Dead and Gone

Mama bowed slightly and sat down next to me, bumping me over to the wall so she could sit directly across from Gem.

“You both speak English,” I said to her. “What’s with all this—?”

Mama cut me off with a look. Gem giggled.

And they went back to speaking French.

I was well into my third bowl of soup when they decided to let me in on the conversation.

“So? You Burke’s wife?” Mama asked in English.

“Yes,” Gem answered her.

“You understand, Burke my son. Not marry for … final unless I say.”

“I understand,” Gem said, solemnly.

“Your mother …?”

“The Khmer.”

“Ah. Sorry. So many …”

“Yes.”

“After this … thing all finish,” Mama promised Gem. At least, it sounded like some kind of promise. I couldn’t figure out what it meant, but I wasn’t dumb enough to ask.

After Mama went back to whatever she had been doing, I read Gem the specs on the old man’s boat I’d written down from my conversation with Michelle.

“It’s a ninety-two-foot Cheoy Lee cockpit motor yacht,” I told her. “Whatever the hell that is.”

“I am sure they could handle it, but I will call to be certain.”

Then I told her the rest of it. Gem didn’t say a word, didn’t interrupt me once. When I was finished, she said, “There is another way I could help, I think.”

Mama came back over to my booth as if she’d been listening in on a wiretap and knew we were done talking.

“Eat now, yes?”

An hour later, Gem was still shoveling it away.

Mama passed by the booth, saw the carnage, and chuckled approvingly.

“The boat should have at least a four-person crew,” Gem told me the next day.

“At least?”

“It is an oceangoing vessel,” she said, as if reciting a lesson. “So it must be manned around the clock. It is a very big boat, probably cost in excess of three million dollars. You have never been at sea?”

“Me? The only boat ride I’ve ever been on in my life was the Staten Island Ferry.”

“Ah, well. It does not matter. You will not be posing as a sailor. And if you appear … ill at the time of your meeting, it will be in character. But we will need one more person.”

“One more? You said four, right?”

“Oh, I will be going, too,” she said.

“I need a driver, Sonny,” I told the kid. Only he wasn’t a kid anymore.

“I heard you were—”

“Now you know better.”

“Oh man, this is great! I—”

“In or out, kid?”

“Can I use my own ride?”

“Which is?”

“A Viper GTS. But it’s got—”

“No. We need something with plenty of room. Got to carry some people, long distance.”

“Can we use your—?”

“No. That’s gone.”

“Damn! That was one sweet—”

“The job is a delivery. You bring some people somewhere, you pick someone up when you get there, you drive them all someplace else. Then you come back on your own.”

“Why would you need me for that?”

“You thought I was … what? Remember?”

“Yeah. Sorry. Okay. You need fast or smooth?”

“Smooth. And roomy. Lots of room.”