Филип Керр - A Five Year Plan

‘Pepe will fix you up with some tackle. We’ve got more or less everything you’ll need, although you two are the lightest travellers I’ve ever seen down here. Talk about the accidental tourist. Don’t you think so, Pepe?’

‘Yes, Lou.’

‘Like I said,’ Al growled. ‘We got a lot of our gear stolen in San José.’

‘CR is a very pretty country,’ said Malta. ‘But the thing about the country is that it’s just so impossibly p-pretty that it seduces you into a false sense of security. There are thieves all over.’

Dave said, ‘That’s true of everywhere.’

‘Well yes. But really.’ Malta tutted and sighed loudly and shook his head in apparent despair. ‘A man’s fishing equipment is something sacrosanct. Isn’t it, Pepe?’

‘Yes, Lou.’

‘You boys were insured though?’

‘Yeah, we got insurance,’ said Al. ‘You got insurance?’

Malta picked up the slight note of threat that was carried in Al’s remark.

‘Oh you boys’ll be safe enough on this boat, won’t they Pepe? We’ve got every creature comfort. TV and VCR in every cabin. Air-conditioning. We’ve even got a misting system to keep those rippling muscles of yours cool when you’re in the fighting chair. It gets pretty hot out there when you’ve got a big one. I even put a little patchouli oil in the mist reservoir just to make the air smell nice. I don’t know about you, but fish isn’t my scent of choice. And Pepe’s a pretty good little cook, despite what I said. And I don’t just mean he knows how to use the microwave. He can cook up pretty much anything you want. Pepe knows what men like to eat. We have plenty of s-supplies. You just tell him if there’s anything in particular takes your fancy. Just as long as it’s fish.’ He giggled again. ‘Just joking. We’ve got lots of steaks in the freezer. And plenty of beer. You boys want a beer?’

‘Beer’d be good,’ admitted Dave.

‘But what am I thinking of? You’ll want to see your cabins. Naturally you each have your own head and bath. Go on, take a look around while I get the beers. Only pay particular attention to the salon. I’m kinda prouda that. Designed it myself. It’s ornamented with custom-made glass by Lal-Lalique.’

Al and Dave went below. The boat was as luxurious as Lou Malta had promised. And with the headroom reaching seven feet in the salon and in the staterooms, it had an impressive amount of interior volume. Dave didn’t much care for the taste — it was too fussy — but it was plain to see that no cost had been spared in fitting her out with every conceivable extra.

Dave said, ‘Hey, Al. This boat’s worth a lot more than a mill. Say not much change out of three and you’d have been more accurate.’

‘So?’ Al was more interested in investigating Lou Malta’s sleeping arrangements than his own. Inspecting the cedar-lined drawers and closets he sneered and said, ‘It’s like I thought.’

‘What is?’

Al glanced up at the mirrored ceiling and then spat onto the black silk sheets that covered Malta’s double bed.

‘He’s fucking that kid. My Petey’s not much younger than that Pepe kid.’

‘What of it? Those two girls you were with in Key Largo last night weren’t much older than Pepe. They were maybe fifteen or sixteen at most.’

‘Bullshit. But even if they were it’s different for girls. Number one, girls mature quicker. And number two, that was straight sex.’

‘I thought you said you had them going down on each other?’

‘That was for my benefit, not theirs. That kind of sex don’t count. That was just like a couple of actresses playing a gay part for a movie. With me being the camera. It don’t make them queer. But this—’ He bent down to pick up a magazine from the cabin floor and Dave caught a glimpse of older men having sex with younger boys before Al flung it aside in disgust. ‘This is something else.’ He looked angrily at Dave. ‘What?’

Dave shrugged. ‘I still think this is a lot of boat to repo for the loan of a million.’

‘Yeah, well that’s the nature of collateral. Ain’t you heard? We’re in a recession. Money’s tight.’ He laughed cruelly. ‘And I bet that’s a lot more than I can say for that faggot’s ass.’

‘I’d better go and give him the bad news before we get too far offshore,’ said Dave.

‘You do that. Sooner those two fags are off this boat, the better I’ll feel. There’s magazines and videos in that creep’s fuckin’ drawer that would give Hannibal Lecter a nightmare.’

Lou Malta wrung his hands and wept, ‘What am I going to do?’

Dave and Malta were sitting at opposite ends of an L-shaped sofa in the now stationary boat’s salon. Malta was on his second pink gin, although it looked large enough to have been a third and a fourth as well.

‘Get some things together,’ Dave told him. ‘And the thousand bucks we paid you up front for the charter? Keep it. We’ll turn the boat around and head back towards Quepos. When we get in sight of the CR coastline, you and Pepe can take the inflatable and row ashore.’

‘But this boat. It’s my whole life.’

Dave said, ‘Not any more. What you’ve got to hang onto here is the fact that you still have your whole life. You may not have the boat, but you’re going to live. If it was up to the gorilla on deck, you’d be lip-gaffed, hoisted for a fuckin’ picture and then dropped over the side for the sharks.’

Malta trembled visibly and emptied his glass.

‘Jesus Christ, really?’

‘Really. He’s a violent man. And he works for a violent man. Tony Nudelli? I’ve seen what he can do to people.’

‘I had no idea that, um... that Tony was so mad with me.’

‘Sure you did, Lou. Sure you did.’

‘I guess I did at that,’ said Malta. ‘It was a stupid thing to do, wasn’t it?’

‘Yes it was, Lou.’

Malta got up from the sofa a little unsteadily and walked toward the stairs down to the cabins.

‘I’ll get that bag.’

‘Lou? You won’t do anything else that’s stupid, will you? Like come out of that stateroom with a gun in your hand. That’s just what the gorilla wants. An excuse to kill you and Pepe. You understand me?’

‘Yes sir.’

‘Good boy.’

Dave stood up and followed Malta to the top of the stairs. He had no idea if Al was carrying a gun. Just because he couldn’t have brought one aboard the plane didn’t mean he wasn’t carrying now. San José looked like the kind of place you could buy one easily, no questions asked. And someone like Al wasn’t the type to leave anything to chance. No more did he know if Lou Malta had a gun. But if Dave had run out on a man like Nudelli, a man who lent the loan sharks their money, then he’d make sure he always had a gun around. Probably two or three. So he followed Malta downstairs and looked through the door of his stateroom to make sure. Lou was staring into an empty sports bag, as if wondering what to take.

Dave said, ‘C’mon, we haven’t got all day.’

‘All right, all right, I’m doing my best for you, you inhuman bastard.’

‘Doing your best for me?’ Dave shook his head and yawned. That was the thanks he got for keeping the guy alive.

Malta started to stuff things into the bag: wallet, passport, jewelry, a bottle of Obsession for Men, Walkman, toilet bag, cellular phone.

‘I think you’d better leave the phone,’ said Dave.

‘Oh yeah. Sh-ure. OK. Well, couldn’t I just take the operating chip out of it and leave that behind? It’s useless without—’

Growing impatient now, Dave said, ‘Lou. Will ya leave the fuckin’ phone?’

Malta shrugged and stared at the contents of his bag almost incredulously for a moment, then zippered it up. ‘I’m done,’ he said tearfully and came through the door.