“My Ship Comes In” Excerpt 9: staring down the barrel

« “My Ship Comes In” Excerpt 8: dead men do tell tales

My Ship Comes In, Excerpt 10: “Na na na na, hey hey, goodbye” »

“My Ship Comes In” Excerpt 9: staring down the barrel

April 1, 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 collection of three short crime stories and this longer story. Ebook available here.

He looks down at the sand and takes on a more humble tone: “There was trouble from the beginning—as soon as we landed in Jamaica. First thing we noticed was the narcs—they were everywhere. Dressed in three-piece suits and hanging with the businessmen. Wearing shorts and sailing. Drinking in the bars with the tourists… All the hotels were booked up because there were so many narcs on the island. Uncle Sam is spending big bucks to winter these guys. I should’ve become a narc.”

“Get on with the fuckin’ story,” I say, as the rain lessens a little. His eyes get wider as I shake the gun barrel in his face. “We haven’t got all night, Dan,” I back up and sit down at the edge of the light, resting the shotgun on my lap.

“You need to calm down, Keith. How about we continue this discussion while we’re driving out of here? Come on, you and I are old friends. God, man, we go all the way back to high school. I’m not going to screw you around.”

“Right here will be fine, thank you. I’ve grown quite fond of this place. Been waiting here so long it’s beginning to seem like home, especially now that I don’t have a home anymore.” I lift the twelve-gauge with one hand and point it at his chest. “You can talk now.”

“Well, all right,” he says and exhales an exaggerated sigh of exasperation. “Our connection never showed up. We waited two days for him to show but he never did. We called his house and his wife answered and she starts crying as soon as she hears my voice. Turns out our man got popped about a week before he was supposed to leave to meet us. I guess we were lucky the feds got to him before he led them to us. And that’s why we were late getting out of port.”

“No shit. What’d you do then?”

“Schmidt started hustling. Talking to the natives and working the streets until he found somebody who could handle our requests.”

“You did this in spite of all the narcs around?”

“I was against it, believe me. I was ready to turn around and come back to Florida and see what we could find. But Schmidty wouldn’t have any of that. And sure enough, to my great surprise, he comes around with two Rastas in tow—cow shit in the dreadlocks and the whole bit—stunk like pigs. But these guys had some of the highest quality blow I’ve ever seen, at incredible prices.”

“I thought Rastas were into weed.”

“These guys had weed, too, but it was nothing special. Ordinary brown buds. Didn’t even smell that good. That’s why we did the coke. The price was so good we were able to get a lot more than we initially intended. They probably ripped off the dope from someone else—the reason for the good price. They had to be the ones that set us up.”

“The guys who sold it to you were the ones who tried to rip you off?”

“They weren’t the same guys, Keith, but they were Rasta punks. And it just makes sense they were connected to the other two. How else would they know about us?”

“You’d think guys with that much money would have better weapons than just one double barrel shotgun. You’d think those dudes would have Uzis and AK-47’s, shit like that.”

“So maybe our pirates were just lucky, at the right place at the right time. Could be… hard to say. Maybe they patrol the area looking for lonely sailors, I don’t know. All I know is they attacked us and we fought them off and Schmidt is dead. Now can we get out of here?”

“I don’t think so. You need to hear my little theory. I don’t believe there were any pirates. I—”

“What? You’re shitting me, right? Or are you the one trying to rip me off?” He rises slowly and I level the shotgun at his gut.

“Just sit the fuck down and listen, Daniel, before this thing goes off. What I believe is that you were the only one who shot at anybody on that boat. I think you got greedy and tried to blow Schmidt away while he was at the steering wheel. That explains the two holes and the blood by the wheel. Then you shot him again and he fell down on the deck. You thought it would be easy to throw a wounded man in the drink, but Schmidty fought you, scratched at your face as you tried to send him to the sharks. He got his hand on a Beck’s bottle and broke it on your head and stabbed you around the neck a few times. That explains the broken beer bottle on the boat and the weird little wounds on your neck. So then you struggled free and finished him off. That’s what I think. I still haven’t figured out what the dent in the hull was caused by, but I will. Just give me time.”

“You’ve really looned out this time, Keith. All that acid has come back to haunt you I’m afraid. Because that’s one of the biggest hallucinations I’ve ever heard. Come on, let’s act like men and stop this fantasy nonsense. That was a good fable—at least until the part about the dent. The dent in the boat proves my story is true. Now can we go?”

He’s grinning now—that condescending grin that I hate so much. I point the shotgun up at the black sky and squeeze the trigger. He jerks backward at the sound of the blast.

“Shit, man, you’re nuts,” he says. His voice is a whine. “Ease off, Keith, c’mon, man.”

“Sit the fuck down, asshole. I’m going to do you a favor.”

He sits down, shivering a little, a look of disbelief on his face.

“I’m going to save you from yourself, Bagley. Save you from a rude comeuppance in your old age. Prevent you from having to discover the awful truth about yourself after it’s too goddamn late.”

He cocks his head up at me. A sniveling sneer feathers across his lips.

I keep after him: “I get the distinct impression you think you can do anything you want—without paying the price. Karma means nothing to you. Maybe nothing means anything to you. All you care about is the gold, come whatever or whomever you have to shit on. So fuck you. I almost feel bad that I’m going to save you from growing old and realizing what a greedy, slimy piece of shit you are. But the fact is, I’m not at all sure about karma, myself. I can’t be sure that you’ll suffer enough to compensate for your trespasses. So I’m going to end it all for you, right here, right now.”

I put the stock of the gun to my shoulder and point the barrel at his head. He puts his hands in front of his face and rolls up in a ball.

“Don’t shoot. Cut it out. Please, Keith, this is nuts.”

I move closer to his fetal-positioned body. He’s crying now: “Come on, Keith. You can’t be serious. You’ll never be able to sell all that coke without my help.” Tears roll down his face and it smells like he shit himself.

I tighten the pressure on the trigger.

“I’m gonna throw that garbage into the fuckin’ ocean,” I shout. “Get some sharks wired so they can take out a few more tourists.”

“You’re insane. Please, give me a break. I—”

I squeeze the trigger.

CLICK.

The metallic sound seems to echo through the rain.

I turn and throw the shotgun to the sand, suppressing a chuckle. “I’ll go get the van now,” I say, and head up the beach, leaving shit boy and his backpack behind.

He is stammering something at me as he sits up in the sand in his soiled khaki L.L. Bean deck pants. The rain drowns out the words as I chug along. About fifty yards down the beach a grin spreads over my face. It turns into a nervous laugh.

(End of Chapter 5)