Chapter 32: Graduation and Retirement

We continued shipping secure material. The days and weeks merged into each other. Soon it was time to part with our beautiful teachers/students. We graduated three engineering apprentices, two cook's apprentices and three first watch mates with apprentice captain's papers. All of them had full commercial crewman's papers with watch-standing riders. All could defend themselves, each other and the ship. Each could demonstrate skill with the pistol, rifle, M79 grenade launcher and the 60mm mortar. Each retired from the sea to an apartment in Lagos, Portugal where they were part owners in the hotel and had jobs for the asking, be it in the kitchen, housekeeping, as guides and interpreters or as security.

Julie stayed with me for a while longer. I promised her full papers if she stayed another six months, and by damn if we didn't do it. She took four days to pass the captaincy tests, and passed them with high marks. The crew had one hell of a blow-out to celebrate her accomplishment. I hadn't told her but I also submitted her for high security certificates which we bootstrapped into a NATO Secret certification, and then into a Most Secret cert. From there it was only time that kept her from achieving her Top Secret clearance. You had to have a certain amount of time-in-grade, so-to-speak, to achieve that without special consideration.

I packed what mattered in my suite and signed her off as the co-captain. I was going intno partial retirement. I changed my address to Lagos, Portugal, bought a couple of white linen suits and a couple of imported Panama reed snap-brim hats. To defend myself in my new life as a gentleman and a bartender I kept an M79 grenade launcher, two cases of HE ammo and four cases of 40mm buckshot shotgun shells. That's what I kept it loaded with under the bar. I'd only have to fire it once, to stop ANY argument!

Angie was feeling homesick for the way things were. After her refit and re-certification, she'd reregistered her ship under the name 'Penance'. One day she was pulling voumes out of the book shelves, dusting and replacing them. One volume, a big illustrated book on sail configurations, didn't close right. It had a lump inside the front cover. She found a small brown paper slip containing a fucking huge heart-shaped diamond. Tony must have left it by mistake. She'd recorded the address of of that machine gun's shipping case. That was a place to begin. She was going to return that diamond if it was the last goddamned thing she did. She called the Portmaster to see if he could help...

I named the bar, 'O Lugar do Silencio'--a quiet place. Under that the sign said 'um lugar para ouvir a si mesmo pensar'--a place to hear yourself think.

It had way too much insulation, and the entry featured two doors separated by a short hallway. The kitchen was removed from the bar by four steel hatches: two on the left, and two on the right. On one side of the front door was a menu under glass. The other side of the door was a mostly blank sheet of paper. At the top it said "If your name is here, if you alk in, you will fly out!"

It started with a pair of tanked-up futbol players. Next came a groom and his best man. Word began to get around. A TV reporter with his camera man came in to test me. I had two people hold the doors for me. His trajectory was still rising as he cleared the sidewalk. His camera man was good—he got it all on tape. I found myself up to the elbows in duennas and retired people; nice, quiet people that appreciated a good glass of wine, and tapas, near the fire. When the word spread about our menu, I reserved the rear of the bar/restaurant for the regulars, so that I could more easily get to the door with the fools.

I began to get some of the jet-setting crowd; the regatta followers. They appreciated that newsies and papparazzi were firmly excluded. It was a private business, and the 'fourth estate' had not signed onto the articles of incorporation. Fuck 'em.

A few folk I recognized. I found it hard not to grin as I caught Tom Hanks at the bar.

"Wat'll ya have, asshole?"

He gave me the strangest look, and said, "Brandy and soda."

I gave him' the hairy eyeball' and said, "Pansy." as I put his drink down.