Dark Waters (The Jeff Resnick Mysteries) (21 page)

They were both on their feet. Da-Marr, clutching at his neck, while Bobby stood behind him with a piece of rope, pulling it taut.

Too horrified to move, it took the sounds of Da-Marr coughing and choking to finally penetrate the fog around my mind before I pounced on Bobby.

I launched at the bastard. “Get your hands off him!”

Bobby hadn’t expected me to help Da-Marr. Startled, he fell to one side, and in that instant Da-Marr turned, knocking Bobby off-balance. He stumbled backward and fell over the back end of the boat.

Except for the sound of the wind and the river, all was quiet.

Still clutching his throat, Da-Marr stared at me, and then it seemed like we both slogged through cement to reach the rail. I searched the choppy water, but couldn’t see any sign of Bobby. I turned to face Da-Marr.

“What happened?”

The poor kid was actually shaking. “I don’t know. We picked up the fridge and tossed it over the side and I turned to watch it sink, and then the next thing I knew the guy came at me with a rope. He tried to kill me!” he cried incredulously.

I looked back to the water and saw Bobby’s head bobbing in the water. It had only been seconds, but already we had traveled too far away to save him — we had nothing to toss him — not a rope, not a life jacket — nothing. Bobby had destroyed or gotten rid of every piece of safety equipment on the boat.

“Oh, man,” Da-Marr breathed, “what an asshole.” Then he turned to me, his face still filled with fear. “Look ahead.”

I craned my neck to look around the starboard side. Up ahead were the supports for the Grand Island Bridge.

“Holy shit,” I mouthed.

“What the fuck we gonna do now?” De-Marr demanded.

“We’ve got a couple of options. First, we could jump overboard — ”

“I told you — I can’t swim,” he shouted.

“Or we could try to crash the boat into the supports. It may or may not sink.”

“Tell me you’ve got some kinda better idea than that,” he said on the verge of panic.

“Sorry. If only we had some fuel in the tank, we could head back to the marina.”

“Fuel? Hey, we still got something.”

“What are you saying?”

“I turned the motor off when I figured Bobby was a crazy ass lunatic.”

“But I saw the fuel indicator. It was on empty.”

Da-Marr smiled. “Hey, when I drive my dad’s car the indicator says empty but I can always get a couple of miles out of it before it runs dry.”

“You better hope you’re right about this sucker.”

“What about those diamonds?” he asked.

“What about them?” I asked.

“You know where they are.”

Should I be honest with the kid? Our lives were on the line — maybe I should.

“I think so.”

“Then go get ’em.”

“And what do we do with them? You know we can’t keep them. A lot of people lost their life savings and deserve to get even a nickel on the dollar.”

Da-Marr frowned. “Shit, I guess I knew I was never gonna see a penny from them.”

“Just so we’re clear on that,” I said, and studied his eyes. I wasn’t at all sure I could trust him on that.

“Sure,” he said almost casually, and I wondered if I might be the next thing tossed overboard.

“I think they’re in the engine room. I’ll have a look. You see if you can get the engines to come back online. We might be able to save ourselves yet.”

Da-Marr nodded. Not a second later, he pivoted and headed up the stairs to the bridge deck, and I ducked into the salon and headed for the hatch to the engine room.

Thank God, we still had battery power, because I knew there were no flashlights aboard. Once inside the cramped space that housed the engines, I had to shuffle around using my good knee and elbows to scramble across the cramped space. Until that moment, I wouldn’t have thought I was claustrophobic, but inching my way toward the front of the engine room made me long for the cold fresh air above. Da-Marr hadn’t managed to start the twin car engines, but I could hear clicks and other noises as he tried to coax the fuel-starved motors back to life.

It was obvious that Bobby had already been down here and searched. The covers were off the various modules and the main battery unit that that was big enough to power a house in an electrical outage.

I looked around me and had no clue where to start my search. And unless Da-Marr got those engines started, I only had minutes to do it.

Closing my eyes, I opened my mind and hoped whatever link I’d forged with the late Jack Morrow would lead me to the diamonds. But as I waited for inspiration to hit, I suddenly wondered why I gave a flying fig about the damn stones. They wouldn’t benefit me. They wouldn’t benefit anyone I knew. The people who’d lost their money by trusting Morrow were probably all greedy bastards who deserved to lose their cash. But not their futures. The mugger who’d cracked me over the head with a baseball bat deserved the worst in life. I guess I’d wished that on Da-Marr, too, just because he reminded me of the bastard who’d ruined my life. Well, maybe not ruined — but had changed it in ways that could never be recovered. And Da-Marr wasn’t entirely innocent, either.

I shook those thoughts away.
Diamonds, idiot, diamonds
.

Opening my eyes, my gaze focused on a small red fire extinguisher clamped to the room’s silver-backed insulation. If there were a fire, it would be totally inadequate to douse all but the smallest of flames.

I can’t say why, but something about it called to me. My elbows scraped against the fabric of my denim jacket as I pulled myself through the narrow well between the twin engines. Unclamping the extinguisher from the wall, I noticed how light it felt — as though it was empty. I examined it from all angles but saw nothing out of the ordinary. Why would Morrow have left an empty fire extinguisher in his boat? It didn’t make sense.

I was about to replace the bottle when I noticed a slight ripple in the insulation. I peered closer. Not a ripple — a cut. I poked at it, but the imperfection appeared to have been mended. I ran a fingernail around the edges of it, hoping to poke through the thin silver skin, but it was tougher than it looked. I patted the insulation and felt a slight bulge. The beginnings of a shit-eating grin tugged at my mouth.

Resting the bulk of my weight on my left forearm, I reached up and fumbled with the insulation where it met the room’s low ceiling until I found a breach, then I ripped it downward and out popped a bundle wrapped in a soft purple cloth bag — the kind that used to come with a bottle of Crown Royal. I opened the gold drawstring and dumped out a jeweler’s chamois, unfolded the cloth and found pay dirt — a handful of gray and yellow hunks of stone.

Rewrapping the bundle, I replaced it in the bag, stuffed it in my jacket pocket and extricated myself from that damnably small space. A minute later, I entered the salon to find Da-Marr standing in the center of the room. I hadn’t noticed that the noises in the engine room had abated.

“I thought you were trying to start the engines.”

“They’re not going to start.”

“Are you sure?” I asked, growing uneasy at the menacing look on his face.

“I’m sure.” He held out his hand. “Give ’em to me.”

“Give you what?”

“The diamonds.”

“What makes you think I found them?”

“Give them to me, or I’m at yo head,” he threatened.

“What?”

He snorted an angry breath. “I’ll knock the shit out of you like that brother did back in the city.”

I swallowed. I believed him. But he didn’t have to beat me up. If we couldn’t get the engines started again, we were already dead men.

Da-Marr lowered his head, back in his raging bull stance.

I reached into my pocket and handed him the purple bag. “Okay, now let’s see what we can do about those engines.”

He pocketed the stones. “I told you, I couldn’t get it started.”

“So, let me try.”

Maybe it was because I handed him the diamonds without an argument, or maybe he figured he had me cowed once again, but he stood aside and let me pass.

It was raining harder now. The low clouds seem to boil as they churned over the river. Easy Breezin’ was moving at a sideways angle. I looked to the left shore and saw an expanse of parkland. Not a happy sight. I hurried up the steps as fast as I could, squinted through the droplet-covered windshield and swallowed convulsively. Looming up ahead were the twin spans of the North Grand Island Bridge.

Da-Marr was suddenly beside me. “Jesus,” he breathed.

“Yeah. We’ve got a choice here. If we smash the boat into the pylons, we might get stuck. Someone’s sure to notice us and come find us.”

“What if I don’t want to get found?” he asked.

“If your plan is to take the boat over the falls, then good luck. It’s a hundred-and-sixty foot drop.”

“You’re shitting me.”

“No, I’m not.”

Da-Marr pursed his lips, not looking quite so confident. “Then I guess we’d better ram this sucker.” He pushed me aside, and took the wheel, resting one knee on the captain’s chair to brace himself as he fought to straighten the boat.

We said nothing as the rain continued to pound the bridge deck’s roof. Da-Marr aimed for one of the cement supports.

My knee was killing me, so I flopped onto the end of the leather couch and watched in horrified silence as we came nearer and nearer the bridge. Despite his best efforts to ram it, the boat seemed to want no part of what appeared to be our death wish. Instead of crashing head on, we grazed the side of the concrete abutment with the ear-splitting sound of scraped and breaking fiberglass.

Easy Breezin’ seemed to do a pirouette, the back end slamming against the concrete abutment of the southbound span. But that didn’t stop our momentum as the boat slowly danced back into the river’s main channel.

“Da-Marr turned to glower at me. “Got any other bright ideas?”

“Let me have a go at those controls.”

“You get this sucker moving and you can have those diamonds back.” He stepped away from the controls. I pressed all the right buttons. I did everything according to spec, and nothing happened.

The scenery seemed to be going by faster. Had we picked up speed? I knew it wasn’t far until we hit the rapids, just a half mile from the falls. That was the point of no return. Hell, we’d already reached it when we’d gone under the damn bridges.

Da-Marr stood there, shaking his head, a self-satisfied grin plastered across his face. “I told you.”

In fury, I kicked the front of the console then turned the key so hard I thought it might break. Amazingly enough, at least one of the engines sputtered to life.

“Ha-ha!” I whooped in triumph.

“Fucking good luck,” Da-Marr groused.

“Your aunt would not approve of your potty mouth,” I said and laughed.

For a moment I thought Da-Marr might say,
Fuck her
, but then his lips turned down in a classic pout. I kept turning the wheel until the boat came around and we faced the bridge once more. “I believe you owe me one package of diamonds.”

In that instant, I thought the kid might clock me, but then, incredibly, he reached into his pocket and pulled out the purple pouch, slapping it into my outstretched hand. “Fuck you. But if you don’t get us out of here, I want ’em back.”

I pocketed the diamonds, feeling smug.

That feeling was short-lived, however. For it soon became apparent that though the engine below us was thrumming once again, it didn’t have the power to overcome the current’s awesome force. We’d probably destroyed at least one of the propellers, and probably damaged the second when we’d hit the bridge abutment. Everything inside me started to tense as Easy Breezin’ began to lose ground.

And then the engine died once more and the boat started floating backward.

“You can give me back those diamonds,” Da-Marr said, his voice devoid of emotion.

I reached into my pocket and handed them back to him. Fat lot of good they were going to do him.

“What the hell do we do now?” he asked, his voice tight.

I let out a long breath. “Did I mention there are rapids ahead? That means shallow water. There’s a miniscule chance the boat could get caught up on the rocks.”

“And if it doesn’t?” he asked.

It occurred to me that Da-Marr had lost the ghetto slur he’d so often used. “It’s a long shot, but there are a couple of small islands right before we hit the falls. If we can crash the boat into one of them, we might be able to jump off. And then….”

“Wait for rescue?” he asked skeptically.

I nodded. “Rich saw us take off. He knows I wasn’t a willing participant. He’s a real law and order fanatic. My guess is he marched right into the marina manager’s office and called the cops. It’s been a couple of hours, but law-enforcement is often slow to react. But believe me, he isn’t going to give up on us.”

“On you,” he said, which sounded like an accusation. “Is he gonna have me arrested?”

“I wouldn’t worry about that now. See, I was told by someone I trust that I just might die tonight, and you’re here with me.”

Da-Marr looked through the windshield. Up ahead the water was a frothy white. We were approaching the rapids. “This person ever bullshit you?”

“Nope.”

“Then let’s hope he or she is wrong,” he said, grasping the wheel once more.

Neither of us spoke, staring ahead where we could already see a misty cloud obliterating the sky: the spray from Niagara Falls — the second-tallest waterfall in all of North America.

We hit the rapids with a staggering jolt that knocked us both off our feet. Da-Marr recovered first, struggling upright and grabbing the wheel in a death grip.

The sound was the worst. How could the river have been so deep and then suddenly so shallow, filled with jagged rocks that ripped the keel like it was made of tissue paper? Da-Marr had far more physical strength, so while he struggled to keep Easy Breezin’ under some kind of control, I went down to the into the engine room to find it quickly filling with water. But we weren’t going to sink, not in this current. We might be clinging to wreckage when Easy Breezin’ went over the falls, but there was no stopping the inevitable now.

I held on to my throbbing knee as I struggled up to the bridge deck once more. My heart pounding so hard I wasn’t sure I could speak.

“You said islands. How big — how many?” Da-Marr demanded.

I didn’t know — couldn’t remember the lessons I’d learned in school far too many years before.

“Aim for anything that stands between us and the falls. It’s our only chance.”

Da-Marr nodded, and I looked down at his fingers clutching the wheel, straining to keep the boat on some kind of course,

“If I get us to crash on some little island, you don’t say a word to the cops about any diamonds,” he said.

“You got a deal,” I replied in earnest.

The shadow of a smile crossed his lips.

The rain that had already been hard seemed to pound on us as we broke free from the rapids.

We. Were. Doomed.

Thank you, Sophie, for warning me in advance. A warning with no real details. If she’d said, “Don’t get on a boat,” I would have listened to her. When we met in the afterlife, I was going to give her one fucking big piece of my mind.

Up ahead we could see the vague outlines of trees and rocks.

“There,” I pointed to the right. There’s an island over there. Try to steer toward it.

Already the tendons in Da-Marr’s arms were distended as he struggled to keep the boat under his control, but the mighty river had other ideas. Easy Breezin’ seemed to have a mind of her own as we progressed ever forward toward our deaths.