But once Angie was gone, and Eddie and Russell had tired of playing pool—with no money left to wager, they got bored fast—Harley was able to work his way around to what he’d come to talk to them about. At a table jammed between the jukebox and the men’s room door, they huddled over their beers and a bowl of unshelled peanuts while Harley did his best to pitch them his—or, more accurately, his brother Charlie’s—idea.
“I saw it myself, with my own eyes,” Harley said, as the two men listened closely. Eddie’s work shirt smelled like he hadn’t changed it since his last plumbing job, and Russell’s sleeves were rolled up to show the tattoo he’d given himself when he was in solitary at the Spring Creek Correctional Facility. It was supposed to be an eagle, but it had come out looking more like a bat.
“If you saw jewels, why didn’t you take them right then?” Russell said. “Before the ship went down?”
“Because I didn’t know that the ship was going to go down,” Harley explained, for the second time. “Obviously, if I’d known that, I’d have taken the damn thing then and there.” He did not consider it wise to let on that he’d actually snagged the cross; if he did, he’d have Eddie and Russell trying to rob him next.
“And you say it was what?” Eddie asked. “A necklace with emeralds in it?”
“Maybe. But like I said, it was hard to get a good look ’cause the crack in the lid wasn’t very big.”
“Maybe that was all that there is,” Russell said, cracking open another peanut. “What makes you think there’s more out there?”
“I don’t know,” Harley said. “I’m not making any promises. But if there’s other coffins popping out of the ground like this one did, then who knows what they’ve got inside?”
While Russell remained dubious, Eddie, Harley could see, was starting to get excited. “Didn’t you guys ever hear the stories?” Eddie said. “My uncle used to tell me about how there were these crazy Russians, a long time ago, who’d escaped from Siberia and settled out on the island because nobody could ever get to them there. They had a secret religion and lived there without any contact with the mainland.”
“How’d they get away with that?” Russell said. “That’s American territory.”
“Actually, it belonged by treaty to the fuckin’ natives around here,” Harley explained, “who saw enough wampum and said you can have it. And nobody’s gone there since because it’s got such a bad rep.”
“You mean because they all died out there?”
“Yeah,” Harley said. “And those black wolves don’t help any, either.” He could still see that alpha wolf, leaping up at his foot as the Coast Guard chopper hauled his frozen ass up off the beach. “Even the Inuit don’t go there because they say the place is haunted.”
“What a load of shit,” Russell said.
“Exactly,” Harley said, as convincingly as he could. “Exactly.” That yellow light could have been a total illusion. “It’s all bullshit. The real reason nobody goes out there is because it’s a bitch and a half just to find any way onto the island. Those rocks have fucked me up once already, and I do not mean to get fucked again.”
“You guys need another round?” Angie said, stopping at their table with a fresh bowl of peanuts. “I’m going off duty in an hour,” she added, throwing a significant look at Harley.
“Yeah, sure,” Harley said, “I’m buying.”
“Be right back.”
“I hear she’s got a ring through her nipple, too,” Eddie observed, “just like the one through her lip.” Harley could hardly wait to find out.
“How much do we get again?” Russell asked.
“Because it’s my idea, I’m taking seventy-five percent of whatever we find,” Harley said. Half of that, he knew, he would have to give to Charlie. “The rest of it you two can split.”
Russell was plainly mulling it over while Eddie was already counting his money. “I bet we can use the Kodiak,” he said, referring to his uncle’s runty old trawler. “Half the time he’s too drunk to go out fishing anyway.”
“And we’ll need some shovels, maybe a hacksaw and a blowtorch, too,” Harley said. “Even if the coffins are only a foot or two down, it’s going to be a nightmare getting through the permafrost.”
Angie plunked the beers down, and Harley paid again. He had half a mind to take the bar bill out of their cut.
They fell silent until Geordie Ayakuk had finished lumbering past their table to the men’s room, then Harley said in a low voice, “So, do you want to do this thing or not?”
“Definitely,” Eddie said, slapping his palm on the table and scattering peanut shells everywhere.
Russell still looked dubious.
“What’s bothering you?” Harley asked.
Russell stirred in his seat and rubbed the tat on his forearm. “We’re diggin’ people up. Dead people, in their graves. That’s not right.”
“We’re not going to take them out, for Christ’s sake,” Eddie expostulated. “Two minutes and they’re all covered up again, just like always.”
Geordie came out of the men’s room, and as he passed Harley he chortled, “You been on Dancing with the Stars yet?”
“Stay tuned,” Harley snarled. Then, to Russell, he said, “So?”