Surface Tension - Kling Christine - Страница 37

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“Really . . . hmmmm . . .” He was eying the boat, looking her up and down like a convict on his first night out in a singles’ bar.

“She really is very unique, isn’t she? Is it too much to assume she’ll pass survey?”

It was one thing for my brother to go behind my back and try to fist Gorda with a broker but when the broker started suggesting that she might not be sound, I couldn’t take it anymore.

“George, Gorda’s not for sale. Take your listing agreement and cram it...” At that moment the bridge horn blew, and George Rice did not have the privilege of hearing my detailed description of what he could do with his contract.

After securing the boat and hosing her down, I marched into the cottage, yanked the phone off the cradle, and dialed Maddy’s number.

Jane answered.

“Let me speak to my brother, Jane.”

“He’s sleeping right now, Seychelle, and I don’t want to bother him. See—”

“Jane, go in there and wake him up. It’s almost nine o’clock in the morning, for Pete’s sake. That asshole is trying to sell my boat out from under me to pay his gambling debts. Did you know he’s back at the track, Jane?”

“Yes. But listen, Seychelle, he—”

“I can’t believe you’re still making excuses for him. He’s a bum. He’s—”

“Sey, somebody beat him up yesterday.”

“What?”

“Robbed him first. He was hurt pretty bad.”

“Maddy?” I sat heavily on one of the barstools. “Yeah, he’d had a good day. He was coming home with nearly three grand. They jumped him in the parking lot.”

“What’d they do to him?”

“It’s bad. His face is a mess, and they broke two fingers. But thank God they didn’t kill him. They had a gun, he said. But he didn’t want to hand over the money; we need it bad. He looks awful. They had to fix his retina. They said he’ll never see right with that eye.”

“Jane, I don’t know what to say. I’m really sorry.” I didn’t know my sister-in-law well, and I couldn’t find words that sounded right. “I... well, tell him I called. I guess I’ll try to talk to him when he’s feeling better.”

“Sey, he said if you called, to tell you to take their offer and settle this.”

“What?”

“I don’t know what it means. He was all woozy from the pain pills and his mouth is all messed up, so he was really hard to understand. He made me repeat it. Take their offer and settle it, he said.”

After I hung up the phone, I just sat there and stared for several minutes. When I finally began to comprehend the red light, it took me ages to pull my mind back to a conscious state. I blinked and hit the play button on the answering machine.

“Miss Sullivan. Hamilton Burns. I have been authorized to make a final settlement offer in regards to your efforts in towing the Top Ten to port. You will receive fifteen thousand dollars, after which you will sign a waiver agreeing to have no further interests in the affairs of the vessel and the members of her crew, including any court testimony. I will expect your phone call, and we can meet in my offices on Las Olas. Miss Sullivan, I must impress upon you that it is in your best interests to agree to this settlement. These are very powerful and influential people, and they will reward you for your cooperation. On the other hand, if you refuse, they won’t hesitate to deal with you, Miss Sullivan.” Click.

I turned the machine off and leaned on the counter my forehead resting on the heels of my hands. Deal with me? And how on earth did Maddy know about these offers from Burns? Whoever the real owner of the Top Ten was, he seemed to have an incredibly long reach. Right into my brother’s life.

It must be the debt again. Someone he’d borrowed from was pushing his buttons.

I pushed the speed-dial number for Jeannie. After four rings her answering machine picked up, and I hung up. She’d probably taken her boys to the beach. That sounded pretty good right about then. I used to try to go down to the beach almost every day, but it had been a while now since I’d taken the boat out for an ocean swim. Neal had been diving off the Top Ten. Maybe it was time to have a look around the place where all this started.

I changed into my royal blue tank suit, then grabbed a beach towel and my keys. My scuba gear was gone, but I always kept an old mask in the dock box. I considered taking the Larsens’ Jet Ski, but my thirteen-foot Boston Whaler was up in davits at the far end of the seawall. I hadn’t run it in over a month, and I didn’t want the fuel in the carburetor going bad from lack of use. I was glad when the twenty-five-horse Merc fired up at the first turn of the key. Abaco jumped down off the seawall, her tongue lolling and her tail wagging. She knew where I was headed. She loved to swim, too, and wasn’t about to be left behind.

Once I got the Whaler outside the entrance channel, I opened her up. Abaco had always been a daredevil bow rider and a trip in the Whaler, nose in the wind, was even better than going for a car ride. She stood all the way in the front of the boat, her ears blowing back, her legs bending to the boat’s motion. There wasn’t too much chop, but we pounded a little on the wind waves as we headed up the coast. I throttled down, searching about for approximately the same spot where the Top Ten had been drifting when I found her. There are very few reference points out on the ocean, and even with the coastline on one side, I knew I could be off by up to half a mile.

I started from the shallows where the yacht had wallowed and headed southeast, offshore, the direction from which the Top Ten would have drifted, allowing for the current and wind. When the water turned dark blue, I dropped the anchor over like a lead line to measure the depth. I had about twenty feet of line left when it touched. So, about eighty feet deep. I pulled the anchor back up. I didn’t want to snag it on anything at that depth without my scuba gear. There was all kinds of junk on the ocean floor off the coast of Fort Lauderdale. South Florida has a very active artificial reef program. They take rusty old ships, barges, even a jet airplane, tow them to the spot where they want to create a reef, and then blow holes in them and sink them to make underwater habitats for fish—and anchor snares for unwary boaters.

I cut the engine on the Whaler and just let her drift. In the bow locker, I found the dive flag, stuck the pole in the flag holder on the stern, and flipped over the side the old piece of carpet that I had tied to a couple of cleats. That way Abaco could climb her way back into the boat by herself—her claws could get a grip on the carpet better than on the slick fiberglass. The dinghy painter on the Whaler was an extra-long length of nylon line I used whenever I towed the little boat behind the tug. I tied the rope around my waist, grabbed my mask, and slipped into the water. It was freezing, probably all the way down to seventy-two degrees. Abaco barked at me a couple of times, and then she dove in, too.

The visibility wasn’t great, but I could make out some shadowy shapes. Several threads of silver bubbles wound their way to the surface. Scuba divers. I tried to pick them out in the blurry murk. Two of them. I lifted my head and looked around for their boat. There to the east, about a quarter mile off, was a twenty-foot Sea Ray. From the line angling off the bow, it was obvious she was anchored, but it looked like she was slowly dragging. Not surprising in this depth. It shouldn’t be a problem for them, though. They could swim to it.

From the corner of my eye, I could see Abaco’s legs underwater doing that mechanical even-stroked dog paddle of hers. She circled around me.

The divers were swimming across the sand and grass bottom, heading toward a big dark shadow just to the south of us. I wasn’t sure whether it was natural coral or an artificial reef. I untied the line around my waist and began hyperventilating, fooling my brain into thinking that it had plenty of oxygen. Then I took an extra-large breath and dove.

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