“A deal you need, Alan. The way I figure it, you must need that key pretty badly to go to all this time and trouble.” I paused, then dropped my bomb. “And if so, Hudson must have stashed something valuable in that Crown Royal bottle.”
Alan almost dropped his icepick. “How do you know it’s a Crown Royal bottle?”
“What, you think you’re playing with kids here?”
“Go on.”
“If I get you the key and tell you where to use it, you can retrieve whatever it is that you think Hudson owes you. Right?”
“You have a flair for the obvious.”
Playing by the seat of my dampening pants, I said, “So, answer this for me. Why didn’t Hudson get his own stuff? He knew where to go. And I know for a fact that if he showed up there in person, he would be given access. So why did he need the stupid key?”
Alan, for the first time, looked unsure of himself. “You tell me, Hetta, since you are so very smart.”
“Smart enough to get into what that key opens, and without too much attention being paid to me, what with me being Hudson’s widow and all. I produce a death certificate and a fake marriage license, et voila! And I know for a fact that certain police agencies have been looking for a white guy, not a white gal. I also suspect that there are some thugs even more unsavory than you looking for you or Hudson, or both. I can get the goods.” I hoped Alan wasn’t sharp enough to pick up on the lameness of my spiel. I didn’t give him time to analyze. “That way, you don’t have to take any more risks, and I get back some of what Hudson owes me. I have to assume there is something besides Crown Royal involved here.”
“And, I suppose you’ll trot right back and split the proceeds with me,” he said, sarcasm dripping from each word.
“No, I’ll meet you somewhere, say, Hong Kong. Give you the goods and you’ll give me the fifteen hundred dollars Hudson stole from me, plus interest. And travel expenses.”
Alan looked nonplused for a moment, then broke into laughter. “Oh, Hetta,” he said when he caught his breath, “you really are a piece of work.” Then his face turned dark and his voice sinister. “Cut the crap and get the key. I don’t want to kill you, but I can make you tell me anything I want. Make it easy on yourself. Unless you’d like a new specially trained dog and a white cane.”
Gulp. “It’s in a galley locker. You can get it yourself.” I said quickly, a little too quickly.
Alan thought so, as well. He gave me a skeptical look. “That was too easy. From what Hudson has told me about you, you’ve probably got the damned key rigged to a rat trap.”
Now, why didn’t I think of that? I tried to look guilty.
“Get it, or I swear I will hurt you very badly.”
I walked woodenly towards the locker, thinking as fast as I could. Had I slipped the safety off either of the guns? Could I grab one, turn, and shoot before Alan speared me like a cocktail olive? Hell, could I get to the closet without leaving a wet trail behind me?
Alan followed close on my heels, keeping his free hand on my right shoulder, his lethal hand somewhere behind me. Probably poised over some vital organ.
I opened the cabinet, reached high to divert his eyes upwards, away from the shotgun propped on the floor. In one swift movement, I ducked, grabbed the gun and swept the buttstock behind me, into his shin. Much lower than I’d planned, dammit. However, the stock connected with a satisfying crack of bone, and Alan howled in pain. I whirled, coming face to face with his hate-filled eyes. I gave him a shove, using the gun as a ram. I’d hoped to push him onto his butt. Instead, he tottered and then righted himself. Not only did the short little shit have good balance, he still had a firm grip on the pick. He took two involuntary steps backwards, allowing me room to aim the gun at his middle. We were in a Mexican standoff, five feet apart. We both panted with exhaustion and fear, me with the gun, he with the pick.
“Gee, Alan, ain’t it just like a damned Limey to bring an icepick to a gun fight? Now, drop it. And get off my boat.” I tried my best to sound like Harrison Ford.
Incredibly, Alan smiled. Or rather, something between a smile and a snarl. “You won’t shoot me.”
“Wanna stake your life on it? I am, after all, a member of the DAR, you know. Not only am I willing to shoot you, I want to, you Redcoat.”
His smile wavered, but he stood his ground for a full minute, considering his options, before dropping the pick to the carpet. “You win,” he said, and turned to go.
I followed.
Too closely.
In a flash he dropped, turned, swooped up his weapon, and lunged at me. Caught off guard, I was knocked to the floor. I deflected his arm with the gun barrel, but it slid forward and I felt the icepick plunge into my neck. A quick, sharp jab, then it was out and I lay stunned. Instinctively, I grabbed my neck as Alan wrenched the gun from me.
He had my gun and I was going to die. Now that he thought the key was actually in the closet, he had no reason to keep me alive. Sometimes I’m way too clever for my own good.
“Hetta,” Alan crooned, “you have really, really pissed me off. Say good-bye now.”
“Alan,” a voice boomed, “drop the gun.”
“Huh?” he said, whirling and looking around.
I peeked up from the floor, also looking for Jenks. That was his voice we heard, right?
Jenks’s disembodied voice repeated, “Drop the gun, Alan, the boat is surrounded by United States Coast Guard personnel. Every move you’ve made in the past fifteen minutes has been video taped. Surrender your weapon.”
I was as puzzled as Alan, but he figured things out and reacted faster than I did. He shot an obscene gesture at a hidden speaker mounted behind a fake smoke detector and snarled, “Then you can record me blowing her fucking head off. On second thought, get up, Hetta. I believe I’ve found a use for you after all.”
All those hostage scenes on television flashed through my mind. Let’s see, was I supposed to do as told? Scream? Faint? What? Alan nudged me with the gun barrel, and I meekly stood up. No Kinsey Millhone, here.
Prodded along by my own shotgun, I led as we exited the cabin—away from those lovely cameras and Jenks’s voice—back to the aft deck. As we prepared to descend the swim ladder to the dive platform I looked around, hoping to see the promised armada of gunboats. I wasn’t the only one trying to pull off a bluff. Not a blinking red or blue light or a circling copter in sight. Crap, there’s never a warship around when you need one. I’d have to write my congressman.
I turned to go down the ladder, but Alan jerked me back by my tee shirt collar. It hurt. And I noticed his hand, when he let go, was bloody. I had a feeling the blood wasn’t his.
“Hold it,” he said, wiping his hand on his sweater.
“You know, Alan, you’ll never get that stain out,” I said, giggling. What the hell was wrong with me? I’d only had one sip of my drink.
“Aren’t you the cool one. I fail to see the humor in our situation. Especially your situation. Now listen carefully, Hetta. I’m going down the ladder first. I don’t want you to get any smart idea about jumping.”
“Look, you don’t even need me. You can see for yourself that Jenks was bluffing.”
“Maybe, maybe not. The Coast Guard isn’t here yet, but I’ll wager they’re on the way, so I’ll need you for a bit longer. You stand very, very still, because if you so much as blink an eyelash I’ll blow you into tiny pieces.”
I nodded numbly as he began down the ladder one rung at a time, the gun trained on my forehead. I was losing hope. We’d be long gone before the Coast Guard showed up. After Ed called, he’d obviously turned on the cameras and been listening and watching, but had Alan or I mentioned that he had a dinghy and a sailboat nearby? I didn’t think so. We could be in Alan’s boat and out of the cove before anyone showed up. They wouldn’t know to look for his boat. Drat.
Alan, standing on the last rung of the ladder, never took his eyes from me as he stepped onto the dive platform. And smack onto Eco.
<
br /> My duck protested with a loud, gravely squawk that sounded a great deal like “AFLAC” and began pecking wildly at Alan’s fashionably bare ankles.
Alan, startled, fell backwards, but not before he pulled the trigger. I shut my eyes and dodged as the shotgun roared. I was a beat too slow. Hot buckshot parted my hair in several places, one pellet plowing a stinging trench down the center of my scalp and knocking me backward onto the sundeck. Prone and dazed, I heard Alan flailing in the cold bay water and Eco quacking to beat the band.
Pushing myself to seated, I was almost forced flat again by my whirling head. Bracing on one arm, I could hear the persistent thumping noise of Alan trying to get purchase on the slimy, duck-fertilized dive platform. I crawled to the rail and looked over the side.
The shotgun was gone, no doubt twenty-five feet or so under the boat. Alan, who by his own admission was a non-swimmer, gave up on the slick platform and dog paddled towards his dinghy. If he got into the inflatable, he was only a short step away from boarding Sea Cock, and it would be over my dead body. Which, by the way, was what I was sure I would be if he managed to board. Blood ran into my eyes and my head spun. With one last burst of adrenalin-fueled will, I pulled myself to my feet, staggered down the stairs to the galley locker and grabbed my .38. Seconds later, I was back on the sundeck. Lights shown from many boats in the anchorage, their crews no doubt juddered awake by a gunshot vibrating the tranquil early morning. Finally, I heard a siren and saw, racing towards the anchorage, several flashing blue lights. The cavalry.
Fussy quacking and a splashing noise drew my attention back aft, where Alan, much to the displeasure of Eco, had one foot in his dinghy and another on my dive platform.
“Oh, Alan,” I called sweetly.
He looked up and I trained the Smith and Wesson to a spot between his eyebrows. The dark eyes that one time sought to mesmerize and seduce now were wide with alarm. And rightly so, because I was extremely pissed off.
Looking me square in the eyes, Alan, despite his obvious fear, defiantly shifted his weight forward, preparing to step from the dinghy onto the dive platform.
I put the first round into a section of his inflatable’s flotation chamber, not six inches from his foot. It popped like a balloon and he fell back on his ass, cringing and stunned. As he huddled in the center of the dink, I took aim at one of the remaining air chambers.
“This,” I pulled the trigger, “is for stealing my mail.” Kapow! The bullet hit with a satisfying smack and whoosh of escaping air. The dinghy listed to port.
“And for shooting at me and sticking me in the neck with my own Georg Jensen silver.” Kablooie!
“This is for stepping on my duck.” Kablam!
I was really starting to enjoy this. POW! POW! POW! One by one the remaining chambers blew and the dingy began to take on more and more water.
Satisfied I had sunk the bastard, I started to put down the gun, then changed my mind. I reloaded. “And for invading New Orleans, you Redcoat!” I let his dinghy have three more rounds.
As the smoke cleared, I was rewarded with a whimper from Alan and the satisfying hiss of escaping air. I think it was from the dinghy.
“In case you didn’t count, you lowlife son of a bitch, I saved three special bullets for your gas tank. I can’t miss in three. Try putting one foot on my boat and I’ll turn you into extra crispy shark bait. Here, let me get that line for you.”
He watched with dull eyes as I untied his dinghy painter and threw it in the water. A stiffening breeze immediately started blowing what was left of his dinghy away from Sea Cock.
Alan sat, dazed and adrift in a sinking dink, foisted by my own canard.
48
“Help me, Hetta! Hetta, please. I’m sinking. I can’t swim.”
Who could ignore such a pitiful plea?
I could. I yelled back, “I can’t swim either, Alan. Looks like this ain’t your day. Night. Whatever.” Even if I could swim, I couldn’t and wouldn’t jump in that old cold bay. I was so overwhelmingly exhausted that there was no way I could save the rat bastard if I’d wanted to. Which I didn’t.
I crumpled to Sea Cock’s deck, cradling the still warm .38 in my lap. I was shaking badly and nauseated by the sight of my own blood running down my arms from wounds in my neck and scalp. Wounds, I might add, inflicted by the very man now pleading for me to save his sorry ass. I wondered if the words “divine justice” meant anything at all to him.
Evidently not. He continued to whine lies.
“Hetta, I’m truly sorry. I really mean it. I wouldn’t have killed you. I was desperate for that key. I’ll do anything. Don’t let me drown. Please, as a friend.”
A friend in need is a pest.
I struggled to my feet, worked my way to the flying bridge and flipped on the spotlight. After a couple of sweeps, I saw Alan. A one-foot chop slapped at his rapidly deflating dinghy. Yep, he was sinking, all right.
Alan shook his fist at me, which caused what was left of the dinghy to slip out from under him. He went under as well, but came back up spluttering. He glared in my direction and yelled. “Hetta, you fat bitch. May you rot in hell.”
I always was a sucker for sweet talk.
I sighed and began releasing the clips on my dinghy chocks. I would lower it and let the wind carry it in Alan’s direction. If he hadn’t drowned by then, he could crawl in. Before I was able to launch the inflatable with my electric davit, I had to first start the generator. Alan would just have to, appropriately, dog paddle. The anchorage was getting choppier by the minute, whipped up by, wouldn’t you know it, a west wind. Friggin’ dandy.
I made my wobbly way to the main cabin, but by the time I reached the control panel to turn on the genset, I could barely stand. I didn’t understand why. Sure, I was bleeding pretty good and feeling featherbrained after the struggle with Alan, but surely I could handle—
“Hetta. Hetta, can you hear me?” I heard a disembodied voice say. My first thought was that Alan had somehow regained access to the boat and was here to finish me off. Then I realized the voice belonged to Jenks.
“I hear you, you...deserter.” I wanted to say more, a lot more, but I was too tired.
“Sweetheart, we can talk about that later.”
Sweetheart? I’d like to carve his sweet heart out and stuff.... Jenks was still talking. His voice was all wavy, coming in and out. And the lights in the cabin were dimming. The batteries must have been lower than I thought. Must be the spotlight drawing them down.
“Hetta, listen to me. Put your fingers over that neck wound and push really hard. Someone will be there to help you in a few minutes. Hang in there, honey.”
“No problemo, honey,” I said, and giggled.
I tried to lift my hand to do as he said, but it was soooo heavy. I sat heavily into my desk chair and, by leaning onto my elbow, was able to cradle my neck and apply pressure. Blood ran down my arm, pooled on the desk and then dripped onto the rug. Well, that would have to go. Never can get bloodstains out of wool, you know. Merde, a gal just can’t seem to keep a carpet these days.
I suddenly felt very, very cold and then the lights went out.
* * *
“...and just look at what this boating has done to your hands. These nails!” I felt mother’s hand holding mine, heard her soothing voice and then an emery board began smoothing ragged edges from my fingernails.
“Mama? What are you doing on the boat?” I said. Evidently she didn’t hear me, because she kept filing and talking, filing and talking. I forced my eyes open so I could see her, but when I focused, it was Daddy holding my hand.
“Thanks for the manicure,” I said, startling him. He grinned, I went back to sleep and when I next opened my eyes Mama, Daddy, Jan, Detective Martinez, and Jenks were all staring at me. Was I dead? Oh, merde.
I then realized I couldn’t possibly have croaked, because RJ wasn’t there and I know for absolute damned certain that when I do die I’ll see that dog again. So I figured, if I’m not dea
d, I must still be at Clipper Cove. How did these folks all get on Sea Cock? I never even got the dinghy lowered for Alan. Alan? I struggled to get up, get away from him, but Jenks pulled me to his chest and I went back to sleep. But not before wondering who in the hell redecorated my boat. In white, for pity’s sake!
Zut alors! That blue had started to grow on me.
49
I was released from Berkeley’s Alta Bates Hospital two days later, still a little weak and with a few stitches in my neck and a couple of new parts in my hair. Other than that, I was fine, if you can call losing three days and several pints of blood “fine.”
Just Add Water (Hetta Coffey Mystery Series (Book 1)) Page 30