Дональд Уэстлейк - Forever and a Death

I gave them, he thought, I’ll take them away. And with just as much pleasure, just as much skill, just as much efficiency , the buildings he had helped put up he would knock down again.

Until recently, when he visualized that destruction, the image in Curtis’s mind of the toppling skyscrapers was immediately supplanted by the image of the ancient bastards in Beijing, the shock and the fear on those age-lined pig-faces when they heard the news: someone has killed your golden goose. The image of those faces had been enough for him, could bring him a smile every time he thought of it.

But just in the last few days, he’d found himself, not willingly, thinking about the people inside the buildings. There would be no warning, merely a low rumble in the earth and then the buildings would go over like chainsawed trees. No escape.

Those people in the buildings weren’t his enemies. But he wasn’t going to worry about them. They’d made their choice when they’d decided to stay, after the bastards from the mainland took over. They could have gone away, almost every one of them could have gone away. They could have gone to Macao, or Malaysia; many could have gone to Singapore (as Curtis had), or Canada, or a dozen other places in the world. But they chose to stay, so what happened was on their own heads.

Still, now that he was thinking about it, it seemed to him, for a number of reasons, he would be better to make it happen at night. He’d always visualized it in daylight, in bright sun, the gleaming glass buildings as they went over, but that wasn’t necessary. He certainly wouldn’t be there to see it.

At night, it would be easier to make the collections.

It would be easier to get away without question. And, at night, the buildings would be nearly empty, all of the workers, the clerks, the bosses, all off to their bedrooms on the mainland, only a few left to feel the sudden sway as the floors shifted beneath them. It was their choice, it was not on Richard Curtis’s head; and yet, it was better to do it at night, when there would be fewer people in the buildings.

The island was very close now. The crewman at the wheel steered the launch forward slowly, cautiously, watching for coral. Curtis opened the leather case and took out the video camera, knowing Manville would be doing the same thing on the other boat.

When he looked back, Manville’s boat was already turning away to port. While Curtis circled the island to the right, Manville would circle it to the left, until they met on the far side. All the way, they would tape the island, showing its condition and the condition of the retaining wall.

Seen through the viewfinder of the camera, the island seemed smaller, and the light brown mud looked almost solid enough to walk on, though Curtis knew it was quicksand there now, it would eat anything it was given.

The launches moved slowly around the island, and the steersman next to Curtis gave a shout when he saw the second launch come around into view ahead of them. Curtis kept filming until his and Manville’s boats met, and then, in the bobbing water just offshore, they both put their cameras down and grinned across the peaceful water at one another. Manville made the A-OK signal, thumb and first finger in an O, and Curtis nodded.

They were almost alone now, on the sea. From here, the Mallory was hidden by the bulk of the island, and the environmentalists’ ship was still in full flight toward the horizon, merely a dark blotch on the ocean. Looking over at Manville, Curtis made a sweeping pointing gesture, to say they should go back around the island now and return to the ship. Manville nodded, and Curtis told the steersman, “We’ll head back now.” Then he turned to stow the camera away, as the launch put about.

It was the second crewman who saw it, part of the way back, a muted thing floating off to port, half-submerged in the slightly deeper water near where the other ship had stood. He called and pointed, and then Curtis and the steersman also saw it, and they veered that way, while Manville and the second launch waited on their original course.

It was the diver, face up, air hose still clamped in mouth, wetsuit zippered shut over body and head, leaving only that blue-gray face exposed.

It was a woman.

The air tanks were still attached to the body, underneath it as it bobbed in the water, making trouble when they tried to grab hold and haul her aboard.

While one crewman held an ankle and the other a wrist, Curtis bent over the launch’s side and managed to unhook the straps holding the air tanks in place.

They drifted free, silver, glistening, and Curtis yanked the air hose from the diver’s mouth and helped the two crewmen drag her up over the rail and into the bottom of the boat.

The body landed face down. Curtis went to one knee beside it, rolled it over, and unzipped the top part of the wetsuit, wondering if the diver carried ID. It would prove they had the body if they could radio the other ship the diver’s name.

The wetsuit’s head piece was peeled back, and ash blonde hair spilled out, not long but very curly. The face within that halo of hair was young, unlined.

Curtis leaned closer. Tiny droplets of blood seeped from the nostrils and the ears. Beneath the pale flesh of the throat, on the right side, a small bird fluttered. A pulse. She was alive.

“Damn,” Curtis said.

When Luther Rickendorf got back to their cabin with the two drinks, held in the big palm of his left hand, he thought at first that Jerry had fallen asleep, and was glad of it.

But then Jerry stirred on his bunk, having heard the door open, and rolled over. His face looked a mess, blotchy and drawn, the eyes still frantic. He blinked a lot, and stared at Luther as though he had no idea who Luther was.

“Here you are,” Luther said, and extended toward him the vodka and orange juice, keeping the plain club soda for himself.

Jerry propped himself up on the bunk, back against the bulkhead, and accepted the drink. He gulped some, spilling orange on his chin and T-shirt, then wiped his face with his free hand, looked less manically at Luther, and said, “Thank you.”

“The least I could do.”

“What’s that you’ve got?”

“White wine spritzer,” Luther lied. “To keep you company.”

The truth was, Luther had no desire and little liking for alcohol. He could not remember ever having felt the need to have his mood altered. He remained the same no matter what, an optimistic realist, and let the world swirl around him.

It was because of Jerry that he was aboard this ship, not like the others out of any conviction or sense of mission. Tall and blondly Teutonic, Luther had grown up in Munich, his father an industrialist in the new Germany. He had known he was gay from his early teens, and with his strong good looks had never had trouble finding partners. When his father learned about him, shortly after Luther’s seventeenth birthday, he had proved to be an enlightened parent, up to a point. He would still consider Luther his son, would support him as necessary and acknowledge him as needed, but only so long as Luther stayed out of Germany.

Luther’s exile began auspiciously. His father paid his tuition and expenses through three years to a bachelor of arts degree at Stanford University, in California. After that, with some financial help from home, he had become a ski instructor at Aspen for a few years, then had followed a lover from there who spent his summers as crew on the tourist sailing vessels in the Caribbean. He stayed when the ex-lover returned to the states, quickly became practiced around sail himself, met Jerry Diedrich one night in a bar on Anguilla, and his life as an environmental do-gooder began.