by Paul Levine
"To kill me. You, too, probably."
"Jesus, Fowles! Do you have any weapons?"
"Not even a speargun," the Brit said with a sad smile.
The sound of rapid-fire gunshots crackled across the water.
Steve ducked lower into his seat. "What now?"
"How much air you have?"
"Maybe fifteen minutes. Less if I'm scared shitless, which I am."
Gunshots ricocheted off the steel hull of the chariot.
"Crew, prepare to dive!" Fowles ordered, sounding no doubt like his grandfather in a Norwegian fjord.
Steve pulled down his mask and readied his mouthpiece and regulator. "You still haven't told me. Who is that guy?"
"Name's Conchy Conklin."
Fowles bit down on his mouthpiece, opened the ballast tank, and pushed the joystick forward. The chariot took them under just as another gunshot pinged off the rusty old craft.
Forty-six
LIFE IN PAST TENSE
Who the hell is Conchy Conklin? And why does he want to kill me?
Killing Fowles, Steve could understand. The Brit was a poached egg, ready to crack. When he did, he'd implicate Conklin and whoever hired them both. From everything Willis Rask had said, Conklin was a lowlife without the brains to pull off a sophisticated bribery scheme. His boss was the one who wanted Griffin convicted of murder and Oceania buried at sea. But who was his boss? Fowles never said.
As the chariot descended, bullets streaked through the water. Dying with a whoosh-whoosh above their heads. Steve felt his heart racing, and he had a case of cotton mouth from the tank air. Then another sound, the rumble of the Cigarette's props, plowing overhead.
They were at twenty feet and descending at a steep angle. Safe as long as their air held out. But no way to outrun the boat. Or to sneak away. Their bubbles could be followed as surely as Hansel's trail of bread crumbs.
When they reached the bottom, Fowles put the chariot down hard. The craft bounced twice in the sand, scattering some spiny lobsters. The sounds above them dimmed, the speedboat idling, Conklin waiting for their next move.
But there was no move. Nothing to be done. The chariot was their metal coffin. Wasn't your whole life supposed to flash before your eyes when you faced death? But no. Steve was thinking they should try something. Anything.
In the front seat, Fowles craned his neck, looking up. Steve tapped him on the shoulder, then gestured with both hands. He pointed toward the boat above, then touched Fowles' chest and pointed one direction, then touched his own chest and pointed another.
Send the chariot up toward the boat, and you and I swim off in different directions.
Fowles' eyes seemed to squint behind his mask. Then he shook his head.
Steve checked his air gauge. The needle was at the red line. Maybe five hundred pounds of air. God, had he been sprinting? Just a few minutes left.
Now, images did appear to Steve. Quick ones, flashing by. His mother, dead all these years from a vicious cancer. His father, young, handsome, and prosperous. Bobby the day Steve carried him out of the hellhole where Janice kept him caged. Herbert would have to take care of the boy now.
I can live with that. Or die with it. My old man's a better grandfather than he ever was a father.
Then Victoria's face floated by. He smiled and almost laughed, exhaling through his nostrils and momentarily fogging his mask.
She made me laugh. So upright and uptight. From that first day in the jail cells together, she made me laugh.
Realizing that he was thinking in past tense, that his life would soon be discussed by others, if at all, in past tense.
Fowles was banging something against the metal hull. Trying to get his attention.
The magnetic slate.
Okay, what?
Fowles wrote something on the slate, showed it to Steve.
"I killed Stubbs."
Yeah. Yeah. We've been through that, Steve thought. You sort-of killed Stubbs. You're morally responsible. What of it? Why now?
Steve shrugged and raised both hands, palms up, showing his confusion.
Fowles scrawled something else and held up the slate.
"Clive A. Fowles."
I get it now, buddy. A signed confession. To help Griffin. That's great. But only if someone is alive to haul it into court.
Fowles grabbed Steve by the shoulder and motioned for him to get out of the chariot. When Steve didn't move, Fowles grabbed his air hose and pulled.
Okay. Okay.
Steve unbuckled and floated out of the chariot. Fowles punched his fist toward the sandy bottom: "Stay here!" Then he thrust the slate at Steve and made one final gesture. Raising his right hand above his head, he flashed the V for Victory sign. A second later, he purged the ballast tank and pulled back on the joystick. The chariot flew upward at a sharp angle.
Maybe it was the fatigue or the fear or the oxygen-nitrogen mixture that fogged his brain. Whatever the reason, it took Steve several seconds to figure out exactly what Fowles was doing.
He was attacking Conklin the same way his grandfather had attacked the Tirpitz.
Gripping the slate, Steve swam after the chariot.
Why? He didn't know exactly. Except it seemed unmanly to sit on the bottom of the ocean while Clive Fowles chased the Victoria Cross his grandfather had won.
Steve kicked hard but, above him, the chariot rapidly picked up speed, putting distance between them. Without a heavy warhead in the bow, without Steve's weight, and with its ballast tank blowing, the chariot could burst from the water like a Polaris missile. Except it was headed straight for the hull of the Cigarette.
The chariot's propeller churned white water, and Steve didn't have a good view. Still, he knew Fowles was aiming for a spot where the fuel lines came out of the Cigarette's lightweight aluminum tanks.
He felt the explosion before he heard it.
The shock wave compressed his chest.
The sound pounded at his eardrums with a thunderclap of pain.
He tumbled toward the bottom with terrifying speed.
Arse-over-tits. That's what Fowles would have called it if he could have survived the explosion and fireball. That was Steve's last thought before his head crunched into the sandy bottom, and everything went dark.
Forty-seven
THE DRAMA QUEEN
"How long have you worked for Poseidon?" Victoria asked.
"Twenty-three years," Charles Traylor said. He was a portly man in his fifties who looked as if he never left the Jacuzzi, much less dived to the bottom of an Atlantic trench. On direct examination, he'd testified that it was "highly unlikely" the Poseidon Mark 3000 speargun, powered by a pneumatic blast of air, could accidentally discharge while being loaded.
"Another two years, you'll get that nice pension."
"Not sure I follow your drift."
"You're a loyal employee, Mr. Traylor. You run Poseidon's quality-control department and you've certified the Mark 3000 as safe. Wouldn't you be fired if it proved to be defective?"
"Objection!" Richard Waddle leaned over the prosecution table, palms pressed into the mahogany. "Counsel's testifying, not interrogating."
"Sustained," Judge Feathers said. "Ms. Lord, I give counsel some room to roam on cross, but you've just passed the county line."
"I'm sorry, Your Honor," Victoria said, though she wasn't sorry a bit. She'd gotten the point across to the jury.
Victoria held the speargun—state's exhibit three—in both hands. "In the instruction manual, your company warns that the shaft should be pointed away from the person attempting to load the spear. Obviously, you anticipated a person shooting himself."
"Oh, the lawyers put that in."
Those darn lawyers.
"But we've never had a lawsuit," Traylor added hastily.
A lawsuit would have been nice for the defense, Victoria thought. A class action even better. "Everybody shish-ka-bobbed by the speargun, raise your hands." But you have to play the cards you're dealt.
The courtroom door squeaked open, and her mother swept in. The Queen had disappeared two days earlier, her final words chillier than the frozen margarita she'd been drinking at the time. Lunch at a Mexican restaurant near the courthouse. Victoria had been working on her order of proof at a secluded table when her mother breezed over, carrying her slushy drink. Barely past noon, but the drink wasn't her first of the day. Skipping pleasantries, The Queen berated Victoria for being "bitchy and judgmental and no damn fun," saying it's no wonder she couldn't hold a man.
"Do you ever consider my happiness?" Irene demanded.
"I didn't think it was necessary, Mother, with you spending full time on the job."
"You're a little icy for my taste, darling. Comes from your father's side."
"If only he were here to defend himself."
"I'm entitled to happiness, too." Her mother pirouetted toward the door, the hem of her pink cotton Cynthia Steffe bubble skirt swirling around her hips.
The Drama Queen.
"Good luck in court, dear," her mother tossed over her shoulder. "Even if you don't care about my happiness, please win for your uncle Grif."
Happiness seeming to be the topic of the day.
Her mother's Manolo Blahnik sandals click-clacked on the tile floor as she exited.
Now the sandals were back. Well, different sandals. The Blahniks—open-toed, ribbon-tied, T-strapped— had been a present from Victoria, courtesy of Steve's larcenous client who'd hijacked a cargo container of the Italian beauties. Today's sandals weren't Blahniks and must be new. At least, Victoria hadn't seen them before. Snakeskin with silver buckles, side cutouts, and three-inch heels.
Where did you go, Mother? And why are you and your reptilian shoes back?
Angry at her for leaving, and for coming back, too.
There was something about those snakeskin sandals, she thought. What was it? Gorgeous, really, with vivid red-and-yellow stripes on a black background.
Red-and-yellow stripes! A coral snake. My coral snake.
"Anything else, Ms. Lord?" Judge Feathers asked.
Dammit. Stay focused.
"Just one more question, Your Honor."
"Good. Unless it's the old plumbing I hear, I think some stomachs are growling in the jury box."
Victoria gestured with the speargun. "Mr. Traylor. Just because no one sued doesn't mean no one's been impaled while loading the Mark 3000, isn't that correct?"
"Objection," Waddle said.
"On what grounds?" the judge asked.
"The question has a double negative. Maybe a triple."
"Overruled. I think the jury got it."
"I wouldn't know if anyone's ever been injured," Traylor said.
Avoiding the word "impaled" and the gory image that conveyed.
"So you can't rule out that, on some occasion, the Mark 3000 has fired while being loaded?
Breaking the promise to ask only one question.
"I can't rule it out."
"No further questions, Your Honor."
"Then let's eat lunch," the judge said.
"I need to tell you about Grif and me," The Queen said.
"I'm in trial," Victoria said. "Give me a continuance, okay?"
The Queen persisted and persuaded her to take a walk. Ten minutes later, they were on the docks, passing a row of fishing boats, when Irene said: "I'm in love with Grif."
"Congratulations."
"But I wasn't when your father was alive."
"So you told me. You only did Grif the first time the other night. What else is so important it can't wait?"
"Yesterday, I drove up to Miami and went to the bank. My safe-deposit box. I took out your father's suicide note."
Victoria stopped short next to a stack of wooden slatted lobster traps. "Now! After all these years, you have to do this now? Why?"
"I can't stand your hating me."
"Please, Mother. I can't deal with this now."
A fisherman hosing down his deck looked over at them. Not often did two well-dressed women bark at each other in front of his trawler.
"I know the pressure you're under, Princess, and God knows I want you to win, but—"
"You don't know anything! I don't want to see the note."
"You don't have a choice."
"I'm not twelve years old anymore, Mother. I make my own decisions."
The Queen reached into her burnt-orange leather handbag. Victoria started walking away as soon as she saw what came out of the bag. An old-fashioned manila envelope with a string tie.
The Queen hurried after her in those damn snakeskin sandals. "I adored your father. I never cheated on him. Grif and I were just friends. Bridge partners. We enjoyed the same things. Sinatra. French movies. Post-modern art."
"Mother, I don't care, okay?"
"I never slept with him."
"Fine. Now, just drop it."
"It's your father who cheated."
Victoria wheeled around. In the direct sun, in her pin-striped trial suit, her face heating up, she thought she might faint. "Liar!"
"I knew you'd say that. That's why I brought Nelson's note."
Irene tried to hand her the envelope, but Victoria backed off as if it were on fire. "It's probably a forgery. I wouldn't put it past you."
"I don't wear faux pearls, I don't use paper plates, and I don't forge suicide notes. It's time you knew the truth. Your father was having an affair with Phyllis."
"Phyllis Griffin?"
"It wasn't Phyllis Diller. Yes, Phyllis Griffin. They were sneaking around those last few months."
"Now I know you're lying."
Uncle Grif's wife, Junior's mother. The idea was preposterous.
"When I found out, I told your father I wanted a divorce. He begged me to forgive him, but I wouldn't. He got all psychological. Said he didn't love Phyllis. It was the pressure of the business, the Grand Jury investigation, maybe even animosity toward Grif for getting them into legal trouble. Nelson offered to get counseling, anything to save the marriage. I told him to go to hell. Said I'd divorce him and take you away. My pride was wounded, and I wouldn't give him another chance. So I am guilty, dear. Guilty of being rigid and unforgiving. Guilty of being so self-directed I couldn't see how damaged your father was. He committed suicide the night after our blowup."
Victoria felt the slightest puff of a breeze. The boats groaned in their moorings, the air heavy with putrid fish. "Give it to me."
The note was handwritten on Griffin-Lord Construction Co. stationery.
Dearest Irene,
I cannot express the depths of my love for you
and Victoria, but it's all become too much to bear.
I fear the business will go under, and I don't see a way out. I have wronged you deeply, and nothing
I can ever say or do will make that right. My
biggest regret is that I will not live to see the
woman Victoria is destined to become. I beg both
of you to forgive me.
Nelson
Overhead, a seabird cawed. Victoria was aware of the sound of diesel engines kicking up, water boiling at the stern of a fishing boat.
"I'm sorry I didn't tell you earlier," Irene said. "I wanted you to remember your father differently. And maybe part of me was humiliated."
"Why?" Suddenly, everything had changed. Her mother was a victim in the marriage, not its villain. "Dad's the one who cheated, the one who took the coward's way out."
"Nelson felt he needed someone else. Not something for me to be proud of. And all these years, I've wondered. If I'd handled it differently, would he still be alive?"
"You can't blame yourself."
"I've told myself that, too. But I'm the only one who could have saved him. And I didn't." She took the note back, tore it up, and tossed the pieces off the dock, where they fluttered in the breeze like wings of herons.
Victoria needed to clear her mind. At the corner of Southard and Duval, she stepped off the curb and into the
path of a pink taxi. The driver squealed to a stop, banged the horn, and cursed in Creole.
Victoria tried to fathom the depths of her feelings. Her mother, who could be so shallow and superficial, had now gone the other direction. She shouldered moral complicity in her husband's death. But what did she expect of herself? What superhuman powers of understanding and compassion did she think she lacked?
"Oh, Nelson darling, don't be depressed. I forgive you for screwing my best friend."
No, the betrayal and shameful abandonment were all her father's.
And the note I so longed for?
Now that she'd seen it, now that she'd held in her hands the last item he'd touched before the swan dive off the condo roof ...the note made no difference.
You regret not seeing me grow up? Damn you! You could have been here.
Now that she knew what had happened, the truth had not set her free. No peace came with the knowledge, just one pain replacing another. What was it Steve said his father had told him? Something about being careful when turning over rocks. There'll be snakes, not flowers, underneath.
In this moment, more than any other, she wished Steve were here. As she passed under the kapok tree on the courthouse lawn—the last place she had seen him— she pulled out her cell phone and dialed his number. There was no answer, but she listened to the entire leave-your-number message just so she could hear his voice.
Dammit, Steve. Where are you?
Forty-eight
THE DEEP BLUE ALIBI
A very loud woman shouted something at Steve.
He couldn't see her because his eyes were glued shut. At least, that's the way they felt. He forced his eyes open, a salty crust cracking along his lashes.
Ouch. He was staring into a broiling sun. Suddenly aware of noxious fumes. Burning fuel, melting plastic.
"Wave your arm if you can hear me!"
That voice again. Amplified. Authoritative.
If I'm dead, then God could be a woman. But then, that sun is hot as hell, and who's to say the devil's not a chick? Now, just where is my arm?
Steve managed to wave, water pouring down his wet-suit sleeve into his face. His mask was gone. So was one of his fins. He was floating, lifting and falling with every swell. The top-of-the-line buoyancy compensator—thank you, Stubbs—was rigged to float an unconscious man on his back.