“My Ship Comes In” Excerpt 4: …the waiting is the hardest part

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“My Ship Comes In” Excerpt 4: …the waiting is the hardest part

February 28, 2022 by T.K. O'Neill

“My Ship Comes In” is the fourth story, a novella, in T.K. O’Neill’s Northwoods Pulp Reloaded release of three short crime stories and this longer story.

Chapter 3

“Make sure you’ve got the lanterns lit before the sun goes down,” Dan Bagley had told me, condescension dripping like sour syrup from his puffy lips. “You can’t just dawdle down there when you feel like it; they have to be shining before dark. If we can’t see the lights we could run aground. You’d better stay straight while you’re there, we can’t afford to have this messed up.”

Yeah right—like I’d be waiting for a boatload of contraband and taking it lightly. Like

self-preservation wasn’t enough motivation to do things right for Christ sake.

The boys are way late, at least eight hours behind schedule. After all the shit I’ve been through, they should at least be on time. Where the hell are they?

Out there somewhere on the green-green ocean.

Actually, it’s black at the moment and changing to gray at the horizon, as the sun begins to rise behind me. You really become aware of horizons by the seaside, especially if you’ve been up all night waiting for a boat that’s hauling your future inside its fuel tank.

It’s clearly an either-or situation for me: Either I get caught and go to jail for a good piece of time or I get away with it and buy myself some freedom for more than likely a lesser period of time. But what the hell, there aren’t any better offers in the wind and at least I’m not slaving in the hot sun for peanuts like so many others around here.

They call Florida a “right to work” state. I believe that means the owners are always right and somebody else does the work for them. I studied labor laws in college; I know these things.

The higher the sun rises the more I worry. Without some sort of visible marker, it might be difficult to find this relatively small spot on a long hunk of featureless beach, even in bright daylight. Sand goes on in either direction for miles and miles. I clearly need to rig something up for the daylight hours. I try to think but the hot sun is scrambling my brain.

How much warning, will the boys need to keep the keel out of the sand? Should I rig up a gaudy signal flag? What if the wrong people see it? Will everyone involved in this deal go to burning hell?

I wonder if the cops know about the van. Maybe they’ve already gotten to Carole and there’s an APB out for a white VW bus with Colorado license plates and black eyelashes painted above the headlights. Maybe the highway patrol is going through it now as I sit here helplessly waiting, only a mile down the beach.

But waiting is all I can do.

(To be continued)