We were running a load of coffee and cocoa from out of Abidjane. An man paid passage in gold - gold ingots molded in the shape of a woman's finger - and another to buy the papers of our boatswain, who died of dengue fever off the coast of Padang. Where or what he did before he wouldn't say. But he had totems with him - a Nippon bronze, an inlaid mask, a nail fetish, a dog with iron hammered into its neck, face, and more. A strange collection, picked purposefully the world over, held in a mahoganny trunk. At night he threw yarrow sticks; with them and a book of Chinese symbols he said he could trace the future. After he threw the yarrows in a way that predicted we'd be hit with a storm in open water crossing the Atlantic (right to the date and time) the crew believed him.
The Chief of Police nods.
He told me, continues the Chief Mate, that I'd find myself in a field with a tree and that's the place I'd die. He said he'd be close by when it happened, and he'd see me but I wouldn't see him.
The Chief thinks that the man described may be the murderer. The Chief Mate is certain its not.
They raise their guns. Their guns go off.
