John Brennan took a moment to adjust his crotch in the ratty caster-wheeled office chair that overlooked his hinky, little boat dealership in Absecon, New Jersey. Suffice it to say, it was not something to be witnessed.

In an adjacent window a box air conditioner chugged in vain while outside, the four o'clock sky swept up from Delaware looking mean with relief.

"So, whatcha two think?"

My eyes switched over at my friend Stevie Maguire who's Van Dyke beard was seven inches from a girly calendar promoting outboard engines. Three digitally enhanced beauties in pastel thongs lay about the deck of the anchored powerboat like cherries slathered on a sundae.

Normally Stevie didn't accompany me on jobs, but this gig required an extra set of hands and he was free. Plus he needed the money. Stevie's normal income was divided a few ways—house painting mostly, barista sometimes, and pot dealer scrambled six months on and six months off to avoid the authorities. With the economy that summer things were a little dry on all fronts. I cleared my throat in an effort to focus Stevie back to the discussion at hand, and Stevie clocked around, nonplussed.

My eyes went back to Brennan. "And now you're saying five hundred per runabout, flat rate?"

"Yep. Five hundred. Flat rate."

"That wasn't the figure you quoted yesterday when we spoke on the phone."

"Changed my mind."

"Oh."

"It's a good deal, Byrne. Times two runabouts? Hell, that's a grand for a quickie. No arguments, no extensions, and I don't want anybody ending up in the hospital, understand? Plus I need these PWCs back here in one piece and I need this done yesterday."

"Mr. Brennan, um, I have to be honest with you—"

"Yeah, well, I know what you're going to say but just zip it because that's what I'm paying. This jerk has been given extension after extension. My son financed the deal when I was out of town and the little twerp should've known better. My son wrote the book on being a professional ass clown."

"Jeeze, Stevie, what do you think?"

Stevie mumbled, ran his tongue over his teeth, let his eyes go wide. Blew out a breath.

"Yeah. That's what I thought too. I tell you what, Mr. Brennan. Thanks, but no thanks."

"What? What's that supposed to mean? You don't want the work?"

"Up the fee to two grand, a grand for each Kawasaki runabout, and I'll shake on it."

"Two grand?"

"Yeah."

"For a goddamn repo job?"

"Yeah."

"This will take you all of an hour and change you do it right. D'hell you think you are, up the fee to two thousand dollars. You two think you're something special? Get out of here. I can find ten guys who'd take a repo like this."

Stevie was already at the door when I planted a finger on Brennan's desk. "Yeah, but do those ten guys know your deadbeat Vernon Watts did six in Delmont for aggravated assault?"

I drove southeast toward home, taking it slow behind a truck piggybacking a dumpster full of scrap lumber and broken lawn furniture. Stevie checked out the liner notes on an old Mike Ness CD I had on the dashboard and chewed a stick of Juicy Fruit. The storm clouds finally cut loose just after we left Brennan's place and the rain just pummeled. It was the kind of summer downpour that clocked offshore pretty quick. I contemplated my tires, hydroplaning, and lightning strikes.

"Man," clucked Stevie, "what a waste of a perfectly good afternoon. And you. I thought you said fat boy was cool."

"Been cool before. Wanted to play it cheap I guess."

"Yeah. Everybody playing it cheap these days."

"Guess he also figured I wouldn't check Watts out first, but one thing is for certain. You go in swiping boy toys from a guy like Vernon Watts or anybody else who's been in Delmont, you better sure somebody has your six."

"Like me? Me? I'm your definition of a backup man?"

"In a pinch, maybe."

"Aggravated assault. Jeeze Louise...with what again?"

"Watts used the butt end of a CO2 tank on a bartender after an argument. Here's his picture." I handed Steve a copy of a photograph printed out from my computer.

Stevie shivered. "What's up with the hair?"

"Perms making a comeback?"

He creased the paper and stuffed it in the sideboard, "I can't believe you deal with people like this all the time, Charlie."

"Yeah," I said, "it's a living."

"I mean, aggravated assault?"

"It's not all the time, you know. Only once in a while. Just like you, things are slow these days. Recovery, what recovery? Anyway, it's still hot out. Guards on the beach go off in an hour and this storm looks like it's moving on. Why don't we go for a dip at 10th Street and I'll spring for a slice and a birch beer at Mack & Mancos after. Make it up to you."

"Sounds solid, but I want two slices, dude."

"Two?"

"With sausage. Sorry, but that's my flat rate. Two slices with sausage. Stevie's time is valuable."

I gave Stevie the finger. Then my cell chirped in the drink caddy at my elbow. It's almost a four hundred dollar spank in New Jersey to be on your cell phone while driving, so I turned down the music and thumbed the speakerphone button.

"Charlie Byrne."

John Brennan huffed on the other end like he was passing ten miles of tough cheese, "All right. Two thousand. But I want the Kawasakis back here by tomorrow night at the latest."

Stevie looked out the passenger window. He ticked his skull ring on the glass. I pulled the car over and executed a U-turn into the flow without tapping the brakes.

"Still owe me my slices," Stevie said.

Stevie stroked his pointy beard and shook his mane of hair, "So how does a lowlife like Watts get to own a place on the bayside in Stone Harbor. He hit the Powerball number?"

"It's not his. It's his girlfriend's. Some wannnabe hoodrat named Chelsea somethingoranother from up north, playing it slutty and dangerous for rebellion points with her parents. Daddy owns a concrete company way up in Weehawken."

"Daddy know about his daughter's taste in violent ex-con meatheads?"

"Don't think so. She's pretty much left on her own during the summer for weeks at a time. Mom comes and goes. Bit boozy from the look of things."

"Tell me the plan, bro."

I swung a turn into the Somers Point traffic circle, curved past the Circle Liquor parking lot and hooked out onto the rebuilt causeway over Great Egg Harbor and back to Ocean City.

"The house sits on the bay side down in Stone Harbor. They have a slanted watercraft dock, one of those PWC ramps, and deep water. I've already scoped it out, right after Brennan touched base yesterday. We go for a swim off a dead-end bulkhead a few blocks down and swim down to the dock under cover of darkness. We take the backup keys Brennan gave us, boost the Kawasakis then bomb the hell out of there. Full out, once we hit the open water even if someone does wake up we'll be long gone. Then we'll run them up to a landing where I'll stash a trailer pickup I'm borrowing from my neighbor. Easy repo, end of story."

"Running lights on these bitches?"

"Yep."

"Sounds simple then."

"It'll be cool. We can pretend we're SEALs and stuff."

Stevie tilted his head, "You know, I still know a couple of SEALs from back in the day when I was in the Navy."

"Good for you."

"Just saying..."

I looked sideways at Stevie. His right leg was jiggling a nervous bounce, his flip-flop wagging like a black tongue against the floor mat. Smack, smack, smack, smack....

"You sure you're still down for this?" I pried, "I mean, I can talk to my neighbor who loaned me the trailer and the truck into doing this with me if you're feeling uneasy."

"And miss out on all the fun? Are you kidding me? No, I'm cool. I'm cool. It'll be a blast. I'll even wait on packing a bowl until the top-secret mission is finished."

I sighed. "Appreciate that." I pulled in front of Stevie's bungalow and popped the locks all around.

"I'll pick you up around eleven-thirty."

Well, the repo went off without a hiccup, unless of course you count the nettle jellyfish sting I got on my upper lip when we swam down to the dock. Actually, Stevie's prediction came true. It was a blast, but I think it was a blast because we were hanging out again. When you're in the water or on the water with a good friend, sleazy grunt work doesn't seem so much like sleazy grunt work. Actually I couldn't believe I enjoyed it so much. I've always thought Jet Skis and personal watercraft were kind of white trashy, in terms of the maritime recreation.

Generally as a rule I like to keep repo work at a minimum, especially under-the-table marine repo work like John Brennan's. Too often it's dangerous and it's not well respected in the security slash investigative profession.

I've had my share of bad things go down. Lots of dogs. A drunken swarm of squat Latinos chucking rocks and Corona bottles at me when I tried to verify serial numbers on a leased backhoe. But I'd done two jobs for Brennan before so I took the work. I needed a new flat screen TV and Stevie was going to use his cut to finance a trip to see his brother down south who wasn't doing so hot.

The next morning as I drank my second cup of coffee with a toasted cold English muffin, I sent John Brennan an email. He rang back six minutes later.

"This is Charlie."

"So where's are they?"

"And top of the morning to you too, sir."

"Quit jacking me around. Where are they?"

I leaned back in my chair. "As you can see from the pictures I sent their condition is excellent. Perfect, except for a little more mileage. I'll run up in an hour or so to get the money and then I'll bring both of them up to you this afternoon."

"This afternoon? What are you talking about?"

"It's C.O.D. on this one, Mr. Brennan, sorry. And by C.O.D. I mean real cash. This will give you time to run to the bank and get the money together. Or maybe you have it in that safe behind your filing cabinet, I don't know."

"Cash? Actual CASH?"

"Correct-a-mundo."

"You've taken my checks before."

"Yes, I have."

"So what the hell is with this cash crap?"

I stood. "I'm sorry, but you were kind of squirrelly about this whole job right from the beginning. First quoting me one price on the phone, then quoting me another when me and Stevie showed up. I'm just being honest. Who's to say I run up there with the recovered property and you decide to gyp me, stop payment on the check as soon as I walk out the door? This is off the books, a handshake and a wink, so where's my recourse? Please. Small claims court? Sorry judge, but he promised."

"You implying—"

"Not to mention the fact Vernon Watts could've led to some serious trouble. Beat that bartender half to death to end up in Delmont. Nasty."

"This is not how to do business."

"Really now..."

"You know how many people I know in this industry around here?"

"A few."

"More than a few. And I could report you to whoever issues a half-baked license to a guy like you."

I padded over to my kitchen and dumped the rest of my coffee in the sink. It was for the best because my heart rate was up anyway. "Wow. Listen to you. Like you're one to talk, working out your shakedown finance schemes. Do you really think I take threatening my livelihood lightly? Think again, because I'm sure I can just take the aquatic power mullets back to Vernon Watts, tell him I had a change of heart. Tell him to move the Kawasakis out of state."

"You don't have the balls."

"I'll be in the shower. Call me back in ten. No wait. Make it fifteen, my balls might need an extra swabbing."

You could punch a dry piece of cake with the amount of cheap rum sweat that dribbled off of John Brennan's jowls. He looked like he'd swallowed a shot full of gasoline and a hornet. I caught the envelope.

"Count it, shithead."

I did. Twenties. A few fifties. A bunch of Bens.

"Pleasure doing business with you."

"Eat shit and die."

I walked out of his office. At the door I looked back. "They're at the parking lot behind St. Vincent's Catholic Church. Up on Route 9. If you don't know it, look it up. Under a blue tarp, keys are in them. Monsignor owed me a favor."

"Wait a minute. You said you'd bring them back here!"

"Did I?"

That night I struggled through an uneasy dream involving heavy seas and driving snow. Then the phone rang. Nothing good ever wakes you at two-thirty in the morning.

"You're so dead, jerkoff."

I adjusted the cell phone to my ear. "Who's this?"

"Your worst nightmare, that's who."

Vernon Watts.

I massage my forehead with my fingertips, debated putting on the light and decided to stay in the dark and let my eyes adjust to the darkness. "Gee, you don't sound like my dead Dad."

"Repo artist, security consultant, dead piece of meat jerkoff faggot is what you are. I'm going to so kick your ass."

"I'm going back to sleep now, Vernon. You really should pay your bills."

"You just wait, fucker, you jus—"

I pressed "end" and scrolled through the speed dial for Stevie. He answered on the fifth ring.

"I knew you'd be calling."

"Watts called you too, huh? Gee, wonder how he got your number seeing that you're unlisted."

"Yeah, I was wondering that too. Sent Jenny home. Boy, was she pissed, but you never know."

Jenny was Stevie's current girlfriend, a perky little blonde who clerked the counter at a local gym. Kind of looked like that chick from TV's Veronica Mars.

"What the hell, Charlie? Man, this is a heck of a lot of trouble for a lousy couple of grand."

"Yeah. My bad."

"Sheesh, I got get me some product soon or another shift pulling lattes or a house that's peeling paint in a serious way. This sucks. What're we going to do?"

"We? There's no "we" in this, Stevie. I'll take care of it."

"I'd feel better if I could do something, like, the guy called my house, you know?"

"You sure?"

"Yeah."

I thought for a moment then swung my legs out of bed. I grabbed my jeans from the pile of dropped clothes on floor. "You still have that thing I gave you a while back?"

"What thing?"

"You know, that thing in the chamois I gave you for safe keeping."

Stevie went quiet for about seven seconds.

"Stevie?"

"Are you nuts? No, Charlie. No. No!"

"Relax. It'll be fine. I'm not going to do anything, you know, drastic. It'll be more of a stage prop really."

"Stage prop..."

I heard the rasp of a lighter on the other end of the line and the rolling bubble of water as smoke was sucked into the chamber of a bong. Inhale. A beat. Exhale. Stevie's voice went tight. "Cowboys and Indians, man. It's always cowboys and Indians with you..."

"You're awake anyway," I said.

Great and not so great thing about the marching around the ground floor of the new century is everybody can be found, and everybody is vulnerable.

I didn't want to want to show up at Brennan's business as he could have the upper hand with staff lollygagging around and all, so Stevie and I walked right into his kitchen a few hours later as he sat at a table shoveling in the Honey Nut cereal. Both of us wore disposable nitrile gloves.

"What the—"

I planted a foot on the meat of Brennan's shoulder and knocked him over. He fell onto the floor with a loud whump, his plaid bathrobe fluttering out like sad, ugly wings.

Before he could react I straddled his chest, dropped my forearm against his throat, and wedged the cold .38 Stevie had held for me up his nose. A sharp flick of my wrist and the leftover milk in his mouth turned pink.

"Did I or did I not tell you not to mess with my livelihood? And now you're putting my friends in jeopardy? What kind of tool do you take me for? I mean, I'm not concerned about me so much, but how'd you get Stevie's number to give to Watts?"

The big man thrashed beneath me but I held fast. I gave Stevie a curt nod and after a moment of baked hesitation Stevie bent it like Beckham and shot a skate sneaker straight between Brennan's legs.

That quelled things. "How did you get his number?!"

Between heavy, sucking breaths, "Fu—fu—fuck you guys."

From the way I braced him with my arm and my forward-leaning weight I knew he couldn't see if the gun I shoved up his nose was loaded. I thumbed back the trigger for some zest and flair. What can I say? Color me dramatic.

"Here we are. Early morning. Nice little track home out in the sticks. Nearest neighbor is easily a quarter mile from here through dense woods, and that's if they're still at home and not on their way to work or in the shower."

"That gun isn't loaded."

"Want to find out?"

I rapped his nose with the barrel and launched myself back to my feet. Brennan's hands covered his nose and mouth. I sort of pointed the gun at his head and squeezed the trigger. Hammer landed dry. Brennan flinched.

I frowned and flopped the gun from side to side, "Huh. That's odd." Then I lazily pointed the .38 at the refrigerator and fired the live round I rigged. The report was super loud in the small kitchen and we all jumped a bit. A small knot of a hole smoked in the refrigerator door as Brennan scooted back like a walrus cornered by a couple of famished Eskimos.

"You're fucking crazy!"

"Maybe. But if you even think about messing with me or my friend again I will find you and beat you and take my sweet time making your life a waking hell. Maybe shove your big old Easter Island head in a bucket of lye for starters. Bury you up to your neck out in the Pine Barrens and have the Jersey Devil find you and redefine sexual release on your skull."

"Psycho, crazy—"

"You think this is psycho you should see me really upset. Do not mess with me and mine, ever."

Brennan dabbed his mouth with the back of his hand, "Just take it easy, man. D'fuck...getting all rugged and shit, you were being a jerk about things too, you know."

"That may be, but only after you started screwing around. How did you get his number?"

Brennan's shoulders sagged a little. "Luck. Your boy over there was wearing a Sticky Pete's Coffee Shop t-shirt when you two were in my office. The t-shirt said "Staff" under the breast pocket logo. I remembered that so I went and Googled the name and called the place. Like it or not your buddy there has a reputation as a bit of a flake with his co-workers."

Stevie dropped his head.

"Does Watts know where Stevie lives?"

Brennan scoffed, "No. Like you, they just gave me a cell number, no address. All mysterioso and shit. But if Watts gets industrious, yeah, I guess he could put two and two together. I said he worked in a coffee shop in Ocean City but I didn't say which one."

Stevie paced. "Aw, man...dude! Dude! This—this—awww, dude! This is so wrong."

I let that news hang ugly in the air for a moment. Brennan's eye pinged between us as he draped a forearm over one of the kitchen chair seats. I lowered the cold .38 to my side. I was keeping the gun just for a situation like this and it only had one round and that was spent. Found the .38 in an abandoned car up in Toms River. Long story.

"Want a shot at this tub of puss on principle, Stevie?" I asked.

Brennan wheezed, blanched slightly and closed his legs to protect himself.

Stevie gave Brennan one last look of disgust. Then I noticed that Stevie's eyes were watering.

"Stevie?"

Stevie punched out the back door.

After chucking the .38 into a nearby pond and a short medicinal spliff for Stevie's nerves, we stopped at a Greek diner on the way back to Ocean City for iced coffee and some bagels. We snagged a mini booth, near the counter that had one of those ancient juke box flip menus, updated to feed a massive MP3 player stationed near the front door. An excessive amount of Genesis and Phil Collins for some horrible, horrible reason.

"What about Watts?" Stevie asked nervously, "We're going to go after him now? Christ, this is so not cool, Charlie."

I scraped a butter-knife's worth of marmalade across some bagel and bunched my shoulders. Projected calm. "I wouldn't worry about it."

"What? Not worry about it? Easy for you to say. You deal with these fucked up people all the time." Stevie dumped some cream into his coffee from a mini silver pitcher. "Brennan is one thing, but this Watts dude? A convicted felon looking with Brad Delp hair calling me in the middle of the night threatening to beat me up?"

"Who the heck is Brad Delp?"

Stevie swallowed some of his iced coffee, "Hello? The original lead singer of Boston? "More Than a Feeling", "Peace of Mind"? Suicided with a couple of smoking charcoal grills in a sealed-up bathroom back in '97."

"You're knowledge of trivia never ceases to astound me."

"Anyway this Watts psycho doesn't know where you lay your head, dog."

I took a bite of my bagel and chewed. "He's been in trouble before, Stevie. He's got a girlfriend now, a girlfriend with bank. Maybe he's sharpened up inside and doesn't want to jam that up. A phone call is a phone call, it doesn't mean squat."

"Yeah, still...knows where I work."

"A coffee shop, not the coffee shop. Just stay sharp for a little while. Take the thousand bucks and go see your brother for a week or so. These things tend to ebb away with a little time. Guys like Watts? Mostly bluster and show."

"Right. Bluster and show."

"This isn't the wild west. It's the Jersey shore for Pete's sake."

Stevie's pink-stained eyes drifted out the window. "Ain't that the truth."

-END-

Copyright © 2009 by Kieran Shea