Blackwater Sound

‘I’m a writer,’ the woman said. ‘I’m calling to confirm a few facts on a story I’m doing.’

‘About me?’

‘Your family,’ the woman said. ‘Do you have a minute? Somebody’s made some pretty serious accusations. We’d like to hear your side of things before we go ahead with this.’

It was nearly two in the morning when Morgan parked the six-year-old Mercedes in their space at Hobe Bay Marina. Johnny shuffled along behind her, head bowed, mumbling. Morgan marched down the dock. It was breezy and the halyards were jingling and dark water sloshed against the pilings.

‘My thumb aches,’ Johnny said. ‘I think I nicked the bone. It really hurts.’

‘Not now, Johnny. Not now.’

Their Hatteras was moored in the last slip on A dock. The yellow security lights gleamed against the sleek hull.

Morgan halted ten feet from the slip and raised her hand. Johnny stopped behind her and started to speak but Morgan shushed him.

On the side dock that bordered their Hatteras, Jonas Mills, their night security guard, was asleep in a canvas-backed chair. His head propped against a piling. He was Jamaican, father of five. He’d been with the Braswells for over a year. No complaints. At least not till now.

Morgan stepped over to him. She raised her right foot and planted the bottom of her tennis shoe against the arm of the chair and threw her weight against it. Jonas’s eyes came open and he yelped once and kicked his legs out straight, then tumbled backwards. His skull whacked against the rub rail of the yacht and he dropped ten feet into the glistening water of the harbor.

She and Johnny peered over the dock and watched him bob to the surface, gasp several times, then begin to thrash.

‘He can’t swim,’ Johnny said.

‘It’s time he learned.’

Jonas reached out for a ladder mounted against the piling, and yowled as his hands shredded against the barnacles.

‘Jesus,’ Johnny said. ‘You just going to leave him down there?’

‘Unless you want to shoot him. Fill him full of daylight.’

Gasping, Jonas grabbed hold of the ladder and hauled himself up to the bottom rung.

She stepped aboard their boat and Johnny followed silently.

She opened the cabin with her key and switched on the lights in the salon. She went down the narrow gangway to her stateroom. Flung open the door and stalked to her wardrobe and shoved aside the panel.

‘That’s where you hid it, in your closet?’

‘Right there.’

There were a pair of sandals on the floor. That was all.

‘You’re sure?’ Johnny said. ‘Right there on the floor? Blueprints, too?’

‘That cocksucker.’

Johnny stared into the closet.

‘Which cocksucker?’

‘Who do you think, Johnny?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Who else could it be? Who else had access? No one would question him. No one would think to tell us he’d even come aboard. Everybody’s big buddy.’

‘Arnold?’

Morgan slammed the closet door shut.

‘That cocksucker,’ she said. ‘That goddamn son of a bitch.’

5 (#ulink_6ea2b55f-5974-511a-8ad6-e68efecc6c77)

‘I thought we were going fishing,’ said Lawton Collins.

‘Soon as we’re done here, Lawton. Another minute or two.’ Arnold gave him a pat on his bare knee.

They sat side by side in the high-backed leather booth, Lawton Collins and Arnold Peretti. Both of them seventy-two years old. Longtime buddies.

Lawton had on his yellow Bermudas with a blue sleeveless T-shirt, nicely weathered by paint specks from projects over the years. His daughter, Alex, said that outfit made him look like a trailer park derelict and tried to dress him better. But the clothes were comfortable and they reminded him of things from the past. Things he couldn’t name, but he could still sense them when he put on those clothes. So he wore them as often as Alexandra would allow.

Lawton Collins held the box on his lap like Arnold had told him. Everybody at the table was aware of it, like the thing was glowing. Lawton didn’t know what was inside it, but it was as heavy as a goddamn box of rocks.

Across the booth from them were a couple in their late twenties, early thirties, Charlie and Brandy. Good-looking young folks. Especially the girl. Charlie had a two-day beard, the shadow of dark bristles covering his cheeks.

The four of them had been sitting there quietly since the food arrived. Waiting for somebody to break the ice.

So Lawton said, ‘You know what Harry Houdini’s real name was?’

The two young people stared at him.

‘It was Erik Weisz,’ Lawton told them. ‘Houdini’s family came from Hungary. He did his first trick at six years of age. Made a dried pea appear in any one of three overturned cups.’

The young man gave Lawton a careful look.

‘What’s wrong with this guy?’ Charlie said.

‘Nothing’s wrong with him. He’s getting old. Same as me.’

‘What’s this shit about Houdini?’

‘I like Houdini,’ Lawton said.

‘He likes Houdini,’ Arnold said. ‘So there.’

Lawton smiled at the young woman. Brandy was her name. She had a large smile and even larger breasts.