Tick Tock (22 page)

He could see the wake but nothing of the boat's stern, which was recessed beneath the top deck. Easing forward, his upper body extended over the low sun-deck wall, Tommy squinted down and back at the lower portion of the yacht.

Under Tommy, behind the enclosed first deck, was a back-porch-type afterdeck. It was overhung by the sunbathing platform on which he lay, and was therefore largely concealed.

Sans raincoat, the fat man was climbing out of the harbour and over the afterdeck railing. He disappeared under the overhang before Tommy could take a shot at him.

The dog scrambled to a closed stair head hatch immediately starboard of the sunbathing platform.

Joining the Labrador, Tommy put down the pistol. Holding the Mossberg in one hand, he opened the hatch.

A small light glowed at the bottom of moulded-fibreglass steps, revealing that the Samaritan-thing was already clambering upward. Its serpent eyes flashed, and it shrieked at Tommy.

Grasping the shotgun with both hands, Tommy pumped the entire magazine into the beast.

It grasped at a rail and held on tenaciously, but the last two blasts tore it loose and hurled it to the bottom of the steps. The thing rolled out of the stairwell, onto the afterdeck again, out of sight.

The indomitable creature would be stunned, as before. Judging by experience, however, it wouldn't be out of action for long. There wasn't even any blood on the steps. It seemed to absorb the buckshot and bullets without sustaining any real wounds.

Dropping the shotgun, Tommy retrieved the .44 pistol. Thirteen rounds. That might be enough ammunition to knock the beast back down the stairs twice more, but then there would be no time to reload.

Del appeared at his side, looking gaunt and more worried than she had been before. “Give me the gun,” she said urgently.

“Who's driving?”

“I locked the wheel. Give me the gun and go forward, down the port stairs to the foredeck.”

“What are you going to do?” he demanded, reluctant to leave her there even if she had the Desert Eagle.

“I'll start a fire,” she said.

“What?”

“You said fire distracted it.”

He remembered the enraptured mini-kin at the blazing Corvette, lost to all sensation except the dancing flames. “How're you going to start a fire?”

“Trust me.”

“But—”

Below, the recuperated Samaritan-thing shrieked and entered the bottom of the stairwell.

“Give me the damn gun!” she snarled, and virtually tore it out of Tommy's grip.

The Desert Eagle bucked in her hands—once, twice, three times, four times—and the roar echoed back at them out of the stairwell, like cannon fire.

Squealing, spitting, hissing, the creature crashed down to the afterdeck again.

To Tommy, Del shouted, “Go, damn it, go!”

He stumbled across the open top deck to the port stairs farther forward, beside the helm station.

More gunfire erupted behind him. The beast had come back at her faster this time than before.

Clutching at the railing, he descended the open portside stairs, up which he had climbed earlier. At the bottom, the narrow railed passway led forward to the bow but didn't lead back toward the stern, so there was no easy route by which the Samaritan-thing could make its way to him directly from the afterdeck—unless it broke into the enclosed lower deck, rampaged forward through the staterooms, and smashed out at him through a window.

More gunfire crashed above and aft, and the hard sound slapped across the black water, so it seemed as though Newport had gone to war with neighbouring Corona Del Mar.

Tommy reached the bow deck, where only a few minutes ago he'd taken a stand against the Samaritan-thing when it had first tried to board the vessel.

In the night ahead, Balboa Island loomed.

“Holy shit,” Tommy said, horrified by what was about to happen.

They were approaching Balboa Island at considerable speed, on a line as direct and true as if they were being guided by a laser beam. With the wheel locked and the throttles set, they would pass between two large private docks and ram the sea wall that surrounded the island.

He turned, intending to go back to the helm and make Del change course, but he halted in astonishment when he saw that the aft end of the yacht was already ablaze. Orange and blue flames leaped into the night. Shimmering with reflections of the fire, the falling rain looked like showers of embers from a celestial blaze.

Scootie padded along the port-side pass way and onto the bow deck.

Del was right behind the Labrador. “The damn thing's in the stairwell, burning in ecstasy, like you said. Creepy as hell.”

“How did you set it on fire so quick?” Tommy demanded, half shouting to be heard above the drumming rain and the engines.

“Diesel fuel,” she said, raising her voice as well.

“Where'd you get diesel fuel?”

“There's six hundred gallons aboard.”

“But in tanks somewhere.”

“Not any more.”

“And diesel fuel doesn't burn
that
fiercely.”

“So I used gasoline.”

“Huh?”

“Or napalm.”

“You're lying to me again!” he fumed.

“You're making it necessary.”

“I
hate
this crap.”

“Sit on the deck,” she instructed.

“This is so
nuts!”

“Sit down, grab hold of the railing.”

“You're some crazy gonzo Amazon witch or something.”

“Whatever you say. Just brace yourself, 'cause we're going to crash, and you don't want to be thrown overboard.”

Tommy looked toward Balboa Island, which was clearly defined by the streetlamps along the seawall and the dark shapes of houses beyond. “Dear God.”

“As soon as we run aground,” she said, “get up, get off the boat, and follow me.”

She crossed to the starboard flank of the bow deck, sat with her legs splayed in front of her, and grabbed hold of the railing with her right hand. Scootie clambered into her lap, and she put her left arm around him.

Following Del's example, Tommy sat on the deck, facing forward. He didn't have a dog to hug, so he gripped the port railing with
both
hands.

Sleek and swift, the yacht cruised through the rainy darkness toward doom.

If Del had set the fuel tanks on fire, the engines wouldn't be running. Would they?

Don't think, just hold
on.

Maybe the fire had come from the same place as the seething flock of birds. Which was—where?

Just hold on.

He expected the boat to explode under him.

He expected the flaming Samaritan-thing to shake off its rapture and, still ablaze, leap upon him.

He closed his eyes.

Just hold on.

If he had just gone home to his mother's for
com tay cam
and stir-fried vegetables with
Nuoc Mam
sauce, he might not have been home when the doorbell rang, might never have found the doll, might now be in bed, sleeping peacefully, dreaming about the Land of Bliss at the peak of fabled Mount Phi Lai, where everyone was immortal and beautiful and deliriously happy twenty-four hours every day, where everyone lived in perfect harmony and never said one cross word to anyone else and never suffered an identity crisis. But,
nooooo,
that wasn't good enough for him.
Nooooo,
he had to offend his mother and make a statement about his independence by going instead to a diner for cheeseburgers, cheeseburgers and French fries, cheeseburgers and French fries and onion rings and a chocolate milkshake, Mr. Big Shot with his own car phone and his new Corvette, intrigued by the blond waitress, flirting with her, when the world was filled with beautiful and intelligent and charming Vietnamese girls—who were perhaps the most lovely women in the world—who never called you “tofu boy,” never hot-wired cars, didn't think they had been abducted by aliens, didn't threaten to blow your head off when you wanted to look at their paintings, never stole yachts and set them on fire,
gorgeous
Vietnamese women who never talked in riddles, never said things like “reality is what you think it is,” didn't have any expertise with throwing knives, hadn't been taught by their fathers to use high explosives, didn't wear father-killing bullets as necklace pendants, didn't run around with big black smart assed hounds from hell with farting rubber hotdogs. He couldn't go home and eat
com tay cam,
had to write stupid detective novels instead of becoming a doctor or a baker, and now as payment for his selfishness and his arrogance and his bull-headed determination to be what he could never be, he was going to
die.

Just hold on.

He was going to die.

Just hold.

Here came the big sleep, the long goodbye.

Hold.

He opened his eyes.

Shouldn't have done that.

Balboa Island, where no structure was taller than three stories, where half of the houses were bungalows and cottages, seemed as large as Manhattan,
towering.

Screws turning furiously, the fifty-six-foot, merrily blazing Bluewater yacht came into the island at extreme high tide, drawing less than two feet, virtually
skimming
like a cigarette racing boat, for God's sake, in spite of its size, came in between two docks (one of which was already decorated for Christmas), and struck the massive steel-reinforced concrete sea wall with a colossal shattering-ripping-screeching-booming noise that made Tommy cry out in fear and that would have awakened the dead if perhaps any of the islanders had perished in their sleep this night. At the water line, the hull, although as strong as any, was crushed and torn open at the bow. The impact dramatically slowed the yacht, but the diesel engines were so powerful and the screws provided such enormous thrust that the vessel surged forward, striving to climb the sea wall, heaving across the top of it, angling up at the bow, up, over the wide public promenade that ringed the island, up, as though it might churn all the way out of the harbour and sail through the front of one of the large houses that lined the island's waterfront. Then at last it shuddered to a halt, securely hung up on the sea wall and badly weighed down by the tons of seawater pouring through the broken hull into the lower holds.

Tommy had been bounced against the deck and slammed sideways against the low port sill, but he had held fast to the railing, even though at one point he thought that his left arm was going to be dislocated at the shoulder. He came through the wreck without serious injury, however, and when the yacht was fully at rest, he let go of the railing, rose into a crouch, and crabbed sideways across the bow to Del.

She was on her feet by the time he reached her. “Let's get the hell out of here.”

The stern of the yacht burned brighter than ever. The fire was spreading forward, and there were flames behind the windows of the lower-deck staterooms.

An eerie and chilling ululation arose from deep within the crackling blaze. It might have been steam venting or hydraulic fluid singing through a pierced steel line—or the crooning of the enraptured demon.

The bow deck was canted three or four degrees because the boat was ramped up on the sea wall. They walked uphill to the pulpit, which thrust out of the water and was suspended over the deserted pedestrian promenade.

All along the recently slumbering waterfront, lights began to blink on in the closely spaced houses.

Scootie hesitated at the gap in the pulpit railing, but only briefly, then leaped down onto the concrete sward on the island side of the sea wall.

Del and Tommy followed him. From the pulpit to the sidewalk was about a ten-foot drop.

The dog sprinted west along the promenade, as if he knew where he was going.

Del followed the Labrador, and Tommy followed Del. He glanced back once and, in spite of all the outrageous incidents of the night, which should have inured him to spectacle, he was awestruck at the sight of the enormous boat balanced on the sea wall, overhanging the public walkway, as if it were the Ark washed ashore after the Great Flood.

As worried faces began to appear at upstairs windows but before any front doors flew open, before frightened voices rose in the night, Tommy and Del and the dog found the nearest street leading away from the promenade. They headed toward the centre of the island.

Although Tommy looked over his shoulder from time to time, expecting a serpent-eyed fat man or worse, no creature swaddled in fire pursued them.

SEVEN

Hundreds of houses crowded the small lots on Balboa Island, and because of inadequate garage space, both sides of the narrow streets were lined with the parked cars of residents and visitors. Shopping for a set of wheels to steal, Del had a daunting variety of choices. Rather than settle for a Buick or Toyota, however, she was attracted to a fire-engine-red Ferrari Testerosa.

They stood under the cloaking boughs of an old podocarpus, while she admired the sports car.

“Why not that Geo?” Tommy asked, pointing to the vehicle parked in front of the Ferrari.

“The Geo's okay, but it's not cool. The Ferrari is cool.”

“It costs as much as a house,” Tommy objected.

“We're not buying it.”

“I'm acutely aware of what we're doing.”

“We're just borrowing it.”

“We're stealing it,” he corrected.

“No. Bad guys steal stuff. We're not bad guys. We're the good guys. Ergo, we can't be stealing it.”

“Actually, that's a defence that might work with a California jury,” he said sourly.

“You keep a lookout while I see if it's unlocked.”

“Why not destroy a cheaper car?” he argued.

“Who said anything about destroying it?”

“You're hard on machinery,” he reminded her.

From the far end of the island came the sirens of fire engines. Above the silhouettes of the tightly packed houses, the night sky to the south was brightened by the glow of the burning yacht.

“Keep a lookout,” she repeated. The street was deserted.

With Scootie, she stepped off the sidewalk and went boldly to the driver's side of the Ferrari. She tried the door, and it was unlocked.

“Surprise, surprise,” Tommy muttered. Scootie entered the car ahead of her.

The Ferrari started even as Del settled behind the wheel and pulled the driver's door shut. The engine sounded powerful enough to ensure that the car would be airborne if Del decided that she wanted it to fly.

“Two seconds flat. A true master criminal,” Tommy murmured to himself as he went to the car and opened the other door.

“Scootie is willing to share the passenger seat.”

“He's a sweetheart,” Tommy said.

After the dog leaped out into the rain, Tommy climbed into the low-slung car. He resisted the temptation to close the door before the mutt could re-enter.

Scootie sat with his rump in Tommy's lap, his hind legs on the seat, and his forepaws on the dashboard.

“Put your arms around him,” Del said as she switched on the headlights.

“What?”

“So he doesn't go through the windshield if we stop suddenly.”

“I thought you weren't going to destroy the car?”

“You never know when you might have to stop suddenly.”

Tommy put his arms around the Labrador. “Where are we going?”

“Mom's house,” Del said.

“How far is that?”

“Fifteen minutes tops. Maybe ten in this baby.” Scootie turned his head, made eye contact, licked Tommy from chin to forehead, and then faced forward again.

“It's going to be a long drive,” Tommy said.

“He's decided he likes you.”

“I'm flattered.”

“You should be. He doesn't lick just anyone.” Scootie chuffed as if to confirm that statement. As Del pulled the Ferrari away from the curb and into the street, she said, “We'll leave this crate at Mom's place, and she can have it brought back here. We'll borrow one of her cars for the rest of the night.”

“You've got an understanding mother.”

“She's a peach.”

“How'd you get the car started so quickly?” he asked.

“The keys were in it.”

With the big dog in his lap, Tommy couldn't see much of the street ahead of them, but he certainly could see the ignition, in which no key was inserted.

“Where are they now?” he asked.

“Where are what?”

“The keys?”

“What keys?”

“The ones you started the car with.”

“I hot-wired it,” she said, grinning.

“It started while you were pulling your door shut.”

“I can hot-wire one-handed.”

“In two seconds flat?”

“Cool, huh?”

She turned left onto a divided street that led to Marine Avenue, the island's main drag.

“We're so soaked, we're ruining the upholstery,” he worried.

“I'll send the owner a cheque.”

“I'm serious. This is expensive upholstery.”

“I'm serious too. I'll send him a cheque. You're such a
nice
man, Tommy. Such a straight arrow. I like that about you.”

Emergency beacons flashing, a police car turned the corner ahead and passed them, no doubt heading toward the burning boat.

“What do you think it cost?” Tommy asked.

“A thousand bucks ought to cover it.”

“For an entire yacht?”

“I thought you meant the upholstery damage. The Bluewater cost about seven hundred and fifty thousand.”

“Those poor people.”

“What people?”

“The poor people whose boat you trashed. Are you going to write them a check too?”

“Don't have to. It's my boat.”

He gaped at her. Since encountering Deliverance Payne, staring agape had become his most-used expression.

As she stopped at the Marine Avenue intersection, she smiled at him and said, “Only owned it since July.”

He managed to re-hinge his jaw to ask, “If it's your boat, why wasn't it docked at your house?”

“It's so big it blocks my view. So I rent that slip where it was tied up.”

Scootie thumped one paw repeatedly against the dashboard, as though expressing his impatience to get moving.

Tommy said, “So you blew up your own boat.” Turning left on Marine Avenue, which was the commercial centre of the island, Del said, “Didn't blow it up. You have a tendency to exaggeration, Tommy. I hope your detective novels aren't full of hyperbole.”

“Okay, you set it on fire.”

“Big difference, I think. Blow up, set on fire—there's a big difference.”

“At this rate, even
your
inheritance won't last long.”

“Oh, you're such a goof, Tommy. I don't set yachts on fire every day, you know.”

“I wonder.”

“Besides, I'll never have money worries.”

“You're a counterfeiter too?”

“No, silly. Daddy taught me to play poker, and I'm even better than he was.”

“Do you cheat?”

“Never! Cards are sacred.”

“I'm glad to hear you think
something's
sacred.”

“I think a lot of things are sacred,” she said.

“Like the truth?”

With a coy look, she said, “Sometimes.”

They were reaching the end of Marine Avenue. The bridge across the back channel to the mainland lay less than a block ahead.

He said, “Truth—how did you start this car?”

“Didn't I say? The keys were in the ignition.”

“That's one of the things you said. How did you start the fire on the boat?”

“Wasn't me. Was Mrs. O'Leary's cow, kicked over a lantern.”

Scootie made a weird chuffing, wheezing sound. Tommy could have sworn it was doggy laughter.

Another police cruiser appeared on the arched bridge ahead of them, entering the island from the mainland.

“Truth—where did the birds come from?” Tommy asked.

“Well, it's the eternal mystery, isn't it: which came first, the chicken or the egg?”

The oncoming patrol car stopped at the foot of the bridge and flashed its headlights at them.

“Thinks we might be bad guys,” Del said.

“Oh, no.”

“Relax.”

Del stopped beside the cruiser.

Tommy said, “Don't turn him into a cat or a crow or something.”

“I was thinking—a goose.”

The electric window purred down.

The cop had already lowered his window. He sounded surprised when he said, “Del?”

“Hi, Marty!”

“I didn't realize it was you,” the cop said, smiling at her from behind the wheel of his cruiser. “New car?”

“You like it?”

“A real beauty. Yours or your mom's?”

“You know Mom.”

“Don't
you
go breaking any speed limits.”

“If I do, will you personally paddle me?” Marty, the cop, laughed. “I'd be delighted.”

“What's all the hubbub?” Del asked innocently. “You won't believe this. Some fool rammed a big damn boat high speed into the sea wall.”

“Must've been having a great party onboard. Why do I never get invited to the great parties?”

Apparently uninterested in Tommy, Marty said, “Hi, Scootie.”

Craning his burly head to look past Del, out the side window, the Labrador grinned, tongue lolling.

To Del, Marty said, “Tell your mom we'll be watching for her in that car.”

“You might not see her,” Del said, “but you'll sure hear the sonic boom.”

Laughing, Marty drove away, and Del continued onto the bridge, over the back channel, to the mainland.

Tommy said, “What happens when he discovers the yacht on the sea wall is yours?”

“He won't know. It's not in my name. It's registered to our off-shore corporation.”

“Off-shore corporation? How far off? Mars?”

“Grand Cayman, in the Caribbean.”

“What happens when this car is reported stolen?”

“It won't be. Mom'll have it brought back before it's missed.”

“Scootie smells.”

“It's only his wet coat.”

“It better be,” Tommy said. “Truth—was it just chance that you happened to be driving by that vacant lot when I rolled the Corvette, or did you know I was going to be there?”

“Of course, I didn't know. Like I said, though, we're clearly each other's destiny.”

“God, you're infuriating!” Tommy said.

“You don't mean that.”

“Yes, I do.”

“Poor confused Tommy.”

“Infuriating.”

“Actually, you mean to say
interesting.”

“Infuriating.”

“Interesting. In fact, you're
enthralled
with me.”

He sighed.

“Aren't you?” she teased. “Enthralled.” He sighed again.

“Aren't you?” she insisted.

“Yes.”

“You're so sweet,” she said. “Such a sweet man.”

“Want me to shoot you?”

“Not yet. Wait till I'm dying.”

“That's not going to be easy.”

DeI's mother lived in a private guard-gated community on a hill overlooking Newport Beach. The guardhouse was finished in mottled pastel stucco with cast-stone wainscot and cast-stone coins at the corners, and it stood under several enormous, theatrically lighted phoenix palms.

Because no resident sticker adorned the Ferrari windshield, the young guard had to open the gatehouse door and lean out to ask whom Del was visiting. He was slack-faced and sleepy-eyed when he first appeared, but the moment that he saw her, his face tightened, and his eyes brightened.

“Miss Payne!”

“Hi, Mickey.”

“New car?”

She said, “Maybe. We're test-driving it.”

The guard came out of the gatehouse, into the rain, and stooped beside Del's open window to be at her level. “Quite a machine.”

“My mom could make it go to the moon.”

“If she had this,” the guard said, “the community would have to put in speed bumps the size of garbage dumpsters to slow her down.”

“How's Emmy?”

Although Mickey was not wearing a raincoat, he seemed to be oblivious of the downpour, as though Del so completely commanded his awareness that he simply didn't have the capacity also to notice the inclement weather—or anything else, for that matter. Tommy knew exactly how the poor guy felt.

“Emmy's great,” Mickey said. “She's in total remission.”

“That's wonderful, Mickey.”

“The doctors can't believe it.”

“I told you not to lose hope, didn't I?”

“If the tests keep coming back clear as they do now, they'll probably release her from the hospital in about three days. I just pray to God she'll never… never have to… go back.”

“She'll be fine, Mickey.”

“It's so nice of you to go visit her the way you do.”

“Oh, I adore her, Mickey. She's an absolute angel. It's no trouble at all.”

“She thinks the world of you, Miss Payne. She sure loved that storybook you brought her.” Looking past Del, he said, “Hi, Scootie.”

The Labrador chuffed.

Del said, “Mickey, this is my friend, Tommy Tofu.” Mickey said, “Glad to meet you, Mr. Tofu.”

Peering between Del and the dog, Tommy said, “Likewise. You're getting soaked, Mickey.”

“Am I?”

“Yes, you are,” Del said. “You better get back inside, dear. Tell Emmy I'll see her the day after tomorrow. And after she's been out of the hospital a while and put on a little weight, maybe she can come to my studio on the peninsula and sit for me. I'd like to paint her portrait.”

“Oh, she'd love that, Miss Payne. Getting her portrait done—she'd feel like a princess.”

Dripping, Mickey returned to the gatehouse, and Del put up the car window.

In front of them, a massive iron gate ornamented with gilded balls rolled out of the way, admitting them to the private community.

As Del piloted the Ferrari through the open gate, Tommy said, “Who's Emmy?”

“His little girl. Eight years old, cute as a button.”

“She's in total remission from what?”

“Cancer.”

“That's tough—eight years old and hit with cancer.”

“She'll be absolutely fine now. Won't she Scootie-wootums?”

The Labrador leaned over to nuzzle and lick her neck, and she giggled.

They cruised along winding streets lined with enormous houses behind deep and lushly landscaped grounds.

“I'm sorry we have to wake your mother at three-thirty in the morning,” Tommy said.

“You're just so delightfully thoughtful and polite,” Del said, reaching over to pinch his cheek. “But don't worry yourself. Mom will be awake and busy.”

“She's a night person, huh?”

“She's an around-the-clock person. She never sleeps.”

“Never?”

“Well, not since Tonopah,” Del amended. “Tonopah, Nevada?”

“Actually, outside Tonopah, close to Mud Lake.”

“Mud Lake? What're you talking about?”

“That was twenty-eight years ago.”

“Twenty-eight years?”