Yes, bleeding, too. Not as badly as he might have been, though. Meeks had been correct when he’d said my hands were shaking. Not much, but enough to let the barrel jump when I squeezed the trigger. I’d been aiming at the meaty part of Ricky’s thigh, not his groin, while my eyes had allowed my target to blur by concentrating on the sights, just as I had learned. But I’d shot high, and the slug had either taken the tip off his pelvis or a chunk of love handle Ricky had allowed to settle on his waist. No way to be certain, even though he’d ripped off his shirt in a panic after crabbing his way to the shell beach, then used his fingers to explore the damage. The whole while, calling me profanities and threatening acts so vile they could have hatched only in a brain that was diseased or naturally just as foul.
“Instead of cussing me, you stupid fool, tell me where you hid my radio so I can call the emergency medics.” I said it to interrupt his tirade, but somehow it came out sounding flustered, too eager to please. Later, of course, I would come up with a dozen replies more biting and clever. Wave the pistol at him and say, You don’t understand the predicament you’re in, sugar… No-tell him, I don’t know when I’ve seen an uglier man, but even a cow wouldn’t leave you to bleed to death…
Not that Meeks was gushing blood, but he was bleeding steadily. From a safe distance, I had already tossed him the first-aid kit, which he was using-sterile pads and tape-so there was nothing else to do but offer to summon help. I was eager to explain my side of the story to authorities-The manthreatened my life, he’d left me no choice, so I shot him-something I didn’t want to ever happen again.
No, I didn’t. That sensation of actually pulling the trigger, then my ears ringing from the thunderbolt, had shocked me numb at first, but now I was feeling better about what I had done. Good enough to want to rush to find Olivia, pack her things, and get going. One look at Ricky’s reaction, though, when I mentioned my radio, and I knew he’d rather patch his own bullet wound than risk attracting police. He was more worried about the body they would find than surviving a night in the mangroves, and maybe becoming a corpse himself.
There was no doubt in my mind as I watched Meeks struggle to his feet and limp toward his dinghy. I couldn’t allow that, of course, so I confiscated his oars, placing them on my skiff. While I did it, there was a glow of hatred in the man’s eyes that threatened me every step of the way. And the insults he yelled about my looks, my face and body, were so mean that even my anger couldn’t shield some words from their mark. Finally, I used the pistol to motion him back to the beach, hoping it would stop his poison.
Meeks’s leer returned for the first time since I’d pulled the trigger. “It’ll be dark soon,” he told me, meaning it as a threat. “Come morning, you’ll be slap-ass crazy with bugs and snakes, scared shitless. Couple big gators on this island, too. That’s when I’ll put you out of your misery.” He turned his back to me then, and headed for the slab of beach, not the shell ridge, walking hunched to one side, the gauze he’d taped over his wound a dark square beneath what remained of the gray shirt.
Meeks didn’t stop at the beach, which worried me at first, but then didn’t. He might be pretending to be hurt worse than he was, but there was nothing pretend about the blood soaking his slacks. Even so, he kept walking, slogging along the edge of the island toward the cut where I’d nearly run aground. I knew he was either headed for his missing jon boat, or taking the long but easier route back to the cruiser where Olivia, I suspected, was worried sick about the gunshot she’d heard.
Something else I couldn’t allow was the man to get to the girl or his fast boat. In the western sky, the last citrus streaks of twilight were fading; stars had appeared in the east. Meeks was twenty-five yards away, moving slow but steady, when I raised the pistol and squared the notch sight between his shoulders.
“Ricky, stop right there! You called my bluff once! Want to try it again?”
In reply, I heard more foul names, then a challenge to shoot him in the back, his words fuming with contempt.
“This is the last time I’m saying it-stop!”
From over the man’s shoulder: “Ugly stork! Go join a freak show!”
I yelled, “Ricky Meeks!” dropping my index finger from aside the barrel to the custom hair trigger.
His answer: “Why don’t you move to Key West with the other carpet munchers!”
Once so balanced and light in my hands, the precision Devel pistol-pronounced Devil by my friend Nathan-was becoming barrel-heavy and refused to track straight. I couldn’t shoot the man in the back. Just couldn’t. But I had to do something. My Uncle Jake had told me warning shots were only for Hollywood actors or cops willing to risk their own funeral, but that’s what I was considering now. Skip a round in front of the man. Then say something clever for a change.
You won’t hear the next one! Or: Your pecker wasn’t much of a target, but… but…
My clever tongue had been blunted by events, so nothing good would form in my mind. I lowered the pistol to reset my feet, then sighted a few paces ahead of Meeks. Thirty yards, though, was a long shot with a pistol. If I attempted a near miss, there was a fair chance I would hit him accidentally. How would I explain that to a jury? Or when I did miss, Ricky would think I’d done it on purpose, which was further proof I’d lost my courage.
Wrong-I hadn’t lost my courage. Some shaky moments, sure, but I no longer doubted myself. All I doubted was how long my good luck would hold. That, and my engine’s cooling system.
Licensed investigators obey the law, I reminded myself. Panic, and he wins.
I lowered the pistol, engaged the safety, then returned to my skiff in a hurry. My eyes and ears never leaving Meeks for long, I used bayonet needles to clear the exhaust tubes but didn’t risk a quick test of my engine. I didn’t want him to hear what I’d done. Meeks still hadn’t reached the bay’s entrance, barely visible in the fresh darkness, but soon would. Leaving a potential witness alone-me-meant he was convinced I’d ruined my water pump, and that he didn’t know about the spare ignition key hidden in my tackle box. Something else his behavior suggested: Meeks still intended to kill me-after killing Olivia most likely. I wasn’t the only one who knew about the body that lay in the mangroves.
I grabbed a second flashlight from my skiff, then jogged up the shell ridge to find Olivia. Ricky Meeks and I were racing again.
TWENTY-THREE
WHAT I NEEDED FOR JAKE’S CUSTOMIZED PISTOL WAS A holster, I decided. A book case was a waste on such a fine weapon, and I wouldn’t have to wedge the thing into my jeans to free my hands like I was doing now.
It was because of the rough country I was in: a tangle of mangroves, the cruiser visible through a cavern of mosquitoes and black leaves. The boat was only yards away, but getting to it required gymnastics. The use of tree limbs, grabbing one, then another, to monkey myself over roots to the water was the only way unless I had brought a machete.
So that’s what I did, after securing the pistol between the small of my back and my belt. Got both hands around a limb, swung my feet over a hooped blockade of mangrove roots, then repeated the process several times. By the time I got to the water’s edge, my shirt was soaked from the sulfuric heat that settles into a swamp at night. My jeans were torn, my shoes were ruined, and mosquitoes tickled my face, my hands, the canals of my ears, despite the spray I’d used.