Open Water (33 page)

Willis said, “Okay, this is what we do. I go over to Château-sur-Mer and get Rennie checked out nice and easy, just like she’s leaving Motel Six. We might even steal a couple towels.”

“What do I do?” Fritz said.

“Wait, I’m telling you. First, before I get my girl, we drive the truck over to Easton Pond and roll it in.”

Fritz wedged his fingertips in his tight jean pockets. “What is this now?”

“You know where we ditched those Metric King surprises? We drive the truck into Easton Pond same way.”

“Excuse me?”

“Just drive it in as far as you can, it will fall off that shelf, I think.”

“You’re crazy.”

“We’ll wipe it down with Amour All, get our dabs off the upholstery.”

“I’d rather drive it over to my sister’s, keep it on her carport. That’s as crazy as I get.”

“Listen, Munro is sitting back, licking his lips. I can’t live with that.”

Fritz said, “Try to live with it.”

“Can’t.”

“We steal it. We paint it. We sink it? That’s enough to fill up the whole blotter.”

Holly said, “He’s right. These last days are crazy. I can see the police log tomorrow morning. The whole left-hand column dedicated to us.”

Fritz turned around to Willis. “I guess I have to tell you. Gene didn’t report the truck. He never called it in.”

Willis said, “It’s not stolen? Munro thinks different.”

“Munro’s a bull artist.”

“Are you saying Showalter’s letting you off?”

Holly ran the tap and took a drink of water.

Willis tried to sort it out. How many charades were happening at once?

Holly said, “Well, they’re still eyeballing
me.
”

Fritz said, “You love it.”

Holly said, “Dr. Kline says they have to come up with a probable-cause hearing or drop the whole thing. They know it was a heat gun, but they love the story about me and Jensen. They’re sickos!”

Fritz eyed her. His look implied that maybe it
was
her, maybe
she
had some of her pages stuck together.

“What are you staring at, Ichabod?” she said.

“Excuse me, Miss
Ho
-ly Temple,” Fritz said.

Willis ignored it. “I don’t want the truck here. When Rennie gets back, everything has to be square.”

“Square? Everything’s warped,” Holly said.

“Man himself invented the wheel,” Fritz said.

Willis pulled the palm of his hand down his face. He said, “Look, we weight the van, and it will roll right into the drink. It can stay there a few days until someone decides to find it. By then, Rennie’s in heaven.”

They looked at Willis.

“Shit. I know it’s happening. She’s suffering. I don’t have any control over it. It’s her jumping-off point that has to be secured.” Willis was already walking out the door. The rain was running through its list of options: a coy smattering, then a mist, then an impatient torrent, then again, a mist. The wind was roaring northeast and the halyard on the flagpole was pinging. He went into the shack and lifted Rennie’s old kiln with a great bit of difficulty. He immediately dropped it, jumping back so it wouldn’t get his boot. Fritz helped him lift the heavy stone-lined oven and they shoved it into the truck. Willis didn’t think that the kiln alone was going to do it. He went into the house and dialed Carl Smith. Willis reached Carl on his rusty tub, the
Tercel.

Willis said, “You know those barrels sitting out back at the Cranston Warehouse? The ones from Balfour? Those ones we stabilized with that concrete slurry mix? I need a couple of those.”

“Those are regulated.”

“Shit, those’ve been sitting there forgot-about for weeks.”

“You need them? For what?”

“Just do.”

“It’s Saturday. Now, why do I want to come off my boat and go to work?”

“I have to have a couple of those barrels, tonight,” Willis said directly.

“Need paperwork for that. You have your paperwork?”

“I have it.”

“What paperwork exactly?”

“The long green kind,” Willis said. “Winter kale.” Willis enjoyed bringing Rennie’s soup into it.

Carl Smith was chuckling. “That sounds right. Just why in the hell you want those barrels?”

“I need them over here. For a demonstration.”

“That’s a rope of sand,” Carl told him.

“All right, you think of something on your own.”

“Kale rhymes with jail,” Carl said. He clucked his tongue. “I’ll haul them for a buck and a half. Why not make that two bucks and some of those little footballs. I guess you have extra of those?”

Willis wrote three figures on a pad by the phone and showed it to Fritz. Fritz nodded that he had that much cash.

Willis confirmed the damage and concluded the ritual with Carl. Carl clicked off.

Fritz was staring at Willis, impressed. They walked outside and took the car to Easton Pond. They drove over the grasses a couple times, back and forth, to test the surface and squash the weeds down a little so they could roll the truck through at twenty miles an hour; that was their plan. What they couldn’t achieve by their wits and know-how they could achieve with a little acceleration. A flat speed of twenty or twenty-five miles an hour.

The little pram was still hidden behind the weeds, but
Willis noticed some fishing gear and crumpled juice packs in the bow. “You been fishing?” he asked Fritz.

Fritz shook his head.

“Kiddies found the
Crouton
.”

Fritz said, “Shit. This is my boat. This isn’t a childcraft moppet liner.” He crouched over the dinghy and collected the sticky juice containers, tossing them over his shoulder.

While the men were gone, Holly went back into the kitchen and pressed the lever on the waste can with her toe. She lifted the sausage out. She slapped it on a plate and sliced the meat into individual bites, bright greasy pennies which she ate with her fingers.

The light was going. The wind was stirring the empty branches until the treetops rolled in tight circles like wire whisks. Carl Smith steered into the drive in his pickup truck. Willis had expected to see the big Narragansett WASTEC trailer, but of course this was a private job, something between him and Carl Smith. They discussed business sitting side by side in the pickup cab. Willis gave him the cash and a twist-tie bag of Rennie’s morphine. Fritz lurked around in the driveway, looking jealous of their height over him. They brought him inside the cab to share a toot of crack. Fritz accepted, rubbing Carl’s lip prints from the stem before he took his turn.

Then Carl backed his truck into the doorway of the shack and used his block and tackle to lower the concrete barrels into the back of the InstyPrint van. When the first concrete cylinder went in, the van sank on its haunches and didn’t bounce back; the second slurry was a greater insult. The tailgate sagged and wobbled on its suspension until it steadied above the floor’s surface by only a few inches.

Carl Smith was shaking his head and laughing at the InstyPrint truck. “Looks like a tar baby,” he said.

“That’s what it is,” Willis said. “Our very own tar baby.”

Carl wanted to use the telephone and Willis said go ahead. He saw Carl was already organizing something else. When he was gone, Fritz complained. “Shit, that guy likes chasing the dragon. He’s a cry for help.”

“Carl’s Carl,” Willis said.

“He should dial 1-800-COCAINE.”

“Shit.”

“You know, 1-800-ALCOHOL. 1-800-COCAINE. 1-800-WHATEVER. He’s a cry for help if I ever saw it.”

At dark, Holly drove ahead of the men in the sedan and parked on Eustis Avenue, where she unfolded a paper napkin of linguica and continued to eat the delicious garlicky wheels of meat.

Fritz climbed into the van beside Willis and Willis backed the truck out of the shack. Willis worried that the tires might blow from the weight.

Fritz said, “The rims will hold. It’s just a half-mile to the pond. That is, unless you want to change your mind.”

Willis was feeling pretty positive about this end of the operation. There was no question that the truck was going to sink, they just had to get enough momentum to roll it past the shelf and into the deep. He looked at the gas gauge. The needle touched the red zone. “Shit, we’re on fumes,” he said.

“That’s enough, isn’t it?”

The windshield wipers couldn’t keep up with the rain and Willis was straining to see, but he felt fine. He felt that rare sensation after finalizing a homemade scheme; they were at the crest of it, and from there it was all downhill.

Willis told Fritz, “I’ll drop you with Holly. Wait in the car. No reason for both of us taking the bumps.”

“Point. I’m already sitting here. I’m riding with you,” Fritz said.

“I’m saying. Get out of the truck.”

Fritz stared at Willis. “I’m not sitting with her.”

“Shit. This is what it is. I’m going to come in fast from Memorial Boulevard. That’s a sharp turn. We’ll ride over the weeds, and gun it when we hit the bank. We need a bit of speed to blow it off the shelf. We’ll have plenty of time to climb out. Crack your window.”

Fritz unrolled his window so the water could wash in fast. The heavy slurries would pull the pond in without any help from them.

The radio was playing Stevie Wonder. “Yester-
me
. Yester-
you
. Yester-
day
.” They rode up and down Memorial Boulevard waiting for a window in the traffic. Behind the rain, oncoming headlights throbbed with oversized bulbs. The job would take all of one minute once the boulevard was clear, but the cars kept coming. Willis wondered about the gas. “Yester-
me.
Yester-
you.
Yester-
day
.” Finally, the road was empty and Willis steered off the shoulder and into the marsh grass; he accelerated over the humps of weeds. The radio was blaring and Fritz was hooting, “It’s the blind leading the blind—” Their wild laughter ascended as Willis steered the truck straight into the reservoir.

When the front wheels touched the bank, Willis crammed the gas pedal for a surge. The truck shot forward but never went airborne as Willis had hoped; it careened into the pond at an abrupt angle. Its nose plowed the watery wall. The truck tipped and went face first; the concrete barrels shifted and crashed into the bucket seat where Fritz sat.

The bucket tore off its rivets and pinned Fritz against the dash.

Willis saw the headlights illuminating the green murk as the water washed in over the doors, the wet night sluicing in both sides. The heavy nose of the truck continued sinking as the tail end rose up. Fritz was taking the weight of the concrete slurries and he screamed for Willis until his lungs couldn’t draw any breath.

Willis tried to push his friend loose from behind the barrels of blended cyanide and concrete. Fritz was pinned against the glove box. The barrels worked closer each time the truck was jostled by the changing water level.

Never before had Willis confronted a greater physical force than this. Not lightning nor hurricane, nothing like this dumb monster—weight. Perhaps it was the icy water; Willis felt paralyzed. He watched the scene unfold. He recognized a familiar sensation, the passive burden of the witness, that grim eternal duty, so difficult to shirk. Then Willis pulled himself out the window. He swam around to the other side. His cast drank up the pond water and a few bubbles escaped. He tugged open the passenger door. The cab was filling up and Fritz was burbling, then jerking his head back in panic. Willis could hear the radio speakers still grinding out the Stevie Wonder classic; its cockeyed refrain warbled through the cushion of water. By some weird fortune, the cab light had not yet shorted and Willis saw, in full detail, how his friend was crushed against the dashboard. The water was up to his collar. Fritz eyed Willis, following Willis with a helpless attention. It was the patient eye of a manatee or dolphin behind an aquarium window. It was as if Fritz accepted that they were in separate worlds, their fortunes on opposite sides.

Then Fritz’s eyes started to flutter. Willis talked to Fritz. “Federico,” he shouted. “Federico, look at me. Look at me. Stop dicking around—”

Fritz’s face turned pale and shocky. It went blank. His friend’s lost face triggered a final commitment from Willis. He swam away from the truck and stumbled up the bank. He looked for the
Crouton
, but it wasn’t where he thought. He thrashed the weeds, twisting at the waist, swiping his arms left and right through the silver grass until he found the dinghy. He seized the glossy oar from where Fritz had stowed it neatly under the bench; the oar felt like a toothpick. He waded back to the truck and tried to pry the barrels apart using as much leverage as he could get with the oar. He felt the cement cylinders shift a little, not enough to make a difference. The oar snapped. Willis took a breath and sank underwater. He leaned against the door jamb and kicked the barrel with his legs. His strength was cut in half in the heavy water; it was like kicking through a chain-mail curtain. He surfaced again and stood on the rocker panel of the sinking truck. He kept his hand under Fritz’s chin, keeping Fritz’s face steadied above an almost imperceptible swirling which signaled that the truck might still be settling.

He couldn’t tell if Fritz was breathing. Willis pressed his face to Fritz and tried to detect his struggle for oxygen. Fritz wasn’t relying any longer on an exchange of air. Willis made a production trying to administer mouth-to-mouth. His busy efforts seemed to awaken Fritz. Fritz came back and forth from that other territory. Back and forth from the
almost dead
to the
almost living.

Holly had seen what happened and had run up to a house to call Rescue. She came back to the car and stayed clear of the spectacle when the grassy bank lit up with floodlights and the optical tingle of emergency flashers. Men in slickers swarmed over the bank. Willis sat in the weeds, shell-shocked. Someone wrapped a white blanket
across his shoulders. In minutes, a team freed Fritz using a winch harness and boom on an Exxon tow truck. They brought Fritz on shore and stabilized his spine in a neck brace, then transferred him to a stretcher. Willis weaved back and forth beside his friend. He lifted Fritz’s hand, but the paramedics made Willis drop it. Holding Fritz’s hand could jar the spinal column. Willis was reluctant to obey the icy instruction to let go, as if his bond with Fritz might be irreparably severed.