Once they were underway, the one-sided conversation finally hit a lull. But morning people never understood how to make the most of a lull, and Caine filled it with more talking. “So how was everyone else’s night in River City?”

  Laura was the only one to offer up an answer. “We stayed on the boat. So we missed most of the excitement. Oh, but we did see a steamboat arrive. That was exciting.”

  “How was the hotel, Dalton?” Caine asked.

  Dalton pulled down his sunglasses to make sure the actor saw the glare behind them. Then he shrugged and sat up to join the conversation. “You know it had air conditioning? It rattled and smelled like stale cigarettes. Felt like old times really. But the bed was comfortable.”

  “How about you, Eve?” Caine asked. “How did you spend your time in this great city?”

  Eve was slow to answer, so the beagle at her feet took the question. “We saw a fight with the Champ.”

  “The Champ was in town?” Caine asked.

  “Yes he—” Fidget hopped aside as Eve’s toe caught him in the side.

  She looked up and caught Mike looking at her. Her eyes met his and they held his gaze until he turned away back to the river.

  “I wish I had known,” Caine said. “I wanted to offer him a role in my next movie.”

  “That terrible man from Hannibal?” Laura asked.

  “Well, I didn’t know who he was back then. But I heard all about him last night and he seems like the real deal. I’ve got a part in my next film, a real tough guy, and I can’t think of anyone tougher.”

  Eve’s toe poked Fidget before the beagle could draw a breath and blab about the fight they had witnessed the night before.

  “I wish I had have known about the match,” Caine said. “But I had to see my fans, you know? They’ve been so good to me; I just couldn’t let them down.”

  “It must be hard, being so famous,” Andy said with a surprising amount of sincerity.

  Caine smiled and brushed the comment off. “It’s my pleasure really. They’ve given me so much, it’s the least I can do to say thanks.”

  “Were you famous before the apocalypse?” Laura asked. “I’m sorry if I should know. I didn’t watch a lot of movies.”

  Caine shook his head. “No, this is all new to me. I was an actor before the end, but I didn’t get my big break until the first Librarian film.”

  “So, you didn’t become a good actor until all the other actors blew up?” Dalton summarized.

  “Man, you’re a mean hangover, Dalton,” Caine said.

  Dalton grunted and then said, “That doesn’t mean I’m wrong.”

  “No, you are wrong. I actually had a starring role in a huge movie just before everything went to shit.” Caine turned out toward the river and let the past catch up with him. “It was in the can and was only a few months from release. It was going to be a blockbuster. That one would have made me a star.”

  “What was it called?” Eve asked.

  “It doesn’t matter now. It’s lost to time.”

  “Oh, come on,” Dalton played along. “Tell us.”

  The rest of the passengers chimed in. All of them wanted to know the name of the potential blockbuster.

  Caine took a deep breath and stared off into the distance. His eyes narrowed and he took on his best movie trailer announcer voice. “Ice Cream Justice.”

  “Ice what now?” Dalton asked.

  “Ice Cream Justice,” Caine repeated and turned back to the passengers. “It was the story of a man, an ice cream man, who watches, from his truck, his ice cream truck, as his neighborhood goes to hell. Drug dealers. Gangsters. Neo-Nazis. They’re ruining everything. So he decides to take matters into his own hands and starts delivering his own brand of justice.”

  “What? From the ice cream truck?” Andy asked.

  “Yeah, he even changed the music, so it was that old-timey ice cream truck song⁠—”

  “‘The Entertainer,’” Dalton said.

  “—yeah, whatever, except when he was about to clean up the streets. Then it became this really creepy version. Really haunting sounding. It was great.”

  “That sounds awful,” Dalton said.

  “It was great,” Caine insisted.

  “It sounds like a B horror movie,” Dalton argued.

  “No, I mean, I see where you’re getting that and all, but it was really something more than that. My character had all this great nuance and shit and the writing was just really clever. Even the tagline was great.”

  “‘Justice Served Cold,’” Mike suggested.

  “You saw the ads!” Caine lit up with excitement.

  “No, I just knew that’s what the tagline would be.”

  “I was going to guess, ‘I scream, you scream, we all scream for Ice Cream Justice,’” Eve said with a grin.

  “Oh wow,” Caine said. “That’s even better. I’m telling you all, it was going to be huge.”

  “No, it wasn’t,” Dalton said, and pulled the glasses back over his eyes.

  “It was going to be the start of a franchise.”

  “No, it wasn’t,” Dalton repeated.

  “You don’t know!” Caine shouted.

  “Yes, I do know.”

  “The sequel was already written!”

  “What was the sequel going to be?” Dalton asked. “Just your stupid Ice Cream man in another city?”

  “And in a new truck,” Caine added.

  Dalton folded his arms and slid farther down in the bench. “The whole thing sounds terrible.”

  “That’s not what the test audiences said.”

  “Test audiences don’t mean a thing.” Dalton’s voice was drifting away, but he didn’t seem any less engaged in the argument.

  “What do you know?” Caine screamed.

  “I know that test audiences are made of people and people are morons.”

  “I think we all need to calm down,” Lana said.

  “I want to know what right this guy thinks he has to judge my movie,” Caine spat. “How many movies have you made?”

  “I’m entitled to my opinion,” Dalton insisted.

  “But your opinion is based on shit. Do you know what it takes to make a movie?”

  “Just a bad idea and a camera, apparently.”

  Caine took a step forward but was intercepted by Lana.

  “Enough,” Eve said. “I don’t know about the rest of you, but I have a hangover and all the talk about ice cream is just making my headache worse.”

  “You think it sounds like a good movie?” Dalton asked.

  Eve shrugged. “I didn’t see it. I didn’t even see an ad for it. How the hell would I know? His new films are making people happy. Shouldn’t that matter more?”

  Caine nodded to Eve in thanks and sat back down. Fidget was at his feet and licked his hand to get his attention. “I like your ice cream movie.”

  “Thanks, dog.”

  “Well, I’m a big fan of ice cream.”

  The conversation ended abruptly there, and everyone did their best to enjoy their hangovers.

  The Boomer made several mail stops in the morning. Dalton was too hungover to complain, and the others just sat back as the boatman traded mailbags and news with the local postmasters. There was something new to share. The raiders had struck overnight and massacred a town a few miles off of the river. This time they left a name along with the carnage: The Penance.

  16

  They had awakened bright and early, for pirates. It was shortly after noon and even this was a compromise with the crew. Marco rarely asked them to get up this early. After all, if you weren’t going to sleep in every day, what was the point of being a pirate in the first place?

  But now he worked his way around the boat, fiercely kicking men awake and pleasantly welcoming them to the day. The men had celebrated, with great ferociousness, their victory at Elsah in the bars and on the streets of River City, and it took more than a few kicks to rouse many of them.

  “Get up!” He landed a pointed toe in his first mate’s ribs.

  The man awoke with a whine and looked at the captain. “Dammit, Marco.”

  This drew another kick from the Captain’s boot. “It’s time to go.”

  “Then say that,” his first mate said as he sat up with a grimace. The man paused as he let the blood reorient itself in his head. “You don’t have to kick me.”

  Marco made no apologies and pointed to the rest of the men that had passed out on Your Mom. The grand salon was lousy with snoring pirates. “Get them up.”

  “Fine, but watch how I do it, okay. I’m not going to go around kicking everyone like an asshole.” He went to stand but paused. He put out an arm to steady himself and closed his eyes. “I am never drinking again.”

  He finally made it to his feet and leaned against the boat rail. He settled there and made no effort to move.

  “What is it?”

  The first mate held up a finger. “I might throw up and I might not. I haven’t quite decided yet.”

  “You’re an embarrassment as a pirate, Scottie. Hurry up.”

  “What’s the rush?”

  “Did you forget about the kid?” Marco asked.

  The first mate returned the question with a blank stare. “Well, obviously. What kid?”

  Marco loved being a pirate. But being a captain was exhausting. Let’s face it, most men became pirates for the lifestyle, not from any sense of ambition. That’s why most piracy happened in the late afternoon and early evening. They were too drunk to work late at night and there was no such thing as an early morning pirate anything.

  He caught his first mate up on the events of the evening. The man was surprised and delighted to be reminded that they were south of Elsah. He was even more excited to hear that there was a boatful of “douchebags and old people” trying to run a shipment of weapons down their river.

  The news helped clear his head, and the first mate joined the captain in kicking the crew until they were all awake and pissed off.

  Ice Cream Justice 3 was going to take place in Phoenix and be subtitled Melting Point. While everyone else agreed that it sounded exactly like the plot from Ice Cream Justice and its first sequel, Double Dipped, Thomas insisted that it was very different in tone because, in the third one, his character would learn that he had an estranged daughter.

  “And she was going to be just like me, you know. Smart mouth. Tough. An unparalleled sense of right and wrong. Together we would bring justice to her neighborhood. One scoop at a time.”

  Caine grew silent and looked out over the river as a couple of the passengers applauded.

  “Now that is a heroic stare,” Andy said.

  Even Dalton offered a gentle clap at his performance.

  Lana leaned forward and whispered, “Are…are you doing a scene, Mr. Caine?”

  Caine heard Lana say something, but it didn’t register. He was lost in his own thoughts for a long moment before he realized the passengers in the boat were watching him. He took a deep breath and kept his eyes on the shore. “I was going to have my own action figure.”

  He laughed and turned back to the passengers. “I got to see the prototype. I held a little me in my hands. It was surreal. It was exactly like being a father. I was going to be a hero to kids everywhere.”

  “I think you’re really overestimating how well this movie would have done,” Dalton said.

  Lana stood and moved to his side. She put an arm around his shoulder. “You’re still a hero to kids everywhere. You see how their faces light up when they get to meet the Librarian.”

  “Yeah, for pretending to be someone else,” Caine said. “This would have been different.”

  “You do know your ice cream guy isn’t real either, right?” Eve asked.

  “I like ice cream,” Fidget said, thinking he was in agreement with something.

  “That’s not what I… All the great characters do the right thing,” Caine said. “I just want to be known for that.”

  “Instead of a movie star?” Lana asked.

  “I could be both, you know? A hero and a star. Like Gene Autry.”

  “Audie Murphy?” Andy asked.

  “Yeah, Autry Murphy,” he said and looked back to the shore. He laughed again. “That’s so me. Deciding I want to be some kind of real-life hero just as things start returning to normal. Just as everything is getting quiet.”

  The bullet came in on cue and hit Caine in the shoulder.

  At first, he didn’t realize what had happened. His shoulder jerked back involuntarily like he’d been shoved by an angry moviegoer demanding his money back. This confused him as he was pretty certain no one had shoved him. He didn’t feel the bullet for a minute. His first sensation was feeling nothing at all. His fingers prodded the joint, and he wondered why he couldn’t feel it. When his hand came back red, he started to put it all together.

  “Everyone, get down!” The captain shouted as he gunned the engines.

  Caine liked to think it was his own decision to sit down but the sudden lurch of the boat may have helped.

  Lana rushed to his side and touched the wound as well. She was much calmer about it than he was. That wasn’t so surprising, though. It wasn’t her shoulder. She didn’t have to be tough. But he did. This was his chance.

  He brushed her hand away and stood up to fight.

  He then promptly fell over into Eve’s lap.

  She helped him sit up and started barking commands. “Laura, come over here, and put pressure on this wound.”

  The older woman responded quickly and did as she was instructed.

  Eve kept barking at people. “Lana, I have a first aid kit in that bag over there.”

  More gunfire filled the air, and even though Caine wanted to fight he was grateful that his shoulder was now well out of the way. He felt apart from himself. His interest in his shoulder had waned, and he began to view the actions inside the boat less as an involved member of the party under fire and more like an audience member. He watched everything with interest but without any kind of investment in the outcome. He could hear everything, but it was like listening to music on someone else’s radio at a stop light. It was there. But it wasn’t for him. Everything slowed and he was able to analyze every little thing.

  Lana was digging through Eve’s bag, tossing out various supplies as she dug for the first aid kit. As always, she was doing her best to give him the attention he needed. She was the best.

  At the same time, Laura was doing her best to reassure him as she pressed on the wound. He appreciated the help, of course, but he wasn’t paying attention to anything she was saying. It was stuff like “It’s going to be okay. Stay with me. It just missed the brachial artery. You’re going to get through this.” Pretty standard dialogue really.

  Andy had a gun in his hand. Thomas wasn’t sure where it had come from. Had Mike brought out the bag again? The older gentleman was crouched against the gunwale returning fire toward whoever it was that had put the bullet in his shoulder. The bastards.

  Eve was on the opposite side of the boat now, firing back from behind a rifle he couldn’t identify. It was probably an assault rifle. It was black, after all. He had never been too particular with the guns in his movies, as a gun was a gun was a gun. He just made sure that he looked cool holding it. Everything beyond that was the prop man’s problem.

  There was a new voice now. He didn’t recognize it. It felt far away. He looked at the passengers and couldn’t tell who was talking. Then he remembered where he had heard it before. It was that pirate, Marco Swolo. What was he saying? Something about a mutual friend, kid or something. Then there was something about Mike trying to run guns on his river. It didn’t make any sense. That Mike guy had rules about running guns.

  The boat banked and everyone grabbed something to balance themselves. Except him. He slid to the floor and the two women followed him there. Laura was still reassuring him and holding the wound. Lana had found the first aid kit and was now following instructions from the older woman.

  The beagle licked his face and the two bigger dogs struggled to keep their footing on the fiberglass deck. The result was comedic as the two massive mutts tripped and slid into one another in a…Caine smiled at his clever writing…dog pile.

  The boat leveled out, and he had the distinct feeling they were now heading what he would have assumed was the wrong way. It felt upriver, but he couldn’t say why. Was the water louder on the bottom of the boat? Was the motor working harder? It just felt like they were heading toward the source of the trouble instead of away from it.

  Another engine went screaming by, and he felt the boat shudder. A moment later he was covered in a splash of water and a man with a knife was on the back of the boat. The pirate raised the knife and charged toward the cabin but Dalton, that grumpy bastard, stepped into the man’s path.

  The entrepreneur brought his briefcase into the fight and intercepted the knife several times before he caught a lunge and flipped the boarder over his shoulder.

  The pirate crashed next to Caine on the boat floor. The man tried to stand but Dalton was on him too quickly, so the man tried stabbing up at the businessman. But Dalton turned the blade back on the attacker and forced it down toward the man’s chest.

  The pirate held the blade back for only a moment before Dalton started hitting the pommel with all of his weight. The blade dove in and out of the intruder’s chest until all of the fight had been stabbed right out of him.

  Dalton didn’t hesitate or collapse on his assailant like in a movie script. He leapt back up and got back into the fight.

  The rate of the gunfire grew more frantic, more desperate. The boat twisted and turned more frequently. Lana had found what she was looking for in the first aid kit. Laura wasn’t even talking to him now. She was instructing Lana on how to treat and dress the wound.

  Caine’s eyes began to close. No, they weren’t closing. He held them wide open. But his vision was fading.

  There was an explosion and the boat rocked.

  There was more shouting. They were shouting at him this time. They were shaking him. Assholes. Didn’t they know he had been shot?