He didn’t have to finish the thought. Even though they knew I was in California… seeing me here on the boat… right now… it would break the spell and ruin everything. We might as well just slit our own throats right here on the spot.
“We gotta find another way off this boat.”
He went over to the stairs, took one more quick look down the gangway, and then scrambled up to the top level.
“Come on, what are you waiting for?”
I followed him up the stairs, even if it seemed hopeless to me. The boat was pointing nose out, after all. There was no other way off.
“This way. We have no choice.”
I followed him down the side rail, to the sundeck at the front of the boat. Gunnar went to the very tip of the nose and looked down. We were maybe twenty, twenty-five feet above the water, but it might as well have been the edge of the world.
“Hold on to your money,” he said. Then he jumped.
I heard the splash below. I looked over the edge and saw his head surfacing. He started treading water, working hard to keep his hold on the crate.
“Get the fuck down here!” he said to me. “Hurry up!”
I didn’t move. I kept looking down at the water.
“Mike! Just jump already! It’s not that high!”
The height’s not the problem, I thought. I have no problem with heights.
“God damn you! Jump!”
I could hear the men coming up the gangway. Another few seconds and I’d be caught dead.
“Don’t think about it! Just jump!”
One more look behind me. Then a step up onto the gunwale. Then I did it.
I jumped.
I hit feet first and went straight down, all the way to the bottom. When I opened my eyes I saw rocks and green shadows all around me and nothing else. Everything else in the world was obliterated now. It was just me and the water, all around me and over me. The thing I had feared for so long, reclaiming me at last. Like the water itself had waited with such great patience for all of this time and now this time it would never let me go.
I looked up at the surface. So high above me it was like outer space. My lungs were burning. A few more seconds and I’d have to give up. I’d have to draw in one final mouthful of water and swallow it and then lie down right here on these green-lined rocks.
Then I saw a fish.
It was a tiny thing, no bigger than my finger. It swam toward me and stopped like it was looking me up and down and trying to figure out what the hell I was doing there. It was so close to me I could have reached out and taken it in my hand.
Instead I pushed myself off the bottom, letting go of the crate. The fish darted away as I rose toward the surface. When I broke free I was choking and gulping down the cold air like I couldn’t breathe enough of it.
“Michael, quiet.”
I looked over and saw Gunnar a few yards away. He was against the hull of the ship, watching me.
“Get over here. Hurry.”
I dipped back under the water, trying to propel myself. I came up one more time, went down again. Then I felt a hand grabbing my shirtsleeve as he pulled me up next to him.
“What the hell’s the matter with you? Just stay right here, until we can make a break for it.”
I tried to keep kicking my legs to keep my head above the water. I grabbed at the boat’s hull, but it was as smooth as an ice floe.
“As soon as they’re ready to push off, we have to go over there.” He pointed to the much smaller boat parked parallel to us, a good thirty yards away. “We should stay underwater, and not come up until we’re on the other side. Can you do that?”
I shook my head.
“Yes, you can. You have to.”
We waited for a long time. It was hard to even tell anymore. What a minute felt like, or an hour. Then we heard the engine starting, and it was time to move. Gunnar pushed off from the boat, and as I watched him swim it occurred to me that he was still holding on to his crate of money. He used it as dead weight to help keep himself underwater, as he kicked and swam with his free arm and made his way over toward the other boat.
I took one last deep breath and followed him. I couldn’t go as deep, but I imitated his motions and somehow I willed myself through the water. I taught myself to swim, right there on the spot, because it was either that or die. Either that or never see Amelia again, after everything I had done that day to help make it possible again.
That day in her backyard, the very first time I saw her. Standing there on the edge of that hole, looking down at me. That’s what I thought about. The sunlight on her face.
Gunnar was waiting for me on the other side of the boat. “I wasn’t sure if you were gonna make it,” he said.
We stayed there in the water until the big boat finally motored its way out of the marina. Then it was finally time to get out. But Gunnar had one more thing to do first.
“Where did you drop the money?” he said. “That was a fucking million dollars.”
I shook my head. No idea.
He shook his head and handed me his crate.
“I gotta do everything around here,” he said. Then he dove back down under the water.
I had a big beach towel wrapped around my shoulders. I stared out the window as we drove back north along the coastline. Nobody said anything. Nobody was celebrating. Because even though we had all gotten out of there alive, our plan was still only half done.
Two hours later, we were back at the house. Ramona and Lucy brought out their hair dryers and started in on the wet bills. Julian was back to his pacing. Gunnar sat on the couch, staring at his phone.
“I hate this,” Julian finally said. “This is the part we have no control over.”
But it’s the part I really care about, I thought to myself. It’s the only part that matters to me. I don’t care about the money.
“My man is on it,” Gunnar said.
“These guys know each other. They’re not going to believe that one of them would rip off the others.”
“They hate each other, okay? They take this trip every year just so they can show each other up. You think they trust each other?”
“I don’t know. It’s just-”
“Why the hell do you think they bring their bodyguards with them? Eight mobsters, eight bodyguards, all armed to the teeth. Does that sound like a pleasure cruise to you? One little spark, my guy says. One little spark and boom.”
“And he knows exactly what to do?”
“Piece of cake,” Gunnar said. “Talk to all the other bodyguards, like hey, something’s funny here. I saw these guys carrying all of these boxes, throwing them overboard. There was this other boat I could see coming up in the distance. You don’t suppose they found out the combination to the safe, do you? He’ll sell the whole thing, don’t worry. Just like I told you. He’ll come by in a few weeks, by the way. He’ll be happy to find out his share got doubled.”
“I still don’t think we should be sitting here. We should be moving, just to make sure.”
“It’s as good as done,” Gunnar said. “Just relax.”
So we kept waiting. When the money was dry, we put it all in the safe. That very same safe in the secret room, which Julian had bought for me to practice on before that first job in the Hollywood Hills. It was just big enough to hold eight million dollars in hundred-dollar bills.
Then more waiting.
Then more waiting.
Then just after ten o’clock that night, Gunnar’s cell phone rang. He hit the button and listened. He didn’t say a word.
When he finally hung up, he just looked at us, one by one.
“It wasn’t pretty,” he said, “but it worked. The two men we wanted fed to the sharks got fed to the sharks.”
Nobody said anything. We all knew exactly what we were doing, every step of the way. But now it was real. Two men were dead. Two men who wouldn’t be missed, of course. Two men that the world would keep revolving quite nicely without. Nevertheless they were both dead because we made it happen.