Thelma, pale in the moonlight, was stepping down into the first dinghy. She held her arms out for balance. Beyond her hands, the blades of her machetes gleamed like silver.
She set the weapons down inside the boat. Then she bent over the outboard motor.
For a few seconds, I could only see her rump and the backs of her thighs. Then the drifting dinghy gave me a side view. Thelma had already planted one hand against the motor's cowl. With the other, she jerked its starter cord. Her breasts swung like crazy. The motor coughed but didn't start. She gave the cord another pull. The motor sputtered and caught.
Next thing I knew, she was sitting down and steering the boat in my direction.
I started swimming like mad for the cabin cruiser.
In this race, Thelma had the advantage. The dinghy was no speed-demon, but it moved faster than I could swim.
I had a fair headstart.
Not good enough, though. At the rate Thelma was coming, she'd overtake me long before I'd reach the cruiser.
I swam as fast as I could, and didn't look back. The growing noise of the motor told me all I needed to know.
From the sound of things, Thelma was straight behind me, coming on, probably planning to run me over and chop me with her propeller blades.
I caught a deep breath and plunged for the bottom.
The motor sounded like a tinny, grumbling buzz as the dinghy passed over me. Abruptly, the pitch lowered. My guess, Thelma'd throttled down.
The noise faded, then swelled.
Thelma had turned around.
She's going to stay up there, I realized. Circle and wait me out. Knows I can't stay down forever. When I come up for air, she'll try to nail me.
Rolling onto my back, I looked up and saw the moonlight shining on the water. I also saw the dark underbelly of the dinghy. It glided over the surface like a shadow.
I had a shark"s-eye view of the dinghy.
Inside my head, I started hearing the theme music from Jaws.
If I were a Great White, I could shoot straight up and ram the dinghy hard enough to capsize it. In the water, Thelma'd be at my mercy.
Ramming the dinghy wasn't likely to work, though, me being a little guy and having nothing to push off against. If I shot up like that, playing shark, I might rock the dinghy a little bit. Mostly, though, I'd simply end up shoving myself downward off its hull.
While I considered these things, the boat slowly circled above me. And my lungs began to burn from holding air too long.
Getting some fresh air shouldn't be terribly difficult. I could probably surface a safe distance from the dinghy, grab a breath, and have enough time to submerge before Thelma could reach me. Just a matter of picking the right moment to pop up. And being quick about it.
A fresh breath would give me extra time, but it wouldn't solve my main problem.
If I could keep going up and snatching breaths . . .
Doing that, I might swim all the way to the cruiser. Or back to the dock.
What would that accomplish? She'd be right there, ready to chop me.
Sooner or later, she'll run out of gas.
At first, the idea thrilled me.
No gas, no motor. The dinghy would be useless to her. She'd end up drifting around aimlessly. She'd either have to sit there and hope for the best, or start swimming.
Perfect!
But I had no idea how empty her tank might be. For all I knew, the gas might last for an hour.
An hour of me bursting to the surface, every minute or two? No way. I might be able to pull off a stunt like that three or four times, but then she'd catch on. I wouldn't last ten minutes.
Unless the dinghy was already running on fumes . . .
Not much chance of that.
But maybe I could think of a way to kill her motor. Something that didn't involve an endless wait.
By the time I'd gotten that far with my thoughts, my lungs ached so much that I could no longer think straight. I looked for the dinghy.
Damn!
It had just reached the far curve of its circle -- as far away as it was likely to get. With each passing moment, now, it would be moving closer to me.
I rushed for the surface, jabbing my arms up, kicking hard. I went up so fast that I almost lost my shorts. I felt them slipping, but didn't dare make a grab for them.
When they were down around my thighs, I remembered the razor in my pocket.
If I lost the shorts, I'd lose the razor.
So I reached down, grabbed the waist with one hand and held on. An instant later, I burst up out of the water. I gasped for air. With both hands, I pulled up my shorts.
The"ma's head suddenly jerked sideways. She'd spotted me. She shoved the steering arm. The bow swung sharply and pointed at me. The motor noise swelled to a roar.
I dived.
A near miss. I felt the shivering water of the prop-wash against my back.
That'd be one way to stop the motor, I thought. Let it hit me.
Which probably would stop it. But the price seemed a bit steep.
During family vacation as a kid, I'd spent enough time in outboard motor boats to have them quit on me any number of times. Not always because of a fuel problem. If the prop hit a large rock . . . got tangled with weeds.
Yes!
Staying as deep as possible, I shoved a hand into my pocket and dug out the razor. I slid the razor under the top of my right sock. Then I tugged the shorts down and off.
After missing its chance at me, the boat had slowed down and resumed its casual circling.
I wadded the shorts.
Holding them in both hands, I started toward the surface.
Probably lose a few fingers, I thought.
Might be worth it, if it works.
I watched the gliding black belly of the boat. Slowed my climb. Watched. Waited. Felt the push of water as the bow passed over my head.
And suddenly shot both arms up, ramming my shorts into the propeller. In an instant, they were ripped from my grip. I jerked my arms down.
Fingers and hands intact.
Above me, the motor groaned, coughed and quit.
Yes, yes, yes!
Motor dead, the dinghy glided on by. I started swimming underwater to stay with it.
In a few seconds, I managed to get underneath it again.
A few seconds after that, the dinghy wobbled. Then the entire submerged portion of the motor swung up and broke the surface -- taking along the remains of my shorts.
You can swing these outboard motors up on their hinges to get at the props. I'd done it myself a few times. So I knew that Thelma had to be standing at the stern, bent over the motor, both her hands busy.
A good, precarious position.
I lunged for the surface.
Reached high.
As my face cleared the water, I grabbed the gunnel with both hands and jerked down on it like a guy desperate to climb aboard.
My side of the dinghy lurched downward.
The other side jumped up.
Thelma, looming above me, was bent over the raised motor just as I'd hoped. Both her hands were on it. By the time I saw her, she had already turned her head to see what had gone wrong.
Already lost any chance of staying on her feet.
Crying out with alarm, she flung up her arms. She swayed sideways, shoulder first. For a moment, she stood on her right leg while her left leg lifted like a boy dog about to wet a tree. But her left leg kept rising higher. Then she was plunging down over the side of the dinghy. The gunnel jerked out of my grip and the dinghy scooted off. I kicked to keep my head up.
Thelma's right shoulder struck the water.
The rest of her followed.
Then came a concussion that buffeted me, shoved at me, and slapped a load of water into my face.
Blind from the drenching, I began to swim after the dinghy.
My goal was to reach it, climb aboard, and take control of the machetes. Once I had them, Thelma wouldn't dare give me any more trouble.
I'd have nothing more to fear from her or Wesley.
As I swam, I blinked the water out of my eyes. The dinghy was about twenty feet away.