The Obsidian Chamber

15

Rocky Filipov, captain of the F/V Moneyball, a sixty-five-foot converted trawler, turned his head and ejected a stream of brown tobacco juice onto the deck, where it joined a sticky layer of grease, diesel fuel, and rotten fish juice.

“It’s simple,” the crewman, Martin DeJesus, was saying. “It’s taking too long. Just fucking shoot him, put him in a fish sack, weigh it down, and throw him overboard.”

A cold wind blew across the deck of the Moneyball. It was a deep overcast night with no stars, and they were snugly berthed in Bailey’s Hole, not far from the Canadian-U.S. border. The small group stood on the deck of the dark boat, and all Filipov could see of the others were the glowing tips of their cigarettes. There were no other lights; the Moneyball had extinguished its anchor and running lights, and even the red illumination of the pilothouse had been doused.

“I’m with Martin,” came the heavy voice of Carl Miller, followed by a brightening of his cigarette; a loud exhale. “I don’t want to keep him on board any longer — they’re just stringing us along. Screw the swap. It’s too risky.”

“It’s not risky,” said the cook. “We can be in international waters inside of an hour. The next shipment is weeks away. Arsenault’s a mate of ours; he’s worth the trade.”

“Yeah. Maybe. Then why aren’t the feds playing ball?”

Captain Filipov listened to the back-and-forth. The crew needed to talk it out. Tensions had been rising in recent days. The crew that was still on board, minus the watch on deck, had gradually assembled in the lee of the pilothouse to hash it out once and for all. He hunched in the cold wind, leaned against the steel pilothouse wall, arms crossed.

“I think they’re setting us up,” said Juan Abreu, the ship’s engineer.

“Doesn’t matter,” said the cook. “If we get even the least whiff of the thing going south, then we’ll take off and dump the guy overboard. We’d still have that watch of his to sell.”

The argument went on and on, until they all began repeating themselves. Filipov finally pushed himself from the wall, spat another stream, and spoke. “We’ve had the bastard on board almost three weeks. We’ve been trying to work this exchange for days now. It’s a good plan — let’s stick to the plan. Three more days — that’s what we agreed. If the swap isn’t completed by then, we do the DeJesus thing and dump him overboard.”

He stopped and waited for the reactions. In the drug smuggling business, contrary to all the bullshit television shows, you needed to build a consensus. You couldn’t just bust balls and think it was going to work.

“Fair enough,” said the cook.

“Carl?” Filipov asked.

“Okay. Three more days.”

“Martin?”

“Well, fuck, I’m willing to hang in another couple of days. But that’s it.”

A grudging agreement was reached and the group began to break up.

Captain Filipov caught the cook as he was heading back down into the galley. “I’d better try to keep the motherfucker alive. You got any more beef stew from dinner?”

“Sure.”

Filipov collected a bowl of stew and a bottle of water and carried them down to the aft lazarette hold. The hatch had been left open, replaced with a grate for air. He shone a flashlight through the grate and saw the man in the same position as the last time, with one wrist handcuffed to an open-base horn cleat. He was wearing the same torn and filthy black suit they had found him in, covering a skeletal frame, hollow cheekbones, and bruised face. White-blond hair was plastered to the skull.

He opened the grate and descended into the hold, setting the bottle of water before the gaunt figure. He squatted and stared. The man’s eyes were closed, but as Filipov looked at him they opened: silvery eyes that seemed to glitter with internal light.

“Brought you some food,” Filipov said, gesturing to the bowl in his hand.

The man did not answer.

“What’s taking your friends?” Filipov asked for the hundredth time. “They keep on stalling.”

To his surprise, the man’s eyes finally met his. It made him uneasy.

“You complain of the silence of my friends?”

“Right, exactly.”

“In that case, I apologize on their behalf. But let me assure you that, when the time comes, they will be delighted to meet you. Although I fear that, on the off chance you survive the encounter, you’ll wish you hadn’t met them.”

Filipov stared. It took him a moment to process this. “Big talk coming from some shit-encrusted piece of flotsam we dragged out of the drink.”

The figure smiled with a mirthless and ghastly stretching of the lips.

“Okay.” Filipov put down the bowl. “Here’s your dinner.” He started to go, then paused. “And here’s your dessert.” He turned back and kicked the man viciously in the gut. Then he climbed out of the hold and let the grate slam down behind him.