King Pirate Read online

  KING PIRATE

  Tom Stern

  STORY MERCHANT BOOKS

  BEVERLY HILLS

  2014

  Copyright © 2014 by Tom Stern. All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the express written permission of the author.

  AUTHOR WEBSITE

  Story Merchant Books

  9601 Wilshire Boulevard #1202

  Beverly Hills CA 90210

  http://www.storymerchant.com/books.html

  Chapter 1

  Ryan Kelley knew he was in deep shit when he turned the manila envelope over and a severed ear plopped onto the sticky bar.

  “Sonofabitch.”

  He stared at it for a long moment. The ear was pierced. A steel Jolly Roger. Both the ear and the earring belonged to Brody. From the jagged cuts, it looked like whoever had removed the ear needed three or four tries. Or maybe he was just taking his time. For the fun of it.

  The bartender came back. An ex-pat Australian with sleeves rolled up to show off faded tattoos on hairy arms. He ignored the ear, nodded at Kelley’s empty mug. “Need another?”

  There are about a dozen holes in the area around Kuala Lumpur where you could drop a severed extremity on the bar and expect not to get any hassle. Kelley was on a first name basis with the bartenders in all of them. This one happened to be in Port Sweetenham, just to the southeast of KL.

  “I’d better just settle up, Gar.” The other man moved off.

  Kelley remembered the envelope still balanced in his hand. He peered inside. A few errant blood streaks. Other than that, empty.

  There was no name on the envelope. No markings. But he knew who had sent it. Because sixty seconds before, a 10-year-old local kid had dropped it in front of Kelley. The kid had met Kelley’s eye, and repeated the only two English words he knew:

  “King Pirate.”

  …

  Kelley stepped out onto the street. Early evening, on the late side of magic hour. It was still hot. Humid, like his body had been wrapped in boiled cellophane. He immediately felt sweat gather at his hairline.

  Kelley wore beat-up jeans and black boots with rubber soles, the kind that don’t slip on a wet deck. He wore a simple black t-shirt pulled tight across a refined chest.

  Kelley was a tough guy. Not huge like a bodybuilder. He had the lean hardness that came from years of manual sea labor and boxing. Kelley looked like a golem built from spring steel and whalebone. He had spikey blonde hair and mid-afternoon stubble. He could throw a look from his dark blue eyes that made men step back like he’d punched them in the forehead. Not many people gave Kelley shit unless they had a gun or knife in hand. Several jagged white scars slashing across Kelley’s face and hands testified to those rare exceptions.

  He also wore a gold wedding ring on his right hand. It was dented and bent. He kept it for his own reasons.

  Kelley immediately spotted the two assholes across the street. They were exactly the kind of Malaysian street punks Kelley’d expected to find waiting for him. Every one of them the same, like they were slapped together in a single sweatshop: tattoos of tigers and/or dragons, cheap bling, designer knock-offs, all affecting the same wannabe Triad hard guy routine. Kelley figured about one in twenty were worth keeping an eye on; the rest were background noise. They sipped from cans of Coca-Cola, probably laced with codeine and kratom. It was a trendy drink with the kids, invented by Muslim teens. Getting drunk on alcohol was a sin, but catching a buzz on laced Coke apparently didn’t count as a big deal. It had caught on throughout Southeast Asia.

  Kelley swerved his way across the street, dodging through traffic that didn’t slow down. The punks waited and smoked. Kelley arrived.

  “Where?”

  They didn’t answer. The punks gave him the stare of two guys trying to come across as stone-cold killers. The punks had Malaysian eyes. Flat and jet-black, like a doll’s. It was unsettling if you weren’t used to it, or if you were a pussy. Kelley was neither.

  After paying the bar tab, Kelley had stuck Brody’s ear back in the envelope and folded it up until it fit into his back pocket. He took out the envelope and repeated himself, this time in Malay.

  The first punk smirked, showing off the gangsta-style gold front teeth. “King Pirate say, fifty thousand.”

  “Dollars or ringgit?”

  “Dollar.”

  Kelley glared. “What if I don’t have it?”

  The smirk turned into a grin. Gold Tooth shrugged. Don’t know what to tell you, man.

  “How about I knock those gold teeth out of your head and give them to King Pirate as a down payment?”

  The punk casually flicked away the cigarette butt with a quiet snap. “Try it. See what happen.”

  Kelley glanced around. They were in a sketchy part of town. Lots of shady characters. Kelley and the punks fit right in. This wasn’t the financial district. Some trouble could go down. But there were plenty of people around. In traffic. Sitting in bars. On the sidewalks. Witnesses. He’d be easy to spot in a crowd. Someone called the cops, they’d find him. They’d lock him up. He’d sit in a cell for a while. They’d cane his white ass. Kelley wasn’t scared of a caning. He’d gotten several, with the trophy scars to prove it. Puckered stripes on his back and buttocks. Both cheeks. But the whole process would burn time Brody didn’t have. Kelley turned his attention back to the punks. Gold Tooth kept smiling, having no idea how lucky he was to still have teeth in his head.

  Brody was a friend. He and Kelley met while working on the Asian Princess. Kelley and Brody stayed in touch. They had several interests in common. Hard drink. Women of various nationalities. And the sea. Always the sea. Both were refugees from the first acts of their lives, men who had tried and failed to handle the nine-to-five. For them, it was nothing but boredom and authority. To the squares left in the wake, they were losers, detritus who couldn’t get their acts together well enough to fit into normal society.

  You know what? Fuck ‘em. Even a cattle herd needs a few rogue bulls.

  Brody was a damn good friend. If they weren’t working on the same ship, Kelley made sure to look him up in port. Their work took them both throughout the Asian seas. They’d chased skirts in Japan, brawled in Vietnamese bars and wept into their beers in Indonesia. Kelley and Brody were rough men given to extremes of mirth and melancholy.

  Brody was one of the best friends Kelley’d ever had. He’d been taken captive when pirates swarmed howling over the bows of the Lucky 88 five days before. Kelley knew the pirates would force him to give up family names for a ransom demand. Brody didn’t have any family. Or, at least, no family that would pay cent one for his worthless skin. Brody only had Kelley.

  Hence, the ear. And Kelley’s shortening patience.

  “How long do I have?”

  “One hour.”

  “An hour to pull fifty thousand bucks together.”

  Again, that languorous shrug. Kelley was ready to break this guy’s arms.

  “I want to talk to King Pirate.”

  The punks chuckled, derisively shaking their heads.

  Kelley stepped up, getting in their grilles.

  “If King Pirate wants this money, I’m talking to King Pirate.”

  Gold Tooth’s eyes narrowed. Trying to man up in the face of Kelley’s vicious glare.

  “You don’t give money, you don’t get friend.”

  Kelley closed in farther. They were nose-to-nose, like fighters in a ring.

  “What happens when King Pirate finds out you cost him fifty large because you couldn’t dial a phone?”

  Gold Tooth looked away; Kelley had broken him. He edged
out of Kelley’s space, backing off. The Malay punks quickly discussed their options. Kelley caught one word in three.

  The punks nodded toward a nearby alley. Kelley followed them in.

  …

  Gold Tooth made the call on a cell phone the size of a credit card. A whispered conversation. Kelley occupied himself with staring down the other guy. He wanted both of them to get the clear, unspoken message that he was not to be fucked with.

  Seconds later, Gold Tooth extended his phone to Kelley: “Talk. Then you pay.”

  Kelley kept an eye on the punks. Put the phone to his ear. “Yeah?”

  An electronically-distorted voice buzzed across the tiny speaker. Excellent English, with an unplaceable accent strong enough to bleed through the noise.

  “My friends have already explained the deal. I trust the down payment we gave you made our position clear. Do you have what I want?”

  Kelley considered his options for a moment. Realized that he had none. “I don’t have the money. But I can get it.”

  King Pirate went silent. The device disguising the voice hissed. Then, “Can you get it in an hour?”

  “No.”

  “Are you sure, Mister Kelley?”

  “Yes. But I can get it. It’ll take me a few days, but I’ll figure out a way.”

  Again, silence. Hissssssss…

  “In that case, you can have your friend back – “

  Kelley fought to keep the punks from seeing his obvious relief. “Thanks.”

  “– in as many pieces as you’d like. You see, we’ve already chopped him up as fish bait.”

  The words took a moment to register in Kelley’s brain. Echoing in his skull, growing and rebounding, until they came out of his mouth as a primal scream of sheer fury.

  King Pirate chuckled. Through the voice-blurring distortion, it was like hearing a swarm of bees laugh.

  Kelley’s reaction was a pre-arranged cue for the punks. They whipped out extending metal fighting batons.

  Kelley responded without thought. It takes most people a long time to react to the threat of violence. They have to realize the violence is real and immediate. They have to think and decide what to do about it. They have to deal with their fear. The whole process can take several seconds to a minute. The punks were counting on the delay time.

  They didn’t get it.

  With the speed of muscle memory, Kelley shot his right elbow into Gold Tooth’s face. There was a wet gok sound, like when you snap a carrot in half. His nose breaking. Hot blood sprayed onto Kelley’s arm.

  The other guy cocked back the baton to crack Kelley’s skull open. He never got past mid-swing. Kelley tagged him with two fast left jabs: pop-pop! Nothing that would knock a guy out. But it broke the punk’s rhythm, put tears in his eyes. Rocked him back. Good enough.

  Kelley grabbed the baton wrist with both hands. Threw the guy to the ground, still holding the wrist. Got a grip on the hand holding the baton. Gave it a quick twist. Kelley felt the delicate wrist bones snap under his fingers. The guy yelped. Kelley stomped him in the jaw. Bitch.

  He took the baton away. Heard Gold Tooth recover, coming at him from behind.

  Without looking, Kelley crouched low and whirled. Gold Tooth’s baton came down in an arc. It was meant to tag Kelley in the back of the neck. But Kelley was low, inside the swing. Moving. The baton glanced and rolled off his left shoulder blade.

  In the same motion, Kelley slammed his stolen baton into Gold Tooth’s ribcage. He heard three break at once, like fast applause. Gold Tooth folded in half. Kelley grabbed him by the hair and guided his face right into a rising knee strike. Gold Tooth flipped backward. Hit the ground. Bleeding and moaning in a back alley, where all worthless chumps like him eventually end up.

  Kelley searched the ground. He found the fallen cell phone. It was thin and delicate. Broken into a dozen shards.

  Kelley cursed his luck. He wanted to tell King Pirate that he was a dead man. That, no matter what, Kelley would find him. And do to him what he’d done to Brody. But the phone was broken. So Kelley would have to deliver the message to these punks, and keep it simple enough that they wouldn’t forget any important details.

  And then Kelley would find another seedy, shit hole bar. Because it was the only kind of place where Brody would want Kelley to throw back a shot in his honor. And swear his oath of revenge. With two words.

  “King Pirate.”

  …

  A month later, Sanjay Gupta was using the office phone to make long-distance calls when a boop-boop told him there was someone on the other line.

  He switched to line two, also switching from Hindi to Malay: “International Piracy Reporting Center.”

  “Director Han.”

  Sanjay rolled his eyes. Switched languages again, now in slightly British-accented English, “Call back in exactly ten minutes.”

  He punched off. Went back to his call on line one.

  Exactly ten seconds passed.

  Boop-boop.

  Dammit. Sanjay apologized to his girlfriend, at the moment on a business trip in Toyko.

  Again, in Malay: “International – “

  “Quit jerking me around. I wanna talk to Han.”

  Sanjay clenched his teeth. These idiots.

  “He’s not available to take a call at the moment,” he patiently explained.

  “I emailed Han and he never responded. When’ll he be back?”

  “If you wish to speak to Director Han, you’ll have to make an appointment.”

  “Fine. When?”

  A hint of frustration slipped out as Sanjay asked, “Who is this, and may I ask the purpose of your call?”

  “I wanna talk to him about King Pirate. I checked out your website. Han’s the man I gotta see.”

  Obviously, this guy was just some nut calling to waste everyone’s time.

  “Call back tomorrow at nine o’clock precisely.”

  Sanjay hung up without another word. When the moron called tomorrow, Sanjay would tell him to call again the next day and the next, ad infinitum, until he got the hint and crawled back into his hole.

  He shifted back to Hindi as he punched back to line one. “Sorry, this idiot keeps ringing…”

  …

  A dial tone bled from the cell phone. Kelley snapped it shut. Fucker.

  He stood in the midst of Kuala Lumpur’s business district. Kelley was across the street from the International Chamber of Commerce building at 27 Jalan Sultan Ismail Road. The building also housed the International Maritime Bureau, which in turn shared space with the International Piracy Reporting Center on the thirty-fifth floor. Kelley stared up at it, as if he could see through the steel and glass to spot Director Han. The Petronas Twin Towers loomed on the horizon.

  “Nine o’clock, my ass.” He’d tried coming in the official way. Now it was time to get in the Kelley way.

  Kelley headed for the building. Guards armed with automatic weapons stood at attention by the glass front doors. Their eyes immediately picked him out of the crowd. Caucasians were rare in Kuala Lumpur. The guards watched Kelley without reaction.

  He’d come downtown expecting to see Han. Kelley wanted to make a good impression. He was wearing his only collared shirt, and his only tie. The night before, Kelley dropped some ringgit on matching dress shoes with thin rubber soles. Rubber was cheap in Malaysia. The country grew a healthy percentage of the world’s rubber plantations.

  Kelley pushed through the glass doors. He came into the air-conditioned lobby from the dense, tropical heat. It was like hitting an invisible wall. His skin tightened.

  Kelley stared across an ocean of marble. There was a car-sized reception desk on the far side. Four more guards stood nearby.

  The guards outside had let Kelley through without a hassle. The guards inside didn’t. Two moved to intercept Kelley as he headed for the desk. They wordlessly blocked his path. The first guard was a meaty dude. He smelled like sandalwood cologne. The tag on his uniform shirt said: Min.
/>
  Kelley said, “IPC.”

  The guards traded a look. Min the guard cocked his head. Telling Kelley he could proceed to the desk. He did. They followed him.

  Kelley found a Malay receptionist. Mid-twenties. Magazine-cover lovely. Gorgeous body. Stylish clothes. Eyes like a jungle cat. Kelley wanted to write poetry about her, with his tongue as the pen and her skin as the paper. He wanted to drop out of a tree and surprise her as she drank from a stream.

  His blood heated. It had been a while. Kelley had a rotation of favorite hookers in various ports, Kuala Lumpur included. He liked the regularity. But, since Brody’s untimely death a month hence, he’d been too busy to take care of business. It wasn’t an issue until his eyes drifted to the receptionist’s silk blouse and the wonders it held.

  Woman like this behind the desk, no wonder they needed so many guards in the joint. She asked Kelley if she could help him. In more ways than one, he thought.

  “I have a job interview with IPC,” he lied.

  “Sign the register, including your identity number.” Her voice was music. She could have read from the phone book, and Kelley would listen all day.

  Kelley felt his face flush. She picked up on it. A beautiful woman knows the effect she has on men. She smiled, narrowing her eyes just enough. Kelley could tell where her thoughts were going.

  It took ten full minutes to get past the guards. IPC had tight security. Kelley came prepared. He gave them every paper they asked for, every number ever assigned him. Through the process, it occurred to Kelley that living in today’s world meant collecting an endless series of numbers. The longer you live, the more numbers you get. It was like guessing a tree’s age by the number of rings. Cut a man down, and it looks like a pi sequence.

  Kelley thought about the man he recently cut down. He vaguely wondered what the last number in his stream was.

  It got his mind off the receptionist. Kelley focused on the reason he was here.

  They finally approved his entrance. Min the sandalwood-scented guard led him to the elevators.

  …