Don't Order Dog (10 page)

Jeri glided down to the end of the counter as the heavy old entry door creaked opened and a wave of cold mountain air blew a blush-faced group of young men into Joe’s. Allie watched her friend as she worked. She smiled at the shy, evasive eyes of the men lined up along the bar who pretended not to watch Jeri until her back was turned, then gawked lustfully at her slim feminine figure.
It should all be so simple
she thought sadly.
It should all be so simple, but it was always so fucking hard.
“Don’t think I haven’t considered it a thousand times,” Jeri said as she walked back towards her friend. She leaned against the counter and gazed wearily at Allie, a cold, pleading light in her eyes. “Do you know how badly I want to feel it? How badly I wanted Rob to be
it
? But I can’t just make it happen, Allie. I can’t manufacture a feeling, and I won’t stare across the table at a man who doesn’t make my heart turn into lava and tell him otherwise. Rob might have had everything on my list, but the list doesn’t mean love.”

She
glanced up at the growing crowd that had settled in the bar with the fading light of day. Her eyes flickered quickly around the room before settling on the letters pinned to the wall. “You know as well as I do that the moment either one of us falls in love, that goddamn list won’t matter. We won’t care whether he’s a stock broker in New York or a construction worker in Alaska. He’ll just make us happy.” She nodded at a man waiting to order a drink and grabbed a glass from the shelf above her. “That’s the truth, Allie. The rest of this, the rest of
them
are nothing more than a long, painful prologue.”

Allie nodded her head as Jeri walked off to pour drinks for the new arrivals. She sat quietly for a moment, deep in thought, before glancing at the man next to her and tapping him on the shoulder.
“Let’s make a toast,” she said as the man turned to her, her smile dazzling and eyes deceptively enthusiastic. “To finding the one,” she said as they raised their glasses. “May he have all of the love, most of the list, and may he not be some crazy son-of-a-bitch serial killer.”

The man laughed curiously as Allie threw back her glass and drained the blood-red wine in a single gulp.

He was in paradise.

A cloudless sky stretched over him as he walked along the waterfront through the flawlessly manicured landscape. He strolled casually, following the stone-laid sidewalk that turned languidly through undulating gardens of tropical shrubs and palm trees before branching into the numbered pathways of the Bahia Redonda Marina’s endless rows of docks. A pungent smell of stagnant saltwater hung heavily in the humid air, tempered by the sweet, musky aroma of flowering gardenias. Before him, a forest of sterile white masts, yards, and rigging stood sharply in the bright morning sun. As he neared the dock gates, a waiter in a pressed white uniform promptly approached him, a silver tray of tall champagne flutes perched on one hand.

“Buenas dias, Señor,” the short, dark-skinned waiter said as he bowed curtly. “Would you care for a Mimosa?”

“Si,” he replied, shifting his backpack as the waiter handed him a crystal flute filled with champagne and fresh orange juice.

“May I assist you with anything else, Señor?” the waiter asked, standing rigidly at attention.

“Gracias, no,” he replied.

“Very well. Buenas dias.” the waiter replied politely, bowing again before disappearing down the path. 

He continued walking through the massive marina, warily eyeing an erratic flock of seagulls and terns swooping and screaming overhead, until he came to dock gate #32. There, he produced a small key from the pocket of his white cotton pants and unlocked the gate. Once inside, he moved slowly down the dock, enjoying the sound of his flip flops on the sun-bleached teakwood as he scanned the names of the luxurious super-yachts that flanked him on both sides.

Halfway down the long dock, a familiar yacht floated peacefully in its slip.

He stopped and gazed up at the polished, cobalt-colored hull with an air of envy that was bordering on the genuine. Mentally noting its slip number, he continued on, nonchalantly examining the other multimillion dollar ships that fidgeted in their slips like sleeping giants as he sipped his morning cocktail. A few minutes later, the teak and chrome-finished stern of another familiar ship came into view. He drained the last of the champagne from the delicate crystal flute and placed it on a nearby bench before stepping on board. 

The deck of the fifty-six-foot sailing yacht
Lorelei
stood pristine and empty. After a quick check of his surroundings, he silently unlatched the door at the front of the cockpit and made his way below. Inside, the yacht’s interior was no less impressive. Polished maple walls and white oak floors glimmered in the well-lit and surprisingly large salon, with matching leather-trimmed furniture neatly fitted around a large table and desk. It was apparent that every inch of material that completed the cabin was both practical and perfectly finished; designed to meet the demanding expectations of both the sea and the ship’s owner.

He stood quietly for a moment, taking stock in his surroundings, before moving to the desk across from him and opening an overhead cabinet. A row of worn, well-used travel books filled the small compartment, their titles advertising exotic worldly destinations. He grabbed a thick volume on Russia and began absently thumbing through it when a dull knock suddenly echoed from the stateroom behind him. He quickly returned the book to the cabinet and moved cautiously towards the closed door, listening intently. A low grumbling noise came next, followed by another
, all-too-human sound that forced a smile onto his face.

He turned the latch and walked in.

The dim light of the master stateroom revealed another lavishly functional arrangement of cabinets and fixtures, all following the gentle sweeping lines of the ship’s hull. Centered in the room, a king-sized bed that appeared sculpted from a single piece of wood was covered in a mess of sheets and pillows. Sticking out from beneath the sheets were a pair of pale, stout legs that appeared lifeless.
He walked over to the bed and cleared his throat loudly. The legs didn’t move.

“Dublin! Wake up!” he shouted.

Dublin’s portly torso immediately snapped upright as his arms frantically pulled at the sheets that covered him. He blinked wildly as his unshaven face popped out from under the bedding; his thick, hair-blotted chest heaving rapidly.

“Fookin’ hell, Chilly!” Dublin snapped as he scratched at his disheveled head of hair. “What the feck are you tryin’ to pull?”

He stepped back from the Irishman and waved at the air.
“Christ Dublin, do you always fart in your sleep?”

Dublin sat silently, his hands fumbling around for several seconds before pulling a wrinkled t-shirt from beneath the sheets. He put it on slowly, eyeing his colleague angrily from behind half-closed eyelids. “How the hell should I know what I do in my feckin’ sleep?”
he replied. “Of course, I wasn’t asleep for that long,” he continued, his lips peeling back to reveal a waxy grin of yellow, smoke-stained teeth. “Thirty minutes earlier and you’d a walked into a veritable Brazilian orgy.”

“Right, of course.”

Dublin reached for a pack of cigarettes on the night stand. Next to them, his ever-present cell phones were neatly lined in a row. “I’m not shitting you, Chilly,” he said, shaking his head wearily. “I’ve never had a better time. The girls here are fookin’ amazing.” He stabbed a cigarette into his mouth.

“I believe you, I really do,” he replied. He reached out and grabbed the cigarette from Dublin’s mouth
and flung it onto the bed. “Now put your cigarettes away and stop farting. It’s time to go to work.”
Dublin stared down the bed for a moment, his mind weighing the request, before irritably collecting the cigarette and stuffing it back in the pack. “Right, fine,” he said as he stood up from the bed. “But first I need some coffee.”

He followed Dublin into the galley and sat down at the table while the Irishman clumsily made coffee. A few minutes later he placed two steaming mugs on the table and sat down across from him.

“Jesus tis’ is a nice feckin’ boat,” Dublin whispered, looking around with envy. “I could def’nitely get used to staying here for a while.” He looked over and prodded his colleague with his coffee cup as his thin, whiskered lips stretched into another broad grin. “I can only imagine what kind of rat-infested terd-hut you’re staying in.”

He stared quietly at Dublin for a moment, feeling uneasy. Beyond the fact that his co-worker was a hung-over mess, something about him didn’t
seem right. “Actually, I’ll be staying on the boat for this one,” he replied, sipping his coffee.

“The fuck you say,” Dublin replied, looking back at him with wide,
blood-stained eyes.

He took his colleague’s surprise as genuine, if for no other reason than it was the first time he’d heard Dublin say ‘fuck’ without an Irish accent. “You don’t mind, do you?”

Dublin considered him for a moment, his temple twitching under his shaggy mess of dark hair. He abruptly drained half his mug of black Colombian and shrugged. “Fine by me, but why the sudden change of heart? Finally gettin’ a taste for da finer thangs in life, eh?”

He leaned in
and looked at Dublin closely. “Dublin, what did you take last night?”

“What?” Dublin replied as he suddenly tensed in his seat. He set his coffee mug on the table and crossed his arms defensi
vely. “What are you talking about?”

“You heard me,” he said calmly. “What was it?”

“Nothin’. Besides, that ain’t your business,” Dublin snapped back.

“No Dublin, it absolutely is my business,” he replied, watching as Dublin tried his best to conceal the twitches and shudders that were now noticeably plaguing his body. “Now what did you take?”

Both men sat quietly for a moment, listening to the muted sounds of the
Lorelei
creaking in protest to her mooring lines. Dublin looked up suddenly, his expression swirling with a dangerous mixture of fear and rage.

“It isn’t easy ya know
… this feckin’ job,” he said as his eyes flickered wildly around the galley. “No nine-ta-five gig like the rest of tha normal feckin’ world.”

“You were never told it would be,” he replied, watching his colleag
ue with calm interest. Dublin suddenly fixed his stare on him, the tremors in his body momentarily subsiding.

“Yeah, well hearing it and living it are two completely diff’rent things, ain’t they?” he retorted, holding his
gaze for a quick, frightened moment before fumbling at his pocket and fishing out a pack of cigarettes. In an instant he had a cigarette in his mouth and was frantically groping at his pockets for a lighter, mumbling obscenities in an accent too thick to comprehend.

“Don’t,
” he said quietly.

Dublin pretended not to hear him
. A frustrated sigh escaped his pursed lips as he finally pulled a single match from his pocket.

He reached over and snatched the match from his hand. Dublin shot him a murderous look through his ruined eyes.

“You’re compromised, Dublin,” he said flatly. He snapped the match in two and dropped it in what was left of his coffee, his eyes never leaving the face of the Irishman. “Given the fact that you can’t sit still, I can only assume that you’re taking a psycho-stimulant such as meth, which means right now your head is suffering from a very pleasurable torrent of dopamine and serotonin. Unfortunately, that amount of euphoria-inducing chemicals is also highly unnatural, and as you’ve no doubt realized from past experience, coming down can be a bit nasty.”

Dublin sat sullenly, his fleshy shoulders slumped forward like those of an overgrown child being reprimanded. He stared at his hands as they repeatedly balled themselves into fists; seemingly indifferent to the fact that his head was twitching every few seconds. “You don’t…. you just don’t understand,” he muttered. “It keeps me sharp.”

“I’m sure you think it does. And just how sharp do you feel right now?” he asked.

“Hey
fuck you, Chilly!” Dublin screamed as he smashed his fists on the table before pressing his hands into his temples until the knuckles of his fingers turned white. He then rocked his pale heavy frame back and forth in the chair for nearly a minute before the swollen lids of his eyes crept open and his brown eyes peered out menacingly. “You don’t know anythin’ about me,” he said in a tired, hollow voice. “You don’t understand what this job demands.” He stood and walked heavily over to the coffee maker. “Sure,” he continued, watching the steaming black liquid as it poured into his mug “you know what I take care of for you, what I can get for you, but you’ve got no feckin’ idea what it takes for that to happen. If you did, you’d understand why I need a little boost sometimes.”

He watched as Dublin
threw back a long slug of coffee before tossing his mug angrily into the sink. The sound of the ceramic mug crashing into the stainless steel basin echoed through the boat.

“You’re right, Dublin,” he replied, “I don’t know
how
you do what you do. Nor do I have any idea what it takes to pull it off.”

He paused and drained the last of his coffee.

“I’d say that’s partly because I’m rather busy doing my own job. As you may have noticed, my job can also be somewhat demanding at times. Mostly because of the type of people I deal with from day to day. You know the sort – those cold, slimy types that can stare right through you without blinking.”
Dublin twitched nervously as his colleague looked up at him, his dark brown eyes as frigid and hard as two stones.
“But mostly it’s because I don’t give two shits what it takes to do your fucking job, as long as I know you can do it.” He calmly examined his empty coffee mug for a moment before suddenly hurling it towards the sink. Dublin barely lunged out of the way before the ceramic projectile exploded against the granite backsplash, showering countless fragments across the countertop.

“Are you feckin’ daft mate?” Dublin shrieked breathlessly.

“Well, at least you’re still quick,” he replied as a slight grin appeared on his face.

“You’re g
oddamn right I’m still quick. And you’re goddamn wrong if you think I can’t still do the job.”

“That’s not for you to decide. Unfortunately we don’t have time for other options.” He stood and walked over to the Irishman, pausing ju
st a few inches from his face. “You know the protocol in this kind of situation as well as I do,” he said as he rested his hands on Dublin’s shoulders. “And you know what I have the authority to do if you royally fuck this up.”

Dublin nodded solemnly.
“But let’s not worry about that just yet. Right now, I just want to know one thing.” He pressed his hands deeply into Dublin shoulders. “Is my package going to be delivered on-time tomorrow night or not?”

Dublin raised his h
ead and met his stare directly. “Fookin’ hell, Chilly. Have I ever let you down before?”

“Is that a ‘yes’?”

“Yes, for fucksake. That’s a yes.”

He stared at the Irishman for a moment before abruptly releasing his grip.
“Great. Then there’s nothing else to worry about.”

He patted his Irish colleague affectionately on the shoulder and walked into the salon. Dublin watched curiously as he opened a cabinet door and removed two large blankets to reveal a safe. He quickly spun through the correct combination on the dial and opened the heavy door.