If Arlis had guessed correctly about these two, however, it was wasted effort. If they’d already murdered five people, two more wouldn’t bother them a bit.
Pistol had stopped moving. He was staring at me as he evaluated what I’d said about the keys. The man with the rifle, Perry, was thinking about it, too. “Shit, King. You believe him?”
“Shut up. Give me a minute.”
King.
So they were Perry and King, a pack of two. King, with the pistol, was the alpha male. Perry, the tagalong, had been gifted with the stolen Winchester, but he wasn’t beyond thinking for himself or doubting his partner’s judgment. Perry had his own agenda, and a brittle impatience. King irritated him, I could tell.
The two men had somehow stumbled onto us . . . or possibly they had been watching us from the beginning, hiding in the trees. It was risky for the two of them, armed with only a pistol, to attempt to overpower the four of us. So they had waited, trying to time it right.
Once three of us were underwater, King and Perry had moved in fast and hard to steal the truck, intending to make their escape before the scuba divers surfaced—and possibly after killing Arlis.
But there had been a snag. Arlis had somehow managed to hide the keys before they got to him. And he had refused to talk—so they had beaten him. Now the men were stuck with another crime on their hands and nothing to show for it but a Winchester and whatever they had pilfered from the truck.
The truck was parked in the shade of a cypress tree but still visible to a low-flying police chopper. If this became a crime scene, and if King and Perry couldn’t get away from the area in a hurry, they were screwed.
But we were in a jam, too, and they knew it. They had heard me calling to Arlis, telling him we needed help. The men had seen the extra air bottles and the truck filled with gear. They had probably already robbed our duffel bags, containing wallets, glasses and cell phones.
Three divers had gone into the water but only one had returned. They knew I had to cooperate or my pals were goners.
King said to me, “You’re in no position to get tricky, Jock-a-mo.”
I looked from King to the truck, then at the sky, as if there might be a helicopter approaching. I allowed my expression to tell him, Neither are you.
Pointing the rifle at me, Perry said, “I got a bad feeling about this dude. He’s trouble. Look at how he’s acting. Why waste time talking to the asshole?”
King didn’t answer immediately, and Perry lowered the rifle as he patted his breast pocket, then his pants. “Shit,” he added, eyes shifting to the sky. “I’m out of cigarettes.
I stepped away from Arlis, creating some distance between targets. “If I had the keys,” I said, “don’t you think I’d tell you? I’ve got two friends down there, trapped under some rocks. There was a landslide, and I need to get them out before their air runs out. Let us rig the equipment we need and I’ll bring you the keys. You can have the truck. We’ll find our own way home.”
King said, “That simple . . .”
“No,” I said, “but it’s possible.”
“How stupid you think I am?”
I said, “Not stupid enough to kill two people, then try and hike out of a place like this. Or kill four people—that’s the way a judge will see it if my friends die down there.”
In the hush of twittering birds and wind, I nodded toward miles of palmetto scrub, seeing a blue ridge of trees on the horizon and a couple of miniature radio towers. “It took us more than two hours to cut our way in here,” I said, “and we were riding in a truck.”
King said, “Listen to this guy!,” trying to laugh.
Perry said, “Maybe we should. We need those damn truck keys, man. He’s right about that.”
King was looking at me, holding the pistol at his side. “I heard someone call you Doc. You’re no doctor. Maybe a cop. Or—you know what you look like? A teacher I had in middle school.” It was spooky the way the man was staring at me.
“Does it matter? I’m trying to be reasonable.”
“Reasonable, huh . . .”
It took some effort not to check my watch. I could feel the minutes ticking away. “I’m not a cop or a teacher. I’m a marine biologist, that’s why we’re here.”
Perry surprised me by asking, “You went diving in that lake to look at fish and bugs and stuff, huh?”
“Fish, yes.”
“Did you see anything big when you were underwater? Really big, I mean. A shark, maybe, like the one in the movies? Only not as long.” It was an odd question, but the man had asked for a reason, I felt certain. His intensity told me that he’d seen something in the lake. What?
I said, “Nothing bigger than a three-foot gar.” I was watching his reaction. He’d probably seen one of us—Tomlinson, Will or me—beneath the surface and imagined he was seeing something else.
Perry was shaking his head, his expression saying No, what he’d seen wasn’t a yard-long fish.
For King’s benefit, I added, “In sinkholes like this, there are a lot of bass, sunfish, bream—all the typical species. But I might have seen a couple of crystal darters, too. They’re rare. Nothing bigger than the gar, though.” I wanted to convince the alpha male that I was a biologist, not a cop.
It made me uncomfortable the way King was looking at me. The man was squinting, not smiling, seeing me but seeing something else, too. Something in his brain maybe.
Turns out the possibility of me being a cop wasn’t what bothered him.
King said, “This teacher I’m talking about, he was the world’s biggest prick.”
Back on the teacher again. The teacher had done something to insult King or humiliate him, apparently, and I resembled the man.
I thought, Damn it, and peeked at my watch. Tomlinson and Will had now been underwater for forty-six minutes. They had thirteen or fourteen minutes of air remaining, plus another couple of minutes for Tomlinson if he was able to use his spare emergency reserve bottle and maybe ten minutes for Will because I’d rigged his tank with a larger bottle.
I tried to appear unconcerned as I listened to King say, “A couple of days ago, I was telling Perry about this teacher I’m talking about. I told Perry, ‘Man, I’d love to get my hands on that ass-wipe teacher.’ Isn’t that what I said?”
Perry was busy shouldering the rifle, checking the horizon, still scanning the sky. He replied, “Whatever.”
“Seriously. I don’t want Jock-o to think I’m lying. Trust is so damn important in a partnership. That’s what he’s offering us: a chance to be partners.”
The man’s sarcasm implied intelligence, and I began to hate him for his plodding indifference. King was smart enough to know that my friends were running out of time. He was enjoying it, making me squirm.
Perry said, “Make up your mind. If you want to do these guys, fine. Let’s finish it and get moving. But this standing-around-doing-nothing bullshit is driving me nuts.” His hand moved to his pockets again, seeking cigarettes.
Ten seconds, fifteen seconds, King stared at me without blinking. I hoped he was thinking about my proposition, working it through to an obvious option. He could wait until I returned with the other two divers, plus the truck keys, then kill us all and escape in the vehicle.
I didn’t want him to push the scenario any farther, though. Because of that, I took a chance and said, “What do you have to lose? A few minutes underwater, that’s all I need. Let me change bottles. You can take off in the truck when I get back.”
King said, “Why the hell would anyone take keys underwater? The damn truck’s got electric windows, it’s all tricked out. And Grandpa was driving. That doesn’t make any sense, Jock-o.”