Sargasso

by Russell C. Connor

  “Yeah. Me too.”

  Amber was even more surprised to find that she actually meant this.

  11

  The Steel Runner had started out life as a commercial fishing ship, but so many modifications had been made to it over the years, it was more of a hybrid now. Lito had stolen it from a police impound dock in Miami nearly eight years ago, where it had been sitting after the previous owners were arrested for human trafficking out of Cuba. With a wheelhouse on deck and ample space below for crew berths and cargo holds, it had served their needs as he and Ray began to pick up crew members.

  Most of the gunmetal gray hull was slowly surrendering to rust, but Jericho had completely upgraded the innards, integrating a state-of-the-art electrical conversion system for the engine that improved fuel economy and drain on the batteries. She was in deceptively great shape, which was exactly how Lito wanted it. Some pirate crews working these waters couldn’t resist painting skull and crossbones on their bows, or running up the black flag every chance they got. When you asked these guys why they did it—these men who were usually the meanest, the most violent, and had the least hesitation over killing—they invariably said it was for the intimidation factor, but the truth was, they were all head-over-heels in love with some very outdated ideas about the profession.

  Lito ran his hand along the Steel Runner’s side as he and Ray arrived back from the city, with Cheech hobbling along at the end of his leash in front of them. The book he was reading suggested making some object in one’s life a ‘center’—a sort of compass needle that pointed toward inner peace—and his ship served readily.

  Ahead, Mondo, their cook and part-time cabin boy, looked up with bloodshot eyes from where he sat on the dock with his feet dangling in the water. Tufts of shockingly white hair stood up on either side of his otherwise bald scalp.

  “Yo Mondo, what’s for dinner?” Ray called.

  “Fuck you, tha’s what’s fo dinnah,” Mondo growled. “You wanna know befo I cook, get in there and do it yo’self. Till then, don’t fuck up my buzz, cuz.”

  Ray planted a knee in the small of his back and gave a little shove. The old black man screeched and clutched at the pier.

  “Whadaya do that fo? I can’t be swimmin when I’m high!”

  “You smoke up the last of my stash old man?”

  “I don’t need yo’ cheap-ass weed to get up, Vargas! I go for premium shit! And if you evah do that again…”

  “What? You gonna put one of your voodoo curses on me, old man?”

  Mondo fixed Ray with a glare from his left eye, the one that bulged from its socket. “No. But you keep pokin fun at my religion, I might have ta sue you fo harassment in the workplace.” Ray laughed.

  “Mondo.” Lito snapped his fingers in the man’s heavily-creased face to get his attention. “Everything ready to go?”

  “Yeah, but Cap’n…I think we oughta call it off.” He pointed toward the bay in front of them, and the open seas beyond. “Somethin out there just don’t feel right. I read the bones this mornin, and they came up bad.”

  Ray rolled his eyes. “You say that every time, Mondo.”

  “I’ll take it under advisement,” Lito told him. “The others get back yet?”

  Mondo shrugged bony shoulders. “Rabid and Jorge’re fartin around somewhere. Ain’t seen Jericho or yo’ boy Carlos. Who didn’t help me with shit, by the way!”

  Lito was on the verge of commenting when Ray tapped him and pointed over his shoulder. Strolling up the pier from the direction they’d just come was Carlos Degas.

  “Get ready to leave port, you two. I wanna be gone before those rich kids pull out.”

  Mondo saluted, got slowly to his feet, and limped up the short gangplank on his bad leg, mumbling under his breath the whole way. Ray followed behind the older man, leading the dog.

  Lito walked out to meet Carlos. The kid’s swagger never faltered. He met Lito’s gaze with open defiance. “’Sup?”

  “Where you been, Carlos?”

  “Had some bidness in the city.”

  “What kinda business?”

  The kid shrugged. “You know how we do, homey.”

  Lito crossed his arms, flexed the muscles beneath his floral print shirt. “No, I don’t know, Carlos. I don’t know, because you don’t have any business that’s not my business.”

  “What’s that supposed ta mean?”

  “I gave you an order. You didn’t follow it.”

  “Said I was busy. Hadda go into the city ta make that green. Call it a…secondary income.”

  “Yeah, well, as long as I’m your captain, you clear it with me. You know what woulda happened if someone had recognized you while you were out earnin your ‘secondary income?’”

  Carlos snorted and stared at the dock. Lito had first met the kid when he was thirteen, giving his mother hell, running with a street gang, in-and-out of jail every other week. He had a real problem with authority figures, and his attitude hadn’t improved much since then. This life didn’t suit him, but Lito had promised Marisol Degas, who he’d been madly in love with before she contracted an aggressive stomach cancer, that he would look after the boy when she died. Maybe piracy wasn’t exactly what the woman had in mind, but Lito had always figured it was just until the kid was old enough to find his own way.

  Carlos said, “Maybe if my cuts were a little bigger, I wouldn’t hafta do stuff like this.”

  “You get bigger cuts when you help out with the jobs. I told you, you gotta pay your dues. If I can’t trust you to clean out the holds, how am I gonna trust you to help us take a ship?”

  Carlos rolled his eyes and muttered something that sounded like, “Least I’m man enough to do what needs to be done.”

  Lito wanted to grab him. Wanted to smack him one across the jaw. But that would’ve been the technique employed by his own father, a man who’d been plagued by so much rage that it finally burst his heart at the age of 48. Instead, Lito took a deep, cleansing breath and flushed his negativity before speaking. “Look, you made it clear you don’t wanna be part of this crew. I get that. But nobody’s keepin you here. You’re free to go whenever you want—”

  “Go where? I ain’t got a home or a fuckin dollar to my name since you been draggin me around!”

  “—but until you do, you follow orders,” Lito finished.

  “Okay, fine, whatevah. Lemme give your boots a spit shine, massa!” Carlos held up his hands. “We done here?”

  Lito nodded. The kid walked around him and mounted the gangplank of the boat. When he was halfway up, Lito said, “Carlos…if you were anybody else, I woulda kicked your ass off this boat a long time ago. I don’t need someone givin me attitude. I kept you around cause I promised your mom. Even so…I think after this job is over, we’re gonna need to have a serious talk about your future aboard the Steel Runner.”

  To his amazement, the kid threw back his head and started laughing. “Oh yeah, homey. Definitely. I’m lookin forward to that one.”

  12

  Justin had gotten his first look at the MishMasher in a picture when Donnie Rehnquist bought it last year. Eric went around the Penn U. campus for a week, shoving the yacht under everyone’s nose. But, Justin had to admit, the photo hadn’t done the craft justice. It was a huge, sleek machine, glossed to perfection and glaring white in the sun, with a razor-sharp belly designed to slice through the waves, and massive twin inboard diesels that sounded like jet engines. The steering and controls were up a short staircase in a small compartment that overlooked the front bow. Reclining deck chairs were laid out there, and at the stern was a quartet of plush, padded benches arranged in a square around a built-in fire pit. Justin had never even been on a boat before, and had to get used to the feeling of the deck moving and rocking beneath him.

  Truth be told, the invite to come on this trip had taken him by surprise. Eric had a crew of Delta Sig lackeys at school, any of which would’ve killed to come with him. Instead, Eric caught him one day on the quad and, wit
h that old, hungry gleam in his eye, begged Justin to come to the Bermuda Triangle over Spring Break. Only now was the reason obvious: Eric couldn’t risk exposing his morbid obsessions to the brainless lunks that followed him around, so he’d turned to good ol’ reliable Justin.

  “You gonna let me drive this baby?” he asked, when they stepped aboard the yacht.

  “Not on your life, shithead. Nobody drives this thing but me.”

  The concierge from the hotel delivered their luggage dockside after a huge tip, and Eric left Justin to bring the bags on board while he ran an errand. After getting his and Amber’s stuff into their cabin—not too spacious but nice, everything carved from a rich shade of mahogany—he took off his shirt and changed into his trunks, then dug into his bag and found the purple, velvet-covered box at the bottom.

  He opened it, made sure the diamond ring was perfectly positioned inside. He’d worked an extra shift every week for the past eight months at the answering service just so he could afford the thing, then bought it as soon as Amber agreed to come with them.

  Justin closed the lid and slipped the box into the pocket of his shorts. He had no idea when or how he would do this, he just wanted it on hand for when the moment was right. Amber deserved nothing less. He’d known she was the one almost as soon as he met her, but he never felt rushed to propose.

  Until recently.

  There had been this niggling little voice in the back of his head lately that told him if he didn’t close the deal soon, it might never happen.

  To take his mind off this, he explored the rest of the belowdeck area: the ship’s single bathroom, a game room complete with a ping pong table, and the kitchenette, where he popped the tab on a beer from the fully stocked fridge. Then he slid aside the door to the larger bedroom down the hall, meaning to just poke his head in and have a look around.

  The master cabin was gorgeous. It took up probably the front third of the boat, with an oval porthole across one wall that looked out on the harbor. The bed was a king, with a framed painting of Paris above it that—knowing Donnie Renquist—was probably worth a small fortune itself.

  A series of mounted cabinets lined the wall to the left of the door. Justin popped one open to sneak a peek. They contained a fully stocked bar with every liquor known to man, and a few bottles of vintage wine. He was just closing the door again when he noticed the knob protruding from the back wall of the cabinet.

  He moved aside glass bottles to get a better look. There was a panel back there, expertly cut into the bulkhead so that it was almost camouflaged. Half of him knew he should walk away, but the other half knew the curiosity would kill him if he didn’t see what treasures Eric’s old man was hiding in there.

  Justin reached in and pulled the knob. The trap door flopped open just as a wave moved the boat against the dock, causing the floor to tilt at a sudden grade. He stumbled back a step as something about the size and shape of a tube of toothpaste wrapped in brown parcel paper came rolling out of the liquor cabinet. Justin tried to catch it, but it squirted through his fingers and struck the floor beside the bed.

  He squatted next to the object. The paper had shredded up one side, revealing a narrow, ornate statue of a horned figure, made of an opaque glass. It looked like a satanic Oscar. As he studied it, he noticed one of the horns ended in a ragged edge.

  “Shit. Ah, goddamn it.” Had he done that? There was no telling what the thing had been worth. He dropped to his knees and ran his hands through the carpet. The missing piece, judging from the other side, would be about the length of his pinky from the second knuckle up but much thinner, and incredibly hard to see against the dark rug.

  Footsteps and voices drifted above his head. He scooped up the statue and went back to the compartment. This time, he spotted the other objects that took up residence in the small space: a snub-nosed .38 revolver and a gallon baggie of white powder. Justin carefully laid the figurine beside them and closed the panel.

  He moved the bottles back, closed everything behind him, and hurried up to the deck.

  13

  Eric waited until Justin was settled aboard the MishMasher before feeding him some story about needing to run back to the hotel. Luckily, his best friend—who spent most of his life in naïve bliss, in Eric’s opinion; always had, ever since they were kids—didn’t offer to come with him. Eric slipped away, stepped onto the dock, and almost stumbled over a dark, dreadlocked native kneeling down in front of the yacht’s prow as he came around the corner of the pier.

  “What the fuck, man?”

  The native picked up a satchel from the dock, stood up, and gave him a big grin. “Sorry, mon. Just tyin me shoe.”

  “Yeah, well do it away from my boat, asshole.” He might’ve said more, might’ve pounded the guy’s smarmy, big-lipped face, but the order of the day was low-key. Just because he had a destiny didn’t mean he should tempt fate. After the drop off in Bermuda tomorrow, he could resume his regularly scheduled programming and stop feeling so goddamn tense.

  So he went around the guy and kept walking, heading all the way back to the boardwalk. From here he jogged another two blocks to the west, until he came to a payphone he’d spotted earlier, jammed far back in a little alley niche between island trinket stores.

  As he picked up the receiver, he heard a plaintive mewling behind him. Across the narrow alley, far back in the shadows of a dumpster, a bloated, orange and white tabby had made a nest to give birth in. She lay on her side, looking frazzled and exhausted, as four kittens rolled and crawled across her. Eric made kissy noises at them as he dialed a number with a Philadelphia area code.

  On the other end, the great Donald Renquist picked up after three rings. “Christ, what?”

  “Hey, it’s me.”

  “Me? Who the fuck is me?”

  “It’s Eric, Dad.”

  “Oh. Son.” There was a split second while this was digested by his father before he continued yelling, with his usual habit of emphasizing all the important words. “Well, what the hell are you doing calling me on this line? I told you not to call me here! This is where you call me when you’re my son, but when you’re out on a job for me, you are not my son, you’re an employee, and employees call me on the employee line, you got that through your head this time?”

  “Yeah, Dad, I got it, I’m sorry.” None of Eric’s friends, not even Justin, had ever heard the subservient tone coming out of his mouth. Most would never have even guessed him capable of it.

  “Hang on a sec.” There was the sound of shuffling movement over the phone, then the click of a door being closed. He imagined his father sealing himself into the Closet, a small room at the back of his office that he regularly swept for bugs. “Okay, what is it, kid? I’m in the middle of business.”

  Business. Eric had found out all about his father’s business when he was in the fifth grade, and two men had tried to ambush their limo on the way to school. He never made it to class that day, was instead brought along to an empty warehouse to watch as his father and three associates beat the men to death. A lesson on the importance of ethics, he’d been told, and far more important than anything he’d learn in school. The only thing Eric could remember from that day was Big Donnie Renquist kicking those two would-be hitmen in the face while he screamed, “You don’t touch my family!”

  “I’m just calling to, you know, tell you everything’s all right. I made the pick up last night at the airport, and it’s on the boat now.”

  His father’s voice softened. “That’s good, kid. Real good. You just drop it off to my guy in Bermuda and get back here. You do a good job on this, and I’ll see if maybe I can get you some other work.”

  “Yes sir. But…what is that thing, Dad? Is it, like, an antique or something?”

  “Who knows? Ol’ Carbini was into all sortsa weird shit. I’m sure it’s worth a fortune to the right people, but he asked me to deliver it if anything happened to him, so that’s what I’m doing. All you need to keep in mind is that it’s probab
ly hot enough to get you a nice stint behind bars if you get caught with it.”

  “Okay. I’ll be careful.”

  “Good boy. Now, you need anything else? Some more money, maybe?”

  “Naw, we’re pretty much set. We’re about to leave in just a few—”

  “Wait a minute, what the hell’re you talking about, we? Who’s there with you?”

  Eric’s lungs gave a sudden hitch. “I-I brought down some people, Justin and a couple of girls. We’re gonna go through the Bermuda Triangle, just like I always wanted…”

  “You fucking moron!” Donnie Renquist roared over the phone line. “Did I tell you to bring anybody with you? Did I?”

  “No sir.” Eric’s hand began to shake, his fingers gripping the pay phone receiver so hard, the knuckles turned a ghostly white. A vein pulsed at his forehead, throbbing with a beat he could actually feel.

  “This ain’t a goddamn pleasure cruise, you’re fucking smuggling contraband through international waters! If I wanted you to party and get your dick wet, I’d’ve sent you back to that school you’ve been failing at for the past four years!”

  “I’m sorry, sir. I just didn’t realize.” His whole body quivered with tension now. A red ring crept in at the edges of his vision.

  His father gave an exasperated sigh. “Just get it done, Eric. You think you can manage that? Just get it done and get your dumb ass back here with my boat.” He hung up.

  Eric stood where he was for several long seconds, with the receiver pressed to his ear. He had to force his cramped fingers to uncurl and let the receiver fall. It dangled at the end of its cord. The whole world seemed to stand out in harsh tones, a palette of blues and greens and reds that all hurt his eyes. He walked out of the little niche with the pay phone and crossed the alley in short, robotic steps.

  The family of kittens looked up just as he brought his heel down on them.

  Eric stomped and stomped and stomped, until all the squealing cries of pain stopped, until there was nothing but a lumpy puddle of bones and fur under his foot, until the splatter of blood on the alley wall came up almost as high as his knee. Later, he would recall none of this, just as he didn’t remember any of the other animals he’d mutilated over the years, or that townie girl last spring, the one that had been on the missing posters all around campus for a few months…