Jeff Abbott - Black Joint Point

‘Go see if your brother and his girlfriend are aboard or not,’ Alex said. ‘I’ll stay here with Danny.’ He knelt by Danny, steadied him by putting a hand on his chest. ‘It’s okay, man. Calm down.’

‘Oh, please,’ Danny said. ‘Don’t kill me.’

‘I won’t,’ Alex said. He glanced up at Stoney. ‘What the fuck are you waiting on?’

‘The guys that were with him…’ Stoney said. ‘They might be below.’

‘Are they, Danny?’ Alex asked.

‘No… no…’ Danny moaned. ‘They’re gone.’

‘Go ahead, Stoney. Do some constructive work,’ Alex said. And he motioned with his gun.

Stoney swallowed and hurried belowdecks. He checked the galley, a small stateroom, an empty head.

‘Ben buddy? Claudia?’ Stoney called in a low voice at the stateroom. ‘It’s okay. It’s over.’

He unlocked the door, pushed it open with his fingertips.

He saw the loops of cut rope, the broken mirror, the open porthole. Someone had been here, someone was gone now. He looked out the porthole to see if maybe Ben or Claudia was swimming away right now, but the water in the little cove was empty.

Stoney went back up to the deck. Blood still pulsed from Danny’s shoulder, Alex kneeling by him.

‘No one’s there. Someone was tied up but they cut themselves loose and must’ve jumped ship.’

‘Claudia,’ Danny said. ‘I had… Claudia. I didn’t hurt her.’

‘What did you tell her, Danny?’ Alex asked.

Danny blinked. ‘Tell her… nothing. She doesn’t know anything.’ He winced as he moved.

‘Where’s Ben?’ Alex asked.

‘Gar tried to rape Claudia. Asshole. I shot him, dumped his body overboard. Zack… took off with the other boat. With Ben aboard.’

‘You know who he’s talking about?’ Alex asked.

‘I don’t know any Gar or Zack,’ Stoney said.

‘Okay,’ Alex said. His voice went gentle. ‘Danny, who else knows about the treasure?’

‘No… one. I didn’t tell. Just wanted what was mine.’

‘That’s why you didn’t tell the cops who you thought murdered your cousin. You didn’t want anything getting in the way of you getting the Eye. You were gonna dig up illegal, same as us.’

‘Where is my brother, you asshole?’ Stoney demanded.

‘I don’t know. After you wouldn’t transfer the money, it all went south.’ Danny closed his eyes, opened them. ‘It hurts.’

‘I know.’

‘Please don’t kill me,’ Danny said.

‘I promised I wouldn’t,’ Alex said. He stood, offered the gun to Stoney. ‘You do it.’

‘What?’ Stoney said.

‘Your turn. I’ve done all the risky work. You’ve stolen from me, lied to me. He’s your problem.’

‘Um, really, no, that’s okay. You do it.’ Stoney took a step back.

‘If you don’t shoot him, I’ll shoot you.’

Stoney gulped. ‘Then you won’t get the Eye.’

‘I don’t think it’s on your boat, buddy. I think that’s a little lie you cooked up so I’d stick around to clean up your mess. You wouldn’t let your brother take off on your boat if the Eye was on board. I know you.’ He smiled. ‘Last night I evened the playing field. Moved the rest of the treasure while you slept on your fat ass.’

Stoney stared. ‘You couldn’t have.’

‘Oh, but I did,’ Alex said. ‘Shoot him.’

‘Please, no,’ Danny said. ‘You can’t. I’m a Laffite.’

‘No, you’re not,’ Alex said.

‘Fuck you, I am!’ Danny screamed.

‘I won’t,’ Stoney said.

Alex aimed. ‘Kidneys or heart? Your choice, Stoney. I’d pick heart if I were you.’

‘Yeah, shoot him,’ Danny said. ‘He’s the asshole…’

Stoney took the gun from Alex – he thought it would be heavy, but it was light as air – and pointed it at Danny, who started to scream.

I can’t, Stoney thought. Then the gun pulsed and the top of Danny’s head blew off, sending a red spray across the deck.

Danny stared up at him, eyes full of dismay and surprise, drops of blood clouding the irises.

‘There. Not so hard, was it?’ Alex said, like he was giving back a test with a B plus when a failing grade had been expected.

Stoney thought, Now shoot Alex. Do it. Just do it and all this is over. But he thought of the rest of the treasure, the hundreds of silver and gold coins, and he handed the gun back to Alex without a word.

‘Now. We got two problems. The girlfriend, maybe he killed her.’

‘I don’t think so. I think she got away.’

‘So she’s out in the bay. Creates new risk, man. Changes everything. We gotta hurry. I need your help.’

‘I…’ Stoney stared down at the body. ‘I just killed a man.’ He thought his knees would go weak, he’d vomit. Nothing. He waited for his hands to start shaking but now he felt pretty good. ‘If Claudia knows what Danny knew…’

‘If she’s out drowning in the Gulf, she may not be a problem,’ Alex said.

‘My brother… maybe we should go look for him. Take Danny’s boat and-’

‘No. Not much we can do there. Ben’s either dead by now or they’ll contact us. We got to deal with the problem at hand. Help me below.’

In ten minutes it was done. The deck hosed, the bilges partially opened, the pumps undone, the engines going full steam, Miss Catherine headed back into the bay. She’d be sunk in a few minutes, into the deeper reach of the bay, but probably not entirely submerged. But a mess, without a body.

They wrapped Danny Laffite in double-thick garbage bags, like a giant plastic burrito. Alex taped the ends closed, neat as Christmas wrapping. They put him in the back of the van, locked up the house, climbed into the car.

‘Stoney?’ Alex said. ‘Take a good look at Danny here. You try to fuck me over, you’re burrito boy, the sequel.’

But I’m like you. I’ve killed a man now, Stoney thought, and suddenly I’m not so scared of you. Because I have the Eye, the trump card, and maybe you’re gonna be the next burrito.

But he played safe. ‘I understand you completely, Alex.’

‘You got a good idea where to dump him?’

Stoney nodded. They both sat into the van and roared away from Copano Flats, down the dirt and oyster-shell road.

‘Now,’ Alex said. ‘I got a new plan. Just in case this Claudia shows up.’

Miss Catherine, never a proud ship, sputtered and gushed down into the muddy bottom of St Leo Bay, in a fairly shallow twenty feet. Water poured in, flooding the belowdecks, covering the bed where Gar died, the shattered glass that Claudia used to cut herself free. Miss Catherine tilted hard to port as she sank and the back stateroom flooded entirely, including the armoire holding the photocopied excerpt of John Fanning’s journal that Danny had showed to Claudia. The seawater covered the paper as the armoire canted over, smashed through the closet doors, and rested on its side. Little spot croakers and hardhead catfish swam down the stairs and through the portholes and began exploring this new world.

‘Whit,’ said Gooch. ‘I’d like you to meet Helen Dupuy.’ Gooch, back earlier than Whit thought he’d be, by one in the afternoon on Friday, stood in Whit’s courtroom as the last juvenile case wrapped up and a boy, chronically truant, and his embarrassed-to-the-bone parents left.

Whit still was in his robe, sitting at the bench. Gooch had an arm around a young woman, a slight thing, hair a little too frizzed, a hard, worn look to her, but pretty if maybe she ate a little more, slept a little more. Wearing faded jeans and an old blue T-shirt with a little rip in the shoulder that needed mending.

‘Hello, Helen,’ Whit said. ‘I’m Whit Mosley.’ He shook her hand.

They were alone now in the courtroom, Gooch biting his lip, Helen looking like she didn’t know why she was here.