Scoundrel

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AUGUST 1, 1990 WAS MY FORTIETH BIRTHDAY. SOPHIE, MY lover for the past three years, left me for a younger man, the cat fell sick, and the next morning Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait.

Welcome to the best years of my life.

Three weeks later Shafiq asked if I could deliver a boat from the Mediterranean to America. Hannah, my part-time secretary, had taken Shafiq’s telephone call and late that afternoon she came to the fishing harbor to give me the day’s news.

“Who called?” At first I thought I must have misheard her. I was working in a trawler’s engine room with the motor going. “Who called?” I shouted up through the open hatch again.

“Shafiq.” Hannah shrugged. “No other name, just Shafiq. He said you know him.”

I knew him all right, knew him well enough to wonder just what the hell was coming next. Shafiq! For God’s sake! “He wanted what?”

“He wants a boat delivered.”

“When?”

“He doesn’t know.”

“From where in the Mediterranean? France? Spain? Italy? Cyprus? Greece?”

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