The Prince Of Deadly Weapons Read online

"I guess you've forgotten what a perfectly honest shill is supposed to act like. The golden rule is silence… right?"

  Dane looked at the carryall, at the gun, then ended his visual tour by staring right at and into Nathan's eyes. "Can't see your son there, can you?"

  Nathan made a bitter try at saying something.

  "You think it might have been me that ripped you off," said Dane. "Right… no answer? No answer… now who's lying, Nathan? Now who's playing the silent card 'cause they don't want to step up… who? You think I ripped you off. Then do what you want and I'll show you I'm at least as tough as the shits you put your trust in."

  It was an intolerable moment Nathan walked away from. He started down to the sea, as if expecting Dane to silently know and follow him. Dane called out "Nathan," but he kept walking. Dane called again and this time more harshly, more adamantly and Nathan did stop, or tried to anyway but lost his footing on all that gravel and sand. When he righted himself he was a hulking labored outline breathing hard.

  "I want you to know, Nathan, if you had thrown that dirty little shit out of the plane, the least I would have done was shut the cabin door behind him."

  * * *

  ROUTE 4 was running deep with rain and every time Essie tried to speed up or change lanes the Futura hydroplaned. The number she had stolen off the answering machine was for Romeo Boat Sales at the Big Break Marina in Oakley, California. Oakley was on the southern berm of the San Joaquin where it fed into Dutch Slough at Jersey Island. This meant Essie was driving back to the heart of the Delta.

  Essie tried to think her way through this confusion of disparate fragments, but it was like trying to follow the blue flow of the sloughs. Oncoming headlights glistened off the drenched windshield in brilliant bursts of star fire and she wiped at her face and eyes constantly as if this could clear her mind to meet the task.

  In Oakley the rain fell through a damp mist. At the Big Break Marina the boats appeared as cutouts rocking hypnotically on the black depthless currents of the San Joaquin.

  The parking lot was empty but for an old man walking sluggishly away from the docks. In the window of the Romeo Boat Sales shop were photos of the different craft you could buy— from modest sailboats to a pre-owned Sunseeker. She went from photo to photo, but none were of the PLYMOUTH ROC.

  In the boat shop window Essie saw her pale bundle of a face, the drained eyes, the stringy soaked hair. And that day in Locke with Dane when she caught sight of herself in a blacked-out storefront glass came back in all its prophecy. "I'm going to ask you for your trust," he'd said, "so I have to know what it is you want."

  She walked those fogged-in dock berths going from boat to boat on a chance, bent inside that oil skin slicker like the reaper herself, reliving that day, as on that day she discovered another woman inside her she never knew, one closer to rebellion and malfeasance when she'd answered Dane, "I'm standing on a subway platform and a speeding train goes by—"

  It was all right there. You'd have to be blind to miss it— the PLYMOUTH ROC.

  Thirty-three feet of tweaked out day cruiser, she stared at. She could see it probably had a down galley and room enough for at least one stateroom. The fog drifted past her face. Do I call out in case someone is on board, do I walk away, or do I—

  Laws were falling as she felt the boat beneath her drift ever so slightly. She stepped inside the covered cockpit. It had a heavy-duty sound system, autopilot, plotter. This was strictly turnkey.

  If anyone had been below they would have heard, or felt her come on board. She approached the galley door. It was not bolted or locked. She slid the door open with a finger touch, inches at a time. Cold darkness awaited.

  Was the galley door left open because someone didn't care, wanted to appear as if they didn't care, or were they just careless? Would there be anything they didn't want found or seen left on board? She kept hearing that voice on the answering machine, bland as the back of a playing card, going from name to name as she slipped down into the galley. That would be where, if something were to be found.

  She could smell the stale odor of men as she felt about in the dark for anything, anything at all. That's when she heard steps on the wooden plank way. Angular steps getting louder. She came about and got the galley door closed. She waited, but those angular steps didn't pass, they stopped.

  She listened now like some creature cornered. A rope line was flung on board. She could hear it hit the deck. Then a clopping sound as the boat moved slightly. She reached out into the dark for something to hold herself upright. The clopping moved into the cockpit. She bent back, feeling, feeling behind her frantically, pathetically. The jangle of keys and the first muffled cries of twin cats kicking over and her whole insides went cold— cold, empty, frightened, shivering.

  And then the boat began to move.

  * * *

  FROM THE beach Nathan watched the black sea for any sign of the boat as Dane went about the task of collecting driftwood and dried sage. When he was done stacking these for a fire Dane went backup the road to the gas storage ruins. He brought with him rags taken from the plane he'd torn into long strips. He found a heavy stone, one he could hold in a fist, and began hammering at a corroded section of pipe that fed from the storage bin until its casement cracked.

  There was a faint hiss of air, the pungent bitters of rot, and gas began to trickle forth. Gas and filth. He doused the rags and walked back to the beach. He wedged the wet strips into the chest high pyre. He lit them with a match and pulled his hand away quickly from the whooshing burst. The cut sheets curled like flaming snakes, the driftwood and sage began to crackle harshly.

  Nathan, who had been watching for the boat, now turned to Dane. "I did think it might have been you. That's what I'm capable of."

  Dane stared at a heart of burning red rag and wood.

  "I'm sorry I brought you," said Nathan, "but I'm glad you're here. I'm glad I brought you, but I'm sorry you're here. That… is how fucked I am."

  From the cord fist of that blaze, Dane followed pathways of wood with his eyes as they darkened, smoked and then ignited into a small heaven of white star bursts. He heard Nathan ask, "Does Essie know about any of this?"

  Nathan was his craft. Every emotion, Dane thought, was guided by an altered emotion. Every version of what he felt was protected by an altered version or screened off by an altered version, guarded by an altered version.

  Nathan was the kind of man who if nature had permitted, would walk in two directions at the same time. And that he, Dane, should see it so well, could feel the enticements of and at knowing, what did it say about what was behind all that he felt?

  "Essie knows…" Dane waited as Nathan's face feared up and tightened, he said then…"only what you've told her."

  The face loosened. "Yes, it's best that way. Best all around. She's a good girl."

  Dane prodded the flame with a loose piece of driftwood. "What… did Taylor know?"

  Nathan stared across the fire. It was gathering up force now, smoke rose in kite strings from those burning wood threads to be collected into a vaster pall. The air smelled of sage. The moment was prescient with the shape of other times. From Abraham and Isaac, through the ravagings of Joan of Arc, to the napalm crosses of our valence there has always been fire, and those with aims looking across that fire.

  "He knew nothing about who or what I am. As a father…" Nathan's voice fell into a horrid honesty as he altered what Dane had earlier said, "… I was the perfect shill for honesty."

  Nathan made an undefined gesture with his hand. "Go back to the plane. Get out of here." When he saw Dane did not listen he made the same undefined gesture. "Walk to Punta Final. Walk to the fuckin' border. I don't care. Just don't stay."

  The fire now burned well as high as the men. Dane made a fist with his left hand and hit himself right at the heart. "Greed and goodness… there's only one spot they cross."

  "Go on!" shouted Nathan.

  Dane hit his heart again with a fist but he did not go.
The flames yawed and bent violently with the wind.

  "Why fuckin' stay and take the risk?!"

  Dane hit his heart again. "Greed and goodness." He hit his heart again. "Understand. I want what you offered me back at Dos Reis. That's why I'm here." He hit his heart again. "I'll take the risk." He hit his heart again. "And I also want to pay your son back." He hit his heart again. "And you know how I want to pay him back."

  The wind took the smoke and engulfed both men. Their eyes burned, their throats choked dry. But neither moved.

  "What happened to Taylor will happen to you," said Dane, "if what happened to Taylor is because of you. And we both know the answer to that. We're living it now. Aren't we?"

  What Nathan saw there across the fire, in the smoky reaches where the flames jumped and burned in black space then disappeared as if some invisible hand had stolen them away, what he saw there was himself. As he was, as he is.

  "Charles… the General… the Fenns. At least one of them had a hand in putting Taylor down." Dane drove his fist toward the ground in a stabbing motion. "Like a fuckin' pig or a dog." He drove his fist again toward the ground. "Get a good mental picture of him lying there in his own blood." Dane drove his fist again toward the ground. "Or maybe you need the coroner's pictures to get you hard." He drove his fist at the ground again. "And part of it is your fuckin' fault, and you know it." He drove his fist again at the ground. "How does it feel hearing it like that?"

  Somewhere out on the black sea came the sounds of an outboard motor.

  "It's like having cum spit in your face," said Nathan.

  The outboard motor grew louder, closer.

  "When they come after you, I intend to be there. That's how I'm gonna pay your son back. That's where the sheer greed and the little bit of goodness that is me… meet."

  "If you're gonna leave," said Nathan, "you better go now. They're coming."

  Chapter Fifty-One

  ESSIE STARED AT the cabin door, flesh white, twisted down into a corner as if drugged with fear. Her hands searched the black space around her like huge insects, crawling the walls, fingering cubbyholes and crevices for anything that could be turned into a weapon.

  The lone sound of a barge horn and the hard press starboard had told her right off they were moving up the San Joaquin and deeper into the delta of sloughs and channel ways.

  The day cruiser was making knots. The deep V hull rose and slapped down as it fought the swollen waters. Essie tried to control the unlocked horror of her sheer defenselessness by staying focused on where the boat was going. She tried to mind feel the surges port and starboard like a chart plotter for some unknown waypoint. But when her hands came up empty and she was left with those huge inboard cats reverbing through the hull as they drove on toward some destination a claustrophobic certainty set in that she would be discovered and killed.

  The inboards cut, and panic twisted around her diaphragm. A slight gasp came up out of her throat. She closed her eyes on the chance she had been heard.

  She could feel the day cruiser slow. It was, she knew, easing into a dock. She heard footsteps cross the deck and a voice she could not understand against the rain. The boat was being tied off. There was another voice; both began to slide away only to be met by another voice.

  Essie did not know how many chances she might have to get off this boat. She didn't even know if this were one but she would not let herself suffocate in fear.

  From where she held up to the cabin door was a mere four feet of forever. In a crease of slow-motion inches the cabin door opened like a sidewise eyelid to reveal a treatment of bare rain against a sky touched by lights.

  She used the bridge as best she could for cover. The dark slag shapes she first saw were dock pylons. And then through the raining gloom a square of burning window framed the cropped blond back of a man shouting angrily to someone unseen—

  It was Tommy Fenn, and she was in The Meadows.

  * * *

  DANE AND Nathan were taken out onto the sea in a sleek tender. It was just they and a helmsman who sat on a raised seat and said to them not one word. About a mile out the helmsman got on the radio. He was a swarthy young man who spoke French and Lebanese.

  "They're from Senegal," whispered Nathan.

  It was not long after that a searchlight bore out from the distance. The helmsman motored toward the light which grew larger and higher. It took another mile or so on increasing swells before Dane could see the flooding light was atop a yacht.

  They had approached from the starboard bow so it was impossible to make out the boat's size and beauty. But as they came about midships Dane could see the hull was probably one hundred and twenty feet and built along the fast ferry design so elegantly popular in Europe.

  There was a raised pilothouse that had been pushed forward as far as possible and a submarine-like conning tower just aft of midships. It was from there the cyclopean light kept them at its mercy and burned their eyes.

  It was only when they had neared the stern and slipped under the flooding white beam that Dane caught a glimpse of the yacht's name printed into the sleek gray exterior— The Hunter Gracchus.

  The helmsman led them to a salon past a glass-encased zen garden. Dane looked about as the helmsman dimmed the fiber optic lights. The floor was polished gray sandstone to match the yacht's exterior, the walls were done in bands of satin mahogany held in place by nickel screws. The helmsman had them follow him to a dining room which itself was round, the walls being steam bent slats of satin mahogany. They were told to sit at the table, the glass of which rested on a polished gray sandstone pedestal that was also round. The seats themselves were gray on silver. It was all that wealth could buy of minimalist perfections.

  "Unless you're directly spoken to," Nathan told Dane, "say nothing. And even then, say nothing."

  They waited. At the far end of the salon a man entered. He looked to be well-fed with steroids and he stood gentlemanly by a low banquette with hands crossed. Through the bent mahogany slats Dane noticed the latticed shadow of another man who had taken up a spot by the door from which they'd entered the salon.

  Everything had been done with silence. They had not been checked for weapons, the carryall had not been searched. It was, as far as Dane thought, confidence expressed at its most minimal as a show of control.

  * * *

  THERE WAS an argument going on inside the house that Essie could see only in rain-soaked bits. A man, thickly padded and older, with a thin moustache and black balding hair paced through the window frame while Tommy Fenn's arm moved like a swearing tongue.

  To get away Essie need only slip over the far side of the day cruiser and into the darkness of The Meadows. But, if she wanted to know more about what was behind all those poisoned theatrics she either had to walk the dock past the windows, which was at best an inescapable disaster, or chance a swim under the dock and surface where the wooden planking worked its way up the shoreline that bordered the house.

  Her body wormed its way down into the water where she could feel the deathly cold wrap around her. Her mouth blew open for air, the black oil skin slicker encumbered every movement. She paddled around the boat, spitting water, and pulled her way into the abatis of pylons holding up the dock. She could see between the shriveled planks thin lattice fills of window where rain spilled down into her eyes in dripping lines and each few inches brought her closer to words she could understand.

  "He tried to kill my fuckin' brother, right there in the plane!"

  Essie clutched at wet handfuls of splintered beam, at a nub of posting. She stretched to hear better, to see better, to know— Was Dane alright?

  Framed through a long slit in the wood planking she could see the short man rub his thick face. He was a worn sixty if he was a day. "I told Charles… Charles said he would call. Then we'll deal with it. Your brother is all right."

  As soon as she heard the bland voice—

  "Is this the talk down, Merrit?"

  — she knew.

/>   "Is it?"

  It was the man on the answering machines.

  "I've been trying to keep this together," said Tommy. "I even told Shane to stay away from Rudd. Start nothing. But if Nathan thinks he and that white bread are gonna do my brother, and I'll just sit here in a coma—"

  Her body was growing numb. The men moved past and through the window. From the way they kept looking toward some point in the room when they talked she was certain someone else was there. She bent up toward the planking, it scraped her face, she could just make out another window farther back from the shore. The light from a table lamp shaped out a shadow on the wall, it looked to be a man's.

  She groped her way over and between the cross stanchions. The oil skin slicker felt as if it were made of stone. The shoreline was soft beneath her feet. It rose and fell in awkward shifts and once where she put her weight it evaporated like so much air. Her body sagged down into the water. She grasped at a pylon and a rusted nail staff scored into her hand.

  She dropped down into the water as a third voice said, "We wouldn't be here now, if one of you hadn't tried a rip on that delivery." Her bloody hand got hold of another post and Essie pulled herself up. Her body could not stay in the water much longer.

  Tommy was yelling, "We didn't fuckin' steal anything! How many times do I have to say it? Wouldn't Shane cop to it to keep from being thrown out of the plane?!"

  "I have no idea with you guys."

  She managed to reach a scuppered warp between the foot-boards where she could twist around and see that farther window as the short man, this Merrit, maybe it was the Merrit Merton she had in her notes on Nathan, stood beside Tommy defending himself. "I've been in this business for thirty years. And I never shorted a delivery. How long do you think I'd last if I did?"

  Essie could see the wall shadow begin to move toward the window where it dissolved into the flatly lit face of a man who said, "Well, one of you is a liar."

  And there in the creaking reaches with runoff spilling down through the cracks onto her face, into her mouth and eyes, Essie recognized him. She forgot his name, but it was him all right. The one with the date on the berm that night Taylor was killed. The witness who heard the shot.