“Yeah, like collecting rainwater,” Mameli said, plenty of mockery in his voice. “So you got a guy like dis here….” He placed his hand on a man next to him in the audience. “He’s spent maybe five, six grand digging a well, building a pump-house, but you want him to forget all dat and catch the few measly drops dat happen to fall out of the sky instead. What’s he supposed to do when summer rolls around? Say it’s July, August, and dere ain’t been any rain in weeks. He’s suppose to go outside and, what, do a rain dance every time he wants to take a shower?” The guy actually started doing a jig, patting his hand over his mouth, doing an Indian chant that was straight out of a 1950s B movie. People chuckled right along with him.
Marlin felt the momentum starting to shift, the audience starting to get behind this obnoxious clown.
CHAPTER TWENTY
The weight belt around Vinnie’s waist took him down nice and slow-and Vinnie descended into a world he had never experienced before. All sounds disappeared, except for his own rhythmic breathing, loud in his ears. Sounded like goddamn Darth Vader or something. It was an eerie world down here, almost claustrophobic.
Using a waterproof spotlight, Vinnie could see much better than he had expected, maybe seventy or eighty feet. There wasn’t much to see at first. Just water and more water, with millions of tiny particles floating in it, reflecting the light. Vinnie wondered if all that stuff was maybe fish crap. Fuckin’ gross. He’d have to take a nice long shower when he got home.
After half a minute, Vinnie was no longer sure he was going any deeper. There was no way to tell, no landmarks to gauge his descent. Then his light swept the skeletal remains of trees reaching up from the lake bottom. Damn, he hadn’t counted on any trees! He used the flippers to kick gently, to stop his descent, while he untied the line around his waist. Last thing he needed was to get tangled around a bunch of branches, get stuck down there in a panic, air running out. T.J. might freak out a little when the rope went slack, but screw him, he’d have to deal with it.
Free of the line now, Vinnie swam parallel to the treetops and began his search for the sunken Porsche. He and T.J. had agreed that they were damn close to the original location. But it could be fifty or a hundred feet off in any direction. This could take awhile.
In the stands, Marlin saw another man rise to his feet, not far from Mameli. Marlin had no problem remembering this guy, because his sneer was operating at full strength.
“There’s no reason to be a jackass.” Tommy Peabody spat the words out with venom, and Mameli halted his clumsy Indian dance. The room went silent except for a few hushed murmurs.
The two men locked eyes for a moment and the audience watched with rapt attention. Finally, Mameli smirked, put his hand against his chest, and said, “Me? You callin’ me a jackass?”
“If the horseshoe fits.”
That got several nervous giggles, the crowd treating it as a good-natured joke, like: Okay, you boys have had your fun, now let’s settle down and get back to business. But Peabody was standing up straighter now, looking a little more confident, ready for action.
Phil Colby leaned over to Marlin and said, “Interesting little show.” Marlin nodded, glancing around for a cop. Surely a couple of the deputies must be here, but he didn’t see any. With Bert Gammel murdered and Emmett Slaton missing, maybe they couldn’t spare the manpower.
Mameli straightened his tie and said, “Well, you’re a tree-hugging hump-whaddaya think of dat?”
Marlin was on the edge of his seat now, ready to wade in and break this thing up if it got physical. He could practically smell the testosterone in the air, could feel the cloak of embarrassment that settles over a crowd when two grown men behave like schoolchildren.
Peabody furrowed his brow, an exaggerated look of confusion. “I’d be offended, but frankly, I’m not even sure what that means,” he said, a few diehards still laughing, egging on this sneering little man. Several people in the bleachers, though, were rising, starting to leave.
“Uh, gentlemen…” It was Inga, still on the microphone, holding her hands up in a placating gesture, trying to rein this thing in. “There’s no reason to-”
But Mameli pointed at her and spoke over her amplified words. “She’s the jackass, if ya want my opinion. Her and all her bird-loving friends, including you. Oh yeah, I seen youse two runnin’ around town together. I know you’re in dis thing together. Well, screw both of you,” he said, pointing back at Peabody now.
As soon as Mameli had made the remark about Inga, Marlin could see people throughout the crowd reacting with distaste, shaking their heads. Using body language to say, Pardner, you just crossed the line. Now Sal’s coarse language brought glares and angry mutterings.
When the crowd quieted down, Peabody spoke again: “You, sir, are not only a ridiculous boor, you are a rapist of the Earth.”
Mameli spread his hands wide. “Yeah? Well, what the hell ya gonna do about it?”
Peabody’s voice rose. “I’m gonna shut you down. One way or another, I’m going to stop your carnage!”
Mameli grabbed his crotch with both hands and said, “I got your carnage right here!”
Peabody cocked his head toward the ceiling, hands on his hips, muttering to himself, as if he were trying to summon his patience. Mameli defiantly glared his way. Marlin rose now, with the sense that it was about to get messy. He could hear Phil saying something to him, but Marlin was making his way toward the floor, keeping an eye on the two men.
Before Marlin’s feet hit the tiles, Peabody let out a growl and rushed along the bleachers toward the large Italian.
Women screamed.
People piled out of the bleachers, tumbling, jumping, to get out of the way.
Vinnie got lucky. After only six or seven minutes, he spotted the Porsche, already coated with a thin layer of brown goo. Give it another month or so and the car would be practically invisible, blending right in with the bottom of the lake, tucked between a couple of oaks.
Vinnie let the weight belt pull him down to the car, just a small kick here and there, until he felt his flippers sink into the muck beside the driver’s door.
Bending low, flooding the interior of the car with light, Vinnie saw Emmett Slaton staring back at him, his face green and bloated. Slaton was floating off the seat, his arms levitating in front of him, reaching for the dashboard, as if the Porsche had just gone over a large bump in the road.
Vinnie eased the driver’s door open, keeping an eye on the corpse. Couldn’t have ol’ Emmett floating past him, rising to the surface. That would sure kill T.J.’s buzz quick.
Now the important thing: finding the LoJack. T.J. had said it was small, about the size of a deck of cards, Velcroed under the dash, right below the steering wheel.
Vinnie reached under, fumbled around for a few seconds, and… Hell yes! There it was! He grabbed the LoJack firmly and tugged it loose from the Velcro. He examined it under the light. Damn thing looked harmless, but it would have sent him to fucking Huntsville, sitting in a cold, dirty prison cell. He unzipped a pocket in his wetsuit and shoved the LoJack inside.
Inside his mask, Vinnie grinned. See there? Every problem has a solution. All you gotta do is think it through, use your goddamn brains. And your balls sometimes, too. His father would be proud-if only Vinnie could tell him how his son had risen to meet this challenge.
Now there was only one more detail to take care of. He hated to do it, but this whole LoJack mess had made him realize it was a necessary step. Vinnie had wrestled with the idea for a while, trying to think of other options, but he had decided it was for the best. A smart man leaves no witnesses behind.