well. He lit up a joint, pulled up his gas mask, took a drag, then lifted Black’s head off the bloody floor and put the joint to his lips. The pirate drew in deep.
“Want to get clean now while you can?” Batman asked him.
The pirate nodded yes, a bubble of blood coming out of his open throat.
Batman shouted behind him: “Who’s got the fucking video camera?”
Gunner was soon beside him, a small video camera in hand.
“Get all of this,” Batman told him.
He turned back to Black.
“You guys knocked off all those yachts, right?” Batman asked him.
Black nodded slowly. “Just trying to make some scratch, you know, general?”
Batman gave him another puff of pot.
“And all those people?” he asked. “You threw them into the sea?”
“Couldn’t have any witnesses, you know?” Black said. “It’s bad luck. But a lot of their stuff is here. You can have it. No good to me now.”
“You might have gotten away with it,” Batman said, taking another hit himself under his mask, “if your pilot hadn’t been a junkie and had been more careful.”
“Always a pain in the ass, that guy,” Black said after another toke. “I hope he crashes someday.”
Batman nodded. “Yeah, me, too. But you know what really screwed you? Taking those yachts on Easter. And killing those cops, man? That was fucked up. That’s what got everyone pissed off, and set everything in motion against you. That’s why they called us in.”
Black accepted another weak puff of the pot—and then a strange look came across his face.
“We done all that you say before,” he coughed, fading fast. “But no three yachts on Easter Day, mon. And definitely no cops. That was not us. We were all drunk on Easter. We could not move. That was someone else.”
“Bullshit,” Gunner said, still recording it all. “He’s freaking stoned even as he’s checking out.”
But now Nolan wasn’t so sure.
“If it wasn’t you guys,” he asked Black. “Who did it?”
But the pirate captain could no longer reply. His eyes were going up into his head, his body was starting to convulse.
Batman threw the joint away and started shaking him.
He repeated Nolan’s question: “If it wasn’t you on Easter, who was it?”
Black came back to life for just a few more seconds. Long enough for him to manage a weak grin.
“No idea, mon,” he said. “Guess the big joke is on you.”
Then, he died.
10
THE BRIGHTLY PAINTED Bell 430 helicopter appeared above the Dustboat around noon the next day.
With help from two of the Senegals, the copter landed on the coastal freighter’s empty helipad and four people stepped out.
One was Mr. Jobo, the OAS officer the team had met at the beginning of the mission. Jennessa and two other women from BABE were with him.
The women, dressed in very sexy island wear, with perfectly coiffed hair blowing in the breeze, were carrying a huge ice bucket full of champagne bottles and glasses.
Batman was immediately on hand to greet them. Jennessa gave him a warm hug and took out the first bottle and popped the cork.
“You did it!” she said happily. “You rid us of those horrible Muy Capaz people.”
Batman nodded weakly. “Apparently,” he replied.
“We got the report this morning,” she said happily. “The Bahamian police are already crawling all over that island. They’re finding all kinds of things: weapons, drugs, IDs and personal effects from a lot of the missing people. You guys did in three days what those idiots have been pretending to do for years.”
Batman didn’t reply this time—he just sipped his champagne.
“So, it’s my pleasure then,” Jennessa went on, “to give you this…”
She handed him a cashier’s check for $5 million.
“… and this,” she added, giving Batman a huge kiss on both cheeks.
Then she shook his hand and said, “If only all our vendors were as good as you.”
But Batman was still uneasy. “We usually provide a post-action debrief after a job,” he told her. “It lets you know what we did and when. And how your money was spent. It also gives details of what went on.”
Jennessa just laughed.
“No need,” she replied, adding with a whisper: “However you did it, that’s fine with us.”
Mr. Jobo agreed.
“You did the whole world a favor,” he said in his booming voice. “And especially our little piece of the world here. You know?”
Batman pulled Jobo aside.
“Look, there’s something you might want to know,” he told the OAS officer. “Those guys are gone, but—”
Jobo put up his hand and stopped Batman mid-sentence.
“Are they gone forever?” he asked. “Buried in a