Sick OK-Boomer Speak-Money
"I'd rather get shot by a criminal than get drowned by an intern." Red Fidelity 5
Justine clung to the crossbar for life. The big speedboat kept going, its wake sending the fishing boat tipping at the water. For a screaming moment she thought they were all going in.
As the boat rocked back to stability she said, “Everyone okay?”
Bert’s ogre body was bent over. The retching sound came from him. Patty placed a bony hand on his back and gave Justine one of her withering looks, like this was all her fault. Which it was.
“That was close,” Josh said, unable to hide the thrill from his young voice. He might as well have said, That was awesome.
Justine watched the speedboat claim its place beside the floating pier. Despite her anger she couldn’t help but admire it—a long, sexy wood-paneled craft that maneuvered as agilely as her outboard motor rental was clumsy.
“Josh, get behind that boat.”
“On it.” Josh—in the front row, hair a gathering mass of black locks looming above his big frame glasses, white skin bright against the dusk—gave the tiller a nudge and everybody nearly fell into the river.
“Jesus, be careful,” Patty said.
“I’m trying!”
“I swear, J.J., if I have to swim because of an intern, I’m quitting.”
Justine wasn’t interested in Patty’s complaint. “Get closer,” she told Josh. “I want the name of that boat.”
Josh somehow negotiated their rust bucket behind the beautiful speedboat as it settled neatly alongside the bobbing pontoons. Above loomed the ruined gantry, lit up a baleful scarlet. The loudspeaker from the Park Police boat told everybody to go one at a time, but the other boats, big and small, seemed to find their own way towards the pier.
“Cut the engine, Justine,” Josh said.
Justine and Patty were in the back row. Justine turned and hit the fat red button. The motor began a long sputtering sigh. As they bobbed a few feet behind the luxury speedboat, she counted four of its crew walking among the pontoons toward shore. A fifth, too dark to make out except for his big white cowboy hat, was at the wheel. He gave his engines a nudge and the speedboat headed out. Justine caught the cursive lettering.
“What’s that say?” she asked Patty.
Patty squinted. “Something miso?”
“Tiramisu,” Justine read. “Hey Josh, what kind of boat is that?”
“Uh, kinda busy here, Justine.” But he already knew. “It’s a Ferretti. Super luxury brand. Italian. Looks like a forty-footer. Sweet ride.” The skiff banged against a pontoon, shaking them all.
“You little shit,” Patty barked.
“Sorry,” Josh said. “But we’re here.”
Bert put his head up. For a Mexican, burly and mustachioed and brown, he looked greener than Kermit the Frog. Bert Gomez had been her cameraman for eight years and his presence always calmed Justine. He had been with her when she cornered a mafia boss in a basement for illegal boxing. He had kept her from falling when she found the corrupt Senator paragliding in the High Sierras. He’d saved her from a bullet in Tijuana. But she had never been on a boat before with Bert Gomez.
“You okay?” she asked.
The plan had been he’d be the one to stay on the boat. No cameras where they were headed, so he might as well remain on the water.
“Come on,” she said. “You’re coming with me. Patty, you’ll be on your own.”
“I can’t drive this thing.”
Justine gave Josh an apologetic look. He was wearing a light-blue blazer, skinny tie over a dark gingham shirt. She’d seen him wear this outfit twice: once when he interviewed for the job, and last month when he skipped out of Friday drinks, smelling of cheap cologne that was intended for a date. This was Maximum Dress Up Josh.
“I’ll stay,” he said.
“You’ll get your shot,” she said.
Justine made the jump onto the pontoon holding onto her heels. Male planning at it again.
The gang from the Ferretti were almost at the gantry. They walked like they drove their boat, with an arrogance that piqued her curiosity. She wanted to know who they were.
“Bert?”
He jumped from the lip of the boat, nearly capsizing it and the pontoon when he landed. He grabbed Justine’s arm before she fell into the water.
“You big oaf!” Patty shouted from the rocking boat.
Bert took a deep breath and straightened himself.
“Ready?” Justine asked.
He nodded. He dressed the same wherever he went: zip-up windbreaker over a rumpled polo, jeans, sturdy shoes, and a gold chain leading to a cross tucked beneath. No matter the occasion Bert Gomez always looked like a bouncer. Justine put aside her thoughts about appearances and was glad to have him along.
“Hey, wait for me,” Patty called.
“I thought you were going to stay on the boat,” Justine said, not hiding her irritation.
“When you said ‘pleasure boat’ I thought you meant one of those,” Patty snapped. “The kind with wine coolers and seat cushions.”
Patty—never “Patricia”, got it?—Yamagata jumped onto the pontoon. Whippet thin beneath her unbuttoned plaid shirt and Ramones T-shirt, basketball hightops, black hair with unwelcome silver streaks mostly hidden beneath a Rangers cap, Patty looked ready to murder them all.
“Besides, I’d rather get shot by a criminal than get drowned by an intern.”
“Okay, boomer,” Josh retorted from the skiff.
“I’m a fucking Gen Xer, you little snowflake,” Patty shouted.
“Enough,” Justine said, looking at Patty’s attire with a mix of snobbery and jealousy. Her bare feet felt slippery and gross against the pontoon’s surface.
“What?” Patty asked.
“Nothing,” Justine said. “Let’s go.”
Josh pulled the outboard motor’s starter rope and it hacked to life.
“Do I embarrass you, J.J.?”
“No, Patty. It’s fine.”
“Because I’m the one who fits in here. You just look desperate.”
“Thanks,” Justine said, marching forward. She knew fear lay behind Patty’s rudeness. If any of them had reason to be scared, the fault was hers. Besides, she was right, Patty did fit in. Most of the men here were in jeans and hoodies—except for the glamorous visitors from the Ferretti.
“Ease up, will you?” Bert said.
“This place better have booze,” Patty snapped.
Justine crossed the seesawing pontoons. The speedboat’s crew was being checked for electronics. A curvy white woman in red, a Black man who looked like something out of a 1960s country club, and between them the two white guys who carried themselves like Bros In Charge. First was Blond Ambition, corn-fed cheeks, purple polo and jeans and pricy sneakers, shades slung from the V in his shirt. He didn’t look casual; he looked privileged. Of course, no one on this island was poor. Then there was Bomber. Tall and lean build, wiry black hair turning to steel. He wore a brown, bomber-style leather jacket—plain, no zippers or patches—over a white, button-down shirt and dark slacks. His tapping leather sneakers radiated impatience.
She wanted to get a look at his face.
The men in T-shirts ran a wand up and down the bros. One of them opened Bomber’s jacket to look at what was inside, then waved him through.
“Did you see that?” she said out of the corner of her mouth.
“Hunh?” Patty asked.
“Yeah,” Bert said. “Those guys are armed.”
Terra firma, finally. Justine leaned on Bert to wiggle her feet into her heels while he looked the place over. She knew he would be thinking camera angles and lighting. Within the confines of his way of looking at the world, Bert was a good observer.
Patty, who spent most of her waking life in front of computer screens, said, “No way I’m handing over my phone.”
“Then Josh’ll pick you up,” Justine said, placing her phones into an open steel box. The young man in the T-shirt closed it and handed her the key. He told her it would be waiting right here. The key had a number: sixty-two.
Bert handed over his phone, and then Patty followed suit with a dramatic sigh. “Security fail one-oh-one.”
Justine pressed through the welcoming line of cocktail-bearing cutie-pies. She needed to keep Patty safe but out of the way. “Patty, why don’t you get a drink, and keep an eye on those phones. Bert, you’re with me.”
She walked towards the rising hulk of the old hospital, its surface half-covered in vines, its upper windows gaping black but the ground floor interior aglow with colors that shifted with thumping electronica. The ground was treacherous with shrubs and wild grass, although the organizers had thrown down wooden planks and crates that served as islands. She wondered how many times tonight she was going to regret her choice of footwear. The word from her sources had been party. They had left out the part about rollicking pontoons and being abandoned to nature.
It was a party, though. This little clearing of the island was filling up. Small groups of people wandered in no direction, in twos and threes, drinking and smoking and talking in voices lost beneath the music. She floated past one and then another, catching bits of words she couldn’t recognize.
“Those guys are speaking Spanish,” Bert said. Another group strolled by. “I don’t know what language that is.”
“Doesn’t matter. These guys all speak money.”
Justine checked out the scene. No sign of Bomber or Blond Ambition.
She had worked parties before, conferences and meetups where she didn’t belong. It had been three years since she had managed to crash one of these conventions through the official channel, as a reporter for Vice.
The cybersecurity conferences tolerated reporters because they were supposed to be fostering legit business. People from Google and Microsoft and the Pentagon went to those things. She had wanted to talk to them, sure, but she had really wanted to talk to the other people in attendance, the ones who were there to do a different kind of business. They always ran for cover as soon as they saw her media badge.
She hadn’t come through the official channel tonight. No journalists were welcome at this event.
“Let’s go inside.”
She made for the ruined hospital. The music seemed to carry her. The organizers had built wooden steps inside and filled a large room with a makeshift platform. The room had been a theater, and through the cracks of the freshly laid planks she could see rotted chairs from a bygone era. At the end of the newly planked floor, someone had built a little stage, complete with an auctioneer’s stand.
A few people were gathering now. All men, but otherwise diverse, everyone a different hue of shady.
Why had she dressed up like this? Steve had been right. Not that she had any intention of using her appearance to get anything more than information. But that’s what she had told herself three years ago.
She joined a trio, counting on their maleness to let her in. From their body language, they were happy to oblige. “Well, hello,” said one. “What’s your Telegram handle?”
“Any word on what’s being sold?” she asked. “For someone to go to all this trouble, you know?”
“I’ve heard expect the bids to be seven figures minimum.”
“The NSA lose some more weapons? Because those prices…”
A second man asked, “And you? What do you hear?”
Here we go. Justine said, “Bitcoin’s become so traceable that the Shadow Brokers decided to turn a virtual auction into a real one.”
The first man chuckled. “The Shadow Brokers? Stolen cyberweapons? My oh my.”
“You have some wild theories,” the second man said.
“Sorry, I don’t know you,” said the third, uncomfortable with the conversation. He headed for the exit.
“Gee, somebody’s jumpy,” Justine said. Bert stood nearby, hands folded in front, and although he wouldn’t hurt a fly, she was glad for the way he hulked.
The room was filling up and the departing man shuffled around some newcomers…
Bomber.
He had a serious face, an intensity that made him interesting and a little intimidating. Good looking—great looking, actually, with eyes that seemed to canvas the room in one go, pausing on her because she was unusual, nothing more, but he unleashed a spark whose heat only Justine felt. His coolness was palpable, and his gaze resumed its scan.
“Nice to meet you guys,” she said and walked towards Bomber, readying her smile for launch. People intervened, the music amped up a few decibels, and then they were face to face. His eyes were chestnut, a light contrast to his swarthy features, and they took her in with professional interest.
“Hel—” she began, but booms replaced the music, making everyone wince. Over her shoulder, a man in a black T-shirt had walked onto the stage and was tapping a mic with his fingers, filling the room with thudding waves.
She turned back to Bomber, who said, “Excuse me,” as he pushed past her into the gathering crowd.
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