Christopher Buckley - Wet Work

Charley gripped his line and seated himself on the railing. Felix sat beside him.

"One, two, three." Felix pushed the raft overboard and jumped in.

The CO 2canister inflated the raft in seconds. Felix pulled himself aboard. By the time he'd climbed on, he was fifty yards downstream of Esmeralda . He could not see Charley waving to him from the deck, hear him call out, " Vaya con Dios , my old and good friend."

" Billonario , come in."

The fire was eating the boat. There was no more time. Rafi was on his way from Yenan with two more boats. The helicopter would take off at first light, but by then the boat would be a charred hulk, and the Manet… the Manet. How could the billonario have been so arrogant?

Gomez had taken command of Virgilio's boat. He signaled him over.

As it approached, he saw Virgilio's legs protruding from underneath a rubber poncho they had spread over him. They had covered him, not out of respect, but for morale.

He said to Gomez, "Take your men and go aboard and put out the fire."

Gomez looked at the flaming yacht on the mudbank. "But, Niño, what if they're still alive?"

"Then kill them."

"Maybe we should wait until dawn."

"By dawn it will be burned, Gomez!"

"So?"

"Gomez, there is gold on board. Bars of gold. Do you want it all to melt?"

" Pues… no, Niño, but, with respect, it's too dangerous. The sniper may still be alive. Let's wait for the boats and the helicopter."

"Gomez, you are dismissed. Pitu, take the wheel from that coward. Go and put out the fire."

"With respect, Niño, Gomez is right."

"You disgust me, all of you. Put Virgilio's body in my boat. I will not have him carried in a boat of cowards."

They put Virgilio aboard.

" Billonario , answer. We have to put out the fire. Neither of us wants the Manet to burn."

"Mohney?" Pitu said to Gomez.

"Manet?" Charley sat on a litter of Plexiglas crumbs in the bridge. The fine rectangular leather case lay opened in front of him, the finely engraved barrel and stock in two pieces on his lap. He fit them together and snapped them gently shut, then opened them and chambered two rounds of twelve-gauge double-ought buck. He could just hear his gunsmith. "Double-ought, sir? In the Purdys?"

" Billonario , we can't let the Manet burn."

How in hell did he know about the Manet? The pain in his head worsened. He took a light swig of whiskey and morphine. Manet? Had Gallardo told him? Was he on his payroll? Did everyone in the country work for the sumbitch? He reached for the hand mike.

"This is Esmeralda ."

"Thank God, billonario . Are you all right?"

"Fine. Fine."

"Your ship is burning."

"I noticed."

"I want to help you put it out."

"Thanks, but you been enough help already."

"Is the Manet safe?"

Charley remembered Sanchez saying something during the interrogation about a room he had in the white house with paintings. Where he kept the surface-to-air missiles seemed more important at the time.

He opened the cabinet behind the wheel and rummaged through boxes.

"You and your men come out on deck. We will not shoot. You have my word."

"Son, you're a drug dealer. Your word just ain't enough."

"It was you who violated our last cease-fire, billonario . You killed a good man."

Charley found what he was looking for.

"Why you so hot for Manet?"

"Because he was the first modern artist with a social conscience. Because he told the bourgeoisie to fuck themselves. Because he was magnificent. What a question, billonario ."

"What else you like about him?"

He's delaying. While the cabron with the elephant gun prepares to blow my brains out.

He crouched low in his seat. The men in his boat kept slipping in Virgilio's and Eusebio's blood. It was a mess back there, and not good for morale.

He said to them, "I need one brave man." No one spoke up. "Are you all women? Is there not one man aboard with balls between his legs instead of a tampon string?"

" Pues, si , Niño." It was Cacho.

"Bravo, Cacho. Take my pistol. I'll maneuver directly upstream of the yacht. All you have to do is float downstream to it. Get on the mudbank. Then get aboard. Go to the bridge. I'll keep him talking on the radio."

"What then, Niño?"

Cacho was a bit stupid. But this was why he was volunteering.

"Shoot him, Cacho. With the pistol."

" Bueno. " Cacho began to strip.

"Cacho?"

" Si , Niño."

"Wound him. Don't kill him."

He went over the side. He turned to the other men. "Aren't you ashamed?"

"But, Niño, we can't swim."

" Billonario , are you there?"

The blade of Charley's penknife hovered over the stick of HMX. Charley calculated: if a foot of HMX was enough to blow apart an I beam or leave a thirty-foot-wide-by-twenty-deep crater in the ground, two inches ought to do it. Say, four inches. He cut off the piece and rolled it on the floor to flatten it, then pressed it onto his palm with the heel of his other hand, reminding himself of an old Mexican woman making a tortilla. That done, he took a nitro chip from its box and pressed that into the doughy tortilla.

The detonator was about the size of a pack of Camels, with a stubby, rubberized antenna and six safety switches. With HMX, redundancy in safeties made sense. In the center was a red button shielded by a hinged lid.

"I don't want to fire another RPG, billonario . Come out onto the deck with your men."

"My men are all dead." He put the tortilla and det box in a pocket and took a portable hand-unit radio out of its cradle and switched it to Channel 68.

He stood up. The pain shot through his head like a high-velocity bullet. He took one more pull of whiskey and morphine and set off on all fours like an old doggy.

It was a trick Tasha used to pull on the farm when she didn't want to come back to the house. He keyed the "talk" button and put his lips to the microphone and went: "PSSSSSSSSHHHT Esmeralda here PSSSSSSHT."

"Come in, billonario ."

"PSHHHHHHHH breaking up, switching to Channel PSHHHHHH."

He reached the main salon. The fire had worked its way forward past the settee. The air was acrid from flame-retardant Naugahyde, the carpet felt soaked beneath his hands, and he dog-walked toward the stairs by the shattered Normandie gold-glass panels. He looked to his left as he went and saw Augustus John, third Earl of Bristol, melting in sizzling droplets of Gainsborough gray.

He started up the stairs. He felt something sharp and painful in his hands. He raised them and saw they were covered with hundreds of splinters of gold glass from the Normandie panels. There was no time to remove them. He continued painfully on up the stairs.

He reached the top. Carpet gave way to teak. He looked down and saw he was leaving bloody palm prints behind him, palm prints flecked with bits of gold. He crawled behind the marble bar and leaned against the wall and gasped.

" Billonario , are you there?"

"PSSSHHHHT I can't make PSSSSHHHHT."

It sounded like running water.

"What are you doing?" he said to his men. They were standing up, pissing over the side.

"The radio noise, Niño, it's making us piss."

"Put those back in your pants or I'll shoot them off."

"But, Niño, we don't want to piss on Eusebio and Virgilio…"

His palms flowed blood from a hundred small wounds. He dried them as best he could on a towel. He stood and gripped the frame of the Manet with both hands and pulled it off the wall. He sat down and put it on his lap, took out the HMX tortilla and pressed it onto the back of the painting. He stood up and replaced it on the wall and collapsed back onto the deck. The only bottle within reach was Pernod. He took a long swallow.