The Cycle
of Trust
by
Ed Teja
The morning sky
was unusually clear. Standing at the end of the deserted pier watching the sun rise,
she heard nothing but the incoming tide slapping against the pilings below and
the squabbling of three seagulls.
Her back against
the wall of an abandoned restaurant near the end of the pier, she waited for
Jackson. Arriving early gave her time to stake out this vantage point, but the
damp cold cut into her. Annoyingly, Jackson was late.
She passed the
time watching the seagulls fight over a piece of fish. One had found it and scooped
it up. Immediately, the others began harassing it, keeping it from leaving with
its prize. With the other attacking, the bird dropped the treasure, and another
swooped down to grab it. No sooner did he have it in his beak than the third dive-bombed
him, attempting to wrest it away.
As if there were
no other fish to eat.
She watched,
knowing Jackson would come. For a crook, he was trustworthy. Besides, the money
she’d promised him was safely tucked into a deep pocket of her leather coat.
A dim figure moved
up the pier, coming toward her, reflecting streaks of low morning light. She
stiffened. This person was too big to be Jackson. Her hand moved under her
jacket and her fingers tingled with the reassuring cool touch of the pistol
tucked in its holster at the small of her back.
The figure walked
past her. “Sharne?” The man’s voice, once she didn’t know, whispered.
She drew the gun
and stepped out, pressing the barrel to the back of his head. He stopped still.
“Where is
Jackson?” she asked.
“Dead,” the
man said
calmly.
“Did you kill
him?”
The man held up
something. A badge. “He got caught opening a safe. The owner called me, and I
arrested Jackson. When we got to my car, he told me what was in that safe, what
it was worth, that it wasn’t traceable.”
“And you believed
him? That it had value?”
“When he told me
who hired him to get it, I did.”
She sighed.
Jackson’s big mouth.
One of the seagulls
took a moment to perch on the railing and watch the two birds who were
fighting. He waited. The next time the morsel fell, he launched himself at it.
While the other two continued their fight, even before it hit the ground, he
grabbed it and darted away, flying low across the sea.
The man shrugged.
“The owner was alone, so I took the cuffs off Jackson, and we went back in. I
held a gun on the owner while Jackson opened the safe.”
She pictured it. “Then
you killed Jackson. Both of them.”
“I couldn’t
trust
him.”
“He trusted you.”
“The point is that
I have what you want. All I want is the money you promised him. Do you have it?”
She glanced in the
direction the seagull had gone but saw no sign of him. The other two, the
losers, resignedly hunted around, looking for other scraps. The other end of
the pier, by the parking lot, was clear. This cop wouldn’t have brought anyone.
He didn’t trust people.
“I have it,”
she
said.
The echo of her
shot disappeared low over the water.
The thumb drive
with the data was in his pocket and the sun shone down on the cop’s body as she
rolled it off the pier.
It
was going to be
a nice day. You could trust that.
