“This is why I wanted to meet you at the boathouse at eight o’clock. I knew I’d have you out here by nine. Right in the middle of the lake, too. Which is perfect. I wouldn’t want to blow up anything else. Just us.”
“You’re not serious.” He took a step closer to me.
That’s right, I thought. Get closer. Another step.
“It’s the last thing I need out of life,” I said. “If I take you down with me, I’m happy.”
“No way, McKnight. There’s no way.”
One step closer. Come on.
“Even if you turned around right now,” I said, “we’d never make it to shore. It’s a done deal.”
“Nice try. I’m not buying it.”
He took another step.
“I was at the boathouse a long time before you got there. You think I just sat there waiting?”
He didn’t say anything this time.
“I put it right under the deck,” I said. “Right there.” I pointed to a spot on the deck behind him.
In the same motion, I reached for the barrel of his gun. I felt it tingle in my hand as he fired it again. I pushed the gun upward, tried to get it over our heads so I could get a clean shot at him with my free hand. I swung him around as hard as I could, driving my left elbow into his chin. He kicked at me, tried to knee me in the groin, tried to swing the gun back around toward my head.
I went with his motion, ducked as he pulled the trigger again, and pushed him all the way through until he lost his balance. I got my knee up onto his back and drove him into the ladder, twisting the gun out of his hand. It fell away from both of us, clattering across the deck.
He swung around and elbowed me in the gut, knocking the wind out of me. Then he tried to drive the crown of his head into my nose. I turned away just in time, but everything went white when I caught most of the blow right in the cheekbone.
I tried to hold on to him, but I could feel him slipping away from me. I tackled him from behind as he went for the gun. He kicked at me, caught me a few times in the stomach, in the hip. I dug my fingers into his sides, grabbed onto his belt, and pulled him back as hard as I could. He had the gun in his hand. He tried to turn over to shoot me. I grabbed his wrist, tried to bend it back. I needed to get up on my knees, get some leverage on him, but he was beating me to it. He was pulling himself up off the deck.
I got up on one knee. Then the other. I got one foot under me and put my shoulder into him. I felt all the air go out of him as I drove him hard into the gunwale, right next to Rhapsody’s body.
Whatever leverage I had now, I lost when I stepped in the blood. There was just enough of it on the wooden deck to make us both start sliding around like we were on ice, until I finally got both hands around his right wrist. I pounded his arm against the edge of the gunwale. Again. Then again. I could see the gun slipping from his hand. One more time and it was free.
It fell into the water and sank. It disappeared forever, just like Rhapsody’s gun, like all the other guns that were down there, every gun in the world on the bottom of the lake.
Every gun except the small pistol still strapped to my ankle.
Cap swung at me a few times without connecting. I hit him in the gut. Then I hit him in the face. He went down on the deck and rolled over. When he came back up, he had Rhapsody’s black bag. Before I could get to him, he reached inside and pulled out a switchblade. He hit the button and I saw the long gleam of metal.
“I’m going to carve you up like a turkey, McKnight.”
I bent down for the ankle holster. He came at me, faster than I would have thought possible. I dived backward, reaching out one leg to trip him as he made his rush. I felt the lick of the blade against my forehead.
When I turned around, he was getting back to his feet. Blood trickled into my left eye.
He stood there for a moment, breathing hard. He spat blood as he wiped the blade clean against his coat.
“Everything was just great,” he said. “Until you came along.”
“I feel the same way,” I said. I pulled up my pant leg and drew the pistol. I pointed it right at his face.
“Oh, fuck me.”
“Drop the knife.”
“I don’t believe this. What next?”
“Drop it,” I said. “Throw it overboard.”
He tossed the knife in the water. He stood there with his arms hanging at his sides.
The blood was really flowing into my eye now. I picked up Rhapsody’s bag and turned it over. Her wallet fell out. Her cell phone. A makeup bag. A little dispenser of tissues. I pulled out all the tissues and held them to the cut on my forehead. There was blood all over my face, all over my hands. My clothes. Rhapsody’s blood mixed with Cap’s mixed with mine.
“So what are you going to do now?” he said. He wiped more blood from his mouth.
It was getting dark now. There was no fog tonight. The stars were starting to appear high above us. The only sound now was our breathing and the boat creaking gently as it drifted in the water.
“I’m not moving,” Cap finally said. “I’m going to stand right here.”
“Good. You’ll make an easier target.”
“You can’t shoot me.”
“Why not?”
“You can’t do it. You know that.”
I kept the gun pointed at him. I didn’t say anything.
“You don’t have it in you, McKnight. Neither did Brucie, remember? Hell, neither did Rhapsody, it turns out. There aren’t many people in this world who can kill a man in cold blood.”
“Brucie didn’t have a good enough reason,” I said. “Neither did Rhapsody.”
“It doesn’t matter. Either you can or you can’t.”
I stood there. I held the gun.
“You’re not a killer,” he said in a low voice. It was almost a whisper. “You can’t do it.”
He stared into my eyes. He didn’t blink.
“You can’t do it.”
I picked up Rhapsody’s cell phone off the deck and turned it on. After it played a few notes of music, I could see in the faint glow that it was getting a weak signal. She obviously had a much better phone than I did.
I fumbled with the buttons, looking up at him every couple of seconds, finally found the menu, then the call history. I went through the numbers, saw my own number in the outgoing calls, the three times she had called me, kept going, saw another number appear several times. I recognized the 416 area code. I knew it well from every time I had called Natalie in Toronto.
“What are you doing?” Cap said.
“Just a little trick I learned from you guys.”
I hit the talk button.
“McKnight,” he said. He couldn’t keep the panic out of his voice. “Who are you calling?”
“You’re right,” I said. “I’m not a killer. I can’t shoot you in cold blood.”
The signal was weak, but the call was going through. It was ringing.
“But I know someone who’d be happy to.”
He grabbed one of the plastic deck chairs. He threw it at my head and made a diving lunge for the gun.
I ducked the chair and shot him dead.
Chapter Twenty-three
The warm weather finally arrived in September. It stayed for ten and a half days. The sun was bright and in the evenings it shone against the trees and made everything look like a postcard. The sunsets were the very definition of breathtaking. You would literally stop breathing when you stepped outside to see them.
Far from being lost on me, I think I felt those days more deeply than anyone. They were so beautiful, but
