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My Kind of Town Don Chapman |
A way out
>> Off the Big IslandAnd so here they were with a body on ice.
The one with all the guns paced the deck and tried desperately to find another way out. He wanted to go back and start over. He glanced at his diver's chronograph. He'd settle for going back just 30 minutes. But he couldn't. He could see just one way to resolve this unplanned situation. A thought had repeated itself again and again in his mind, and this time he exclaimed it out aloud, announcing to the gods of judgment: "This is not the way it was supposed to happen!"
"Tell me about it," said the one balanced uncomfortably on the corner of an open commercial fisherman's ice cooler, handcuffed to the ankle of his friend, who lay on a bed of ice after a shot to the chest from one of those same spear guns. He tried not to stare at the trigger fingers. "This is not the way we planned it."
A tight smile barely parted the spearman's lips: "We're in the same boat, aren't we?"
Mistaking the smile and the unintended pun for weakness, the handcuffed one leaped at opportunity: "Maybe we could work out a plan! It's not to late!" He stuck out a hand: "Hey, Darren, I'm Paul. I could help! Listen, you need me because ..."
The spearman's eyes glossed over, not really hearing, turning his plan round and round.
"But it is too late," he said when the other one paused for air. "You tried to kill me."
There was, Paul had to admit, no arguing that point.
A new plan suddenly illuminated in his mind. He knew where he was going. It was the same place he'd always been going. "You know what? I can start over."
The first step on this portion of his long journey to the island of his dreams was to pull the trigger of the speargun in his right hand.
The second was to make sure all of the blood stayed in the cooler. His new plan got off to a very good start.
As he pushed the cooler top down, he heard most of the man's dying breath: "Sonya, I did it for you."
"That's two of us, pal," he replied and latched the top.
And so he missed the man's final words, barely whispered: "Sushi ... girls ... rendezvous ..." Famous last words.
He hoisted the anchor. The wind was up, but so was the full moon. So he kept the tell-tale pink sails stowed below and relied instead on the motor as he set Pet Shop on a northerly bearing.
He couldn't believe it, but Sonya had been in on their plan to kill him and get his money. Paul said so. That was all the proof he needed.
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Don Chapman is editor of MidWeek. His serialized novel runs daily in the Star-Bulletin. He can be e-mailed at dchapman@midweek.com