Speak Ill of the Living (15 page)

Chapter 20

Eddie got one deep breath before he plunged underwater and sank. He spun slowly over and saw a circle of night sky through a liquid lens. The stars blurred and it seemed they might wash away. The water grew colder as he sank. He could sink to the bottom, if he wanted to…he needed to decide what he wanted. In the water above, the attacker was thrashing like ten cats in a bag.

I can't beat him…

The bottom of the well seemed a fine place to hide. Eddie had enough of the beating, the choking, and the fighting with a man far stronger than he. Eddie was tired. He was despondent that his last chance to trap the man in the well had failed, because Eddie's trap had swallowed him, too.

The attacker was kicking to the surface. The muffled commotion sounded like it was miles away, as if Eddie were in a sound-resistant bubble traveling to the bottom of the well.

There was no way for Eddie to overpower the man, and no way out of the well even if he
could
beat him, so why not hide at the bottom? Down where the water was cold, and even the attacker in the ski mask was afraid to come. As he slowly sank, Eddie watched the silhouette above him paddling its legs, treading water.

You can't get me down here.

Eddie's lungs were starving; his chest felt like a coal fire. It was the opposite of a real fire; a real fire died when you cut the oxygen—this fire burned hotter by the second. I'll just stay down here, Eddie decided, and wait for the fire to burn out.

Just give up and it'll be over in two minutes.

What the man had said was true, and Eddie hated him for being right. He had never felt such loathing; he was drowning in it. Eddie felt pleasant warmth around his midsection and realized his bladder had released. Another reason to hate him.

That's not him you hate, it's yourself—for giving up.

Yeah, maybe, Eddie thought. But he didn't see how it mattered. The man would just drown Eddie, or choke him, or beat him to death.

Then make him do it.

What would be the point?

It would piss him off.

Yes…

The moment before he kills you, don't forget to give him the finger.

Eddie's face bent into a smile. That was reason to live, even for just one minute longer. The new purpose cleared his fuzzy head. He righted himself in the water, kicked his legs and swept his arms over his head, as if clearing a path. Two strokes…three. He broke the surface with a giant, scratchy breath of air that doused the coal fire in his chest.

The cylindrical well was about seven feet in diameter, which left little room for maneuvering and no place to run except back down. Eddie steadied himself with a palm against the wall, kicked his feet to stay afloat and noisily gulped air.

“Goddam you,” the man grumbled. He had a low, purring voice, like that of a mature man, at least a decade or two older than Eddie. “Why do you make this so fucking difficult?” Eddie had pissed him off already—it had been worth coming up.

Eddie had accepted that he would never get out of the well alive, so he wasn't afraid for his life. But now with enough oxygen to think effectively, Eddie was horrified at himself for nearly giving up without a fight.

The man's ski mask was soaked and glistening. He swam at Eddie. Fighting in water was nothing like fighting on land, or even on ice. It was like fighting in zero gravity. There was no leverage, and strength was less of an advantage.

Eddie landed a sharp right hand to the attacker's cheek. The man grunted but otherwise showed no effect. He tried to push Eddie to the side of the well, but Eddie shoved his foot against the wall and pushed back to the center. There they fought. From above, the two men might have looked like a single growling, splashing beast that had risen from the bottom of the well.

Eddie was soon exhausted and it became more difficult to slip repeatedly out of the man's grasp.

He has to be tired, too.

What could Eddie do? Swim until the other guy grew weary and drowned?

The man suddenly changed tactics and disappeared below the surface.

Eddie spun, treading water, looking for his adversary. The water was still.

Suddenly, the man's shoulder hit Eddie in the ribs from below and drove him into the side of the well.

Stunned for a moment, Eddie flailed meekly. The man grabbed under Eddie's chin and knocked Eddie's head back against the stone. The pain was blinding and it drained whatever fight had remained in him.

“Goodbye, Bourque,” the man said, “I should have finished this a long time ago.”

He pushed Eddie's head beneath the water.

Eddie's scream came out in a gurgle. He struggled up, grabbed a breath, and was forced back under.

He looked up to the rim of the well. Ten feet from freedom. Ten goddam feet.

Wait!

That was the way out, he thought. The walls that trapped them could save Eddie Bourque.

He thrashed his head above water again, coughed, and wheezed his lungs full of air. “When I'm dead,” Eddie cried before the man could dunk him again, “so are you!”

Ploosh!
Eddie went under again. He was limp. He was done fighting. Either his plan was going to work, or else…

Eddie's head broke the surface, and he could breathe. The attacker held Eddie's neck just above the Adam's apple. Eddie coughed, spit water and then enjoyed delicious air and its damp, mildew smell. He panted, coughed.

The man in the water was just a big square head. Eddie could see the outline of the ski mask, where its eyeholes were, but at this angle it was too dark to recognize the eyes.

The man asked calmly, “What the fuck did you say to me?” His thick breath seemed to fill the well with swamp gas.

Eddie inhaled deep, coughed out a mouthful of water and croaked: “Look at them sheer walls.” He took three deep breaths without coughing. “Unless you're Spiderman, there's no way you're climbing out of this well once I'm dead.”

The head tilted up, swiveled side to side.

He's thinking about it.

Eddie breathed deep a few more moments, and then pushed the point. “This water's cold, no more than sixty degrees,” he said. “We've been splashing around, keeping warm, but look at us now that we're still—my teeth are chattering and I expect yours are, too. You might not survive the night. Water this cold can kill as fast as five or six hours.”

“I'm not cold,” the man growled. He tightened his grip on Eddie's throat, but not enough to choke him. It seemed he had decided to hear Eddie out.

“Maybe you can survive until the sun warms you in the morning,” Eddie said. “But how long do you think you can tread water before you drown?”

“Huh?”

“How long can you stay afloat? The world record is thirty hours,” Eddie said. He had picked the number out of the air. He had no clue about the world water-treading record, but who did? Not this guy, for sure.

“Thirty hours?” The man's grip slacked as he looked away and seemed to be doing the math.

“That's thirty hours for an expert swimmer who's
fresh
—not somebody who's been running around all night expending energy trying to kill a guy.”

The man grunted and dug his fingernails into Eddie's skin; he hadn't liked Eddie's sarcasm. But the man was boxed in and Eddie was right—neither of them could get out of the well alone.

“The nearest house is a mile away,” Eddie said, still breathing heavy. “Nobody will hear you scream. And even if somebody did, would you want them to find you here with my dead body?”

Eddie gave the man a moment to consider his argument.

“No matter how you figure it,” Eddie continued, “you're dead by tomorrow evening, if not sooner, either frozen or drowned.”

The man clutched Eddie's throat and looked around the well some more. Eddie guessed his thoughts. “Go ahead and try to get out,” Eddie offered. “I'll wait here.”

The man sounded suspicious. “I'm not leaving you alone.”

“Alone?” Eddie chuckled. “Do you think I'm going to run away?” The man said nothing and Eddie guessed his thinking again: “I'm not going to cold-cock you when your back is turned. Then I'd be the one alone in here, drowned or frozen by tomorrow.”

That seemed to make sense to the man. He let go of Eddie's throat and swam across the well. He felt along the wall for handholds.

Eddie rested his back against the side of the well and kicked his feet lazily to keep afloat. He needed time to recover, to slow his racing heart and get his breathing back to normal. He took a mental inventory of his injuries. His throat was sore and his windpipe felt bruised, but not dangerously so. There was a lump on the back of his head. Eddie touched it, felt warm blood. He pressed it, grimaced at the shallow pain, and decided it was a serious
scalp
injury, which was way better than a
skull
injury. He could not taste blood in his mouth anymore, though his jaw was still stiff and it hurt to open his mouth. It reminded him of the time he took a baseball to the chin off a bad hop—in two weeks he was fine. There were numerous other superficial welts, scrapes and pulled muscles in his back, neck and arms that would hurt tomorrow, if he lived that long. Those problems were of no concern at the moment. Overall, Eddie was pleased. He had come close to death without a debilitating injury that would make escape impossible.

The cold water was a minor concern—he had been truthful that sixty-degree water could kill them before sun-up. But Eddie was confident he could stand the cold for another hour or two. By that time, he'd either be free or murdered.

The man scraped his feet on the wall in a useless attempt to scale the stone.

“We're kinda fucked, aren't we?” Eddie said. He used the word “we” deliberately, to reinforce the idea that they were trapped together, and that the killer needed Eddie to escape.

“Shut up,” the man ordered. He felt his way along the curve.

Eddie was quiet for a minute. His breathing slowed to normal. When the man wasn't actively trying to kill him, Eddie found the masked assailant fascinating. What would drive a man so far beyond the reach of his own conscience? Eddie couldn't help himself from beginning an interview: “Why did you try to run me down in your van?”

The man kept his attention to the wall. “To kill you.”

His matter-of-fact manner sent a shiver through Eddie. He had grown used to his lack of fear when all seemed lost and he had nothing to lose. Since then, fresh air and a hope for escape had replenished Eddie's will to live—now he had something he was afraid to lose. He forced a laugh. “Okay, dumb question,” he said. “
Why
do you want to kill me?”

“You peons make trouble for me, Bourque.” The man tried to exploit a tiny crack between two bricks as a finger hold. His fingers slipped when he tried to pull himself up and he growled in anger.

The man thought of Eddie as a peon—a pawn, the lowest ranking soldier on the chessboard. How did he view himself? As the king, no doubt. And nobody sacrifices a king to destroy one pawn. The assailant was desperate to kill Eddie, but he wouldn't trade his own life to complete the job. It had to be obvious to the man that even the best rock climber in the world would drown if left alone in this smooth-sided well.

Watching the man's clumsy attempts to climb gave Eddie confidence—the assassin would soon be forced to agree that he needed a living Eddie Bourque to help him.

“You know,” Eddie said, not caring if he sounded like a know-it-all, “the more energy you waste on futile escape attempts, the less you'll have for a realistic effort.”

The man's head whirled around at Eddie, but he said nothing and quickly returned to searching the wall. Eddie splashed one stroke across the well to allow the man to search the area where Eddie had been resting.

Eddie waited, bobbing gently in the water, growing ever colder and trying to be patient. He thought about what the man had told him.

You peons make trouble for me.

“I don't understand how
I
make trouble for
you
,” Eddie said. “You're the one who tried to run me down, you're the one who burned up my beloved car. I had to pay a cash deposit on a new Chevette, and I'm getting porked on the price.”

“You should've charged it,” the man offered. “It's not a bill you'll have to pay.”

Eddie chuckled, though at an octave higher than he would have liked. Still, he was pleased to engage the man in conversation. They would need to be on speaking terms if Eddie was going to get out of the well.

“Had I only known,” Eddie said, “I would have leased a Porsche.”

“You should shut up now.”

“You haven't answered my question. How is it that I make trouble for you? Do I know you? Is that why you wear a ski mask in the summer?”

The man completed his survey of the well. “Get over here,” he commanded, “and boost me up.”

Eddie laughed. “Two problems with that,” he said. “There's no chance I'm doing it, and it wouldn't work anyway.”

One stroke, no splash, and the man was on him—a bruising grip on Eddie shoulder, a sharp, cracking chop across Eddie's nose. Eddie's head snapped back and his sinuses burned. Blood ran from his nose, over his lip.

“Boost me,” the man ordered. Eddie could see him smiling.

Eddie coughed, blinked to clear his eyes. He gasped, “No—my way, or nothing.”

The man unleashed his frustration on Eddie Bourque, clubbing a fist over his head, knocking Eddie from reality and parking him in the ether. Eddie was vaguely aware of the man climbing onto his shoulders, trying to use him as a springboard. Eddie's head slipped under. He inhaled liquid and tasted blood.

There's blood in the water.

He thought he saw a shark before reality blurred and went black.