When Ford surfaced, spitting water, King said, “Now look who’s slowing us down. You expect me to push this heavy bastard all by myself?” He couldn’t help laughing—Christ, the expression on the dude’s face!
It didn’t matter whether he cooperated or not now. They were already at the orange buoy.
King watched Ford check his watch, his eyes cold, then look around until he said he could see two sets of air bubbles not far from the buoy. The bubbles weren’t well defined because the wind was coming up, raking the pond’s surface into rows of moving water.
“How much time do your girlfriends have left?” King asked.
Rinsing his mask, then positioning it on his face, Ford replied, “Just shut up and make sure the hose doesn’t kink. Think you can handle that?”
King was grinning as the professor dude disappeared beneath the surface.
Perry was standing next to the truck, with its tailgate open, scuba gear scattered on the ground near the little Honda generator. The guy, Ford, had gotten ready in a hurry, yelling orders, throwing things around. That’s why the area was such a mess.
Perry was watching Ford now as King helped him swim the inner tube, loaded with gear, toward the orange buoy, where the color of the water changed from silver-blue to black.
Water was deeper out there, Perry guessed.
It gave Perry the creeps, wondering about what might be living deep in the black water below the two of them, looking up from the bottom at their shapes and bare legs.
Man . . . it was scary just thinking about it.
Perry wouldn’t have admitted that, though, even to King. Not after what he done two nights ago, the way he’d felt, chasing the woman and those kids through the dark house. Perry believed he would never have to show fear again.
After feeling that kind of power? The night had changed him in an unexpected way, made him feel larger, more knowing—treetop tall—a man who could look down and choose his targets instead of living in fear, as Perry had lived all his life.
People died so easily beneath his hands.
It was the most surprising truth he had ever experienced. It had created a power in him, a soaring feeling that connected his brain and his heart, and a strange hunger, too, that was ready and waiting, close beneath the surface, eager for the next time.
There would be a next time. It would happen. The power was there, a bottomless hunger, like jonesing for a cigarette. So what did he have to fear?
Black water, that’s what. That was true, too. He couldn’t admit it, but there it was.
Perry let his eyes move to the trees, then to the curving shoreline. Automatically, his hands went to his pockets, seeking a pack of Marlboros that wasn’t there.
It brought the memory back to him, Sunday afternoon, lighting his last cigarette, crumpling the pack and lobbing it into the lake. Wind had pushed the silver-cellophaned Marlboro 100s toward the black water, not far from where the orange buoy was now anchored.
That’s when something . . . something had ascended beneath the pack, a long black shape that was blacker than the black water, with a tail that looked to be almost as long and wide as a man.
Perry hadn’t imagined it. He’d been jazzed on Adderall, sure, but he wasn’t drunk. He had seen it.
The thing—whatever it was—had appeared suddenly, as if it had rocketed up from the depths to swallow the cigarette pack. At the last second, though, it had slowed itself, large and dark beneath the surface, and the big tail had swirled a whirlpool of water that was half the size of the truck that Perry now leaned against, trying to freeze that image in his mind . . . .
“Your idiot friend swims like a damn anchor. Look at him, holding Ford back.”
Goddamn old man. He never stopped talking.
Perry said to him, “The only reason you talk so tough is ’cause you’re too old to fight. Shut your mouth for a change.”
Arlis snapped back, “I might be too old to fight you, but I ain’t too old to kill you. If you had any brains, you’d know how dangerous it is to mess with a man too old to fight.”
Perry muttered, “Fucking old dudes . . . man.”
“You hear what I said?” Arlis pressed. “Or maybe you’re whacked out on some kind of drug—marijuana and crack cocaine, maybe. Where’d you scum come from? Wherever it is, I wish you’d go back and climb under your rock.”
Damn it. Arlis Futch had just ruined the way Perry’s mind had been replaying the scene. Even with a busted mouth, the man couldn’t stay quiet.
Perry’s mind blanked, and the dark creature vanished. That quick, he was standing next to the truck again, where the generator was running smoothly and not too loud for him to hear the old man yammering away, bitching and criticizing, despite the blood seeping from the back of his head.
“Our friends are down there dying and your hotshot pal is dragging his ass. Look at him! He’s doing it on purpose.”
The old man had gotten to his feet and walked away from the blanket that Ford had spread for him in the grass beneath a tree thirty yards from the truck. Now he was standing knee-deep in the lake, filling a water bottle, then pouring it over his head, after having just been sick, kneeling behind a tree for privacy, coughing until there was nothing left in his belly.
Perry had felt good, hearing the old man be sick. He had caused it.
As the old man washed, Perry watched King and the professor-looking dude as they approached the orange buoy. The buoy was bouncing like a punching bag as waves passed beneath it, but the thing stopped when Ford got a hand on it.
“Ten minutes, maybe, that’s all the air our guys have left. You two Yankee scumbags don’t care what happens to them. All you want is our damn gold! And you’re trespassing on private property, which I’m gonna keep reminding you until you two turds go off and leave us alone.”
There was something about a redneck accent that was grating, and Perry tried to ignore the man. Later, after he had loaded his backpackful of Cuban coins, he knew how he would handle it. Perry would march Futch into the trees—the old man’s hands would be tie-wrapped, of course—then he would use Ford’s big steel knife with the serrated blade, not the switchblade he had borrowed from King. Right in the throat, that’s how he would start, just like he’d described it to King.
Knives. Perry liked them. In Mexico, after they put money in the bank and found a big house with maids—a “hacienda,” King called such places—maybe he would buy himself a nice knife. Good steel that didn’t rust, and a genuine bone handle, not plastic, like the one in his pocket.
And, of course, he would keep Ford’s knife. The man soon wouldn’t have any use for it, anyway.
Until then, though, Perry knew that he had to tolerate the old bastard. Kill him now, they would have no way to leverage Ford, the expert diver. Ford might try to drown King, then sneak off into the swamp without sharing a penny, if the old man wasn’t there to give Ford a reason to come back.
“You’re not going to get one ounce of that gold if you let our friends die. You know that, don’t you? One of them’s just a boy, a teenage Indian kid off the Oklahoma reservation, and now this happens to him!”
Perry, who was holding the rifle in the crook of his arm, said to Arlis Futch, “Shut up and keep your opinions to yourself. You want some more of me?” He swiveled just enough to point the rifle toward the lake where Gramps was standing.
The old man stopped pouring water over his head and looked at Perry long enough for his expression to be read Anytime. Of course, the man didn’t make a move to do anything about it. All talk, just like King.