everyone. That’s my business.”
“And what precisely is your business? This your ship?”
“What, you’re going to check the papers now?”
“Should I?”
“Yes, I own this ship. We’re an environmental activist group.”
“And what are you active against?”
“We’re worried that this area, too, will be an ecological disaster. Something bad will happen, will destroy the Strait, and then a lot of the ocean around it.”
“But you’ve got time to kidnap journalists and take them to a boat,” I countered dubiously.
“We didn’t kidnap you. John gave you an option.”
“It didn’t feel like an option.”
“Maybe so,” he conceded agreeably. “So, what did you get on Connelly? You talked to him. I saw that news about your colleague, too. Bad stuff, that. Bad stuff.”
“It was terrible.”
“You seem like you’re dealing with it okay.”
“Yeah, by hitting the bottle.”
“Yeah, that and finding a new case.” His tone mocked my own. I liked him even less.
“Case? I don’t work cases. I’m a journalist.”
“Assignment, whatever you call it. We’d like to hire you.”
“I’m not for hire.”
“We want you to do a little bit more digging, find out what you can about Connelly.”
“You already know more than I do.”
“Yes, but he doesn’t know you like he knows us. We want you inside, working for him, with him.”
“Thanks, but nope.” All I wanted right now was off this boat.
“Look, I gotta say, we’re not impressed.” The weasel was twitching with impatient irritation. “I’m not impressed. I bring you out here to talk to you, I bring you out here to offer you a job, to get you to do some stuff for me, a bit of digging, nothing much, exactly what your job is as a journalist—maybe you even get a story out of it—and you come in, you say, no, no, you don’t want anything. You drink my coffee. You take my hospitality. I don’t like your attitude.”
I didn’t like his either, but I decided to keep my mouth shut.
“I think you’ll reconsider.” He looked sure of his ability to convince me; it was a look that spelled trouble.
“When do you think that will be?” I asked, feeling my hands begin to shake again.
He noticed. and smirked again. Did he only have two facial expressions? “When you haven’t had a drink for a few hours.”
“A few hours? You think I’m that much of an alcoholic?” He was right, of course. I would be sweating if I didn’t have anything to drink for a few hours, and I probably would reconsider.
He leveraged his obvious advantage. “So, will you do it?”
“I don’t know what you’re asking me to do.”
“I want you to work for him. Get in with Connelly, work for him, find out what he’s doing, find out what his operation is. I can tell you now he doesn’t own the ships, but I wanna find out who does and I wanna find out what they’re intending to do and why they’ve set up Connelly as their fall boy.”
“Didn’t seem like much of a boy to me.”
“Fall man, then. You know what I mean.”
I knew what he meant, but I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of saying I did. I sipped my coffee. Black. Ugh. “You sure you haven’t got any alcohol on this boat?”
“Positive. Crew works harder if they don’t have anything to drink. They party harder when they get to shore.”
“And what do your crew do? What kind of ‘hard work’?”
He nodded approvingly. “Yeah, now we’re digging. Now we’re using smart questions. You don’t find out if you don’t accept my offer.”
“I’m sorry, I already have a client.”
“I’ll pay double what she’s paying.”
“Do you know what she’s paying?”
“I don’t care. I’ll pay double.”
“She’s paying 200 a day. Pounds, that is.”
“I’ll pay 400 then.”
“I don’t want your money. I have a client.”
“Gemma Jones, I know, but she’s been giving you the runaround. She wasn’t ever in that hotel. And that kid of hers?”
“What about that kid?”
“She had it coming. So did her dad.”
I recoiled in disgust. “How could a kid have it coming?”
“You might need to do some digging. Find out. So, what do you say?”
I said, “No. I already have a client. Can you just take me back to shore now?”
Dan walked over to the desk and picked up a phone, fumbled with it for a few moments and then dialed a number. “Yeah, John, come back in here. He needs a bit of roughing up, needs to think it over. You’ll look after him?” He put the phone down. “I think you’ll reconsider, Ray. Spend a bit of time. Think it over.”
The door opened and the huge man came in, grabbed me by the scruff of my neck. I dropped my coffee on the floor.
“Oh, now you fucking spilt your coffee on my floor. That’s my favorite carpet.”
I didn’t say anything. The big man just gripped me tighter.
“Look after him, John.”
Chapter 8
At Sea
It was all blackness for a while there; dark, all-encompassing blacknes
s. I struggled to open my eyes. It flickered, flitted, but I couldn’t make out anything, just a little bit of light getting in. It hurt, felt like I’d been run over by a truck or a steam tanker or an oil tanker, something like that. I made a mental checklist: Arms . . . moved. Legs . . . moved. So I hadn’t been maimed, then.
Still, my eyes wouldn’t open fully. Finally, got one to stay just a crack open, let the light in. They hurt, too.
And then she swam into my vision: a mirage of perfection, full lips, dark hair, long angular nose. She flicked a match, sucked in on a cigarette, and then popped it in the corner of my mouth. “I just wanted to see you before they killed you.”
I grunted.
“You’re not as handsome as they said.”
I let out a hollow laugh. I didn’t feel handsome, that was for sure. I felt about as handsome as a bucket that’s been kicked over and spilled vomit everywhere.
“But I like you,” she said. She took the cigarette from my lips and took a drag. “It’ll be a shame when they kill you. A damn shame.”
I felt myself blacking out again. My vision swam. I struggled again to open my eyes, to stay alert, to stay alive, just for one second longer, just to capture her image before I was gone, before they killed me, as she said.
I couldn’t remember much. I remember saying no a lot, being asked if I’d thought it over and saying no. My eye creaked open. She put the cigarette back in the corner of my mouth and I sucked in again. It was rejuvenating, energy, life. Oh, I wasn’t going to die. I decided right then and there I’d live to see this woman in a day when I was happy, when I could see through my bruised eyes, when they were no longer bruised and I was as handsome as she’d heard I was.
The door opened. I couldn’t see who it was, but a voice outside said, “Hey, what’re you doing in there?”
“Bye,” she said, rising. “Sorry it had to end this way.”
And then, she slipped out. That was when John came back in. The huge man picked me up, arms around me like he was hauling a sack of grain to the other side of the barn. “You still ain’t reconsidered?”
I grunted again.
“I’ll take that as a yes.”
“It’s a no,” I croaked out.
“Well I’ll be. That’s the wrong answer there, Ray. The wrong damn answer.” He hauled me, chair and all, out of the room and down a set of steps. Then he tossed me onto the floor. My legs crunched. I felt something snap in my ankle, and then I was being dragged along a gangway, down some more steps, another gangway. Pain shot through me with every jolt, every bump, every scrape.
“You don’t have to do this,” I managed through gritted teeth.
John just laughed.
“Boss’s orders. I do as the boss says. He pays the bills, looks after me.”
“I’ll look after you twice as good,” I offered in desperation.
He laughed in genuine amusement. “You ain’t got shit, Ray. Two hundred a day; you couldn’t pay my bills if you wanted to.”
“Yeah, but I want to, and I’ll work something out.”
“You won’t have time for that.” He untied me from the chair, opened a big oil barrel. I wanted to run, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t feel my legs, couldn’t feel anything. I must’ve been out for so long. And then, suddenly, I couldn’t feel anything except for the pain, the pain of every joint, of every muscle, of every bruise on my body. It felt like all of me had been run through a meat grinder.
He picked me up bodily, put me inside the barrel, squished me down, squished me further in, put the lid on the barrel. Then, suddenly, I was weightless. I felt something coming up in my throat, in my stomach, and then the splash reached my ears and it bubbled around. Luckily, I was upright.
Water started to flow in through the cracks in the bottom of the barrel. I could feel my legs, now that the water was cooling them down, filling up over my feet, over my ankles, up to my knees, my hips, could feel it coming up. I didn’t want to die like this, not in an old rusty oil barrel, not like a rat out to sea, drowning. Oh God. And soon, there was only a small pocket of air at the top. I stretched my neck to reach for it, sucked in the air, bubbled, sucked in the air, bubbled, sucked in some water, bubbled—more air, more water.
Maybe this was it, my time. Maybe, just like Andy Duffy, I’d end at the hands of some lunatic who wanted to kill me for no reason, who wanted to kill me just because I said no to what they wanted because I didn’t know what it was or why they wanted me to do it. But, maybe that was okay. Maybe death was okay. It happened to people all the time. It happened to animals all the time.
But then, I remembered that rat I once drowned as a kid. Stupid and reckless, as boys can be. I remember its mouth open, clawing for air, its hand scrabbling, scrabbling, scratching at the bucket, trying to get out of the trap, trying to get to the surface, its mouth opening, its teeth bared, sucking in water instead of oxygen. Eyes bulging, mouth gnashing, claws scraping. I remembered the fear in it and I realized I didn’t want to die, not like this, not drowning, not on my own.
I continued to try and suck the air in from the air pocket, but it wasn’t going to last. Even if there was still air there, it wouldn’t be enough to keep me going for long. I breathed in again, more water this time. I was bubbling uncomfortably along, felt my heart racing. It brought the image of the two most beautiful women in the world to mind: my wife just before she died, perfect, serene, gorgeous; and the woman who’d just put a cigarette in my mouth. I didn’t know her name, but I knew what she looked like. I knew those full lips and that black hair, and I wanted to see her again.
The water stopped rising, and I didn’t die. I couldn’t sink down into it far enough to let myself escape, nor could I get high enough to get enough air. I kept breathing in bits of air, bits of water, bits of air, until I felt like my lungs could take no more, until the air was so dry and stale around where I’d been breathing. It was an impossible situation and I knew, given a few more hours, a few more minutes, a few more seconds, I would be dead. I’d be that rat sucking in water, baring my teeth, scrabbling at the sides of the oil barrel, trying to get out, knowing I can’t get out but not thinking, just involuntarily acting, scratching, scrabbling, breathing, sucking, drowning, dying.
Something hard banged against the side of the barrel, and then again, and again, and suddenly, I was weightless once more. The water started to drain out of the bottom of the barrel, and I could feel more air in my lungs, more air filling the space around me. I was cold, freezing. A chill ran down my spine and up and down my arms and fingers, and then a clunk hit the ground under me. I felt the jolt through all of my bruises and sore muscles and the messed-up bone or tendon or whatever, somewhere deep in my ankle. The lid was popped open and water rushed down the sides.
I couldn’t see anyone, just the ceiling, a light swaying. Something else hit the side of the barrel, but still I couldn’t see.
“Let him out.”
It was the voice of Dan Branson. Something slammed into the side of the barrel and it fell over, and I spilled out onto the floor along with my own sick, my own shit, my own fear, outrage and anger. Branson came over and pulled my hair, holding my face up.
“Have you reconsidered?”
“Yes,” I croaked.
“So, you’re going to take my case?”
“Can you give me more details?”
“I need to know you’re cool.”
“I’m very cold,” I said. “I’ve never met an environmentalist like you.”
“What, one who takes action? One who’d kill for his cause? There are plenty like that.”
“Why the fuck did you try and kill me? I’ve done nothing to you.”
“You tried to say no.”
“I still did nothing. There’s no reason for you to do that, no reason for you to put me through that, no reason for you to beat me or have John beat me, none whatsoever. I don’t know shit. I don’t know anything. You pointed that out yourself.”
“But, you will. You’ll fi
nd out for me.”
“For 400 a day?” I ventured hopefully.
He smirked. “For free. You missed your chance for payment, Mr. Hammer. I think I have something that might be interesting to you.”
I doubted that. The only thing that would be interesting to me right now was a hot shower and a big highball. I struggled to get to my feet, couldn’t, decided to sit instead.
“Have a look at this.” Dan Branson held out an image to me. It was a photograph, printed on photo paper off a computer. In the foreground, the young, smiling face of Sarah Jones looked up at her mother, Gemma. They were standing on a yacht, something luxurious, an 80-footer—more, maybe. In the background, I could just make out in the corner, Michael Connelly standing there, drink in hand, leering at the pair.
“What do you make of it?” asked Dan Branson.
“Connelly and the Joneses know each other?”
“No shit. But what are they doing there? And why did your photographer, Andy Duffy, capture that shot before he died?”
“Where’d you get this?” I asked. I hadn’t been around when Andy had shot that. It had to have been taken earlier that day, or even the day we’d arrived in Gibraltar.
“We have our sources, and you’re going to be one of them, aren’t you?”
I wanted to say no. I tried to, even. “I’m not sure I can.”
Dan Branson just pointed his finger at the empty oil barrel lying on the floor where I’d crawled out, my death trap. “You really want to go back in there?”
Hell no, I did not. I shivered. “No. I’ll work for you. What do you want me to find out?”
“I need you to find that girl.”
“Who, Gemma Jones?”
“No, the girl. Sarah.”
“Why?”
The Spill: The Beach Never Looked So Deadly (A Ray Hammer Novel Book 1) Page 4
