Free The Pirate's Daughter by Robert Girardi Page A

didn’t say anything.
    A few minutes later the waiter, a fey mustachioed youth, wearing a white dress shirt and bib overalls, brought the food. Wilson munched hopelessly on his crab cakes and asparagus, and when he looked up again, Cricket had already finished her salad and was staring right at him, sunglasses off, green eyes shining with an uncomfortable light.
    â€œYou’ve heard of Dwight Ackerman?” she said.
    Wilson blinked. “You mean the Wall Street guy?”
    â€œYeah, the one they call the Attila the Hun of Mergers and Acquisitions.” Cricket leaned close at this and lowered her voice. “It’s his ship. They don’t tell you in the article, but I’ve got the inside scoop. He plans to sail it across the Atlantic, around the horn of Africa, and up into the Indian Ocean. That should take something like nine months. When we reach Rangoon at the beginning of nextfall, twenty-five thousand dollars will be deposited in your account over here. If you go the rest of the way, another twenty-five thousand dollars is yours when we make San Francisco. Fifty thousand dollars for eighteen months’ work, all expenses paid. That’s fifty Gs in the bank when you get home. Not fucking bad for an ordinary seaman. So, what do you think of that?”
    Wilson stopped munching on his crab cakes and thought about it for a moment. The most ridiculous of schemes can be seen in a new light when there’s a lot of money involved.
    â€œI guess that sounds all right,” he said at last, and was prepared to feel good about the whole thing, but suddenly a buoy in the channel sounded its bell three times and then went abruptly silent. A distant tolling that seemed to reverberate ominously in the too-bright sky of noon.

2
    The rest of the day passed in a blur. None of it seemed real to Wilson. He was dreaming a dream about a man who was about to leave an ordinary, settled existence of bus rides, fax machines, and canned soup for the unknown perils of the sea. This man didn’t seem to resemble the Wilson he knew, the ordinary fellow plagued by uncertainty and dread that he woke up with every morning. Soon, he would snap out of it, find himself back at the office at his computer terminal, Andrea hovering tense in the background.
    But for now, Wilson let the dream continue and took Cricket out to his apartment on the Rubicon bus. There, he changed out of his work clothes and packed the few items in his possession that might be suitable for a long voyage. Cricket lounged on the couch watching a game show on Wilson’s small black-and-white TV. She had nointerest in the books, mostly ancient classics and archaeological texts, that completed the backdrop of his life.
    â€œYou should thank God that you can’t take any of that shit with you,” Cricket said when they went down the narrow stairs into the street.
    â€œWhat shit?” Wilson said.
    â€œAll those books,” she said. “Sophocles, Aeschylus, all the rest of those dead white bastards. Books are bad for the soul. Took me awhile to learn that. They make you forget about real life.”
    â€œSo what’s real life supposed to be like as far as you’re concerned?” Wilson said.
    â€œFull of action,” Cricket said. “What else?”
    They took the bus back across the river. As they bounced over the potholes of Buptown, windows rattling, Wilson told Cricket about his experience at the cockfight. He had been reluctant to say anything, reluctant to confirm the odd opinion she had of him—he was an ordinary guy, not a gambler or an adventurer—but it had been one of the most extraordinary evenings of his life so far.
    Cricket listened quietly, her face reflected as a sunny blur in the gravel-scratched glass. “Yes, I know all about that,” she said when he finished. “You were great. A real hero.”
    â€œYou were there?” Wilson said, surprised. “I didn’t see you