“The Brass Ring” by Lance Mason

As Tito stepped forward with the pistol in hand, it seemed Corlett’s friend, the quiet, suspicious winemaker, had been right….

Under Tito’s smile and wave, storemen and clerks were streaming away from the Santa Monica warehouse. Off early on Friday, they were driving away in twos and threes as David Gilbert pulled into the parking lot at 3 PM. Once inside, Gilbert carried two wooden office chairs into a large, mesh cage in the center of the warehouse. Tito checked that everyone was gone, joined Gilbert with a roll of duct tape and short lengths of rope from the tool area, and then drew a Walther P5 from his left shoulder holster.

Tito owned two P5s, safe and reliable, and looked after them lovingly. He now fitted a silencer to the one in his hand and slid it into his belt.

Composed but alert, Gilbert said, “After the meeting here, we’ll need an hour at the McConnell Street lab before the first mate arrives.”

“Yes, sir.” Tito, too, was keyed up. The patrón’s plan was sound but complex.

Gilbert nodded. “We need to be at the freighter in San Pedro before its sails at midnight. So we’ll leave Sam and Corlett locked up here, take care of business at the lab, and then get them onboard in San Pedro. I’ll stay with them while you meet Nik back at McConnell Street. Yves and René will have left for the ship with the captain to meet me, then we three will return to the lab. The captain will… stay on the ship, with Sam, Corlett, and the mate.”

Tito nodded in understanding.

#

At five after four, Alex Corlett drove up to the warehouse at 2117 Colorado Ave., surprised to see no employees around. There was Gilbert waving from the office steps, and Corlett parked next to the wine baron’s silver Jag sedan.

Gilbert called out, “Afternoon, Alex! Grateful you could make it.” Then, quietly, “Come inside. You kept this confidential, right? Good! Tito’s checking in our new consignment.” He waved Corlett through the office and into the warehouse. “Alex, this is Tito.”

As Tito stepped forward with the pistol in hand, Corlett’s mind was flooded with Ricardo’s warnings about Gilbert’s taste for vengeance. It seemed Corlett’s friend, the quiet, suspicious winemaker, had been right.

#

At four-fifteen, Sam’s twelve-year-old green Toyota with one red door turned off Cloverfield Boulevard onto Colorado. She’d bailed early from the Department of Commerce on Olympic, always a little rattled by the Westside’s Friday traffic, and now parked at the warehouse and hopped out. That old pick-up next to the Jaguar? Had she seen it before? She strode up the steps and into the office, calling out, ”Hello? David?”

David Gilbert’s voice came from beyond the office. “Back here, Sam.”

Stepping through the office into the warehouse, she realized three things at once:

The truck outside belonged to Alex Corlett. She’d seen it weeks before when they’d met over dinner in West LA. It’d been a revealing meeting.

Secondly, Corlett was tied up, his mouth taped shut, locked in a cage on the warehouse floor.

Finally, there was a man standing next to Gilbert aiming an ugly black gun at her.

#

Later –

“Tito, any problems at my end, I’ll call.” Gilbert began walking out. “Otherwise, leave here at six—no, five-thirty. In an hour. Kudelka knows to wait near the docks if you’re late, but don’t be.”

With death in the air, Tito expected this tension from his patron.

When Gilbert’s car pulled up to the lab in Culver City, Pete, Yves, René, and Krasnik were waiting inside. Pete, the flunky technical genius, showed Gilbert how to operate the CCTV.

He asked, “It’ll record two drives at once?”  Pete nodded, making for the door. Gilbert called, “Hang on.” Alone with him outside, he handed Pete an envelope fat with cash. “Finish the shipment in the morning, then hide the video gear. I’ll be in touch.”

It was 6 PM.

At the same time, on the docks in San Pedro, Captain Wojtek Kudelka spoke to his First Mate in his typical imperious tone. “Andrzej, a message arrived from our Los Angeles consulate. I’ll be ashore this evening—soon. You must remain on watch.”

“This message, Captain? It is irregular for the officer to be alone on watch.”

Kudelka smirked. “Unfortunately, the others are already ashore.”

Andrzej Modjarewski nodded. “When should I expect you back, sir?”

“Oh, not late, not late.”

Tito and the Lincoln were waiting outside the large gate from the San Pedro wharf, he drove with Kudelka north on the 405 toward Culver City. Neither man spoke. At 8:10, Tito parked at the lab between his own Camaro and Yves and René’s rented Honda. It was cold for Los Angeles, and Kudelka exited the car in his overcoat, feigning dignity, a matador entering the bullring. Walking into the building, he saw on the left a run-down office. Down the right side ran open shelving and wine boxes stacked on the floor inside a closed roller-door. Crosswise at the back, behind glass, another room held Pete’s lab equipment, which hid half the cocaine, bagged for delivery. The other half was dissolved in Colombian sugar-cane ethanol, still in wine bottles, waiting in the boxes.

Standing in the open, David Gilbert beckoned Kudelka. Ironic, the captain thought, my prey invites me in. Gilbert gestured Kudelka to the left, behind the corner of the run-down office. Out of Kudelka’s view until now stood a wooden chair, Yves next to it, René stepping out to join him from the office. Both men were dark, stolid. Kudelka thought, Are they here to watch the contest of wills?

“Sit down, Captain,” Gilbert said.

Kudelka stared at the chair. Like an execution device. His legs grew weak.

“Captain, sit down,” repeated Gilbert. “Krasnik will take your coat.” Yves gestured toward the chair.

Kudelka, despite the chill, began to perspire. “What you do here? Why is there this chair?”

A blow between the shoulders from René propelled him to Yves, who thumped him into the chair. René held several lengths of rope.

“Where is the letter, Captain Kudelka?” asked Gilbert quietly.

“Letter?”

“The letter you threatened me with back in September. Or was it August? The one linking me to Martinique, to Colombia, and to your ship the Czaszki. Where is it?”

“Safe.” Kudelka tried to muster assurance. “Yes, Mr. Gilbert, safe. It can’t be found.” He’d considered demanding another $10,000 to keep it hidden. Perhaps he wouldn’t.

Gilbert nodded, and Yves and René bound Kudelka to the chair. His objections met with an elbow to the nose. He slipped toward panic.

“Where is the letter?”

“Look, Mr. Gilbert,” Kudelka said, struggling for control. “We discuss—”

Yves’s punch hit him full in the face. His tongue ran across shattered teeth, tasting blood, his upper lip at once stinging and numb.

Gilbert said, “We agreed not to waste each other’s time.” His eyes stabbed Kudelka like a broken bottle. “Do I need Yves and René to find the truth?”

Kudelka’s stare stole across to those two hard faces. He steeled his voice. “I see my needs have put much pressure on your funds, Mr. Gilbert. Maybe I—”

A stunning pain ripped through the seacaptain’s head. Now he hung half out of the chair, feeling more blood seep down his neck. Gilbert’s rasping words cut into the expanding darkness. “Where is the letter, Captain?”

Months had passed, with voyages smuggling drugs through Caribbean ports, money-laundering through Caribbean banks, and large sums paid as bribes to the salty old seaman. But now Kudelka felt his spirit being sucked away. “In Poland,” he whispered. “In Gdansk.”

That gave Gilbert no option. Outside, Gilbert checked his watch. Past eight-thirty. Modjarewski would be there in half an hour.

“We can’t get the letter, Tito. It can’t contain any real evidence or Kudelka would have squeezed us. But we’ll have to close down, move the lab to San Fernando.” Voices came from inside. “Tell me when you see the other one’s car.”

As Gilbert reappeared inside, Kudelka cried, “What you will do to me? I have family! And daughter’s family! If I—”

“Captain!” shouted Gilbert, “Shut up. You had your chances. You could have ignored us, kept quiet. Or helped us, joined us. But no, you had to blackmail me, your big payoff. So now you see the outcome.”

Queerly, this made Kudelka recall his early years at sea, a visit to New York, to Coney Island and the carousel of little horses, with brass rings you tried to reach to win a free ride. Like blackmailing Gilbert. The brass ring. A free ride. He writhed against the ropes. “What? What outcome?“

“Your friend will be here soon.”

“Friend? What friend? Who comes here?”

Inside the decrepit office, Gilbert took a Grundig recorder and a Beretta from a drawer, removing all but two bullets from the magazine. As he put everything into the pockets of his jacket, then switched on Pete’s video equipment, Kudelka was still ranting.

“Captain,” cried Gilbert, his voice brittle. “Shut your mouth! Or Yves will.”

At this, Yves displayed a six-inch combat knife. Kudelka became silent.

Tito put his head in the front door and nodded. Andrzej Modjarewski, in a jacket and thin leather gloves, parked his rented Toyota outside the property’s gate. Inside, three of the four cars he’d seen before: the Jag, the armored Lincoln, and the battered blue Camaro from the house in Torrance where they’d met to arrange this plan. He didn’t recognize the Honda.

Krasnik, guarding the door, gave Modjarewski a vacant glance. Tito gestured him inside where Gilbert nodded. Beyond the old office, Modjarewski was surprised but not moved when his captain’s strained, bloody face danced with fear and relief.

“Andrzej! Matko Boska! Thanks to God. Psia krew cholera, shipmate! Take me away. They meant to kill me. Please! Please untie me.”

The officer stood impassively before his captain. When Gilbert took out the Grundig and hit the “play” button, Kudelka’s electric voice was its own indictment.

Yes. Andrzej Modjarewski . . . very suspicious of him . . . he know too much . . . I will give crew liberty and change with Modjarewski. . . he will be alone for few hours.

Gilbert shut off the machine and passed a large envelope of cash to Modjarewski. Kudelka’s eyes were tightly shut now, his face a smear of clotting blood and mortal terror. His own words had condemned him. When he opened his eyes, Modjarewski held Gilbert’s Beretta in his gloved hand. Behind him, Krasnik and René had weapons drawn, a threat the First Mate could smell. He’d struck this bargain with Gilbert, and now he had to act. Act, or they would shoot him like a dog and kill Kudelka anyway.

Modjarewski raised the pistol past the confused, terrified eyes of his captain. Outside, Krasnik at the wheel, the Lincoln’s engine roared, its stereo blasting. For a brief but eternal moment, Modjarewski envisioned his revenge for this killing that was forced upon him.

Kudelka’s head was down when Modjarewski squeezed the hard, angular trigger, an action he’d done a thousand times on the target range, in the biathlon, in the Army. The Beretta jerked in his hand. Yves stepped forward and wound an old towel around Kudelka’s head while René picked up the shell casing and Krasnik came back inside.

Modjarewski bent over a nearby table and retched. He had killed before, but was not a murderer, not part of that raw, inhuman ugliness, not a blank instrument of death. Tito handed him a cardboard cup of stale coffee and Modjarewski rinsed his mouth, spat it back in the cup. He passed the warm, black pistol back to Gilbert, who led him, Tito, and Krasnik into the office.

Gilbert turned off the cameras, removed one thumb-drive, and played it on the screen. He watched Modjarewski watch it, then played the duplicate drive. He put both drives into small padded envelopes and walked outside.

“Here.” Gilbert handed one envelope to Krasnik and stuffed one in his jacket. “Take the Lincoln to Santa Monica and lock this in my office desk. Guard it with your life.” He turned then to Modjarewski. “I’ll see you later back at the ship.”

The First Mate began walking back to his rental car, listening to the others.

Gilbert said to Krasnik, ” Help Yves and René with the captain before you leave, and meet Tito back here after midnight.”

Modjarewski drove away from the lab, but stopped two blocks away, unseen by the others.

Checking his pockets—bullets, gun, Grundig, second thumb-drive—Gilbert pulled away in the Jag, followed by Tito and his Camaro. Krasnik went inside to talk to Yves and René. They didn’t need his help. Just two or three minutes had passed, but time enough.

Outside, Krasnik climbed into the Lincoln and spun it out onto McConnell. At the next intersection, Jefferson Blvd, something hard pressed against his neck.

The voice behind him said, “You know what this is.”

Krasnik nodded. He also knew the voice.

“Both hands on the wheel. Make a slow turn back to the building. Slow, or you’re dead.” The gunman gave more orders as they drove.

Yves and René approached the Honda, carrying the dead man. They lurched at the sight of the returning Lincoln, the driver’s door angled toward them. The window came down, René heard a muffled bark, and felt a wet spray and a thump in the face.

After an unobstructed path through portions of Krasnik’s brain, the bullet had exited his left eye and, against all probability of physics, shattered René’s right incisor. Dropping the corpse, he clutched his face. Thrown off-balance, Yves also dropped the body and grabbed for his weapon. Krasnik’s killer was out the Lincoln’s back door, hand braced above the bullet-proof glass.

As Yves dove sideways behind the gasping René, the shooter put a bullet in the flesh of his neck, then hit René between his left eye and left ear. Grabbing René as a shield, Yves fired three rounds into the car’s armored door. The shooter fired through Yves’s cheekbone and his trachea, severing his spinal cord, then strode from the Lincoln, shooting Yves through the temple. He checked that René and Krasnik were dead, stripped all three of large wads of cash, and filmed the scene with his phone.

Inside the building, he filmed the premises, grabbed two kilos of cocaine, and found $14,000 in $100 bills. Enough to keep men with guns around, but not enough for them to kill each other. Outside again, he found the padded envelope on Krasnik and checked the time–10:15 p.m. Enough to make the rendezvous. He hoisted the captain’s body into his rental car’s trunk.

#

Why would Gilbert want or need them as prisoners together? He must feel threatened by them, their collaboration….

For six hours, Sam and Corlett had been bound hand and foot, duct tape over their mouths, paralyzed by confusion, anger, and fear. Gilbert had told them nothing of his intent, but Tito’s gun put murder on the agenda. Corlett felt a brittle despair. His friend Ricardo had cautioned him. Indeed, Gilbert had turned a commercial skirmish between two wine merchants, one humble and one fabulously rich, into a lethal vendetta. Yet Corlett and Sam, the Department of Commerce computer geek, hadn’t stumbled into Gilbert’s path this cold Friday evening. No, they’d been invited, lured into a trap.

Why? Why would Gilbert want or need them as prisoners together? He must feel threatened by them, their collaboration. But how? Corlett puzzled over the facts:

Polished, successful, and wealthy, Gilbert was huge in wine import-export, and evidently aggressive, manipulative, and capable of violence, perhaps murder.

Sam had explained over dinner weeks before that Gilbert traded clandestinely in goods other than wine, something she’d learned moonlighting for him nights and weekends, making cash for her passion, extreme rock-climbing. What had she told Corlett? Besides wine, Gilbert exports anything—shoes, sunglasses, security systems—as long as it goes to Colombia or Venezuela. Why is that, wondered Corlett, and why is it secret? Most important, why did that knowledge make Sam—and now him—a threat Gilbert might kill for?

Now, in the dark, they were startled by footsteps. Two men stepped through the office door, striding toward the cage. Tito drew the silenced Walther as Gilbert pulled keys from his trouser pocket, unlocked the cage, and said, “Ladies first, Samantha.”

Her eyes were closed. He stripped the tape off her mouth, her lips and eyes springing open together.

“You filthy bastard! You mother-fucker!” The curses streamed out like fresh lava. “You fucking bastard son-of-a-bitch.” As she began to sob in anger mixed with fear, her captors mistook her tears for defeat. Gilbert untied Sam’s feet from the chair legs, and then her wrists. Her arms swung limply forward to her sides, and she began to rub her wrists, trying to bring back their strength—a deceptive strength, rock-climbing strength.

Gilbert said, “Tito and I will come back for Alex.” But before he could protect himself, before Tito could react, Sam was on her feet, hands like scythes around Gilbert’s neck, slamming him against the cage wall, his feet off the floor. Years of acrobatics on mountain slopes gave Sam an acute sense of body, of range and power, between a ballerina and an ape. Her fingers were at Gilbert’s throat like a bony garrote. Thrashing, helpless, Gilbert felt his windpipe being crushed, cutting off the blood to his brain.

Tito wrestled into the cage, putting the Walther to Samantha’s head. She didn’t budge, all rage and purpose, her only thought Gilbert’s extinction. Setting his feet, Tito slammed the pistol butt against her skull, and Sam collapsed, Gilbert falling with her to the floor, but her grip hardly loosened. Kicking, Gilbert freed himself, dizzy, terrorized, his breathing labored and hoarse, struggling hand over hand up the cage wall, consumed by an ache for Samantha’s death.

Tito drew breath as Gilbert braced his hands against his knees, swamped in humiliation. He gazed at Corlett, who stared back at the fear and panic in Gilbert’s eyes. Tito looked away. Sam seemed in shock, moving but certainly dazed.

Gilbert spoke, his voice like a bad phonograph, “Tito, get her out of here.”

Tito dragged her out the door and onto her feet, putting the gun to her neck, then muscled her to the waiting car. Corlett heard a trunk lid open and close. Tito and Gilbert returned, the boss re-gaining control.

“Alex, Tito will shoot you at the first sign of trouble. Understand?” Corlett nodded once. Gilbert untied him while Tito held the gun in his face. “Now stand up slowly. Tito, shoot him if he makes a wrong move.”

Tito slowly backed away, and Corlett, cramped and fatigued, moved cautiously out of the cage. Gilbert reloaded the Beretta’s magazine with the bullets he’d removed before. “You’re driving Tito’s car. Go where he tells you. I’ll be behind you.”

“Where are you taking—”

Gilbert snapped, “Where I say you go!” He sighed. “We won’t kill you if you cooperate,” he lied. “Now get in the car.” Gilbert’s eyes searched the light and shadows. He nodded back to Tito. Corlett felt the Walther’s muzzle directly behind his heart.

#

Before midnight, they were in a dark alley in San Pedro. Sam, bruised, conscious, irascible, was dragged up from the Camaro’s trunk and into the front seat, smelling of sweat and spare tires. Tito took the back seat, and Corlett drove on. Once at the San Pedro wharves, they parked near the gangway of the Czaszki. Modjarewski met them dockside and waved off harbor security.

Gilbert slipped out the Beretta. Cautious and somber, Modjarewski led Sam, Corlett, and the pistol-wielding Gilbert slowly up the gangway. He knew that Gilbert’s plan was that Yves and René would bring Kudelka’s body so they could fake his murder on-board. Once the others vanished through the hatchway, Tito drove the Camaro away, leaving the Jaguar on the dock.

The Czaszki crew and officers were still ashore. Modjarewski, Corlett, Samantha, and Gilbert gathered in a main-deck mess that swam in the bouquet of kielbasa, fried potatoes, and beer. Gilbert trained the gun on Corlett and Sam, but kept one eye on the First Mate.

Corlett spoke. “We don’t know anything.” There was no question now who held the power. He tried not to plead. “If you have a secret, we don’t know it. Lock us up—a week, two weeks. Hide the evidence, whatever it is, but you don’t need to kill us. We can’t hurt you.”

“Oh, you’re wrong, Alex,” Gilbert said . “You and Samantha are too smart. I’ve known her for a long time, even felt a romantic attraction. Until I found out her secret.” Corlett glanced at Samantha Bergmann, whose eyes glowed with revulsion.

“You’re smart, Alex, but reckless. Our first meeting showed me that. Then you two talked, figuring things out.”

“You’re going to kill us?” Corlett’s skin prickled.

Gilbert motion towards Modjarewski. “No, my associate will take care of that.”

Corlett caught the Mate’s cold, grey look beneath his widow’s peak of rodent-brown hair.

Samantha said, “Money-laundering.”

Corlett looked puzzled. Gilbert snickered. “Samantha, I knew you were a danger. I’ll be glad to have you gone.”

Samantha nodded. “Smuggling, Alex. Drug-running. What he’s importing, not exporting.” Her expression became analytical. “Cocaine, it’s got to be. The exports— shoes, sunglasses and shit? Just money-laundering. DOC has weekly bulletins. Other agencies, too, for ‘hot countries’ like Colombia. Crooked state-side operators dump cheap exports into those markets to launder drug profits back into the States.”

Gilbert cocked his head. “You see, Alex. Even smarter than you.”

Sam continued. “He used me for market research, which businesses to buy into, to get out of, keeping a step ahead of the cops. Smuggling millions in drug cash out of the US into Caribbean banks—that’s easy. Then he exports containers full of junk at 600, 800 percent markup. His phony Caribbean importer writes a huge check from the foreign bank, and his US exporting front is rolling in dough. Same with wine. Exports shit wine, gets paid ten or twenty times the cost, laundering his own drug profits back into the States.”

“Try fifty.” Gilbert wore a wry grimace. “You see, Alex? Suppose you had found me out sooner and told the police?”

Corlett squinted. “You mean everything he exports? It’s all money-laundering?”

“Oh, Alex, you’re much too slow,” scolded Gilbert. “We had a robust wine export market in South America until Chile and Argentina underpriced us, cut new trade deals. Then Colombia blocked U.S. wine imports, hurt us badly.

“The 90s were decent, but then we had droughts, followed by floods up here. Volumes were way down, lost the bulk market. So, we were presented with a lifeline, trading trade in contraband—”

“Cocaine, David!” screamed Samantha. “Drugs! Killers—ruining people’s lives, you prick, you conniving son-of-a-bitch—”

“Shut up!” Gilbert shouted, raising the pistol, shaking in anger.

Modjarewski needed to keep him talking, before it all went wrong.

Corlett said, “I researched it. The Colombian wine trade had been huge.”

Gilbert calmed down. “Yes, and we were the biggest supplier. Millions, and legal. When we lost it—we had to compensate.”

“How did you bring it in?” Corlett asked.

Gilbert sketched the process—cocaine dissolved in ethanol, wine bottles with counterfeit French labels, famous ones, trans-shipped through Martinique, as if coming from France, then through the Canal to L.A. “When we couldn’t launder all the drug cash via phony wine exports, we got into sunglasses, bootleg Nikes, etc.”

Sam croaked, “You disgusting pig. I’d give the world to—”

Gilbert raised the weapon, ready to shoot, but Modjarewski grabbed Sam by the hair, then locked her arm behind her back, walking her down a stairway. Corlett followed, covered by Gilbert’s gun. Modjarewski maneuvered Sam down and through a cabin door on the right. Modjarewski backed out, and Corlett was pushed in. The First Mate locked the cabin door and led Gilbert back upstairs.

Back the officers’ mess, Modjarewski noticed an excitement in the millionaire’s eyes as Gilbert tossed the padded envelope from his pocket onto a low table. “Play it.”

Modjarewski pulled out the thumb-drive and booted up a nearby laptop. Only Modjarewski and Kudelka could be made out in the video. The shot that killed Kudelka sounded tinny and fake, but looked genuine. Then Gilbert leveled the Beretta at the Mate.

“You have been paid this time,” explained Gilbert, “and paid well, but now you will do what I say, when I say, or the FBI and Polish police get a copy of the thumb drive. And don’t bother to think about what you can do to me. That drive is only a copy. The other is in safekeeping.

“Now you’re going to tie and gag those two downstairs, hide them, then report Kudelka’s murder to the police.” They’d agreed on the basics of the plan at their first meeting only days before. “Once at sea, get them overboard.” Gilbert was confident now of his position, of his power. “Throw this overboard, too.”

His back to the First Mate, Gilbert laid the Beretta next to the laptop and pulled the thumb-drive. When Gilbert turned back around, he was faced with a very different Modjarewski, a padded manila envelope in one hand and a Russian-made Margolin semiautomatic pistol in the other.

#

Inside the barren steel box of the cabin, Sam and Corlett were quiet, ignorant until an hour ago of the secret crimes they would now die to protect.

Sam said, “I did this to us, Alex. I put us in this trap by telling you all about Gilbert’s export shit.”

“Sam, I questioned you, over his lies about the Caribbean wine markets. I exposed you, revealing shit you’d told me. That forced him to act, to shut us both up, keep his secrets hidden.”

“Is there a way out of this, Alex? Maybe that ship’s officer?”

“He seemed so . . . preoccupied, almost oblivious.”

“He’s very strong, I can tell you. He moved on me so quick. One second, I think David’s going to shoot me, and the next instant that bastard’s got me like a vice. Like a—”

“Like a killer, Sam,” Corlett said, watching her. “Like you, with Gilbert by the throat.”

“Oh!” Sam closed her eyes. “Another five seconds, alone in that cage….”

Corlett lay back on the bunk and stared at the overhead. The white paint was thick and old, chipped and peeling, showing rust stains in the corners. The whole ship was tired, rusty, worn to a shell.

#

The saliva in Gilbert’s mouth dried up, his face blanching. The sweat on his hands grew cold as the voice buffeted him, officious and plain.

“I am Sergeant Andrzej Modjarewski of the Polish CBA. I hereby arrest you for the murder of Wojtek Kudelka, captain of the Polish Merchant Navy and commander of the ship Czaszki. I also arrest you for the transporting of illegal drugs on a vessel of Polish registry.” Modjarewski tossed the second padded envelope onto a vinyl-covered divan, reached into his pocket, pulled out a Grundig digital recorder, and switched it off. “I bought one immediately after our first meeting,” he said blandly, “when you played yours for me of the captain talking.”

Nodding toward the Beretta, Modjarewski said, “Now put the other drive there, and if you touch the pistol, you’re dead.” He fired a round into the steel deck between his captive’s feet, and Gilbert danced horribly. “I can take two corpses back to Poland as easily as one.”

“Where . . . how did you—”

Modjarewski was calm. “Put down the drive—or you’re dead. You’ve seen me kill. You know I will do it.”

Gilbert set the device on the table. Reaching for the gun was never a temptation. “You, you said I killed the captain. I didn’t—”

“The captain was killed with your gun,” the sergeant said, his clear, grey eyes flicking toward the table. “Your fingerprints only are on the Beretta. The bullet may be in his back or shoulder, from the angle of entry to his head. I saw you shoot him in my presence. His body is on the wharf, in the trunk of my rented car. 

“The video system was a good plan, Mr. Gilbert. Cunning. A man like you never travels without insurance. I was lucky to find the second drive, the copy, in the car with your dead employee.”

“But, you—you can’t expect—”

“Drug wars, Mr. Gilbert.” Modjarewski nodded. “An unfortunate fact of Los Angeles life. And I, too, am a fan of videos.” His phone faced Gilbert, showing scenes from the lab. “Drugs in your laboratory. Smuggling evidence present, traceable to Global Wines, your company. Bullet-proof car windows, several bodies, illegal aliens, gangster executions. An exciting media story. Police, they’ve been notified.

“So it will look. Until you appear in Poland, under arrest, where the truth”—he waved the Grundig—”the important parts, will come out. If you survive a Polish prison, you may be extradited back to America as an old man. For all your cleverness, you have a dim future, Mr. Gilbert.”

David Gilbert was thunder-struck. Five minutes before he was in control of this scene, of his world. He was dominant, consolidating his life, nearly finished with the smuggling. The wine business was excellent again. More time in Napa with Marilyn and the children. Holidays in Martinique.

“Wait, Sergeant! This makes no sense—for either of us.” The eyes came alive again. “What does this gain you? I can fix it so you’ll never have to do police work again. You could live in the West. I can fix it. How much do they pay you? What would it take to, shall we say, reorganize your priorities?”

Modjarewski looked at him with the emptiest glare Gilbert had ever seen. “Reorganize my priorities? You can arrange it?”

“Yes, certainly!”

“Like you reorganized my priorities tonight? Or the priorities of your prisoners below? Or the priorities of Wojtek Kudelka?”

“But, Sergeant, we’re both—”

“Be happy I don’t put a bullet down that disgusting capitalist mouth of yours, you—what did the lady call you—son-of-a-bitch.”

Gilbert tried pity mixed with reproach. “If you’re so sure of the need for justice, Sergeant, why didn’t you save your captain? Why didn’t you just bring the police tonight and save all this?”

“Perhaps. But perhaps you own the police, the judge, the lawyers. Who knows in the West, in America?” Modjarewski shook his head slowly. “But I know Poland. You will never escape.”

Gilbert stood rooted to the deck. You have a dim future, Mr. Gilbert. Yves and René would not be arriving. Dead or gone. So was Krasnik. Tito? He’d find the bodies—and run.

“Walk now,” commanded Modjarewski. “Down the stairs. One wrong move, I shoot.” Gilbert had not the slightest doubt. He descended again into the passageway below. At the cabin door, Sergeant Modjarewski ordered his prisoner to his knees, and handed him the key. “Unlock it.” The key moved in the lock and the door swung open.

Corlett, who had heard the shot, saw Modjarewski in the hatchway, holding the Margolin pistol. Was he about to die at the hands of a criminal thug?

“Step out here, please, both of you,” Modjarewski said. “You’re free.”

Some penetrating sense of life told Sam this was real. As she pushed off the bunk, she turned for Alex.

Modjarewski aimed the gun at Gilbert but smiled at Sam. “Should I leave you with him for the night?” Even the sergeant had little idea of what she might do, given the chance. “Perhaps not.”

Corlett sprung quickly out of the cabin, but Sam hesitated. She had nearly killed David Gilbert two hours before. Did she want to finish it now. This man with the gun seemed to understand this, her need to destroy Gilbert. But Sam needed life more than Gilbert’s death. She stepped out with Corlett. Modjarewski pushed Gilbert up from his knees, into the cabin, and locked the door, pointing Alex Corlett and Samantha Bergmann up the stairs.

The three of them sat on the cold, plastic-covered, cigarette-smelling furniture of the Czaszki’s officers’ lounge, passing around a bottle of Spanish brandy. They had moved Kudelka’s body from the rental car’s trunk to the galley’s meat freezer for the trip home to Gdansk.

“You’re in the Polish police?” Corlett asked.

“The CBA, a Polish . . .?”

“Abbreviation.”

“Yes, thank you. In English, the Central Anticorruption Bureau, like your FBI. Sometimes we work, you say, ‘undercover’ with the Biuro Celnicowe—Customs—and sometimes with the Brygada Antynarkotykowa, like your DEA.” Modjarewski spoke as though he had answered the questions a hundred times—polite, detached, obliged. The shootings—the executions—had robbed him of resilience, had made him dark and distant from himself.

Samantha, on the other hand, was more than interested. She seemed attached to the process, absorbed in it. “Did you want David? Did you come after him?”

Modjarewski frowned at the brandy bottle and took a drink. “No. It was Kudelka, the captain. You see, after the Russians, we got back a weak and a damaged country. Some sectors we try to clean up, to make right. Kudelka is—was—a smuggler. For many years. My job was to watch and report, find all the evidence of him and his associates, and then have him arrested. He would be made an example.” Modjarewski shook his head, half bitterly and half in regret. “I should maybe have arrested him before.

“But, instead,” he said, passing the brandy to Corlett, “we have now a bigger criminal—and evidence of a whole operation.”

Corlett took the bottle. “Quien mucho abarca, poco aprieta.”

Sam and Modjarewski stared at him.

“It’s a Spanish saying. ‘He who tries to have everything ends up with nothing.’ I was thinking about Gilbert.” He told Modjarewski about the warehouse, the cage, and how they’d been taken prisoner. He drank some brandy. “What do you want us to do?”

“Return my rental car,” Andrzej said. “It is on a Polish credit card, and I must report the spending. Like a good capitalist.”

Sam cocked her head and looked quizzical, thinking about what Modjarewski had told them. “David Gilbert actually killed the captain? I would never have thought he could kill someone.” She reached for the bottle as Corlett passed it over. “Not until tonight.”

Corlett’s gaze fell on Sam. “I never would’ve thought you could.”

“It’s different, my dear. He deserved to die. He needed to die. But no,” she agreed, drifting absently in a zone beyond the night’s trauma, “me killing someone—even someone like him—never seemed possible.” She sipped some brandy and passed the bottle on. “Maybe, I don’t . . ..” She shook her head, abandoning the thought.

“Do we call the local police, Sergeant? Or the FBI? Or—”

“I must ask you not to do so.” Modjarewski had his story down. “No one knows you saw bodies and guns except me and this Tito. Gilbert is secretive and kept his group small. After I saw them kill each other tonight,” he lied, “this Tito may be all that is left, and he is now far away, I think.”

He handed Corlett two envelopes, frayed and wrinkled. “Take this. It is more than $10,000. Gilbert tried to bribe me, to buy my silence over all of this and Kudelka’s murder. It is blood money. I don’t want it.” This was only partly true, but it made him look clean, and these two Americans would cooperate. He didn’t tell them he had the combination to Kudelka’s safe, or that some of the cash had come from the lab and the dead men.

“As you tell me, no one else knows you met Gilbert tonight at the warehouse. You must rescue your cars from there soon. Use my rental car, and be careful. Watch. If it does not look safe, leave. Try again in the afternoon, in the daylight, two, three clock. It is the weekend. Then return my car. If you need, tell the police. By then, we are gone many hours, 200 miles.

“But, no, tell no one tonight, please. I do not want American police, FBI, or others to stop me. I want this man in Poland.”

Sam nodded. “I want this man in Poland.”

Lance Mason‘s writing reflects both his rural California origins and his several decades exploring, living, and working abroad, traveling the world by foot, bicycle, and motorcycle, by train, plane, and dugout canoe, including 15 years in New Zealand. These experiences have both enhanced and interfered with Mason’s writing, which has appeared in 50+ journals, collections, anthologies, etc. He was included in Fish Publishing’s 2025 Memoir Prize (Ireland), received a Silver and 2 Golds in the 2024 and ’25 Solas Awards, and his fiction recently appeared in ShortStoryStack (Palisatrium), EPOQUE, Eerie River’s BLADES, and Cowboy Jamboree’s PRINE PRIMED.