Paul Levine - Trial and Error

And there was Grisby, closing the distance on the Jet Ski, swinging the shotgun off his shoulder.

Bobby rubbed Misty near her blowhole as they neared the gate. Shouting now. “Jump! Jump, Misty! Jump!”

The dolphin launched herself out of the water, Bobby hanging on to her dorsal fin, like a cowboy on a bucking bronco.

Grisby lifted the shotgun. He aimed it squarely in the middle of Bobby’s back.

Steve reached the embankment, and launched himself toward Grisby.

Grisby sensed the movement and swung the shotgun from the hip, as if intending to drop a grouse from the sky. Before he could pull the trigger, Spunky blasted from beneath the water, and smacked Grisby flush across the face with his powerful fluke. Grisby’s neck shot back with an audible crack, and he tumbled off the Jet Ski. Steve belly-flopped into the water. Next to him, Grisby floated on his back, his eyes open, but his face expressionless.

Misty cleared the gate, sailing over the razor wire with room to spare. Bobby tumbled over Misty’s dorsal fin, landing face-first in the water. Spunky leapt the gate a moment later and joined them in the open Bay.

“Come back here, kid!”

It was Cowboy Boots, on the embankment, pointing a handgun into the darkness of the Bay. The larger man was alongside. They’d ridden a golf cart along the path to the gate.

“Keep going, Bobby!” Steve shouted, treading water in the channel.

“Shoot the lawyer!” the larger man ordered.

Cowboy Boots fired two rounds into the water in Steve’s direction. “Get those animals to come back, kid. If you don’t, I’ll kill your uncle.”

“Drop that gun,” a woman’s voice ordered, “or I’ll put a hole in the back of your stupid head.”

Cowboy Boots didn’t move. He didn’t drop the gun, either.

“She’ll do it,” Steve said, treading water. “She’s shot lots of stupid men.”

Cowboy Boots seemed to think it over.

Victoria pulled back the hammer on her state-issued.38. An ominous click.

Cowboy Boots dropped his handgun.

“Turn around slowly, both of you,” Victoria ordered.

The men did as they were told. Suddenly, the bigger man reached behind his back and pulled something out of his waistband.

A second gun.

Victoria fired.

The round zinged by the big man’s head, and he dropped the gun, along with what smelled suspiciously like a load in his pants.

Above them, the chockety-chock of engines. A helicopter descended; a powerful searchlight swept the channel and the embankment. A sharpshooter with a scoped rifle leaned out the open door. Next to him, FBI Agent Constance Parsons yelled into a bullhorn: “Everyone freeze!”

It took hours. There were stories to tell and retell to dozens of cops, investigators, and agents.

City of Miami. Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office. FBI. U.S. Marshal. Village of Key Biscayne, highly useful for directing traffic on the causeway.

Cop cars, flashing lights, crackling radios. Photographers, Forensics guys and gals, and a camera crew from Channel 4. No one from the Miami Herald was there, the newspaper having cut its staff so severely, it now took a triple homicide or Fidel Castro’s gallbladder to make it into the paper.

Three paramedics vehicles came to the park, but they only needed one. Wade Grisby was loaded onto a backboard, his neck packed in ice. The ambulance whisked him off to Jackson Memorial, Steve hearing whispers of “broken neck” and “paralysis.”

Bobby refused to come out of the water until a cop paddled over in an inflatable and used a tire iron to break the lock on the channel gate. The cop swung the gate open, Bobby click-clack ed some message to Spunky and Misty, who headed back up the channel, the cop closing the gate behind them.

Ray Pincher relieved Victoria of her gun, telling her that in the half century Assistant State Attorneys had been issued handguns, none had ever been fired at a suspect. Victoria asked if she’d done anything wrong. No, Pincher told her. But he was still taking the gun. The case against Nash would be dismissed and her duties would officially end at five P.M. Monday.

The two guys turned out to be Larry Vollman, who now needed a change of underwear, and Richard Zinn, Mr. Cowboy Boots. They ran Wellfleet Investigations, which, though buried under two or three layers of corporate paperwork, was a distant cousin of Hardcastle Energy Services. After three cups of coffee and a flashlight beam in the face, they yapped for an hour.

“We didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Sanders told us we had a deal to buy the dolphins from Grisby.”

“It had to look like an animal rights raid, but that was none of our business.”

“We just do what Hardcastle tells us.”

“Sure, we’ll give you our boss’s name, and anything else you need.”

Paramedics wrapped Steve and Bobby in blankets, checked their vital signs, and pronounced them healthy. Bobby talked up a storm to Agent Parsons, asking what would happen to Spunky and Misty. She promised to look into it.

“Not good enough,” Steve said.

“I beg your pardon.” Agent Parsons’ tone was not begging in the least.

“You’re too busy. You’ll never get around to it.”

“Maybe not today, but-”

“The dolphins have to be fed. They have to be cared for. We know a place in Key Largo with great facilities. They bring in kids from hospitals to swim with the dolphins. I can have the owners up here in twelve hours.”

“Then what do you need from me?”

“I just don’t want some U.S. Marshal blocking our way, claiming those dolphins are evidence or government property or whatever bullshit red tape they come up with.”

“I’ll get the clearance you need in the morning. Fair enough?”

“Deal.”

Around dawn, a lunch truck pulled up. One of the chrome-paneled wagons that service construction sites. Sandwiches, chips, and sodas were passed around.

Steve’s cell phone was water-logged, so he borrowed Victoria’s phone, and with Ray Pincher’s help, he got through to the jail.

“Your lawyer wants to talk to you, but first I gotta apologize,” Pincher said when Gerald Nash was on the line. “I’m sorry I charged you with murder. But you’re still a horse’s ass, and so’s your old man.”

The apology apparently having been accepted, Pincher cracked his knuckles and handed Steve the phone.

“Good news, Gerald,” Steve told him. “They’re gonna let you out in a couple hours, so I want to wish you good luck.”

“Thanks, man. You’ve been great.”

“Ordinarily, I’d come over there, help you with the paperwork, but I’ve got a prior commitment. So if it’s okay with you…”

“That’s cool, Solomon.”

“You have any plans, Gerald?”

“Heading to Denmark, as soon as I can.”

“Denmark?”

“Most of the world’s mink farms are there. There’s work to be done.”

“You take care, Gerald.”

“Say, is Passion with you?”

“Agent Parsons? Yeah, but she’s kind of busy right now.”

“Tell her I don’t hold grudges. If she wants to go to Denmark…”

Steve said good-bye and checked on Bobby, who was still yakking with any cop who was interested. Victoria came by, wrapped her arms around Steve, and whispered, “You were right this time, lover.”

“Wild guess about Grisby. His story never felt right. I’m just happy we saved Bobby’s pals.”

“What about going up against me in court? You seem to enjoy pulling my chain.”

“Well, it does rev my engine. Speaking of which, do you realize how long it’s been since we…?”