Choke (34 page)

Daryl turned Victor around, stuck the gun next to his spine, searched him thoroughly, and sat him down.

Tommy’s eyes had never left Clare. “Clare,” he said, “you turn off the music, and be very careful how you do it. If you have any ideas about going into that handbag next to the stereo, please remember that I’m not some jerk from L.A., and that I’ll kill you where you stand.”

Clare walked to an elaborate entertainment center and turned off the music, then went and sat by Victor.

“Chuck, you and Meg have a seat at the bar.”

Chuck took Meg’s hand, and they settled themselves on barstools. There was a fifth of rum resting on the bar, and Chuck looked as if he wanted some of it.

Tommy frowned and turned to Daryl. “Daryl, with the music off, do you hear water dripping? Is it raining outside?”

Another man’s voice came from behind them. “It’s not raining, Tommy.” Then there was the sound of a shotgun being pumped. “Let your guns drop at your sides and put your hands on top of your heads.”

Tommy did as he was told, then turned around. “Harry?” he said weakly.

Harry Carras was standing in the cockpit, dripping wet, wearing a wetsuit. His hair was blond, and he had a full beard; there was a large plastic cooler at his feet, sealed with tape, and Chuck’s shotgun was in his hands.

Victor got up, retrieved the detectives’ pistols, stuck them into his belt, and stood at the end of the bar next to Chuck.

“Now, Tommy,” Harry said, “you and your partner sit down on the deck, right where you are.”

The two detectives sat down.

Tommy turned to Daryl. “I was wrong; Victor isn’t the schmuck, I am.”

Harry smiled. “Don’t be too hard on yourself, Tommy. You weren’t meant to figure it out.”

“No,” Tommy said, “I was meant to nail Chuck for murdering you, so you could be dead and Clare could disappear. By the way, Chuck, it was Victor who put the incriminating plastic hose in your car. And I thought it was Merk. What happens now, Harry?”

“I’ll get to that in a minute, Tommy. Chuck, that beautiful little boat of yours runs on gasoline, doesn’t it?”

Chuck nodded slowly.

“Victor, let’s put your skills to work. Go aboard Chuck’s boat and see if you can cause a lot of gasoline to leak into the bilges.”

Victor left the saloon without a word.

“Harry,” Tommy said, “while Victor’s doing his dirty work, you mind answering a few questions?”

“Why not? My answers aren’t going anywhere.”

“Let’s start with L.A. You
are
Marinello, aren’t you?”

“I used to be, Tommy, but not anymore. I’m not even Harry Carras anymore. Clare and I have brand-new, quite genuine passports and a whole identity package to go with them.”

“Let me give you a tip, Harry; this time make yourself a credit record. If you’d had a credit record when I checked, I might never have gotten near you.”

“That’s very good advice, Tommy. I’ll put somebody to work on that. Did I make any other mistakes?”

“Yeah, but you first,” Tommy said. “What’s in the cooler?” He pointed to the cockpit.

“Twenty-two million dollars in bearer bonds, gold certificates, and other negotiable instruments,” Harry said.

“It was all on the wreck?”

“That’s right. You see, although I had a sizable sum in other, more visible investments, that was just to allow us to live well on the income while we were planning our final escape. I didn’t want all the rest of it lying around the house.”

Chuck spoke up. “Harry, I have a question, too. Why aren’t you dead? You looked dead to me, lying down there on the deck of the wreck with a tank full of carbon monoxide and blood in your mask.”

Harry smiled. “I was pretty convincing, huh?”

“You certainly were. How did you do it?”

“I had a little cylinder of clean air, just enough to get me to the wreck without breathing the noxious fumes.”

“But how did you get off the wreck and … here?”

“I had a rebreather kit, which leaves no bubbles, stashed in a locker on the wreck,” Harry explained. “When you popped up, I swam to the locker, started breathing oxygen, and got out of there.”

“But you were an awfully long time with no air, weren’t you? I mean, from the time I found you down there until I popped up.”

“Less than two minutes; I can hold my breath for a little over three. It’s a gift, like being able to run fast or jump high.”

“Where did you go after that? There were no boats around that I could see.”

“No, but there’s a little island to the northwest, about two and a half miles.”

“You swam two and a half miles underwater?” Chuck asked, incredulously.

“Partly. The last hour was on the surface; the Coast Guard had gone by then. I began swimming competitively at six; I would have made the Olympics, but my … personal sponsors didn’t want me to become famous before I started practicing law. The trip took me nearly three hours, against the current, but then it had to be far enough that nobody would believe I could make it.”

“And from the island, where?”

“I cruised around on the little boat that Clare used today—until we got this boat, which used to be
Fugitive,
out of Key West and to a little boatyard up the Keys, where we changed her name and made a few superficial alterations that would differentiate her from her old self. The three young men you encountered in the marina were not a delivery crew; they were shipwrights. They’re down in the wreck now, for some diver to find someday.”

Victor came back on board. “There’s about half a gallon a minute leaking into their bilges now,” he said. “I didn’t want to make it too big, in case anybody ever inspects the wreck. There’ll be enough for a big explosion in a few minutes.” He didn’t look happy about it.

“I get the picture,” Tommy said. “You take us out, put us aboard
Choke,
and then there’s a terrible accident?”

“You’re very quick, Tommy. We’re pretty far out from Key West, and I doubt if anyone will even see the explosion. If they do, then by the time they reach the site, the boat will have burned to the waterline and sunk. Those old wooden boats burn quickly. By that time, we’ll be thirty, forty miles south of here, headed for the Caymans, the other side of Cuba.”

“I see,” Tommy said. “Let’s get back to your mistakes, Harry. You asked me if you made any more.”

“By all means,” Harry said. “I want to hear this.”

“It’s kind of a daisy chain of mistakes,” Tommy said. “You trusted Clare, Clare trusted Victor, Victor trusted Clare.”

“What do you mean?”

“Haven’t you wondered how your mob friends found Clare?”

Harry frowned. “It was that detective, Carman.”

“Yeah, but Carman was tipped. Clare tipped him.”

Harry glanced at Clare. “Substantiate that.”

“Carman told me he got a telephone call from what sounded like a young woman. Who but Clare? Who else knew?”

“That doesn’t make any sense, Tommy; if they’d found me they would have found her.”

Tommy was shaking his head. “The tip was before you faked your death. Clare was depending on your mob buddies to take you out so she’d be free to disappear with the money, but you solved her problem with your plan to die. She did know where the money was, didn’t she, Harry?”

Harry looked appraisingly at Clare. “You have a rebuttal, sweetheart?”

“He’s crazy, Harry. I want to be with you; you know that.”

Tommy turned to Clare. “I’ll bet that’s not what you told Victor.” He turned to the tennis pro. “By the way, Victor, Harry and Clare have brand-new passports and ID. Do you have a brand-new passport?”

Victor looked at Clare. “No,” he said quietly.

“Victor, I have another question for you; when did you find out that Harry was alive?”

“The day before yesterday,” Victor said.

“Must have come as quite a shock,” Tommy said. “And Harry, you’ve known about Victor all along, right?”

“Oh, yes.” He looked thoughtful. “Well, nearly all along.”

“Ahh,” Tommy said, looking thoughtful, “so Clare has lied to both of you. You know, it strikes me that as soon as Chuck, Meg, Daryl, and I are out of the picture, somebody else is going to go.” He turned to Clare. “Tell me, have you figured out which one is next? I mean, you need one of them to get out of here in this boat, but not both. Three’s kind of a crowd, isn’t it? And I doubt if two would be company for very long.”

Harry turned toward Clare. “My dear, would you like to respond to that?”

“No,” she said, getting to her feet, “I don’t think I would.” She started across the saloon toward her purse, next to the stereo. “What I’d like is some aspirin.” She reached into the handbag.

Suddenly, there were guns everywhere. Clare’s hand came out of the purse with an automatic in it, Victor clawed at his belt, where Tommy’s and Daryl’s guns were, and Harry had to make a choice.

Harry and Clare fired simultaneously; Harry staggered backward into the cockpit as Clare received a load of birdshot in the face and went down. Victor didn’t seem to know what to do, and while he was thinking about it, Chuck used the moment to swing a bottle of rum at the back of his head.

Then it was very quiet. No one moved. Except Clare.

Bleeding, blinded, she raised herself on one elbow and began firing wildly. She got off half a clip before Chuck’s dive ended on top of her. By the time he twisted the pistol from her grip, she had died.

“Daryl,” Tommy said, getting up, “check on Harry, and be careful.” He produced a pair of handcuffs and snapped them onto Victor’s wrists. “Chuck, you go and stop the gas leak on your boat and pump out the bilges.”

“Good idea.”

“Meg, please find a bar towel and apply it to Victor’s head. We don’t want him to bleed to death before we get him back to Key West; he’ll be useful in explaining what happened here.”

Daryl came in from the cockpit. “Harry’s bought it. Clare was a good shot with a handgun, wasn’t she?”

“She was some piece of work,” Tommy said. He walked behind the bar and started looking at bottles. “I believe I need a drink,” he said. “Will anybody join me?”

While Daryl applied first aid to Victor’s scalp in the saloon, Tommy, Chuck, and Meg sat in the cockpit of the big yacht, sipping rum and tonic and watching the Coast Guard cutter coming toward them.

“Tommy,” Chuck said, “you know what surprises me most in all this? Victor. I wouldn’t have believed him capable of any of this.”

“Victor’s a sociopath,” Tommy said. “He’s a charmer, but he’s one of those people who is completely without a conscience. I think Clare must have seen that in him. Remember, she dangled the bait in front of you, briefly, but you didn’t take it. That’s when she picked Victor. She knew the difference between the two of you.”

Chuck shrugged. “If it hadn’t been for you, Tommy, her plan would have worked. I’d have been a goner.”

“Chuck,” Tommy said, “if it hadn’t been for
you
tonight, we’d
all
have been goners; Victor wouldn’t have left anybody alive. You should always remember: When the pressure was on, when you had to come through, you didn’t choke.”

The three of them finished their drinks and got up to meet the Coast Guard.

February 20, 1995
Key West, Florida