A small woman…that big steamer trunk. Bern thought about it. Lots of room in the trunk; the woman couldn’t weigh a hundred pounds.
Bern walked tiptoe soft to the balcony curtains, a good place to hide in a room where lights were dim.
R umbling thunder; lightning struck nearby, dishes rattled. Standing behind the curtain, Bern heard the woman stop at the top of the stairs. He couldn’t see her, but he heard her—a long silence. Maybe she was worried lightning had hit the house…or waiting for bicycle guy to follow.
He hoped not. Shit. He’d left Moe’s chrome .357 downstairs on the trunk, thinking that he would grab his reading glasses, return a second later, and be out of there.
Didn’t have his Luger, either. That was in the bay, Bern had tossed it off a bridge near Indian Harbor.
Bern expected her to turn on more lights. She didn’t. Heard the woman begin to hum a little tune…then she was singing softly.
Nice voice. It gave him a funny feeling. Like soft thunder, vibrating inside his chest.
Bern listened while waiting to see if bicycle guy appeared. He heard the woman cross the floor near the piano…heard her voice grow softer as she entered a hallway where there was an office and a guest room.
He had searched both, left them neat.
Bern peeked. She wasn’t there.
He peeked again a moment later and she was there. Standing right in front of him.
Jesus.
“Did I scare you, kiddo? Hello…I’m talking to you, dear, behind the curtain. Are we playing hide-and-seek? I hope so, because if you’re playing hard to get, you’ve chosen the wrong playmate. And the wrong house. Move.”
Bern did, feeling stupid…and there she was, the movie queen, not an old woman as expected. The piano was behind her as if she had just stepped out of the glamorous photo, but wearing a white robe, not a sequined gown, hair up because it was wet, holding a pistol in her left hand.
Older…but those eyes, her lips, were the same…
“Why are you in my house?”
Bern didn’t hear the question. He was staring at her face, feeling the heat of the woman’s eyes, thinking, It’s really her.
“My God, man, can’t you talk? You look like something that should be saddled and fed apples. Stomp once for no, dear.”
It was weird. All the nights he’d studied her photo, now here she was. Different-looking, for some reason, maybe because she was close enough to touch…or maybe because he’d heard her sing. Peculiar, the way her voice vibrated inside him.
Bern spoke. “I was…behind the curtain,” then grimaced because it was the sort of dumb thing he always said to beautiful women, unless it was sneaking up behind them in a parking lot, in control.
“Yes, the curtain, dear, I know. But I’m not Dorothy, and this isn’t Oz. Why are you here?”
He shook his head, trying to get rid of the spooky feeling. He focused on the gun she was holding. Goddamn, it was a German Luger. Not shiny like the one he’d used to kill Moe. The barrel showed some pitting. A real Luger. He was impressed.
Bern put on his smile. “Hey, I had a gun like that. Great little weapon, isn’t it?” He took a step toward the woman but stopped when she clicked the safety off, a distinctive sound Bern recognized.
Sounding suspicious, she asked, “Have we met? I would swear I’ve seen your face before.”
Bern shook his head slowly, not sure how she did that, made her voice sound spooky. “No.” But he was remembering the photo he’d found in the trunk. Everyone said Bern looked like his grandfather. If that’s what the woman was thinking, it probably wasn’t a good thing…
The softer her voicer, the spookier. “Are you certain? You look just like a man I once knew named Goddard. A very bad man.”
Bern thought about admitting it—yeah, you used to know my grandfather—but could see that would be dangerous, the way her eyes glittered.
She looked at him hard. “Are you here to rob me? Or have you already robbed me?”
The woman took a couple of slow steps backward, closer to the piano. It gave her time to glance to her left, then her right. Bern hadn’t ransacked the place. It looked the same as when he arrived.
Except for…shit, except for the booze. He’d left it on the counter.
She noticed. “A man your age out in a tropical storm stealing whiskey? Do you realize how pathetic that is? If your name’s not Goddard, then what is it?”
“Uh…Moe. My name is Moe.”
“Charming. There’s a meeting you should attend. Stand up and say, ‘Hello, my name is Moe!’ It may save you some doctor bills down the road.”
Now she was getting irritating. “I don’t need to go to AA meetings, lady. My health’s just fine.”
“Not after I shoot you.” The movie queen raised the Luger slightly, now holding it in both hands. Aiming at him.
“Hey. Wait a minute.” Bern began to back away.
She had one eye closed now, leaning as marksmen do just before they pull the trigger. “First offenders I generally just shoot in the stomach and let God decide. With you, though, Mr. Moe Goddard, I think I’ll make an exception.”
Jesus Christ! She meant it!
Bern was wondering just how much it was going to hurt, when lightning zapped the balcony railing. The movie queen’s eyes flicked to the window for only a second.
It was all the time Bern needed…
43
Chestra left during a lull in the storm, but a squall band was over the island now, lightning popping, and I could hear more rain rattling through trees toward the gazebo.
I also heard was a muffled bang. It sounded like a door slamming or the backfire of a car.
I checked my watch. Chestra had been gone nearly fifteen minutes. That seemed too long. I waited another five minutes before deciding it was too long. I should check on her.
My shirt and khaki slacks were hanging on a chair, still soaked. I dropped the towel and walked to the chair. I had one leg in my pants when I realized there was a vehicle sitting in the drive, headlights visible through the trees. They illuminated a section of Chestra’s house, the cab of my old Chevy, and froze silver tracers of rain.
I hadn’t heard it arrive, because of the storm.
As I zipped my pants, I opened the gazebo door for a better look. It was a pickup truck. Big tires, and vertical chrome exhaust pipes that would make a NASCAR rumble, if I was near enough to hear.
It was the same truck I had seen earlier that evening, lights out, parked in the drive.
I felt a chilly spike of awareness move from spine to neck, and I rushed to get the rest of my clothes, watching. As I hurried through bare trees, I saw Chestra’s front door open and a man appear. His shadow was massive on the house’s gray shingles. He turned and pulled an object through the doorway. Something heavy. I watched him drag the thing across the sand, toward the waiting truck.
I was looking for my shoes. Where were my shoes? I decided, to hell with my shoes, and charged out. As I did, I saw the man squat and heft the thing onto his shoulder. A box, maybe…or a sack. He took a few steps, then dumped it into the truck’s bed.
I yelled as I sprinted toward him.
There’s an old fake film clip of a creature that woodsmen in the Pacific Northwest call Sasquatch. In the clip, a guy in a hairy costume turns to face the camera, pauses, then flees, taking long, deliberate strides. The man’s reaction was similar: in a hurry but not scared.
He crossed in front of the truck’s headlights, then gave me one last look before getting into the cab. No, he wasn’t afraid. Not of me—although I doubt if he recognized me. It was Augie’s NFL-sized uncle from Indian Harbor. The man who’d head-butted me, then kicked me with contempt. The big square face; jaw like a robot, the frozen smile. He owned the marina where Javier had been shot and killed. Bern something…
The name came to me despite the crazy unreality of seeing the man here. At Chestra’s house. After midnight in a storm?
Bern Heller.
What was the connection?
He slammed the door, threw the truck into reverse, and backed out of the drive at an insane speed, tires squealing when they hit asphalt. The tires spun again when he sped away on Gulf Drive toward the lighthouse.
What the hell is going on?
The box…what was in the box? Old papers—my first thought. The promissory notes. Even if Heller knew about them, though, they couldn’t be that heavy.
He had left the door to the house open. I stopped, and yelled toward the stairs. “Chestra? Chestra!”
Silence.
“Marlissa!”
I heard a door slam, simultaneous with a gust of wind.
I considered running upstairs to look for the woman but my instincts were fixated on the weight of the box. Why was it so heavy? Why was the man in such a hurry? He was running for a reason.
I had witnessed Bern Heller’s secret craziness. I saw the vicious little boy who lived behind his eyes. If he had kidnapped Chestra…?
I sprinted to my truck, shifted to reverse, floored the accelerator, and turned onto Gulf Drive.
I t was raining again. The old truck’s wipers squeegeed brief snapshots of the road ahead. As I drove, my brain scanned for a connection.
Bern Heller…Sanibel…Javier…Indian Harbor…Chestra?
No meaningful linkage.
Gulf Drive turned sharply toward Casa Ybel Road. I nearly missed the curve. If my truck wasn’t so old and slow, I probably would have skidded into trees.
It was the back way to the causeway bridge. A route well known to locals, but Heller wasn’t local. If he wasn’t aware the bridge was closed, I had him. There would be police at the intersection turning away traffic—if there was any traffic on this stormy night. I would pull in close behind his vehicle, block his retreat, and ask the cops to take a look: Find out what was in the box he stole from my friend’s house.
I was torn. Had he kidnapped Chestra? Or was she still in the house, possibly badly hurt, unable to answer when I called her name But the box…its weight.
The thought of her stuffed into a box, riding through rain in the back of a truck, was sickening.
As I approached Beach Road, I saw taillights ahead. I couldn’t tell if it was Heller, but the vehicle didn’t turn toward the bridge. Nor did it turn on the next road, Lindgren Boulevard—the driver wasn’t escaping to the mainland via the causeway. The vehicle was headed for a residential area, streets named after seashells, then East Gulf Drive.
East Gulf Drive was near a large rind of public beach, the lighthouse, and deepwater docks on the bay side, Ferry Boat Landing, where Jeth moored the Viking…
The Viking…
That’s it.
The connection. I had it. Bern Heller and Sanibel. Jeth told me someone had snuck aboard the boat, stole some things—it was Heller. Which meant that he was no stranger to the area. But why was Chestra involved? I had no idea unless…
The wreck—Dark Light. Her family owned it. Heller had seen the Nazi artifacts. He wanted them, so did his nephew. Somehow, he had found her. The linkage was tenuous, but it was meaningful. It was all I had, and if I was right I knew where he was headed.
I was right.
W hen I skidded into the parking area at Ferry Boat landing, Heller’s truck was there—a much faster truck than mine, because the big man already had the Viking’s engines started. No cabin lights or navigational lights showing, but he was easy to spot. The docks were illuminated by shepherd’s crook lamps, plus the lighthouse was only a few hundred yards away: a medieval-looking tower capped with crystal. Its revolving column of light was much brighter here, illuminating clouds above, and whitecaps breaking bayside.
With each revolution, the beacon exposed Heller as if he were on stage. He was dragging a bag toward the Viking. A very heavy bag, not a box as I had thought. When he got to the gangplank, he lifted the bag, swung it to get momentum, then tossed it aboard.
I was out of the truck, running, and close enough to hear the bag hit. It was a sickening bone-on-wood sound. Distinctive, even with the rumble of engines.
He hadn’t noticed me pull in. I wanted to come up behind him and take him by surprise. He’d waved a semiautomatic at Jeth and me when he was seasick. Maybe he was carrying the gun now.
Maybe…
Behind me, headlights blinked from low beam to high. There was another vehicle in the parking lot. When Heller turned to look, he saw me. I watched his expression change from surprise to rage…then to recognition. He knew who I was. I was the Sanibel guy who’d taken the Viking from Augie. It registered on his face, a mixture of triumph and satisfaction.
His turn to steal the Viking.
Heller stepped aboard the boat and kicked the gangplank free. Before he turned to the controls and got under way, he showed me his vicious smile…along with his middle finger. Then he nudged both throttles forward.
It was like the day we’d found the wreck Dark Light. The day I watched his nephew make every mistake a novice could make, from bungling the anchor to losing this vessel.
Heller had already freed ropes at the front and back. But he hadn’t noticed four additional lines that ran from the Viking’s aft, middle, and forward cleats to outboard pilings—spring lines, they are called, because they absorb shock and limit a boat’s movement.
Jeth had used good braided line, and done a professional job, anticipating the storm.
When Heller pushed the throttles forward, the diesels rumbled, propellers frothed the water, ropes and the pilings creaked…but the boat didn’t move. He gunned it a couple of times…waited, then hit the throttles again before he shifted the engines to neutral.
I was sprinting full speed along the dock when Heller exited the cabin to see what the problem was. I didn’t break stride. His eyes widened as I leaped onto the Viking and put my shoulder down, hitting him belly high like a linebacker.
The bag he’d tossed onto the deck was there. I nearly tripped over it. An oversized duffel bag, like a pro jock might use. I only got a glimpse as we struggled, but a glimpse was all I needed.
Fingers of a human hand were visible, protruding through the top. Long white fingers, frail looking in death.
Chestra.
My legs continued to drive Heller backward across the deck. I wanted to kill him. But not here. He was bigger, stronger, and quicker. He had proven it. I wouldn’t give him another chance.
I used our momentum to back him up until he hit the guard railing. The man gave a woof of pain and surprise as we both tumbled overboard into black water.
I surfaced first, as a column of light panned the marina basin. The beam swept across me, then was gone. A moment later, Heller’s massive head appeared. He was sputtering and blowing water from his nose—draconic.
He was within arm’s reach, glaring at me. It must have surprised him when I submerged. I found his legs by feel and spun his back to me, as if I were a lifeguard making a rescue.
This was not a rescue.
I came up behind him and locked my arms around his neck, fingers burrowing into soft flesh beneath his jaw mandible. At the same time, I wound my legs through his legs from inside out. Like a grapevine.
He was immobile. The only thing keeping us on the surface was the air in his lungs, the air in my lungs.
From the parking lot, I heard a man yell. There was a sudden flurry of colored lights, red and blue mixing with the lighthouse’s pale metronome—police. How had they found me? The difference between perfect and imperfect timing is sometimes only a few seconds. Their timing was not perfect.
Heller began to speak, shouting, “What the hell do you think you’re doing, Ford—”
I silenced him, closing his throat with the edge of my forearm. An instant later, I ceased applying pressure. He inhaled mightily, then exhaled, making a guttural woof. Immediately, I ratcheted my forearm tight. His lungs were empty; mine, full. I exhaled as I readjusted my grip. I took the man under.
He struggled; I held. He b
ecame desperate—my arms and fingers were locked; his legs tied up by mine. Then he panicked, his strength freakish.
I anticipated the three stages. It is the way men die underwater. I had taken men better than Bern Heller beneath the surface. I knew.
Exhale and human lungs still retain a volume of air. Consciously, I relaxed all but those muscles required to control the man. He conserved nothing and therefore expended everything—his breath…his cold composure, once so intimidating. His life.
I waited. Patiently.
Underwater, the human eye fails, but pupils remain apertures sensitive to changes in darkness and light. My eyes moved to the surface where a radiant beam sped past…then another. The lighthouse’s pulse became an exact gauge of Heller’s slowing heartbeat.
Light-light…dark. Light-light…dark.
Unexpectedly, another light then appeared: a spear of incandescence that probed from the darkness above. Then there were several lights above us, much brighter. They were coming from the Viking, or the dock.
Heller’s huge hand had tried to break my fingers free of his throat. His hand was still locked on mine, but now only tapped gently, as if keeping time to a fading melody.
Police were up there waiting, I knew. I wanted only a few more seconds…
They didn’t allow it.
I felt a depth charge percussion, then another—the sound of men jumping into water. Their lights were beside me now. I felt frantic human hands grab my shirt. I pushed them away; they grabbed again. I surfaced, taking Heller with me.
Police, yes. Their lights were blinding…and their hurried questions, to my surprise, were based on a flawed assumption.
“Is he okay? Did he fall overboard?”
Talking about the unconscious man who was still alive: Bern Heller. The man they believed I had gone underwater to save.
T he police wanted me to look at the body inside the duffel bag.
I told them, “I’d rather not.”
They pressed.
EMTs were on scene. Heller was faceup on a gurney inside an ambulance. In the glare of lights and silver rain, efficient silhouettes moved around him working to bring him back.
I hoped they failed. I feared that if I saw Chestra’s body inside the bag, I would lose control and try to fight my way to the ambulance; try to get my hands around his throat—damning behavior for a man being credited for a heroic rescue attempt.
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