“There’s a boat waiting out there,” he said, pointing. “Swim out to it. Quietly. I’ll be along.”
“I can’t swim,” Carl said.
“Oh, for God’s sake!”
He went into the boathouse and retrieved his little waterproof case and the wet-suit and oxygen tank he had left there that morning.
“Put these on,” he told Carl, “and get in the water. Do you know how the oxygen works, Sarah?”
“Sure.”
“Hook him up and tow him. I’ll try to be back to help.”
There was more movement on the terrace. A floodlight came on.
Shayne started for the house, one hand in front of his eyes to shield them from the glare. As he approached, he called, “Any of you guys up there hear a gun go off?”
The consensus was that the shot had been fired from a boat lying just offshore. Shayne, who had been checking the dock area, had the impression that the sound had come from the grounds to the west of the house, the opposite direction from the garage. A patrol was quickly formed under the leadership of a man Shayne didn’t know.
Shayne walked through to the kitchen, where he found the maid putting dishes into the automatic dishwasher.
“Mr. De Blasio says to take off,” he told her. “Just leave everything. He doesn’t want anybody to get hurt. You heard a gunshot, didn’t you?”
“Was that what—” She grabbed her purse. “I knew something was bound to happen.”
She ran for the back door without changing out of her uniform, and Shayne went into the crowded utility room off the kitchen. Using a pencil flashlight, he found the main fuse panel, exactly where it appeared on the wiring diagram. He unscrewed the face cover. After making a few swift preparations, he began unscrewing the clamp holding the main cable. It whipped free. He hit the exposed panel three blows with the butt of his pistol, smashing most of the reset switches.
Returning to the dark kitchen, he crossed it to the back door without using his flashlight. People were shouting and crashing about in other parts of the house. The top third of the island had been blacked out. Still without using his light, he headed for the garage.
He entered by the open door. The gray Cadillac was still parked under the gun room. He laid the flashlight, burning, on the roof of the car and stepped up on the front bumper.
Now he began working carefully. Opening his waterproof case, he took out the fist-sized lump of explosive material, folded the end of a wire into the plastic, and pressed it against the ceiling, waiting several seconds until it adhered.
He backed out of the garage, paying out wire. The headlights of several of the parked cars had been turned on. Shadows crossed and recrossed. Reaching the dock, Shayne had to use the flashlight again to tie in the small detonator.
He stripped down to his shorts and put the camera, his money and wallet and pistol in the watertight case. One of the men from the house was running toward the garage and had nearly reached it. Shayne yelled, and the man stopped.
Shayne pressed the detonator handle and dived off the dock.
He felt the force of the explosion underwater. He went deep and took a dozen hard strokes before surfacing. Bits of debris were pattering into the water around him.
He saw two pleasure boats lying dead in the water to the east, Sarah’s head and bare arm ahead of him, Liz O’Donnell’s Wanderer, without lights, beyond.
He glanced toward the shore briefly, and then set out to overtake Sarah with a powerful rolling crawl. Coming up behind her, he seized Carl’s free hand. Carl, on oxygen, floated just beneath the surface, kicking feebly.
A second explosion blew more flaming bits in the air. The building was burning fiercely.
Then Shayne saw Liz’s hand reaching down from the boat. He passed Carl’s hand up to her, and the black-clad figure broke water. Shayne found the rope ladder and climbed aboard. He helped Liz pull Carl into the boat, then Sarah.
“Let’s go. We’re in rifle range.”
Liz ran to the wheel. The starter coughed, and the motor took hold.
On the island, men were running around seemingly at random. A car’s headlights moved toward the causeway. Burns’s two boats were heading for shore. Shots were being fired. Both boats missed the floating mines, and grounded. The fire in the garage flared higher briefly as a gas tank exploded.
Overhead, Shayne heard the flailing of helicopters. The helicopters came in from two directions, lights blazing, and hovered above the lawn with Will Gentry’s voice booming out over a bullhorn, telling everybody on both sides to stand where they were and drop all weapons. Burns, Valenti, and one other made it back to a boat. They were moving away from shore in a long, sweeping curve under full power when the boat exploded beneath them. On the second try, it had hit one of the mines.
All three were killed.
The only other casualty, surprisingly, was Dino Occhiogrosso, who was hit between the eyes by a chance bullet as he trotted toward his car. The official theory was that this was an accident, but certain Mafia experts believed that in the confusion one of his enemies had finally managed to pay off an old score.
21
Liz, expecting to pick Shayne out of the water, had brought a towel and a robe. Sarah removed her wet clothes, dried herself, and put on the robe. Shayne, meanwhile, was freeing Carl.
He came out gasping. “What was that explosion?” He stopped and looked at the island. The flames had reached the ammunition. There was a steady crackle of small-arms fire, the occasional heavier bang of a grenade. The helicopters were swooping down, dropping flares.
Stunned, Carl looked at Shayne. “You, Mike?”
“Other people helped.”
“Is — my father dead?”
“I don’t think so. I thought of putting off the cops for ten or fifteen minutes, so more people could get shot, but I don’t seem to be that bloodthirsty anymore.”
“No, you’re not bloodthirsty,” Carl said. “Of course not. If the old man was dead, you wouldn’t have anything to pressure me with.”
Shayne called to Liz, at the wheel, to cut across the channel between islands. She made the turn without answering, and the stiff way she was holding her shoulders showed she was mad. Shayne went up into the wheelhouse with her and asked for a cigarette. She had brought a fresh pack, as well as a pint of cognac.
He drank first. As he lit the cigarette, Liz said, “She’s cute.”
Shayne agreed. After a moment Liz’s shoulders relaxed. “All right, I’m a bitch. But I thought I was only going to pull one person out of the water. I didn’t know you’d have a skinny blonde in a wet dress and no bra.”
He laughed. “Under the Bay Bridge, Liz. Then swing in and take us as close as you can to Mercy Hospital. You know what has to happen now. I have to answer questions. Then more cops show up, and they ask me the same questions, and I answer them again. That goes on for twelve hours. If you’re free for breakfast…”
“I happen to be free for breakfast.”
He returned to the cockpit deck, where he took off his shorts and pulled on the wet-suit, without the oxygen tanks or the mask. Carl chattered nervously for a time, until Shayne told him to shut up; he had things to think about.
“Such as who gets first whack at Carl De Blasio,” Carl said. “I know.”
They came in and splashed ashore.
“That’s your girl, I suppose,” Sarah remarked coolly as the boat backed off to head north up the bay.
“What?” Shayne said absently.
“You heard me.”
“I’ll tell you about it. Not tomorrow, because tomorrow I’m going to catch up on my sleep. The next day.”
They entered the hospital. At the sight of Shayne in the shiny wet-suit, a woman in the main downstairs waiting room rose like a partridge.