Blackwater Sound

‘I can’t tell which ones are the bad guys,’ Lawton said. ‘Used to be, you could tell.’

‘They’re all bad these days,’ Arnold said. ‘That’s what sells.’

‘Bad against bad? Where’s the fun in that?’

Out on the river a Haitian freighter piled high with mattresses and bicycles moved slowly downstream. Along the dock Arnold Peretti’s big Bertram bumped lightly against the pilings in the swell of the freighter’s wake.

Arnold selected a fried shrimp, dunked it in the cocktail sauce, sucked it down. He patted his lips with the napkin and smiled at Charlie.

‘Look, kid, I like to have a feel for the people I’m doing business with. Especially a thing like this, the likely repercussions.’

‘I’m an average guy. Let’s just leave it at that.’

Arnold settled a sharp look on Charlie. He tapped the manila envelope.

‘When you write this exposé, you’re going to piss some people off. You ready for that, Mr Average Guy? You ready to go into hiding for a while?’

Charlie pushed his Heineken aside. His eyes settled on the envelope.

‘Don’t worry, kid. It’s all there. Everything I promised. Blueprints, schematics, the whole deal.’

Charlie swallowed.

‘How’d you get hold of it, Arnold? Tell me that.’

‘Not to worry, kid. It came into my possession, now it’s about to pass into yours. And this thing, it’s a prototype. You know, a scale model. I don’t know if the goddamn thing even works, but there it is.’

‘It seems damn small for what it’s supposed to do,’ Charlie said.

‘Like I told you, all I know is what I overheard. Sounds to me like it’s a contraband weapon. Somebody’s doing a little arms dealing on the side. I thought somebody with some investigative training should look into it, expose the bastards.’

Arnold helped himself to another onion ring.

‘I need to know if you stole this stuff, Arnold.’

‘What? You think they said, Hey, Arnold, why don’t you take this thing out for a test drive? Damn right I stole it.’

‘So my article would be based on information acquired illegally.’

Arnold waved the thought away with his big paw.

‘Tell me something, Charlie. All this time I been talking to you, not once have you asked me why I’m exposing this guy.’

Charlie closed his eyes and opened them again, like Peretti was trying his patience.

‘All right, Arnold. So tell me. Why’re you exposing him?’

Arnold smiled. Showed his big teeth.

‘Long and short of it, I want to save his ass, set him back on the right course.’

‘Save him?’

‘Yeah,’ Arnold said. ‘I’ve known him a long time. There’s a loyalty factor at work. But I still got to expose him. For his own damn good.’

Arnold swiveled his head and stared at his smoky reflection in the mirror.

‘Why not go to the cops, the FBI?’

‘Like I got such a good working relationship with the law enforcement community. They’re going to jump up and salute when I walk in the door.’

Charlie picked up a limp onion ring, inspected it for a second, then let it drop back in the basket.

Arnold said, ‘Next thing you should’ve asked me but didn’t is, how come I chose you. Why the hell didn’t I call up the New York Times, Washington Post? Shit, anybody would kill to get this story.’ Arnold took off his glasses, wiped his eyes, put them back on.

‘You like how I write.’

‘Fuck, no. What do I know about writing?’

‘So why?’

‘’Cause of that Sugar Bowl, ten years ago. Way you played that night.’

‘Aw, Christ.’

With a corner of his paper napkin Arnold blotted the catsup from his lips.

‘Yeah, I know,’ Arnold said. ‘People bring it up all the time, you’re sick of hearing it. But that’s the truth. I remember that game fondly. Then like I say, one of my people showed me your byline in that piece-of-shit paper you write for, what’s it called?’

‘The Miami Weekly.’

‘Yeah, yeah. But it was basically the Sugar Bowl. Jesus, that was a classic. Smallest guy on the field, but every fucking play, there you were batting down a pass, squirting through the line with all those corn-fed linemen trying to crush your ass. Man, it hurts my ribs just thinking about it.’

‘So you called me up. And here we are.’

Arnold selected another onion ring, held it in front of his lips and said, ‘So let’s hear what you know about him, kid. Tell me.’

‘Oh, come on. A pop quiz?’

‘I need to know if I’m talking to a schmuck or what.’

Charlie Harrison shook his head, closed his eyes again. Lawton had to hold himself back from reaching over and smacking a little common courtesy into him. The young man leaned back in the booth, got a bored sound in his voice.

‘He lives in Palm Beach, runs MicroDyne Corporation. Used to manufacture computer hardware, silicon chips, all that shit. But six, seven years ago they were losing their asses to the California heavyweights, profits slipping, so his sexy daughter drops out of MIT, swoops in and saves the day.’

‘Sexy?’ Arnold said.

The kid rolled his eyes.