One
A sail.
It caught the morning sun from the east, a white triangle on the horizon standing out from the purple sky and dark water that were above and below it. It bobbed slightly as it picked up breezes, ticking like a needle on a gauge.
She kept looking at it as it made its slow way across her field of vision.
“Hey Jenny,” the man next to her asked, “you got something?”
“You ain’t gonna believe it, Charlie,” she answered as she looked at him in response. “It’s a sail.”
“Wha’?”
“No, really,” she said as she passed the binoculars to him.
“Hey, wha’ the hell… Hey, Dutch, Tomo, Georgie, you ain’t gonna believe this.”
The man and the two women Charlie had roused from a pre-dawn half-sleep yawned and started looking out where he was pointing.
“Give me that back, Charlie,” Jenny said as she took back the binoculars. “Gotta get a heading on these. OKAY… They’re heading to port, maybe five knots…”
“Port’s what again?” asked one of the women.
“The left. Geez, Tomo, you gotta get those down.”
“Screw that,” said the other woman. “What are we doing here? We going?”
“Wait, wait,” said Tomo. “Why a sail?”
“Guess it’s quiet, saves on gas,” said Jenny.
“You don’t think it’s just some weekend sailor who’s lost?”
“Not this far from shore,” said the other man.
“Dutch is right,” said Jenny, “and if he is a weekender, maybe he’d be smart and just behave.”
“I’m thinking he ain’t a weekender,” said the other woman, “ya know?”
“I agree with Georgie,” said Dutch.
“OKAY,” said Jenny, “that’s Georgie and Dutch for.”
“Me too,” said Charlie.
“Hey,” said Tomo, “I was just asking. Of course we go.”
“Then let’s do this, ‘kay?” said Jenny.
The quiet of the morning was shoved aside as clips clacked into auto rifles and Jenny tapped the choke and twisted the battery connector into the motor. The igniter barked to life as she grabbed the tiller and engaged the throttle with her free hand.
And Jenny guided her boat, putting her and her crew on course to claim the sail…
Jenny made a few adjustments on the tiller to put the boat’s bow a few degrees to port, keeping an eye on her prey.
The sailboat seemed to offer no resistance to her, not varying speed or course as she got closer to it. There seemed to be no effort at evasion whatsoever as the boat ripped over the water, closing like a hawk about to break the back of a mouse.
She gave her crew a once-over with a glance.
Charlie was at the bow, lying down, keeping his eyes just above the gunwale and his automatic rifle by his chest. She didn’t see him shiver, despite the cold pre-dawn air and the spray from the bow kicking droplets into the boat.
Tomo was looking right ahead over the water, avoiding looking over the side. She put her auto rifle in her lap with one hand holding it down, while she used the other to zip up her jacket. Her efforts to try and stuff her blonde curls into her hood and keep her head covered were a failure, and after a few seconds she just let the wind blow them off her face.
Dutch was opposite Tomo to starboard, keeping an eye on her. He half smiled and tried to shift forward on his seat on the keel to try and extend a hand to her, but gave up when he couldn’t reach across the beam to her without holstering his pistol. He kept looking between her and the sailboat, giving her a sympathetic look when he could.
Georgie knelt down on the centerline of the keel, opening two boxes of shells for the shotgun. She held up one from each, a slug and a double-ought, to show to Jenny.
“I don’t think we’re going to need slugs,” she replied.
“Why not?” Georgie asked.
“If they’re trying to go quiet with a sail, I’m thinking they’re not going to turn out to secretly be the Canadian navy. The double-ought should be enough.”
“For the first three, then the rest these,” Georgie said, with the slug raised as she faced Jenny. Her black hair framed her face like blowback from behind. “Just in case, it’s better to have something heavy to call up.”
“All right,” Jenny sighed. “Screw it, but just don’t shoot holes in everything like the last time.”
Georgie went back down to the keel and fed three slugs into the magazine before putting the double-oughts before them. She side-chambered another double-ought in the shotgun before she readied her pistol.
Jenny looked up at the sailboat, which shone even brighter as they got closer to it. It looked like a pile of pristine snow, making the chill off the water feel sharper.
Before the pile could loom into a mountain, a figure emerged on deck. Jenny could barely make out the features before she saw the muzzle flash and heard the crack of shots fired…
Jenny gave the crew a quick look to see if anyone had been hit. There was no sign that anyone was hurt; Tomo was hugging the keel, and Dutch was splayed out over her like a blanket.
“Cut it out, you two,” Jenny called to them. “When we get back home, you can go for each other then.”
As Dutch got back to his side of the boat, Charlie called out, “Knew I should have gotten that scope when I had a chance.”
“Why?” asked Dutch. “You can’t hit anything with that at three yards, how you going to do it with a scope?”
“You think it’s a pistol?” Jenny asked. “Didn’t sound like anything bigger, did it?”
“Yeah,” said Charlie, popping his head up and down every few seconds. “I think he’s only got a pistol.”
“So much for simple weekend sailors,” said Georgie, as she pulled the shotgun close to her chest.
“Yeah, looks it,” said Jenny. “Charlie and Tomo to the fore.”
“The front,” Dutch offered to Tomo, who took a position alongside Charlie, one knee down on the forward bench.
Jenny readjusted the craft, pointing the bow towards the sailboat, then adjusting her course to intercept.
“He tries it again,” said Jenny, “rock and roll his ass.”
Both Charlie and Tomo flipped the switches on their rifles to the full auto positions and readied themselves.
When the guy on the sailboat came into sight, Jenny only heard him get off one shot before automatic fire drowned out even the launch’s motor. Jenny lost sight of the sailboat as the cascade of emptied shells flew off the starboard bow, small dashes glistening in captured dawn light before falling into the water.
When the firing stopped, the launch was close enough that Jenny cut the motor to drift up to her prey. Within twenty feet of the sailboat, she saw her defender raise his face off the deck, dropping the pistol and waving his hands in surrender.
“Smart move,” she called out as Dutch tossed a hooked line out of the launch to draw the two craft closer together.
The guy on deck scrambled backwards, his back butting into the hatch on the cabin as Tomo and Charlie kept him covered. Jenny boarded and helped Dutch secure the craft as Georgie boarded with her shotgun trained on the guy.
When Jenny finished, she drew her pistol, leveled it at her captive and asked, “All right, who the hell else you have on board?”
He screamed, as more screams answered from the cabin in a chorus.
And Jenny’s crew raised their weapons…
“OKAY, hold it! Hold it!” Jenny barked to her crew. “No one fires unless they hear gunshots from the cabin!”
“Oh my God,” said the man from the sailboat, “you’re going to kill us all!”
“Not if you’re f’n’ smart about it,” she replied, her pistol still trained on him as she lowered her voice. “How many more are on board, and what do they have?”
He stared at her in panic.
“Or we could shoot the crap out of your boat and just pick through the pieces. Your call.”
“F-f-four. Me, another guy, two women. Unarmed, all of us, d-don’t harm them.”
“All of you?” she asked as her eyes landed on his pistol.
“That’s all. That’s mine; they didn’t even know I brought one.”
“You sound Canadian. You a Canuck?”
She watched his eyes widen as he considered how to respond.
“Back to the stern,” she commanded him. “Keep him covered,” she ordered Georgie before she started to kick the hatch.
After the screaming in the cabin died down, Jenny called, “Listen, the three of you; just come out one at a time, hands where we can see them, and no one has to get hurt.”
There was nothing coming from inside the cabin.
She chambered a round in her pistol and fired it into the air from right next to the door. “Next one’s going to put your friend out here into the lake,” she yelled, “and if that doesn’t get you off your asses, we’re coming in with guns blazing. Now — three! Tw-”
“All right, all right, all right!” she heard from inside just before the door flew open and the second guy on the sailboat came out, hands up.
“What about the rest of your crew?” she asked him.
“I wanted a hoodie,” said one of the women, wearing it as she came out, hands firmly in the front pockets.
“Cover me,” Jenny commanded Dutch as she thrust her hands into the hoodie’s pockets to clean them out. Not finding anything but hands there, she pulled her forward and then shoved her towards aft.
Then the other woman came out, barely covered in a sheer teddy, her visible panic putting her at the edge of a scream.
“Just keep it quiet and you’ll be doing us all a favor,” said Jenny, as she motioned with her pistol to move her aft.
The woman in the teddy just kept staring at Jenny.
“What?”
“Your…your hair… What color is that?” she asked her as her fear slid away.
“You like it?”
“It’s like- you look like you got hit with a can of red sports car paint.”
“And if you have anything below deck that’s worth crud, I’ll buy one and ask them to deliver it in this color. Thanks for the tip!”
Her crew laughed as the Canadians looked at them nervously.
“Weekend Canuck sailors?” Dutch asked.
“Guess so,” said Jenny. “You’d think on a Wednesday you wouldn’t see any, though…”
Two
The crew was still laughing about the Canadians as they came in sight of shore.
“The way the one in the teddy was just asking away about your hair like that,” said Charlie. “I thought after a while she was going to ask you to come over to Ontario and go with her on a hair appointment.”
“Yeah, that would have been fun,” Jenny replied with a grim head shake.
“Why did she keep going on about that, anyway?”
“Maybe to keep us from thinking about throwing her over the side. Some people just keep talking when things get out of hand, hoping that that will keep them safe.”
“I’m glad she kept talking,” said Dutch. “I think she calmed the rest of them down.”
“Made it easier to get in and out,” said Jenny. “When you end up with two cases of good whiskey, three boxes of Cubanos, two cartons of cigarettes, a fridge full of food and their pads and cells, that’s not a bad haul.”
“I thought the guy with the gun was going to try and play hero,” said Tomo. “Even after we took the gun and his box of shells, I thought he’d try one more thing.”
“They were stupid,” said Jenny, “but not that dumb.”
“How’re we going to divvy this one up?” Dutch asked.
“The four pads and cells, we can take out the SIMs and sell them at Broadway Market and split that. We’ll also sell the whiskey, cigs and Cubanos there, and anyone who wants to can claim whatever they want from the food.”
“What is it again, mostly cheese and ham?” asked Georgie.
“I thought I saw a tightpack of sushi, too,” said Dutch. “Tuna roll.”
“You think it’s real tuna?”
“That’s tough to find even in Toronto, last I heard.”
“Someone want to read the ingredients?” Jenny suggested.
Tomo went into the bag they emptied the galley into and pulled out the package of sushi, keeping the contents insulated and airtight.
“Hmm…” she read aloud. “Equine extract?”
“Oh God, not pieces of horse! Get rid of it!” Jenny commanded.
The package flew off to port and skipped on the surface of Lake Erie a few times before Georgie could say, “Wait, what if we just took the label off it and tried to pass it off in a trade?”
“And get skinned alive in Broadway Market? What are you, nuts?”
Jenny cut the gas on the motor as they came into sight of Lake Shore Road, the dim early morning light hiding from sight the worst of the ruins of abandoned restaurants.
“Tomo and Charlie, get the truck and back her in. Let’s get the boat hooked and out of the water fast, then get the car and the rest of the booty from Georgie’s place; I want to get to Broadway Market early and get this over already.”
***
“I’d like to do the real Broadway Market again someday,” said Tomo, as she pointed to the green sign in front of the building.
“Last time I tried to go there,” said Charlie, “the merc-cops swarmed me like flies on a turd three minutes in.”
“Bet you didn’t try and look like someone who belongs there, right?” Dutch asked. “You dressed like you always do, like someone without a regular job, right?”
“If I was forty years older, I could get away with it.”
“You get forty years older, you can’t get away with much.”
“Wave goodbye while we pass it,” said Jenny, driving the car east down Broadway. “Speaking of saying goodbye, that place we parked the truck and boat’s still good, ain’t it?”
“That house and garage are still owned by my Uncle Carmine, as far as the security system people care,” said Tomo, “and they haven’t checked for fake records to purge for a few days.”
“And you’re out on the water as a pirate instead of hacking for a living, why again?” asked Charlie.
“What, and give up all of this?”
“And if they find out about your ‘Uncle Carmine’ and come around and find the boat,” said Jenny, “you have something to fall back on.”
“I’d try and set you all up if they did.”
“Real nice of you.”
“Speaking of old folks at Broadway Market,” asked Dutch, “how’s your Nana, Jenny?”
“Going to see her later. I’ll tell her you asked about her… And it looks like Butch is at the door.”
She rolled the car across Broadway to the other Broadway Market, an abandoned-looking ex-factory with a guard shack at the gate of the chain link fence surrounding the building. A burly broad-shouldered man in merc-cop blues sauntered out of the shack as Jenny rolled down the window.
“Hey Butch,” she said to the guard. “You doing okay?”
Butch looked into the car, giving every face a hard look before his facial muscles softened slightly.
“Well, well,” said Butch, “if it ain’t the West Seneca Crew. You kids know the rules still, right?”
“Yeah, no packing in the Market; you start something, you get asked to leave; and if you have to be asked again, you have the right to shoot me. How’s it in there this week, anyway?”
“Looks like a big turnout. You got in nice and early, before a lot of other folks looking to unload today.”
“Any idea if they’re buying much today?”
“Honey,” said Butch, “if I could game the Market, I wouldn’t be out here. Go round to the left, you know where the out of sight parking is.”
Jenny drove the car around and parked it, then made sure the crew’s guns were stowed under a blanket in the trunk before she unloaded all the booty on a close-by hand truck.
“Let’s hope the fish are biting today,” said Dutch.
The West Seneca Crew stopped at the entry to the building to take in their Broadway Market.
The interior of the ex-factory was a bazaar of stands offering to buy and sell just about anything, from large containers off the backs of trucks to bins of small items both prized and forgotten. Punctuating the sutters ready to swap were merchants of food, flesh and fantasy, bright accents from their LEDs and lights from underneath making landmarks amid the aisles.
“Who looks to be doing business in what?” Jenny asked as she scanned the aisles.
“I see Karl’s here,” said Dutch. “He’s usually into cigs and cigars, especially Canadian goods.”
“What about the pile of pads and cells, the ones we got today and on the last few raids?”
“There’s Xia’s spot,” Georgie pointed out the large screen running the news coming in through a handheld dish.
“OKAY, think there’s someone who’ll take all the alcohol in one deal, or we going to need to try the whiskey and the wine and beer from last week in different places?”
“All of it?” Charlie asked.
“Everything we brought; that wasn’t all of it in the trunk, was it?”
“I put aside four cases of beer,” said Tomo.
“Last time there was someone desperate to make a party,” said Dutch, “the guy who wanted wine and anything else. Think he’s here?”
“If he is, we should find out about why he’s doing so many parties. That might be a nice sideline there, ain’t it?”
“How you mean, Jenny?”
“You know, raid Crystal Beach for party favors, stuff like that.”
Dutch looked at Jenny for a moment before he replied, “Girl, I have no idea if you’re joking or not, but huh?”
“Just a thought. But still, everyone, keep your ears open in case something comes up. Someone says they’re looking for something special or hard-to-get, I want to know and see if we can figure something out. Let’s start with the hardware,” she said as she started to direct the hand truck towards Xia’s.
They got all of fifteen feet before there was a blare of sound and three members of the crowd broke out two drums and a set of pipes. Before the West Seneca Crew could avoid it, a fourth member of the band emerged from her long coat in a set of veils anchored to wiry protections of modesty and started her dance right in the middle of the aisle.
“Oh come on!” Jenny barked at the raiding dancer. “Lemme at least unload something before you start begging, alright?”
The dancer just gave a smile as she cleared the aisle, slowly but suggestively.
“I don’t have time for this crap; c’mon already!”
When the dancer cleared enough aisle space to move, Jenny started the hand truck past the roadblock.
She turned around once past to see who was still distracted by the dancer, and said to the three of them, “Half shares only if you aren’t here in three… two-”
The dancer behind them, Jenny and the West Seneca Crew made their way through the aisles of the underground Broadway Market to the spot set up by a middle-aged woman with a large screen pulling in a signal on a handheld satellite dish.
“Hey, Xia,” said Jenny to the proprietor.
“Ah, Red One,” she responded. “Still not caught yet, I see.”
“Still buying and selling stolen electronics. No sound off the screen?”
“Too many complaints. I like to have the news on, but everyone says it’s bad for business.”
“Maybe if you didn’t insist on CBC World,” Jenny said as she watched the screen for a second, “they might like it better.”
“American news? That’s a contradiction in terms, right there. What do you have this week?”
Jenny unloaded the purloined devices, and the baggies with the SIM chips for all of them. She kept one eye on Xia, who counted the chips against the devices, as she watched the crawl on the bottom of the screen.
CHINESE POLITBORO AUTHORIZES MORE TROOPS FOR RUSSIAN BORDER, she read on the crawl.
“These don’t add up,” said Xia.
“Wha’?”
“You’re two SIMs short. You know I don’t buy anything tagged.”
“What’s missing?” Georgie asked. “What kind of SIM?”
GREEK SHIPS SHELL KUSADASI, TURKISH AUTHORITIES CLAIM 67 WOUNDED
“Two cells and a pad.”
Georige sighed. “I know I got them all stripped.”
“Just take this set of cells and start checking. Dutch, you take that pile, and Tomo, Charlie and I will go into the pads.”
She grabbed a pad and opened it to see if it still had a SIM in it.
ITALIAN REQUEST TO JOIN EUROPEAN FREE TRADE ZONE “NOT LIKELY TO BE APPROVED” SAID COMMISSION MEMBERS IN BERLIN
She watched Georgie shuck a cell and wipe her finger along its motherboard to find the SIM, close it up, and go on to the next one with a few quick twists of her wrist.
MEXICAN SUICIDE BOMBER IN ZACATECAS KILLS 11 US SOLDIERS
“You sure you got them all?” said Dutch, who was taking longer to open the back of the cell in his hand.
“Have I ever screwed up with stripping SIMs before?” she replied as she completed another sweep.
CREW OF RUSSIAN TANKER STRANDED BETWEEN DEVON AND BYLOT ISLANDS TO STAY WITH VESSEL AS IT IS TOWED TO IQALUIT
“First time for everyth- Dammit!” said Tomo as the back panel of the pad she was working on made a crunching sound as it refused to pop off.
“Careful with that!” said Jenny.
“Sorry.”
FEEDER WHO LEAKED SUPPRESSED US DEPT. OF AGRICULTURE STATISTICS FROM “BIG DRY” APPEALS LIFE SENTENCE, CITING INTERNATIONAL BILL OF HUMAN RIGHTS
“How many more you got there?” Georgie asked Dutch as she swiped through the last cell.
He shoved over his pile, and she started in on them, clearing the first one with a continuous hand motion.
US AND CANADIAN FIGHTER JETS PLAYED “CHICKEN” ALONG MANITOBA- N. DAKOTA BORDER LAST NIGHT, ACCORDING TO AIRCOM SPOKESMAN
“Wish they’d just go to Ottawa and apologize for the war already,” said Xia with half an eye on the screen.
“Ah, here’s- no, wait, what is that?” Dutch asked showing the interior to Xia.
“That’s an extra vid chip,” she replied. “They wanted to try and bring back 3D with this model a few years ago, and needed the extra chip for layered imaging.”
“What, really? Again?”
She shrugged with a snort, and he went on to the next cell.
SANDS OIL PIPELINE FROM FT. MCMURRAY TO LETHBRIDGE EXPECTED TO COME IN UNDER BUDGET, CANPETROL CONSORTIUM SAYS IN RELEASE, GOES ON TO SAY COMMITMENT TO ALTERNATIVE FUELS “STILL SOLID”
“Nothing,” said Georgie as she finished the last cell in her hands.
“Nothing here, either,” said Dutch. “You guys?”
“I got a pile,” said Tomo. “Help yourself.”
TORONTO’S IAN MACGREGOR ANNOUNCED WINNER OF LEKHANA PRABUDDAH PRIZE FOR FICTION, STATES HE WILL GO PERSONALLY TO BOMBAY TO ACCEPT AWARD FOR HIS ONLINE NOVEL
Jenny slowed down, trying not to crack the back panel of the pad she was holding.
“Lemme see that,” Georgie held out her hands to her.
Jenny sighed as she surrendered the device, which Georgie popped open with a small push as she ran a small rod along its seam.
“Great,” Jenny groused.
DIVERS CLAIMING SALVAGE RIGHTS ON ALTANTIC CITY’S BORGATA CASINO SHOT AS LOOTERS BY NEW JERSEY TROOPERS
“I think that’s everything,” said Charlie as the last device was opened and exposed. “Not a SIM in sight.”
Xia nodded. “Maybe you got three pieces without tags, then?”
“Could be,” said Jenny. “Hell, there was that stash a few days ago that they were all in a loose pile; maybe he wasn’t the original owner.”
Xia nodded and said, “Okay, that makes sense,” before she went back to inspecting the booty.
TSE CLOSES UP, FOLLOWING UPTICKS IN FRANKFURT AND LONDON; SEOUL AND BOMBAY EXPECT GAINS AS HONG KONG REMAINS SHAKY
“Hey,” said Dutch, “you want to settle up with Xia while we work on looking for some buyers for the rest of this stuff?”
“Yeah, you guys go on ahead. I got this.”
ENVIRONMENT CANADA ANNOUNCES TRENDS SHOW WARMEST SUMMER IN RECENT MEMORY LIKELY; WARN TORONTO COULD SEE MEAN TEMPERATURE OF 32 DEGREES
Jenny sighed as she watched the world flash by…
Three
When Jenny caught up with the rest of the crew, the hand truck was empty.
“So how’d it go?” she asked them.
“Good. And how were things with you? Good news?”
“No. The Chinese and the Russians are closer to war, the Mexicans still want us out of their country while we play chicken with the Canadians, Brazil’s thinking of intervening in another African genocide, Australia still has a drought-”
“No, no, no,” said Tomo, “He means what Xia offered.”
Jenny sighed. “When we come here and pass off electronics, it’s about the only time I get to catch up on the news. Yeah, it’s a good price, ain’t it?”
“You tell me.”
“C’mon, I saw a table on the side, we can do shares there.”
The West Seneca Crew took the table and placed their earnings on top to divvy it between themselves.
“Okay,” said Jenny, “we split this like we did the last few times, into eleven parts; that gives us two shares for everyone here, and one share for Shaun.”
“Still?” Charlie asked.
“Hey, we agreed, remember? Who brought us all together to form the crew, right? Who set up the basic company and our structure? We’d be a lot poorer and stuck on land without him.”
“Isn’t there, like, a time limit or something? I mean, he…”
Jenny continued to give Charlie a cold stare even after he stopped stumping for a redistribution of the loot. She did not let up on him until he turned his head away.
“Right,” she said coldly. “You want me to ask him to give up his treasure for you, Charlie?”
“…no, thatsokay…” he mumbled.
“You going to take it over to him again?” Tomo asked.
“Yeah, right after we finish this.”
“Does he still ride you hard when you go to tell him how his crew’s doing after he stayed ashore?” Dutch asked.
“Oh yeah,” said Jenny. “After I tell him what we did, I’m expecting to be ridden right after he dresses me down…”
***
When Jenny was done with being dressed down and ridden, she curled up with Shaun under the comforter, gave his cheek a peck and smiled.
Shaun gave a satisfied hum as he curled his arm around her, bringing her body closer to his. She could feel his heartbeat through all the sensitive parts she had against him where their skin met.
“So tell me about the weekend Canadians again,” he said.
“God, man! Don’t you ever just relax afterwards?” she said as she gave his chest a slight slap…
Jenny grunted slightly as she pulled the comforter around her and Shaun, burrowing closer to him as she did so. She made sure that every naked part of her that could find as many naked parts of him as possible tickled him enough to get him to stop turning to business…
“Just thinking, you know?” Shaun said, undeterred. “Trying to get some sense of the bigger picture.”
She propped herself on her elbows and looked down on his face, concentrating on the sharp eyes framed by his flowing blond hair and unruly beard and mustache. “What bigger picture?” she asked.
“What did I first tell you when you wanted to join and learn the sweet trade from a working pirate?”
“How much you get turned on by red hair, and wanted to know whether I only dyed my head or-”
“No-no-no!” said Shaun. “Not that, the other stuff, when it came time for business.”
“You mean the part about how intel is the most important tool that every good pirate needs?”
“That’s my girl. So, the midweek weekenders; how about them?”
Jenny got up on her knees and pulled the comforter around her. “Not much more to say, Shaun. I think I said just about everything when I got here and told you what we did last week.”
“Anything else you might have noted but didn’t say? Think; younger people, older, what?”
“Um… Younger, yeah, a few years older than me but definitely on the young side.”
“And real concerned about losing the boat?” Shaun asked. “More than the usual ‘Omigod Pirates!’ type of panic.”
“The guy with the pistol, I think he was more anxious about fending us off. He was really more concerned, or maybe more sober. Hard to tell, because we got off in a hurry.”
“Nothing beyond that? Any little thing you can remember, anything at all.”
Jenny gave a sigh as she replied, “That’s about it. It was early morning, we caught four people who could have been in college asleep on the boat and… And that’s what you’re looking for, them being college kids on a boat?”
“Which means…?”
“Which… That maybe there’s going to be a few more out there like that?”
“Because…” Shaun was leading her on.
“They’re all off?”
“Exactly. And if they’re all off and staying close in to Ontario as opposed to Brazil or Martinique, then…”
“Okay, give me a sec,” said Jenny. “College kids, filling Lake Erie on boats… Okay: Good news, lots of easy quick loot, especially if the kids are like the ones we found, light armed at best and easily give it up… Other hand, the Canadian Navy ups patrols when a bunch of their kids lose yachts to pirates, overall opportunities go down… So, short term gain, but lots of danger.”
“That’s my girl,” said Shaun with a smile as he brought his arms up to take her face. “I’m so proud of you an-”
He stopped as he tried to frame her face. His left hand cradled her right cheek, putting her left side against the stump where the hand had been.
She watched his smile die as his eyes stared where his right hand had been. “God, I didn’t clunk you with that, did I?”
“No, no you didn’t. Please, don’t get started on ‘Big Bobby’ again and what he did to you; the last time you didn’t stop drinking for five days.”
“Swear to God, if I had both hands and feet I’d strangle and kick him for what he did to me.”
“Maybe he let you live after he chopped those off,” said Jenny as she put herself atop him, “because he knew you’d tear yourself up over that.”
“It’s not because he threatened me with worse I’m still on shore; you know that, right?”
“He said this was a friendly warning from Abe Harker, I know. And we all agreed that you needed to dial it back a little.”
“Yeah,” he sighed. “I just wish I could do more than just stay ashore and phone things in to the crew through you. I just feel so… so…” he waved his stump around.
“Hey,” said Jenny, who grabbed his right wrist and kissed the stump. “You know, I bet I can find some way to turn this to our advantage,” she said as she guided the limb down her body.
“Our?”
“Well,” she said as she applied the stump to the place where it could do the most good, “at least mine…”
***
The shadows were longer and pointing to the east by the time Jenny finished with Shaun and made her next stop.
The house on the wrong side of the Kensington Expressway had a solid beam atop sharp jointed rafters, a harsh triangular crown that stood out from the rest of the neighborhood where the houses ranged from shabby at the edges to one wall left standing. Jenny looked up and down the street as she grabbed her bags and got out of the car in front of the house, searching for signs that anyone else was on the block before she locked up her car, walked up to the house and unlocked the heavy iron gating that fenced off the porch.
“Nana,” she called as she opened the gate, then closed it behind her as she stood on the porch. “It’s me, Jenny, Nana.”
“Oh good,” she heard from inside. “You were a little late and I thought you got delayed somewhere.”
Jenny unlocked the front door and entered the house, going to the kitchen where Nana had a deck of cards laid out in front of her on the table. Her brown hair was spotted with silver and gray, the wrinkles around her eyes barely hidden by the glasses she wore.
“So how’s the solitaire coming?” she asked Nana.
“I’ve lost more than won today. Otherwise it’s been a good day.”
She kissed Nana atop the head. “I have milk, bread, the usual,” she said as she put away the groceries she brought in.
“You’re a dear. You still like rum and pop?”
“Sure, thanks. Same places?”
Nana nodded, and Jenny got the bottle of rum and chipped coffee mug from their places atop the sink over and just to the right of the Virgin Mary statue, combined them with a can of cola from the fridge and took a seat opposite her.
Jenny waited for Nana to finish her hand; when she did, Nana asked her, “Still with the neon hair color?”
“Got a good reason why not?”
“Eh, no one’s hiring, there’s not colleges to go to anymore, you’re not seriously looking to marry anyone, so no. At least you’re keeping out of trouble?”
Jenny shrugged and took a sip of her rum and cola.
“Your mom would be worried if she ever saw you like that.”
“You ever hear from Mom?”
Nana sighed. “Not since she left us thirteen years ago. When I was your age, a high school diploma just wasn’t enough, which makes it even worse now for you.”
“And without college, what’s the point?”
“You can’t go somewhere else? Just because I stayed, you don’t have to. I had lots of friends when I was growing up that left Buffalo the first chance they could.”
“So where’d they go?” Jenny asked.
“A lot of them to New York, of course.”
“Which we ran from after Alejandro flooded Brooklyn, remember?”
Nana waived her hand. “So you don’t go to New York, Washington, Miami, any of those flooded places. California’s still kind of nice, last I heard.”
“Maybe the parts not next to Mexico. I heard when they’re not trying to get us out of their country, they come north to blow things up and try to make us roll back over to our side of the border.”
“Anywhere’s got to be better than here, Jenny.”
“I don’t think so,” she replied to Nana. “The east coast floods every year, the middle and south never really recovered from that big drought, and where it’s not too dry or wet the rest of the country is broke, scared and run by crooks. China’s a prison camp, and Russia’s like Mexico before American troops filled the streets trying to calm it down. I can’t afford go to India or Brazil or Korea, and since the war Canada is just not going to let me in. About the only place worse is what passes for countries in Africa, so no, everywhere is just as bad as Buffalo.”
Nana just shook her head. “I’m not going to talk you down, dear, but unless you have something to do, this is not the place for you.”
“I can find something to do.”
“I mean something real, not anything that could get you locked up or killed.” She added under her breath, “And on land too.”
Jenny sipped her rum and cola…
“You don’t think I’m involved in any of that now, uh?” Jenny asked Nana.
Both women kept their hands busy, Jenny nursing her rum and cola in her coffee cup, Nana playing solitaire with a deck of cards. Both moved their hands while they kept the rest of their bodies still.
“I’m just hoping it ain’t.” said Nana. “Just hoping that you’re not doing that, or anything worse.”
“What could be worse than that?”
“Selling drugs, selling your body, being some sort of slave to some moneyed prick on the West Side, something like that.”
“And if I told you I’m not doing any of those, would it make you happier?”
“But you’re doing something, or you’d be here empty handed, right?”
Jenny said nothing in reply, ceding the field by sipping her drink.
She finally replied, “Ah, who knows, maybe someday I’ll do something. Find something that pays enough, something to get you out of here, not have to worry anymore.”
“And you find your mom, yes, I heard it all before.”
“I’d find her and get us all back together. It was nice when we were together, wasn’t it?”
“It was different. A little cooler, for one.”
“I remember it being nice.”
“You were too young to remember the worst of it. Maybe you will get something that pays, dear, and maybe you’ll get everything you want, but I wouldn’t bet on it.”
The only sounds in the house were flipped cards and sipped rum and cola.
“You know what I love about you, Nana?” Jenny finally said after two more hands were played.
“What’s that?”
“Your undying faith in me and your realism.”
“Hey, I remember, when you were growing up, I made sure you had plenty of books to read, hoping it’d help you with classes at Saint Andrew’s and maybe encourage you to try harder.”
“And I thanked you for the books, right?”
“The ones you liked, you did; I never should have given you Treasure Island to read.”
Jenny smiled. “I better go,” she said as she got up and kissed her on the forehead.
“Thanks for coming by.” Nana added. “And keep your nose clean, all right?”
“Yeah, right. Good to see you too.”
Jenny let herself out, locking the door and the gate over the porch before turning to go to her car-
Which had leaning on it a tall, dark man with a long coat.
She walked up to him slowly, getting within arm’s reach as he reached into his pocket and flashed his badge…
Jenny looked at the face of the man leaning on her car and the badge he displayed. She gave a slight smile to him, which he didn’t return.
“Detective Johnson,” she said with a casual nod of her head.
“Miss DiNapoli,” he replied, returning the nod. “Care to take a walk?” he motioned before him.
She slowly strode down the sidewalk where he pointed, and he walked along side her. “And how’s Mrs. Fronczak?” he asked.
“Nana’s okay. If I’d known you were coming and I told her, she’d ask you to come in.”
“Sorry, strictly business.”
“I can tell you where I was when it happened.”
“You’re not even going to ask me before you go for that, are you?”
“Sorry, missed my cue.”
Detective Johnson took a moment before resuming with, “So where were you today? Anyone can vouch for you?”
“I was with Shaun O’Connell all day.”
“Black Shaun, the Terror of Lake Erie? Got yourself a hell of a character witness, girl.”
“He’s been clean for months, you know that.”
“Yeah, after ‘Big Bobby’ Russell hacked off his hand and foot. Makes it tough to man a boat out there after getting a ‘warning’ like that.”
Jenny blew whiffs of hair from over her eyes through her bottom lip. “So I’m seeing a pirate; happy? Jealous? What?”
“How about the West Seneca Crew he ran? Still see them together?”
“You only showed me a badge, not a warrant.”
“Which I could get later after a trip downtown.”
“And here I thought you were one of the better cops.”
“Yeah, well.”
They walked to the end of the block in silence and took a turn to the right.
Jenny finally spoke up, “And if being around pirates were getting me in trouble right now, this wouldn’t be happening.”
“Not today. The main focus of the force now is truck hijackers.”
“Pirates who drive cars. Doesn’t seem right somehow.”
“You’re not hijacking trucks, then?”
Jenny gave him an incredulous look. “So what do you really want, Russell?”
“Word is you went to Broadway Market, Jenny. The other one, before you say anything.”
“You ask me to talk about it, you’d know what I’d say.”
“I do know that when you and the crew go there, you usually get rounds down on Genesee Street.”
“And that’s a problem these days?”
Russell pulled out his cell and called up a picture. “Most of the places you and your crew hit are visited by this guy, DeWayne Parker.”
Jenny took his hand to get a better look at the picture. “Why’s he a person of interest?”
“Suspected in three rapes. Two were targets of opportunity after hours downtown, one as part of a breaking and entering in Kenmore.”
“Kenmore? Must be brave or stupid, and I’m guessing number two.”
“If he was that stupid, we’d have him by now. I’m hoping he gets thirsty and decides to have a drink where you guys are going.”
“And you want me to call you in if I see him?”
“I know you’d never turn another pirate or a fence, or anyone else working the underground trade. This guy’s a rapist, and just because he hit someone on the West Side doesn’t mean he won’t go for anyone else.”
They kept walking in silence, turning the corner and going half a block before Jenny spoke. “So you ever thought you’d end up a cop, Russell?”
“Hell, Jenny, I thought I’d have become a pro baseball player by now. And did you think you’d be doing what you do?”
She smiled. “I don’t think there was a single priest or nun at Saint Andrew’s who thought I’d be doing any of this.”
“Yeah. Too bad the diocese closed down all their schools when we were teens; who knows where we’d have been if they didn’t shove everyone into what were left of the public schools?”
“I know a lot of folk who didn’t go to public school and ended up in the Sweet Trade. One of Abe Harker’s enforcers is called ‘the Doctor,’ because he actually got a PhD in something before he started breaking knees for Cleveland.”
“Cleveland crews, you’d rat out to us on, right?”
“Civic pride, Russell, civic pride.”
They turned the corner, heading back towards Jenny’s car.
Jenny asked, “What’d it take to spend some more time together, like we used to?”
“I’m guessing a warrant or a protective custody order.”
“Or you could quit the force.”
“Girl, you do not give up a job in this economy.”
“So I guess this is it until you need a snitch again, huh?”
“You take care yourself, Jenny.”
“You too,” she said as he broke off and left her to get her crew together to go drinking…
This is an excerpt from the novel, Red Jenny and the Pirates of Buffalo.
Edited by Marie Ginga
James Ryan (he/him) is a writer based in the Bronx, NY, who writes horror, SF, fantasy, and film criticism. His forthcoming novel Statues to Silence will be published soon by Golden Storyline Press. His Amazon author page is here, and his website is James Ryan.