Mark Gilleo - Sweat

The Sea Nurse never let him down.

It was a fifteen-minute ride to his favorite spot off the coast where he alternated days between snorkeling and spear fishing, depending on whether he wanted to catch the night’s dinner. The Cortez Reef area was one of the most beautiful on the island. Its status as a protected marine-life zone kept most of the tourist boats away. The restriction on boats in the protected area made it nearly impossible to get a permit, and the few who were lucky enough to have one tried to influence local powers to keep others from getting theirs.

The doctor spit in his mask and washed it around like fine wine in a glass. He jumped overboard and forced the water from his snorkel with one mighty blast. He checked his watch and set the bezel on his Rolex Submarine for forty minutes. He had to be at work in an hour. He held his breath and went under. ***

The two men on the stolen speedboat looked at the map again. The compass read due north and, according to their best guess, the Cortez Reef was nearby. They putted along carefully, trying to maintain an equal distance between the boat and the shore. The one thing they didn’t want to do was get lost. The driver knew boats. The navigator knew neither boats nor how to read a map. The chance of getting truly lost at sea was near zero, but running out of gas was a possibility. Their possession of the boat, and the dead body of its owner lying in the small hull, would be impossible to explain. The fewer people they had to interact with on the island, the better.

They had arrived the night before, stayed in a cheap hotel, and paid with cash. They had walked out of the hotel lobby down the street and caught a cab in front of the Hyatt. It was easier to be anonymous among the crowd at a hotel with three hundred rooms. But the major hotel chains asked for identification and that was something the men weren’t willing to flash around. Catching a cab from the busy hotel would at least provide another step of mystery for the police, should it be needed.

The good doctor swam without incident for thirty minutes. There was surprisingly little activity in the reef for a day with ideal weather conditions. He saw the usual assortment of reef inhabitants—triggerfish, clown fish, sea urchins, and crustacean representatives from every family. No octopi, no reef sharks, no moray eels. It was odd not to see the bigger fish, but every day was different, and the good doctor knew that no matter what he saw, a bad day spent on and below the water’s surface in a life-size aquarium was better than a great day on land.

The speedboat on the water above cut directly between the good doctor and The Sea Nurse . Tourists. As required, the doctor had marked his diving spot. On the surface of the water, four orange buoys bobbed on the calm sea. Not even a quiet corner of Saipan was insulated from the occasional asshole. The good doctor was willing to give twenty-to-one odds that the boat ignoring his safety was being driven by Americans or Australians—the two most offensive tourist nationalities on God’s green earth.

The doctor surfaced for air in the wake of the speedboat’s pass. He kicked his legs hard and propelled his body out of the water just enough to see the boat turn around. He waved his hands frantically in the air as the boat completed its turn and made a beeline for his position. He removed his mask and snorkel and waved them above his head, yelling at the top of his lungs. The driver of the speedboat glared ahead, pushed the accelerator forward, and gave no indication he was going to steer clear. The doctor wasn’t about to wait to see if the boat would change course. Without his snorkel or mask, he took a deep breath and dove. It was a hundred yards to The Sea Nurse , and he was going for it in one breath.

The good doctor heard the boat make one pass and then another. His lungs were on fire and his eyes burned as he headed toward the submersed white outline of the hull of The Sea Nurse . Twenty yards away, he knew he wasn’t going to make it. He stopped himself three feet below the surface and swiveled his head to the left and right. He saw nothing. He heard the muffled sound of the motor somewhere above and made a judgment decision. One more quick breath. He broke the surface of the water for the most oxygen-deprived breath of his life and gasped for air. The thud of the speeding boat against the side of the physician’s skull was the last sound the good doctor ever heard. ***

Peter Winthrop’s car pulled up to the curb and picked up his passengers. A large black man in a dark black suit got out from behind the wheel, introduced himself as Shawn, and shut the door behind his patrons as they settled in the back seat. Ten minutes later, Dana got out of the car, hit her head on the doorframe, and stumbled on her high heels.

“Cute girl,” the driver said to Jake in the back seat as they both watched Dana walk toward her apartment building’s entrance.

“You didn’t have to sit through dinner with her.”

“That bad?”

“Let’s just say that she was fine when she was chewing her food.”

The driver laughed. “Where to?”

“Twenty-Seventh Street NW. Two blocks from Nell’s Café.” The small restaurant was a mainstay for quick cheap meals and Jake was sure the driver knew where it was. “Have you been driving for my father long?”

“Off and on for a few years. Your father is one of a handful of regulars.”

“You see a lot of these black sedans for hire here in D.C.”

“Yes, you do. My company runs over fifty, but I would put the total number for the city around two thousand.”

“A lot of congressmen?” Jake asked.

“Yeah, sure. And a lot of lawyers, diplomats. Your father is the rare businessman.”

“What do you think of him?

“Who?”

“My father,” Jake answered. “And you can tell me how you really feel. I don’t know him that well to be honest, and I’m sort of trying to figure him out.”

“I don’t know if I can answer that question.”

“Sure you can.”

“Then let me rephrase it. I don’t know if I should answer that question.”

“I’ll make it easy on you. I’ll go first. My father ran out on my mother and me when I was too little to remember. From what I have seen, he is a both a schmoozer and a bully.”

The light at the intersection of Twenty-Fourth Street turned yellow, then red, and the car pulled to a halt. The driver looked over his shoulder at Jake in the back seat.

“Your father expects me to show up on time and drive him wherever he wants to go, without spilling his coffee on him or his newspaper. That is my official answer.”

“What is your unofficial answer, off the record?”

“Persistent, aren’t you?” the driver said with a smile.

“I’m just looking for some clues. I’m getting the idea of who my father is when I am around him, but you never know.”

“Okay, Jake. Off the record, your father is the moodiest person I have ever driven. You know, these days they have all these medical terms—bipolar, manic-depressive, chemically unbalanced, whatever. Some people are just mean and nasty until they need something, and then they are sweet as pie. Now, mind you, I’m just the driver, so our relationship consists of him sitting in the back seat and me driving. But I hear him on the phone, and drive him with his business acquaintances. This isn’t a limo, there’s no privacy window, so I hear it all. He can be nasty or sweet. And I know most of the time which it’s going to be before he even gets in the car.”

“Thanks for saying so.”

“I didn’t say anything, if you know what I mean.”

“I hear you.”

The car pulled up to the front of Jake’s mother’s house. The light from the kitchen cast a faint yellow hue into the living room.