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7

“Augie! Stop them!”

Jeth and Tomlinson were hurrying toward the fence, yelling at Javier, trying to stop him from climbing over the fence onto marina property. I watched Augie and three of the hard hats move after them, but that’s all I saw because Bern Heller grabbed me by the shoulder again, and spun me around.

Showing me his pasted smile, he said, “You think you can steal from me?” He reached his right hand toward the stitches on my forehead. “That the problem? Someone hit you with an ax? The way farmers do to get a jackass’s attention?”

The natural reaction when a stranger’s fingers stray within a few inches of your eyes is to flinch. That’s what I did…and Heller used his left hand to slap my face, open-palmed. I saw the hand move, a gunslinger blur, and didn’t have time to react. Then he slapped me with his right hand a micromoment later. A boxer’s technique: fake right, then attack with a left-right combination.

Both caught me square.

Too stunned to respond, I stood and let it happen, hearing the same raw sound as when I’d slapped his arm away. Skin on skin, but louder because he banged my left ear hard. It caused an instant ringing in my head.

Even so, I heard a jumble of voices, Jeth, Tomlinson, Augie, all reacting simultaneously, their words vague and faraway. Vague, because I was furious—a fast chemical transformation. My concentration imploded in an emotional burst. Vision and concentration narrowed as adrenaline spiked, so it was like staring down a tunnel, or the bore of a gun. I felt an ether chill move up my neck, a chemical blooming.

I looked hard at Bern Heller. Saw him in shades of black and white beneath a tropic sky that had been drained of color.

“Look at this. The guy’s kind of mild lookin’ until he gets mad. Are you mad, Dr. Ford?”

I saw the blurred movement of Heller’s right hand as he swung to slap me again. I crossed with my right to block. Wanted to catch his wrist because, once I got his hands under control, this obnoxious bastard was going to the ground no matter how big he was…then maybe into an ambulance.

Or maybe not. Uncle Bern, jumbo-sized and rubbery, was also quick. Quicker than me—since my concussion, anyway.

I didn’t get my hand up in time, and he connected on the left side of my face. Hit me hard enough with his palm to create starburst colors behind my eyes. Then slapped me with his left.

“Don’t let him do that to you! Doc? Do something!”

Jeth’s voice? Tomlinson? I couldn’t sort it out. In some faraway synapse, I realized that Heller had found this clever way to keep both of them from warning Javier.

“Well, Doctor. Why don’t you do something?”

Whap. He slapped me again, then once more. I threw my hands up, expecting him to hit me again. Instead, he pivoted to the side, and kicked me, a boat shoe in the butt. Not hard—it was a message. It demonstrated contempt.

I lost it. Which is what he expected. I ducked and charged, my vision blurry. As easily as the man dodged Tomlinson, he dodged me, pivoting like a matador. My hair wasn’t long enough to get a handhold, but he did the same quick trip-step, turning my body as he drove me hard, back first, onto the limestone.

Then…I was looking up into the September sky, colors returning, Bern Heller’s face hanging over mine. He was close enough so details weren’t blurry. The man had an oversized head like a robot: forehead, cheeks, and chin. His jaw mandible was a structure of interlocking cordage covered with skin.

Something I hadn’t noticed before: no beard stubble. Heller’s face was wiener smooth, his small blue eyes looking out. He’d managed to pin my right arm with his knee; had his forearm on my throat. The jugular vein side, shutting off the blood to my brain.

I struggled to move. Couldn’t. Tried to speak. Couldn’t.

He leaned his nose near mine, and whispered so only I could hear. “You snobby-assed motherfucker, if we was alone, I’d strip those pants off you and stick a broom up your butt just to see you wiggle. I’ve done it to pigs, and some of them like it. What about you? If you ever come back here, I’ll give it a try. Stick it right up your ass.”

The man was giving me a private glimpse of the craziness inside him. Delighted with his secret profanities, the control he wielded. It was a glimpse of the demonic little boy who lived behind those blue eyes.

Not quite blue, though. Up close, the intensity of his eyes, altered their color a few shades to cobalt. They were glassy receptors, hunting probes that I associated with reptiles and certain birds. Animals accustomed to dampness and night.

Somehow, I got my left arm free. Formed a fist and hit him with a couple of weak shots to the kidneys. He responded by driving his forehead into my nose. Head butt. Almost got me square, but I turned my face in time. Still, I felt a dizzying explosion in my brain, then warm rivulets of blood.

“That’s enough, goddamn you. You’re hurting him. Let ’im up!”

A familiar voice. Whose?

It seemed to come from miles away, a voice that was energized with the rage of a victim who’d snapped after being cornered.

I’d never before heard this man enraged.

Tomlinson’s voice.

I n the hazy, graying world of unconsciousness, I considered hitting Heller in the kidneys one more time. Decided no. Paybacks were hell with this guy, as the weight of Heller’s forearm on my throat, anvil heavy, squashed me into a blackness.

“Get off him!”

Tomlinson again. My weird friend. “Heller, I’m not going to tell you again!”

Rage and violence. Strange. Hard to associate those emotions with Tomlinson.

“Goddamn it, I warned you—”

Through the darkness, I heard a whooping sound. Felt a jolt…and, suddenly, the weight was gone from my throat. Light gathered beyond my eyelids. I opened them to see a storm-blue sky, Heller no longer hanging over me like a vulture.

I rolled to my side, then sat, fingers exploring esophageal cartilage for damage. I was aware of men shoving, Tomlinson in the middle. Grunting sounds, strained voices swearing. Noises men make when fighting.

I turned. Focused. Could this be real?

Tomlinson had his big, bony hands around Bern Heller’s throat. Had his fingers locked deep in neck tissue, and he was backing the larger man toward the water. He didn’t seem to feel Heller’s fists pounding at his shoulders and ribs. Ignored Jeth, who was alternately shoving Augie and trying to separate Tomlinson from Uncle Bern.

“Jesus, Tomlinson, you’re gonna kill the asshole if you don’t stop!”

The absurd grin remained fixed on Heller’s face. He made gurgling noises, trying to talk. He didn’t take Tomlinson seriously, despite what was happening.

His attitude: I’ll end this when it stops being funny.

Tomlinson’s face had turned a mottled gray, his expression grotesque, as he continued to push Heller toward the bay—Heller’s grin beginning to fade now. Suffocation is the first of primal horrors, and he realized that Tomlinson wasn’t going to quit.

“Let go of his throat! Damn it, they’re going to shoot Javier!”

I glanced toward the fence, seeing that Javier was now on marina property, still holding the gun but that it was pointed at the ground. He appeared stricken, the central figure in a shrinking circle as deputies moved into position.

Something else I saw: Cowboy was headed our way carrying the five-gallon bucket he’d taken from my boat. The bucket, plus the jumble of cable dragging it behind, and a couple of wet towels under his arm—the Nazi artifacts.

“Javier!” Jeth shouted, and ran toward the fence. His voice finally registered with Tomlinson, who had the confused expression of a man trying to disentangle reality from a bad dream. He looked into Heller’s plum-bright face for a moment, then slowly removed his hands from the man’s neck. He stared at his fingers as if they were strangers.

Before Heller could recover, I had Tomlinson by the arm, pulling him. “This guy wants them to shoot Javier. Let’s get over there.”

J avier appeared dazed by what was going on around him, a man who’d paddled an inner tube across a hundred miles of ocean but who now looked as indecisive as a child, standing motionless in his red T-shirt and ball cap.

He was encircled by uniformed deputies who were using whatever they could find for cover—a fifty-gallon drum, abandoned pontoons, trees—as they kept their guns trained on the man, leapfrogging into position. More than once they’d told him to drop the weapon, get down on the ground, don’t make them shoot.

Javier just stood there.

But the cops were taking it slow, which told me Javier had gotten lucky. These were pros who’d read the signs correctly: The man was frozen; immobilized by emotional overload, the same way some kids freeze when they get to the highest limb on the tree.

“Javier! Don’t move.”

Jeth’s voice. Magic today because it was like watching Tomlinson again, the way Javier’s face changed: puzzled, then aware but confused.

He focused; saw Jeth and Tomlinson running toward him, me not far behind. His face came alive. Javier smiled wanly, and shrugged his shoulders: See the stupid thing I’ve done?

The cops were not reassured. They wanted Javier to remain catatonic, not suddenly alert and maybe thinking of doing something stupid to impress his friends. They also didn’t want civilians running toward them, screwing up their lines of fire—something made clear when a pair of deputies faced us, one of them yelling, “Stop! Get on the ground!” Pointing a left index finger at us but his weapon drawn.

We were close enough to hear Javier call out, “Hey, those are my friends. Don’t shoot my friends, okay? They didn’t do nothin’. If you want, I’ll drop my pistol. Okay? Watch. That’s what I’m doing. I’m dropping my pistol”—the deputies had Javier’s chest centered above their gunsights, leaning as he let the pistol roll off his finger to the ground—“See? I tell you something, I do it. My friends, though, they just want to help—”

Which is as far as he got before he was tackled from behind. Other deputies charged in, one of them kneeling to take Javier’s pistol.

“It’s not even loaded, man, ’cause I couldn’t find the bullets.” Javier, now being handcuffed, sounded apologetic. “That storm, the cabrone, Carlos. Everything in my house is wet, piled up like garbage. But I don’t want to shoot nobody anyway. I just want my boat.”

They had him on his feet, frisking him again. “See the pretty green boat over there? That’s mine, man.”

A deputy checked the cuffs as he told Javier that he was under arrest, then began to recite his Miranda rights.

As they were leading him away, Javier called to Jeth, “I didn’t tell you but I shoulda. Anita, she left me, and the girls, too. The storm took them, it was the same thing. That cabrone, the hurricane. That fishing client of mine who’s an attorney, call him, okay? You know his name.”

Javier’s bemused look again: God’s shitty jokes!

B ehind me, I could hear Bern Heller yelling, “That’s it? That’s all? The guy’s obviously crazy, comes on my property with a gun, and all you do is talk to him?” His throat was hoarse. His voice was shaking, he was so mad.

“Mr. Castillo is on his way to jail. What did you want us to do, Mr. Heller? Shoot him?”

Heller nearly said, Yes, but caught himself. Instead, he pointed at us. “What about these three jerks? They’re not only trespassing, we caught them stealing. We already recovered our things from their boat.”

I turned to see the deputy rip a sheet of paper from his clipboard at the same instant he lifted his head, seeing me. He spent a moment looking at my bloody shirt, at the gash on my face caused by the head butt.

“Whose boat?”

“The guy wearing glasses. His boat.”

“The man who’s bleeding, you mean.”

“Yeah, that’s right. He stole from me and wouldn’t give the stuff back, so I detained him.”

The deputy said slowly, “Your employees removed property from a private vessel?”

“Because we saw them stash it in his boat. They stole it from us!”

The officer moved his eyes to Jeth, then to Moe, who was on his knees trying to wipe the fish stink off his hands having already tried the towels. The deputy looked at Tomlinson, with his hippie hair, wearing the magic green goggles around his neck.

“I’m going to get my tape recorder,” the officer told us. “A couple more deputies, too, to take statements.” His tone saying: This is going to take awhile.