Nightlife (58 page)

Justin backed over to the retaining wall, leaned his hip against it. Watched Tony let the
hekura
out, and then April fairly snarled and tried to wrench the AK-47 away, sweaty hair swinging in her face. He twisted the rifle from her grasp, pushed her behind him. Waited until the change was complete, and Tony was ready for hunting.

Justin gripped the assault rifle by the barrel, spun his body like a discus thrower. And with a grunt and a heave, he sent the gun hurling out over the bay. Far as he could throw. It dropped, and they all heard the splash.

“You bastard, you just killed us,” April said bitterly.

Tony was surprised, so far as Justin could tell. It didn’t do much to slow him though. The gap, smaller by the second.

Justin hopped onto the retaining wall, balanced on the top with the kilo still in hand. He looked down at the choppy gray water, foaming and sudsing against the bridge’s supports fifteen or twenty feet below. The schizophrenic sky above, a riot of contrasting colors. In between, the earth burned, steamed, Justin suspended in the midst of it all.

“Justin, don’t, the water!” April cried.
"The water, it’s what he wants, he’ll kill you down there!”

He ignored her. And from his perch, gazed down at Tony, now coming in for the final charge. The kill. Twin rows of teeth looking like the world’s most formidable weapons.

Justin held the kilo high, totemistic.

“Follow your dreams,” he said.

And jumped.

He curved his body into a dive more functional than graceful. Let go of the skullflush as soon as he began to drop, plastic-wrapped green falling alongside him. His eyes were open, and he watched the water swell and roll beneath him. Shut his eyes, hoped for the best. Entered the water like a dull knife.

A slap of water, crisp at first, then muffled as it sealed over him. All was dark, cool and wet, and the salt water wasted no time in playing havoc with the raw wounds on his cheek and shoulder. They burned, the cleansing salt scouring them, a harsh astringent that swallowed him whole.

He was thrashing in darkness to reverse his sinking when he heard the second muffled splash from above. Just as he knew he would. He felt Tony atop him like a living shadow, the grappling of hands and feet, and for one terrible lung-bursting moment he wondered what if he was wrong.

But he wasn’t.

He knew it as soon as he heard the gushing bubbles of a warbling roar so tormented, it couldn’t possibly be human. Half human, he’d give it that benefit of the doubt.

The feet, the webbed hands—they felt very feeble all of a sudden. No trouble to push away. The struggling body beside him grew weaker by the second, and when a single triangular tooth grazed his arm, it made nothing more than a small scratch. The saltwater sting almost felt good.

He kicked to the surface, broke water with a choking cough. Burned his nose. Well, he’d live.

Not so, Tony. Justin knew it the moment Mendoza bobbed up beside him. Head canted to one side, limp and boneless. Justin saw a blood-dappled gill.

The salt stung his own wounds, he couldn’t deny it was unpleasant. But how much more magnified must it have been for Tony? A hundredfold? A thousand?
Salt.
Cleansing, cauterizing, abrasive. Freshwater gills just weren’t meant to deal with it. Almost instantaneous death, painfully so. At least he hoped it was painful.

Oh, how he hoped.

Justin kicked for the rocky shoreline a few dozen yards to the west, his shoulder aching to the bone. Overhead, the sky darkened toward night, and he contemplated this entire liquid world he had immersed himself in. This part of that three-quarters of the earth’s surface.

Maybe Tony hadn’t died by jungle, by rain-forest justice, or restored balance of all things natural from that world. Born of primal, die by primal though? Okay, that much he
had
managed. For what was more primal than the sea? This vast, dark cradle that gave spawn to
everything
—land, plant, and, eventually, animal.

There could be no more fitting grave.

He kicked the last few yards, and finally pulled himself onto the rocks, salt water bubbling down his face, streaming from his hair, its taste upon his lips. Soaking his clothes from top to bottom. He sloshed up to his feet, rose beneath a sky whose crimson nodded its quiet approval.

Rebirth.

April had somehow climbed down from the bridge, perhaps over the retaining wall to lower herself from the outer lip. The drop would have been reduced to a few feet then. She stood on the rocks near one of the concrete pillars. From above and behind, the air was filled with the sound of a city of idling engines, blaring horns from nameless strangers who had places to go, things to do, people to see. Let them wait. Their lives would not self-destruct.

And the sirens, always the sirens. This time coming from St. Petersburg, the traffic lanes clear and unblocked across the bridge.

Justin moved carefully along the rough rocks, most at least the size of his head or larger. He turned around without knowing why, just in time to see Tony’s lifeless form slip beneath the water. Almost as if it were sucked down by something that craved it, craved it badly. For whatever reasons. Sometimes the universe dispensed fitting justice after all.

April didn’t say a word. And when they came face-to-face, at last, neither did he. Five seconds, ten. Finally, he walked past her. St. Pete was miles ahead, but it was no impossible goal. If he kept under the bridge, maybe he could even make it without encountering the police. Behold, the fugitive. When he reached into his pocket, he almost laughed when he felt his wallet still there. Another miracle. Green currency may have suffered from the plunge, but plastic was always intact.

He gave momentary thought to their cars, up topside. What they held. The Beretta in the Aries. And the Lincoln, that bag stuffed with twenty grand. Blood money. Probably be kicking himself tomorrow for not trying, at least—but leave it. Leave it all. He didn’t want any part of that anymore.

St. Pete. His shoulder needed stitching, but maybe that could wait, he wouldn’t bleed to death. He hadn’t endured all this to run dry. No. Sleep, then. Sounded like the best medicine of all. Find some dirtbag motel where his appearance would not be questioned. Hole up, sleep forever. Hope like hell the police would not come knocking at the door until he was at least rested. What to tell them, what to tell them? Start with Rene Espinoza, get her in on the aftermath. He’d work it out, somehow.

Justin must have gotten a good twenty yards past April when she called out his name. He shrugged it off. But couldn’t do it a second time. Had to turn back to at least acknowledge that voice. But was two weeks of love enough to undo that knife from his back?

He wasn’t sure he could ever answer that one.

“I’m sorry,” she cried out, and he watched her drop to her knees. Ritual posture of atonement. “Sorry I didn’t . . . didn’t
believe
. . .”

Crossroads.

He searched his soul, open wound that it had become, found the file marked forgiveness. A good deal fuller than it had once been. He’d finally learned to forgive himself for the mistakes that had sent his life on its downward spiral. Maybe it was time to branch out.

Maybe.

The sea, at the rocks near his feet. Splashing, eternal and constant and utterly without constraint. He watched it for a long long while.

Forgiveness was such a chancy proposition. And it wasn’t fair to nail someone into a position where your resentment of their mistakes could eat you both alive. For the wounds ran so very deep.

He felt a trickle of salt water from his eye, and this time it had not come from the sea.

Justin took that first step toward her, and when it went okay, another. Scales were tilting inside him, one way, then the other. Maybe he couldn’t do it. Maybe he wasn’t that healthy yet.

But maybe he could. Taking it one day—and one sin—at a time.

Maybe . . .

Nineteen yards and counting.

He’d know when he got there.