Something for Nothing (47 page)

“Hurry up,” Martin said. “Otherwise I'll have to swing around again.”

This time Slater nodded, climbed slowly onto the side of the boat, and started making his way toward the bow. Martin watched him as he inched along, shuffle-stepping, and clinging to the railing that ran along the top of the cabin. He was glancing down at the water every few steps.

Huh, Martin thought. He really is afraid.

They were about twenty yards from the ship when Slater made it out to the bow. He bent down, picked up the rope, and then glanced back at Martin. Martin gave him a thumbs-up gesture, and Slater returned it.

Okay, Martin thought. He reached into his pocket, pulled out the .22, and checked the safety to make sure that it was off. Then he put it into the right pocket of the windbreaker he was wearing.

He slowed the boat even more, and then eased it into reverse, so that the momentum of their forward movement would keep them heading toward the
O'Brien,
but the backward thrust would allow them to avoid slamming too hard into the side of the ship. But then Martin realized that that was exactly what he wanted: to slam into the side of the
O'Brien
and throw Slater off balance. He knew he couldn't do it too hard or he'd fall down, too. He might even hurt himself—or the boat, which would be bad. He didn't want to sink it and be stranded on the
O'Brien,
alone with Jim Slater the dirty narcotics detective. But yes, a hard bang. That was the plan.

And so when they were about five yards from the ship, Martin eased the throttle forward again. There was a low grinding as the engine worked to respond (and tried to figure out why Martin couldn't seem to make up his mind), and then the boat surged ahead. There wasn't enough space to pick up any real speed, but it was enough to make
By a Nose
slam into the
O'Brien
with a loud metallic boom. It was also enough to throw Slater off balance.

“Hey!” he yelled as he stumbled forward and bumped hard against the iron wall of the big ship. Martin was thrown forward, too, but he'd been prepared for it—had both hands on the tiller.

“Sorry!” Martin yelled, as loud as he could.

He cut the throttle, and then he scrambled up the ladder to the bridge of the Viking. It just took a second to get up the ladder, but he saw that Slater had already regained his balance. He was kneeling, one knee up, and just starting to look around. Martin thought that he looked a little uncertain—like he was shaken up.

Good, Martin thought. He took the .22 out of his pocket and leaned over the low plexiglass screen that protected the driver up on the bridge. Then he closed his left eye, aimed the gun with both hands, and pulled the trigger.
Blam.
Nothing. He'd missed.

Fucking hell.

Slater didn't move, just looked around, wary. He looked like he was trying to figure out if he'd actually heard what he thought he'd heard. It took him an extra second to look up toward the bridge, and then fix his gaze on Martin. They made momentary eye contact, and in that split second Martin could see Slater's expression shift from confusion to understanding. He suddenly looked pissed off. Not scared, just angry.

Martin pulled the trigger again.
Blam.
This time Slater yelped—yelped and reached up to grab his left shoulder with his right hand. He didn't fall over, though. Instead, he threw himself forward and then scrambled up, running in a low tuck to Martin's right. He was moving to the starboard side of the boat.

Martin swung the gun around to his right and pulled the trigger again.
Blam.
He saw Slater stumble and grab his right thigh, but then he disappeared out of his line of vision, onto the narrow walkway next to the starboard side railing.

Jesus Christ, Martin thought. It's true—bullets really don't have an effect on this guy. And then he was seized with terror, because he knew Slater would now have his own gun out—one he knew how to use, and one that had a lot more power than the little .22-caliber pistol Martin had stolen from under Miriam's bed.

He needed to get off the bridge. Slater was right below him, sidling along the edge of the boat, and he'd be back on the deck in seconds. Martin considered leaning over the back edge of the bridge, trying to put a shot into him just as he reached the deck, but who was he kidding? It was too risky—crazy, in fact.

Fuck.

He crouched, listening, trying to hear over the sound of his terrified breathing. It was incredibly quiet—utterly silent—and he was afraid that his panting would give him away. He was pretty sure Slater wasn't the type to breathe hard . . . and that he knew enough to listen for exactly the sounds that Martin was making. His lungs wouldn't stop
demanding air. It was his heart. His heart was pounding in his chest—
thump-thump, thump-thump
—and it was forcing his lungs to demand air, and demanding that his mouth follow suit and gulp it in.

He looked back, and saw that
By a Nose
had drifted from the
O'Brien
. Twenty or thirty yards already. They were just floating now in the eerily quiet canyon of World War II battleships. Fog was drifting past, and he realized that visibility was getting bad pretty quickly. In a few minutes he wouldn't be able to see the
O'Brien,
even though it was towering right overhead. It would be lost in the fog—and a few minutes after that, the Viking would be lost as well.

He felt frozen. If I just stay here, I'll be all right. Someone will come to help. The police. Or what if I yell to Slater, tell him I'm sorry? That I'll take him to the hospital, make sure he's all right?

He put his face against the plastic seat cushion of the bridge chair, breathing and thinking. He knew he was on his own—and that a guy like Jim Slater didn't need medical attention. Not really. He'd pull the bullets out and keep coming.

He was sitting there, trying to figure out what to do, when first one, then two, then three shots rang out.
Thwack. Thwack. Thwack.
Slater was behind him now, on the deck, shooting through the fiberglass floor of the bridge—trying to pick him off blindly, like the sitting duck he was.

Martin ran forward and threw himself onto the Plexiglas windscreen of the bridge and over it, rolling. The edge raked across his stomach, and then he came clattering down onto the front deck. He turned to face the lower-deck windshield, but couldn't see anything. He crawled to his right, to the port side of the boat, and crouched behind the exterior wall of the cabin.

Again he sat, panting, listening to the sound of his own heavy breathing. He positioned himself so that his gun was pointed down along the port-side walkway that ran outside the cabin. As he did, he saw with alarm that the boat was now completely enveloped in a pocket of fog. One second he was eyeing the sightline to the rear deck, and the
next he was in a pillow of whiteness and only able to see a foot or two ahead. It was, he realized, just like when he was flying: One second you were surrounded by beautiful blue sky, with the world spread out around you down below, and the next you were in the colorless no-time of a cloud. You knew you were moving (the instrument panel was insistent on this point), and you could hear the engines working away—but it was as if you had suddenly stalled, stepping out of the moving world and into . . . something else. No bearings, no nothing. He'd heard of pilots who'd gotten completely lost in huge cloud banks, who didn't even know if they were flying upward or downward. And some died that way. They just lost their bearings, and that was it.

“Hey, Martin!” a voice yelled out, making Martin jump so much that he lost the grip on his gun for a second. He only caught it as it fell into his lap. Another few inches and it would have fallen,
plop,
into the water.

It was Slater, of course, but because it came at him out of the sudden fog, he couldn't tell if he was close up (fifteen feet away, on the bridge?) or way back on the rear of the deck (a safer thirty feet away). His voice carried right out over the water, and echoed back to them off the
O'Brien
and the other ships.

“Martin! Are you all right? I'm sorry I shot at you, but what the fuck are you doing? You shot me, you know! Twice! If that had been a real gun, I'd be dead right now, you know that?”

Martin didn't answer. He strained to hear where the voice was coming from. Slater was probably shouting to cover the sound of his own movements.

“Listen,” Slater yelled. “I can't get this fucking boat back by myself. I don't want to hurt you. I need you. Look at this fog. What am I supposed to do if you're dead, Martin? And I don't even know where the money is. What are you doing? You're fucking crazy. Do you want to split the money? Is that it? I'll do that if you want. What the hell. Fine. Fifty–fifty. How about it?”

Martin thought about this for a second. Surviving this situation and
a fifty-fifty split. He'd take that deal in a flash. But, of course, it wasn't a real deal, not at all, as the mention of his name in the same sentence as the word
dead
reminded him—that and the image of Angela lying on her living room floor with two bullet holes in her back. He pictured the veins on the backs of her legs, exposed for the whole world to see, and he felt a moment of stark terror.

Martin looked at the forward deck. He was thinking. When he and Peter played pirates out here, his favorite move was to open up the forward hatch, the one right above the sleeping compartment, and slip down into the cabin. He'd move slowly, tiptoeing, and then sneak up on him. It worked like a charm, every time. Boom, boom. Gotcha! You're dead! But Peter was nine going on eight. Would it really work on Jim Slater, trained narco guy? It was pretty unlikely. But what were his options? Wait for Slater to track him down in the fog and shoot him?

“Martin!” Slater yelled again. “Look, this is your last chance. I'm bleeding from your pop gun shots, and it fucking hurts. I'm getting impatient, and angry, Martin . . .”

Slater kept talking, but Martin wasn't listening. He put the gun into his jacket pocket and started a quick, sideways crawl to his left. He was up on his toes and fingertips. The timing was perfect, because Slater kept on talking and threatening him as he moved. He was still at it when Martin located the hatch and lifted it open. It slid up on its hinges, and Martin paused for one more second, listening.

“I don't want to shoot you,” he heard Slater say, “but if you don't walk the fuck over to the deck, I'm gonna . . .”

And then he was sliding down through the hatch, setting his feet onto the bed and then onto the floor. He was scared—really scared—but Slater's voice was actually reassuring. If he's yelling at me, he's up on the deck, still trying to see into the fog.

Martin saw with relief that the sliding door to the sleeping bunk was open. He took the .22 out of his pocket (he knew he had two bullets left) and started forward. He was just at the kitchen counter when he heard a shot, and he froze. It took everything he had not to pull the
trigger of the .22. But he knew that the shot was outside, aimed out into the thick fog of the encroaching night—a night hastened by the way the battleships blocked out the last of the light from the sunset. Martin could still see in the cabin, but it was a mess from Slater's pillaging, and he had to move carefully.

Soon enough, though, he was at the steps. The louvered doors were closed. He was tempted to charge up the steps and start firing at the first thing that moved, but he knew better. He stood listening. He was pretty sure that if Slater was on the bridge, directly above him, he'd hear his footsteps. But as he stood, wondering, Slater took another shot. This time Martin knew for sure that it was off to his right, to the boat's port side.

Jesus, he thought. That's right where I was. He wondered if he would have been able to detect Slater's movements, or if the bullet would have smacked into him as he sat crouched and hiding.

He heard movement, a
squeak, squeak
of sneakers. He knew that Slater was inching his way along the outside of the cabin. He thought for a second that he could dash to the port-side window and have a decent shot at his legs, but the curtains were drawn, and he needed a better shot. And he needed to hurry. Once Slater made it out to the front deck, he'd see the open hatch and figure out what Martin was up to.

Martin walked carefully up the four cabin steps and eased the doors silently open. He felt the wet of the fog on his face, then he was out on the deck, leaning over the railing and peeking around the side of the cabin, to his right.

And there he was. Slater was about halfway along the walkway, his back to the cabin. He was only half visible in the fog and the quickly dimming light, but he was there all right. And Martin could see that he was moving awkwardly. He was clearly uncomfortable balancing on the side of the boat, but it was more than that. It looked like he was holding his left arm close to his body, and Martin could tell he was favoring his right leg.

Huh, Martin thought. He's actually hurt. I really did shoot him.
And then he looked down at the railing, and saw a couple of dark pools of blood.

Okay, he thought. I can do this.

Martin stepped up onto the walkway as quickly as his shaky legs would let him, and took one side step toward Slater. Then he held the gun out with his right hand—the same posture as Slater's as he stood there in front of him—and pulled the trigger.
Blam.
He heard Slater yell out, and saw a flash as Slater's gun fired toward the front of the boat. Then Martin pulled the trigger one more time.
Blam.
He heard a splash, but he couldn't see anything. The fog was even thicker down there, like it was sitting on the water—or rising up out of it, even. He aimed, and when he heard another splashing sound, he pulled the trigger. But he was out of bullets.
Click,
the gun said.
Click, click, click.