Paul Kavanagh - Such Men Are Dangerous

I said, “I want you to understand all this. It’s almost 2:30 now. In an hour and a half, at four o’clock, the Pindaris will blow up. We may hear it, I’m not sure, I may, I mean. I don’t know what speed a big ship makes or—”

“The Pindaris will—”

“Please don’t interrupt. Let me talk, and then later you can ask all the questions you want, and I’ll try to answer them. I think I knew all along that I was going to blow up the ship. I think that’s one of the reasons I agreed to do the job in the first place. Those weapons are disgusting. They don’t just kill people, they kill everything. Everything. They kill the ground.”

“How did—”

“Please. You know the outfit I was in. We learned how to make bombs out of almost anything. I bought an alarm clock for the timer and opened up bullets for gunpowder. And other things. I set it all up while you were driving to the pier. In one of the crates I broke open. It won’t be much of a bomb. A little explosion and a little fire, but the explosion alone ought to be enough to start some of the napalm, and once that goes it’ll touch off most of the other stuff.”

I took a deep breath. “Of course, blowing up the ship takes the pressure off us, too. Me. They’ll know about it, that the weapons were destroyed, and it won’t be quite as important to find out who took them. Maybe they’ll decide that the criminals went down with the ship. So it’s safer this way, but that’s not the point, that’s just a fringe benefit.”

“A million dollars, a fortune in weapons, and a ship,” he said. He was talking to himself. “I don’t believe it. A ship, a freighter. I don’t—”

I waited until he stopped. I was going to tell him that the only thing that really bothered me was the damage the blast would do. It would pollute a large portion of the sea and might disturb the ecology of the whole area. I didn’t tell him because I knew he didn’t care, and also because it was something I didn’t want to think about myself. I would have to think about it sooner or later, but it could wait.

So I said, “I told you this because I had to, and it was something you had to know. But I know that you want to hear about yourself, don’t you?”

“You already told me.”

“Yes.”

“You’re going to dump me overboard.”

“That’s right.”

He had a tremendous amount of control. I could almost see his mind trying to come apart, but he managed to keep it in check. He couldn’t talk for a few minutes and I waited for him, and then he said, his voice steady, interested, “Why, Paul? Why? ”

“Don’t you know?”

“Because I tried to kill you.”

“No. That would be stupid. I told you last night.”

“Then why?”

I had had the right answer ready before but now I couldn’t remember what it was. I hedged. “I’m safer this way. They might get to you, it’s possible. And you would throw me to them, you know you would. Or else you would kill me yourself. I’d always be the loose end, the one man on earth who knew about you, and you would go to Guatemala and come back from Guatemala and think about me. You’d have a million dollars free and clear with one man in the world who knew about you, just one man, and it might take a month or a year or five years but sooner or later it would get to you and you would try to kill me.”

“Never, Paul. Never.”

“You would.”

“Never, I swear it!”

It was a rotten trick and I was mad at myself. He had hope now. It was false hope, because he thought that was my real reason and that, since it was a rational reason, he could use reason to change my mind. He deserved to be treated as an equal. It was legitimate to hurt him, but this was not an honest way to do it.

The words rushed out of him. They were wasted, I couldn’t even listen to them, but I let him go on. He never exactly finished. He ran out of breath, and when he did I held up a hand, and he let me talk.

“What I just said was true, don’t interrupt, it was true, but that’s not why I’m doing this.” My head was splitting. I put my hand to my forehead and tried to hold it all together. “I want to tell you why. I want to, I want to tell you why, but there are too many reasons. I can’t sort them out. Everything runs together.”

“Paul—”

“You said I was crazy. No, no, wait, that didn’t bother me. Don’t you see? I know I’m crazy. But not just now, George. I’ve been crazy all along. My God, George, what do you expect? A guy cracks up and lives by himself on an island and runs around naked, of course he’s crazy! What else would he be? You think he gets cured out there? Do you cure a lion by putting it in a cage?”

I stared into his eyes. He was beginning to understand. I think he was beginning to understand.

“You let the lion out of the cage,” I told him. “I held the leash in my own hands and it worked, I stayed on the leash. Sometimes it was close but it worked. But when the job was over the leash went away. Do you see? Do you see?”

He couldn’t answer me.

“Why am I going to kill you? George, George, I have a hundred reasons. I have a million reasons. You came to my island. You went in my house. You read my list.” I couldn’t hold my voice down. It was getting louder and louder. “You threw a cigarette in the sand. Cellophane, the cellophane from the pack, you let it blow away. You watched me shoot the soldiers. You wouldn’t do it yourself but you watched me do it.

“You talked to me! You made me break my rules! You made me talk to you, you made me want to break the rules! You take pills! You smoke! Damn you, you bastard, I already killed you. I drowned you and I could have left you in the water but I didn’t. I made you dead and then I made you alive again, but you’ve been dead all along. That’s why the boat, that’s why it has to be drowning.”

“Paul, Paul—”

“You came too close! I made myself stop talking to people and you made me talk to you! I was free, I was alone, and you came close! I was alone and I was myself and you wrecked that, you pushed your way in and now you’re me and I’m you! You’re the me I hate! ”

I stood there listening to that last sentence ringing in the air. It had come out all by itself. It was true, and it was a truth I hadn’t known about before. I could feel tears behind my eyes. I knew they wouldn’t flow, I knew it, but they were there.

I went downstairs again. Below. When I came back he said, “Paul, I give up. You don’t want to torture me. End it.”

“Do it yourself.” He didn’t understand. “Take the black pill,” I said. “You once told me I’d never do it. Neither will you. You’ve got a hollow tooth, I found it when I gagged you. Bite it, take the black pill. It’s easier than drowning.”

He breathed. In and out, in and out. “That’s what I thought. Part of you keeps thinking I’ll change my mind. That’s what I thought, but I had to find out for sure. Even when you’re under you’ll wonder if I’m going to pull you back up and let you go. You’ll keep on wondering, and then you’ll drown. Again.”

“Paul—”

I didn’t listen. I picked him up. I was surprised how easy he was to lift. He flapped like a fish, but he was still easy to lift. I wanted to make it fast now before something went wrong. I threw him overboard.

The fucking line was too short. He hung head downward, his head just a foot from the water surface, and he was screaming. I grabbed the anchor and heaved it after him, and by the time I looked he was gone.

At four o’clock I thought I heard a noise, a rumbling noise far out to sea. I went to the rail but I couldn’t see anything. It could very well have been thunder, a storm out over the Atlantic. Or my imagination.