“I’ll tell Laraque you had a little accident on the boat. I’m sure he’ll get over it. Especially if he hasn’t gotten his delivery yet.”
She wobbled like she was about to go down. Then she raised her gun. Cap shot her again, shoomp, this time in the chest. She stumbled backward and collapsed against the gunwale, her gun falling overboard into the water. The blood soaked her blouse, turning it an even darker shade of black.
I slipped my right hand down, against my left knee. Lift the pant leg, remove the gun, fire. Just like that.
He turned to me. I froze.
“Okay, now you,” he said. His eyes were wide open and he was looking at me like I was the one who just shot her. “It’s your turn. You are going to tell me where the guns are.”
“If I don’t?”
It was all so simple now. All that was left was me and the man who killed Natalie, alone on a boat, in the middle of the lake.
“You even have to ask that question?”
Just turn away one more time, I thought. Give me two seconds.
“You kill me,” I said. “I get it. So what if I don’t care?”
I honestly didn’t. Forget the gun on my leg now. If I had a bomb, I’d blow the boat up right there, without hesitation. Take him down with me.
“I’ve got a new deal for you,” Cap said. “Something else for you to think about. If you don’t tell me where the guns are, not only do I kill you, I go right back to shore, get in my car, and I go kill everybody else you care about. Your Indian friend. Your other friends, on the lake…What were their names, Tyler and Liz? That fat guy, Leon. Hell, might as well take out his fat wife while I’m at it. That old guy at the bar. Am I leaving anybody out?”
A bomb, I thought. Blow the boat up right now. I’d take that deal in a second.
“I’ll do them all tonight,” he said. “Do you doubt me anymore? You don’t think I’ll do it? By the time the sun comes up, every single one of them will be dead. You’ve got three seconds.”
A bomb.
“You want to know where the guns are?” I said. I slowly got to my feet.
“What, are you deaf and dumb? Yes, McKnight. Yes, I want to know where the guns are.”
“I think we’re above them,” I said. “Right about now.”
“What are you saying? Are you saying they’re in the lake?”
“Yes.”
“Are you saying that the fucking guns are in the fucking lake?”
“Yes, they’re in the fucking lake. About a hundred fucking feet down.”
He stood there for a moment. If nothing else, I got the man to finally stop talking.
“Of course, it doesn’t matter anymore,” I said. “Because the bomb will go off in about one minute.”
I took a quick glance at my watch. Somewhere, Leon was smiling.
“What are you talking about?”
“This is why I wanted to meet you at the boathouse at eight o’clock. I knew I’d have you out here by nine. Right in the middle of the lake, too. Which is perfect. I wouldn’t want to blow up anything else. Just us.”
“You’re not serious.” He took a step closer to me.
That’s right, I thought. Get closer. Another step.
“It’s the last thing I need out of life,” I said. “If I take you down with me, I’m happy.”
“No way, McKnight. There’s no way.”
One step closer. Come on.
“Even if you turned around right now,” I said, “we’d never make it to shore. It’s a done deal.”
“Nice try. I’m not buying it.”
He took another step.
“I was at the boathouse a long time before you got there. You think I just sat there waiting?”
He didn’t say anything this time.
“I put it right under the deck,” I said. “Right there.” I pointed to a spot on the deck behind him.
In the same motion, I reached for the barrel of his gun. I felt it tingle in my hand as he fired it again. I pushed the gun upward, tried to get it over our heads so I could get a clean shot at him with my free hand. I swung him around as hard as I could, driving my left elbow into his chin. He kicked at me, tried to knee me in the groin, tried to swing the gun back around toward my head.
I went with his motion, ducked as he pulled the trigger again, and pushed him all the way through until he lost his balance. I got my knee up onto his back and drove him into the ladder, twisting the gun out of his hand. It fell away from both of us, clattering across the deck.
He swung around and elbowed me in the gut, knocking the wind out of me. Then he tried to drive the crown of his head into my nose. I turned away just in time, but everything went white when I caught most of the blow right in the cheekbone.
I tried to hold on to him, but I could feel him slipping away from me. I tackled him from behind as he went for the gun. He kicked at me, caught me a few times in the stomach, in the hip. I dug my fingers into his sides, grabbed onto his belt, and pulled him back as hard as I could. He had the gun in his hand. He tried to turn over to shoot me. I grabbed his wrist, tried to bend it back. I needed to get up on my knees, get some leverage on him, but he was beating me to it. He was pulling himself up off the deck.
I got up on one knee. Then the other. I got one foot under me and put my shoulder into him. I felt all the air go out of him as I drove him hard into the gunwale, right next to Rhapsody’s body.
Whatever leverage I had now, I lost when I stepped in the blood. There was just enough of it on the wooden deck to make us both start sliding around like we were on ice, until I finally got both hands around his right wrist. I pounded his arm against the edge of the gunwale. Again. Then again. I could see the gun slipping from his hand. One more time and it was free.
It fell into the water and sank. It disappeared forever, just like Rhapsody’s gun, like all the other guns that were down there, every gun in the world on the bottom of the lake.
Every gun except the small pistol still strapped to my ankle.
Cap swung at me a few times without connecting. I hit him in the gut. Then I hit him in the face. He went down on the deck and rolled over. When he came back up, he had Rhapsody’s black bag. Before I could get to him, he reached inside and pulled out a switchblade. He hit the button and I saw the long gleam of metal.
“I’m going to carve you up like a turkey, McKnight.”
I bent down for the ankle holster. He came at me, faster than I would have thought possible. I dived backward, reaching out one leg to trip him as he made his rush. I felt the lick of the blade against my forehead.
When I turned around, he was getting back to his feet. Blood trickled into my left eye.
He stood there for a moment, breathing hard. He spat blood as he wiped the blade clean against his coat.
“Everything was just great,” he said. “Until you came along.”
“I feel the same way,” I said. I pulled up my pant leg and drew the pistol. I pointed it right at his face.
“Oh, fuck me.”
“Drop the knife.”
“I don’t believe this. What next?”
“Drop it,” I said. “Throw it overboard.”
He tossed the knife in the water. He stood there with his arms hanging at his sides.
The blood was really flowing into my eye now. I picked up Rhapsody’s bag and turned it over. Her wallet fell out. Her cell phone. A makeup bag. A little dispenser of tissues. I pulled out all the tissues and held them to the cut on my forehead. There was blood all over my face, all over my hands. My clothes. Rhapsody’s blood mixed with Cap’s mixed with mine.
“So what are you going to do now?” he said. He wiped more blood from his mouth.
It was getting dark now. There was no fog tonight. The stars were starting to appear high above us. The only sound now was our breathing and the boat creaking gently as it drifted in the water.
“I’m not moving,” Cap finally said. “I’m going to stand right here.”
“Good. You’ll make an easier target.”
“You can’t shoot me.”
“Why not?”
“You can’t do it. You know that.”