by Andrew Mayne
I reach the back of the building and take a slightly relaxed breath, then realize I’m inches away from a window. It’s dirty, but I can see through it to the trucks parked out front.
The smoking man is a woman. Pretty, a few years older than me. She looks Hispanic and has a hard-looking face.
The tall man pushes some boxes back onto a counter and walks out of the building. Two other men join him. Neither is the man I stabbed. They’re all dressed in work casual, not flashy like drug dealers. They could be cops, lawyers, reporters, schoolteachers, anyone.
“Nothing. Same as last time,” says the tall man, his voice echoing around the empty yard.
“We were pretty thorough before,” says another.
“Maybe he had it on him,” the woman replies.
The tall man seems upset at this suggestion. “No fucking way.”
“Check,” insists the woman.
“You check,” he protests.
She leans back against the hood of an SUV, takes a puff of her cigarette, and replies firmly, “Check it, Sewell.”
Sewell? I lean in closer, trying to keep my body out of view of the window—as if my stupid head is invisible.
A thousand questions go through my head. What the hell are they looking for? Who is this woman? Who is this Sewell asshole?
“Jesus Christ,” the man replies, then walks over to the aboveground pool. He kicks his foot around the edge until he finds something—a long pole with a hook.
He reaches the pole into the water and starts dredging the bottom.
WTF?
“Ugh,” he says as the pole catches something. “Got it.” He yells to the other man, “Don’t just stand there.”
“For fuck’s sake. These are Varvatos shoes,” he whines.
“They’re going to be a dead man’s shoes if you don’t fucking help me.”
The other man reaches into the pool and pulls something up. With the help of the tall man, they drag a body out of the water and flop it onto the ground. A metal weight belt makes a clanging sound as it hits the concrete.
In the harsh illumination of the headlights, the body looks pale blue. It’s an older man with a beard dressed in a black shirt, utility vest, and pants covered in pockets.
It’s Winston. I remember that vest, how he seemingly kept every tool in the world on him. When I was a kid, it was comical how he could pull anything from its pockets. He kind of reminded me of Doctor Who—if Doctor Who had been a foul-mouthed American with a short temper.
Both men start to rifle through Winston’s vest and pants pockets, throwing Allen wrenches, screwdrivers, wire cutters, and other tools onto the ground. Part of me wants to shout at them to leave the poor man alone. But I’m days too late for that.
The tall man twists Winston’s head so the neck is prominent. A red gash runs across the throat—exactly like the one on Stacey.
“Your friend is fucking brutal,” he says to the woman.
She throws her cigarette to the side, kneels down, and starts looking at the tools. “You know what this shit is?”
“Yeah,” says the other man. “Not what we’re looking for.”
“Keep going,” she tells him.
The tall man undoes Winston’s belt and pulls the pants off him and shakes them out. Small fasteners and parts clatter to the concrete. Some were probably tucked away there since the last century.
“That’s all of it.”
“Is it?” she asks.
“Shoot me now. I am not sticking my fingers up a dead man’s asshole,” he replies.
“He prefers them alive,” says the other man.
“Fuck you. I’m already too far into this shit.”
“Tell that to Eddie’s wife,” the other man responds.
“Fuck off.”
Eddie. Is that the man I stabbed? These people don’t seem terribly broken up about it. Of course, they clearly tend toward the sociopath end of the spectrum.
“Look around the buildings,” the woman says. “Get flashlights.”
Damn it.
The mangroves behind me are even thicker than I first thought. I might be able to lose myself a few yards in, but I’d make a hell of a racket doing it.
The men come back from the trucks with lights and start on either side of the buildings. My exit to the ramp is blocked. The only route left is straight between the two structures and the road. The problem is, I don’t know where the woman is now. I could run right into her.
Damn it, Sloan.
Let’s kick ourselves later. Right now I need to act. The beam from the other man’s flashlight hits the trees in back of the far building and forces me to take action.
I bolt from my hiding spot and run around the corner, down the middle path. If I go fast enough, I might be able to make it past them before they know what the hell is going on.
Bam! My foot hits a bundle of aluminum pipes. Everyone had to have heard that. Christ.
“Could you make more noise?” says the other man.
“That wasn’t me!” Sewell replies.
Fuck. Me.
I tear through between the buildings and bolt to the right, around the pool. The woman is standing near the first building, using the light on her phone to inspect plastic containers.
“Who the hell is that?” she shouts.
“There’s some dude here!” replies the other man.
Dude? Screw you.
I duck behind the pool and keep my gun up.
“He’s behind the pool,” says the woman.
Screw you too.
“Let’s wait here,” says Sewell, clearly lying. I can hear his footsteps as he creeps around the pool.
“Hey, there. Come on out,” says the other man. “We won’t hurt you.”
Sure. Like I didn’t think anything of the body you just pulled out of the water.
I poke my head out to get a glance at the road. It’s a long, narrow path. If I tried to run for it, they’d shoot me in the back at their leisure.
That leaves the canal as my only route out of here.
“Who’s there?” asks Sewell. “Do you have a phone so we can call 911 for this guy?”
Does he think he’s talking to a nine-year-old?
Okay. I still have a slight advantage; they have no idea who the hell I am or that I’m packing.
All right, Sloan. Time to put on the performance of your life. Too bad you used to make fun of the drama kids and say they all had daddy issues. Maybe they could have taught you something.
I try to sound like a teenager. “I . . . I was just looking for a place to sleep. My parents kicked me out.”
Sewell laughs. “A fucking runaway.”
Run away from this.
I fire my gun twice in the air, leap upright, and race around the pool. I take another shot at a pile of scrap so it’ll make an even louder noise.
My sudden burst has the right effect. Sewell and the other man instinctively raise their arms to protect their heads. The woman dives behind her SUV.
I race past the headlights, aim my gun wildly behind me, and fire.
BANG! That shot’s not mine. I duck as I reach the edge of the gate and start to slide through the gap.
BANG! A slug hits the fence and shoots sparks.
BANG! I fire blindly back at them for cover.
A second later, I’m through the fence and on the ramp. I don’t even stop to see if the patrol gator is there. I just keep going until I hit the water and dive in.
BANG! Bang . . . The shots grow quieter as I swim deeper. Finally, I reach the bottom.
It’s dark. I can’t see anything, and I’m running out of air.
And, FML, that alligator’s still down here somewhere.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
ANCHOR
Beams of light dance around me as they use their flashlights to search the canal. The water is so murky, I can barely make out the glow; I hope they can’t see me.
The world record for holding one’s breath is twenty-f
our minutes. That’s two minutes longer than a half-hour television show without commercials. That’s also after breathing pure oxygen for thirty minutes beforehand.
The more relevant world record is holding one’s breath without pure oxygen. Last I checked, that record is about twelve minutes. That’s two more minutes than it took some guy to fly across the English Channel using a jet pack in a YouTube video Jackie showed me.
When I was her age, I practiced holding my breath with my brothers. I got better than them because I was willing to risk brain damage simply so they wouldn’t outdo me. That probably cost me fifty points on my SATs.
I have no idea how long I’ll need to hold my breath to be safe. I’m sure they’re still up there. I’m also sure my reptilian friend is lurking nearby.
Ack! Something just slid past my leg. It was slimy and not bumpy.
Python?
Damn. Damn. Damn.
So, you jumped into the water and now you’re clinging to a rock on the bottom. Was this your plan? Did you think you were going to sprout gills and be able to slip away and live happily ever after in Atlantis?
I should have stolen a car.
I should have gone for my kayak.
Which is still there . . . only a few yards away.
I’m not going to be able to wait them out.
This water is colder than I was expecting. My lungs are starting to scream. I didn’t get a large enough intake of air.
It’s all in your head, Sloan. You took a breath. Relax.
My heart is racing too fast. I won’t be able to do twelve minutes. I won’t even make my personal best of five.
I have to surface.
I need a . . .
BOOM! BOOM!
That sounded like a shotgun.
I can wait a little longer.
The lights vanish.
Now it’s completely dark.
I get a second wind. I can stay a little longer.
No, I can’t. I felt something again. Like a current. A large object is moving through the water.
Please be a friendly manatee to carry me away.
I know it’s not.
I feel a choking sensation at the back of my throat. If I don’t surface soon, my body will try to breathe water. That hasn’t worked for more than a hundred million years.
Must. Breathe.
I hold my gun up in front of my face and decide to surface like a hero in one of the stupid movies my brothers used to love.
It’s harder than it looks.
I kick to the surface, which isn’t that far, and orient myself toward the ramp, ready to start firing at anything that moves.
I pop my head out, finger on the trigger as I train the pistol up the ramp.
Nobody’s there.
This has to be a trick.
I scan the area behind the gate.
Empty.
Moving slowly, I pull myself up onto the ramp and squat with the muzzle aimed straight ahead.
Still nothing.
I stand and creep to the gate. The trucks are gone.
So is Winston’s body.
They hauled ass out of here fast. Did they decide I was dead? I wasn’t down there that long, was I? Did my superhuman breath-holding skills enable me to outlast them?
Don’t be silly. It was three or four minutes, tops.
Something red glistens in the moonlight. Drops of blood trail from the gate back to where the trucks were parked.
Holy crap. I was shooting blindly for cover. I actually managed to wing one. What are the odds?
Too high.
Something else happened.
I hear a splash of water behind me. Not the kind an alligator makes sneaking up on you, but the kind a wave makes when it hits the hull of a boat.
That’s how sharks find you. It’s not the blood or the electrical signals you give off; it’s the sound.
This sound tells me someone’s behind me.
The fact that they haven’t shot me yet means there’s a reason I’m not dead. It’s probably because they want whatever the other group was after. What happens when they realize I don’t have it?
I could take a few more breaths and dive back underwater . . .
Yeah, that’ll work. We’ll just stay there. Have our mail sent to the bottom of the stinking canal. Jackie can make friends with all the little catfish.
I spin with my gun raised.
A bright spotlight blinds me. I have to squint and look away.
The light goes out, and I try to adjust to the dark and see who’s there. At first all I can make out is a small fishing boat and a center console.
As my eyes adjust, a man resolves. He’s got a shotgun on his hip and a completely neutral expression on his face.
I don’t know if he’s here to rescue me or kill me.
It’s George frickin’ Solar.
Again.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
STARBOARD
“I don’t have it,” I say preemptively.
Should I have said something cleverer? Hell, Jackie could have come up with something more convincing.
Solar’s face reveals nothing. “I know. I’m also willing to bet you don’t even know what it is.” He lowers the shotgun and reaches down for his dock line. “Tie me off,” he says, tossing it to me.
I grab the rope midair, then cast an anxious glance back at the boatyard. “Are they coming back?”
“Maybe. Maybe not. It looks like they dragged a body with them. My guess is they’re afraid of someone coming back and looking around too closely.”
“That body was Winston,” I say. “This was his yard.”
Solar hops down from the boat and checks my knot. “I was afraid it might be him. Here.” He hands me his shotgun as he slides through the same gap I used between fence and gate.
I follow with the shotgun, still trying to figure out what’s going on. “Uh, you want this back?” I ask.
“Hold on to it for a second.” Solar picks up the pole Sewell used to search the pool and starts dredging the water.
“What are you looking for?”
“Another body. Tiago’s. Who knows what else?”
Solar knows a lot more than he’s telling me. He makes his way from one end of the water to the other, pushing branches out of the way and splashing water on his khaki shorts. “I used to clean pools when I was a teenager,” he says. “I had to go back to that when I got fired from my first police department.”
“Fired?” I’d heard he’d been let go in some kind of scandal. “And you still went back?”
More surprising, they took him back.
“Long story.” Solar sets the pole down. “I don’t think there’s anyone here. What about this stuff?” He walks over to the scattered items from Winston’s pockets.
“They didn’t seem to find anything. Whatever it might be.”
“I’m pretty sure they don’t know.”
“Who are they? How did you find this place?” I ask.
“Later.” He picks up the components and inspects them one by one. “Is that anything?” he asks, holding up a small, cork-size plastic plug.
I take a closer look: there’s a port on one end for some kind of electrical component. “I don’t know. It’s not a flash drive. It looks like some kind of marine electrical adapter or something.”
He surveys the dockyard. “We should be going.”
From the distance comes a police siren. “Somebody called the cops?”
“I did. Right after they spotted you.”
“You were here the whole time?”
“I followed you.”
“Me? What the hell? Why?”
“Because I figured you were going to do something stupid. And you didn’t disappoint me.”
“Screw you,” I shoot back.
He ignores me and takes a last look at the area. “Any idea what Winston was doing out here?”
“I thought you had all the answers.” I’m still pissed at the thought that he’s been
following me.
“You knew the man. You knew about this place.”
“Barely. And I only know about this place because . . .” I stop myself from mentioning Carolina. “. . . I did some research. It seems like Winston was outfitting boats with secret compartments for smuggling.”
Solar shakes his head. “He didn’t need a place like this for that. Besides, you’d have to trailer boats in. Too inconvenient.”
“What are you saying?” I ask.
He points to the crane and spare parts. “What are you seeing? Seems to me it would be easier to do this kind of work back in a marina. I don’t get it. Nobody’s been busted with a Winston Special in years.”
“A Winston Special?” I ask as we slip back through the gate.
“That was the task force’s name for boats he outfitted with secret compartments. Ask your uncle.”
“I get it. I saw him two days ago.” I look for Solar’s reaction.
“I know.”
Why am I not surprised? “Can you clear something up for me? Why the hell are you even here? Aren’t you retired?”
“Just because the paycheck stops doesn’t mean the job does.”
“I get it. You’re a nutjob. You fucked up in the past, and now you’re easing your conscience? Or maybe you’re after the money?”
“Believe whatever you want.” He unties my kayak and fastens it to a cleat at the back of his boat.
“What are you doing?”
“Towing you.”
“I’m not going with you.”
Solar groans. “Fine.” He hands me the plastic cork thing from Winston’s pocket. “Then go find out what this is and let me know.” He undoes my rope and tosses it back to me.
After stowing the shotgun, he revs his engine and nods to me. “Later.”
He starts to back up his boat so he can turn around in the canal. From somewhere under the canopy of mangroves, something large slides into the water.
Seriously?
“Wait!” I call out to Solar.
He throws the boat into neutral. “What?”
“Let me tell my friend where I’m going.” I want to see his reaction to me telling Run where I am. If he tries to shoot me, I’ll take it as a bad sign.
“Great. But you don’t know where you’re going.”
I look up from my iPhone as I text Run, Going somewhere with George Solar. Details later.
I look back to Solar. “Where are we going?”