Shifters (9 page)

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Authors: Edward Lee

BOOK: Shifters
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At any rate, the deal was done. Jason and Anna would take the
Betruger
 up the coast in the morning, and meet Lethe in Seattle. “That reminds me,” Jason spoke up. “I’ll need the number of your hotel so I can call you once we’ve arrived.”
“No need,” Lethe replied and rose. “I’ll find you.”
“You’re leaving now?”
“Yes, I must go. So I’ll see you both in a couple of days.”
“Guten nacht,” Anna bid.
“Goodnight,” Lethe said, and then he walked away, leaving five one-hundred-dollar bills on the table to cover the tab.
««—»»
“Eh man, all done here,” said the lanky black man, who headed the marina crew, as he handed Jason an invoice for the work. The man in the army issue jacket that said EMMERSOM was all teeth under his mustache.
Jason signed it and handed it back. “Heavy son a bitch.”
“Damn straight. Weighed more than my Uncle Albert.”
“What’s that?”
“Took twelve of us pall bearers, and he was in a pine box. The old bastard ate fried clams three times a day at Benny’s when he was workin’ the dock. You ever had a plate of fried clams at Benny’s, man?”
“Uh, no,” Jason replied.
“Pile of clams bigger than your head. No wonder Uncle Albert weighted four-fifty when he kicked.”
Jason didn’t give a hoot about Emmersom’s uncle, but he knew what he was getting at. He felt the flush in his cheeks and a cold razor’s edge work up his spine. He had to admit, the crate looked like it could hold a coffin. “Tell me, you saying you think that’s a coffin?”
“I think nothin’, but whatever is in that thing ain’t secured, like machinery would be, you dig?”
Hmm.
 The crate was meticulously packed, a steel box on the outside, which stood to reason considering what Lethe claimed to be in it. But—
Jason shuddered. A hazy chill of old childhood dreams came back.…
ashes to ashes, dust to…
“Man, you all right? You look pale.”
“Just a long night.”
“With that bouncy little German thing? Shee-it, I’d probably look pale too,” Emmersom barked. Jason just smiled and let it go. But the chill hung on as they stood a moment more to look at the huge crate now secured in the master stateroom.
“And it was a perfect bitch gettin’ down here, hadda practically take the whole companionway apart and put it back together.”
“Hey, better you than me,” Jason laughed.
Emmersom displayed his middle finger. “And just what kind of a fuckin’ nut’d wanna do that anyway?”
Lethe,
Jason thought.
A nut?
 “I wouldn’t necessarily call him a nut. Eccentric, maybe. And what are you griping about, man? The four bills I gave you to haul this thing down here came from him.”
“Next time, keep it. And what’s this shit? Says on the shipping invoice it’s a ‘anteekee’ footstand,” Emmersom remarked. “What dah crap’s a footstand, man?”
“It’s a,” Jason began. Then he frowned. “Don’t ask unless you want to hear a lot of shit about King Richard’s ransom note.”
“Shee-it.” Emmersom chuckled, lit a butt. “Well I’ll tell ya what it ain’t. It ain’t a box full’a drugs.”
Jason looked at him. “Yeah?”
“That thing weren’t off the pallet one minute ’fore the Harbor Police were all over it with them dope-sniffin’ dogs of theirs. And the mutts couldn’t’a cared less about it. Couple of ’em wouldn’t even go near it.”
Interesting,
 Jason thought. A bit relieving too. Everything was fine…
So why didn’t he
feel
 fine?
“Anyway, thanks, man,” he offered. “Thanks for getting this big hunk of shit down here. I’ll see ya in a few weeks.”
Emmersom smiled again, shaking his head. “Shee-it. A fuckin’
foot
stand?” Then he left for abovedecks.
Two hours later, Jason and Anna had topped off the fuel and water tanks and were underway.
Yeah,
Jason thought at the helm, watching Anna bend over the mooring box.
Everything’s fine.
««—»»
Jason had taken the first salon aft of the bridge, giving Anna the first full shift at the
Betruger’s
 wheel. It was night somewhere off the Washington coast. His stateroom was lit by a red night-vision light. It gave a ghoulish feeling to the room. Naked, he climbed out of the king size bed and stretched. The cabin door opened. Anna was illumined in red. Her blonde hair fell behind her shoulders. She wore jeans cut off above her pockets which revealed tight thighs and muscular calves. Whenever Anna stood up she flashed bikini lines.
Jason didn’t see his pants. “My turn,” he commented.
“Ja,” she said, stepping toward him. She crossed her arms and skimmed her T-shirt over her head. Her long fingers lightly slid down her shoulders and over her breasts. They stopped for a moment to linger on the nipples. She stroked the valley between and the bottoms of those domes and moaned, “Ja, your turn.”
Jason could feel himself stiffen in the night air as Anna’s hips swayed from side to side. Her cut-offs slid down. Then those long elegant fingers slid through the dark patch between her golden red thighs. “Ja, your turn.”
She took his hands and placed them on her breasts. They were round and firm; the nipples raised beneath his caresses. Anna’s fingers ran down his sides, then up to his erection. He moaned as she descended, lightly kissing his chest, nipples, the underside of his ribs. Her tongue tickled him above his hips. Lower, she explored. Her hair teased his penis. She kissed the inside of his thighs, then her tongue was working around his circumcision…
Jason moaned and lay back on the bed as her tongue, teeth, and lips worked in unison. The cool air struck his member as Anna released him and kissed her way up his body, gently massaging him with her breasts. “Ja, your turn.”
Thank God for autopilot,
 Jason thought.
She straddled his hips and bore her sex down atop him. Jason thrust his hips upwards into a very wet, hot Anna. They both moaned… He ran his hands over her breasts as her gyrations became manic. “Ja!” she cried. “Your turn!”
Then her lips pulled back to reveal elongated teeth that looked sharp as roofing nails.
Jason screamed as she bit into his neck…
He leapt awake with a hollow cry, bathed in sweat. The engine’s drone was soft, hypnotic. A slight swell rocked the vessel.
Jesus, what a dumbass dream.
 In the dark stateroom, Jason felt around for his jeans. An LED clock read 1:40 a.m. Out in the companionway he tugged his shirt over his head and watched Anna on the helm. They were in a following sea. The port aft end of the vessel would raise slightly, then dip. Their motion was constant. If it had been an oncoming sea, he would have felt a bumping motion.
Jason steadied himself along the bulkheads as he walked aft to the master stateroom. If there was something loose in Lethe’s crate, a following sea might cause the container to slide and damage the bulkheads. The stateroom was easily larger than his. Its king-size bed sat in a recessed floor, and was topped by a canopy whose floral design matched the bedspread. By comparison, the oblong box which sat in front of the bed seemed small. Jason circled the box looking at how it sat. So far it hadn’t moved. He squatted down and tried to see what it would take to move something this massive. His arms and legs strained at the smooth, cool, dead weight. His face grew hot, temples pounded, a groan escaped him; but it wouldn’t move.
Shit,
he thought.
Maybe it
is
Emmersom’s Uncle Albert.
The container was 7 X 3 X 3, exactly.
Footstand, huh, Lethe?
 It was time to see this mystery cargo. Jason gripped the under side of the lid and grunted. The cold metal lid wouldn’t move. Again he walked around the container, running his fingers under the lip. Nothing. No seams, no welds, no latches of any kind. This was turning into a weirder trip than he thought.
He considered using a crow bar to pry it open. Out of nowhere he was swept by a wave of nausea. His knees buckled,…
ashes to ashes, dust to…
 He clicked off the light and closed the door behind him as he ran for the deck. The cool ocean air braced him and the moment passed.
It was quarter of three in the morning when Jason relieved Anna. She was grateful to be off early. A million faint points of light speckled the black heaven. The Pacific Ocean mirrored the dark void of space as the
Betruger
 plowed its way through the sea. Jason’s heart slowed to a steady beat. Calm took control as he reestablished their position.
An hour later, they were just south of Seattle when he noticed Anna on the side deck staring out into the ocean.
What’s she doing up here now?
he wondered.
She only went to bed an hour ago
.
“Couldn’t sleep?” he called out.
She didn’t answer. She kept wiping her eyes. When she finally turned, he was startled to see her so wan. She looked like she did in the dream. And when he finally asked what was wrong, she said something about a bad dream, too. Her face was that of a child, who after waking from a nightmare, didn’t want to go back to sleep.
(ii)
Called him Wire. Smalltime thief, bigtime headcase. Lotta crank ‘n speed ‘n angel dust had turned what was between his ears into bad meat. Got the nickname in K.C. Detent—doing eighteen months on a GTA—on account he was skinny, like a piece of wire. Earned some more nicknames he’d just as soon forget on his second sendup: “White ‘N Tight” and “C-Block Boy-Cherry.” That was at Walla Walla, the state slam. Had to do three on a nickel for burglary. Fuckin’ animals. Lotta times the players traded him between block bulls for cigarettes. “You my bitch t’night, White ‘N Tight!” he’d been told too many times. Wire’s poor bowel had been the depository of many an ejaculation.
Raped lots of chicks in his day, and killed two guys once on a burn pickup, back when he was dealing. Fuck dealing nowadays—too many cowboys, and a lotta fuckin’ Jamakes had taken over. This county, shit, first offense dealing coke or frog got’cha a mandatory pound in the state cut, no parole. Ain’t no way ol’ Wire was going back to that shithouse. Jacking was a safer gig if you’d got it up the ass many times as Wire; some of those players had cocks big as fuckin’ rolling pins. He’d been jacking small stuff five years now and was doing all right, had a coupla good fences in SeaTac. Boat shit was always big in the fall, ya rip stuff in the fall that people’ll want in the spring, give the shit time ta cool down. And a town like this, shit, one fuckin’ marina after the next, boats all over the fuckin’ place. Pretty penny numbers was shit like fishing sonar, depth-finders, and these new digital map things, whatever the fuck they were. CD-Rome, something like that. Ya keep active, ya do all right, plenty of dust money, which was fine for Wire.
Carried a small folding knife—an Almar. Sharp stuff, it’d do the job. Had a three-inch blade so if the pigs shook him down they couldn’t burn him on the knife laws. Anything three-inch or less was in the books as a penknife. Didn’t sound big, but ya hold one to some chick’s throat and she’ll bend over fast, Wire could tell you. Figured he owed it to the system ta rape chicks, after all the times he’d gotten raped in the joint. So fuck it, he didn’t give a shit long as he got a nut off.
With boat shit it was easy down here at Shilshole most of the boats belonged to Boeing engineers or Microsoft execs who used their boats one or two weekends a year. Lotta the marinas let their security contracts expire end of October, so usually he didn’t have to worry ’bout any of these night watchmen chumps. Wire parked by Charlie’s and walked over to B-Dock at the big marina next to the restaurant. Figured he’d hit a row of cabin cruisers.

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