Month 10, February 2023, Charleston, NC
JJ Maybank had spent the best part of two days bringing the millions of dollars worth of yacht down the coast from Roanoke, out into the ocean, round past Wilmington and down into the easy straits that was Charleston harbour.
An easy two days, JJ reflected, with food and beer, and the warming wind around his ears, the hint of springtime in the air. More sea birds chased him as he went, compared to the run he had done in January. Soon, the air would be warm and life would once again come back to the OBX, nature, he considered, and Kooks.
"Hey, w'sup?" JJ called, as he neared the pilot's cabin at the end of the jetty. Al, the harbour master, was standing by the open door, and turned when he heard JJ's voice. He waved a hand: it was not unusual for an expensive vessel to be moved off season, and he gestured in the direction of the office.
JJ knew what to do: moor up in the visitor quays, wait for the serial number and the paperwork of the vessel to be checked, and then sign off the delivery, leaving JJ with one of the quadruplicate copies as proof of the transaction. A young harbour worker was there to greet JJ when he turned the motor to a low chug and brought the yacht close to the jetty's boards.
"Nice," the young man said, as he surveyed the yacht's lines. "What I wouldn't give for one of my own?"
"A Pelorus?" the harbour worker asked, sticking a foot nonchalantly on the taffrail. "Mm, well, they're okaaay. I would much prefer an Apho, you know? Sleeker lines. Better fuel efficiency." He stuck out his hand to receive the documentation and checked over the owner's name and contact details, nodding as he went.
"Still, the Flying Fox over there," he nodded. JJ followed the nod, "that is one sweet ride."
JJ took the long way off the wharf, looking over the Fox as she sat sleekly in her mooring bay. It was one smooth yacht, that was certain, and would handle well in the ocean. What he wouldn't give to be taking her back to the OBX instead of catching a ferry.
Voices got JJ's attention as he went round the corner of the wharf, but it was the glint of a gun that made him drop behind the prow of a smaller racing yacht that was next to him. And he listened, his eyes growing wider and his mouth falling open as he heard one voice which was altogether familiar to him.
JJ glanced over the prow, and chanced a few seconds' look towards the voices. He couldn't quite make out what Rafe was saying, so he dropped back and made his way around the yacht and then over the back of the stern of another until he was closer to the conversation.
"Renfield has done his part, the kid is dead meat!" Rafe paced beside the potential assassin, anxiety in his step.
He glanced to Ortego, then frowned as the drug dealer wrinked his head, "No way man," Barry Ortego protested. "Besides, she's a girl, I saw her, man, uuh yeah," he added, as Rafe gestured to his gun. "Had him...her...in my sights, but - "
The move was quick, and Rafe had the weapon out of Ortego's grip before the man could move. JJ felt his heart race as Rafe Cameron levelled the gun to the man. Instead of firing, he hissed, "Gonna do it myself if you don't have the guts!"
And with that, Rafe was gone, over the yacht railings and onto the quay. JJ ran to the harbour path, and up to the main street, calculating that he would reach him the other direction, and saw a figure tearing off down Columbia Street.
Oblivous to being tracked, Rafe Cameron thought about his intended target, a person who could take all that he had known and become accustomed to away. Aidan must be at King Street - must be, he insisted to himself. The Limbreys must have had security, enough for him - her - to have been untraceable for nearly six weeks. If Renfield hadn't been in his pocket, the punk - the girl - could have disappeared forever.
And then Rafe came to a standstill, watching as a figure, bag slung on his shoulder, trudging to the far end of King Street, made their steady way. JJ pulled up sharply too - it was indeed Aidan Drummond, hair pulled back, that same jacket around his waist, over a checked shirt, jeans and trainers.
In the direction of Charleston's ferry terminal.
Rather than drawing back, JJ ran on when he saw Rafe take off, but could not stop shots, fired from the pistol that Rafe had taken from Ortego.
Aidan began to run, as did Rafe and JJ picked up the pace and pulled out the revolver that he hed taken with him a couple of years before from the motel room safe. Despite everything, he had never handed it back over.
And then drew to a stop. Behind Aidan Drummond was a wall, above which supported tramlines - streetcars, as they were called here. Aidan told himself all of this in an effort to keep his mind focused - Rafe Cameron was holding a gun towards her, and she had nowhere to which she could run. Above, shoulder height, a tram's brakes screeched across cold rails.
"Well, after all this time, you thought you could claim the Cameron money?" Rafe, holding the gun out towards her, still, calm.
"Why would you think that?" Aidan's voice was clear in this late night air, and JJ looked to him, watching as the young man refused to be intimidated by a loaded weapon.
"Beause my father - is your father." JJ felt his heart hammer in his chest. Was this true? It didn't tally with what the knew. He looked back to Rafe, who had begun talking again.
"He was in love with Carla," Rafe went on, no shake or nervousness behind his grip on the gun, "And when she and Big John did an AWOL to England, he followed them. You're here for our money, but, I'm going to stop you."
Aidan scrambled to his pockets, his own reason for lack of nerves evaporating before his eyes - there was no gun! He must have dropped it in the chase.
And indeed, there was no doubt, when Rafe Cameron held up Renfield Limbrey's firearm.
"Looking for this? I would 't have trusted your uncle." Rafe tipped the barrel of the revolver and spun it, the casing at an angle.
Watching the casing, JJ waited for the cartridges to fall out. But no sound came as they fell, for nothing fell. "Look, no bullets!" Rafe told the world, with a smirk on his face.
JJ was in front of Aidan Drummond before even his brain had had a chance to tell the rest of his body what was going on. Two shots, one to the hand, one at his feet. Rafe screamed, but JJ did not even wait to find out whether he had hit Sarah's brother or not. Instead, he turned to a face that was frozen in fear.
"Come on!" JJ tried to take Aidan's hand and compel him to move. "Come on!" he insisted, pushing Aidan towards a set of service steps, rungs made out of iron that led up to the tram tracks behind them.
Another streetcar slowed down, its brakes squealing in the now early morning, and JJ hopped onto the platform at the back of the goods coach as, behind them, Rafe Cameron crumpled to the floor. Aidan Drummond was shaking, looking at JJ Maybank with big round eyes. He held out a hand.
"Come on!" he insisted, as the tram began to build up force in its engine, its wheels turning slowly, rumbling in the direction of the docks. Aidan took his hand, and climbed on, putting a hand between himself and JJ as the momentum of the train knocked them together.
"Where you at?" he asked, as Aidan backed away, and then sat down his back to the exterior door of the train carriage. He stared across to JJ. "Where are you going to?" he clarified.
"Kildare." Aidan's will had crumpled like the young man who had fallen in the street.
"Tannyhill, I'm guessing," JJ went on, making to sit down next to Aidan, but he got to is feet and Aidan folded his arms. "Look, I've got money, we can both get back. But - he broke off and looked across, at Aidan's hand, which he had held out in front of him. Aidan was holding out the weed and the money.
Huh, thought JJ, not the same as me - I ain't ever given anyone back what I've ever taken. He closed his hands around the notes and the cling-film wrapped drugs before pushing them both into his jeans pocket.
"Leave me alone," Aidan told JJ as he took a step towards him. Aidan just wanted to get out of here, and meeting one of the Pogues had put a wrinke in the plan. It would have been more of a wrinkle had he not showed up, Aidan had to admit. Because Rafe Cameron would have shot him dead. JJ stood apart from him, and was leaning on the rail of the goods car looking at the wake of the tram, as the proto dawnlight, not yet enough to see details, yet the distinctive shape of Charleston's buildings were dark against an indigo eastern skyscape.
He was convinced of his story, Aidan had to admit, convinced that Ward was Aidan's father, not John Routledge. Yet, Aidan had her birth certificate; Adeline Limbrey, she had been registered as, in the district of Bristol. Carla, her mother; John Booker Routledge her father.
And then there was the matter of the revolver that Renfield, with whom she had lived for nearly two months, had given her one with no bullets. Aidan sat down and stared at the planks of wood that made up the floor of the goods carriage. It was a few minutes before Aidan reaslied JJ had sat down next to him. He was busy rolling a joint.
"So how do you plan to get back to the OBX?" JJ asked him, lighting up.
"Not with you," Aidan retorted, fixing his frame so that he did not reel from the smoke of the cannabis.
"Oh yeah? No money, no means of transport?" He looked at Aidan's unconvinced expression. "I got a boat," he added. Or I will have, he told himself, as Aidan turned away and looked at the passing view.
But the tram soon came to a stop and Aidan realised dawn had arrived - he could see more clearly details now. So it stood to reason that they could be seen, too. He followed JJ off the tram and down a short street that led to the quay where JJ had delivered the Kook boat not an hour earlier.
"Here it is!" JJ declared, gesturing to the Flying Fox that he and the harbour master's deputy had been deliberating over.
"I have no money," Aidan told JJ bluntly. "I can't pay you." He watched as JJ touched his pocket.
"Look, you didn't have to gimme this back. C'mon," he added, as JJ clambered through the bars of the yacht. Aidan looked over it. It was small, speedy. Anonymous.
JJ was already upping the anchor rope. He paused, and looked at Aidan. "Do you have ANY other credible way of getting back to the Outer Banks?" Aidan had to admit that he didn't, and shook his head.
"Come on then. Quits. You owe me nothing and I owe you nothing."
"Quits," Aidan agreed, and climbed through as JJ leapt around the yacht, getting it started. Aidan undid the mooring line.
"You know about boats?" JJ asked, pausing again as he slipped the engine's gear slowly forwards, to minimise the drive noise.
"I'm from Bristol," Aidan replied, as if that explained everything. "Except the Atlantic looks somewhat different from this side."
"Somewhat," JJ repeated, giving Aidan a grin, and then threw her a blanket form this hapless owner's easy chair as the yacht took off easily in the quay's shallows. Only an idiot left the keys in.
"Sit down," he told Aidan. "I'll drive you back Maybank style!"
And Maybank-style seemed to include taking thousands of pounds off the valie of the yachts and boats either side of the one he was stealing.
Resistance to the offer of a seat evaporated as Aidan suddely felt himself go weak, and he made it to the chair, as JJ Maybank ut the throttle up to full, loose items on deck slamming past them as they headed for the open ocean.