ANNA RACED AWAY from the bank and parked behind the nearest gas station. She ran to the pay phones and dialed. The man at the next phone was on meth. Anna sprang up and down on her legs. “C’mon, answer!”
A dark sedan rolled up to one of the gas pumps.
Then, shouting. Anna jumped. The man on the next phone slammed the receiver. It bounced off the hook and swung on its metal cord as he stomped away. A click in Anna’s ear. “Hello?” She turned and burrowed into the phone booth. “I got it… no, just a photograph… you’ll understand as soon as you see it… right, I know the place.”
THE OFFICIAL ENTOURAGE whisked Greely down to the dock. The publicist grabbed a couple of TV cameramen along the way. “There’s nothing worth shooting over there….”
They arrived at the parasailing boat. One of the deckhands reached over the railing. “Let me help you aboard.”
Cameras filmed as twin three-fifties throttled up. The boat blasted away from the dock.
The deckhand fitted the ex-mogul into his Coast Guard — rated life vest and parasailing harness.
“Have to make sure this thing is good and tight,” said Serge, yanking up hard on the strap between Greely’s legs.
“Ow!”
“You’re all set,” said Serge. “Let’s get you back to the launch area.”
Greely stood in position on a specially welded platform and grabbed the chest-high safety bar in front of him. Serge screwed down the metal O-rings attaching Greely’s harness to the parasail, ready for deployment in its cradle. He bunched the little drogue chute in his hand and threw it into the wind, pulling the main sail out of the holder. It quickly inflated, yanking Greely a few inches off his feet. Serge grabbed the handle on the winch.
“Okay, I’m going to start unreeling you.”
Greely immediately popped up to an elevation of ten feet. Serge turned the handle faster, letting out more rope. Twenty feet. Greely pointed at the boat’s driver.
“Is he drinking beer?”
“A few.” Still unspooling. Thirty feet.
Greely had to shout now. “How much experience do you have?”
“Tons,” Serge yelled back. “Oh, you mean parasailing? This is our first time.”
Fifty feet. “I want to come back down!”
“What?” yelled Serge, still cranking.
Greely’s shouts grew faint. Serge finally tied him off at two hundred feet and went up front with Coleman. They made a swing by the dock. Greely saw the TV cameras and figured he better stop screaming and start waving.
He stayed up a half hour without incident, starting to relax, numerous happy passes by the dock for the cameras. “This is more like it,” said the publicist.
The parasail began swinging side to side, only slightly at first, then more and more until Greely was whipping across the sky horizontally.
“My turn to drive.” Serge pulled the steering wheel away from Coleman, hard to the left.
“You just had a turn,” said Coleman, pulling back to the right.
“But you had an extra long one. That counts as two.” Serge pulled back.
“You’re making up rules.” Coleman pulled back. Serge pulled. Coleman. Serge.
Greely was flying all over the place, then an upside-down loop.
“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!…”
The TV people on the dock zoomed in. “I didn’t know he could do tricks.”
Greely finally leveled off after Serge and Coleman struck a truce, each steering with one hand, snarling at each other.
Another pass by the dock, the publicist checking her watch, growing puzzled.
Serge checked his own watch. He released the wheel. “It’s all yours. Happy?”
“My turn anyway.”
Serge walked to the stern and picked up a megaphone. “Ready to come in?”
All he heard was faint shouting. Serge grabbed the winch’s handle and began reeling. When Greely was halfway down, Serge could make out words. “…I’ll destroy you! You’re finished in this town!…”
Serge stopped cranking and raised the megaphone again. “I’ll bring you in under one condition.”
“Condition? Fuck you!”
“Give back the money.”
“What money?”
“The money you stole. Sell your house and give the money back.”
“Take me down this instant!”
“As soon as you give back the money.”
“I’ll have you arrested! I’ll put you out of business! I’ll take your boat!”
“This isn’t my boat,” said Serge.
“It isn’t?”
“No, it belongs to the two guys tied up down in the cabin.”
Greely paused. “Who are you then?”
“Shareholders.”
“You had stock in my company?”
“We have stock in America!”
“You’re insane!”
“Give back the money.”
“Help! Help!”
TV people back on the dock: “He’s yelling something.”
“What’s he saying?”
“I think he’s just whooping it up.”
Serge pointed the megaphone. “Give back the money.”
“Not a chance!”
“You stole. It’s wrong.”
“I didn’t steal anything. They made bad investments. Nobody put a gun to their heads!”
“Old people had to go back to work. It’s caused premature deaths.” Serge produced a scuba knife and placed the blade against the rope.
“What are you doing?”
“Disconnecting this call. All I’m getting is static.”
“You wouldn’t—”
Serge started sawing through the rope. He yelled up front to Coleman. “Swing toward land.”
The boat made a slow starboard arc until it was in line with the dock.
“Stop!” yelled Greely. “I’m ordering you!”
“You’re not the boss of me.” More sawing.
Greely looked up at the dock, then down at Serge again. “What are you planning?”
“These parasails are incredible. One guy accidentally broke loose and was dragged a mile over land. Nothing stopped him, concrete benches, cars, fences. They said nearly every bone in his body was broken.”
“Okay, I’ll give back the money.”
Serge stopped sawing. “You will?”
“Absolutely!”
“What about your Key West development project?”
“Dead. I’ll kill it. Anything! Please!”
“Promise?”
Greely nodded urgently.
Serge thought a moment, then shook his head. “I don’t believe you.” Sawing resumed.
Greely screamed all the way in to shore. Serge was three-quarters through the rope. The dock closed rapidly.
“Oh, my God! Coleman! Look!”
“What?”
“Over there! Turn the boat around!”
“I see it.” Coleman swung the wheel hard in a tight one-eighty. Greely whipping directly over the dock. “Help! Help! They’re crazy!”
The cameramen pointed straight up. “I didn’t catch that.”
“I think he said, ‘I’m wild and crazy.’”
The cameras kept filming, gradually lowering trajectory as Greely neared the horizon. That’s when one of the cameramen saw it. “Holy mother! Look over there!”
Greely saw it, too. He began crying. “Oh, please! Don’t! I’m begging you!”
Serge went up front. “I’ll need to take the wheel from here. It’s going to require expert driving.”
“You can have it,” said Coleman. “This is out of my league.”
The boat raced across the Gulf Stream, a smile spreading over Serge’s face. “This is what I’m talking about, Coleman. Life’s a crapshoot. But just keep fighting the good fight and sooner or later it turns your way.”
They were on a direct bearing for the Sand Key lighthouse, five miles southwest, but they wouldn’t need to go nearly that far.
“Are you sure about this?” asked Coleman. “I mean, I’ve never heard of it being done before.”
“Because it hasn’t.”
Back at the dock, pandemonium. “Doesn’t he see it?” “Why isn’t he turning?”
The wind picked up. Serge and Coleman’s hair flew around, needles of rain hit their cheeks.
Serge had to squint to see. “Come on, baby, just a few more seconds…”