Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. Vol. 133, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 811 & 812, March/April 2009

The military shrink, born in Laos, who looks like a late teener and is about half my size, the doctor I see every two months or so, told me to make a list of things I like to do and give him a copy. Whenever I see him he consults the list. Am I eating sliced radishes on sourdough toast? Go for walks with my dog? Go boating for no purpose? See that married woman? Quit after the fourth beer? Smoke a joint once a week? Try to read novels in Spanish with minimal use of my dictionary?

Maybe because I hadn’t seen Dolly for a while and was going slow on radishes on toast, I couldn’t help reaching for Uncle Joe’s deer rifle, checking the clip, arming the weapon, taking — using the scope attached to the barrel — meticulous aim, and pulling the trigger gently.

Twice.

The pirates, shot through the heads, hit the deck sideways. I cleaned the rifle, put it away, and lit a joint while the Take It Easy took it easy, drifting away erratically, vaguely aiming for open sea.

While, some hours later, I was ruminating, a chopper, alerted by a lobsterman checking his traps, who phoned the Coast Guard, dropped a crew to sail the yacht to their base at Southwest Harbor.

The next night a Guard lieutenant mentioned the event at the Thirsty Dolphin, after guzzling complimentary cold ones (support our troops) from patriotic Priscilla.

“We found four corpses,” the lieutenant told us: “Two perpetrators, two victims — it looked like to a state police detective we called in. Must have been a triple event. Crime andpunishment, for those who read Dostoyevsky. Amoral guys shooting immoral guys shooting a moral old man and his moral wife.”

The lieutenant is the head of the literary society that meets at the public library once in a while. He is smart.

“I would like to remind you,” the smart lieutenant said, “that justice carries a badge in our great country. Vigilantes will be arrested, prosecuted to the full extent of the law.” He pounded the bar. “We’ve got Homeland Security now.” He pounded the bar again. “Okay?”

We all pounded the bar. “Okay!”

“The victims,” the lieutenant continued, “were killed point-blank, with 9mm bullets fitting the pirates’ pistol barrels. According to the state police expert (he dropped his voice) who had the FBI looking in too, the pirates, in turn, got shot from some distance, say sixty feet. Bullets came from a rifle that we are now looking for.

“Who?” the lieutenant shouted.

“Who?” we shouted after him.

The lieutenant told us he supposed the shooter fired from an island, maybe. Or from another vessel, maybe. He was shouting again. “Are we dealing with an insurgent trying to save the world on his liberal own? Is anyone around here trying to think out of the box?” The lieutenant glared. “Would anyone in this town dare to believe there is no box?”

“A Che Guevara?” Tom, who wears a silk-screened Che Guevara T-shirt, asked.

The lieutenant glared at us through the righteous eyes of Fundamental Christianity. The sacred quest has started up again. Evil will be wiped out and replaced by A-1, one hundred percent, first-quality Good. This service will be rendered by uniforms, and suits with badges. Was he making himself clear?

We told him he was making himself clear.

Surprisingly, the lieutenant calmed down.

“Any of you ladies and gentlemen noticed anything remarkable relating, possibly, to this incident?” he asked us gently.

A sympathetic silence filled the Thirsty Dolphin.

“No?” he whispered.

We told the lieutenant that it is hard to notice much with all of those islands blocking the view, and there was some fog the day the yacht was found drifting, and being on the water is kind of fatiguing anyway. It’s the reflected sunlight that makes us extra tired. Hell, we are mostly working men (and in my case, crazy), we have no time to check on pleasure boaters. As the lieutenant said just now, interfering with pirates is government business, right?

The lieutenant asked Priscilla to pin his card on the big tamarack beam above the bar. In case some relevant detail ever came to mind. He also mentioned a reward. Ten thousand dollars, to be paid by one of the Take It Easy’s owner’s holding companies. Another ten thousand by the insurance people. Maybe more. There might be a Certificate of Reward, possibly issued by the governor, who knows? Otherwise by the Coast Guard. Signed in ink. Not stamped.

“Sure thing, Captain, when we hear something you’ll be the first to know,” Priscilla said, wiggling hippo hips and grinning helpfully. “Just leave it to us.”

Did I tell you I was in Vietnam?

I did?