“Hey Doc! Doc!” he yelled. “Get in here!”
Silence hung in the air, and he called again. When nothing happened, Dutch felt his fingers tightening around the flare gun, but then, Gideon appeared in the doorway, carrying an old gas can. It was faded and red, shaped vaguely like a kettlebell.
“What, man?”
“Come over here. Look at this.”
“It's a boat.”
“It's a boat that could get us out of here.”
“Oh,” Gideon said, as if the thought hadn't occurred to him. “Well, I found some more gas. It's got to be eighty years old.”
“No shit?”
“Give me a lighter.”
Dutch tossed him one. The doc tipped the can, and a thick sludge the color of old coffee spattered onto the cement. He flicked lighter on and held it to the puddle.
“No, don't!” Dutch yelled.
But Gideon gave him a toothy grin and lowered the flame. Nothing happened. For all of its practical uses, the stuff might as well be old coffee.
“You crazy sonofabitch,” Dutch said.
“Bet I can fix it.”
“Why?”
Gideon pondered, and for a moment, he looked almost sane. “Well, there was no such thing as unleaded gas when that engine was built. I don't think it will matter, but I'm going to mix our gas with some of this stuff just to be sure. I got to filter the old shit first. Well, obviously, right?”
Dutch looked at him warily. “As long as you know what you're doing, Doc.”
“Assuming the gas works, can you fix the rest? I mean, it looks corpsed.”
Dutch was no deft hand with engines, but he knew a little, and even if he couldn't fix it, AJ could. “Is a frog's ass watertight?”
“Yes, it actually holds its sphincter closed, or it wouldn't be able to float.” Gideon didn't laugh, but he was wearing another goofy face that made him look soft in the head.
“Get the hell out of here. Find me a wrench.”
The man returned with one a few minutes later, and Dutch began taking the old engine apart. It turned out to be a lot easier than he thought. When he had been a teenager — in the long ago of Arizona, this had been — he had liked to work on old cars. He had never been very good at it, but the basics were still bumping around in his skull. He flushed the fuel lines, cleaned the spark plugs, and drained the oil.
As he worked, Gideon found a handful of unused engine filters and went about setting up a filtration process for the old sludge. After a few passes, the gas looked almost clear, and Gideon ran another flame test on a small puddle. It was slow to catch, but it burned, all right. He added some of the new gas to the kettlebell, then handed the container up.
Dutch filled the motor. “Time for the real test. I'd step away from the propeller, if I were you.”
The blade lay suspended above the ramp, the engine tilted at forty-five degrees. Gideon actually poked it, giving it a spin with one hand, then trotted off to have a piss. Dutch hoped he would have the decency to find some clothes while he was outside, but he didn't think he'd be that lucky. Dutch himself had picked up an old trench coat from the docks. He felt like a Central Park flasher with just his tighties underneath, but it was better than nothing.
He climbed up to the deck, grabbed the starter, and pulled it. The engine coughed. He pulled again, hearing the starter flub and whistle without turning over. He found the primer button and pumped it, pushing gas into the engine, then tried the pull again. Nothing. Nothing for the next six tries, either. He gave it a rest, his arm aching.
“Doc, give me a hand with this!” Where was Gideon this time?
He greased his palms and gave it one more go. The engine turned over with a belch and a roar, coughing up clouds of black smoke. The sound was immense, at least three times louder than any boat he'd been on.
“Hot damn!” he shouted. “The Dutch boy comes through again! Gideon, where you at?”
If the man said anything in reply, he didn't hear it. The noise was too goddamned loud. He figured he'd let it run for a few minutes and then cut it. Now, if they couldn't patch the other boat, they'd have a Plan B. AJ would be proud.
Dutch squinted over the top of the boat to the open door, oblivious to the figure creeping onto the platform behind him.
4
Mason crept along the deck, as silent as the dark. He paused just long enough to pull his knife out of its sheath. No guns had survived the journey through the water, but his blade had made the trip just fine.
“Gideon! Where are you?” the man called.
He could taste the sweat on the air, could feel the other man's heart beating in his chest. His own chest felt as if it were on fire, burning with the need to strike.
“Doc! You're making me nervous, Doc!” Dutch bent and grabbed something off of the floor. It looked like a flare gun, but that couldn't save him now.
“Help me!” Gideon's form came hurtling through the open doorway. His body hit the ground and rolled, coming to rest in front of the spinning rotor of the engine. A metal container clanged next to him, spilling from his hand in the tumble.
The game was up.
“Gideon!” Dutch called.
Mason slid in behind and thrust with his knife. Dutch spun at the last moment, but it was too late. Too late!
But it wasn't.
Instead of hitting the man's kidney, the blade sliced between his ribs. Dutch rolled with the cut, and Mason felt something smack into his head. He reeled. Dutch slammed his wrist and then kicked him in the thigh. One-two. The knife clattered to the ground, gliding further down the deck and out of reach.
Quick! He was quick!
With a cry, Mason lunged, tackling Dutch and driving him to the ground. He put a knee on the man's chest, then smashed him with his fists. He pounded his face, his skull, and when he covered up, Mason hit him in the ribs.
He chanced a glance over the rails and saw St. Croix stalking Gideon, grinning like a monkey. He picked the skinny man up and embraced him just beneath the boat, biting at his neck.
Then something heavy and metallic slammed into the side of Mason's head. He stumbled, looking down towards Dutch and seeing the man had picked up a wrench. A goddamned wrench!
“Gideon! Hold on!”
Dutch kicked the engine, dropping the propeller parallel to the floor. He didn't know it would work, he couldn't know that it would work… but suddenly St. Croix was howling, his skull shredding and crunching in the tilt-a-whirl of the blade.
Mason roared. “No!”
His two other men emerged from the shadows and ran at the doctor. Gideon was still holding Peter in a weird embrace, shrieking vengeance as the blade chopped through his head.
Vy grabbed Gideon and slammed him onto the ground, ignoring St. Croix's body and the spinning blade behind it. Melvin jumped after, and then the two of them were digging into the doctor with their fingernails, hacking at him with their teeth. Gideon screamed as his body shook, blood pooling beneath him.
Mason jumped towards Dutch, driving his knee into the man's groin. The man dropped to the deck, and Mason kicked the wrench away. Before Dutch could escape, Mason grabbed him and hauled him over his head like a power-lifter. A fresh gout of blood drained from his bullet wound, but he felt alive! Alive!
He tossed the puny man over the rails, and Dutch hit the concrete with a thud. Mason wondered how long this guy—this fucking tough guy—would survive when he fed him feet first to that propeller.
Beneath him, Gideon had managed to crawl to the object he had been carrying.
“Finish him,” Mason yelled. “Finish him now!”
Gideon unscrewed the cap on the gas can. Even with the weight of two men on top of him, he was able to tip it over. The liquid splashed out onto his thighs, onto his stomach, onto the two men who were hacking and biting him. The man was crying, laughing, howling as he did it. In another life, it would have been a sight to fuel Mason's nightmares, even with all he had seen.
The sound of a metal click snapped his attention back to the other man. On the ground, Dutch had uncurled.
He was holding the flare gun.