strong. It was only a matter of time.
“Hey, asshole!” Steve called out. “You can't outrun me.”
No response.
They had crossed from Miami into Coral Gables and were on Gerona, in an expensive neighborhood of Mediterranean homes. Not exactly Steve's 'hood. They were headed for a dead end, the Gables Waterway just behind the homes on Riviera. If the guy knew where he was, he'd turn on Riviera. If not, he'd find himself with a channel to swim across.
“You got no chance, shithead!” Steve yelled out.
Again, no response, but now Steve was close enough to see that the guy wore a ski mask. He could hear the man's breathing. “You're dying up there, asshole!”
The man crossed Riviera and hopped the curb, running through the front yard of a sprawling Spanish-style house. He disappeared into a hibiscus hedge.
He doesn't know where he is. He's gonna be trapped at the water.
Steve followed.
Three steps into the darkened yard, he felt his foot catch on something. He flew forward, sliding face-first into the hibiscus hedge.
Dammit, a sprinkler head.
He scrambled to his feet, ducked alongside the house, and emerged in the backyard. Where was the guy?
Spotlights illuminated the tiled patio and cast a yellow glow on the dark water of the channel. A wooden dock extended from a concrete seawall. A thirty-foot sailboat was tied up at the dock. A fiberglass kayak lay near the stern of the sailboat.
But no guy in bright, shiny sneakers dressed for the ski slopes.
In the waterway, a Boston Whaler churned toward the bay. A man in a ball cap was at the wheel.
“Hey, you see anyone out here?” Steve yelled.
“Hoping to see some snapper,” the man called back.
At the dock, the Whaler's wake nudged at the sailboat, whose lines strained against the cleats on the dock. Steve studied the boat, partially lit by the spots. The guy could have climbed into the cockpit. He could be hiding there right now.
Steve reached into the kayak and picked up a paddle. Molded plastic, not much heft. He would have preferred a Louisville Slugger, smash the guy with an uppercut as if swinging for the fences. Wielding the paddle, he walked along the dock, the old wooden planks groaning beneath his feet. Somewhere across the waterway, a dog yipped. Unseen insects cricked and clacked and played their night music.
Just who the hell was this guy, anyway? Steve didn't think it was your friendly neighborhood burglar. But he had a suspect. Just hours earlier, he'd told Manko a videotape would place him at the murder scene. Steve had been winging it. He didn't think Manko and Katrina had killed Barksdale. And he doubted anyone could turn the gray, shadowy video into a gotcha piece of evidence. Now Steve wondered if his human polygraph had blown a fuse.
Manko would only want the tape if he was guilty.
But why, Steve wondered, would Manko break into his home? Why not the office? Weirder still, Steve had taken the tape home to watch on a better VCR. But Manko couldn't have known that. It was all too confusing for Steve to decipher, especially with his head feeling like a bucket of wet cement.
Now, on the dock, with the water gently lapping against boat hull, Steve tried to see the running figure in his mind's eye. Was this guy as big as Manko? Chasing a man in the dark doesn't give you much chance for a description. Hell, people in broad daylight have a hard time describing their attackers.
With one hand on the stern rail and the paddle in the other hand, he squinted into the darkened cockpit.
“You in there, Manko?”
Nothing.
“C'mon out. Let's talk this over.”
Still nothing.
Then the faintest sensation of a plank yielding beneath his feet. Steve wheeled around, saw the glint of metal and ducked. Something whooshed over his head. The man in the ski mask was swinging a heavy chrome winch handle that nearly parted Steve's hair. The momentum of the swing threw the man off balance, and he stutter- stepped. Steve pivoted his hips and swung the paddle, aiming for the man's head, but from a crouch, he couldn't get the angle. The paddle caught the man's shoulder, knocking him back but not bringing him down.
“Fucker,” the man breathed. He regained his footing and feinted with the winch handle.
Steve brought up the paddle to block the swing that never came. The man laughed, feinted twice more, then swung at Steve's face. Steve blocked the handle with the paddle. Ouch. He'd jammed his wrist as if he'd broken his bat against a split-fingered fastball. The paddle flew from his hand.
Shit.
“I owe you, fucker,” the man said, the winch handle cocked in his right hand.
“Why don't you take off your mask and we'll resolve this amicably,” Steve said, as if they were in mediation on an insurance claim.
“Fuck you, fucker.”
Fuck you, fucker? With such a limited vocabulary, no wonder the guy turned to crime.
The man took a step toward Steve, who backpedaled. One foot slipped off the dock and dangled in space. His arms flailing, trying to regain his balance, he fell backward. He heard glass shatter as his head smashed the stern light of the sailboat, and he tumbled into the black water. He was sure he must have made a splash, but strangely, he never heard the sound and never felt himself go under.
For a moment, all went black, and Steve wondered: If I'm unconscious, how can I be conscious of it?
Sinking into the deep channel, enveloped by the cool water, he was in that grayish state between day and night, consciousness and unconsciousness. Woozy but still coherent enough to be in fear.
Fear of drowning.
Fear of alligators.
Fear that the guy would leap into the water and bash in his skull.
Steve opened his eyes and was surprised to find everything was still black.
Of course it's black. I'm at the bottom of a deep, dark sea.
He was suddenly aware of wanting to take a breath. Wanting it more than he'd ever wanted anything in his life. He felt his feet touch bottom, flexed his knees, and shot upward.
It took an impossibly long time to break the surface. When he finally felt the cool air strike his head, he sucked in a long, sweet breath, then swam to a ladder at the dock. Holding on to a barnacle-encrusted rung, he paused a moment, listening. He didn't want to stick his head above the dock and have his brains splattered.
Silence.
He climbed one rung. Waited. Climbed another.
Peeked his head over the planks of the dock. No one was there.
No one calling him “fucker.”
Then a glass door slid open at the rear of the house and a man yelled: “Hey, there's no swimming out here, buddy.”
IN THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE ELEVENTH JUDICIAL CIRCUIT IN AND FOR MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, FLORIDA JUVENILE DIVISION
In re: R.A.S.,
A minor child Case No. 05-09375 (Dependency)
CHILD PROTECTION REPORT
1. This report is made in accordance with Chapter 39 of the Florida Statutes, by Doris Kranchick, MD, duly appointed by the Division of Family Services. 2. R.A.S., an eleven-year-old male, is a developmentally challenged child who manifests traits of both autism and profound savant syndrome. The child is in need of specialized testing, treatment, therapy, and an individually tailored educational program. 3. R.A.S. is currently in the temporary custody of his uncle, Stephen Solomon, who has failed to reveal the precise circumstances under which R.A.S. came to reside with him. 4. The boy's mother, Janice Solomon, was recently released from state custody, having been
