Chapter Fourteen

Fourteen

Jerry’s phone vibrated across the top of his desk sounding like the warning of a reptile. The tiny mechanism inside propelled it in a half circle with each alert. He watched it come to life and die again from his supine position, sunken deep into the buttery softness of the leather couch and waited for the drop in the bucket ping that signaled a voice mail had been left.

The windowless office was dark, illuminated solely by a goose neck lamp arched over the drinks trolley; it could be any time from 10 am to 4 pm he thought as he finished off another glass of whiskey and set the empty cut crystal tumbler on the cork floor. He hadn’t been home in four days and that was just a stop in for fresh clothes and mail. He was more or less living here in his basement office and had been since the night of his daughter’s murder months before. True he spent the evening meeting and greeting upstairs in the bar and restaurant but he remembered little of what he said or did by that time and the receipts reflected this.

He had been totally neglecting his main business, his birthright; the company his grandfather had built from nothing and his father expanded over five decades and which he had been gutting for two in order to pay for his own bad decisions. He was a poor businessman that was for sure, even his restaurant, for all its seeming success, hemorrhaged money. Money that had been coming from Air Port Cartage and from now on would come from where?

He sat up and took the framed photo of Jenny, tilting it in his hand so that it caught the light. Sweet Jenny Whitman, 17 years old, had beamed like the glow of a candle in a dark world. With a smile that never failed to ease his day no matter how hard it was. Murdered like a rodent in a back alley. Defiled and mutilated by animals not fit to breathe the same air as she. He held the photo in his lap and sobbed as he had almost every day since they found her, drunkenly and without restraint.

Later when he had showered and dressed, preparing for his evening role as host, he checked his voice mails and found that almost all of them were from creditors except the last from his office at APC.

‘Hi, Jer, its Linda, we gotta crate here for Lon. It’s from Thailand? I was wondering if you knew when he was coming back or what’s going on with him? Gives a call, we miss seeing you 'round the office.’

‘I don’t miss seeing you.’ Jerry mumbled as he hit return call and waited wondering if anyone would still be there.

‘APC’, Linda picked up

‘Hey honey it's Jerry, got your message.’

‘Hi Jer, good to hear from you, you know we don’t see much of you around here lately.’

‘Yeah I know, busy, busy, busy, so a crate from Thailand uh?’

‘Sure it’s here, is it for you? I mean it’s got Lonny’s name on it and I thought what-a he do get one of them mail order brides from over there? Huh.’

‘That sounds like Lonny. No its got his name on it cause I wanted him to deliver it, that’s how long ago since I ordered it. No, its just some gear for the boat. Is anyone around, anyone coming in late?’

‘I don’t know, I can go out and look but you know none of these guys tells us nothing. They don’t never answer their phones, you can’t reschedule them or nothing, the whole place is going to hell Jer.’

‘I know it, I wish there was something I could do about it. If anyone’s still around tell them there’s a hundred cash for anyone who’ll bring the crate over to the docks this evening. Call me back on this OK?’

‘I’ll try, but you know most’a these guys don’t really speak English, I mean not much.’

‘All right let me know.’

‘So when you gonna' come around Jer, lots of mail piling up, lots of paper work and everything, things getting out of hand.’

‘Ok, I hear you, gotta go but let me know about that, see ya soon.’

He hung up before she could go on. He didn’t want to hear it. What could you expect when you fired your entire labor force and replaced them with identical looking square heads from some former communist hell hole at half the wages? Not one of them was the equal of the drivers he had before and they were just run of the mill mooks to begin with but he hadn’t had a choice. He got in bed with Russian money and that was that. He should be the one complaining the most as he was promised 10% right out of each of their checks, but of course that never materialized.

He was no stranger to dealing with the mob. He had grown up with wise guys around, put the words air and transport together and you attract that kind of scum no matter where. His dad did business with them for forty years and though they were cut throats and chiselers at least they spoke your language and once you struck a deal with them they usually kept up their end. The Russians though were different, no sense of fairness, no give and take – only take. They saw themselves wholly as outsiders. Jerry was American, they were Russians and when he ran afoul of them they had gutted him right to the spine.

He sat at his desk and drank one more whiskey to steady himself for the after work meet and greet. The bar would start filling up by 5:30 and he was expected to glad hand all the regulars. The local elite; ordering martinis or Pinot and discussing deals to increase their fortunes. Some of the old timers would already be there drinking beers, watching whatever game happened to be playing on the T.V.’s that he had once refused to put in, they destroyed the ambiance he had wanted for the place, but were demanded by all and he so he finally gave into the costumer's wishes to stare dumbly at the silent glowing boxes.

The crate from Thailand could only be one thing. It was amazing that Lonny had done his job, and more, the kidnapping was in the papers. Killed the kid, Ed and some cops and then disappeared with the ransom. That was incredible. But now he had sent a souvenir, proof of the deed done as well. It was like he had unleashed a monster sending him over there.

Of course there was a hitch to it all. Lonny could some day reappear maybe, and hold his feet to the fire. He must have enough evidence to get Jerry sent away for life.

He left his office and walked into the store room where he snagged a bottle of Black Bush and climbed the stairs to the kitchen which was stoked to full per-dinner rush. A deafening clatter of open flame and crashing stainless steel and shouted Spanish echoed around the crowded room, the wet heat and rich cooking smells were a barrier he had to force himself through.

It had been his normal routine to have a quick chat with the chef, learn what the night’s specials were. To find out what they needed to push on the floor but recently he just stalked through, creating suspicious silence among the illegal staff in his wake.

The dynamic had become too complicated in the aftermath of Jenny’s death. Two bus boys went upstate for life and all the rest of the kitchen staff had been shit canned except the chef who threatened to quit in protest. Jerry fantasized about that moment now. When the chef whined about their team, how they were a family, of beating the flippant piss-ant to death. Standing up for a crew of wet backs who had protected the murderers of his daughter. He saw himself bashing the man’s head on the hot grill, sending his brains sizzling across the expanse of the oily bed. Of course when it came down to it the chef stayed and trained the new crew, his outrage not quite piqued enough to go and try for a new job in the recession market.

He went through the saloon doors into the end of the bar. The bartenders moved around the long elbow bend of mahogany that faced the entrance in crisp white shirts and black pants. Maroon aprons, the bar's Cuttlefish logo stitched on the front, cinched at the waist. The first costumers of the evening , two men and two women sat facing each other across the crook. The women with wine, the men with beers, no one Jerry knew, or at least that he needed to remember.

He handed the bottle of Black Bush to Craig his head bar tender who understood that it was private stock not to be rung up. Jerry wondered what kind of night it would be; recently they had all been full bottle nights; if not more.

‘What’s happening so far?’ Jerry asked Craig.

‘Not much, still early, we won’t see the crowd for another thirty, forty minutes. The bar’s stocked, the tables are set, everyone’s here.’

‘What were the receipts last night?’

Craig nodded, but his face showed they were sub-par.

‘I guess the freak show’s over then,’ Jerry said.

After the murder, for the first couple of weeks the place had been packed as the investigation went on revealing the gruesome nature of the crime. People who had never set foot in the place came for the circus. Jerry’s friends, the group of lawyers, real estate people, investment brokers and assorted moneyed Great Beach residents he had cultivated over the years with special seatings and complimentary bottles of wine and champagne had been in every evening, staying late to show support, to vent or simply to gossip and network.

After the trial things quieted and in the months following quieted still. The quality of the food and service hadn’t changed, the bar was still the best stocked in town but the crowds had thinned and the regulars he had seen three and four times a week came less and less and some not at all. The atmosphere had been sullied, it was a place of tragedy and he himself the walking dead; embalming himself nightly with ceaseless tumblers of Irish whiskey and raving late into the night in his alcoholic grief.

His lawyer, himself once a regular who rarely saw a bill, had hinted at a management change; maybe bring someone in to handle the place, for a while, just until Jerry felt better. Exactly what they had done at Airport Cartage and the way that was going they’d be cutting it up and selling it for scrap in another six months.

He would run the Cuttlefish into the ground, would strip away all the niceties and return it to the dive bar it was when his own father bought it as a workingman’s hang out before he would let it go. He had lost enough, but tonight maybe he was getting something back.

His phone made the drop in the bucket sound again. He sat at the still empty sidebar where his full tumbler already awaited him and played the message.

‘Hey Jer, so we got one of the drivers to bring the crate to the marina, I gave the fella the hundred from petty cash and made an IOU out for you. He said he knew where to take it but I don’t know with these guys. I hope it’s not precious cause the way things is going here, you're just as liable to lose it as get it. Anyway should be there in about thirty, let’s see you soon Ok, be good hun.’

Jerry called the docks and arranged one of the hands to get the crate on board his boat. He wouldn’t call the place a marina just as he wouldn’t refer to his boat as a yacht and these were the values that had kept him in touch with his staff.

‘Kinda late Jerry,’ the yard manager complained

‘Hey, I realize Tommy, tell whoever wants to do it there’s an extra hundred in it from me. And Tom, I’m gonna be coming by later.’

‘Tonight? Well, you know we’re closed at eight.’

‘Give me some slack Ok, I’m excited to see this, it’s a teak bow sprint I had carved in Thailand, gonna have your boys install it before the summer starts.’

‘Alright Jer, but you’re just coming right, you’re not going out tonight OK, the harbor master will have my ass.'

‘No, just want to take a peak, thanks a million, come for a drink later huh?’

‘Sure thanks, see ya’s.’

Jerry snapped his phone off, 'yeah, see ya dick.’ He up ended his whiskey and signaled the bar man at the same time for a refill.

He went from table to table greeting diners and trading quips with the few regulars who showed, and still received bids of condolence from others he could barely place. The long looks of derision weren’t lost on him. He knew he was drunk. He heard his own voice caroming around the too mellow dining room and caught the delicate suggestions of the wait staff but it was a night to celebrate, it was just that no one else knew it.

At ten he told Craig to have his car brought around the front, load a bucket of ice and put a fresh bottle of whiskey into a paper bag.

‘You want me to get one of the valets to drive you home?’

‘No Craig, I want what I asked for, why would I need a ride?’

‘Well, you're drunk Jer, and we have a policy about that.’

‘How’s your old man, Craig.’ Jerry looked him coldly in the eye and Craig, tight lipped in anger, went about setting up the bottle and ice.

Jerry sat waiting, thinking how he had helped Craig’s family. He was a good kid, the family fell on hard times, father out of work, things were tough. He loaned them some money, had made some payments, now Jerry held the papers on their house, put the kid in a job where he earned more than he could have on any construction or labor job, more than he was worth. But he wasn’t the first good kid, Great Beach kid, to piss on Jerry’s generosity. What Craig didn’t know was that the other was in a crate sitting on the deck of Jerry’s boat right then.

‘All set.’

Craig placed the ice and paper wrapped bottle on the bar in front of Jerry.

‘That’s what I wanted to hear. You look tired, maybe you should take a week or so off.’

Jerry wasn’t letting Craig’s insolence slip away to the favor of being delivered his own whiskey.

‘I’m all right, Mr. Whitman.’ He answered quietly.

‘So am I.’ Jerry held his eye until Craig blinked and turned away to wipe down the bar.

Mr. Whitman, that was good. Jerry took his supplies and left out the front without looking back at whatever scene he had created.

When the money was flowing rich and fast he had resisted buying a limp dick replacement and kept to the regime his father had started, buying a new Cadillac every eighteen months. His CTS V coup sat idling at the sidewalk. A Caddy didn’t bring the attention or the problems of a Porsche or even a Lexus but he would put this supercharged V8 566hp luxury ride against anything on the street. It was 70k friend price and Jerry had paid with his platinum Express card and then drank a bottle of champagne with his wife after an inaugural ride out to Montauk. Some place that had been listed as three star; but the champagne was lukewarm and the glasses had come from the Dollar store. They laughed about it then, in that previous reality.

He ran the car through the dark side streets back towards the mainland and the bay where the entrance to the marina came off the bridge to Island Park. He knew every curve and stop sign in Great Beach but even if some kid with a badge pulled him over he wouldn’t dare call it in, Jerry knew every law enforcement official that mattered on the Island and the windshield of his car wore the static stickers that identified him as a friend. He ran the car fast and despite drink taken felt at one with the machine, guiding its twin lights with faultless acumen block after block then onto the JFK highway for a minute before taking a hard right that dropped him down along the bay side.

At the gate he barely slowed to wave as the guard lifted the barrier, recognizing the sleek graphite black car and the importance of its owner.

The Marina was dark and empty, lit only by scattered security lights that sat high on invisible poles. When he parked in his numbered slot and cut the engine he could hear the steady slop and suck of the tide as it raised the boats heaving on either side of the docks against their bumpers.

The upper deck of Jerry’s forty foot Bayliner was visible, slowly tilting in the gloaming at the far end of the dock. It was a big powerful boat he had bought ostensibly for deep sea fishing trips with pals and power-brokers but had rarely seen much use and now would have to be let go for the outrageous upkeep. Still it was a beautiful sight cutting through the water in the bright morning sun with rods shot out from its sides and it was a heady feeling to guide it through the pitch of waves from the height of the captain’s seat.

With his bottle in hand he strode down the dark aisle of wooden planks between the bows nosing up on the waters steady chop. Two lights cast overlapping yellow circles on the end of the dock just in front of Jerry’s own gang plank and he walked just a little unsteady towards them.

The crate on the rear deck was bigger than he had imagined. It was a badly crafted looking box made of cheap materials. Not a right angle or a clean edge on the whole thing but it had survived the nine thousand mile journey intact. Why Lonny had felt the need to send some proof, or keepsake or whatever it was he didn't know. Wouldn’t have thought it was in him in fact. To crate up and ship the remains of the kid, but there was no way of finding out now; Lonny was gone. First Jenny, then Tanner, and Eddy and by all reports Lonny too; a lot of blood had been shed. He set his bottle and ice on top of the crate and then knocked against the thin wood of the lid.

Jerry switched the boats central power on, lit the cabin lights and powered up the stereo. He put on a Credence CD, Run Through The Jungle, Bad Moon Rising, Born On The Bayou; eerie, loud music filled with hoodoo and superstition seemed right for the occasion.

With the lights on the box was smaller than it had seemed in the dark and now he could see the bottom edge was water stained. He grabbed the crate and put his weight into the corner to try and spin it around but it was heavy and he strained until he heard the blocks on the bottom scuffing the finish of his deck. He stepped away and then leaned into the top edge at an angle that gave him full leverage and tilted the box up on its opposite edge, hefted it once to its pinnacle, balanced it momentarily weightless, then received the weight again as it dropped. Well over 300 pounds he guessed, maybe even 4.

He dropped into one of the deck chairs and poured more whiskey. There was a noticeable stench above the fish and sea smell of the marina itself. A heavier order of decay that Jerry became aware of and then was sure emanated from the crate.

The reality of what was inside the box struck him. What would a body look like after the blistering heat and 90 percent humidity of Bangkok then flying across the greatest part of the world and sitting on the dock at APC for a couple of weeks? The mess it would be, the mess it was going to make on the boat.

He got up and took the keys from the cabin door and climbed to the flying bridge. He powered up the generator, lit the running lights and started the little trolling motor that would get the boat out of the harbor and into open water. He cast off the mooring lines and guided the bow out of its birth and into the dark chop of the bay. Idling slowly past the beacon that marked the no wake zone he was aware of a warning blowing at the end of the jetty but fired up the dual one hundred horse power engines, spitting a flume of white water and pulled the throttle back heading due east.

Piss on the harbor master, the marina’s rules and the whole of fucking yachting society Jerry thought holding his glass of Black Bush aloft in a left-handed toast to the mainland as it slipped into darkness behind him.

He let the boat run along at about three quarters throttle sitting back in the tilt of his captains chair draining the whiskey and listening to the boom of the music coming off the black sea around him. He vaguely scanned for the lights of other boats but besides the distant points of container ships far out in the sea lanes the expanse was empty and the boat cut along in a powerful line leaving a just visible streak of white foam in its wake.

As the vaporous glow of the city’s dirty halo vanished over the horizon Jerry cut the engine and let the boat glide to a rest on the chop. He came down from the flying deck with his bottle grasped in one hand and the empty glass in his other and fell into the red and white striped fighting chair and swiveled it around to face the crate then let his feet come to rest on the chair’s foot pedal and poured his glass full. After a long steady pull on the whiskey he smiled at the face of the box and called out.

‘Can you hear me in there Tanner? You’ve been out here on the boat with me before, remember? Fishing, I brought you out here, Jenny too. Were you already fucking her then? Already taking advantage of her, telling nasty stories about my girl behind our backs?’

He kicked the plywood side and leaned back in the chair looking up at the stars hanging so low in the sky he felt he could swipe his hand through the clusters and disturb their timeless order. The boat rocked easily, a steady lulling tempo. The music had stopped and there was no other sound to disturb the rhythmic slop of water rinsing the sides as the hull rode the tide.

‘I was going to kill you myself, you know that? I was standing in the parking lot at the police station the second time they had you there for questioning. I was going to wrap it all up. Give Jenny’s mother some closure. Do it like Ruby did, as a martyr, put one in your head in front of the press and the cops and everyone. I stood there with my Walther P99 in my pocket and watched you come down the steps and suddenly I had a flash of sitting in an 8 X 10 cell for rest of my life like some fucking loser. I lost my nerve, got in my car and drove back to the bar. It worked out fine this way though, huh?’

‘I suppose it wasn’t fair. I suppose you think you didn’t deserve this. But then, Jenny didn’t deserve being beaten to death, raped and brutalized either and then on top of that having her name besmirched by those she trusted. How did Lonny do it? gunshot? Knife? With his bare hands?

The kidnapping thing was a good cover, never would have thought of it myself.’

He drained his glass and poured another, nearly finishing the bottle. ‘However he did it I imagine it was a lot nicer than the way Jenny was done, the way those fucking spics tortured her.’

He paused to drink, scanning the sky again, re-measuring the unreasonable closeness of the stars.‘ I know you didn’t have anything to do with it. The murder, I know that. But what you did was bad. What you said about my little girl, already dead and you had to debase her even further. Tell reporters; tell the police… those things, those lies! Slut, druggie, saying she would fuck anything that moved. Did you think I was going to just let that ride?That’s why you had to die.’

He got up from the chair, weaving and lurching on the unsteady deck and pulled the long handled gaff from its clasps along the gunwale.

‘Let’s have a look at what Lonny did to you.’Jerry took long overhead swings at the crate with the big hook which easily punched through the thin plywood and stuck to its arc and tore chunks of the laminate and Styrofoam away as he pried it out and sent it falling again. After ten minutes of hacking at the side and making no real progress in getting the box open he collapsed back into the fighting chair breathing heavily, his body damp with sea mist and whiskey sweat. He snatched the bottle up and drained the last inch from the bottom in one smooth swallow and leaned back in the chair again letting his pulse settle.

He had spent his whole life around wooden crates, ordering them, organizing their transport, stamping and labeling them, but he couldn’t get this shitty one open. He closed his eyes and chuckled to himself as his breathing settled, steadied, and went shallow.

When he woke the sun had risen and the air was already heating up. The sunlight reflecting off the water was blinding. All around the foot of the chair were splintered hunks of plywood and blue Styrofoam insulation. The crate sat where he had hacked and tore at it. Through the gaping holes he could see the freezer inside.

The smell of decomposition seeped from the crate, strong and gut wrenching above the clean salt smell of the sea air. Jerry’s stomach rolled once and he stepped back from the box to steady himself against the railing. When he felt grounded he went down the three steps to the galley and searched for something to drink, but the boat hadn’t been stocked for summer yet and all he found was instant coffee and bottled water which he put together, shook and drank from the plastic mouth. The acrid bitter mixture did the job of coating his booze scorched palate.

Back on deck, now armed with hammer and a long flat screw driver Jerry took the crate apart from the seams in minutes to reveal the dirty, dented ice cream freezer inside. The smell freed from the crate rose up like a force that physically hampered his movements and hung all around him like a black shroud. The thickest death reek, like a thousand dead mice packed in the walls of a railroad apartment. He had never experienced anything like it and within two breaths heaved black streaks of near coffee against the side of the freezer.

The glass panels at the top of the freezer were coated opaque with a thick layer of some white substance, like bacon fat left to congeal in a frying pan. He wanted to see the condition of Tanner's body but the smell of the deliquesce happening inside the ice cream box repelled his mind. He got to one side and began to push the improvised coffin across the deck, sliding along on its plywood bottom.

He dumped it overboard through the railing slot and the once festive thing splashed and rolled, righted itself and floated up against the side of the boat.

‘Son of a bitch,’ Jerry called out at it.

He picked up the gaff from where he had let it fall the night before and hung it over the glass top, angling it to catch one of the aluminum handles and yanked. Water poured in flooding and weighing the freezer down, it listed and began to sink. The smell of rotted human rose up fresh and sickening as the pink and blue box dove sputtering bubbles and leaking clotted, greasy rainbow streaks in the water. Amidst the gurgling, two scum coated plastic wrapped packages bobbed to the surface and floated away from the boat on its wake.

Jerry swung the gaff out and snagged the nearest telephone book sized bundle with the hook of the gaff tearing a hole in the plastic wrap and sending it beneath the surface again. It bobbed up a second later and Jerry took another swing at it, tearing the plastic in a long run that furled at the edge of the package where the hook caught it wobbling in the current. He didn’t pull it in for fear he would free the hooks tenuous hold on the thin lip of plastic. Straining over the side of the boat, extending himself over the water as far as he could, trying to see what Lonny had thought to send home but he still couldn’t make out any detail through the scum coated and layered cling film.

Carefully he pulled the package in, keeping a steady pressure pushing down against its own buoyancy. Water sloshed over the surface and soaked into the slit plastic, for a second Jerry saw the bundles layered inside, stumbled on the decking and lost the gaff in his grasp for the rail.

The gaff floated still stuck into the plastic and spiraled away widely on the current.

‘It’s money, fucking money!’

He kicked his shoes off and jumped into the water, swimming for the floating handle of the gaff thinking of how this could be his saving grace, could bring him out of the debt pit he had dug for himself in the last three months wallowing in his drunken grief.

He flailed in the water, pulling the shaft of the gaff towards him and reaching for the already sodden package. The coating of decomposed flesh and fat was slick on the surface and Jerry thrashed around trying to free the hook of the gaff and get a hand hold on the pack while treading water at the same time. When he had it firmly against his chest he back floated to the boats side and slung the water heavy cash onto the deck. He held the railing and pulled himself to sit beside it. It was three widths by four lengths and about four inches thick. Hundred dollar bills bound in bank wrappers. Each half inch equal to ten thousand dollars, he knew from his many recent cash transactions with the holding company who had taken over ACP.

‘Lonny’ he mumbled grinning, shaking his head in awe of the good luck. Then he saw the other, no more than a dot on the water but still not so far away. He dove into the sea and began swimming towards it. His crawl stroke had been powerful once, breathing under alternate arms on the three but within a few chops he realized that months of sitting in the dark with his bottles of Irish whiskey had taken their toll. Still he swam on, checking every few strokes on the location and distance of the pack which continued to move away as he came after it. He swam, taking a breath on the two then on the one stroke. Coughing and sputtering with mistimed breaths, he switched to a breast stroke that soon deteriorated to a kind of doggy paddle. Still the pack kept its distance.

The boat he thought. Get back to the boat. He stopped swimming and turned to float on his back, let his breathing ease. Swim back to the boat and chase it down. He turned in the water and found that he had come a long way from the boat without ever getting near the pack.

‘Shit’, he shouted up to the morning sky. He and the pack both were in some kind of rip tide running perpendicular to the boat. He cursed himself for stupidity as he began to chop at the water again. His arms were dead and his ass was like lead weighing him down. He chopped again, made three strokes and came up gagging. Another pause on his back and then turned to side stroke for what seemed like half an hour but when he looked up the boat remained far off like a toy rocking on the waves in the never reachable distance.

He turned on his back and floated on the rolling surface. Water had seeped down his nasal passages and filled the back of his throat and he coughed and choked but couldn’t clear his breathing. Rising and falling on the waves he concentrated on getting his breathing under control.

It was no time to panic, he knew what to do, he had to swim through the tide and then circle back to the boat, it was going to take a while but if he remained calm and focused he would make it. He saw in his mind the line of bright orange life jackets lined up in the galley and again cursed himself for a dolt.

From the corner of his eye he saw the blur of angular black and white darting but before he could react the shape slammed into the side of his face and sent him rolling in the sea.

He fought his way up sputtering, dazed by the impact and searched the horizon but there was nothing. Then a high pitched call and this time he saw the bird diving at his face and ducked below the surface away from its talons. He took two strokes below and surfaced, his heart pounding, his lungs aching. He searched the sky and found the V shaped bird hovering about twenty feet above his head. ‘Get the fuck away from me!’ he screamed at the silent gliding shape, spiraling down, pin pointing his face.

In panicked, utterly frustrated fear he flipped on to his belly and chopped his hands franticly into the coming waves and kicked his dead legs and breathed in anyway he could. Swimming with total determination to gain the boat, to live. Blood was running down his face and he could taste it distinctly apart from the salt of the water.

Rolling and struggling against the current with the phantom threat of the attacking bird hunting him from above he swam hard, already beyond exhaustion, until the break of one small wave coincided perfectly with him tilting his head for breath. He took in a full mouthful of seawater that stopped him dead and sent him down beneath where he choked silently and instinctively inhaled, filling his lungs with the sea's brine. Heaving noiselessly and doubled over in aquatic suspension he grasped at his throat as the last tiny bubbles of air escaped his nose then tilted his head and had one final look at the sun through the wavering lens of the Atlantic.