Hell's Bay (35 page)

“If you'd done your job a little differently,” Sugar said, “if you'd gone looking into the problem itself instead of joining this conspiracy and sanctioning the killing of people you thought responsible, you might've found out those children are being poisoned by the school itself, not the gyp stack.”

“What?”

“The radioactive waste, the gypsum, it's in the walls, the plasterboard, the cement.”

“Where'd you hear that?”

“Your disgruntled doctor Dillard filled me in. Long time ago when that school was built, Bates International owned the construction company that did the work. Penny-pinching bastard. He used gypsum throughout the school. All that free mining waste he had access to, he used that, and that's where the high readings come from. They've known it for a while and they're sitting on it. Carter Mosley knows, Milligan knows. That school's got to be torn down. No choice. Not one more Monday morning can those kids walk into that building.”

“In one day you found this out.”

“The day's still young.”

“What do you want?”

“To know the rest.”

“And then you'll go away and leave us alone?”

“You know I can't do that.”

“Which of the rest do you want to know?”

“The details, like did you and Mosley and Sasha sit down and plan this out?”

“It didn't happen like that. Not like that at all.”

“Mosley recruited Sasha?”

“You're missing it,” she said.

“Mona? Mona was driving the bus?”

Timmy Whalen studied his eyes as if trying to do to him what he'd tried with her—read past the surface, evaluate his threat.

“Goddamn Mona,” she said. “She took advantage. She knew how vulnerable Sasha was. Home from the war, lost her husband, son sick. Mona came over one night, sat right where you're sitting, and propositioned her.”

“I could've sworn Mona was the grieving granddaughter.”

“Well, she fooled you.”

“Yeah, fooled me good.”

“She's a sly one. She and Mosley worked out some kind of deal. A way to sideline John. Mona gets the environmental stuff she wants, and for Mosley, it's what it always is with business guys.”

“A bigger bite of the apple.”

“So Mona meets with Sasha, makes her pitch. She offers money, fifty thousand to take down Abigail. Sasha needs the cash for medical debts, but it's not just that. It's the chance to fix the problem, do something for the greater good. You ever heard of that concept?”

“Once or twice. A lot of bad shit happens in its name.”

“You're not going to cut me any slack.”

“I'm listening. I'm trying to see your side.”

“Oh, yeah, my own Mr. Empathy.”

She lifted the pistol, adjusted its fit in her hand, and laid it back in her lap.

“Sasha confided in me,” Timmy said. “Told me about Mona's scheme, basically asked my permission. How'm I going to refuse? Her husband died, she's losing her son. Abigail Bates was a coldhearted bitch. You saw her in action. Thumbing her nose at the town. She was eighty-six years old, for godsakes.”

“So there's a cutoff age for murder? Pass eighty-five, you're fair game?”

“You're not even trying to see the other side.”

Sugarman was silent. Working to translate her tone. Did her confession mean she was about to hand the pistol over, or use it on him? Sugar was guessing that Timmy Whalen probably didn't know the answer to that herself.

“So Milligan wasn't part of the cabal?”

“That's right. Just Mona and Carter Mosley.”

“They recruited Sasha, then she recruited you.”

“Yeah.”

“That was a clever move.”

“Clever?”

“You should be honored, Timmy.”

She stared at him and said nothing.

“Mona and Mosley have a lot of respect for your abilities. They could've brought in anybody to murder Abigail. Some out-of-town contractor. But they were worried about you. Worried you'd figure it out. So they draw in your friend. Make sure you're on board before they put the plan in motion. They used Sasha to neutralize you. Once your hands are dirty, they're home free.”

She closed her eyes briefly, fingers tightening on the Glock.

“But before the plan could work, Thorn pops up. Fly in the ointment.”

“Where is he now, your friend?”

“Fishing somewhere in the Everglades. Why?”

She dropped her eyes, stared down at the burgundy rug. Sighed.

“Why, Timmy?”

“The gun-shop break-in this morning. The rifle, handgun, all that.”

“Yeah?”

“I think it was Sasha. I believe she hit that boatyard, too, stole a twenty-footer on its trailer.”

Sugarman shot to his feet, and she came to hers.

“Easy, now. Easy.”

“That goddamn houseboat. That's what this is about. Take Thorn out in the Everglades and kill him. That's what you're telling me?”

“Down in the chair. When you sit, we talk.”

The pistol's aim was fixed on a spot a few inches above his navel. Her hand was steady, her body tensed to unload. A trained shooter with a trusty hand. He could see that in the easy way she leveled the weapon, in the neutral focus of her eyes.

Sugarman sat. He touched his shirt pocket and felt the folded paper. Thorn's exact address in the middle of nowhere.

After Sugarman was settled in the chair, Timmy took her seat again.

“When you mentioned Thorn's name earlier, I realized what might be going down. I didn't know they were targeting him. No one told me.”

“They didn't need your permission this time,” he said. “It's out of your jurisdiction. Nothing for you to cover up.”

Sugar was perched on the edge of the cushion. Ready to cut left or right, or rush the woman head-on. Whatever made itself available.

“Take a minute, Sugarman. Stand back, see the big picture. Bates is huge, a global force, thousands of enterprises all around the world, a hell of a lot more than phosphate mining. Having the right people call the shots, someone like Mona, that could mean more than just doing right by Summerland, Florida. It could mean moving the world in a better direction. Fix a hundred Pine Tree Schools, a thousand creeks and rivers.”

“That's the speech, is it?”

“Yes, that's the speech.”

“My friend has to die,” Sugar said, “so there'll be peace on earth.”

She gave him a bruised look.

“I'm sorry about your friend. I had nothing to do with that.”

“Not true, Timmy. Chain of cause and effect. You were a crucial link. You still are. Whatever's happening down in the Glades is because you gave your friend a pass.”

Out in the street a white Lincoln Navigator pulled to the curb. A little man got out and started up the Olsens' walkway. Carter Mosley in his poet's uniform. Blue denim shirt, khakis, moccasins.

“What's Mosley doing here? He coming to confess, turn himself in?”

“No,” Timmy said. “He's here to help me dispose of your body.”

 

 

 

 

She fired a round every other second, as if timing the trigger pulls to her unhurried pulse. The wind was dying down. Her boat held steady about thirty yards off the Mothership, suspended in some perfect stasis between the incoming tide and the northerly breeze, as if God himself was collaborating with her.

There was something dreamlike about the cadence of her firing. Like a drumbeat that gave an orderly rhythm to the wild confusion of shattering glass and screams.

In the first few minutes of the fusillade, I managed to slip into the water on the submerged port side, then duck about three feet below the surface and frog-kick twenty feet north. I came up quickly for a breath and dove back as a spurt of water erupted two feet to the right of my face.

I grabbed Holland's left ankle and sidestroked back to the loading platform, tugging him along. Twice the water dimpled close beside me.

I wasn't sure if he was still alive. His eyes were open, but if he was breathing I couldn't detect it.

While Rusty helped boost him aboard, slugs blasted golfball holes in the fiberglass behind us. One of the Mercury outboards took a hit that tore open the cover; another round ricocheted off its props, snapped one blade, and set the others spinning. The bob and dip of Sasha Olsen's boat was probably all that was keeping us alive.

As we positioned Holland on his back, he grunted once and drooled a shot glass of spume. One round had scraped his throat, another had winged his right arm. Ugly flesh wounds. He swallowed and gritted his teeth and seemed to be trying to speak.

I tilted down to hear him.

“Fuck-er.”

It coul've been one word, or it coul've been two.

Then he shut his eyes and began to moan some off-key song.

Thirty feet out, Annette floated faceup, the upper portion of her skull gone. The tide had her in its grip and was dragging her body south faster than I could swim. The city girl whose been-there-done-that smugness never gave the Everglades a chance. Usually the jaded scoffers were converted by a few hours in that wilderness. Maybe it woul've happened eventually with Annette. Then again, she might have been one of those rare ones who were constitutionally unable to yield to forces larger than themselves. Their selfimportance was so deeply rooted, so habitual, they were immune to the grace that nature can confer and found endless ways to scorn its power.

“Why's she staying out there? Why not come finish the job? She has to know we're helpless.”

“Maybe she's having too much fun,” I said.

I slung Holland over my shoulder and Rusty waved me ahead. I lugged him up the four-rang ladder and rolled him onto his back in front of the salon door. I was slumped low, as another slug shattered the tinted window three feet overhead, and a moment later the window beside it blew apart. Holland winced and grumbled a feeble complaint.

At the top of the ladder, Rusty faltered and lost her footing, then I saw her face go out of focus, and I lunged for her right hand.

She huffed deep and long as if she'd lifted too much weight.

Her eyes fixed on mine for half a second, then her mouth went slack. I grabbed the front of her shirt and slung her on top of me and fell backward, a double body-slam, and spun us down the slope of the tilted deck out of Sasha's sights.

Rusty was groaning softly in my arms. “Aw, Jesus . . . aw, Jesus.”

I skimmed my hands across her body until I found it. Rusty's left knee was blown open. A single fragment of bone poked through her tattered trousers. Her head lolled in my arms. Aw, Jesus. The gunfire kept time to its demented metronome, opening hole after hole in the thin skin of the Mothership.

I hooked an arm around her chest and, flat on my belly, wormed our bodies across the deck to the salon door and into the cabin that was half full of bay water.

And still they came, one and-a two and-a three and-a four. The thousand-feet-per-second chunks of lead cartwheeled through the walls and windows, Sasha squeezing off another round and another, following the beat of the mad conductor's baton.

Mona was huddled in the passageway to the staterooms, knee-deep in water. She stared at me with such blind detachment I was staggered for a moment, thinking she might be dead.

“Mona?”

“She's crazy,” Mona said. “Sasha's gone insane.”

I settled Rusty in the high, dry corner, went back for Holland, and stretched him out nearby. Then I slopped down into the pool of oily water and sorted through the jumble of furniture and pots and pans and toaster and coffee maker until I found the heavy oak dining table. I dragged it on its side up the steep incline and pressed the thick tabletop flat against the wall, then eased Rusty and Holland behind its screen. It wasn't much, but it was better than relying on the three-inch wafer of fiberglass.

Sasha Olsen ceased firing.

Maybe taking a moment to snap in another clip. That she might have run out of ammunition was too much to hope for. I hadn't been counting, but it seemed like close to two dozen rounds since she started. High-capacity magazines could hold twenty, sometimes slightly more. When she began firing again it would be worth noting the number. Use the reload interval to make a move. If I could still count at all by then.

No doubt when she'd blown open the pontoon, she'd emptied a full clip. From a half mile away I'd counted roughly eighteen shots. How many clips could she have brought on such a mission? If her original intent had been to knock me off, more than forty rounds seemed excessive.

Rusty groaned and closed her eyes. I took her hand and squeezed it and she gripped back. She wasn't going gently into that goddamn night. No need to cheerlead, urge her to hang on, stay with me. All that bullshit didn't need saying with Rusty. Hanging on was what she did. What she'd always done and always would.

Holland was chanting a string of curses and seemed to be drifting in some twilight of consciousness.

Stooped low, I hiked across the salon, wedged past Mona, went down the passageway by the staterooms and out the door onto the bow. Since I'd last looked, Sasha had changed her position, and when my head emerged, a slug blew the door from my hand and knocked me forward on the deck.

A hornet was stinging my neck and wouldn't stop. I blinked my vision clear, reached up, and fingered the spot. Red strobes blazed inside my eyes. I bit down hard, used thumb and first finger to pinch at the protruding nub, and plucked the splinter free.

A jagged one-inch needle of fiberglass. Blood seeped down my neck, soaking the collar of my shirt. A trickle or a flood, it was hard to tell. If I'd lanced an artery I'd bleed out in minutes. Not much I could do. I'd get that verdict soon enough.

I stuck my finger into the ripped opening at the elbow of my lucky shirt and tore off the bottom of the sleeve. Then I wrapped the fabric once around my throat and knotted it like an ascot.