by Hannah Tinti
“No,” Hawley said. “It’s a marker.”
There were two lobsters in the trap, as well as a couple of crabs, but the rest was jammed with junk—bottles and bits of metal and stones and in the middle of all that something square and bright. A silver box, vacuum-sealed in plastic. Hawley pulled the lobsters out first, their tails flapping madly against the air, their claws raised, the antennae long and slippery. They were a good size, big enough to eat, but Hawley tossed them into the ocean, followed by the crabs, yanking each creature through the plastic netting. Then it was just the stones and the broken beer bottles and finally the box.
Loo handed him her knife and he cut through the plastic. It was thick as skin and twice as hard but eventually split in two. Hawley eased the box out. The sides were industrial-grade metal. The kind normally used on gun cases. There was a lock but it did not take long for Hawley to break it open with the knife. Then he flipped the side latches and opened the lid. The interior was lined with black velvet cloth, still perfectly dry. And in the center was a gold pocket watch.
Hawley picked up the watch and turned it over. The metal was cold as ice in his hand. There was an etching of a deer on the cover, its hooves raised in midflight. The deer was being hunted, an arrow in its side. He pressed down on the winding key and the shell flipped open. Set within the face were four smaller dials, marking the year, month, date, hour, minute, second. Hawley took a breath, and once again he was sliding his hand into the pocket of Maureen Talbot’s wedding gown and pulling out this same watch, like a magic trick reaching across time. He touched the key and the lid split in two, and there was the star chart, with its tiny flecks of diamond and sapphire, catching the last of the afternoon light. He pressed the heart of the shell against his ear.
The watch was ticking.
The floor of the boat had opened beneath them and he was falling through layers of his own life.
“Dad,” said Loo. “Dad.”
And then Hawley heard the boat.
It was half a mile off. A cruiser, maybe thirty feet, and the wake behind was wide and open, white froth streaming in lines and breaking the pattern of the waves. The boat was headed straight for them. And it was coming fast. There was no way they would outrun it. Not with the wind dead like it was.
“Go below,” said Hawley. “Get the guns.”
Loo scrambled into the cabin and came back with guns and the bag of ammunition, and together they started loading.
“Who is it?”
“I don’t know.”
“What are we going to do?”
“We’re going to be careful.”
The pink bear was still tossed facedown in the bottom of the boat. It was the same size as Loo. Hawley’s hands started to shake. He should have turned the boat around. He should have followed his instincts and hit the road the instant he got home from the police station.
Loo peered through the binoculars. “It looks like two people on board.”
Hawley tucked the Glock back into his belt. He grabbed his father’s rifle and hid it under one of the blankets. “Take the shotgun and the sniper rifle and stay in the cabin,” he said. “Get in there before they see you.”
“Maybe they’re fishermen,” Loo said. But still, she ducked into the hold.
The cruiser pushed steadily toward them. When it was in range it began slowing its engines, the foam diminishing into bubbles. Hawley could smell the briny scent of the waves as they slapped against the sailboat, rocking the hull. He cut the idling motor and shifted his weight, trying to keep steady. Gasoline leaked into the water, spreading slick swirls of color across the surface.
The first man was at the wheel. He was older and had a military buzz cut, broad shoulders and a face dimpled like a potato. A nose like a broken door hanging off its hinges. It had been years since their fight at the diner, but Hawley knew at once it was Ed King. The old boxer wasn’t wearing a hat and his head and face and neck were burned bright red from the sun. Hawley could see the flaking on his crooked nose, the ring of white skin by his collar.
The other man in the boat was Jove.
Hawley’s friend was still wearing his captain’s cap and those special boat shoes. His face was busted and both eyes were black and he was holding on to his side like his ribs were broken. But he hadn’t been killed yet. And that was something.
The cruiser slowed and the grinding roar of the engine stopped, and the boat and the men continued to drift forward, the momentum bringing them along the starboard side.
“Sam Hawley,” King called out. “We’ve been waiting for you.”
The wind picked up and the mainsail fluttered. Together the boats bobbed up and down.
Hawley said, “Aren’t you supposed to be in prison?”
“I got an early release, for good behavior. And a favor or two. People always need favors.” The old boxer came over to the railing and leaned on it. He kept an automatic trained on Jove. “You look the same.”
“You don’t.”
King put his hand on his thick waist. He laughed but it wasn’t a funny laugh and nobody else laughed with him. Hawley tried to figure things but they were hard to figure.
“Came looking for your friend?”
Hawley’s eyes shifted to Jove. “That’s right.”
“Me, too,” said King. “A real good pal he was, sending me away for fifteen years. Just to cover his own mistakes. And yours.”
“Nobody forced you to kill those folks in Alaska. So you paid for it. You did your time.”
“Like you did yours?” King asked.
Hawley didn’t answer.
“So high and mighty,” said King. “But you’re just another pair of dirty hands. All I had to do was dangle this job. Offer enough money. And wait. And I’ve gotten very good at waiting.”
Jove glanced at the porthole where Loo was hiding. A moment later he seemed not to be looking anywhere, only blinking at the orange streaks that stretched across the sky. His ruined face made all of the holes in Hawley’s skin start itching.
“I never thought I’d see you again,” Jove said.
King clapped him on the back. “Your friend tried to convince me you wouldn’t come looking for him. But I had a feeling you would. So we cut his boat loose near the Banks and let those Whale Heroes call it in to the Coast Guard. Then we came back here. It gave us a chance to have a nice long talk.”
The sun had reached the edge of the horizon, and the sky began to fill with pink, turning the clouds a dark magenta. King’s eye was twitching against the light, and Hawley remembered the same twitch on the boxer’s face at the diner, when he’d been looking at Lily. Back before Hawley had even touched her hand.
King was staring at Hawley now that same way, like he couldn’t believe his luck. So many years had passed and the boxer had the same tell. He pressed the automatic to the back of Jove’s head. “Let’s start by giving me your guns.”
Hawley took the Glock from the back of his pants and threw it into the cruiser.
“And the one in your coat.”
Hawley removed the Colt and tossed that next. The only weapons left now were the rifle under the blanket and the long guns down in the cabin with Loo. The wind picked up and the boats began to drift. King made Hawley toss a line, then Jove tied the rope to the bow of the cruiser.
“Now the bear. Stick the watch inside and send it over.”
Hawley put the timepiece back into the metal case, then back into the plastic. He used Loo’s knife to cut a hole in the bear’s chest and jammed the bag where its heart should be. The stuffing was surprisingly soft, bits of cotton and rags, though heavy when he lifted it. Hawley swung the bear back and let go. The animal spun in the air between the two boats, hit the bow of the cruiser, and landed with a splash in the water. Jove stabbed it with a boat hook, then dragged the body on board.
King put his hand inside the bear, feeling around. He extracted the plastic bag. He opened the case and palmed the watch, rubbing the gold clamshell with the tip
s of his fingers.
“Biggest bait I’ve ever used,” he said. “But it was worth it for this.” King slipped the watch into his pocket. He led Jove to the edge of the cruiser.
“Time to take your bear and go home, Jove.”
“You mean jump?”
“That’s exactly what I mean.”
Jove lifted the soggy stuffed animal. He climbed over the rail, dragging the toy behind him, then stood on the edge in his expensive windbreaker and ridiculous hat and special loafers he’d bought and been so proud of. He looked at Hawley, his face a mixture of apology and relief. And then King slid the automatic to the center of his back and pulled the trigger. The bullet went through Jove and then it went through the bear, the stuffed animal’s chest bursting forth in a snowy cloud of foam and fur. Then Jove and the bear both fell into the water.
There was a muffled cry from inside the cabin. King looked at Hawley and then at the sailboat, but before he could do anything else or shoot again, Hawley dove beneath the seats and pulled the blanket off the rifle.
King spun his automatic and strafed the side of the sailboat. Hawley ducked down, crouching out of sight. He could hear the bullets hitting the wood and the porthole windows shattering. He counted the shots. When the mag was finished King ran for the cabin. That’s when Hawley stood and raised the long gun and fired. He watched the boxer collapse and then fall down the ladder into the hold.
He crouched back down and waited.
No more shots.
He leaned over the side of the boat. “Loo!” he cried. “You all right? Loo!”
His daughter slid the shotgun out the broken window and started shooting directly into the hull of the motorboat. There was a pause as she reloaded and then two more giant blasts followed, ripping holes into the fiberglass of the cruiser, opening it up for the ocean to pour in.
It was like they were one person, not two. When he thought, Loo acted. She continued reloading and blasting holes into the sinking cruiser, while Hawley used the boat hook to catch the back of Jove’s windbreaker and drag him to the leeward side. He reached under his friend’s arms and pulled both him and the bear into the boat. Jove’s eyes were still moving, but he was bleeding badly. Hawley pressed his hand against the wound, the blood pumping out with each heartbeat between his fingers.
The door to the cabin opened and there was Loo, carrying Hawley’s orange toolbox. “What do you need?”
“Israeli bandage,” said Hawley.
Beside them, the cruiser continued to take on water. There was a thud as a wave spun the bow and knocked into the sailboat. The whole deck tilted and Loo dropped to her knees. She threw down the case. She grabbed a sealed package and ripped it open.
“Is he going to die?”
“Probably,” said Hawley.
“Fuck you,” Jove groaned.
“Ha,” said Hawley. “See?”
Together they got the bandage around him. Hawley tightened it as best he could. Something glittered and caught the light. He looked at his daughter.
“There’s glass in your hair,” he said.
“The cabin windows got blown out.” Loo raised her arm and tiny fragments fell sparkling to the deck like crystals.
“I’ve got to check on King. Stay here,” said Hawley. “Keep pressure on the dressing.”
“All right,” said Loo. She put her hands where his had been and her eyes did not leave the blood running out all over Jove’s windbreaker, beading up and streaming off onto the floorboards.
Hawley ducked under the mainsail. The cruiser was foundering, tilted to its side but not yet underwater. The sailboat was wedged against the broken hull. It was close enough to climb across and Hawley did, the fiberglass echoing as he landed. The door to the cabin where King had disappeared was still open. He picked up the Glock and the Colt from where he’d thrown them on the deck. He started down the ladder. The cabin was flooded, food and clothing and garbage floating in the tight space, which was foul-smelling and dark except for a single hatch at the tip of the bow.
Hawley waded through the wreckage toward the opening. When he reached the hatch he found a torn piece of fabric on the hinge. Then he heard music. At first he thought it was coming from a radio, and then he recognized the song. It was Debussy, each note both hopeful and sad, played by man-made gears buried deep inside a timepiece, so that the bearer would know the marking of an hour.
Hawley scrambled through the hatch, stumbling against the rail as the deck heaved and tilted. The old boxer had crawled on top of the roof above the cabin. His shadow stretched across the mainsail of the Pandora. A shadow in the shape of every imaginary monster that had ever lived underneath Loo’s childhood bed. Every nightmare that Hawley had soothed and rocked away from his little girl and then tucked back inside his own dreams. King’s shadow pointed a gun and the boom echoed across the water, and beneath the canvas Hawley saw Loo doubling over. She stumbled and tried to stand and then another blast came and she was rolling over the side of the boat and Hawley saw her fall into the water. His daughter. His Loo.
Gone.
King’s shirt was ripped from going through the hatch and his hair was wet from the water but there wasn’t a spot of blood on him. Hawley never missed, but he had missed him somehow. King was holding up the handgun he’d shot Jove with and shot Loo with and now he was shooting Hawley with it, too. The bullet hit above Hawley’s heart and below his shoulder, and right off Hawley felt the difference, how this bullet did not slide through his body like a visitor but instead tore and split and sliced as if it were building a home for itself out of his insides, as if it intended to stay and put down roots.
Hawley’s hands fumbled for the Colt, but King jumped down from the roof and knocked it away before he could pull the trigger, and then the cruiser tilted as the men wrestled and both their guns fell into the water. He could feel the heat of the old boxer winding up and then the man was punching Hawley, first in the stomach and then in the face and then where he had shot him, each blow landing like a burning ember across Hawley’s scarred body. He remembered what Jove had told him about the men King fought, how their minds would be sheared into a place of forgetting, a place where they no longer remembered who they loved or why they loved them.
Hawley struggled to his knees and threw himself into King and knocked the older man down. He crawled to the edge of the boat to look for Loo in the water but there was only water, only waves, and then King was on him again and threw one last blow to the side of Hawley’s head and Hawley felt his skull crack and then he saw stars. Bright and shining sparks of light that broke into flames and streaked through the night that swept over him.
And the stars began to fall together, to pull and form a body that sparked and shone into a greater brightness and out of that brightness stepped Lily. She was standing behind King, her long black hair dripping wet, as if she had decided not to drown and had instead been waiting all these years for just the right moment to rise from the water.
“Get away from him,” she said.
And like a miracle, the beating stopped. The shadow of King moved and Hawley could feel the air on his face again. He could taste the blood running down the back of his throat. He coughed. He listened.
“Over there.”
Lily was holding Hawley’s father’s rifle and she was pointing it at King’s chest. She backed the boxer to the edge of the sinking boat. She kept enough distance so that he wouldn’t be able to grab the rifle if he lunged or tried to snatch it away. Her finger was on the trigger and her elbow was tucked in tight and the grip was braced against her shoulder and the barrel was steady enough to balance a quarter and the sight was leveled up for a shot to the head. Hawley had taught her that. She remembered. She knew it all, he thought. His girl.
“The watch.”
King slipped the gold out from his pocket.
“Throw it in the water.”
“What?”
“You heard me.”
The boxer glared at her. “This
piece is priceless. One of a kind.”
“It’s a stupid watch.” She set her eye to the scope.
King turned his face as if he couldn’t bear to look and dropped the watch over the rail, the gold catching the light and flashing, a beating heart lost between the waves, turning end over end until it disappeared into the gloom.
“Your turn.”
“I don’t know how to swim.”
“Then you better hope the Coast Guard finds you. Here.” She threw him a life jacket. King slipped it over his head. Pulled the buckle around his waist. He was still eyeing the place where the watch had gone in. Hawley could see him wondering if he should dive for it, if there was a chance to snatch the gold before it hit the bottom of the sea.
“Now what?”
“Now this.”
She took aim with the rifle and shot King in the arm. His punching arm. The one he’d used to beat Hawley. The man screamed. He clutched at the wound with his fingers. Blood ran down his elbow and splattered the deck. “What the hell was that for?”
“For the sharks,” said Loo. Then she spun the rifle in her hands, took hold of the barrel like it was a baseball bat and swung the butt of the gun with all those kill marks against the side of King’s face, a blow as hard as any right hook. The boxer stumbled and she kicked him in the ass with her steel-toed boots as he went over the edge into the water.
Loo hurried over to her father. She wrapped his arm around her shoulder and then hefted him to his feet and dragged him back to the Pandora. She cut the rope and pushed the cruiser off their bow. As the boats drifted apart, she kept the rifle trained on King, watching him try and fail to climb on top of the cruiser, which bubbled and sucked as it sank. At twenty yards, Loo started the engine. It caught and sparked. She shifted gears, and the propeller turned, and they were moving away from the toppled cruiser. Loo took hold of the throttle and turned it all the way up and then there was just the rumbling beneath them and the movement of the waves and the sound of the wooden hull cutting through water. Loo tied the tiller in place to keep them on a straight path. Then she went back to Hawley.
“You missed him,” she said. “I can’t believe you missed.”