Jeff Lindsay - Double Dexter

Crowley staggered sideways under this unexpected onslaught, grunting with pain and taking one hand from my throat to wipe at his eyes, and as the pressure on my throat let up, a small trickle of light seeped back into my brain. I put both hands on the fingers remaining on my throat and I pried up hard. I heard one finger snap, and Crowley made a weird gargling noise and let go of me. Astor kicked his crotch again, and he took a drunken half step away from her and slouched over the railing.

And I, never one to waste an opportunity, hurtled forward and put my shoulder into him. He went right over, and there was an ugly thud-splash as he hit the gunwale below us and then flopped into the water.

I looked over the side. Crowley was bobbing in the water facedown, drifting slowly past us as the boat moved forward at idle speed.

Astor stood beside me, looking at Crowley as he bobbed away into our wake. Asshole, she said again. Then she gave me a wonderfully fake smile and said sweetly, Is it okay to use that word, Dexter?

I put an arm around her shoulders. This time, I said, I think it s okay.

But she stiffened and lifted her arm to point. He s moving, she said, and I turned to look.

Crowley had raised his head up out of the water. He was coughing, and there was a trickle of blood running down his face, but he paddled feebly away across the channel toward a nearby sandbar. He was still alive after Astor and I beat him, kicked him, broke his hand, flung him from the bridge, drowned him, and even sprayed him with soda, he was still alive. I wondered if he was related to Rasputin.

I took the wheel of the boat and spun us around to point back to where Crowley was dog-paddling steadily toward safety and escape.

Think you can drive this thing? I asked Astor.

She gave me a look that very clearly said, Duh. Totally, she said.

Take the wheel, I told her. Steer real close to him, slow and steady, and don t run into the sandbar.

Like I would, she said. She took the wheel from me and I hurried down the ladder.

In the cockpit the old man had straightened up into a sitting position, and his moaning had gotten louder. Clearly he would be no help at all. More interesting, however, was that there was a boat hook beside him in a set of clamps. I pried it out and hefted it: about ten feet long, with a heavy metal tip. Just the thing. I could smack Crowley in the temple with the tip, then hook his shirt with it and hold his head under for a minute or two, and that really should be an end to it.

I stepped over to the railing. He was in the water right ahead of us, thirty feet away, and as I raised the boat hook in preparation, the boat s motors suddenly roared up the scale and we surged forward. I stumbled back and grabbed at the transom, regaining my balance just in time to hear something thump against the hull. The engines wound back down to idle and I looked up at Astor on the bridge. She was smiling, a real smile this time, and looking back into our wake.

Got him, she said.

I went back to the transom and looked. For a moment there was no sign of Crowley, and I could not see under the water in the foam of our wake. Then there was a slow, heavy swirl under the surface. Was it possible? Was he still alive?

And with breathtaking speed and violence, Crowley s head and shoulders broke the surface. His mouth was stretched into an enormous expression of unbelievable pain and surprise as he rocketed upward until the top half of his body was all the way out of the water. But there was an alien shape clamped around his middle and thrusting him upward, a colossal gray thing that seemed to be all teeth and malice, and it shook him with incredible force: once, twice, and then Crowley simply fell over from the waist, sliced neatly in two, and the top half of his body sank from sight and the gigantic gray thing swirled after him into the deep, leaving nothing but a small red whirlpool and the memory of unbelievably savage power.

It had all happened so fast that I couldn t be sure I had really seen it. But the image of that great gray monster was burned into my brain as if it had been etched there with acid, and the foam in our wake had a faint pink tint to it now. It had happened, and Crowley was gone.

What was that? Astor said.

That, I said, was the Channel Hog.

Sweeeet, she said, drawing out the word. Totally. Flippin. Sweeeeeeet.

As it happened, the old man in the cockpit helped out a great deal after all. He had apparently broken his collarbone when Crowley rolled him off the bridge, and even better, he was an extremely rich and important old man, who did not mind making himself the center of attention and letting everyone know that he was a very influential person, and demanding that everyone in the immediate vicinity drop whatever they were doing and focus on giving him their absolute and devoted care.

He yelled in pain, and raved about the madman who had savagely attacked him and stolen his boat, threatening to sue the parks department, pausing only to point at me and say, If not for that brave, wonderful man! which I thought hit just the right note and made the whole crowd look at me with admiration. But they didn t look long, because the important old man was far from done. He hollered for morphine and an airlift and ordered the rangers to secure his boat at once and call his attorney, and he made vague threats involving the legislature or even the governor, who was a personal friend, and he made himself completely, rivetingly annoying. Altogether he turned himself into such a perfect spectacle that nobody even noticed his female companion, who was standing there wrapped in a towel to hide the fact that she was naked except for her bikini top.

And nobody noticed when that brave wonderful man, Darling Dashing Dexter, took his two wayward imps by the hand and led them away from the hurly-burly and back to the relative calm and sanity of Key West.

When we got to our hotel, we were informed that our suite was still sealed by order of the police. I should have anticipated that. I had sealed enough crime scenes myself. But as I was about to sink wearily onto the cold marble floor and weep away my life of care, the desk clerk reassured me that they had moved us to an even nicer suite, one that had an actual view of the water. And just to confirm that at last everything had turned around and living was once more worth all the trouble and mess, she went on to inform me that the manager was so deeply sorry for all the unpleasantness that he had refunded our entire deposit, thrown away our bill, and hoped we would accept a complimentary dinner in the restaurant, beverages not included, which was not meant to suggest that the hotel or its staff and management were in any way responsible for the unfortunate accident, and the manager was sure we would agree and enjoy the rest of our stay, which was extended an extra night, too, and if I would only sign one small piece of paper acknowledging that the resort had no liability?

Suddenly I was very tired. And yet, with the fatigue came an unreasonable sense of well-being, a vague suggestion burbling up around the edges that the worst really was over and everything was actually going to be all right. I had been through so much, and failed miserably at dealing with most of it, and yet I was still here, all in one piece. In spite of my terrible performance and my unquestionable iniquity, I was being rewarded with dinner and a free vacation in a luxury suite. Life really was a wicked, awful, unjust thing, and that was exactly as it should be.

So I gave the clerk my very best smile and said, Throw in banana splits for the kids and a bottle of merlot for my wife, and you ve got a deal.

Rita was waiting for us in our new improved suite. It really did have a wonderful view of the harbor, and it was much easier for me to appreciate the postcard prettiness of the water than it had been just a few hours ago, when I stood on the dock and watched the catamaran pull away. Rita had apparently been enjoying the view from the balcony for some time even more so since she d opened the minibar and mixed herself a Cuba Libre. She jumped to her feet when we came in and rushed over to us, fluttering like the absolute Avatar of Dither.