Allison leans in and whispers: “Frank Muto chained my brother to a trunk and threw him overboard, right where we are now. This is really the only thing that concerns you. If you can find him and the trunk, you’ll get three thousand dollars.”
May says: “How long has he been down there?”
“I don’t know. A few days.”
“You know what a body looks like after being underwater for a few days?”
“No.”
“Why not just leave him there. Like a burial at sea.”
“Now you don’t want the money?”
“I want the money. I don’t want the headaches. When I go after bodies I always have to deal with a big scene when I come back up. Most people regret the whole thing.”
Allison tries not to hear the rhythmic thumping coming from the next cabin. She says: “I already regret the whole thing.”
“If there’s valuables in the trunk then that’s another story,” May says. “Maybe you’re the kind of girl who puts on a big show of crying for dead brothers but really just wants some sunken treasure.”
Allison says: “I don’t know what kind of girl I am. And I don’t know what’s in the trunk. But it was his, and I want it.”
May nods. She reaches up to touch Allison’s face and Allison jerks back. “Your nose needs to be re-set,” May says. “Let me pop it back in.”
“How much will that run me.”
“Twelve dollars.”
Allison sighs. “OK,” she says.
May pulls a flask from the hip pocket of her camouflage shorts. She says: “Drink as much of this as you can.”
Allison unscrews the cap and takes a long pull. The first alcohol she’s had since prom night, out behind the Ringley cafeteria, going dutch on a plastic bottle of amaretto liqueur. It goes down like water. She looks at nothing, then at the painting bolted to the wall of a spaceship soaring out of thick jungle foliage and into the heavens. May gently places her thumbs against the bridge of Allison’s nose. She says something but Allison doesn’t hear it, and then there’s a snap but Allison doesn’t feel it.
May says: “Better?”
Allison wipes away a fresh trail of blood streaming from her nose. “I won’t make a big scene,” she says.
May says: “Yeah, I know.”
// Chokeville
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