Something for Nothing

by David Anthony

  “But,” Slater said, “if you don’t mind, what I am gonna do is get something to drink out of your fridge here. I saw that you’ve got some beer stashed in there, and I’m dying for one. In fact, I can get one for you, too, if you want.”

  Slater walked over to the mini-fridge, crouched, opened it, and took out three cans of Coors. Then he stood up, set them down on the counter, and opened them. First one, and then the other, and the other. Fizz, pop. Fizz, pop. Fizz, pop. He looked at Martin, smiled, and flashed him the two-fingered V sign—the peace sign. Jesus, Martin thought. Talk about inappropriate. Or off the mark. Or just brutally sarcastic—which was the point, he realized.

  Slater took a big gulp of his beer and burped. He picked up the three beers by the tops of the cans, walked around the counter, and handed one to Martin where he was still sitting on the floor in the middle of the room.

  “‘Ere you go, mate,” he said. “Cheers.” He was affecting what Martin thought might be an Australian accent. Or maybe a British accent of some sort. He wasn’t sure. But it was unsettling, whatever it was.

  Slater stepped over the coffee table, set his beers down, and sat down on the couch with a grunt. He grabbed a beer, took another big swig, and then looked at Martin. Martin took a sip of his beer, and found to his surprise that he was really thirsty—or that he really needed a drink of beer. He took another long swallow, and then another. Then he burped, too.

  “Okay, then,” Slater said. “So this is the part where you tell me where the rest of Val’s money is. Because I know that you guys were planning a buy in Mexico in a few days, and that Val had the money for it at his house.”

  He took another long gulp of beer, and Martin watched his big Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed.

  “That’s right,” Slater said, looking at Martin and smiling. “I know all about that. And do you want to know how I know? Because I had a bug on Val’s phone line. Pretty good, huh? I set it up myself. Climbed up the telephone pole, did the whole fucking thing. No one else in the department knows about it. I’m the expert from Oakland, you know? The big-time drug guy. I’m like . . . I don’t know, the Reggie Jackson of narcotics detectives out there. Which means that these suburban narco clowns, they let me do whatever the fuck I want.” He laughed and held his hands out in a can-you-believe-that? kind of gesture.

  Then he sat forward, took a long swig, and looked down at Martin.

  “Not that it matters,” he said. “But I’ll tell you that this whole bad cop thing is actually pretty new for me. It’s only since I switched out to the suburbs. I mean, I’m running all these wire taps, on Val Desmond’s house and a few other places, and basically I’m spending my time listening to guys like you talk to guys like Val. And I’m thinking, are you fucking kidding me? I’m used to dealing with real criminals, the fucking blacks and the Mexicans and the Asians out in Oakland and Richmond and those places. Or the Hells Angels. Those guys are bad news. Scary. And gangs? You don’t want to know.” He shook his head. He emptied his beer and threw it toward the kitchen, where it landed with a tinny, bouncy clatter. Then he burped again.

  “But you guys,” he said. “I mean, Jesus Christ. Race horses and boats and planes and on and on. And I thought, this is different. This is the suburbs. No one gets hurt out here. It’s just rich kids in daddy’s car. So I began thinking, what if I can tap into a little of that? I mean, enough is enough. I live out in fucking Martinez, you know? ’Tinez. My wife is a waitress, I’m a cop, and we live with two kids in a shitty little three-room ranchhouse. And in a smelly neighborhood. Because of the fucking refineries. It’s terrible. Who knows what the cancer rate is out there. And the schools, they suck, because what teachers want to live out there?”

  He picked up his second beer, took another long draw from it, and sat back again on the couch. He looked like a guy digging in for a Sunday of football watching. Maybe the Raiders and the Steelers. Ken Stabler and Franco Harris. What the hell.

  “And the kicker is that I’ve been shot not once but twice,” Slater said. He was talking to Martin, but he was looking across the room, over Martin’s shoulder and toward the door. Martin was tempted to turn and see what he was looking at, but he was afraid to distract him.

  “And what do I have to show for it?” he asked. “For two bullets in the line of duty? Nothing. Some big ugly scars that I can show off to other cops. Or at drug classes like the one your daughter took. And then I see guys like you, skimming off the top, working the system—all of you. You all want a free ride, no questions asked. And from what I can tell, you’re all getting it. So I thought, fuck it, I’m gonna get a little for me, too.”

  Now, finally, Slater was quiet for a minute or two. He seemed suddenly like an overwound clock that had run down. Martin was quiet, too. Thinking. Slater’s rant had given him time to think, and the beer was helping him sort things out, feel less confused. Not less scared—he was more scared every second, in fact. Because he was fully aware now that Slater was really, genuinely dangerous. Crazy dangerous. This guy is nuts, he thought, and unless I figure something out pretty quick, I’m dead. He’s gonna get me to tell him where the money is, and then he’s gonna kill me, just like he killed Val and Angela. Why wouldn’t he? He shot Angela right in the back, for Christ’s sake. And he’ll make it look like I was killed by the same guy who gunned down Val and Angela.

  In fact, Martin thought, he might even frame Hano for it. Because if he’d been bugging Val’s phones, he knew who Hano was. (And how ironic was that, by the way? Coppola had been right.) Why not frame Hano?

  But then it occurred to Martin that there were probably plenty of Hanos out there for Slater to choose from. Including Martin himself. That’s right—maybe Slater would frame Martin for killing Val and Angela. He’d kill him, and then set it up so that he looked like the guy. What would Linda and the kids make of that? Would Linda refuse to believe that her husband was capable of such a thing, even in the face of overwhelming evidence? Probably not. She’d be horrified, but she’d think it was simply part of whatever had started a year or so ago, and that had included his theft of a jewelry box from his neighbor’s house. He’d simply unraveled, until she really didn’t even know who he was anymore.

  The thought of his family suddenly overwhelmed him, and he was pretty sure he was going to start crying. His stomach and his side were incredibly sore, and he was running out of energy. But, he knew, this wasn’t the time to give in. He needed to think clearly, come up with a plan of some sort.

  “All right, Slater,” Martin said. His voice croaked when he spoke; even though he’d finished his beer, his mouth was dry. “I’ll tell you where the money is. No problem. We can go there right now. I don’t give a shit. Really.”

  And it was true. He didn’t care about the money. But still, if he could have pulled it out of his pocket right now and given it to Slater, he wouldn’t have done it. Because Slater would kill him right there, no question about it. And Martin wanted to live.

  Slater nodded, a slow up and down movement, definitive. “Good,” he said. “That’s the answer I wanted to hear. You’re not so stupid after all, Martin. I knew it. I knew I could count on you. Fucking Val Desmond. He gave me all kinds of attitude. He was a real prick. Unbelievable. But you’re gonna make this easy, right?”

  “That’s right,” Martin said. “All we have to do is run the boat out to Suisun Bay. It’s out there. We’ve got plenty of time if we leave right now.”

  Slater looked confused. “Suisun Bay? What the fuck are you talking about? Do you mean up by Benicia and Martinez?”

  Martin gave an exaggerated shrug. “Yeah,” he said. “That’s where I hid it. I didn’t want it anywhere near me. I didn’t want to be tempted to go and get it, at least not for a while.”

  “Suisun Bay,” Slater said again. “Okay, whatever.” He shook his head. “But we’ll just drive. I don’t have all night to play around on your boat, Martin. I’m supposed to be tracking down the ruthless drug dealer that gunned down Val D
esmond and his wife. I’ve got a job, you know.”

  He chuckled at his own joke, but Martin held his gaze. He had to hang in there. He was making this up as he went along, but he thought he’d come up with something. It was kind of ridiculous, but he was hoping that it was so odd and wacky that Slater would buy it. It was worth a try. If they just drove out to the orchard behind Miriam’s house, he didn’t have a chance. He could see it. First, Slater makes him dig up the money—his buried treasure. Then he makes Martin keep digging, so that the hole is big enough for Martin to lie down in. Then he puts a bullet in his brain. Sorry, Martin. That’s what he’d say as he shoveled big clods of dirt onto him, hiding him until the stench of his corpse eventually led someone to look for the source. (Is this Martin Anderson, the guy who went missing? I think so. It must be. Wow! He must have gotten mixed up in something really nasty for this to happen.)

  Martin coughed, and his side seized up with pain. “No,” he said. “We can’t drive. We have to take the boat. Because the money is out in the bay—on the water. I hid it on the water.”

  Slater was quiet for a second. “What do you mean, you hid it on the water?” he asked. “Is it on a buoy or something? I mean, is it safe? Did you fuck this up, Martin? Did you lose the fucking money?”

  “No,” Martin said. He made an effort to sound irritated. He knew he needed to sound confident. “It’s not on a buoy. And yeah, it’s safe. It’s on a boat. On one of the mothball fleet ships. You know, out in the bay. In Suisun Bay, like I said. My son and I go out there to fish sometimes, and . . . I don’t know, I just thought it was a good spot. To hide it away for a while. I mean, who would ever look there? So, yeah, I took the boat out there, climbed up the ladder on the side of one of the ships, and hid the money in a little storeroom. But don’t worry, because it’s in an ammo box. It’s watertight, airtight, and all that. I even locked up the door of the shed it’s in with a big padlock. It’s fine.”

  Slater was quiet for a second, processing. “Jesus Christ, Martin,” he said, finally. “That’s the craziest thing I’ve ever heard. Those boats are pretty fucking huge, aren’t they? What the hell?”

  Martin smiled. It was a forced smile, a fake smile, but it wasn’t hard to produce, for some reason. He could do this. He’d get Slater out there, and then he’d at least have a chance. He knew Slater was afraid of the water; hadn’t he said he couldn’t swim very well, and that this was one reason he hadn’t gotten a swimming pool for his kids? It was while he was watching Sarah and Peter play in the pool out at Martin’s house, when he’d said he was thinking about an above-ground pool for his own house. So, yeah, he was hoping that he’d have an opportunity to knock him overboard, somehow. Either that, or use his pistol. Because, yes, he’d remembered a couple of minutes ago that he had his .22 right in his pocket. He couldn’t get it out now; Slater would pounce on him in a flash. He knew that. Pounce on him and beat the life out of him. Literally. But if he could put some space between himself and Slater at some point . . . well, it might work.

  “Look,” Martin said. Again he went for slightly irritated. “It’s a better hiding place than the one Val used, right? A lot better. And I’m telling you, it’s just a big graveyard out there. That’s what they call it, in fact—a ship graveyard. No one ever goes on them. They’re just sitting there because no one wants to admit that they’re useless now. The next time someone gets on that boat, it’ll be because they’re getting ready to scrap it. And that won’t happen for a long time, believe me. Because even scrapping it costs lots of money, and no one has any money anymore. Right? Except the drug dealers, that is.”

  Slater liked this, he could tell. “You’re right about that,” he said. He shook his head.

  “Okay,” Martin said. He wanted to keep the momentum going, didn’t want to get sidetracked. “So, what do you say? Can I get up and get us ready, get things going?”

  Slater looked at him for a second, and Martin could see the wheels turning in his head. His cat eyes narrowed a little.

  “Just tell me one thing,” he said. “If you can do that, then we’ll go.”

  Martin shrugged. “Okay,” he said. “Fine. What do you want to know?”

  “What’s the name of the boat that you put the money on? What’s it called?”

  Martin didn’t even pause. “The SS O’Brien,” he said. “You’ll see. There’s a big ladder right on the side.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  It was about seven by the time they got through the Oakland estuary, where they had to putt along at a slow speed, and then out into the San Francisco Bay proper. It was now downright chilly. The fog had waited like a barbarian horde just beyond the Golden Gate Bridge, but now it was pouring into the bay, big time. It would cool things off for a while, especially the bay side of the foothills. There was a layer of gray clouds close overhead, and Martin could see a wall of gray-white fog not far off, around Alcatraz. Half of San Francisco was already enveloped in it. Martin wondered what it would be like by the time they got out to Suisun Bay.

  Martin stood at the lower helm, adjusting the speed every now and then, and Slater sat on a seat a few feet back, watching him. The bay sped past underneath them, and the boat rocked up and down with the steady slap, slap of the hull hitting the water as they cut northward.

  Fortunately, the water was pretty calm, almost no chop at all. That was good. Martin was able to cruise along at a nice clip, about twenty knots. They’d be out to the mothball fleet in an hour or so. There was plenty of light left. Sunset wasn’t until almost 9:00 p.m. As long as the fog didn’t block everything out, they’d be fine.

  They came up on the Bay Bridge. The sun was too low in the sky to create the kind of dramatic shadow you’d see earlier in the day as you moved under the bridge (Peter always liked that, for some reason; he would point at it and make a big deal about it). But as they passed under the bridge, Slater slapped Martin on the shoulder, pointed upward, and yelled, “Commuters.” Martin nodded. Slater wasn’t referring just to the cars themselves, but to the whole lifestyle of commuting—which was, of course, the lifeblood of the suburbs. Hop in your car, drive, take the bridge in to work. Then get back in your car, cross over the bridge again, and go home. And of course it was a given that there would be a backup on the bridge. Traffic would grind to a halt, and you’d sit there like an asshole, swearing and fiddling with the radio and asking yourself why you were doing this.

  He looked back at the bridge as they moved north, the boat slapping and sending spray out to the sides. Through the steel girders he could see that the cars were moving along in what seemed, at least from his perspective down on the water, to be a slow, antlike progression. He wondered which of them were headed back out to Walnut Station.

  He turned back to watch the water, feeling nervous. He didn’t actually have a plan—wasn’t at all sure how this was going to work out. He did know he didn’t want to be climbing up into the O’Brien, pretending something was there when it wasn’t. But what to do? Ask Slater to steer and then pop him in the back of the head with the .22? Not likely. The minute they’d left the dock, Martin had begun to see that Slater really was afraid of all things water. He wasn’t going to steer the boat. Plus, he wasn’t stupid—it wasn’t going to be easy to get the drop on him. He was sitting right there behind Martin, patient and concentrating.

  One option was to act like the boat had died out—that it had run out of gas. Maybe then he could figure out a way to separate himself from Slater. Tell him he had to go below and fix something, then sneak up on him and whack him over the head with the big pipe wrench he had in his tool box? Or (again) just shoot him? No. Too far-fetched. Slater wouldn’t buy it. Plus, Martin knew for sure that there was no way to sneak up on Jim Slater.

  He didn’t know what do. He’d had a brief moment in which he thought that if they could just get out onto the water, and maybe to Suisun Bay, that things would work out. But why would they? He was in as much of a jam now, speeding across the bay, as he’d been
sitting in his slip at the marina.

  The engine was pretty loud, and with the wind whipping through their hair, it was hard to talk. And there really wasn’t anything to talk about, anyway. They’d done their talking, Martin thought. In fact, any more talk and it would be weird. And so at least half an hour went by without either of them saying anything. Martin wondered what Slater was thinking about. Killing Val and Angela? Probably not. He didn’t seem fazed by this in the slightest (which was terrifying). No, he was most likely thinking about how he’d spend his money once he had it. A gift for his wife. Buy that pool—or no, move out of Martinez altogether. Maybe move into Martin Anderson’s house, after his widow put it up for sale; that house had a nice in-ground pool (and the high school was supposed to be wonderful). Or he was thinking about how to cover his tracks. Martin knew Slater wouldn’t try to kill him out on the water; he needed Martin to get him back to the dock—to land. But after that . . . well, maybe he was thinking about that right now, too.

  Once they were past the central part of the San Francisco Bay and into San Pablo Bay, the fog was closer. The bulk of it wasn’t on them yet, but there were patches of it here and there as they motored along. There was a good chance they’d be enveloped in it as they pulled close to the ships out there—that area was notoriously foggy. Martin knew this would be really bad, because he didn’t know his way around the fleet very well. Not well enough to do it blind, that’s for sure.

  As if reading Martin’s mind, Slater pointed toward the fog. “Can we get lost out here?” he yelled over the sound of the boat’s engine. “Do you know how to navigate in the fog—or at night? You’ve got some sort of radar, right?”

  Martin nodded. “Don’t worry!” he shouted.

  Half an hour later they were passing under the Martinez Bridge, heading east now as the upper bay pushed inland, into Suisun Bay proper. Martin could see the mothball fleet in the distance. The ships were still about half a mile or so away, and they looked small—like a bunch of cabin cruisers, similar to the Viking. But with every minute or two that passed, the ships appeared larger, until soon they were looming up out of the water and towering above them.