But the man wouldn’t die.
I could stab him again, Aaron thought desperately. Through the heart this time. O-or I could shoot him in the head. Certainly that would put an end to his misery.
He glanced over at the assault rifle, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it.
So he waited… hearing nothing but the gurgle of the man’s breathing, and the heavy, unsteady rhythm of his own beating heart.
Time slowed and the rising sun grew hotter. Aaron continued to look on in dazed confusion as the man’s chest slowly rose and fell. His eyelids became too heavy to open, and he slipped back into unconsciousness.
When Aaron came to again, he tried not to look, but he knew the man with the tattoo would still be there.
The gurgling had stopped, and the man lay motionless.
Maybe he’s finally dead, Aaron told himself. Maybe it’s just a body now.
Suddenly the eyes opened, and in them such an extreme look of fright, that although the body remained still, for a moment Aaron thought all remaining life energy had gathered in them in a desperate attempt to flee the confines of the flesh, and rise up to the heavens, escaping the dreadful terror of an earthly death.
Aaron shuddered, wanting desperately to run away, but he couldn’t move, nailed to the decking by the horror in a dying man’s eyes.
And still the man lived.
Just then Jason Beckham came up from below decks. He took one look at Aaron, and the pirate, and then picked up the assault rifle and put a bullet through the man’s tattooed forehead.
“Fucking hell, are you all right?” he said, kneeling next to Aaron. “Where the fuck did he come from?”
Aaron just lay there staring at the dead man. You were trying to kill me, right? What else could I could do? What else could I possibly do?
“Here, let’s get you hosed off and back to bed,” Jason said. “You look like you’ve gone fifteen with the devil himself.” He helped Aaron to his feet and then showed him downstairs to his cabin.
Chapter 29
PHOOOOOOOOOOT!
Aaron awoke in his cabin to the sound of a ship’s horn. He checked his phone. 9:00 a.m. Wednesday. He had slept for 26 hours.
He leaned over and drew back the curtain and looked out the window. All he could see was a wall of white steel. A cruise ship was passing them on their starboard side. The ship’s name was Neau Islander.
At first Aaron thought Jason had foundered into a shipping lane, a dangerous thing to do with a boat the size of the Cayman Jewel. But another look revealed the truth: after cruising 600 or 700 miles due south, they had, at long last, made it to the Panama Canal.
From his cabin window the locks looked huge. Aaron felt like an ant riding a leaf down a storm drain.
He rose and showered, and as he pulled on his jeans he heard a knock on his cabin door. He quickly added a T-shirt, then answered the door.
It was Brandy.
“I heard the shower,” she said. “I thought you’d never wake up. Would you care for a little company?”
Aaron wasn’t sure what she meant by that. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” he said. “Jason may need our help.”
“Oh, relax. He’ll be busy navigating the Gatun locks for hours. If he needs anything, his canal agent is with him.”
“But what if he catches us? Here in my room, I mean. That would not be good.”
“He won’t,” Brandy said, stepping into Aaron’s cabin. “He told me not to disturb him until we reach Lake Gatun. He won’t be expecting me until then. Besides, we’re just talking, right?”
She looked at Aaron with her head turned slightly to the side. Then, to Aaron’s surprise, she closed the cabin door and slowly unzipped a little purse, dumping the contents on the bed: a cut-off drinking straw, a razor blade, a small mirror, and a gram of cocaine.
A foil-wrapped condom fell out as well. “Oops,” Brandy said, smiling coyly as she returned it to the purse. “I don’t think we’ll be needing that.”
Aaron watched wide-eyed as Brandy unfolded the packet of coke and poured a small portion of the powder onto the mirror, and then she used the blade to chop it finely, and with one deft stroke, smoothed it into a perfect, white line.
“I used to do the heavy stuff,” she said. “You know, morphine, heroin. But after OD’ing twice, I learned my lesson. Needles scare the hell out of me now. And don’t get me started about crack. It’s way too addictive.” She left out the part about crack-cocaine being viewed as a ghetto drug, with the powdered version for the affluent, and that at this stage in her life she felt a kinship with the latter.
She offered the straw to Aaron. “Would you like to go first?”
“Oh, you go right ahead,” Aaron said. He was pretty sure he wouldn’t be joining her. His experience with morphine as a pain killer was not all that wonderful, and he wasn’t sure he’d fare any better using cocaine. Besides, even if he did try it, he needed to watch and learn first, so as not to appear foolish and inexperienced in front of Brandy.
She picked up the straw, and with her index finger over one nostril, she did the entire line in one quick easy motion. She tilted her head back and repeatedly sniffed and pinched her nostrils until every last grain of powder was gone.
“I never told anyone this,” she confessed. “But I always wished I’d been born a blonde.”
“No kidding,” Aaron said, surprised at her sudden candor. “I love your red hair.”
Brandy smiled. “Why, thank you, Aaron. What a nice thing to say.”
She drew another perfect line on the mirror and handed the straw to Aaron. “Okay, big boy,” she said. “Your turn.”
Aaron hesitated, and then took the straw from her, feeling enormous pressure to perform. He leaned over and following Brandy’s example did the line in one quick snort. The powder burned slightly, but it was nothing compared to the Jack Daniels he had coughed up through his nose that night in the van before the infamous bank robbery two years earlier. The frightful memories of that morning in the Community Plaza Bank came rushing up to his consciousness, but he quickly shoved them back down into the dark abyss where they belonged.
Brandy offered him another line, but although the sensation was most certainly pleasant, he declined. Better see what happens to me first, he thought wisely.
Brandy finished off the rest of the packet on her own.
“You don’t talk much sometimes,” she said as she repacked the little purse.
“I don’t always have something to say,” Aaron said.
“Do you think I’m pretty?”
Aaron adjusted his position on the bed. “Of course I do, Brandy. I’m not blind. Your hair, your eyes, your —”
He stopped mid-sentence when, out of the blue, Brandy crossed her arms in front of her and pulled off her top. He took in a quick breath and his eyes went wide. Brandy looked really good in black underwear.
“We can’t do this, Brandy,” he insisted. “You’re with Jason, and he’s my friend. Doesn’t that matter to you?”