Kreeger got to one knee and wagged his head, as if trying to stir himself awake. Another second and he was on both feet. Shaky but standing. A flap of skin six inches wide hung loose on Kreeger's forehead, and blood poured into his eyes. Rain slashed down. He used both hands to try to clear his vision. The bastard should have a concussion, Steve thought, but look at him. A wounded bull, fixing to charge. "Kill you, Solomon," the shrink muttered. "Kill all the lawyers."
He staggered toward the stern. Woozy, knees seeming to buckle with each step. Where was he going?
The knife!
Steve saw it, propped on the edge of a scupper at the stern. He couldn't stand. No way to get there.
Spitting blood, Kreeger leaned over, picked up the knife, and wheeled around. He tried using his forearm to wipe the river of blood from his eyes. First one arm, then the other. It wasn't working.
He can't see and I can't stand.
But Kreeger must have seen enough, because he stumbled in Steve's general direction, flailing away with the knife. Wild swings that started above his head and came straight down, like a man using an ice pick. Blood sprayed everywhere from his forehead.
Steve scooted backward on his butt, great white waves sloshing over the gunwales, soaking and chilling him. Kreeger braced himself against the onslaught, then kept coming, swinging the knife sideways now, like a scythe. "Cut your balls off. Your balls off." His voice droning, devoid of emotion.
Steve spotted a graphite tarpon gaff, maybe six feet long, bracketed to the bulkhead. Pushing off with his hands, moving backward on the deck, he slid that way.
Kreeger changed the knife to his other hand. Came at Steve, slashed left, slashed right, edged between him and the gaff, cutting him off. The boat climbed to the top of a wave, seemed to come to rest, then slid back down again.
Steve had run out of room. Inching backward, he'd come to rest against the bulkhead. Nowhere to run, nowhere to crawl. He brought his knees up to his chest, protecting himself from the deadly blows that would come.
Gasping for breath, spouting blood, Kreeger shambled closer.
Steve made one last desperate effort to grab at the gaff, but it was out of reach.
Kreeger stopped three feet away. Wiped the blood off one hand to get a better grip on the knife. The boat slid sideways up a wave, and Kreeger skidded slightly, widened his stance to keep his balance.
Steve felt the boat crest the wave. Would it go over or come back down? After a second it slid down the trough, and Steve straightened both legs, his cemented feet thrust between Kreeger's braced legs. Steve kicked straight up. At the same moment, the boat pitched wildly at the bottom of the wave, the port rail dipping to the waterline. Steve rocked backward hard, felt both knees pop with a searing pain. Kreeger teetered on Steve's ankles like a kid on a seesaw, then sailed over the gunwale headfirst and into the deep blue sea.
Knees flaring as if on fire, Steve hoisted himself up and grabbed the gaff from its bracket. He spotted Kreeger splashing in the water, dangerously close to the props that churned slowly at idle speed.
"Help! Help me!"
A wave washed over him. He vanished, then bobbed up again, kicking and whaling away at the water, trying to close the distance to the dive platform.
Steve hobbled toward the stern, using the gaff as a cane.
Some things you plan, he thought. Some things you do by instinct, by notions of decency and humanity. A man goes overboard, you rescue him. No matter who he is, no matter what he's done. You haul the man aboard, take him in, let the system deal with him.
Steve leaned over the rail, holding the graphite gaff.
Kreeger reached for it, missed, went under again. He came back up, and Steve dangled the gaff in his direction.
But sometimes, all notions of decency and humanity give way to something else. Call it revenge or justice or maybe just certainty. The certainty that Bill Kreeger would never ever again hurt anyone. Or was that overly complicated? Was the explanation simply hard-wired into our DNA by millions of years of evolution? Maybe all of us carry the fingerprints of the homicidal animals who came before us.
Threaten me or mine, I will kill you. Yes, I will. Even a normally mild-mannered, semi-law-abiding officer of the court like me will kill you dead.
Kreeger would appreciate that explanation, Steve thought. Proving his thesis right after all these years.
A powerful swell lifted Kreeger, nearly catapulting him out of the water. Down he came, his head slipping underwater. Then, another lift, another slide, this one bringing him closer to the boat. Again, Kreeger grabbed for the gaff. Again, he missed. He shouted something drowned out by the wind's roar. Another wave carried him closer to the stern. Steve held the gaff; Kreeger reached for it; and suddenly, Steve pulled it away. He hadn't planned on doing it. The motion was involuntary, his body not willing to follow his brain's instructions, not willing to save the bastard.
Kreeger swam toward the boat, yelling something. Steve could only make out a single word.
"Just. ."
The rest was lost in the wind.
Kreeger came closer, reached for the dive platform, shouted again.
"Just like. ."
What was he saying?
Bracing himself on the slippery deck, Steve drew the gaff back with two hands until it was poised over one shoulder. A batter with his Louisville Slugger.
"Just like me!" Kreeger yelled over the wind. "You're just like me!"
Steve swung the gaff as hard as he could, rotating his hips for power. The flat side of the steel hook hit Kreeger squarely across the temple with a shock Steve felt in both arms. A shuddering impact, like driving the ball up the middle.
Kreeger's head snapped to the side and stayed there, his neck at an unnatural angle. A wave hit, swirling him in white foam, spinning him around, and dragging him beneath the cold, gray sea.
SOLOMON'S LAWS
12. When you cut through all the bullshit of career, status, and money, at the end of the day all that matters is love and family.
Forty-One
Steve lay on his back on a rickety raft that rose and fell with the waves. In the distance, lightning illuminated a shroud of fat silvery clouds, and a thunderclap smacked the water. Steve felt the raft pitch and roll, even as he realized he was home in bed. Painkillers will do that.
"God bless codeine."
He had said that to Bobby. Just a few hours ago. Or was it a few years? He didn't know how long he'd been in bed.
"God bless codeine," Bobby had repeated. "BEDSIDE NOSE CLOG."
Steve had laughed, stinging his lip where the stitches pulled at the skin.
"Everyone at school says you're a total mad dawg," Bobby had said.
"If that's a good thing, tell them thanks."
"You're the best, Uncle Steve."
The boy had smiled. They'd pounded knuckles. Bobby doing all the pounding. Steve couldn't lift his arm from the bedsheet. Still, when he saw the boy's grin, he felt he'd won the Nobel Prize for parenting.
A doctor who had once been a client stopped by. Or was he a client who had once been a doctor? Steve's brain was fuzzy. The doc said something about a hairline fracture of the zygomatic bone.
"The zygomatic?" Steve asked. "The machine that chops vegetables?"
"The cheekbone," the doctor explained.
Steve remembered now. He had defended the doctor in a couple of malpractice cases. Lost them both.