Maybe you shouldn’t have been fucking his wife. You ever consider that?
He had. God, how he had. Pam was something else, though, and he just couldn’t get enough of her. She was just like heroin, that girl. Once she got in your system, forget it. She owned you.
But Arturo was no dummy.
You could fill a graveyard with the guys who’d made that mistake. And Charlie had no intention of being one of them. He was going out to the ship tonight and he was going to be carrying. Worse came to worse, there’d be more than one body dropping.
4
Charlie met him out at the pier that night at 6:30.
Arturo was not late; he was a very punctual man. The sea air was heavy and damp, a mist rolling in off the bay. They stood on the wharf at Pier 5 and smelled the brine of the sea and felt the chill in the air. There was a big tanker at the next pier over and a couple container ships at anchor, some trawlers farther down. Behind them was a salvage yard filled with old hulks in dry dock either being stripped or refitted, just shadowy ironwork skeletons, threadbare cadavers picked to their beams and frames. The air stank of salt and rust, machine oil and rotting seaweed. Pier 5 stretched an easy three hundred feet out into the sea and berthed at the very end was the Yvonne Addams. The fog was coming in thick as soup and Charlie could only see the grim outline of her.
“You ready?” Arturo said.
“Why not?”
He’d brought everything he’d need with him in a black canvas duffeclass="underline" a couple flashlights and spare batteries, a portable radio, cellphone, some magazines… and a chromed-up Smith .45 auto for insurance. If there was anything funny going on, he knew just how to handle flesh-and-blood spooks.
“One thing,” Arturo said, tapping him in the chest with one gloved finger. “You see that van over there?”
Charlie had already seen it. It was parked behind them at the side of a freight building, pointing in their direction with a good view of Pier 5. There were a couple guys sitting in there and he could see the glow of a cigarette from time to time.
“A couple of your hoods?”
Arturo shook his head. “Nothing like that. Christ, Charlie, quit with that Al Capone shit. I told you, I’m a legit businessman.”
“Let’s not go through that again.”
“All right, all right. Those guys aren’t with me. That’s Starnes, the guy with the crew I told you about. Him and his first mate. They’ll be there all night keeping an eye on the pier. You try and take a powder, they’ll see you. You got it?”
“Don’t worry, I plan on spending the night. For fifty large? Shit, I’d spend the night on the Devil’s fucking lap.”
“Which is what you’ll be doing.”
“What is that? A joke?”
“Levity, Charlie, levity. Lighten the fuck up already.”
They started walking down the pier, moving around freight stacked on pallets and piled on cargo skids. The fog came in heavy and coveting, wisps of it tangling around their legs. Charlie could barely see the water out there, but he could hear it lapping at the pilings. Now and then, something splashed or a night bird cried out in the dark sky. Great atmosphere, that’s what. Not that it mattered to him. He still didn’t believe in ghosts.
At the end of the pier, the Yvonne Addams was waiting for them, big and stark and silent like some beast that just risen from the tangled weed beds far below, her decks and superstructure shrouded with mist.
“Shall we?” Arturo said, indicating the boarding ladder.
Charlie shrugged and led the way up, the ladder creaking and groaning as it received their weight. Then they were on board, their footfalls echoing out into the cavernous depths beneath the iron decks.
“Here’s your haunted house, Charlie,” Arturo said. “You bring your Ouija board with you?”
“No, but I got a couple fuck books and a set of naked lady playing cards… think that’ll do?”
Arturo’s laughter echoed, then died quickly enough as if humor had no place there. The atmosphere was heavy and dire like that of a buried vault. Nothing but the waiting, listening silence.
Just the quiet and I like the quiet just fine.
Charlie got his first real look at the Addams. She was so big and soundless and tomblike, something rolled over in his belly. But he shrugged it off. Just an empty ship and he refused to think otherwise.
The superstructure rose up near the bow, high and grim like a monolith, the multi-windowed pilothouse up on top, the stack and mastheads rising above. Just behind were the observation and boat decks, lifeboats suspended on davits and covered in canvas. The rest of the ship was just flat right back to the stern, nothing but mooring winches and cargo booms, the spar deck set with some eighteen massive hatch covers shielding the great holds beneath.
“Well… well, Charlie,” Arturo said and he had to clear his throat a couple times like something had settled in there. “I guess this is where I leave you.”
Charlie fired up a cigarette. The lone flame of his Zippo made the shadows around them leap and crawl. “Sure you don’t want to join me? Shit, I’ll even hold your hand.”
Arturo didn’t seem to find any humor in it. “No thanks, Charlie. I’m not stepping foot below after dark. Daytime? Sure. I’ve been on her dozens of times. But not after dark. No, sir.”
“How you expect Starnes and his mate to believe this ship is harmless if you’re afraid of it, too?”
Arturo’s brow darkened. “I’m not afraid of shit. You better get that straight. I err on the side of caution as they say.” He smiled. “I’ll see you in the morning. At least, I hope I will.”
“Heh, heh, heh,” Charlie chuckled in a ghoulish horror host voice. “Last chance, tough guy. Just you and me and the spookies.”
But Arturo was already at the boarding ladder. “Charlie… listen to me,” he said, pausing. “Maybe this ain’t such a good idea. You don’t have to do this. We can work something else out. I’ll let you work it off if you want.”
Charlie smiled. He wants you to break. To admit you don’t have the guts for this. That’s what he wants. “Oh no, you said one night on this wreck and we’re free and clear. I’m holding you to that.”
Arturo sighed. “You sure? You sure it’s what you want? The deal stands… but I’m giving you a chance to walk away from this if you want to.” He looked around, didn’t seem to like what he was seeing. “Nobody’ll think less of you. I’m a fair guy. Ask anyone. I want to know that this is what you want, because when I leave, you’re on your own. There’s no way out.”
“I want it just fine. A deal’s a deal.”
“Okay, Charlie. It’s up to you.”
Charlie puffed out his chest, licked his lips. Arturo was uncomfortable, scared even. Just seeing that was worth a night alone on the ship. “You sure you don’t want to spend the night? Always room for one more in the morgue, as they say.”
Arturo shook his head and made his way down the ladder fast as he could. His voice came drifting back up out of the fog, “You couldn’t pay me a million bucks to spend the night on this mausoleum.”
And then Charlie was alone.
5
He didn’t doubt that what Arturo had told him was true.
He didn’t doubt it a bit. The story, the whole set-up was wild, but Arturo had absolutely no imagination. He hadn’t made any of it up. And he didn’t doubt that Arturo would wipe out the debt. Fifty large was nothing more than walking-around-money for a guy like him. This wasn’t really about the money or proving that the ship was spook-free.