“Ahoy!” he yells, because he can’t resist it.

The door opens and Vince Vena’s ugly face pops out. He never was a good-looking guy, Vince. Got this thin face with old acne scars and his eyes are a little too close together. Now he grabs his shirt collar, gives it a tug, and says, a la Rodney, “My wife and I were very happy for twenty years…”

“Then we met,” Frank thinks.

“Then we met,” Vince says, and laughs. “Come in out of the rain, Frank. Prove everyone wrong, what they say about you.”

Vince goes back into the cabin and leaves the door open.

Frank steps in, the door shuts, and the garrote is around his neck and cutting into his throat before he can get his hands up. Which is a good thing, because your instinct is to try to get between the wire and your throat, and that’s actually the last thing you should do-you only end up getting your fingers sliced along with your windpipe.

The guy is huge. Frank can feel his height and his bulk and he knows he’s not going to outmuscle him. So he reaches behind him and jams his fingers into his attacker’s eyes, which doesn’t make the guy let go but does make him suck his breath in, and Frank uses that second to squat low, grab the man’s wrist, pivot, and hip-roll the guy to the deck.

His would-be strangler lands with a crash on the little dining table and Frank continues his roll, getting his body under the table just as Vince pulls a pistol and crouches to shoot him.

Frank’s gun slides out in one easy move. All he can see are Vena’s legs, so he aims at a point above them and fires twice, then sees Vince’s legs stagger back and collapse against the bulkhead, and hears Vince yell, “Oh fuck! Oh fuck!”

Frank closes his eyes and shoots through the bottom of the table three times. Splinters of plywood hit his face, and then everything is quiet. Frank opens his eyes and sees blood dripping down.

He stays under the table in case there’s a third guy.