KNIGHT'S REPORTS: 3 Book Set (46 page)

She returns my smile and touches my cheek. "Liar."

Her arm falls limp. As quickly as that, she is no longer with us. I am holding only her shell — an "
it
", as Lt. Harper Legend so accurately refers to a corpse.

But I have no time to grieve.

From the deck behind Smokey, I see movement.

Karl is still alive.

He has Zoya's hand grenade in one hand.

He has the ring and pin in the other.

He throws the grenade, the safety lever flipping off as the deadly explosive bounces into the cabin where Dolly and Jada are.

One
. We have less than six seconds before it explodes.

Two
. Too many people — children, Smokey, Ol' Corky. All will die.

Three
. I dive through the companionway, down into the cabin's main salon.

Four
. My hands find the grenade.

Five
. I begin unscrewing the head and fuse assembly from the body and explosive filler.

Six. It's coming, I'm turning the body fast, hoping it won't blow.

Seven.
Lucky — old grenade, a dud?
I duck my head away as I twist the thing one last time, pulling out the head and fuse.

Eight
. The fuse flares as it comes out and pops — igniting the explosive charge inside.

The body of the grenade rockets from my hand and through the outside bulkhead — punching a huge hole in the hull, well below the waterline.

The main salon is full of acrid smoke and, as the water pours in, I collapse. Both hands feel on fire. My ears ring. My head hurts. I can't see. I pass out.

Epilogue

Wine and Romantic Gunfire

The Wizard's Den, 8:00 a.m., One week later

After a "welcome
home from the hospital" pizza party for Oz the night before, I was sitting at the bar drinking coffee with Oz and See-Saw that next morning.

We were waiting for Smokey, Dolly, Rabbit, Jada and Ol' Corky to come over from the restaurant with breakfast. Beautiful and Booger were on their way up from San Diego to join us.

"Yeah, I'll tell you, E Z," Oz said, giving me a rundown on his time in the hospital, "there was this one night nurse — well, she was fantesticle."

"What?"

"That's Greek speak," See-Saw explained.

"Yeah," Oz said, "Fantesticle — she was so hot that I had to fan my testicles to keep 'em from catching the sheets on fire."

The two old sailors erupted in laughter.

I chuckled along, more at them than the joke.

"I don't remember that night nurse's name, but I'd call her Nurse Onion Butt."

"Onion Butt?" I said.

See-Saw said, "Yeah, her butt was so nice, it made him cry."

They both laughed again.

"And me, with two busted up arms," he said. "Can you imagine what time of day I wanted my sponge baths?"

"At night," I surmised.

They laughed again.

Oz said, "But I always got old Hilda, the body builder, first thing every morning. When I complained, she said young Nurse Onion Butt didn't do nighttime sponge baths."

They laughed again.

"Except on the weekend," he said. "Nurse Light-Loafers gave it to me, and both days, he pulled a couple of extra times on the ol' tally-whacker." He grabbed himself.

Now they were laughing so hard Oz couldn't talk, and I had to catch See-Saw before he fell off his bar stool.

They finally straightened up. I was glad — I didn't think I could take much more of the old sailor humor.

"I gotta hand it to you, E Z," Oz said, "I never thought you could unscrew a hand grenade to keep it from exploding."

I raised my eyebrows. "Neither did I."

"What?"

"What else could I do? If I would have jumped on the grenade it would have blown the bottom of the hull out, and that boat would have sunk like a rock."

See-Saw began explaining, "Hand grenades are made of three main parts — the charge, the body, and the head and fuse assembly. The head and fuse screw into the body where the charge is. When the pin is pulled and the safety lever is released, a spring-loaded firing pin strikes a primer, which ignites the fuse. The fuse will burn for five or six seconds before it gets to the detonator that sets off the charge. Since the charge is enclosed, the hot gasses that are immediately released have nowhere to go to relieve pressure, so the thing blows up."

I took over, "I figure the forty-year-old grenade fuse was a little slow. It probably went for about eight seconds. That gave me an extra two, which saved our lives."

See-Saw took the baton. "He got the detonator out of place from where it would usually go off in the explosive filler. And the top was open from him unthreading the thing. The burning filler was able to release its pressure right out the threaded hole. Instead of blowing up like a bomb; it shot like a rocket."

I held up my two bandaged hands. "I was really lucky."

"You can say that again," Oz said.

I said, "Oz, I was really,
really
lucky."

He frowned at me, curiously.

I explained, "You didn't know I spent a couple nights in a room down the hall from yours, did you?"

"No." Oz said, obviously wondering where I was going with it.

"Remember Nurse Onion Butt?"

"Yeah, so?"

I raised my two bandaged hands higher. "Nurse Body-Builder lied to you. Onion Butt does do nighttime sponge baths."

Oz groaned, shaking his head.

Now it was only See-Saw who was laughing. But he stopped abruptly.

"Sh-h-h!" he said. "I hear the girls coming, and if they catch us laughing, they'll wanna know why."

We were still chuckling when the ladies and Rabbit came in.

They greeted us with pleasant smiles, carrying plates of pancakes, eggs and bacon, and they sat them down in front of us as Oz poured more coffee with his right hand. Although badly bruised, it wasn't broken.

"The heroines," Oz said. "We were just talking about you," he lied. "How you all saved old E Z here from that sinking, burning yacht."

Ol' Corky rubbed my head with her knuckles. "Yeah, even ol' Wonder Boy needs a Wonder Girl once in a while."

"Hey, how about me?" Rabbit said. "I got the raft."

"And I got the pad-duls!" Dolly said.

I grinned at them. "That's right, you sure did. And it was young Rabbit here who had those bad guys all figured out."

I patted him on the back as he went to a bar stool on the other side of Smokey.

Smokey sat next to me, her face beaming. This would be a nice day — forecast sunny and
very, very hot
!

Two new voices joined us.

"And I got the helicopter that evacked him to the hospital — a lot quicker than the Coastie's patrol boat could have, if they'd ever showed."

"And I evacked Jazzy to the vet."

Beautiful Johnson and Booker Radcliff came in the door together, their smiles beaming.

We had a great breakfast, exchanging niceties and catching up. Ol' Corky was getting a new boat delivered this afternoon, and she was excited. She'd decided to retire from the mercenary-for-hire business for good and settle down here on her boat.

Oz was getting new front teeth today. His right arm was plenty bruised, but he would have full use of it within another week. His left would take several more weeks to heal.

When I asked See-Saw if
he
was getting anything new, he whispered, "I'll be getting laid."

I let that one go with a smile and nod, but without further comment.

I filled them in on some of the details they may have missed during the craziness the week before.

After his newly ex-wife exploded at the Kodak Theatre, Jason Ryder himself found the card she was holding that named Best Actor — that name was not his. The word on the news last night was that the Academy would be making a big announcement today.

I also explained to them that Jason was sterile. His manager Scott Pula was Sophie's real father, and Jason's lover. Stella knew Jason was gay — he started out being a very confused bisexual. She also knew that, although Scott was gay, he married his wife to keep up appearances. Between the three of them they decided Stella should have a child to hide from the world the fact that Jason wasn't homosexual in order to ensure he kept getting the block-buster movie deals.

Coincidentally, Scott's daughter was born within a month of Sophie and the two good friends could pass as twins. Scott Pula's ex was now in the process of adopting Sophie, and Jason was going along with it.

Now, with third degree burns to one side of Jason's face, he wouldn't be a pretty-faced leading man anymore. There weren't many big parts for actors with the Phantom of the Opera look. How ironic.

I complimented Oz on how nice it was for him to hang photos of Zoya and Stella above the bar with his brother and parents. But his family photos weren't of his real family.

You see, Oz claims he and his twin brother were raised from birth by the same wolf pack that killed his parents. He lived with them until he was caught in a trap at the age of six. He'll actually show you the trap scars on his ankle if you ask him. He says his brother is still living with the wolves on the Greek island of Hydra. If you tell him there aren't any wolves on Hydra, he'll reply that just because no one else has ever seen them, it doesn't mean they aren't there. The pictures of two wolves above the bar are captioned "Mom" and "Dad" underneath.

Beside them is a sideshow picture of Barnum and Bailey's Wolf Boy, with the caption of "Brother Bo". He'll admit that these aren't pictures of his real family, but they're the best he can come up with from memory.

The pictures of Zoya and Stella were actually news photos taken on the red carpet. He printed them off from the Internet last night after the pizza party. Oz said hanging them was the least he could do. He'd "never met either of the ladies, but they seemed like nice folks, even though both were a bit troubled and one was terribly misguided."

Oz said he's considering having a couple of fangs put in when he got his new front teeth implanted that afternoon. That way he'd look more like his long lost brother and parents.

Yes, Oz is a very strange man, but he's a very good man, as well.

We'd finished breakfast, and Rabbit, Jada and Ol' Corky were cleaning off the bar in preparation of washing the dishes.

Smokey and I turned to each other and smiled. I took her hand and said, "Time for a little sailing?"

She nodded, and her grin widened.

When I slipped off the barstool and grabbed the picnic basket Smokey had prepared, my foot nudged Jazzy Brass. She awakened immediately and stood up.

"What about it, girl? You up for some sailing?"

She yawned and took a couple of steps toward the door. Looking back at us over the bandage still covering the knife wound in her side, she sighed.

"You don't want me to carry you in the two-wheeler I brought you in?"

She stepped slowly to the door and stared at the doorknob.

"She's as ready as I am," Smokey said as we approached her.

I glanced at my report writer sitting at a corner table, typing away on his laptop. He had ear buds in and was listening to an audio tape I'd given him when he arrived at the bar earlier this morning. I imagined he was finishing up his transcription of the latest monthly report to give to my parole officer, Tamara White Cloud. Good man — I'm not much of a writer, myself — and he's cheap, too.

Kessler gave me a smile and a nod, and I returned it as I opened the door for my ladies to exit.

Smokey and I took our time strolling down the pier, giving Jazzy consideration. The vet said she would be as good as new in a couple of weeks.

When we got to the
Reckless Abandon
, I took the picnic basket into the cabin, but then hesitated when I noticed a piece of paper on my bunk. I picked it up and found it was a note, folded backwards, that said:
Now that all your other distractions are out of the way, let's have some fun. Maybe tonight's the night....

I thought my smile would crack my cheekbones.
Yes!

Before I had a chance to turn it over and read the rest on the other side of the fold, Smokey called in, "You'd better come and look at this."

I slipped the note into my pocket, deciding there would be plenty of time to read the rest later. Besides, it could contain a surprise — and I like
good
surprises.

When I came out topside, I saw Smokey was gazing at the end of the pier, her hand above her eyes.

Coming toward us was a small motor boat with a brand new fifty-foot Hunter sailboat in tow — the
Nauti-Gal II
. It had to cost Ol' Corky a fortune — certainly much more than her insurance would have paid for the old Hunter. Of course, I knew that the Judge would have paid her a considerable amount for her work with me, as well.

I already had my much smaller boat rigged to sail. After we greeted the free-loading ferret, Nostradamus, who had just climbed out of his litter box on the forward end of the cockpit, we cast off lines. I adjusted the mainsail boom and took the tiller.

Finally, we were off on what I hoped would be a pleasurable, but not too adventurous day.

It turned out to be one of those glorious days. We drank wine and ate a picnic lunch on the boat, and then went swimming in a cove down the coast. Later in the afternoon, we sang Jimmy
Buffet, Darius Rucker/Hootie and the Blowfish, and even some Israel "IZ" Kamakawiwo'ole songs, accompanied by my guitar, while drinking margaritas. Smokey has a sweet voice. As for myself, I've been told I should go pro. I might even be able to eek out a living singing in bars, if I wanted to. But I don't want to — I'll remind you that, although I'm not yet forty, I
am
retired.

On the way back, we caught a great breeze and the sea was gentle. I heeled the boat with the
apparent
wind in our faces, Smokey in my arms and Jazzy at my side — little Nostradamus curled up next to her.

After a toast in the bay at sunset, we headed in, but I hoped this would not be the end of our evening together. Dolly and Rabbit were spending the night at Mrs. Perkins'. She had a boy Rabbit's age, and they loved to play video games together. Considering the note Smokey left on my bunk this morning, I was pretty sure tonight
would
be
the night
.