Something for Nothing (46 page)

He chuckled at his own joke, but Martin held his gaze. He had to hang in there. He was making this up as he went along, but he thought he'd come up with something. It was kind of ridiculous, but he was hoping that it was so odd and wacky that Slater would buy it. It was worth a try. If they just drove out to the orchard behind Miriam's
house, he didn't have a chance. He could see it. First, Slater makes him dig up the money—his buried treasure. Then he makes Martin keep digging, so that the hole is big enough for Martin to lie down in. Then he puts a bullet in his brain. Sorry, Martin. That's what he'd say as he shoveled big clods of dirt onto him, hiding him until the stench of his corpse eventually led someone to look for the source. (Is this Martin Anderson, the guy who went missing? I think so. It must be. Wow! He must have gotten mixed up in something really nasty for this to happen.)

Martin coughed, and his side seized up with pain. “No,” he said. “We can't drive. We have to take the boat. Because the money is out in the bay—on the water. I hid it on the water.”

Slater was quiet for a second. “What do you mean, you hid it on the water?” he asked. “Is it on a buoy or something? I mean, is it safe? Did you fuck this up, Martin? Did you lose the fucking money?”

“No,” Martin said. He made an effort to sound irritated. He knew he needed to sound confident. “It's not on a buoy. And yeah, it's safe. It's on a boat. On one of the mothball fleet ships. You know, out in the bay. In Suisun Bay, like I said. My son and I go out there to fish sometimes, and . . . I don't know, I just thought it was a good spot. To hide it away for a while. I mean, who would ever look there? So, yeah, I took the boat out there, climbed up the ladder on the side of one of the ships, and hid the money in a little storeroom. But don't worry, because it's in an ammo box. It's watertight, airtight, and all that. I even locked up the door of the shed it's in with a big padlock. It's fine.”

Slater was quiet for a second, processing. “Jesus Christ, Martin,” he said, finally. “That's the craziest thing I've ever heard. Those boats are pretty fucking huge, aren't they? What the hell?”

Martin smiled. It was a forced smile, a fake smile, but it wasn't hard to produce, for some reason. He could do this. He'd get Slater out there, and then he'd at least have a chance. He knew Slater was afraid of the water; hadn't he said he couldn't swim very well, and that this was one reason he hadn't gotten a swimming pool for his kids? It was while he
was watching Sarah and Peter play in the pool out at Martin's house, when he'd said he was thinking about an above-ground pool for his own house. So, yeah, he was hoping that he'd have an opportunity to knock him overboard, somehow. Either that, or use his pistol. Because, yes, he'd remembered a couple of minutes ago that he had his .22 right in his pocket. He couldn't get it out now; Slater would pounce on him in a flash. He knew that. Pounce on him and beat the life out of him. Literally. But if he could put some space between himself and Slater at some point . . . well, it might work.

“Look,” Martin said. Again he went for slightly irritated. “It's a better hiding place than the one Val used, right? A lot better. And I'm telling you, it's just a big graveyard out there. That's what they call it, in fact—a ship graveyard. No one ever goes on them. They're just sitting there because no one wants to admit that they're useless now. The next time someone gets on that boat, it'll be because they're getting ready to scrap it. And that won't happen for a long time, believe me. Because even scrapping it costs lots of money, and no one has any money anymore. Right? Except the drug dealers, that is.”

Slater liked this, he could tell. “You're right about that,” he said. He shook his head.

“Okay,” Martin said. He wanted to keep the momentum going, didn't want to get sidetracked. “So, what do you say? Can I get up and get us ready, get things going?”

Slater looked at him for a second, and Martin could see the wheels turning in his head. His cat eyes narrowed a little.

“Just tell me one thing,” he said. “If you can do that, then we'll go.”

Martin shrugged. “Okay,” he said. “Fine. What do you want to know?”

“What's the name of the boat that you put the money on? What's it called?”

Martin didn't even pause. “The SS
O'Brien,
” he said. “You'll see. There's a big ladder right on the side.”

I
t was about seven by the time they got through the Oakland estuary, where they had to putt along at a slow speed, and then out into the San Francisco Bay proper. It was now downright chilly. The fog had waited like a barbarian horde just beyond the Golden Gate Bridge, but now it was pouring into the bay, big time. It would cool things off for a while, especially the bay side of the foothills. There was a layer of gray clouds close overhead, and Martin could see a wall of gray-white fog not far off, around Alcatraz. Half of San Francisco was already enveloped in it. Martin wondered what it would be like by the time they got out to Suisun Bay.

Martin stood at the lower helm, adjusting the speed every now and then, and Slater sat on a seat a few feet back, watching him. The bay sped past underneath them, and the boat rocked up and down with the steady
slap, slap
of the hull hitting the water as they cut northward.

Fortunately, the water was pretty calm, almost no chop at all. That was good. Martin was able to cruise along at a nice clip, about twenty knots. They'd be out to the mothball fleet in an hour or so. There was plenty of light left. Sunset wasn't until almost 9:00 p.m. As long as the fog didn't block everything out, they'd be fine.

They came up on the Bay Bridge. The sun was too low in the sky to create the kind of dramatic shadow you'd see earlier in the day as you moved under the bridge (Peter always liked that, for some reason; he would point at it and make a big deal about it). But as they passed under the bridge, Slater slapped Martin on the shoulder, pointed upward, and yelled, “Commuters.” Martin nodded. Slater wasn't referring just to the cars themselves, but to the whole lifestyle of commuting—which was, of course, the lifeblood of the suburbs. Hop in your car, drive, take
the bridge in to work. Then get back in your car, cross over the bridge again, and go home. And of course it was a given that there would be a backup on the bridge. Traffic would grind to a halt, and you'd sit there like an asshole, swearing and fiddling with the radio and asking yourself why you were doing this.

He looked back at the bridge as they moved north, the boat slapping and sending spray out to the sides. Through the steel girders he could see that the cars were moving along in what seemed, at least from his perspective down on the water, to be a slow, antlike progression. He wondered which of them were headed back out to Walnut Station.

He turned back to watch the water, feeling nervous. He didn't actually have a plan—wasn't at all sure how this was going to work out. He did know he didn't want to be climbing up into the
O'Brien,
pretending something was there when it wasn't. But what to do? Ask Slater to steer and then pop him in the back of the head with the .22? Not likely. The minute they'd left the dock, Martin had begun to see that Slater really was afraid of all things water. He wasn't going to steer the boat. Plus, he wasn't stupid—it wasn't going to be easy to get the drop on him. He was sitting right there behind Martin, patient and concentrating.

One option was to act like the boat had died out—that it had run out of gas. Maybe then he could figure out a way to separate himself from Slater. Tell him he had to go below and fix something, then sneak up on him and whack him over the head with the big pipe wrench he had in his tool box? Or (again) just shoot him? No. Too far-fetched. Slater wouldn't buy it. Plus, Martin knew for sure that there was no way to sneak up on Jim Slater.

He didn't know what do. He'd had a brief moment in which he thought that if they could just get out onto the water, and maybe to Suisun Bay, that things would work out. But why would they? He was in as much of a jam now, speeding across the bay, as he'd been sitting in his slip at the marina.

The engine was pretty loud, and with the wind whipping through their hair, it was hard to talk. And there really wasn't anything to talk
about, anyway. They'd done their talking, Martin thought. In fact, any more talk and it would be weird. And so at least half an hour went by without either of them saying anything. Martin wondered what Slater was thinking about. Killing Val and Angela? Probably not. He didn't seem fazed by this in the slightest (which was terrifying). No, he was most likely thinking about how he'd spend his money once he had it. A gift for his wife. Buy that pool—or no, move out of Martinez altogether. Maybe move into Martin Anderson's house, after his widow put it up for sale; that house had a nice in-ground pool (and the high school was supposed to be wonderful). Or he was thinking about how to cover his tracks. Martin knew Slater wouldn't try to kill him out on the water; he needed Martin to get him back to the dock—to land. But after that . . . well, maybe he was thinking about that right now, too.

Once they were past the central part of the San Francisco Bay and into San Pablo Bay, the fog was closer. The bulk of it wasn't on them yet, but there were patches of it here and there as they motored along. There was a good chance they'd be enveloped in it as they pulled close to the ships out there—that area was notoriously foggy. Martin knew this would be really bad, because he didn't know his way around the fleet very well. Not well enough to do it blind, that's for sure.

As if reading Martin's mind, Slater pointed toward the fog. “Can we get lost out here?” he yelled over the sound of the boat's engine. “Do you know how to navigate in the fog—or at night? You've got some sort of radar, right?”

Martin nodded. “Don't worry!” he shouted.

Half an hour later they were passing under the Martinez Bridge, heading east now as the upper bay pushed inland, into Suisun Bay proper. Martin could see the mothball fleet in the distance. The ships were still about half a mile or so away, and they looked small—like a bunch of cabin cruisers, similar to the Viking. But with every minute or two that passed, the ships appeared larger, until soon they were looming up out of the water and towering above them.

“Wow,” Slater yelled. “They look pretty cool from this perspective. I've only seen them from the bridge. They're really big!”

Martin nodded again.

Soon they were between the rows of ships. It was like being in a large valley, one sided by steel cliffs. You couldn't get out by climbing up the valley sides; you had to go forward. But it wasn't just a straightahead valley. There were various rows of battleships, and after a turn or two down the long corridors they formed, it was easy to get disoriented. Plus, the ships blocked out much of what was left of the late-evening light, and so as they moved along toward the
O'Brien,
it was increasingly hard to see.

“Are you sure you know where you are?” Slater asked. He was still perched on his seat behind Martin and just off to his left. They were moving more slowly now, so he didn't have to yell like he had when they were traveling up through San Francisco Bay and San Pablo Bay.

Martin looked back at Slater. “Yep,” he said. And then, about five minutes later, he pointed.

“Okay,” he said. “There it is.”

And there it was. The SS
O'Brien
. It was stationed at the end of a long row of ships. It wasn't as huge or as tall as some of the others out there, but from their vantage point it looked big enough. A lower section was painted a darkish gray, and above that it was a lighter, more standard navy gray.

As they pulled nearer, Martin began to feel as if they were stationary on the Viking and the
O'Brien
was moving toward them. In fact, all the ships around them seemed as if they were closing in on his own little boat. The fact that they were surrounded by patches of swirling fog didn't help. It was just like the game he'd played with Peter—like they were a fleet of pirate ships emerging out of some ghost dimension to snatch them up and haul them back to their scary pirate place.

“So you think you know how to bury treasure?” Captain Kidd would say to Martin—a comment that would make Slater spin around and realize suddenly that the whole
O'Brien
thing was just a ruse. “Okay,”
Slater would say. “I know we've been kidnapped by these ghost pirates, but just so I know—where did you really hide the money?”

Martin pulled back on the throttle and brought the boat to a crawl. This made it quieter—quiet enough that Martin was reminded, suddenly, of how little noise there was out there. The ships were rising up above them like big skyscrapers—it was like walking down Market Street in San Francisco, practically—but there wasn't any sound. No cars, no horns, no asshole businessmen. Nothing. Just a few seagulls, and the slap of water against the hulls of the ships.

Closing in on the
O'Brien,
Martin told Slater to run up to the bow and grab the rope that was lying there, coiled up. “I'll glide us in and you can grab hold of one of the ladder rungs,” he said. “Just slip the rope through and tie it off. It doesn't have to be a fancy sailor knot. Just make it secure. I'll be able to come check it in a minute, once I get the boat set.”

Slater stood up from where he'd been sitting behind Martin, and looked at him. Martin could tell he was trying to decide what to do. And it was in that instant that Martin realized that this might be the opportunity he was hoping for. He hadn't planned it this way—he really did want Slater to be ready with the rope—but he saw now that it might give him just enough space to make some sort of move on him. Or to try, anyway.