Containment Plan

“Three shackles paid out!” Smitty roared into his radio. The forceful expulsion of breath called for a refreshed gulp. A gulp like a fish out of water for the air was befouled with red dust. He spurted a curt curse as aerosolized rust particles rode that wild coaster, the WindPipe Express. This ship, he decided, anchored much too frequently.

Once the vessel’s catenary sufficiently held her bow into the wind like a tubby iron rooster atop a barn, Smitty abandoned the mooring station. It was a two hundred meter walk home. A five-story colonial lacking only a picket fence, Smitty thought. Too bad the cabin was sized for Thumbelina.

The equatorial heat fused with the airborne rust on Smitty’s face. Free bronzer. He wiped it off with one the ship’s ubiquitous rags he always seemed to find in his coverall pockets. Per the mate’s orders, Smitty started his safety round. It felt a little ill-conceived being the middle of the day and safely anchored off the coast of Brazil, but every once in a while reefers - refrigerated containers - failed.

Smitty strolled along the port gangboard, happy to be out of the blazing sun. Sometimes fatigue eased his salty dog attitude; the endless clambering of ladderwells and catwalks had a certain satisfying jungle gym aspect to it. He vaulted himself gorilla-like down one of the forward lashing bridges and continued over to the starboard side. Turn right and aftward.

“One o’clock and all’s well,” Smitty declared. No one was around, just as he liked it.

A glint of light reflected off the anti-slip paint of the weather deck. Something was leaking, Smitty thought. He tried to rationalize that the tropical afternoon shower had not yet dried. He scanned what containers he could see above and to his side. Nothing.

A small movement garnered Smitty’s attention. He turned in time to see a twenty dollar bill gliding atop the lazy river of water following its most natural course towards the nearest scupper. Smitty sped along and grabbed the wet paper before it was flushed out to sea. He peered down the transverse walkway. A second, a third, a fourth. The flotilla of small bills appeared to be executing a blockade running maneuver. Smitty picked them off like a ship of the line.

He followed the ghostly trail to its source semi-afraid the entire ordeal was sunstroke rather than a stroke of luck. It required little tracing. Smitty glanced a thick manila envelope haphazardly hanging out of a reefer unit’s cooling system. The fan seemed to be propelling bill by bill free from their imprisonment. The liquid, Smitty found, was being generated from a series of overactive reefer containers. The Brazilian heat, Smitty considered, bad for us all.

He plucked the envelope from its precarious perch and looked inside. Unsurprisingly, it contained more cash. More cash and something harder, more solid, at the bottom. Smitty cast a look about, one of innocent confusion. Still alone, he extracted the contents of the envelope and knelt on the steel deck plate. More interesting than the wad was the pad - that other item he felt.

Smitty perused the contents of the little black notebook. Names, places, dates, amounts. It didn’t take a linguist to determine the origins of either of the formermost. Nor did it take a mathematician to suss out a ballpark figure of the total quantity - 20,000 dollars. Paranoid, he looked around again.

The container vessel’s owner insisted on a squad of security guards aboard the ship whenever it traversed South American waters. The head of the team briefed Smitty of the burgeoning narcotics trade and containerization’s fundamental role in its propagation. Like a fool, Smitty chastised himself, I’ve made myself look like an accessory.

This was Smitty’s first float with the company. He had had a few gigs on dirty coalers. Compared to that, this job was heaven. He would instantly lose all credibility, if not the role itself, if anyone came along at that moment. His heart raced.

“Are you done yet, Smitty?” the radio crackled. Smitty started. Was his sweat sweating through his sweat, he considered before answering the call. He was needed on the aft deck to flake out the ropes. They wouldn’t be anchored for long.

Smitty considered the Brazilian port authorities and customs officials. “As bad as a Brazilian prison” wasn’t in common vernacular, as far as he knew. Detainment, generally, did not connote terribly positively.

The radio crackled again. This time it was cross-traffic chatter between the security guards. One was on his way forward to check the securings on the hawse pipe. Stowaways sometimes used the anchor chain to climb aboard. Smitty jolted to his feet. He stepped briskly to the corner container and risked a turkey peek down the gangboard. Clear.

Smitty scoured the deck around him. A bright red firebox magnetized his attention. He popped open the mounted plastic storage box and sifted past the Dutch-rolled hose. A spanner. The right tool for the job.

Smitty paused a wink. His choice was clear, but the irony was not lost. If he was to go down, he’d take the ship with him. Damn difficult to connect a nozzle to a hose without the wrench, he smiled evilly. Trial by fire or trial by firing squad. What a choice.

Smitty crouched once more. He spread his rust smeared rag on the deck like a picnic blanket. Sneaking the metal tool into the envelope, he centered the whole burden on top of the rag. With a seaman’s quickness, Smitty tied a few knots that would put a hobo to shame. Bindle in hand, Smitty stepped to the starboard side railing and chucked the parcel overboard.

The drug money, the blood money sank out of sight. Anyway, Smitty thought, I prefer an honest living.