Bright Orange for the Shroud (29 page)

There is damned little you can do in a narrow channel. I yanked the twin levers into reverse, gave the engines one hard burst to pull the
Flush
dead in the water, and put the shift levers in neutral. The only thing that immediately came to hand was the fishkiller, a billy club near the wheel. I forgot the damned leg. When I hit the lower deck it crumpled and spilled me. I scrabbled up and went in the after door to the lounge, into the full blast of the music. Lights were on in the lounge. Mr. Goodman was doing “Sing, Sing, Sing,” the long one with all that drum. Tableau. Arthur stood in the posture of a man with severe belly cramps, staring at Chookie McCall standing in the corridor just beyond the other doorway, Boone grinning over her white silk shoulder. One arm was pulled
behind her. She looked scared and angry. She tried to twist away. Boone’s arm went up, metal in the hand picking up a gleam from the galley brightness beyond him. It came down with wicked force on the crown of her dark head, and I saw her face go blank as she fell forward, falling heavily face down, with no attempt to break the fall, landing half in and half out of the lounge. With one bare foot he tentatively prodded her buttocks. The flesh under her circus pants moved with an absolute looseness, a primitive and effective test of total unconsciousness. When faking or semi-conscious, those muscles will inevitably tighten.

Arthur, with a groan audible over the drum solo, charged right toward the muzzle of the revolver Boone had clubbed her with. Boone merely squatted and put the muzzle against the back of Chook’s head and grinned up at him. Arthur skidded to a clumsy, flailing halt and backed away. Waxwell shifted the revolver to his left hand, put his right hand to his belt, deftly unsheathed the narrow limber blade. He moved forward a little, picked her head up by the hair, put his right hand with the blade under her throat and let the head fall, forehead thumping the rug. Arthur backed further, Waxwell aimed the gun at my belly and made an unmistakable gesture of command. I tossed the fish club onto the yellow couch.

“Cut the music off! Waxwell yelled.

I turned it off. The only sound in the silence was the idling rumble of the diesels.

“McGee, you want your bilges to pump pink for the next three month, nobody gets cute. Right now we got things to do. McGee, you get on up topside and keep this barge off’n the stubs, and ease on back to my boat, very gentle. If you can transmit from topside, I’ll hear your power generator whine,
and I’ll slice this gullet here wide open. Arthur, boy, you get you a boat hook and fish up the bow line and make it fast when we come up on it, hear? Now
move
!”

It did not do me a bit of good to realize how he had managed it. He’d been tucked back into some little bayou under over-hanging mangrove, had let us move by in the narrow channel, all lights and music, and then had come out and come up on us in a fast curve from astern, up to the starboard side, amidships, making the roaring sound I had heard, had cut his engine, jumped and grabbed the rail, come in through the doorway onto the side deck to take Chook unawares in the galley, gun in his hand.

We were in a turning drift toward a channel island, and I eased it away from trouble, put one engine in forward and the other in reverse to bring it cautiously around within its own length. I needed no special warning to watch for stubs. Tide currents undercut the old islands. Mangrove and water oak settle deep and die, and the above water parts weather away. But the underwater segment hardens, usually one blunt-tipped portion of the main trunk, curving down to where the hard dead roots still anchor it. It will give when you run into one, spring back and maybe slide along the hull. But if the angle is right, they will punch a hole through one inch of mahogany.

I brought the
Flush
around, then scanned my spotlight across the water and picked up the white boat.

“Get it at the port stern,” I called to Arthur. When we were on it, I heard it bump the hull once, and looked back and saw him get the line, stoop and bend it around a transom cleat.

“Now you go on just like before,” Waxwell bawled to me from below. “Only dead slow. You see any traffic, you sing
out. Keep it in your mind, ol’ buddy, ol’ buster boy, I can as well ditch the three of you and run it myself, so be real good. Arthur, hike your tired ass in here and bring me a bucketa cold water for fancypants.”

Arthur went below. I kept to the channel, barely maintaining steerage way. I thought of fifty splendid ideas, and maybe half of them would work and all of them would leave Chook shrunken, bleached and dead. In my great cleverness, I had left him with nothing to lose.

As we came out of the channel, moving out toward the sea buoy, and as the first swells began to lift us, I heard voices aft, turned and saw the three of them back there. Chook stood in a listless slump, hands lashed behind her, head bowed, dark hair spilling forward. Waxwell held her with a companionable hand on the shoulder, upright knife clamped under his thumb. I watched Arthur, at Waxwell’s instruction, bring the white boat close, refasten it, clamber over and drop into it and hand up a bulky duffle bag, a rifle, a wooden box, apparently heavy. We were past the sea buoy and out into deep water. At Waxwell’s orders, Arthur freed the smaller stern anchor, lifted it high overhead and smashed it down into the bottom of the towed boat. He retrieved it by the anchor line, smashed it down twice more. By then Waxwell’s boat was visibly settling, and putting enough drag on that stern corner so that I had to turn the wheel to compensate. When the gunnels were almost awash, he had Arthur free the line. He yelled up to me to put the spotlight on it. When it was fifty feet astern, it showed a final gleam of white and went down.

“Give it a south southwest heading, McGee,” he yelled. “Put it up to cruising, put it on pilot, and get on down here.”

He sat on the couch beside Chook. He lounged. She had to
sit erect, hands behind her, and she kept her head down, chin on her chest. He put us in front of him, a dozen feet away, on straight chairs, with the request to keep our hands on our knees.

He looked at us and shook his head. “Couldn b’lieve my ol’ eyes.
Had
to figure to take me a boat. Holed up where I figure the best chance to get me a good one, rough up some of them power squadron types, get em on the way out from Everglades with the best chance of full tanks, teach em to do exactly like ol’ Boo wants. And by God here comes this
Busted Flush
I heard about in Marco from when you were anchored over off Roy Cannon Island, folks that rented Arlie Mission’s outboard, the one you come to Goodland in with the name covered over. One teeny little son of a bitch of a world. My, my.”

He beamed. “Now would you look at ol’ Arthur there. I plain give him the cold sweats. You know, I heard them Dunnings tooken you in, and you were working around that part. No need to come look you up, I figured. I needed just one time to put ol’ Boo’s mark on you. Never did think you’d get sassy again.”

“Did you kill Wilma?” Arthur asked.

But Waxwell was studying me. “You’re more surprise than this broadass barge, friend McGee. I’d a swore you were drip-pin loose brains when I toted you to the car.” He chuckled. “Give me a real turn findin you gone. But I figured it out.”

“Congratulations.”

“It had to be that fat little son of a gun, Cal Stebber. A smart one. He would have had somebody along on account of Arthur here wouldn’t be any use to anybody. Come took you outen the car to take you to get patched up. It was you got him worked up about me, McGee, lettin him know whereat
Wilma was seen last. So I figure after I drove off, he went on in and shot them two dead, phoned in my license, knowing he could lay it onto me and it would be safer the law takes care of me than him trying it. With me on the run, maybe he even figures to get aholt of the cash money Wilma was toten, but I have the idea it’ll stay where it is till I’m ready to go back for it. That fat little fella messed me up for sure. And kilt off one of the best ol’ pieces a man could hope to find, afore I even got her broke in real good. But there come ol’ Boo’s luck like always, bringin him one on the same style, oney bigger and younger, hey, pussycat?”

Lazily he touched the blade point to her upper arm near the shoulder. She gave a little jump, but made no sound. The fabric was pulled tight where he had touched. A bright red dot appeared where he had touched.

“You did kill Wilma,” Arthur said.

Waxwell gave him a pained look. “Now Boo isn’t one to waste something that fine. Little tiny bit of a gal, but I tell you, she was just about as much as ol’ Boo could handle. What happened, Arthur boy, she liked things real rough, and I guess it was the second night after you were there, we boozed up pretty good and it went wrong somehow, caught her wrong some way, and wrenched up her back, real bad. She couldn’t even get up onto her feet come morning. And my, how she talked mean, like she was the queen and I was some bum. I was supposed to lift her gentle into the car and tear-ass off to a hospital. But I felt right sickly, said I’d get around to it sooner or later. Never did hear such a dirty mouth on a woman, the things she called me. And she wouldn’t be still, even when I asked her nice. So I went over there and, just to give her the idea, with my thumb and finger I give her one little quick
pinch in her little throat. She looked up at me and her eyes begin to bug out and her face gets dark red. Her little chest was pumpin, trying to suck air in. I must have bust something. She waved her arms, flapped around a little, shoved her tongue out and next thing you know, she’s dead as a mullet, her face all purpled out. Arthur, I sure didn’t mean to do it like it happened, but after I been through her stuff, I found enough cash money, had I knowed it was there to start, I’d have done it more on purpose. She’s up the Chatham River, boy, down in the deep end of Chevelier Bay, her and her pretties sunk down with cement block, wired real good, even that little diamond watch down there with her, because enough money can make a man afford to be smart.”

“Half smart,” I said.

He looked at me with mild disapproval. “I tried to like you, boy, and I just couldn’t work it out.”

“You bought a lot of fancy gear with that money, Boo. It makes people wonder where you got it. And bought a scooter for poor fat little Cindy. That attracts attention. You tried to make me swallow a clumsy lie about a girl who looked like Wilma. You got nervous about me and went flailing around, getting Crane Watts all rattled. Hell, man, you didn’t even get rid of all Wilma’s stuff. How about the black lace pants Cindy tried to get into and couldn’t?”

“I din find them until … you’re all mouth, McGee. Cindy told you that, hah? What else she talk about?”

“Everything she could think of.”

“I’m going to get back to her some day. And real good. Enough talking. I got to look this boat over. Arthur, you go find me some pliers and some wahr. Move, boy!”

When Arthur came back with them and went slowly towards Boone, even I could tell he was going to make a play. I gathered myself to do what I could, feeling no optimism. There was a clumsy rush, a fleshy smack, and before I was halfway up, Arthur was tottering back to turn and fall heavily. I sat down again. Arthur sat up, his eyes dazed and his mouth bloody.

Boone lifted Chook’s heavy dark hair out of the way, took the top of her ear between thumb and finger and laid the knife blade against her temple. Without any trace of anger he said, “Just one more time, one more little bitty thing, and I slice off this pretty little piece of meat and make her hand it to you, lover boy.”

Arthur got slowly to his feet. “Now you pick up that wahr and pliers and wahr McGee’s ankles together, and when he lies down and puts his arms around that table leg that’s bolted fast to the deck there, and you wahr his wrists good.”

In a little while we were neighbors, Arthur and me, tightly and efficiently wired to the adjoining legs of the heavy wall table, and Waxwell had gone off to make a tour of inspection of the
Flush
, pushing Chook ahead of him, speaking to her with that same heavy, insinuating jocularity I had heard him use on Vivian Watts, saying, “That’s right, that’s fine. You just go along there, pussycat, and ol’ Boo’ll stay right with you. My, my, you a big sweet piece of girl for sure.” His voice faded as they went past the galley and staterooms toward the bow.

“My
God
, my
God
!” Arthur moaned.

“Steady down. Aside from one damn fool play, you’re doing fine.”

“But she acts half alive.”

“She’s still dazed. That was a hell of a rap. He did it very neatly, Arthur, getting aboard. We have to just hope he’s smart enough to know he needs us.”

“What for?” he demanded bitterly.

“If he doesn’t know, I’ll tell him. They’ll check all boats leaving the Everglades area. He’ll have to have us handy to get us a clearance, while he keeps us in line by staying out of sight with a knife at her throat. So we wait for a chance, one that we can make work.”

“He’ll never give us one. Never.”

“Let me take the lead. Try to be ready all the time. Your job is Chook. She’s his leverage. The minute I make a move, your job is get her away from him. A flying tackle, anything.”

They came back to the lounge, Boone chuckling to himself. “You got this thang as prettied up as a Tallahassee whore house, McGee. This big old gal says her name is Chookie. Now ain’t that one hell of a name? Come on, darlin. We’re going to see what she’s like topsides.”

After they went out, I said to Arthur, “Act as if that last punch broke you down completely. You’re whipped. It will make him less wary thinking he only has me to watch.”

“But, my God, Trav, if he … if he leaves us right here like this and takes Chook back there and …”

“There won’t be one damned thing you can do about it, I can do about it or she can do about it. It will happen, and be over and done, and we’ll still have exactly the same problem.”

“I couldn’t stand that.”

I did not answer him. I felt a change in movement of the boat and knew he was at the topside controls. He added rpm to both engines. They were out of sync at the new throttle setting.
In a few moments he smoothed them out. I identified the clunk as he put it back into automatic pilot.