“What the hell were you thinking?” she screamed at him as soon as he was close enough to hear her. So much for smiling.
“That was the worst ride of my life,” the voice said from behind me. “I’d like to see you go try it.”
“You had me worried half to death, you idiot.”
“Hey, I got back here as fast as I could! The currents were a lot stronger than I thought, so just get off my back, okay?”
I heard steps on the stairs and then the man himself, Harry, came around the corner, onto the back deck. He was dressed in a wet suit, and his hair was slicked back against his head. He was bald on top, but he was one of those guys who tries to make up for it by growing it as long as possible on the sides. Whether he tried to comb it over or not, I couldn’t say, because now he just looked like a half-drowned rat.
He might have been older, but he processed the situation a lot quicker than Sugarpie and Dumpling had.
“Who the hell is this?” he said, nodding at me. “What’s going on?”
“He’s been looking for us,” she said calmly. “He was asking about us, all over town.”
“What are you talking about? How was he looking for us? How did he end up here? How did he…”
His brain overloaded about then and he couldn’t speak any more. He just kept looking at his wife, then me, then Sugarpie, then back at his wife. All the while he continued to drip water onto the nice wooden deck.
“I thought he must be working for Corvo,” she said. “I thought maybe we were getting double-crossed or something.”
“What, you mean sending one of his men out here? Are you serious?”
He came closer to me, bending down a bit to look closer at me like I was some kind of exotic animal.
“Is that what this is?” he said to me. “Is this the old double-cross, Corvo-style?”
He straightened up and looked at his wife before I could answer. Then he bent down again. He was dripping water on my shoes now.
“I did everything he told us to do,” the man said. “The Indians are out in the boat, along with the money.”
That got me to the edge of my chair. Sugarpie knocked me back with one long arm and then he put his hands on my shoulders. If the railing hadn’t been behind me, he would have turned the chair over with me in it.
“Stay right there,” Jo said, pointing the gun at my head. “You try that again and I’ll kill you.”
“Are you talking about Vinnie and Buck?” I said. “God damn it, where are they?”
“He doesn’t work for Corvo,” she said to her husband. “There’s no way.”
“I don’t know,” Harry said. “Why else would he be here?”
“Look at him. He’s too old, for one thing. And he’s not all pumped up on steroids.”
“I don’t care who sent him,” Harry said. “He’s still trouble. He could have messed up everything.”
“Relax,” she said. “We’ll be out of here on the next ferry, remember? We’ll be long gone by tonight.”
“What, you mean just leave the boat out there?”
“It’s a piece of crap,” she said. “And it’s not even ours.”
“Vinnie LeBlanc and Buck Carrick,” I said, my head still pushed back onto the rough wood of the railing. “They came to the island with you, right?”
She looked at me, deep in thought.
“Who are you, really?” she said. “Tell me the truth.”
“My name is Alex. I’m a friend of Vinnie’s. I came here looking for Vinnie and his cousin. I swear to God, if you’ve done anything to them…”
She didn’t bother to laugh at that. She gave Sugarpie a little nod and he pulled the chair back up. He kept one hand on my shoulder, just in case.
“Did you come alone?” she said. “No, wait, that person who called you…”
I hesitated over that one, trying to decide which was better, the truth or a lie. I settled on a little of both.
“I’m not alone,” I said. “I’ve got five other people on the island with me. You’ll never get away, believe me.”
“Where were all of your friends when I found you at the dock?”
“They were on the ferry. I flew over separately and I was waiting for them. By now, they’re all over the island. Five men, all looking for me. And for you. They know everything about you.”
“That’s a lie.”
“All we want is Vinnie and Buck,” I said. “You give them to us and you walk away.”
“Yeah, I’m sorry to tell you,” Harry said, “but you’re a little too late for that.”
“Harry, shut up,” the woman said.
“I’m not shutting up, Jo. Don’t tell me to shut up.”
“Just be quiet for one second so we can think this through.”
“There’s nothing to think about. We made our deal and now we can get the hell out of here.”
A phone rang. They looked at each other until finally she remembered my cell phone in her pocket. She took it out and opened it.
“This time it’s a 313 number,” she said. “That’s Detroit.”
It took me a second to figure it out. Then it came to me. It was Janet Long, returning my call from this morning. An actual FBI agent on the phone, but a hell of a lot of good it would do me now.
“Now I know he doesn’t work for Corvo,” Harry said, taking the cell phone from her. “I mean, look at this thing.”
He tossed it to Sugarpie, who looked at it with wonder, like an archaeologist examining a dinosaur bone. When he was done, he dropped it onto the table, next to the ashtray.
“That’s one more of my friends,” I said, trying to put a little edge into it now, like this was just an inconvenience to me, something that happened all the time. “They must be all over the place by now. Maybe even right outside. I tell you, all you gotta do is give us Vinnie and Buck. We have no interest in you at all.”
“And I told you it’s too late,” Harry said.
His wife reached over and gave him a little cuff on the cheek. Not quite a slap, but a hell of a lot stronger than a love tap.
“Ow,” he said. “What the hell’s the matter with you?”
“Take off those wet clothes,” she said. “Then get your ass into the house. We have to talk about this.”
“What about him?” the man said, nodding at me.
“Dumpling’s getting the zip ties. They’re out in the car, right?”
“No, they’re in the house.”
“Well, go get one, genius. And take off those clothes before you ruin the deck.”
She watched him walk into the house, leaving a wet trail behind him. He was clearly doing things in the wrong order and she looked at me, shaking her head, like I was supposed to be on her side all of a sudden.
“You need to tell me what happened to Vinnie and Buck,” I said to her. “Are they alive or not?”
“You need to stay quiet and relax,” she said, as if that were possible. “But yes, they’re alive. Maybe you’ll even get to see them.”
She gave me a grim smile and now I had no idea what to think. Then Harry came back through the door with a plastic zip tie about a foot long.
“He’s going to put this on your wrists,” she said to me. “It’s for everybody’s benefit. Then we’ll take you to see your friends.”
Harry stopped dead and looked at her like she was crazy. She raised one eyebrow at him and gestured to me, like, get on with it already.
“Hands together,” he said to me. “Don’t try anything funny.”
I put my hands in front of me. In one smooth expert motion he lassoed my wrists and pulled the zip tie tight.
“Do the ankles, too,” she said. “Just for now.”
“You said get one zip tie. I only brought one.”
“So go get another. But first take off your-”
He let out a breath and went back into the house before she could finish. On his way back out with the second zip tie she smacked him in the back of the head. He stopped and looked at her and I thought for a second they were gonna start swinging, but then he got down on one knee in front of me.