Mike Lawson - The Payback

A really ugly ending to the life of a beautiful fish , DeMarco thought.

‘I got him!’ Mahoney screamed, two arms in the air like he’d just scored a touchdown.

The deckhand looked over at Mahoney like he wanted to kill him. He had almost gone overboard netting the fish, and the way he was holding his back it looked as if he’d strained something getting the salmon into the boat.

While Mahoney celebrated his victory with his fifth beer of the day – it was ten a.m. – DeMarco watched the deckhand weigh the fish. The scale read forty-two pounds.

‘Fifty-two pounds!’ the deckhand called out to Mahoney and winked at DeMarco.

Alex asked Mahoney if he’d like to catch another one.

‘Nah,’ Mahoney said. ‘One’s enough.’

Now this surprised DeMarco. Mahoney, he always figured, came from the same stock as those who had almost made the buffalo extinct.

‘What about you, Mr DeMarco?’ Alex said. ‘Would you like to catch one?’ DeMarco figured Alex wasn’t being nice, he just wanted to spend more time bending Mahoney’s ear. And since DeMarco’s pants were already a mess, why not?

‘Sure,’ DeMarco said at the same time Mahoney said, ‘We don’t have time. I gotta plane to catch. I’m meetin’ with the president tonight.’

Even the rich guy seemed impressed by that.

On the way back to the marina, Mahoney and Alex sat in the cabin, Alex looking serious as they talked. Mahoney kept nodding his head, an equally serious expression on his face. Alex didn’t know it, but Mahoney wasn’t listening to a word he said. Mahoney had the ability to pretend to be intently engaged in a conversation with a potential contributor while his mind played back the fish – or the woman – he’d just landed.

Mahoney made arrangements with the deckhand to ship his fifty-five pound salmon back to D.C. The fish had miraculously gained three pounds in the last hour; God knows what size it would be by the time Mahoney reached the East Coast. As DeMarco was driving Mahoney to the airport, DeMarco’s cell phone rang again. He wondered if it was Dave Whitfield calling back. It wasn’t, it was Emma.

‘Joe,’ she said, ‘Dave Whitfield’s been killed.’

‘Oh, Christ,’ DeMarco said.

‘What?’ Mahoney said, hearing DeMarco’s tone of voice.

‘He had a four-year-old son, Joe,’ Emma said.

DeMarco said good-bye to Emma and turned to tell Mahoney the news but at that moment Mahoney’s cell phone rang. It was the Secretary of the Navy, Frank Hathaway.

‘Sir,’ the marine said, ‘I need to check that bag.’

Norton couldn’t believe it. Tonight, of all nights. They didn’t usually check things going out the gates, and if he had left at the same time all the other day-shift workers had, they never would have stopped him. But he was going out late because of what Carmody had told him to do – and because of what had happened today – and now the damn marine at the gate, a nineteen-year-old kid bored out of his skull, had decided to fuck with him.

‘Uh, yeah sure,’ Norton said. There was no point arguing with the marine; you can’t argue with marines. He put his backpack on the little table near the gate and unconsciously hitched up his pants. When he realized what he was doing, he stopped immediately. He had to get a grip on himself.

‘Would you please open the bag, sir,’ the marine said.

Norton opened the backpack and the marine peered inside. Inside the backpack was a paperback book, a pair of sunglasses, a brown bag containing the remains of Norton’s lunch, and a chessboard. The marine removed the lunch bag from the backpack, peered inside, then set it aside. Then he reached for the chessboard.

Oh please, God , Norton thought.

The marine hefted the chessboard in his hand. ‘This thing’s pretty heavy,’ he said. ‘What’s it made out of?’

Before Norton could answer, a voice behind him said, ‘You search that bastard good, Corporal. He works for me and I want to make sure he’s not stealing me blind.’

Carmody placed a big hand on the back of Norton’s neck and gave it a squeeze like he was being friendly. The squeeze wasn’t friendly.

To the marine, Carmody said, ‘In fact, you oughta put on some gloves, son, and probe this boy’s orifices. The only problem is, he might enjoy it.’

The young marine smiled – he couldn’t stop himself – then quickly rearranged his face back into a serious expression.

‘Sir,’ he said to Carmody, ‘if you could please step …’

Carmody glanced at the marine’s name tag. ‘Heesacker,’ he said. ‘Did you have an older brother, flew choppers in Iraq in ’92?’

‘Uh, no, sir,’ the marine said.

‘Well, you’re the spittin’ image of a guy named Heesacker I knew over there.’

‘You were in the corps, sir?’ the marine said.

Norton saw the marine was still holding the damn chessboard.

‘Nah,’ Carmody said. ‘SEALs.’

The young marine almost saluted. SEALs were his gods; a SEAL was what he wanted to be.

The marine shoved the chessboard back into Norton’s backpack and replaced the lunch bag he’d removed. To Norton, he said, ‘You have a good evening, sir.’ Looking directly into Carmody’s eyes, he added, ‘Both of you.’

Carmody and Norton walked together for a block, neither man speaking. Norton was afraid to speak. When they reached the lot where Norton’s car was parked, Carmody said, ‘Did you get them?’

‘Yeah,’ Norton said, and he reached into the back of his baggy pants and pulled out two square plastic cases containing unlabeled CDs.

‘Give me the laptop, too,’ Carmody said.

Norton quickly unzipped his backpack and handed the chessboard to Carmody.

Carmody stared at Norton for a second, and then he put his face close to Norton’s and said very softly, ‘Somebody died today because you fucked up. The next time you fuck up, guess who’s gonna die?’

Carmody stood in the center of an old steel bridge called the Manette Bridge. From where he was standing he could see the shipyard less than a mile away. The drydocks were lit by banks of lights – like those used for night games in old ballparks – so work could proceed around the clock.

Carmody looked around, made sure there were no cars coming from either direction, and dropped the chessboard into the water below him. He had thought about just hiding the laptop but had decided not to take the risk. He’d get another when they needed one, which probably wouldn’t be for quite a while.

He placed his forearms on the bridge rail and looked down into the water.

This whole thing was coming apart; it was time to shut it down. But he knew she wouldn’t do that. He looked at his watch. He had to get going. The rendezvous was in less than two hours.

She made him drive a long way from Bremerton for the meeting, past Green Mountain, up a winding road that changed from pavement to gravel and ended at a clear-cut section of forest surrounded by a lonely ring of still-standing trees. She also kept him waiting longer than normal before she approached his car, taking twice as much time to make sure he hadn’t been followed.

She entered the car and he was surprised at the way she was dressed. She normally wore the sort of clothes a cat burglar would wear, dark jeans and a long-sleeved dark T-shirt. But tonight she was wearing a low-cut black cocktail dress, a dress which showed off very good legs. On her feet were sexy, impractical high heels that must have been tough to walk in in the area where they were parked. She even had on perfume. The rendezvous must have caused her to interrupt or cancel whatever plans she’d had for the evening, but Carmody couldn’t imagine her having a social life. He had no idea what she did when they were apart; he had always thought of her as a beautiful vampire lying in a coffin waiting until the sun disappeared.