The office above the bar at the Mariner was small but neat. There was a functional desk with a swivel chair behind it, and two mismatched chairs in front of it. The window behind the desk would have had a good view of the harbor if it hadn’t been caked with twenty years’ worth of diesel soot. There were two doors opposite the desk. One led to the narrow stairway down to the bar; the other led to a narrow hallway off which there was a bathroom and a tiny nook of a room with a cot and a small dresser.

Cormack sat in the swivel chair, rocking slowly, his hands folded on his lap. He wasn’t a large man, but he was solid through the chest and shoulders, the way men who have spent a lifetime working the sea so often are. The dark beard that had framed his face for at least half of his nearly five decades was full and flecked with gray.

“We go back a ways, Jimmy,” he said to the man sitting before him, the Celtic lilt ever-present in his baritone voice.

“We do,” Jimmy responded. Cormack could hear the fear in Jimmy’s throat.

“Long enough for you to know the rules.”

“This was different,” Jimmy started to say, but Cormack cut him off.

“Different, was it?” His smile was pure ice. “Well, if it was different, I guess the rules don’t apply, do they?”

“That’s not what I mean.”

“Isn’t it now?”

Jimmy’s brow was slick, and he shifted in his seat. “It’s not. But Cormack, you gotta understand the deal I was gettin’ here, and I needed the help, y’know?”

“Oh, well, you were gettin’ a deal, were you? I guess that’s all I need to know. If you were gettin’ a deal, then everything’s set right, is that what you’re saying?”

“I just thought—”

“You just thought I wouldn’t find out.” Cormack’s voice was low and strong, and cut through the man before him. He stared until Jimmy lowered his eyes and looked at the floor. Only then did he relent even a little. He sighed. “What are my rules on this, Jimmy?”

“You get a cut of everything that comes or goes.”

“Exactly. And you didn’t give me my cut, did you?”

“I didn’t, but I got it here.” Jimmy pulled out a stack of bills and held it up for Cormack to see. “See, I kept it for you. I would have given it to you sooner, but I couldn’t tell you.”

“And you couldn’t tell me because you were breaking one of my other rules, weren’t you?” Jimmy didn’t answer. “What’s my other rule on this?”

Jimmy seemed to struggle as he answered. “No human cargo.”

“That’s right. And why is that?”