“Zodiacs. Now that the yacht is gone, the Zodiacs are the only way to get from anywhere to anywhere. If we find one for ourselves, we’ll be one-eyed kings in a totally blind country.”
“Neal, for a street-tard, you are totally fucking brilliant. What should we do?”
“First, let’s get to the beach. During my convalescence, I’ve been going over maps of the entire region. Lots of little islands here—perfect for stashing a whole cruise liner, let alone a small inflatable boat.”
I let Neal’s grotesque abuse of the word “convalescence” pass and followed him to the main beach with plunder in my heart.
49
First off, no sign of Sarah, but I knew she was safe. The bonus good news was that the first thing I found at the high tide line, all tangled in the kelp, was the cold, lifeless body of LACEY. Not that I wished her any ill, but really, the world was a much better place without her. Personal upside? Sarah would no longer perceive me as being “taken.” Such an honourable girl, my Sarah; she’d never steal another woman’s man. The planet could certainly use a big dose of Sarah’s spirit—there’d be no more wars, no misery, just peace, peace and more lovely peace. Now, if only that fucktard Stuart were dead. No sign of his corpse.
A brilliant full moon added a festive Polynesian dimension to our exploits. Pretty much everything on the beach was tangled up in everything else. At the south end, an improvised morgue was being established, but by whom, and for what reason, I couldn’t imagine. Chop them all up and use them for crab bait, as far as I was concerned. On that note, crabs were already scampering up from the waters in pursuit of a feast. Neal also said to watch out for what he called “necropickpocketers.”
“A rare breed of thief, the necro.”
“Neal, there is no possible fucking way such a tiny category of street riff-raff exists.”
“Deny it if you will, Ray, but I’ve seen them myself at crime scenes, plying their trade. They usually work with someone else to act as a distraction—quite often a clown making twisty balloon animals. You’ve got everyone squealing, ‘Whee! It’s a little bunny!’ and meanwhile your necro is right in there with the corpse, taking the stuffing out of the goose. Chilling, it is.”
“Let’s just find ourselves a Zodiac to steal.”
Down the beach, I saw my daughter administering the kiss of life to what was most likely a cameraman pretending to be waterlogged. Part of me was hoping that one of her patients would come on to her, thus giving me a reason to go over and crush him. Fatherhood!
Kyle had put away his camera and was helping arrange bodies into neat rows. How on earth did I sire two such virtuous beings? And where was their sense of larceny? Could they not understand that reckless amounts of drugs and cash were a desirable thing to have in one’s life?
To be honest, Neal and I were at first slightly diverted from hunting for a Zodiac, both looking for bales of money and tubs of cocaine, and about three-quarters of the way down the sand, we caught each other with the exact same miracle-expecting beachcomber’s expression and had a good old-fashioned laugh at our mutual weakness.
“Ray, just think of shitloads of money, all yours, for free! For doing fuck all!”
“Or a brick of coke merely for being in the right place at the right time.”
“Okay, okay, I know … still, we’ve got to focus. Steal a Zodiac and be kings of this small empire.”
“Thank you, Neal.”
“You’re welcome, Ray.”
“Look there,” said Neal, pointing to a Zodiac temporarily beached at the high tide line. “That one is going to be ours.”
“Right. Let’s just saunter over and slip away before anyone gets huffy.”
Neal and I did a dum-dee-dum-dee-dum walk in the boat’s direction. At one point, I tripped over a dead producer, but Neal said, “Ignore him, Ray, it’s too late.”
I felt like I was on a battlefield—and winning—because I was alive and all these dumb fuckers were dead.
Just then our plan became more complex: on the strip of packed wet sand near the water, we spotted Stuart running towards the Zodiac. He was carrying some boxes labelled EMERGENCY MEDICAL SUPPLIES and wore the smug expression of someone who spends his life waiting for the world to turn to shit so he can jump in and be a hero and make everyone like him.
Neal and I picked up our pace, and we arrived on opposite sides of the boat at the same time. It was bigger than I remembered, and somewhat like a bouncy castle with a big-arse engine attached.
“Potter? What the fuck are you doing here?” Stuart yelled. “Helping? I find that hard to believe.”