“I don’t hear Perry volunteering to go in the water, wise-ass.”
“You’re the expert scuba diver,” Perry countered. “An expert on everything! Hell, I can barely swim a stroke or I’d go in myself. Damn right I would. If it meant getting rich? Hell, I’d do it in a second.”
I relaxed a little when I heard Perry say that. It was an obvious lie that told me that he had been reeled back into the fantasy I had created.
I should have stopped there. Instead, I pressed too hard, saying, “It’s up to you. If King doesn’t have the balls, there’s nothing I can do to force him.”
I looked at the Winchester for a moment, reminding Perry that he
Once again the two men traded looks, but it was a different sort of exchange. I could see in their faces that I had screwed up. I had been a little too smooth, too eager. I had talked too much—a manipulator’s red flag on both sides of a prison wall.
King said, “Real-l-ly,” in a sarcastic way. I watched him take his time as he walked down the embankment from the lake, his eyes moving from Perry to me, then to Arlis as he approached the old fisherman on the blanket.
For a few seconds he stood over Arlis, who was on his back pretending to be unconscious. King nudged Arlis with his foot, then looked at me, smiling. He maintained eye contact as he suddenly bounce-stepped and kicked Arlis hard in the thigh.
How Arlis managed not to respond, I don’t know. His only reaction was a soft, sleepy moan.
I yelled, “Knock it off!,” and started toward King. The man palmed the pistol, waiting for me, his face registering an exaggerated indifference until I got within ten yards.
“You can stop right there, Jock-o,” King said, lifting the gun to chest level. “Perry? Am I allowed to offer you another little piece of advice? With your permission, of course.”
Perry said, “Goddamn it, King, all I want is a chunk of that money and to get the hell out of here. I don’t want any trouble between us.”
“We don’t have any trouble, partner.” King smiled. “Everyone pisses on their own boots occasionally. Mr. Smart-ass here, he’s the one to blame.”
Perry said, “But why not at least give it a try, man? Let this asshole go down and swim around on the bottom while we fix the truck. Those cops ain’t gonna give up looking for us and you know it. We need money, man!”
King nodded, thinking about it. He said, “That’s right, we do. I can’t argue with that one.”
“He says it’ll take half an hour? What’s a half hour matter? It’ll give us time to change that tire.”
King leaned his head back, squinting as he smiled at me, and said, “Okay—Jock-o, looks like you win,” but his expression said just the opposite. King was back in charge now and he stared at me until he was sure I knew it.
“So how about we handle it like this,” King said to Perry. He backed away from me until he was next to Arlis, then swung the pistol toward Arlis’s head. “How about we make Professor Smart-ass get down on his belly so we can tie him up nice and tight? Just until we get the truck working. How’s that sound to you, Per?”
Perry replied, “Wait, you mean? I don’t know.”
“The darker it is, the better it is for us. Unless you’d rather listen to Dr. Wise-ass here.”
“I don’t give a shit about him. Whatever you say, man.”
“Good,” King said. “I wouldn’t feel comfortable with Jock-a-mo swimming around in that lake all by himself while we fix a tire.”
The last thing I wanted was to be tie-wrapped. Those flexible plastic-and-metal straps were what police used in lieu of handcuffs. Impossible to break, tough to cut.
I said, “There’s no need for that. I have to rig fresh bottles. I’m not going anywhere.”
“Jock-o, we’re not asking you, we’re telling you. Get down on your belly.”
When I hesitated, King leaned the gun toward Arlis and yelled, “I didn’t stutter! Do it now—but not here, dumb-ass! Over there by the lake!” He motioned toward the water, a safe distance from Arlis and the truck.
As Perry bound my wrists, then my ankles, pulling the straps tight, King said to me, “After we get that tire changed, you’re going for a swim. Not me, just you. And you’re coming back with a bunch more of those coins or I’ll put a bullet in the old man’s head.”
I said, “I already told you, I need help with the hose.”
“Sorry, Jock-o. That’s the way it is.”
“But the hose on the jet dredge busted when you—”
“No more of your damn excuses!” he shouted. “If you don’t come out of that lake with a sackful of coins, you’re better off not coming back at all.” King looked at Perry, his tone confident, as he offered, “Sound fair to you, Per?”
Perry was pacing, eyes wary as he studied the darkening sky. “Whatever,” he replied.
SIXTEEN
IN FEBRUARY, IN FLORIDA, BECAUSE OF DAYLIGHT savings time, it’s already dark by the time most people get home from work. It was dark now as I listened to something large in the distance, crushing its way through bushes, moving toward the lake. It was an animal of some type, I guessed—maybe the gator Arlis had been hunting. The sound came from the cypress swamp, beyond the cattails at the water’s edge, several hundred yards away.
It had to be big for the sound to carry that far.
I had plenty of other things to worry about, but I was tied, lying immobile on the ground. There was no way to run if I needed to run, so maybe that’s why the noise captured my attention.
Initially, the first thing that flashed into my mind was an image of Tomlinson and Will slogging their way back through the swamp from . . .
A gator? I strained to listen. Maybe . . . but maybe not. I couldn’t be sure of what I was hearing. I’ve spent more time than most people in Florida’s wetlands at night, but the methodical crackle of breaking tree limbs and the strange plodding continuity of movement were unfamiliar.
Arlis would have known. The man was a master bushwhacker, a pro when it came to tracking and hunting, but Arlis was thirty yards away, lying in silence. I had seen him stir only three times—twice to gulp down water, and once to give me a brief, private thumbs-up.
I managed to roll onto my stomach and lift my head off the ground. My hands and feet were numb because I was tied so tight. The strictures caused my pulse to thud in my ears. The auditory senses are easily confused when there is interference from within, so I gave the animal my full attention.
Whatever the thing was, it moved slowly, which implied bulk, and with a grinding familiarity with the area. Then abruptly the thing stopped and produced a new sound—a rhythmic, ratcheting noise, like metal claws scraping on rock.
Strange. What I was hearing wasn’t human, that was for sure. Sane people don’t hike around Florida’s swamps at night. It had to be an animal. The list of possibilities was long, though, so I finally decided yes, it was probably an alligator—and a very, very large one.
In a way, having something new to think about was a relief.
Prior to focusing on the strange noise, I had spent thirty miserable minutes unable to move my arms or legs because King, with Perry’s help, had strapped my hands to the band around my ankles. They’d pulled the wraps so taut that my back was bowed, as I rolled from one shoulder to the other in an attempt to keep blood circulating.
“Hog-tied,” King had termed it, taking obvious pleasure in my pain. He’d also given me a private elbow to the kidneys or my ear whenever I winced or grunted in protest. As a final gesture of contempt, he had tossed a couple of packs of MRE crackers close enough for me to get to—if I was willing to chew open the wrappers with my teeth and eat off the ground.
