The Five Year Plan (1998)

'But this boat. It's my whole life.'

Dave said, 'Not any more. What you've got to hang onto here is the fact that you still have your whole life. You may not have the boat, but you're going to live. If it was up to the gorilla on deck, you'd be lip-gaffed, hoisted for a fuckin' picture and then dropped over the side for the sharks.'

Malta trembled visibly and emptied his glass.

'Jesus Christ, really?'

'Really. He's a violent man. And he works for a violent man. Tony Nudelli? I've seen what he can do to people.'

'I had no idea that, um... that Tony was so mad with me.'

'Sure you did, Lou. Sure you did.'

'I guess I did at that,' said Malta. 'It was a stupid thing to do, wasn't it?'

'Yes it was, Lou.'

Malta got up from the sofa a little unsteadily and walked toward the stairs down to the cabins.

'I'll get that bag.'

'Lou? You won't do anything else that's stupid, will you? Like come out of that stateroom with a gun in your hand. That's just what the gorilla wants. An excuse to kill you and Pepe. You understand me?'

'Yes sir.'

'Good boy.'

Dave stood up and followed Malta to the top of the stairs. He had no idea if Al was carrying a gun. Just because he couldn't have brought one aboard the plane didn't mean he wasn't carrying now. San Jose looked like the kind of place you could buy one easily, no questions asked. And someone like Al wasn't the type to leave anything to chance. No more did he know if Lou Malta had a gun. But if Dave had run out on a man like Nudelli, a man who lent the loan sharks their money, then he'd make sure he always had a gun around. Probably two or three. So he followed Malta downstairs and looked through the door of his stateroom to make sure. Lou was staring into an empty sports bag, as if wondering what to take.

Dave said, 'C'mon, we haven't got all day.'

'All right, all right, I'm doing my best for you, you inhuman bastard.'

'Doing your best for me?' Dave shook his head and yawned. That was the thanks he got for keeping the guy alive.

Malta started to stuff things into the bag: wallet, passport, jewelry, a bottle of Obsession for Men, Walkman, toilet bag, cellular phone.

'I think you'd better leave the phone,' said Dave.

'Oh yeah. Sh-ure. OK. Well, couldn't I just take the operating chip out of it and leave that behind? It's useless without--'

Growing impatient now, Dave said, 'Lou. Will ya leave the fuckin' phone?'

Malta shrugged and stared at the contents of his bag almost incredulously for a moment, then zippered it up. 'I'm done,' he said tearfully and came through the door.

Dave grunted, needing to take a leak. He said, 'Go up on deck and tell Pepe you're both leaving. I'll be there in a minute.'

Emerging onto the lanai deck a couple of minutes later, Dave blinked furiously in the bright Pacific sunshine and took a deep breath of the fresh sea air. Below there was a decadent smell of Obsession and something else that he didn't much care to try and put a finger on. Al was leaning over the rail looking down onto the cockpit from where the serious fishing was done. Hearing Dave he turned around and Dave saw that for the second time in thirty-six hours the other man's white polo shirt was covered in blood.

Dave shook his head and said, 'What? Another fuckin' nosebleed?'

The very next second he heard a loud splash, like the sound of someone jumping into the water, and turned toward the bow of the boat. Instinctively, he said, 'Where's Malta?'

'He hit me,' shrugged Al, and threw a jagged piece of broken glass over the side. It was part of the jar containing the baby hammerhead he had bought for Petey. The dead fish now lay on the teak deck at Dave's feet. It was surrounded by a lot of blood spots like so many shiny red coins. Al rubbed the back of his sparsely haired head and looked vaguely sheepish.

Dave was frowning now, suspecting something was wrong. 'Al? Where the fuck is that faggot?'

'Man's got a speech impediment,' said Al and jabbed a thumb at the cockpit behind him. 'He's dead.'

Lou Malta lay in a spreading pool of blood like something they had just hauled up from the depths of the ocean, his legs twitching spasmodically as if with one good jerk he might propel himself back into the life-preserving water. The broken jar had crossed through the midline of Malta's throat with such force that his neck had been severed from shaving line to spine.

'Jesus fucking Christ,' exclaimed Dave. 'What happened?'

'What could I do? He tried to brain me, the lousy faggot.'

A monkey wrench lay on the lanai deck a short distance from the baby hammerhead as if confirming Al's story. Malta's bag stood inside the doorway of the salon, as if he had put it down there before stepping outside with intent. But Dave was suspicious. It was possible that Al had left the wrench there himself before stabbing Malta with the souvenir. And yet that wasn't the most obvious murder weapon Dave had ever heard of. Surely if Al had meant to kill Malta he would have chosen something a little more wieldy. Something he hadn't been planning to present to his son.

Lou Malta stopped twitching before Dave could get to him. It was obvious there was nothing to be done.

Dave said, 'So who jumped off?'

'The kid, I guess. Pepe must have seen me kill his boyfriend and figured he was next.'

'Not an unreasonable conclusion.'

Dave climbed up to the flybridge to get a better view of the water surrounding the Juarista and, about fifty yards away, saw a small figure swimming strongly in the direction of the mainland. Sitting down in the cream leather pilot's chair, Dave started the engines and took hold of the helm.

Al yelled up to him, 'What are you doing?'

'Going after Pepe. It's five miles back to shore, against a riptide. He'll never make it.'

Down on the cockpit deck Al said nothing. Instead he started to maneuver Lou Malta's body over the edge of the transom, all the time cursing him for a lousy faggot.

Dave drew the boat close to Pepe, slowed the engines and then threw the boy a lifebelt on the end of a line. But Pepe, terrified of what he had witnessed back on the boat, was too scared to grab it.

'C'mon, Pepe,' Dave called down to him. 'Take the line. Nobody's going to kill you, kid, I promise.'

Treading water for a moment, Pepe shook his head. He said, 'No way, man,' and began to swim away from the boat again.

Dave returned to the pilot's chair, gave the engines a short burst of gas, and then revved back the same way as before. Coming outside again he spoke to Pepe in Spanish, gently telling him that the other guy hadn't meant to kill Lou; that it had been an accident; and that anyway it was Lou who had attacked Al in the first place. Giving Al the benefit of the doubt. Ten minutes passed in this way and still Pepe was too scared to take the line.

'Throw him the inflatable and let's get the fuck out of here,' urged Al.

Dave's eyes caught something else surfacing briefly in the water near Pepe. It looked like a harmless tarpon, he thought. Around eighty to a hundred pounds in size, it was a good one too. Good silver color, big dorsal. By the time he realized what it was there were others, all of them summoned by the blood from Malta's body.

Dave's heart missed a beat and he yelled down to the boy, 'Look out. Pepe, get out of the water. For Christ's sake, grab the fucking line.'

Seemingly unaware of the sharks, Pepe shook his head as if Dave's angry outburst had merely confirmed what he'd suspected all along. By the time he understood what Dave had been yelling about, it was already too late.

As if sensing that Malta would wait, the sharks concentrated their attack on the swimming boy. Dave could only stand and watch, horrified, as the sharks hit Pepe like a gang of playground bullies -- first one, then another and then all at once, with an audible snapping of jaws that Dave felt in every nervous fiber of his being. Pepe screamed, slapped the water in front of him and, gulping air and water, disappeared briefly under the foaming confusion of reddening water. It was then Dave saw what species of shark these were. Hammerheads. Bigger deadlier versions of the baby that still lay on the deck. Dave felt himself shiver at the ferocity of their apparent revenge. Pepe reappeared only once, water and blood bursting from his screaming mouth, a hand already missing from his arm. He kept shaking his head as if he couldn't quite believe what was happening to him and Dave was almost relieved when the boy finally disappeared under the surface of the water.