Suicide Squeeze

47

It took three hours for Conner to flag down a boat willing to tie onto one of the Jenny’s stern cleats and pull her off the sandbar. With the sky growing blacker by the hour, there weren’t many boats on the river.

The Boston Whaler, which had pulled Conner off the sandbar, was captained by an ex-navy chief with a Papa Hemingway beard and fading tattoos. “Better find some cover,” he told Conner. “Weather service says a bad one is coming.”

“I hear you.” Conner thanked him, made sure the Jenny was secure, and cranked the inboards.

It had taken a few hours to find an appropriate marina and get organized. He figured another three hours for the trip. Downstream, under the swing-out bridge to the mouth of the river where it emptied into the Gulf. Then west along the coast to Paradise Marina almost in Alabama, the closest place to take on fuel and outfit the Jenny for Conner’s escape. After leaving Tyranny, he’d parked Otis’s Lincoln at the marina, the trunk full of expensive goods Conner planned to pawn. He thought about selling the Lincoln too but didn’t want to invest the time and money in finding the right people to forge a registration and fence the vehicle.

Then Conner found the leather doctor’s bag in the backseat.

He’d opened the bag slowly, afraid the money would vanish in a poof of bad karma. Conner couldn’t really feel like the money was his, but who else could claim it? He counted it. Enough. More than enough to get him and the Jenny to a faraway place where he could forget who he was, decide who he wanted to be.

Conner had then taken an expensive cab ride from the marina back to the sailboat. He kept checking his pocket for the DiMaggio card. He didn’t plan to let it out of his sight anytime soon. Somewhere there had to be a buyer for the damn thing.

At the wheel, he eased the throttle forward, eyed the sky. He might just be able to reach the marina before nightfall. If he were lucky.

The weather restrained itself as Conner made it past the swing-out bridge. The guy in the bridge keeper’s house leaned out the little window and gave him a wave. At the mouth of the river, the rain started coming heavier, the water a rough, foamy chop, the prow of the Jenny slamming into big waves as it motored forward. Conner was in the Gulf now, and the spray stinging his face was salty and cold. Between the rain and the waves the cockpit filled shin deep with water. He hit the switch for the pumps. They chugged to life below the deck, just keeping ahead of the water coming in.

The sky was completely black with storm clouds now, the Gulf a steel blue. Lightning crisscrossed the sky. Conner kept the coastline within a half mile. He flipped on the running lights. He was getting worried. The storm had slowed his progress, the sailboat’s engine struggling against the severe chop. Conner was a decent sailor, but all of his experience had been pleasure boating on calm seas.

And then the engines sputtered and died.

Oh… shit.

Conner thumbed the ignition. It wouldn’t turn over. He checked the fuel gauge. The tanks were bone dry.

Oh, no. No, no, no… He hadn’t calculated the rough seas, the extra fuel consumption.

Without forward momentum, the boat would flounder. He left the cockpit, pulled himself forward so he could get the sails up. A wave almost washed him over. He threw himself at the mast, hung on as the Jenny listed badly, pitched the deck almost ninety degrees. The rain pounded him now in driving sheets. He could no longer see the prow. Water coming over the transom.

Conner fought his way back to the cockpit, threw open one of the bench seats, and grabbed a life jacket. The wind howled, and the Jenny threatened to roll. Conner turned his head side to side. He’d lost track of the land. It was totally black now. He was going to drown. He was going to die in the ocean.

In a flash of lightning, Conner glimpsed a twelve-foot wave coming hard. It collided in the darkness. Conner was thrown, blind. Then he was underwater. He struggled, kicked, hit the surface, and gulped air.

The sea churned around him. Fifty yards distant, he thought he saw the Jenny’s white fiberglass bottom. The boat had rolled.

Another wave drove him under, and when he came back up again he no longer saw the boat. He didn’t know where the coast lay. The heaving black ocean gaped in all directions, immense swells briefly visible in the lightning.

To come all this way. To die like this. Nobody even knew where he was. Nobody would ever know. Typical, thought Conner. Just fucking typical.