Blackwater Sound (24 page)

“Do you know about the transmitter, that silver cigar you referred to?”

“We heard some dock gossip, yeah. You're tracking her via satellite. Like that fish has a little cell phone and it calls you up every once in a while.”

A. J. looked at Thorn more closely now, the last of the fog burning off, his eyes sharpening.

“Something like that,” he said.

“But it hasn't worked,” said Thorn.

A. J. Braswell rubbed the gray stubble on his cheek and looked out at the busy marina.

Behind Braswell a procession of clouds paraded along the horizon like pink floats trimmed with gold and saffron. In the west white stalky birds coasted out to sea for their daily rounds. Most of the big yachts were moving through the harbor now, mates yawning, making final adjustments to the lines, checking the giant lures. Gulls squealed near the resort's tiny beach and a heavyset man in a rubber bathing cap dove into the pool to begin his solitary laps. Looking around at such a place, it was possible to believe the earth would heal all its wounds and men of charity and good cheer would prevail. Spiced with honey and coconut, a warm breeze chimed in the outriggers and filled the lungs with optimism. In such weather, in such a place, even the most hard-bitten cynic might be tempted to grant forgiveness to his enemies and lay down his weapons and his anger forever. Fall to the ground in a benevolent swoon.

But not Thorn. Looking around the Abaco Beach Resort for the last few hours at all those magnificent yachts, the display of abundance and good health and all that shared passion for big-game fishing, was starting to piss him off. If this was all the wealthy folks could find to do with their accumulated good fortune, this nonstop show of gluttony and back-slapping bonhomie, then maybe it was time to
storm the boardrooms and throw the buffoons out on the street. Let them test their favorite theory—that if the wealth were ever redistributed, the rich folks would reclaim their fortunes in no time through the same hard work and ingenuity that had led them to the top in the first place. Thorn would happily wager his last nickel on the Farley Boissonts of the world.

“Mr. Thorn,” A. J. said. “You're going to come fishing with me.”

“I'm sorry?”

“I mean no offense, Mr. Thorn, but I look at your equipment, your boat, and yes, sure, it was fine for an earlier era. It would be fine now for pursuing most fish. But the marlin I'm seeking, as you've discovered yourself, requires more substantial gear. Tackle of the highest quality. A boat that is fast, maneuverable, and set up with the latest electronics. I hope I'm not insulting you, Mr. Thorn.”

“I'm not insulted. Are you insulted, Farley?”

Farley gave Thorn a blank look.

“We'll join forces,” Braswell said. “My science and your art.”

“Is that what you do, A. J., you co-opt your rivals?”

“I want to catch this fish, Mr. Thorn. I've worked toward this end for the last ten years. If it's money you want, I am a wealthy man. You may set your price.”

Thorn sighed, continued his cramped pacing.

“We've been doing pretty well without you, Braswell.”

“Fifty thousand dollars,” he said. “Fifty thousand for each of you if we get a hook-up. But I'm the one who sits in the chair. There's no compromise on that. I catch the fish.”

Thorn looked at Farley. Muscles moved beneath his shirt. Muscles squirmed in his face. A body like his was never at rest.

“Seventy-five thousand apiece,” Braswell said. “But I catch the fish.”

Thorn came to a halt behind the fighting chair.

“I'll need to discuss it with my captain.”

“Certainly,” he said. “Take your time. But we're missing some prime fishing weather. Waning moon, falling tide.”

Farley joined Thorn in the cabin. Out in the cockpit, Braswell slumped forward and turned his complete attention to his right palm as though he were trying to read his own grim fortune. Farley leaned against the galley wall. He brushed a dreadlock off his forehead and shook his head.

“Too damn easy, Thorn. It isn't feeling right to me.”

“We chummed the waters, he took the bait. What's not right?”

“I don't like it.”

“You don't trust him?”

“The man's gone off in his head. He's a crazy one, he is. No, I don't trust him.”

“He's invited us aboard his boat. That's where we want to be, Farley. That's the whole point.”

“Too easy, Thorn. Too damn easy.”

Thorn glanced over toward the
ByteMe
. She loomed several feet above the adjacent boats, the chrome of her flybridge and tower glinting in the sunlight. A small red flag attached to the tuna tower trembled on its pole, then, as Thorn watched with stunned fascination, the flag suddenly lifted and stood out straight as if starched by the blast of a gale.

The concussion that followed a moment later fractured a side window in the
Heart Pounder
's galley and threw Thorn forward against the edge of the butane stove. Another explosion followed in seconds and a scalding wind flooded the cabin.

Out on the deck A. J. stood gripping the starboard rail. Every boat in the marina was rocking in the choppy water. A ball of fire rose from the next dock, black smoke boiling into the heavens. There was another blast, and one more after that. The air shuddered and shook, and far away a woman's voice began to wail with the piercing horror of an air raid siren. More smoke darkened the sky, and from all around them came yelps of alarm, women shrieking, men barking
orders at each other. The few boats left at the docks emptied; men lugged fire extinguishers onto the jetty, others stumbled outside with the drunken, stunned eyes of shell-shocked soldiers. This wasn't the battle they'd enlisted for.

Thorn jumped across to the dock.

“Hey, Thorn, hold on,” Farley yelled. “It might not be over.”

But he was running, shouldering through the crowd on the dock, then racing down the sidewalk and cutting into the adjacent dock. Five boats were smoldering, their windows blasted out, charred wreckage. Patches of the water were aflame and the oxygen had been sucked from the air.

In the last slip the
ByteMe
pitched and swayed as if riding out a hurricane. Spiderweb cracks laced its side window and a shadow of soot covered its hull, but otherwise the big white boat appeared undamaged. There was no security guard in sight and no sign of Alexandra.

Thorn shifted to the right. Something on the edge of his field of vision had snagged his eye. He stepped to the edge of the dock, peered out through the flames, and after a moment of searching, he saw it, hovering inches below the rainbow sheen of gasoline and oil that coated the surface, the faded red of the Snook's Bayside T-shirt.

He took two steps and dove.

But when he surfaced, he was lost in the wilderness of smoke and fire and floating debris. As he treaded water, a hard shift in the morning breeze rose around him and began to push the closest bank of flames in his direction. It swept toward him across the dark water like a prairie fire feeding on brittle grass. The
whoosh
of heat stole his breath and drove him beneath the water. He kicked and breaststroked deeper, then twisted around to search for Alexandra in the murky cool. Yellow light flickered from above and lit the gloom just enough for him to glimpse her. Twenty yards to his left, her body, inert and ghostly, was drifting downward.

He spun around and dug through the water, flutter-kicked and
churned his arms till he was beside her. He looped an arm across her chest, blew out the last trickle of air from his lungs, and whirled back toward the firestorm above.

 

Don't ask him how he did it, but Lawton got the plastic cuffs off. He gnawed them for a while in the middle of the night but made no headway. He rubbed them against what looked like a sharp edge on the vanity, but it wasn't sharp after all.

Then somewhere shortly after daybreak they were gone. As if he'd dreamed them off. As if some power in his brain had shrunk his bones sufficiently so he could slip free.

He wanted to show someone. Maybe the fat blond boy who'd brought him a bandage and a glass of ice water and helped him drink it. Yeah, he wanted to show him. Johnny was his name. Very familiar, that boy. A face Lawton recognized and could put a name to, but he couldn't bring up the rest of the boy's file. He was sure it was in there, a rap sheet six feet long. He had that look about him. But his recollection of the boy was lost in the dense clouds, lost inside the smoke and haze that clogged the back reaches of his mind.

With his hands free, it only took a second to release the plastic tie around his ankles. He rubbed the blood back into his feet. Numb needles pricking the soles, jabbing the tender flesh of his toes.

He was just standing up, looking around the guest quarters, at the photograph of a marlin soaring from the sea hung on the wall beside the door, when the blast hurled him back against the bed. He lay there for a few minutes, groggy, wondering what part of this was dream, what part real. He hoped the real part included getting loose from the handcuffs. He hoped he could remember enough about what he'd done to duplicate it. He'd love to show the boy, Johnny, that he and Harry Houdini were cut from the same amazing cloth.

He lay there on the bunk for another minute, listening to the other explosions, feeling his ear thump with every squeeze of his heart.
Johnny had cut his ear. He remembered that. He remembered the knife, its odd blade. But he didn't know why he'd been cut. There had been a good reason, but it escaped him now.

When he stood up the room was warmer. Much warmer. Hot almost, even though it was still early yet and he could feel the cool spray of air-conditioning blowing from the vent. But the room was hot and there was yelling and screaming outside and the boat was rocking. Lawton went to the slot of a window and pushed aside the curtain and looked out.

It was a war scene out there. Men with blackened faces and torn clothes and bloody gashes running without direction, men aiming their fire extinguishers and spewing white clouds of gas at the flames. The dock blown to pieces, pilings shattered. And on a section of the dock, not twenty yards away from Lawton, he watched as a rangy blond man climbed the wooden ladder that was mounted on a piling. He was soaking wet and he held with his free arm a girl with long black hair. A pretty woman with white skin. She had on a red T-shirt and yellow shorts, and the blond man laid her out on the dock and tipped her head back, pinched her nose and pressed his mouth to hers and blew into her, then pressed his hands against her chest, leaning his weight against her. He did this several times before a bubble of water broke from her lips, then a spew of foam and gooey fluid.

Lawton Collins stood at the window and watched the man saving the woman's life. The pretty, dark-haired young girl seemed so familiar. Someone's pretty daughter. He thought he knew her but wasn't sure. He'd had a wife once but he didn't know about children. Probably not. He felt too alone to be a father.

After her throat was clear and her lungs were working on their own, Thorn stretched her out flat on her back along a side dock. Her teeth clicked and a hard shiver rattled through her hands and arms. Thorn stood up, glanced around, spotted a broken cabin door on a sixty-foot Davis two slips away. The yacht was listing hard to starboard, its mooring lines taut, straining to hold the enormous weight of the sinking boat.

Thorn jumped aboard, poked out a panel of broken glass, unlocked the door, and stepped into the salon. The floor was submerged in half a foot of water. More water surged down the hallway into the staterooms. He was halfway across the salon, sloshing toward the companionway, when a loud crack sounded outside—one of the heavy lines giving way. The boat lurched and Thorn thumped a shinbone against the glass coffee table and almost went down.

He found his balance and continued wading through the knee-deep water into the master stateroom. Flinging open the locker door, he pawed through shelves but found only small bath towels. Then he turned to the bed, threw off the bedspread, and stripped off the two cashmere blankets.

He carried them in a bundle back to the salon and was almost to the door when a second mooring line popped and the yacht pitched hard to starboard, then the remaining lines snapped one after the other like a firing squad's barrage. He clambered out to the aft deck, lobbed the blankets up on the jetty, and hoisted himself onto the port gunwale. He teetered, caught himself, set his feet, then leaped across to the dock, and stood watching as the boat slipped under.

Alexandra's eyes were tightly shut. She'd crossed her arms over her chest, clasping herself against the trembling. Thorn pulled her arms apart and peeled her wet T-shirt up and tugged it over her head. Then he dragged off her gym shorts and lay the blankets over her and tucked them tight around her nakedness.

After a few moments her shivers gradually subsided, but her breathing was still ragged and her face ashen. Twice she tried to speak, but the effort made her wince and clench her eyes shut and sent her back into the semiconscious doze. Thorn gripped her hand and spoke to her in a calm voice, told her to hold on, it was going to be all right, she was fine, she'd gotten a little knock on the head, swallowed some water, but she was okay now, she was warming up, it would be fine, everything would be fine.

Down the dock, a young man cried out, his voice rising above the uproar. Thorn swung around and stared at the heavyset young man up on the flybridge of the
ByteMe
.

“It's pinging! It's pinging!” It was Johnny Braswell. He was fanning smoke from his face, leaning forward over the chrome rail. “You hear me, Dad? It's pinging!”

The kid had on a white tank top and blue flowered baggies.

“It's moving, the ping is moving. Big Mother's on the surface.”

A few yards behind Thorn, Farley and A. J. were grunting as they dragged a large rectangle of fiberglass down the dock. It looked like it might be the T-top from an open fishing boat, probably blasted loose by one of the explosions. Straining mightily, the two of them brought it to the splintered edge of the dock and on the count of three heaved it across the gap. Then they set about nudging it and shifting it until it formed a makeshift bridge across the five-foot break between the landside dock and the section leading to the
ByteMe
.

“You coming, Thorn?” Farley called.

Behind him A. J. got a running start and bounced one foot on the fiberglass panel and sailed safely across to his side of the dock.

“I can't leave her. You go on.”

Braswell waited on the other side of the panel, hands on his hips. Wisps of black smoke sailed above his head. The air reeked of melting plastic and the woozy vapors of diesel fuel and high-test gasoline. Enough raw gasoline had seeped into the harbor to level half the island from the slightest spark.

Alexandra shifted her head against the planks. The boiled-egg lump disfiguring her left cheekbone was beginning to darken. It was now only a shadowy blue, but if Thorn knew his shiners, by evening that blue would darken to a glossy black and both her eyes would be swollen shut.

Otherwise she was unmarked, though her teeth still chattered, hands quaked. She was probably in shock, had a mild concussion, needed fluids, needed to get out of the sun and away from the billows of bitter smoke. From what he could see, there was a triage area being set up near the pool. The chaises were filled with customers, maids and gardeners in attendance, moving among the guests with trays of drinks and first-aid kits. As soon as Alex's breathing evened out, he'd carry her there.

Farley peeled off his sunglasses and glared at Thorn.

“What're you doing, man? This is our chance.”

“Go,” Thorn shouted. “Go on. Catch that goddamn fish.”

Behind Farley, A. J. and Johnny were throwing off the lines. The exhaust bubbled hard. On the rear deck, Morgan Braswell stared at Thorn. She wore a baseball cap and sunglasses, but he could feel the sting of her look and see by the fierce set of her jaw that she had him in the crosshairs of her fury.

“Go with them, Thorn,” Alex murmured. “I'll be okay.”

She squinted up at him for a half second, then shut her eyes.

“What happened to her?” Sugar dropped to one knee beside Thorn.

“Took a knock, swallowed some water, stayed under for a while.”

Sugarman glanced around at the fires and sinking vessels.

From the other side of the shattered dock Farley called out Thorn's name.

“They're pulling out, man. Let's move.”

“Go, Thorn,” Sugar said. “I'll watch after the lady.”

Farley called out his name again.

Thorn pressed a quick kiss to Alexandra's forehead, then rose and sprinted down the dock, hurdled the fiberglass panel, hustled over to Farley, and as the
ByteMe
was separating from land, the two of them ran to the end of the dock and vaulted aboard.

 

Lawton stood at his cabin door and listened.

The boat was under way, the rumble of water and the engines masking all human sounds. Once he'd gotten the cuffs off, he'd spent a few minutes poking around the guest cabin, but he found nothing that triggered any memories, so he decided to move on. He wanted to know where the hell he was and why. The handcuffs, this boat, these people, none of it made any sense. Like waking up inside someone else's bad dream.

Warily, he turned the handle and nudged the door open an inch. Enough to peek down the hall toward the stern. He could barely see through the dark-tinted door that led out to the sunny cockpit. Three
shadowy men moving around out there. He squinted but couldn't make them out.

Lawton eased the door all the way open. Took one more good listen, but heard nothing, so he sucked down a breath and ducked across the narrow hall and opened the door and stepped inside the cabin.

Another stateroom. This one larger. Wall covering and curtains done in a man's colors, brown and burgundy and green. A half-full bottle of rum on the bedside table, a cell phone, a key ring, an empty glass. On the dresser was a brush with curly white hairs snagged in the bristles. Some nail clippers, an assortment of tiny bottles of aftershave that looked unopened. A room that gave little sign of its occupant's character.

Lawton had investigated enough cases, been in enough rooms, snooping through the possessions of the deceased or the suspected. He knew how trifling things could signal the hidden secrets of the heart. Magazines, postcards, geegaws on the shelves, items pinned to bulletin boards, trash in the waste can. But as Lawton made the rounds of this room, prowling through the drawers, peering under the furniture, he found none of those things. This was the room of a man without enthusiasms.

The only decoration in the cabin was a color snapshot in a tortoiseshell frame propped up on the dresser. Lawton picked it up and held it close. A blond boy and an older man stood to one side of a marlin that hung from a rope at a weigh station. The boy held a fishing pole and the dad had his arm around the boy's shoulder. They bore a clear resemblance to each other. Both of them with the same narrow face and deep-set eyes and the mop of curly blond hair. Both beaming into the camera, a proud moment. Father and son.

On the other side of the big dead marlin was a stumpy silver-haired man in thick glasses and a yellow polo shirt and khaki shorts that exposed his bandy legs. He had his arm around the waist of a dark-haired woman who had the same wide forehead and thin-lipped mouth as the silver-haired man.

Lawton took another quick look around the room, then marched into the small bath. He peeled off his smelly clothes, dropped them on the floor, and went into the shower stall and soaped himself clean. He dried off on a fluffy blue towel and went back into the stateroom and dug around in the clothes locker until he found an outfit he liked. Emerald green shorts with an elastic waistband and a white crewneck shirt made of silk.

He pulled them on, then combed his hair in front of the dresser mirror. When he was finished, he set down the hairbrush and picked up the photo again and gave it another look. The stumpy man was familiar. More than familiar. Lawton studied his clothes, his thick glasses, his bowed legs, his heavy gold jewelry. He walked over to the window and tilted the photograph so it caught more light. And then the name of the silver-haired man came to him. His friend, his dear friend.

“That was Andy, my son.”

Lawton turned and looked at the man standing behind him. It was one of the men from the photograph. Same rawboned body, same curly hair, only now the blond had faded to gray.

“And that other man is Arnold Peretti,” Lawton said.

“That's right,” the man said. “You know Arnold?”

“He was a friend of mine.”

“Arnold's a good man.”

“He was a bookie,” Lawton said. “I used to arrest him twice a year.”

“Is that right? So you're a police officer?”

“I'm retired. But at one time I was a damn good cop.”

The man nodded vacantly. Lawton took a longer look at him. The man's bluish eyes were flat and blurry like somebody just coming out of anesthesia.

“This your room?” Lawton asked.

The man glanced around as though seeing the place for the first time.

“Yes,” he said. “Yes, it is.”

“I'm Lawton Collins.”

He put out his hand and the man took it in his and gave it a single shake.

“A. J. Braswell.”

Lawton had seen eyes like his before. Guys who'd rotted away too long in solitary. Guys who'd taken one blow too many, one drink, one snort, one too many long looks into the empty spaces inside their head. And there were the scary ones, zombies who stayed in their rooms too long, dreaming, concocting a world that didn't exist. When they left their rooms one idea filled their brains, one course of action. Sometimes they brought a gun with them and used it in ways that made perfect sense, were completely reasonable, according to the zombie pledge of allegiance.

“You didn't know I was aboard your boat?”

“I try to stay out of my daughter's affairs,” Braswell said. “I assume you're a guest of hers.”

“I don't know,” Lawton said. “Truth is, I'm not sure why I'm here. I'm a little lost.”

He smiled and Braswell smiled back.

“Yes,” A. J. said. “I know the feeling.”

“Are we acquaintances, you and me? Do we have a history?”

“No,” Braswell said. “I don't believe so. I think we just met.”

“Where are we headed, do you know that?”

“We're chasing a marlin. The one that killed my boy, Andy.”

“Yeah, I've heard about that fish. Somewhere.”

A. J. was looking at the photograph again. Lawton looked along with him, a father and son, and on the other side of the fish, a father and daughter.

“I have a problem with my memory,” Lawton said. “I get a little fuzzy. Can't seem to piece it all together. Things out of sequence, missing steps.”

Braswell nodded. “There's a few things I wouldn't mind forgetting.”

“Oh, sure, you think that when you're young,” Lawton said. “If you could just take a little scalpel and dig out those bad memories
things will be better. Christ, I wish it worked that way. I'd buy a scalpel tomorrow.”

Braswell drifted over to a leather chair. He sat down and laid his arms along the arms like a pharaoh in his throne.

“So, A. J., are you involved in your kids' lives? Know what they're up to?”

“They're adults,” he said. “They're free to come and go as they please.”

“Too bad you didn't do a better job raising them,” Lawton said. “From what I can tell, you kind of dropped the ball.”

Braswell's eyes were fixed on Lawton, but they were still numb and flat.

“Maybe you were preoccupied,” Lawton said. “They didn't matter that much to you.”

“Why are you talking to me this way? You don't even know me.”

“I have a daughter,” Lawton said. And as he heard the words leave his lips, he knew it was true. He saw her in his head. A chubby baby, a scrawny, anxious teenager, a fine-looking woman. The pages of a private picture album flashing past. “Alexandra is her name. A nice girl. She takes care of me now. Watches over me, makes sure I don't wander off.”

Braswell nodded vaguely as if Lawton's words required careful analysis.

“I don't relish it,” Lawton said. “Being a burden to the girl. I can be one hell of a cross to bear. I wish it were different, but there it is. An old man with a moth-eaten memory.”

Braswell's eyes turned inward and his right hand floated up from the armrest and cupped his temple for a moment, then swept back through his curly hair, fingers massaging his scalp.

When he spoke, his voice came from far away inside him. Lawton had heard that tone dozens of times over his long career, lawbreakers confessing their sins, a voice that was equal parts shame and bragging.