Envy the Night

water that smelled like piss, trying not to breathe while an entire battalion of Vietcong milled around the jungle not thirty yards from him. How well would Vaughn have handled that?

Ezra’s stomach was clenched, his mind unsettled in a way it never had been before in a situation like this. It wasn’t fear that had him shaken up; no, it was something even more disturbing than that—uncertainty. It was a good way to get yourself, and others, killed. He needed his old mind back, the old instincts, the old moves. Everything he needed now had that word in front of it: old. He’d spent decades trying to become someone different than he was, and now he was afraid that he’d succeeded at the task.

31

__________

The island showed itself as a dark silhouette against the gray sky, each tree taking on a gradual shape as they neared from the south. Frank was tempted to keep running, head straight into the shore. That’d change some things up, for sure. All four of them in the water, it’d be a matter of who surfaced fastest and who held on to their guns. Since he didn’t have any of the guns, though, probably wasn’t the wisest choice.

“This is it?” AJ was leaning down to make his words heard over the wind, his face close to Frank’s, the gun within reaching distance. Frank looked at it and wondered if he could get his hands on it, whether he could move fast enough. He thought he probably could, but then there was the one they called King to worry about, and Nora directly behind him, in line to accept any bullet that passed through his body.

“Well?” AJ pressed closer, raised the gun a few inches. “Is it?”

Frank nodded, throttled down, the island maybe fifty yards away now, the cabin visible between the trees.

“All right,” AJ said, and his voice was different now, softer and measured. “All right. Bring it in slow, kid. Everybody look happy. We’re all friends, remember.”

He had the gun pressed into Frank’s chest.

Thunder hammered through the sky again, and the darkness was such that the trees across the bay seemed to disappear into a night sky. It couldn’t be later than one in the afternoon.

Frank was staring up at the house and the trees closest to it, trying to imagine where Ezra was. He’d be watching them approach, Frank was certain of that. The motor was loud, even over the thunder and wind, and Ezra wouldn’t ignore it. So where was he? Frank couldn’t see him anywhere in the trees, but they were dark and whipped by the wind, branches tossing. The beach was close now, twenty feet ahead, and Frank had the motor throttled all the way down.

“Take us in,” AJ said.

“All the way?”

“Yes.”

Frank gave the throttle a quick hit, goosing the motor enough to send them toward shore with a hard push, and then cut the engine, had the blades off by the time the boat scraped into the gravelly bank.

“Get her out,” AJ said, speaking to King. “Get out her out fast and keep that gun in her back. Come on!”

King rose awkwardly, a big man with land legs, then pulled Nora up, his gun in her back as instructed. He stepped out and got one foot down in the water, almost fell clearing the other one. Nora was submerged nearly up to her knees.

“Move,” AJ said, giving Frank’s stomach an encouraging twist with the gun barrel. “Out and into the trees.”

Frank went up to the front of the boat, passing AJ to do so, that familiar Smith & Wesson just inches from his hand for a second. He cleared the front of the boat with a jump, got almost out of the water, soaking only his shoes before joining King and Nora on the beach. Then AJ was out, and everyone was looking at him and waiting for instructions except for Frank, who kept his eyes on the trees by the cabin. Ezra was in there somewhere. Had to be. Why not shoot? Surely he saw the guns.

Take them, Ezra, he thought. Damn it, take them!

No shots came. No sound at all except for more thunder and the howl of the wind across the lake and AJ ordering everyone up to the house.

Frank was shoved into the lead, and he climbed the trail with a cold fear sliding through his body, squeezing his chest. He’d put everything on Ezra, every chance any of them had left, and now Ezra was nowhere to be found. What if Frank had been wrong? What if Ezra hadn’t gotten the phone call or been alarmed by it, hadn’t heard the motor, was completely unprepared for any of this? If Ezra wasn’t ready, that left nobody but Frank for the job.

They came up over the hill, and the cabin came into view. AJ stepped closer to Frank, wrapped one hand in his shirt to keep them together, used the other to press the gun against Frank’s kidneys.

“That door going to be locked?”

“I don’t know.”

“If it is, you call out for Ballard.”

Up the steps of the porch as the rain began to fall faster, pattering through the leaves and beading on the floorboards, then to the door, Frank’s hand closing around the knob as AJ released his shirt and reached back for his second gun. Locked.

“Call his name,” AJ said, hissing it in Frank’s ear, and Frank opened his mouth and a laugh came out instead of a name.

“The boat,” he said and laughed again, turning away from the door.

“What?”

“It’s gone. They’re gone.”

How in the hell had he missed that? Staring at that island so intently as he’d brought them in, scanning the trees, double-checking every shadow, and he’d forgotten the damn boat. They were gone, all right, gone in the boat and into the storm, and that meant Ezra had understood the warning.

“They took the boat and left,” he said. AJ shoved him aside and raised his foot and slammed it into the center of the door, tore the hasp out of the frame and burst into the dark house, calling for King to stay on the porch.

They waited while he searched the place, found it as empty as Frank already knew it would be.

“Where did they go?” AJ returned with a snarl, his hand so tight on his gun that the muscles and veins in his forearm stood out. All of the composure and calm were gone now, nothing but fury left behind.

“They left in the boat,” Frank said again.

“I know that!” AJ grabbed Frank’s throat and drove him backward, slammed him into the cabin wall and pressed the gun into his mouth, banging the muzzle through his teeth. Nora screamed, and King said something in a harsh whisper. Frank couldn’t see either of them, couldn’t see anything but AJ’s face and the gun. The metal was cold against his tongue.

“You know where they are,” AJ said, the words slow and soft. “You know, and don’t lie again, do not lie again. You got one chance, and you tell it right this time. Did they go to the police?”

Frank shook his head ever so slightly, not wanting to tamper with that gun.

“He doesn’t know!” Nora shouted from somewhere behind AJ. “They were here when we left!”

“Shut up.” AJ’s eyes never left Frank’s. “He knows, and he’s got one chance to tell me.”

The voice was back then, Frank’s father’s voice, whispering again.

Trust Ezra. You already did once, and that was a bigger risk than this, because you weren’t sure he’d gotten the warning. Now you know he did. He’s ready for them, son.

“He doesn’t know,” Nora said again, her voice tight with tears.

But you do know. Have a general idea, at least, because you know what I would have done. You learned from me. Don’t want to remember it now, but you learned from me, listened to all the old stories and remember every damn one and who did I learn from? Ezra.

AJ pulled the gun back slowly, the spit-covered barrel sliding out of Frank’s mouth.

“Where are they?” he said.

“On the lake.”