Paul Kavanagh - Such Men Are Dangerous

Somewhere in the middle of all this Dattner came to again. He made of lot of noise at first, mostly shouting my name. I ignored him. I had discovered before I found my island that people run out of steam if you simply fail to respond to them for long enough. Just because someone says something to you does not mean you are compelled to answer him. It works with strangers, and now it worked with Dattner. Before very long he quieted down and waited for me to notice him.

I let him wait. I chopped the heads and tails off the fishes, slit them down the middle, gutted them and fileted them. I crumpled half a dozen pages of One, Two, Three... Infinity, nested them where I built my fires and packed slivers of driftwood over them. When the fire was going nicely I fried two of the fish in cooking oil and ate them both. They were delicious, but then they always are.

“You almost drowned me.”

“Not almost. I drowned you, but then I changed my mind and brought you around again. For a while I didn’t think you would make it. I almost gave up. I suppose you could say you were dead for a few minutes and then came back to life.”

“Jesus Christ.”

“You mean the Lazarus bit? I’m honored, but it’s not quite the same thing.”

“Jesus Christ.”

He was on his back, his hands underneath him. I was squatting on my haunches alongside him, finishing a cup of coffee. I had never understood how people could sit on their haunches for long periods of time. I’d always found it painful. When you have all the time in the world to practice, it gets easy.

“One minute you’re talking about getting me something to drink, and the next minute my head’s underneath the ocean. I never saw anything like it.”

“You’ve been telling me how good I am. Now you know.”

“Yeah. Paul?”

“What?”

“Why kill me?”

I finished the coffee, trotted back to the shack to get an orange for dessert. I gnawed at it for a few minutes before answering him. “You came here,” I said, finally. “You came here, to my island. I didn’t invite you. I didn’t want company, you or anybody else. And you wouldn’t go away. I told you to go away and you wouldn’t go.” I shrugged. “On top of that, I got mad. When you’re all alone all the time you don’t have to keep your temper because nothing makes you lose it. So I was out of practice, and I got mad. Anyway, I couldn’t think of a better way to get rid of you.”

“So you tried to drown me.”

“I didn’t try. I drowned you, and then I changed my mind.”

He thought this over while I finished my orange. I set the peel floating in the water. I throw all my organic garbage in the sea where sooner or later something eats it. Cans I bum out and bury. I don’t want to make anything dirty.

On the way back I put more wood on the fire. I had a fair stockpile of firewood, and I could always bum planks from his boat.

“Paul?”

“Go ahead.”

“Do you have any idea how completely you’ve changed?”

“Yes.”

“I suppose you do. Why did you change your mind?”

“I figured they would miss you and send someone looking for you, so killing you would just complicate things. It would make me feel good for a couple of hours but then it would make my life more difficult.”

“No other reason?”

“Like what?”

“Forget it. What happens now?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“Will you let me go away?”

“As soon as I’m sure you’ll leave me alone. I think you probably will, because you must realize I wouldn’t be of any use to you. To the Agency. If you don’t want me any more, and if you’re not set on being vindictive, then there’s no reason to keep you here. Or to kill you. So I’ll put you in your boat and send you on your way.”

“Uh-huh. The funny thing is, I want you more than ever.”

“Then you must be crazy.”

“Don’t bet on it. Look, Paul—”

“Later,” I said. I took the frying pan to the water’s edge and washed it clean. Usually, on days when I go over to Mushroom Key, I eat a late lunch as soon as I get back and a late dinner a little after sunset. Dattner had fouled up my schedule. The sun was already on its way down, and the two fish filets were lunch. In a few hours I would want to get to sleep, and I hadn’t had dinner, and didn’t like to eat just before I went to bed. I had planned on having the pork chops.

I would have skipped dinner, but this was no time to abandon my ten rules. They had never been more important. I took two unnecessary drinks from the old pint of corn whiskey. That killed the bottle, and I put it aside to return to Clint next trip. I got the pork chops from the fridge and sauteed them in the frying pan in a half inch of sea water. It’s good to cook in and saves adding salt. When the chops were ready I carried the pan over to Dattner. He was on his side, watching me.

“You eat a lot.”

“One of these is for you, if you want it.”

“If I want it. The only thing I want more is a cigarette. I suppose the ones in my jacket are soaked.”

“I suppose so.”

“There’s another pack on the boat.”

“It’s a dirty habit,” I said. “Now’s your chance to kick.”

His laugh started out ingratiating and wound up honest. He sort of got carried away with it. He asked if I would cut him loose.

“Don’t get cute.”

“Don’t worry.”

“Because it wouldn’t do you any good. Your gun’s in thirty feet of water, and a knife or ax wouldn’t give you enough of an edge.”

“I’ve had a lot of training, you know. Unarmed combat.”

“That’s wonderful.”

“You don’t sound terrified. I guess I don’t blame you. I’ll be a good boy, Paul. Just cut me loose and let me eat and I’ll be good.”

“I undid his ankles first, opening the knot easily. Then I rolled him over and worked on the length of twine around his wrists. It had gotten wet, and I had a tough time picking it apart.

“Why not cut it?”

“I don’t want to ruin the twine.”

“You’re putting me on.”

“No.”

“Well, I’ll be a son of a bitch,” he said. “And this is the joker who has all the money he needs. What is that, a tenth of a cent’s worth of twine? You don’t need money, but you’ll spend all day working on a knot and—”

I opened the knot. He turned over, sat up, rubbed his wrists.

He said, “A couple of feet of twine—”

I handed him a pork chop and told him to shut up and eat it. I ate mine. When he was done I threw the bones into the water. I opened the quart bottle of shine and brought him two ounces in an empty tin can.

“Aren’t you drinking?”

“No.”

“I forgot. Two a day before dinner and no more, right?”

“One of the things we won’t talk about is the list.”

“Don’t get angry—”

“I’m just telling you.”

“Sure.” He drained the can in two swallows. “Smooth,” he said.

“Homemade corn.”

“Nothing like it. They make it around here?”

“I don’t know.”

He asked if he could go to the boat for cigarettes. I told him no — he might have a gun there, or might try to get away. He said he would give me his word. I just looked at him. He asked, then, if I would go for his cigarettes. I told him not to be silly. He stopped talking.

I said, “About the twine. You don’t understand anything at all. The cost of it doesn’t matter. It’s the inconvenience. The greatest nuisance in the world is garbage. I don’t throw things into the water unless they get eaten sooner or later. So—”

“What about the bones?”

“They’ll break down. Fish will eat parts of them and pick at the meat and marrow, and the rest will nourish some form of life. And—”