glimpse of the sawed-off, which wasn’t in his hands, rather down in the floor of the boat, a nice break for me.
The black bouncer, whose nine mil was still in his waistband, had let go of the stick guiding the motor (and the boat), which now ran sort of on automatic pilot. He was fumbling not for the gun but for something to push up on, so he could get on his feet and deal with me. He was also saying, “ Fuck! ” over and over again.
The guy was big all right, but right now he was just a bug on its back, and I didn’t have that much trouble shoving him over the side, rolling him off; he made a smaller splash than you’d think, and-on my knees on the metal floor-I grabbed for the stick and swung the boat hard left, sending the bearded guy, still tangled in the tarp, over the right side (the dope still had the amber sunglasses on-at night!), and a hand that had just got hold of the sawed-off lost its grip, leaving the weapon behind.
As the boat swung around, the triple rotors of the Evinrude 25 HP came in contact with the black guy, who was splashing around and treading water desperately. The blades sheared his face off and a noseless red mask remained; as his screaming split the night, I swung the boat around in a circle and the bearded fucker managed to swim just out of its path, but his scarlet-masked partner got another helping, hands coming up protectively and fingers flying like sausages. Somewhere along the line, a rotor blade must have caught his neck, because a geyser of red headed for the moon and didn’t make it.
The bearded guy was still swimming away from me-I had straightened the craft around-but he hadn’t got very far, not far enough to avoid the sawed-off’s blast, which exploded his head and those stupid goggles with it and left him with his neck making its own fountain, not that the moon was ever in any danger of stain.
Then they were both bobbing there, with the night nicely quiet, the river otherwise empty, the full moon giving the water an ivory sheen. The gaseous masses of the universal galaxy made reflections, except where the river had gone frothy with reddish foam.
I headed upstream. Never had much experience with motorboats, but I was getting the hang of it.
Chapter Eleven
On the trip upriver, I grew increasingly uncomfortable in the cold. Some dark clouds had started rolling in, smudging the moon, a wind kicking up, making the water even choppier. I was in a short-sleeve shirt and all I had to put over me was that fucking tarp, and that wasn’t going to happen. But it was good for my head, the chill, because I could think with more clarity.
I was missing my wallet, but that was no big deal-nothing in it but some fake John B. Gibson I.D., driver’s license, social security, a couple of credit cards. The money from the poker game that I’d woken up with on me was not an issue-I’d stowed it in my suitcase back at the motel, after leaving Candace’s mobile home and before going to see Cornell at the Paddlewheel. And speaking of the motel, I still had my room key, stuffed deep in my right front pocket.
Also, I’d been left my wristwatch, which was nothing expensive, just a Timex, and yes the sucker was still ticking-it was ten after midnight. Tonight’s poker game at the Lucky Devil hadn’t even started yet.
I’d given thought to pulling the jon boat in at the Paddlewheel’s little dock, but my Sunbird was in the Lucky Devil lot, and I decided to see if I could risk docking at Jerry G’s landing. That pier was more elaborate than the Paddlewheel’s, with a few other jon boats tied up, plus a brick boathouse for the cabin cruisers that were part of the “recreational boating” fleet that was actually used for drug-, gun-, and who-the-fuck-knew-running.
Fairly adept with the Evinrude by now-my little outing with the two bouncers had taken me maybe twenty miles downriver-I slowed and had a look at the dock, where the only lighting was one yellow security lamp on the boathouse itself. I could see nobody standing watch, the jon boats bobbing at an empty expanse of pier. I glided in and tied up there, and crawled up on the spongy dock.
I had no weapon other than the sawed-off, and I’d used one of its two shells-any reloads had gone down with its previous owner. But it was a formidable-looking weapon and I could still do one blast’s worth of damage, so it was worth hauling along.
A gravel path wider than a sidewalk and narrower than a one-lane road made its way up the slope through trees to the edge of the Lucky Devil parking lot, which was full now. Post-midnight Friday was prime time for the Lucky. The security lighting was subdued, with the handful of lamp poles outshone by the occasionally opening doors of the hooker trailers lining the lot at right and left.
I moved toward where I’d left the Sunbird, with the sawed-off at my side, staying close to cars so that the weapon couldn’t be easily seen. Parking places were rare enough that arriving vehicles were trolling for them, and when a car found a space, it swung in to disgorge drivers and passengers who had already long since passed any legal drinking limit. Dumb loud remarks and drunken louder laughter made dissonant music in the open air.
When I got to where I’d left the Sunbird, I at first thought I’d miscalculated, and was off a row, because the Pontiac wasn’t there. Then I leaned against the Dodge in its space and thought it through: my car keys hadn’t been on me, so that meant Jerry G’s minions had located the Sunbird and moved it, dumped it some-where.
You’re a dead man, I reminded myself. They couldn’t have left your wheels just hanging around their parking lot…
Up a row, however, another Pontiac caught my attention-a familiar cherry-red vehicle that was still in its place: Chrissy’s Firebird convertible, with the top down.
I was maybe twenty feet from the building now, so I lowered my head as I made my way to the Firebird, then knelt beside it, and got the lay of the land. A single bouncer, situated near the casino, was walking the line, keeping an eye on the lot. He didn’t seem to have spotted me, and his only brothers were walking the perimeters where the hooker trailers perched.
Three bodyguards, then…with the ones babysitting the hookers way too busy to be overly bothered with the parking lot.
I hadn’t expected to see any increased security-after all, had everything gone peachy for the boys dumping me downriver, they would just be getting back. They might not even be expected to check in with the boss, who soon would be playing his precious poker game, and disliked being interrupted.
Speaking of which, after I’d kept watch for possibly fifteen minutes, the door to the private poker room abruptly opened, and a familiar yellow-permed figure exited, with Jerry G following her a step or two. They exchanged a few words, he patted the behind of her tight jeans, then slipped back inside as she started toward the lot.
I hopped in the back of the convertible, and positioned myself on the floor behind the front seats. The Firebird was parked about mid-lot, which was its most under-lit section, and I figured I could get away with it. Anyway, I didn’t suppose Chrissy felt she needed any weapon that God hadn’t already granted her, but if she’d upgraded to a revolver or something, and had it handy in her pink purse, I had a shotgun shell available to rearrange her perm.
She got in the car and behind the wheel, started it up, and pulled out, wheels crunching gravel and then I felt the shift onto the smooth blacktop of Main Street. That was when I slipped the double-nose of the shotgun between the seats and into her bare side-I was still tucked below sight of anybody but birds and truckers.
“ Jesus! ” she said, and hit the brakes.
“Keep driving,” I said.
She tried to see me in her rearview mirror, but the angle was wrong. “What?”
“It’s your Coke buddy. I’m not dead. But you will be, if you fuck around.”
“I’m not afraid of you!” she said, terrified. “What if I go one hundred miles an hour and crash us?”
“Then we’d both be dead, only I won’t let you take this baby past forty-five, without reducing your waistline first.”
I poked her flesh with the shotgun’s cold snout.
“You…you wouldn’t shoot me…”
“I think I would. Drive us to the Wheelhouse Motel. Pull in the space at room twenty-eight.”
A maybe three-minute drive followed, proving as uneventful as it was silent. I felt the car slide into the stall, and she shut the car off.
“Now what?” Her voice sounded entirely different, sort of medium-range, that middle ground between alto and soprano, and grown-up. Before, all she’d emitted was a sullen, childish mumble. I realized these last few
