I drove down to Galveston and used Gary’s stolen money to charter a boat. I don’t think I’ve ever been on the ocean before. It’s unnerving. It would be very easy for the boat to sink. And then you’re just dead. No question.
The boat guy was an older fella with bushy grey hair. Looked like an airline pilot to me. If pilots wore board shorts and flip flops. It took me a while to make him understand that I didn’t want to go fishing, I just wanted to go out as far as we could so I could drop a rock in the ocean.
He asked me if this was “a drug thing” because he was adamant that he doesn’t do that anymore. A few years ago, sure he would have been into it, but not anymore. He talked about cocaine for a long time. A long time. Only to make sure that I knew that he wasn’t into that anymore.
Not anymore.
I told him it was a religious thing. He didn’t ask any more questions after that.
There’s probably some evil magic scuba diver that’s going to grab it and start causing problems down the line but I didn’t have any better ideas. I don’t have the resources to get a rock into space. Or to the Antarctic.
Merlin tried to set up a meeting between me the REDACTED city council. Merlin said that they wanted to come to some kind of arrangement with me instead of continuing to butt heads. I told him over the phone was fine, we didn’t need to meet face to face. He asked if my phone was encrypted. I said sure, let’s say that it is.
Before they could get into their corporate condescending bullshit I told them if they wanted me to stay away a good way to accomplish that would to stop fucking hiring me to do stuff for them instead of sending a Middle Eastern demon to scare me away.
Whoever was talking, I didn’t recognize the voice said what had happened was “regrettable” and the result of some “rash thinking”. They promised that nothing like that would happen again. I said that I didn’t believe anything they said.
“Why are we talking then?” was their question.
“You’re the ones that came to me. I didn’t come to you. You started all of this. You dragged me in and kept me locked up and tried to blackmail me. If you really want to help people at all like Merlin says how about you trust me a little? Treat me like a person instead of an attack dog.”
There was a pause “Grow up Grace. Grow up.”
