Something for Nothing (48 page)

He stood for a second, not moving, not sure what to think. His head was buzzing with the sound of the gunshots. Then he heard a splash, and another. Right down below him. Martin worried that Slater might shoot at him from the water, but he wasn't sure if this was possible. Were there guns that could shoot when they were wet? He didn't know, and so he jumped back down onto the deck, ducking behind the thick wooden railing and listening as the splashing sounds continued.

Holy shit, he thought. He's not just flailing around. He's swimming. He's heading for the stern—back to the ladder. I thought he couldn't swim very well! What the fuck? Sounds like he swims all right to me.

Martin's first thought was that he'd just lean over the ladder and shoot Slater again (how many bullets could one supercop take before succumbing to mortality?). Then he remembered he was out of ammo.

Jesus Christ, he said. He heard more splashing, and Slater sputtering and making gurgling noises.

But then Martin saw the long metal gaff that he used for grabbing ropes or, sometimes, fishing line. He always liked the feel of it as he did that: I've got this handy tool, and look how nautical I am when I
use it. It was snapped into some brackets along the stern, right next to the big fishing net he had secured there (he liked using the net even more).

He pulled the gaff out of the brackets, and turned toward the ladder on the port side of the stern. As he leaned forward, over the railing, he saw Slater. He was a slick-looking shadow in the soupy mass of fog that was clinging to the water. He had just reached the ladder and was hanging on to the bottom rung. He was breathing hard, trying to keep his face out of the surging water. He looked up and made eye contact with Martin.

“Martin,” he gasped. He was panting, either from the cold or the gunshot wounds. Or both, maybe.

Martin didn't say anything, just looked down at him. He saw that Slater was struggling to keep his head above the water. He looked pretty bad. He probably couldn't make it up the ladder alone.

Martin took the gaff and lowered it over the railing. Slater sputtered, let go his grip on the ladder with his good arm, and reached up for it. As Slater got ahold of the gaff, Martin pushed down, hard, shoving the gaff into Slater's stomach and forcing him away from the ladder. The move caught Slater by surprise—forced the air out of him, and then pushed him under the water before he could get a breath.

Martin hung on tight with both hands as Slater thrashed around, trying to get clear of the gaff. He could feel the panic on the other end of the pole. But Martin kept the pressure up, leaning on the pole with all his might and following Slater's body as he moved left and then right. Slater's hand broke the water and grabbed the gaff, but there wasn't much strength in his grip.

The gaff bucked in his hands. It was like having a huge fish at the end of his line, but one that had less life in it than you would have thought. Usually this feeling of impending victory was exciting, but here, with Slater under the water, thrashing, it was sickening. But Martin knew he had to do it—knew that if he didn't, Slater would
climb up that ladder somehow and kill him. It didn't matter how many bullets he had in him.

He held on and pressed downward as far as he could reach. He leaned into it—put all his weight on top of the pole. He heard himself yelling as he pressed—yelling with fear and horror and maybe a little bit of rage. But mostly fear.

It didn't take much longer. Thirty seconds, maybe a minute. Then there was no movement, just something bulky at the end of the gaff.

A
FEW MINUTES LATER
he pulled Slater's body to the little wooden platform that jutted out from the stern of the Viking. The gaff had hooked onto a belt loop in his pants (maybe that's why he couldn't get free, Martin thought). He propped Slater's body onto the platform's narrow ledge, then tied him securely to the ladder with a rope he'd grabbed. There was no way Martin could have hauled Slater over the railing and onto the boat. He was literally a dead weight, and with his wet clothes and shoes, forget it.

He went down below, into the cabin, and found what he was looking for: the big five- and six-pound weights that he used for salmon fishing. They were the kind that would take your line way down—forty fathoms, even sixty—to where the big boys were swimming.

It took him over half an hour to attach enough weights to feel confident that Slater would sink and not come up. He had to use sinker wire and fishing line. He threaded the weights onto the wire, and then wrapped the rig around his midsection, and then around his chest, and then his legs. It was hard to do, because he couldn't turn Slater's body over for fear that it would roll off the ledge and into the water. He ended up having to reach way around Slater's torso, and this meant leaning into his body, his face pressing against his stomach and chest.

He tried to work quickly but patiently. He even tied a few weights to Slater's belt loops. But in the end he was shaking with cold and had to settle with what he had. He figured that this would all come undone,
eventually, but he hoped that it wouldn't be for a long time. Martin was about to let him go when he remembered Slater's wallet. But he decided to leave it. Maybe when he was finally discovered, it would look like a drug hit of some sort (which it was, at least sort of).

Then, finally, he untied the rope and just pushed him off into the bay. As he watched him disappear into the inky black water, Martin felt a flood of relief. He'd survived. He knew that by all accounts it should have been he who was sinking down into the water tonight. But it wasn't, and for that he was glad—very glad. He'd used his wits, gotten lucky, and survived. There was something to that.

Martin was cold and tired. He knew it was time to start the boat, make his way out of the fog and off the bay. It was time to get home. For starters, he needed to go and see what Slater had done to his house. He had to get it cleaned up so that when he talked Linda into coming home again (and she'd be home eventually, he knew) she wouldn't know what had happened. Maybe he could make a new start now. Not so that they could live happily ever after—he knew better than that. But maybe happily enough, which might just be possible now that he had the money all to himself.

For a confused moment he thought he needed to climb up the ladder of the
O'Brien
to fetch the money. But then he realized that no, his money was tucked safely into the ground out in the orchard behind Miriam Weaver's house. He pictured the orchard—pictured the boys in the neighborhood (minus Peter, of course) running over the top of his little treasure chest during their crazy walnut-war battles. They wouldn't know it was there, but Martin would. He'd have to sneak out there and pull out a lot of it to pay his debts, get the creditors off his back (the forty thousand sitting in the cabin wasn't enough—not even close). But even then there'd be a lot left. A whole lot. He could get rid of Radkovitch once and for all, and wait out the oil embargo—wait out the Saudis and the Iranians and the rest of them. Maybe when Nixon resigned (and he was going to resign; it was just a matter of time) things
would change. The big refineries in Martinez and Benicia would still be there, yanking everyone's chains, but maybe the gas lines would disappear and people would start buying airplanes again.

And while he was waiting for the oil to start flowing—for America's lifeblood to start pumping back through its system—he'd just leave the rest of the money where it was. It wouldn't earn any interest out there in the ground, but that wasn't the point. He wouldn't even have to see it, or touch it. Just knowing it was there would be enough.

I would like to thank the following people for their time, patience, and enthusiasm in responding to various drafts of this work: my editor, Kathy Pories; my agent, Michael Strong; and my wife, Erin Anthony.

David Anthony grew up in the Bay Area. He is an associate professor of early American literature in the Department of English at SIU-Carbondale. This is his first novel.