Dead Harvest

Dumas, it turns out, was as good as his word – two weeks after our meeting at Mulgheney's, we got a call from the research group at Bellevue. They said that they had an opening in their program, and that Elizabeth looked to be a perfect match. She couldn't believe her luck. I hadn't told her that Dumas had promised to get her in, so worried was I that he wouldn't deliver. In fact, I hadn't told her much about the meeting at all – I didn't have to. She was so over the moon I'd found a job, she didn't care much what it was. Which was fine by me, since I couldn't have told her what it was yet if I'd tried. I hadn't heard a word from Dumas since our meeting, and were it not for the call from Bellevue, it may as well have never happened. In retrospect, I'm sure that was all part of his plan. Once he had Elizabeth to use as leverage, he knew he had his hooks in me but good – there was nothing I wouldn't do to get her well.

  I got my first call less than twenty-four hours after they'd admitted Elizabeth to Bellevue. The assignment was simple enough: just pick up a package and drop it in a locker at Penn Station. I was given a car, an address, a time and date. The car was a '42 Studebaker. The address was on the waterfront. The time was 4am. I guess that shoulda clued me in that something was hinky, but those were different times. Least, that's what I like to tell myself. Sometimes, it seems to me the times haven't changed that much at all.

  When I arrived at the pier, all was quiet. Though sunrise was still an hour away, the morning air was already stifling, and my clothes clung heavy to my skin. A cargo ship sat, moored and lightless, at the far end of the pier, a ramp jutting upward to her deck. I hobbled toward her, my progress tracked by a trio of crewmen who lounged smoking amidst the shipping crates that were scattered along the wharf.

  By the flag flying from her mast, the ship was registered in Jamaica, but the crew mostly didn't look the part. Their appearance and the occasional snippet of Spanish that drifted to me through the still morning air led me to guess that Mexico had been this ship's last port of call. No one addressed me as I approached, nor did they object as, hesitantly, I mounted the ramp and limped upward toward the deck.