One Fish, Two Fish, Big Fish, Little Fish: Silver Dawn (Smugglers In Paradise Book 2) Read online

  ONE FISH, TWO FISH,

  BIG FISH, LITTLE FISH

  Smugglers in Paradise Series

  – Silver Dawn –

  By R. Scott Tyler

  Book Description

  One fish: Steven continues to chase whispers concerning the unresolved death of his youngest sister while she was working as a singer in Shanghai.

  Two fish: Katie, Steven's other sister, takes over as matriarch of the Ramos family with her creative husband, Orlan. She eases her father into retirement, but little eases his soul.

  Big fish: Boris has disappeared from the Ramos family. Since Julia’s death he has been pouring himself into his illegal business ventures and has made additions to his water transportation options.

  Little fish: Steven's son, Konnor, gets his first taste of the sea, and with it, more adventure than they bargained for.

  Swimming in the background among all these fish are two others from "Game of Wit and Chance". Benjiro is back after having made peace with his dysfunctional family, his sexuality and his angst. Captain Cho also returns, albeit both tired and retired, to finally tell his side of Julia's story.

  There's also a new school of sharks circling.

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  Teaching the Eastern Ways

  Benjiro sat cross-legged on the prayer rug in his cabin, his back straight, yet relaxed, and contemplated the day ahead. The swaying motion of the ship added to his relaxation by reminding him of being grounded via the fluid tether of the world. His morning routine consisted of yoga, which he had studied after leaving school. He favored a type of yoga called ‘Vinyasa’ which originated from Hatha yoga. Both physical and fluid, he rotated through each breath, stretch, meditation, and movement which could be performed in the limited space available.

  Sometimes he had to actually think for a minute before remembering where he was…which part of the world, that is. But not today. He’d been looking forward to seeing Tomakita again since this voyage began. When they were last together his lover told him he’d been diagnosed with an opportunistic disease stemming from his soldiering days during World War II. Saying goodbye had been wrenchingly difficult and Benjiro wanted to cancel his upcoming voyage, but Tomakita would not hear of it.

  “How can you tell me this news and still expect me to leave, Toma-san?” Benjiro had asked at the time.

  “Sukina, we both know the risks of a summer-winter relationship. I will not let you give your life over to care-taking yet, while there are still possibilities for me,” Tomakita answered. “If that is to be the way, there will be time.”

  “But I will not be set aside simply to be replaced by a man-servant due to your ego,” Benjiro insisted.

  “Don’t be foolish, Sukina, I am not setting you aside. It is you that has already taken over everything from the servant that has been with me for forty years. You have nothing to worry about in that regard,” Tomakita reassured him. “I must make a hasty trip to see a specialist I have recently been in touch with, and I would not have you make this trip with me.”

  In the end Benjiro won the argument, but only in that Tomakita let him cancel the second voyage coming up and meet him after his consultation with the specialist. Now he was counting the days.

  #

  Benjiro had two private yoga sessions before breakfast and then a morning open class. The second private session was a wealthy housewife from Australia who asked for constant adjustment in every pose. It was pretty clear she wanted a more intimate adjustment than Benjiro was willing to provide. Thank God the cruise line recently installed security cameras. Other than private sleeping rooms, shower and changing areas, the cameras were very nearly everywhere. They were a great deterrent to persistent pursuers.

  He had not yet met the person who was to be his first private session of the day, but she was an elderly woman from England. He welcomed her as she entered the studio. “Good morning, Madam. We will be in room C, just through this door today,” Benjiro said, with a slight bow and a gesture toward a door marked ‘Private C’. “If you need to change or refresh yourself before or after our session, the changing room is directly on your left.”

  “Thank you. I’m fine as I am,” Madam replied. “Let’s just go ahead and get started.”

  Once they were settled in room C, Benjiro got started. “We’ll begin this morning with some meditation. I find it is a good way to greet the morning.” After Madam began, Benjiro added, “If you would like me to modify any of the flow or direction I’m taking this morning, please let me know. I did study the background you provided on your intake form, but am obviously flexible with how you would like to proceed.”

  And with that slight offer of interactive communication, Madam was off and talking.

  It always amazed Benjiro that some people treated yoga instructors as if they were confidantes, confessors or psychoanalysts. And it seemed Madam really needed a confidante. She had a lot to say. He was tracking only enough to seem engaged until the woman mentioned that she and her even older husband had taken this cruise right after visiting the exact area that Tomakita had mentioned he would go to see the specialist.

  “…George’s liver isn’t good either, and you know, while you can get by with only one kidney, it’s difficult if the liver gives up,” Madam just finished her most recent thought.

  “Yes, no excess stock lying around either. Are the waiting lists very long?” Benjiro tried to pick up as if he’d been listening all along.

  “It’s like everything in life: the fuller the bank account, the shorter the wait,” Madam answered.

  It was true that money bought a lot of things, and certainly made many other things easier, but Benjiro wasn’t sure how exactly one went about buying a liver. Could they really be sold to the highest bidder?

  The conversation during his first private session left Benjiro muddled in his thoughts enough that he found himself ignoring his second private session client. After twenty minutes of rubbing nearly every part of her body on him during his pose adjustments she finally rolled her eyes and gathered her things. “This isn’t doing anything for me this morning. I think I need a change of instructor,” the housewife from Australia muttered as she stalked out of the room, tugging her yoga tights out of her crack.

  Benjiro had simply bowed and gave her as graceful an exit as an ass full of polyester allowed her. He was the best instructor they had on the ship. There wasn’t anything she could say that would harm his reputation, and he didn’t care anyway. His curiosity was completely taken by the coincidence of his last client’s visit regarding her husband’s potential transplant.

  Was it possible Tomakita was looking into a transplant as well? That was such a big deal, Benjiro couldn’t imagine not being at his side for that sort of operation, let alone decision. Even though he and Tomakita had been partners for a couple of years now, that still left the man with fifty-some years of making his own decisions and relying on himself. That might be a hard habit to break at this point in his life.

  Benjiro made a mental note to do a little research into the area Tomakita, as well as his first client today, mentioned. He would also have to investigate the medical transplant field in order to better support his lover.

  Taking Losses

  Boris turned away from the dead boy’s face as the ship’s nurse covered it. Why does this keep happening to me? he thought. I lift these kids literally out of the gutter, give them food from my table,
games to play, television…and they don’t even try. It was the fifth one lost on this trip. So far two turned out to be HIV-positive, one had hepatitis, one was so mentally ill she continued to be locked in solitary, and one just shot himself up with bleach.

  When he asked the stunned group of kids around him what the dead boy had been thinking when he injected himself with bleach, all but one turned away from him and stared at the floor. One defiant girl looked Boris in the eyes and said, “He saw what you did with the HIV-positive kids and was scared to death he might also be pos. He’d heard that bleach would kill the virus.”

  “Well of course it kills the virus…on the counter!” Boris yelled at her in reply.

  From the look on the dead boy’s face, bleach was an unpleasant way to die.

  He shook his head in disgust. “You know what to do with him,” he told the nurse. “Make sure that his things are divided up among the rest.”

  The nurse lit another cigarette, put on a heavy pair of gloves, and stripped the deceased child’s clothes. She made sure to confiscate anything of value for herself and then threw the rest in a box to be given to the remaining cargo. She’d been working for Boris for a while now but recently begun to think about an exit plan. His most recent foray into smuggling live organ donors was a bit over the top, even for her. She’d been forced to participate in gathering the donors in Manila because Boris figured a woman might be more trusted to street urchins than some of his regular toughs.

  She was no stranger to poverty and destitution, but seeing the number of parents willing to sell their kids hit her hard. The story they handed the guardians was generally so weak she didn’t know how anyone believed it, but they did. It convinced her she didn’t really know the depths of desperation that showed in the dull, hungry eyes.

  Wrapping the boy’s body in a sheet, she tied it up with chunks of concrete that would cause it to sink to the sea floor. Then she called in a couple of the ship’s mates to toss him overboard. Hopefully he would find the peace there that had so obviously eluded him during his short-lived childhood.

  Boris headed back to his quarters. He wasn’t heartless, as he would have his customers and crew believe. It was true that his first thought was always of his lost time and effort. His accumulated wealth was generally all invested in his boats and the next delivery, always bigger than the last. When any part of the program went sour it pricked his soul as well. Beer used to give him solace, but as he aged it also gave him a beer gut, so he’d switched to rum.

  Among other things, he was picking up a huge number of cigarettes and silk from the West-Central coast of India and only dropping off a few organ donors. He’d caught wind of a new operator that had a high need for organs the last time he’d been in Tokyo, and he had a meeting scheduled with his primary contact. It sounded like a big opportunity, but who knew; so many of these ideas were nothing more than hot air.

  War Horde

  “Daddy, Daddy, look what we found!” Konnor shoved the four dirt-encrusted round chunks under Steven’s nose as he lay dozing. The warmth of the silky white sand and the gentle breaking of the tide as it eased back up the beach had almost put him to sleep. But his second sense, the same one with which he listened on board the vessels he sailed, kept him aware of the boys. He knew they had found something when the wild whacking gave way to silence.

  Steven turned what looked like old coins over in his hand and kept the, Oh, shit, thought to himself. One of the coins was cleaner than the other three. He could see the shield partially showing through where the dirt had rubbed off.

  In a matter of moments his mind silently covered all the ground appropriate. “Oh my God, this looks like gold. And it’s heavy. These could be worth a fortune! I wonder what happens to people that show up with a hand full of Yamashita war horde gold?”

  His momentary elation at the boys’ potential find turned quickly to fear. He suspected he knew what might happen to honest province folks that turned up with gold of any kind. It would be either gently or roughly wrung from their hands. Museums, war victims, politicians and thugs would all be very interested in a find like this. Steven cruised through these thoughts, made his decision and reacted with the skill and finesse honed by a lifetime spent on the sea.

  “Enough treasure hunting for today, boys. Get out of those dirty clothes and go splash around in the water. I’ll wrap your booty up and we can go in search of some halo-halo whenever you’re done,” Steven announced.

  “Yehey,” both boys yelled as they dumped their find and began shedding clothes on the way to the water. The boy’s favorite dessert, made with shaved ice, evaporated milk and various sweet fruits, was enough, at least for the moment, to get their minds away from a few dirt-encrusted coins.

  By the time they enjoyed their halo-halo and made it back to Christon’s parents’ place, both boys were sleeping in the sidecar. Christon’s dad’s shore leave hadn’t corresponded with this visit, so they watched from the beach as the golden hour approached. Sunset was Steven’s favorite time of the day. It was always more relaxing than sunrise on a ship, and when seen from a beach, the colors were full of warmth.

  When it was dark they dug the boys out of the sidecar and brought them into Christon’s house, barely getting them to wake up long enough to brush their teeth. The three parents shared a glass of wine that Steven brought back from his last port, and chatted about the day and the visit, but Steven did not bring up the boys’ treasure.

  After Christon’s mom also retired, Steven and Bettina continued to visit and Steven went into more detail about his suspicions. “I convinced them both that the muddied up coins I dug out of my pocket were their treasure. It cost me more than fifty pesos,” he chuckled, turning his pockets out for Bettina to see.

  Showing Bettina one of the coins from the ruined building, Steven said, “I think they’re from the Yamashita war horde, Betts.”

  A bit awestruck, she turned the coin over in her hand and replied, “If that’s the case, they could be worth tens of thousands of pesos each, Steve.”

  “Yeah, I see the possibility of paying for a good college for both Konnor and Christon with this little treasure, but I also see the potential for disaster, if it becomes known around here,” Steven answered.

  “Well we have to tell Christon’s parents soon. I’m pretty sure they will be of one mind with us. We’re not well enough connected to turn these pieces into anything other than disappointment,” Bettina said.

  “Christon’s dad’s been talking about the possibility of quitting the crew he’s been with for three years. He tells me it feels like less of a family and more of a gang to him,” Steven said. “So I don’t think he’ll want to try going through them, and I like the crew I work with, but I’d never trust them with something this delicate.”

  “I have an idea of how to get the most out of the coins while getting them out of here and keeping us all safely oblivious to the siren call of spending them,” Bettina replied.

  “How?” Steven suspected he knew what her answer would be. In fact, he hoped he knew what it would be.

  “Marge,” was Bettina’s one-word answer.

  “Perfect,” was Steven’s one-word response.

  #

  Steven got up before the sunrise the next day. They would have to head home, but before they did he wanted to return to the secluded lagoon.

  The ramshackle building looked smaller and even more decayed in the bright morning sun. He stood outside for a few minutes, taking it all in and trying to imagine the previous lives the structure might have had.

  Its footprint was big enough that Steven figured it wasn’t a squatter’s hut. Maybe a fisherman’s house. There wasn’t anything left of the door or windows, other than mostly rotted frame around the openings. The roof had mostly fallen in, but a few ceiling trusses still held up some twigs and rotting foliage. Who knows, he thought, maybe that’s just junk that blew in the open roof, but I bet the roof was thatched. Nothing metal left on the windows or doors, and
not even a partial piece of tin roofing material.

  He continued inside the building through the doorway, thinking, Cripes, I hope it doesn’t fall in on me. Once inside, he saw that there had probably been some kind of floor, other than dirt, at one time. The constant wet of the rainy season, along with the potential help of insects and rodents, had done away with anything solid years ago. He also saw where the boys had apparently found the coins, based on the telltale footprints and freshly turned dirt in one corner. Sifting through the dirt in a slightly more organized fashion than the boys yielded no more coins, but Steven did find an old key. It was smallish in size and therefore looked like it might have belonged to a little chest or box of some sort. It was also very rusty, so Steven thought that it probably had not been buried with the coins but had been left out, exposed to the elements and air. Maybe the coins had been moved here at one time and then a few of them were overlooked during the final move?

  If the coins really are part of the Yamashita war horde there must be a cave around here, he thought. He figured he was correct about the coins being simply stored in the building at one time. The Japanese hadn’t been known for stashing gold in old fishermen’s houses. Stepping back outside, he looked around at the tall outcroppings surrounding the lagoon, and the hills that started a bit beyond the dense vegetation that had grown up around the building and hidden it for years.

  “I’m a sailor, not some feeble-minded treasure hunter,” he told himself. Even so, the idea of finding something more here did intrigue him.

  #

  “Where have you been?” Bettina asked him when he returned.

  Taking out a package of colorful puto, Steven replied, “Well, doing my part for lunch, of course.”

  Bettina smiled and looked at him skeptically. “Where did you have to go to get it? Manila?”

  A Familiar Face from the Past