froze there. He swung it up, to my left, and squeezed off two or three bursts. The bullets chewed a
ragged line up the mast. Bits and pieces of wood flew out of it, followed by streams of white crystals.
They poured out of the bullet holes in the shattered mast, sparkling like snowflakes, were caught in
the wind and whisked away, out over the bay and into the darkness. Stick sighed and his head fell
back on the &ck.
I leaned over him. His eyes were turning gray.
He flashed that crazy smile.
“Wasn?t it. . . one helluva. . . blast,” he said, in a funny, tired, faraway voice, “while it lasted? Huh,
Jake?”
“It was one helluva blast.”
His lips moved but he didn?t say anything.
“You did it all, didn?t you? Took on the whole Tagliani clan?” I said.
He didn?t answer. All he said was “Burn. . . boat, „kay?”
The Stick winked, then sighed, and it was all over.
Up near Chevos? compound, I could hear sirens and see red and blue reflections through the trees.
People shouting. Doors slamming.
I turned Nance over. Half a dozen slugs had removed most of his chest. He wouldn?t be soaking any
more slugs in arsenic. The look frozen on his face was pure terror, the mask of a man who had died in
fear. That?s one I owed that I?d never repay.
I checked over the mast. It was on hinges, the kind that can be lowered for repairs and going under
low bridges. I examined it closely, then picked up the machine pistol and raked the mast with gunfire.
I started at the base and let the .22-caliber slugs tear it to pieces. As the slugs ripped up the birch pole,
the shining white crystals sifted out, sparkling as the wind caught them and tossed them, twinkling,
out over the water. I kept shooting until the gun was empty. The powder poured out. I sat down next
to Stick and watched twenty-four million dollars? worth of cocaine dance on the wind and dissolve in
the sea. It took a while.
I rolled Nance?s body off the deck ad watched it splash into the bay. Then I carried Stick ashore and
fired a grenade into the engine of his sailboat. The back end of the sleek craft exploded, then burst
into flames. I threw the M-l6 and the 180 as far out into the bay as I could fling them and headed back
up the hill to see what was happening.
76
VOTE OF CONFIDENCE
I labored back up the hill toward the big cottage, lit now by the roving searchlights of a chopper that
