Seabolt (Villain)

Full Name: Seabolt, real name unknown
Allegiance: Unknown

For some Supremes their legend obscures fact, and supposition surrounds their origins. Seabolt is one such Supreme and there are numerous tales of his rise. There may be some truth in all or none of them…

First Tale
According to ancient Hawaiian beliefs, the sea, death, darkness, and the underworld are all ruled by an evil god known as Kanaloa, who holds great magical power.
Larry Seabolt, a thief and reckless thrill seeker from Australia, traveled the surfing hotspots of the world to challenge the next biggest wave. His latest destination was the islands of Hawaii, where he happened upon a mysterious looking surf shop at the end of town. His eyes were mesmerized by a particular board marked by a mystical-looking symbol. Then suddenly, an old local native appeared from the back room.
Seabolt: “Tell me, old man, where can I find the biggest wave?”
Old Man: “There is a forbidden area, unknown to tourists and many locals as well. However, only descendants of ancient Hawaiian blood can safely surf those waters.”
Seabolt grabbed hold of the old man by the neck and demanded that he direct him to this secret location. The old man hesitantly pointed in the direction of some caves out in the distance. As the old man turned his back, Seabolt stole the surfboard from the shop. As Seabolt strutted off, the old man looked at him with disgust.
Old Man: “May the Eye of Kanaloa take him.”
Seabolt travelled through a labyrinth of caves until he found what he believed he was looking for. He impetuously ran across the hot sands of the desolated beach and paddled out his newly acquired surf board.
A monstrous wave soon approached. As Seabolt caught the wave, a giant squid emerged and knocked him off the surfboard. The monstrous wave then engulfed him. As Seabolt was spinning with the sea, he could hear a deep voice.
Kanaloa: “I shall spare your life, for your board has the markings of the Eye of Kanaloa. You now belong to the sea.”
From then on, Seabolt was able to manipulate his molecular structure of his body makeup to that of water. As Seabolt was given his power by an evil god, he currently chooses to walk the path of evil.

Second Tale
He looked at me intently, and for the first time, I thought I could see some clarity in those piercing Caribbean blue eyes. This was the second time I’d seen him look this serious. His lanky, tanned arms found their favorite position looped around the top of the booth we were sitting at. The faded, torn, foam bench seats suited the beach bum image he cultivated so well. His messy, but intensely styled, hair fell across his brow like whitecaps across a sunny SoCal coast. He leaned forward and plucked the polka dot umbrella from his rum and coke.
“You look like shit man. Nipped, mal, all kinds of bad,” Seabolt rambled while keeping his eyes fixed on his drink. I had gotten used to the slang by now, for the most part. The brah’s, aloha’s, the trashed, gnarly, akamai, an den, dirty lickin’s, and all the others. Most of the time he kept it in plain, God-given English; mostly for my sake I assume. Me, look like shit? I suppose I did. My jacket was tossed casually around my shoulders. Beneath the coat, only the faintest brown smudge appeared on the bandages wrapped around my shoulder. The white suit was a bad idea after all. When all is said and done in a single night of debauchery, a white suit is usually no more than a collection of spilled drinks, vomit, and hopefully a few frivolously scrawled phone numbers. As usual, I looked like shit and he was the textbook definition of cool. The impression of frivolity was key. Everyone must think: yes, he has just gotten out of bed. Yes, he must live on the beach. Yes, he eats drinks and shits surf. Once those thoughts permeate the viewer, the illusion is set. However, should any hint of the meticulous grooming that went into the surfer bum look escape, the illusion is burst, and all is lost.
“He shot me,” I barked while bemoaning his appearance for a few more seconds before pushing it out of my mind. An agent should always feel more important than the celebrity. Of course, to call him a celebrity was a little gracious. Though, to call me anything other than a hired geek would probably be the same. He barely seemed to be listening anymore. Rather, he waved his hand dismissively over his drink. On cue, the condensation dripping down the side paused, and then reversed. Hundreds of tiny droplets, given life by the wonderful cohabitation of cold drinks and warm climates, danced through the air like tiny ballerinas.
“You know,” Seabolt said, “You never really get used to this.” The crystal droplets spun through the air and hung in front of my face.
“He shot me!” I barked again, while downing my drink. He raised his arms apologetically, though the water drops still hung between us like a condensation confessional.
“Look,” he said with determination, “I made it very clear when you met me, this was gonna be haad rub man, you knew shit like this might happen.” He assumed the familiar half smirk. Be careful, I thought, your ego is showing.
“You knew someone would get aggro, you knew some lolo sonofabitch would come around and make trouble. Shit brah, I’m some kind of Supreme right? That’s the whole point!” He bleated. That half smirk cut its way across his face again as he leaned back into the ugly foam bench seat.
“I told you it would get dangerous day one brah, didn’t you listen?”

*****

“So could I ever like, get hurt?” I inquired.
“Absolutely not, you’ll totally be safe brah. No danger, just action!” my compatriot replied from across the dingy driftwood table. We were both drinking, and both at least six lines of cocaine into the evening. It was going to be a good night. The little shanty bar on the far end of the island was barely lit by candles placed in a handful of broken beer bottles. The ambient and colorful light played a drunken kaleidoscope across the whole scene. The man across from me was the textbook definition of surfer bum. Here on the island, though, this was cool, hip, trendy, and utterly desirable. I never did understand the Pacific. Come to think of it, I didn’t even know what island I was on. I know I officially went broke on Maui, started a frenzy of drinking and drug use on Lanai which ultimately spit me out on Kauai. Yes, Kauai must be where I am. Not that it mattered.
“So,” I burped, “What exactly is it you want?” As I asked the question, I gestured in confusion which sent my drink clattering across the floor. I suppose there was no denying it anymore. I was drunk.
“You’re a writer, right?” He asked. I nodded approval and he said, “That’s exactly what I’m looking for.”
Before either of us even dipped our feet into this new found partnership, there was business to take care of. It was his turn to ante up the line. I ducked close to the table and gave a quick sniff. My nose burnt as I pinched it close. If you’re prone to nosebleeds, I would not recommend insufflating your drug of choice.
“Look man, I’m a hero. You know that from earlier, when I scooped your ass out of that prickly situation with the locals. I need someone like you, a publicist, an agent. Whatever you want to tell the beach bunnies.” He quickly downed his drink and ordered another round. I wasn’t quite sure I was following, but knowing he was willing to pick up our colossal bar tab made me confident this beach bum had himself some buried treasure. Had he saved me? Natives, of any country, can spot a traveler, a vacationer from a mile away. This only becomes dangerous when you’re raving drunk in the middle of the night, and the locals have had quite enough of your uncouth mouth. He had bailed me out, I suppose, but I wouldn’t use the word ‘save’.
“I’ll explain most of it later. Put it this way, I know you’re outta work, and I need someone to call the news agencies when I’m busting up some thug. An active biographer. Think of yourself as the camera on the dash of the cop car, brah.”
I said nothing. The line was in the sand, so to speak. He was right. I was broke; my work had dried up here just like everywhere else. I needed the money. Yet, this ominous assignment I feared entailed way more than I was willing to bet. I could get killed in any number of horrible fashions. Kidnapped, beat up, knifed, shot, or he could just be liquoring me up so he could take me out back, beat me savagely, and steal my credit cards.
“I’ll do it, provided I’m paid, and I always drink for free,” I announced.
“Now what is it that makes you so special?” I growled. Aside from being ridiculously tanned, I’m not sure what exactly this character thought he could do. As I eyed him, he placed his hand over the top of my drink. The skin on his hand seemed to swirl, as if made of thick paste. The hazelnut color of his flesh started to fade. A pale, ethereal blue swirled with his natural toffee tone. He lifted his hand off my cup and held it a few inches above. Between his hand, which was now entirely translucent, and the lip of my glass, my warm rum and ice cubes hovered and danced like on the strings of a master puppeteer. He rolled his hand toward him, and like magic, the mostly melted ice cubes and contents of my drink swirled in unison. For a moment, I was no longer in his world. His eyes were utterly focused on the display at hand. He played the liquid into a double helix, then a heart, then a spade, then a face, before finally returning the contents to my glass.
“Wait until you see what I can do in the water,” He said with a sharp, half smirk.
What could I say, I’m one for instant gratification, and besides, I don’t have any credit cards. Fuck it, I thought. These islands are killing me. If some coke-head hydro man wants me to write his memoirs; I figured, why not? Besides, I drink for free.

*****

“So if we’re going to do this thing, I need to know a little bit about yourself,” I demanded between cigarette puffs.
The slick ocean bungalow was not ours. It was probably some hot-shot money-flinging entrepreneur whose balls-out confidence in the innate fear most people had of people as rich as he probably had got the best of him, and as a consequence, had left the door to this wonderful little house open.
“No,” He remarked.
No? No, god dammit? This man wants me to pitch the world his life and he won’t even give me a little to start with.
“Jesus Christ man, you gotta give me something. Shit, I don’t even know your name. I’ve been calling you friend, sir, or man ever since I met you. God Damn man, who the hell are you?” I berated wildly.
He looked nervous, shifting in the comfortable padded leather stool of this multi-million dollar bungalow.
“How soon ‘til this guy gets home?” He asked.
“Don’t change the subject on me!” I screamed, “You want me to do this fuckin’ job, give me something to work!”
“Alright!” He yelled, cutting my tirade off. “Alright.”
“You wanna know who I am? Shit, man, I don’t even know who I am,” He spat with venom.
“They call me Mark in Australia. They just called me boet off of Cape Town, and I got a different name on every goddamn island man,” He said, and then poured himself another drink.
“Shit,” I remarked, a little dumbstruck.
“Yeah. I grew up poor, I think, I don’t have a lot of childhood memories,” He continued.
“I spent most of my time growing up in South Africa, I think, those are my earliest memories. For a long time, they thought I was a khaki?”
“A what?” I asked, stopping his story.
“It’s slang for a Brit, a limey over there. You see, I wasn’t always this tanned. Though I’m pretty sure I’m not an Englishman.”
Could’ve fooled me. Given how pasty white I was, anything looked tan to me. However, this guy was downright burnt.
“Any way, I spent most of my life surfing. I don’t remember shit, so I did what I had to, to get by.”
Fair enough I thought. This man might be a bit of a head case, forgotten childhood and all, but I could work with a crazy person. Hell, I have to be a little insane for accepting this kind of work from this kind of person anyway.
“I spend most of my time, now, moving between the various surf spots. Here, in Hawaii, Australia, and I drift back to Africa ever once in a while, whenever the tides take me there.”
“When did you, uh, figure out you had these powers?” I requested.
“Again, it’s not like I just woke up one day and had these powers, I remember feeling a connection with the ocean, like, like the water was where I really belonged, but nothing really manifested until I was a teenager,” He began.
“Then, one sunny day in July, I caught a tube for the first time. I was in heaven. Water was rolling around me in every direction, but it was utterly silent. I stretched out my hands and let them touch that magnificent ocean.”
“I closed my eyes, breathed it all in, yanno, but when I opened them I noticed I had become completely translucent,” He finished.
I didn’t even have a clever remark for that. There is coming of age, and the awkward adolescence I experienced, and then there is realizing you can turn into water.
“Alright,” I said before slurping my drink down. “This is good, this is excellent, we can start from the ground up!”
“What do you mean?” He inquired, donning that familiar half smirk he always seemed to have.
“No family, nobody holding you back, no next of kin man! Hell, no name! We can build a whole new identity for you. We can create you from the ground up!”
This was going to be easier than I thought. No dirty secrets save for a rather large cocaine addiction. No family beyond acquaintances. This man was a blank canvas with which I could paint a new world hero.
“So? Let’s start with a name!” I exclaimed, clapping my hands together.

*****

“My Job is, as a whole, pretty straight forward. I photograph and document every ass kicking Seabolt puts on the local gang, crook, thug etcetera. I also put in calls to major news media whenever a big one is going down. A big fight that is. I write numerous articles on him for a dozen local newspapers. I keep a journal as well. We are even working on a book series.”
The woman holding the mic just stared dumbfounded at my answer. She had no idea what she had gotten herself into by asking me what I do, of course, only in reference to Seabolt. That was his official hero name, by the way, Seabolt. I had turned him into a mass media messiah. A Californian captain awesome who spends most of his time where most Californians belong: Hawaii. Come to think of it though, I’m not really sure where he is from, nor is he. Whatever, everyone wants to be from California. Behind me, Seabolt had just turned himself into a vaporous cloud as a group of bank robbers opened fire on him. His nebulous form quickly coalesced, and in a raging crescendo, the sewer system exploded upwards, catapulting the two gun man into the bank’s façade. They definitely looked dead.
“Why though,” The anchorwoman managed to ask, finally breaking her attention from the ass kicking taking place behind me. “Why does he need a, whatever it is you do.”
“This is America baby,” I said with a big grin. “Everybody needs an agent.”
The news crews snapped their final photos and packed up their vans. What I hadn’t told that anchorwoman was my real job. Don’t get me wrong, I really did do all those things I said. What I failed to mention was simply my real job. The real reason I was hired. The lynchpin to this whole career. I wish I could say it sometimes. Just announce it and ruin the image he had so masterfully cultivated. The image I so masterfully cultivated. Yes, I could see it now, a confused miss-news-at-eight holding that mic and burping some inane question about honor, what makes Seabolt tick, or some other bullshit. And I, looking America in the eye, would tell them that everything I’ve told them is a lie. Yes, there it is! That is why he hired me. That is why I am paid so well. I spin the truth, I tell them all what they want to hear. Seabolt is a hero, a clean, sober, voting, all American, fucking hero! Yes, I think, these two John Doe criminals are unconscious and shall wake to find themselves in the big house, where hopefully they will turn their lives around. Seeing their bent necks, and cracked skulls, I thought, yes, these men are unconscious. Even as I rolled their bodies down the embankment into the hungry surf, I thought, yes, these men are now in prison, off the streets. This is my job America. The thankless job you never see. I’d like to introduce the one, the only, the man who cleans up behind these fucking Supremes.
“How did the interview go?” He mused, smoking one of those clove cigarettes he loved so much.
“Excellent,” I remarked quickly, “No mention of bodies, plugged our upcoming book, the whole deal.” He nodded in approval.
The bodies of the two bank robbers languidly lapped in the surf. The ocean rocked them like a mother in denial over the death of her children. Seabolt dipped his fingers in the lapping tide.
“Why did we agree on Seabolt again,” I inquired. A huge, catastrophic, wave rose out from his fingertips, and with vigor I’ve never seen in the ocean, flung itself out to sea. With it went our two friends, hopefully never to be seen again, or else I’ll have to do another part of my job, my least favorite part.
“Because, it sounds powerful. It’s like thunder bolt, but,” he began, “For water things.”
“What are you anyway, an elemental? Experiment gone wrong? Some sort of primordial island god?”
“I don’t know. Whichever you want.”
Then, right then, it hit me. His dismissive attitude towards his origin of birth had always permeated our business partnership. He mentioned he didn’t remember his childhood, typical I had assumed. I never really knew what the hell he was, and right then, I realized he didn’t either. He doesn’t even if he know if he is human! I decided to let the sound of the surf fill the silence. His half buttoned Acapulco shirt billowed in the wind as he watched that massive wave carry the two bodies into sweet oblivion.
“You know, I love this part,” He laughed as he quickly exited the beach. “Come on,” he bellowed at me.
“Drinks and lines on me.”
As I caught up with him, he looked me square in the eye. “My favorite part. Mahalo to sweet mother ocean. I love to watch my secrets get buried.”

*****

For once, it was cold. The constant, palpable heat of Hawaii had burnt off, and left nothing but a damp and hollow climate in its wake. A thin haze of rain blanketed the street and pattered off my umbrella. A single street light hummed above my head, casting fat, mustard yellow shadows across the street. I was supposed to meet him here. From here, we were going to meet with one of his benefactors. He had been bizarrely discreet with information. Normally I couldn’t get him to shut up. Three months of his hodge-podge island-African-Australian slang had grated on me. Yet, tonight he had held his tongue. Tonight he had said little. I have a natural sense of doom in me. An inherent tingle of my spine every time something is out of the ordinary, something I felt tonight. Perhaps it was this light, and its ominous glow. I felt as if a bag was over my head. Just as I started getting antsy, he appeared. Suspended at least half a dozen feet off the ground, Seabolt stood on his surf board like some kind of angel of death. The rain rolled in transparent waves, giving his board a slight rock, as if he was actually in the ocean.
“Come on,” He said, then lifted me off the ground and planted me on the board.
I wasn’t about to test my balance, so I sat on the thing as we glided soundless down the streets.
“Look, I can’t pay you for a while. We’re tight on cash alright brah,” Seabolt muttered without looking back.
This was news to me. I thought this guy bled money.
“That’s why we’re meetin’ this guy. He can pay us, like a sponsorship or something,” He continued.
We zigzagged between lamp posts and over buildings. Suddenly, we dropped. Before us loomed a massive super-structure of some kind. Half-built sky scrapers always had the look of some sort of leviathan. Like some massive horn of a subterranean behemoth, the building jutted from the earth. Its ribcage of support beams hung barren in the soft rain. Like a gaping eye socket, the front lay open and unprotected beyond a few orange cones. What kind of benefactor could we possibly be meeting here?
We were inside the bowels of the beast. The wind and rain produced a sound like soft, phlegmy breath. Yes, the building was breathing, or rasping. Then it gave a loud cough, and I was thrown off my feet.
“Oh Jesus Christ!” I exclaimed.
Blood was pouring out of my shoulder. Rain drizzled down from the roof by the bucket load. All the pools around me ran red. More bullets clattered off the floor as somebody opened fire on us. Seabolt was a cloud, a fine mist moving through the rain. All I could do was scramble into a corner, and jam my thumb in my shoulder. That is the very worst part about getting shot, that is, to feel your own pulse. You can feel your own blood, fighting against your thumb, trying to pour out of you. Dammit, I thought, my own blood pressure is trying to kill me! A gentleman in a very fine Italian suit leapt off one of the rafters and landed, deftly, right by me. The gun nozzle was to my head before I could surrender.
“Come now, You wouldn’t want me to kill him,” The Gentleman said to the rain.
Yes Seabolt, we wouldn’t want him to kill me. I flinched as he pressed the gun against my head with vigor.
“Seabolt is it? I don’t ask twice.” Slowly, his outline appeared in the myriad of rain drops falling from the rooftops.
“Good. Now, onto business,” The man said, keeping the gun firmly against my head.
“You owe someone quite a large sum, and I was hired to ensure he collected. Your friend here will bleed out; I suggest we get this over with as soon as possible.” This man was a professional, I could tell. But what I didn’t understand was the debt he spoke of.
“I need more time,” Seabolt stated, keeping a quiver out of his voice.
“No, there is no more time,” the Gentleman said, matter-of-factly, “Pay now, or this man dies.”
“Tomorrow, I can have it tomorrow. Tell him I can get it to him soon!” Seabolt begged. Oh Jesus I thought, he’s going to be the death of me.
“How very unfortunate,” The man remarked before looking at me. “You should keep better company. Company that pays their debts.” Before I could respond, before I could even finish sucking in the air for that last, final thought, he fired. Before I could spit out my final fuck you to this bizarre man, the bullet was rocketing at my head. Then, a wave crashed into the both of us. Every rain drop leaking through that building surged at me in that same moment. Time seemed to slow as a concentrated wave of water battered into the Gentleman’s body and my own. I could see the bullet burrowing through the torrential blast, hungry for my head. Time quickened again and the bullet burned a deep trench in the side of my cheek. It had missed me. More bullets kicked sparks in the ground near me. Suddenly, I was lifted off my feet and thrown on the back of that chewed-up yellow board. A whirlpool of water swirled around us as we rose through the air like a protective hand. Bullets, seemingly as numerous as rain drops, bounced and ricocheted as we flew towards the gaping hole where the roof would be. Bullets whizzed around us as we hurtled out of the top and through the throbbing storm

*****

Seemingly distant memories of just a single night ago lazily permeated the air between us in that dingy little breakfast hole-in-the-wall. The worn, foam bench seats were a physical reminder of just how low we had fallen. I stared across the sticky table at Seabolt. The white suit really had been a bad idea. Yes, the up and coming super star was going to have trouble with this one, and as an extension, so would I. The three months I had spent with him had all crumbled in a single night. I utterly failed to truly comprehend how much time, and copious amounts of preparation went into his image. Indeed, I was fooled. Yet, now the illusion was forfeit and all that was left was yellowing foam seats and stale, runny eggs. My shoulder ached. Seabolt left little time for the doctors at the emergency to do any serious repair work before he whisked me out there, of course before we had paid the bill. They would surely be looking for us as well.
“Were you ever going to tell me,” I finally asked, breaking the extended silence.
He was still playing with his drink, but he heaved a massive sigh and stared me right in the face. I had his full intention.
“I dunno, the lie seemed to be working out for both of us,” He laughed as he crossed his arms.
“Where did the money come from?” I demanded. He made a grunt as if dismissing the question he knew he’d ultimately have to answer.
“Where did it come from goddammit!” I hollered while pounding my first on the table.
“Look at me dammit! Where did you get this cash, man, the money, where is it coming from?!”
“I stole it! Shit brah, you happy now? That’s where I’ve been getting money from,” Seabolt snapped.
“I’ve been going inland, the states mainly, hitting a few banks, robbing a few people, yanno, wherever I can get the money,” Seabolt remarked, letting the drops of condensation splatter on the table. I eyed him intently before deciding what to do.
“Look man, the way I see it, you owe me an explanation at the very least. So get with it, we don’t have all day. Shit man, I might be bleeding out as we speak!” I demanded, with little of the rancor from before.
“I told you, I never got used to this shit,” He began, “What the hell would you do? One day all of a sudden you have some kind of freak supreme power?”
“What the hell do you expect brah, some homeless street urchin living in the ocean to all of a sudden stumble onto land and make the world a better place?” He spat.
“So I did what I always did. I needed money, so I took it. I needed drugs, so when I didn’t have money, I took that too.” I eyed him nervously. Disturbing revelations on an ominous morning made me very nervous.
“So what was the point of all this, huh, dammit, man, why?!” I rasped. He smirked at me, a smirk that made me feel very uneasy.
“All of you; you people think that just because some of us have these bizarre powers means we are answerable to some unwritten code of conduct. Like we have a goddamn responsibility to the world to make it a better place.”
“The world never did me any goddamn favors, what the hell do I owe?”
“But what you all fail to realize is, we are all just freaks and junkies like you,” He finished.
We stared at each other for a moment, before he finally answered my question.
“Eventually people would catch on. That’s why I did it. I couldn’t keep hitting banks. Believe it or not, it did bother me. I may be a crook, but I’m no villain, and I’m smarter than most assume. Most of the crooks and thieves we fought were crack heads and dope fiends I bribed. Once they were sent to prison, or you know, their cash and drugs were mine,” He said with a smile.
“Jesus Christ,” I breathed, incapable of believing what I had heard.
“Please, like you wouldn’t do this if you were me! Like any of you goddamn regular people wouldn’t rape and murder the world if you found yourself with a bit of power. You put us all on such a high pedestal of ethical conduct because it gives you a witch to burn when your world doesn’t get any better!” He screamed.
“Fuck you man! I didn’t murder all those people!” I retorted.
“You helped bury them. Shit brah, those were ice heads and dope fiends, I WAS cleaning up the streets!”
Indeed, it was all about appearances. Seabolt had lied to the whole goddamn world, even me. Yet, once any hint of the work that goes into the appearance is discovered, the illusion is forfeit.
“So you took it the other direction,” I said, taking it all in.
“That’s right,” He confirmed.
Instead of robbing banks, Seabolt got paid. Instead of taking from the world, he had someone market him to the world, and they paid him graciously.
“Why the hell are we in debt then!” I bellowed. By then we had the entire restaurant’s attention.
“Jesus brah! I thought you would at least get that one. I’m a coke addict, a part time gambler, and a full time drinker! I squandered every penny we made to every crime lord in this town. Anything I wanted. Anything and everything!”
“You played me,” I spat
“Like a deck of cards, but I’m still not sure why you’re angry, you got what you wanted to. You aren’t so different from me,” Seabolt retorted.
Silence, thick and heavy, descended on the little hole-in-the-wall. My eggs, long cold, looked like the devil’s milky, sulfuric eyes staring up at us, hungrily, from the abyss. Where to go from here? What do I do? He was right. We weren’t that different. We were junkies, crooks, gamblers, and all around all American degenerates. Seabolt just had an edge is all. However, I still couldn’t help but feel cheated. I had been played, and played very well.
“So what do we do now?” I asked.
Seabolt broke eye contact. He was thinking I could tell. The little bell on the restaurant door chimed as I finished my drink.
“We don’t do anything,” He answered.
Before I could say anything, someone slid into the seat with me. I snapped my neck around and found myself looking at the Gentleman from the night before. He was in a different suit, but just as expensive. His closely trimmed goatee framed a sharp, confident smile. His long hair was slicked black, giving his sunglasses full reign over his face.
“What is collateral by any other name?” He asked.
He leaned close to me and breathed in heavily. The scent of his thick cologne invaded my nostrils.
“Would it smell as sweet?”
“You bastard!” I screamed, “You sold me out!”
Seabolt stood up, and unraveled a few loose bills from his pocket before scattering a handful of change to cover our tab.
“I’m guilty of nothing,” He said looking at me with those piercing Caribbean blue eyes.
“You pig! You bastard! Liar! Fucking Pig!” I rampaged as the Gentleman forcefully, but secretly, restrained me.
“I’m guilty of nothing, other than being selfish,” He said, “And that’s the only thing that makes me feel human anymore.”
We all rose. Somehow, the Gentleman had managed to slip a plastic wrist cuff around me, and pretended to escort me out like an old friend. The storm from the night before had yet to leave. A hollow mist hung in the air like the world holding its breath.
“Two days?” Seabolt asked.
The Gentleman nodded in approval before stuffing me into his car. They shook hands and he quickly entered from the other side. As he slid in, he gestured for the driver and the car took off at a steady pace. He pulled a finely crafted pistol out from his coat. The shine caught my eye and I winced.
“Let’s hope your friend can come up with the cash,” He said with a smile.
“For your sake, friend.”