Nightwitch (2 page)

He took a few easy breaths, made sure he had his heart rate under control, then rolled over and swam out against the tide. He saw the gray dinghy five minutes later and he swam toward it with renewed effort. The rubber boat was anchored above a sandbar only twenty feet below the surface and far enough away from the shore so that it wasn’t visible in the dark.

He was tired when he reached it. He wanted rest, but he had a lot left to do before sunup. He said a silent prayer, then propelled himself up out of the water, with a strong kick, and into the boat.

He pulled off the wet jeans and tee shirt and thought about pulling off the boxer shorts, but the thought of riding around naked in the ocean made him shiver.

He thought about the men on the beach and wondered if the one he’d used as a shield was dead. He hoped so, because even a man like that should not have to die at the hands of one like her. She had a way of keeping them alive till the very last. Very bad, he thought.

Thirty minutes later he closed on his boat. It was anchored three miles south of Palma and as far out as four hundred feet of chain would let him anchor. He pushed the kill switch on the Evinrude and was coasting toward it when the first bullet ricocheted through the night and sizzled through the inflatable boat.

The second bullet whizzed over his head as he went over the side. He was a powerful swimmer and he struck out away from the boat, toward the open sea, the last place they’d expect him to go.

A flashlight beam hit the water.

“
See him, Tom?” The voice was high pitched and whiny. Coffee pictured a skinny man in his early twenties, with a scraggly beard and long hair.

“
I think I got him, Itchy.” Coffee wondered what kind of name Itchy was. “Yeah, I think I got him,” Tom repeated. Tom had a deep bass voice and Coffee pictured a big man. Big and not too bright. He’d fired the gun before he had a clear target.

“
We gotta get the body,” Itchy said.

“
I know.” Tom moved the flashlight back and forth across the water. Coffee went under when it came his way and did the breast stroke toward the boat, coming up quiet and close, two more silent strokes and he was underneath the bow. They could look till dawn with that flashlight and never find him.

“
Check the rubber boat,” Itchy said and Tom moved the light to the dinghy.

“
He’s gone,” Tom said.

“
Makes no difference if you got him or not, he’s dead. No one could swim to shore from here,” Itchy said.

Wrong, Coffee thought, any good swimmer could make it.

“
But we got no proof,” Tom said. “No proof, we don’t get the other half.”

“
So we make ourselves a little bonus. He’s got a lotta neat stuff below and I bet if we look, we’ll find a stash. Guy with a boat like this. Gotta have a stash. Even if he don’t, we can get a pretty penny for the CDs all by themselves.”

“
But we’re supposed to sink the boat and not take anything.”

“
I won’t tell if you don’t,” Itchy said.

“
Fine by me.” Tom turned off the light.

“
Okay,” Itchy said.

Coffee saw a glowing cigarette fly over the side. Then he heard the men clamor down the companionway and go below. He swam along the side of his boat, a forty-five foot sloop, to the aft end. They hadn’t even brought up the swim ladder. He had to push aside their dinghy, a small red Zodiac, to get at the ladder.

He climbed silently aboard, listening to the men rifle through his things below. He was going to have to kill them. Funny, he thought, he’d managed to get through his whole life without killing anybody and tonight he had killed two men, was responsible for the death of a third and was about to kill two more. Listening to the men tear the boat apart firmed his resolve. He moved through the cockpit without making a sound, but it wouldn’t have made any difference, because they’d found the stereo and the lonely sounds of Billie Holiday started drifting out over the waves.

“
How about some rock and roll?” the one named Itchy yelled out. For a few seconds silence reigned. Then Bob Dylan’s scratchy, raspy voice filled the night.

They had the volume cranked up full blast. He didn’t think the speakers would take it for very long, but it didn’t matter. He stepped through the cockpit, walking softly on the deck to the mast, where he unhooked the main halyard. He held the line firmly in hand and moved back to the cockpit. The other end of it was wrapped around the starboard side power winch.

Then he eased up the port side cockpit cushion and took out the flare gun, broke the barrel, loaded it and snapped it closed. With the gun in hand, he poked his head into the cockpit.

“
We’re rich,” Tom said, his bass voice booming from the front cabin.

“
How much?” Itchy passed by the galley toward the cabin. Coffee got a glimpse of his back. He was tall and big boned, with a close cropped military style haircut, not at all like he’d imagined. He resisted an urge to go in after them, but the quarters were too close, the outcome too unpredictable. So he sat above and behind the hatch, ignoring the cold, as he tied a bowline in the halyard and fed the line back through it, making a sliding loop, and waited.

He didn’t have to wait long. A big man with long black hair lumbered through the companionway and went to the aft part of the boat, toward the tethered Zodiac. He didn’t turn around. When Itchy’s close cropped head came through, Coffee slipped the bowline noose over it, jerked the rope around his neck, then stepped on the deck button, activating the power winch. Itchy’s scream was cut off with a gag as he shot upward.

“
What?” Tom turned around.

“
Don’t move.” Coffee pointed the flare gun his belly.

“
Oh my lord.” Tom stared at his friend, riding upward toward the spreaders, swinging and kicking, while Bob Dylan sang about a simple twist of fate in the background. Itchy’s tongue was hanging out of his mouth, his eyes were bulging, his neck was broken and he was dead, his kicking feet just didn’t know it yet.

“
Why are you here?” Coffee asked.

“
It wasn’t me. It was all Itchy’s idea. I hate the ocean. I can’t even swim.”

“
Why are you here?” Coffee repeated, but the man went into shock, staring upward at the jerking corpse. Coffee knew the answer anyway, so he shot the big man in the belly. Tom flew overboard, splashing into the water, with his eyes still in shock, still staring at the swinging corpse, as he slipped into the hungry arms of the dark sea.

Coffee waited a few seconds, then lowered the body till it was two feet off the deck. For an instant he thought about searching it for the cash, but he didn’t. They’d only found the dummy stash, containing a thousand dollars in twenties. It was meant to be found. Gritting his teeth, he pushed the body over the lifelines, lowering it till its feet were dragging in the water. He grabbed a fistful of the dead man’s shirt and held the body aloft while he removed the halyard. Then he dropped the dead man into the sea to join his friend.

He found the killing didn’t bother him, but he didn’t enjoy it either.

Now the cold chilled him and he went below. He turned off the stereo and welcomed the silence. He didn’t have much time as he wanted to be ashore before sunup. He moved to the side cabin and took out his duffel bag and started stuffing it full of clothes. Then he went to the forward bilge, raised the floor hatch and removed a waterproof pouch. He opened it and took out two packages wrapped in wax paper, one contained ten thousand dollars in hundred dollar bills, the other a loaded forty-five automatic and an extra clip. He dropped them into his duffel. He would miss the CDs and books, some of them not replaceable, but it was time to move on.

He put on dry clothes—Levi’s, a sweatshirt, running shoes, without socks, and went on deck. The sun was just starting to crack the sky, but he still had fifteen minutes or so before daylight.

He picked up the five week old newspaper and read the headlines over the article in the View Section one more time.

Hot new California artist sells two paintings to the White House.

If only she wouldn’t have been so successful. He dropped the newspaper into the duffel bag. Then he took the bag on deck and dropped it into the Zodiac.

He said a silent Hail Mary before he hauled the anchor for the last time, and still another one, before he reattached the main halyard.

“
I’m gonna miss you, old girl,” he said as he raised the main. He wasn’t a sentimental man, but he spent a silent moment behind the wheel with the bow pointed toward the rising sun. Then he crossed himself and unfurled the jib.

There was a good wind.

He set the self-steering gear to keep it pointed west, then he lowered himself into the dinghy and bid a silent farewell to the only home he’d ever enjoyed. He loved that boat, but to stay on board, nurtured in the safety of the sea, was to give up on life. It was time for him to join the land of the living.

Chapter Two

“
Gonna pass?” Arty said, coming up behind her.

She stopped, just as the water crossed the sidewalk. It looked to Arty like she’d been daydreaming.

“
You almost got blasted,” he said, as she jumped over the spray shooting out from the sprinklers on the old lady’s front lawn.

“
I’m not just going to pass, I’m going to get them all right, Arty Smarty Pants.” She turned around as soon as she was clear of the spray. She was fingering a locket with her left hand and was holding her books in her right.

Arty hated it when the other kids called him that. He didn’t even like it much when they called him Arty, but Arty was better than fatso or fat boy and lots better than what his own mother called him—her little butterball. He’d take Arty Smarty Pants any day. Even from a girl.

“
No way,” he said. She watched as he came closer and giggled when he tried to jump the spray. His coordination was off and he landed in the middle of the blast, getting his corduroy pants wet. He jumped out of the spray and slipped, windmilling as he struggled to catch his balance and keep from going down. She held her breath and didn’t laugh.

“
My mom says that if I get them all right she’s going to take me to Disneyland.” She punctuated the statement by sticking out her lower lip and blowing the hair out of her eyes.

“
No way.” Arty stopped and bent over, trying to brush some of the water away from below his knees.

“
She said so, and she wouldn’t lie, and zip up your fly.”

Arty zipped up. His fly came down too often for him to be embarrassed about it. “Disneyland’s thousands of miles away,” he said.

“
Is not, only five hundred.”

“
Five hundred, that’s still a lot. You really going?”

“
If I don’t blow it.” She bit her lower lip and crossed her fingers for luck. “We’re going to fly to San Francisco on the little plane and take a jet to John Wayne Airport on Sunday after church, if I get them all.” She squeezed her eyes against the sun shining over his shoulders.

“
How you gonna do that?” All the kids in school knew about Carolina’s memory. She was smart and she could figure things out, but she had trouble telling the answers. She had even more trouble writing them down. She might know all the states and their capitals, but there was no way she was going to be able to put them all on paper at test time.

“
I studied hard, and I wrote each state and each capital over a hundred times. Try me.” She sucked in her breath and raised her shoulders, making herself as tall as possible.

“
Nevada?”

“
That’s easy, Carson City.” She closed her eyes and Arty thought she was imagining the map and the words in her mind.

“
Hawaii?”

“
Easier, Honolulu.”

“
New York?”

“
Easier still, Albany?” She opened her eyes and smiled.

“
Albany, yeah, that’s it.” Arty rolled his round head. “I can never remember that one.”

“
Ask me another.” She moved to his right side to get the sun out of her eyes.

“
I’ll give you an easy one. California?”

“
It’s,” then she stopped and started to stutter. “Eh, eh, it’s a, it’s a—”

“
I knew it. You’ll never get ’em all right. You won’t get past two or three and then you’ll freeze.” He regretted saying it as soon as the words left his lips, but sometimes he couldn’t help himself, words just flowed out before he got a chance to stop them. He wanted to say something clever, to make her like him. He didn’t want her to think he was a snot or a snob.

“
Will not.”

“
Will too. You’ll freeze like a dead man.” He started to say more, but he bit his bottom lip to keep himself quiet. He’d already done enough damage, by now she had to think he was a real jerk.

She put her right hand to her locket, fingering it tightly with her thumb and forefinger. “I’m going get them all right, even if it kills me.”

“
I bet you don’t.” His teeth let go and his lips just started flapping. He felt like he was shooting himself in the foot.

“
I bet I do.”

“
Tell you what, if you get ’em all, I’ll carry your books for a year.”