Swimming to Catalina (Stone Barrington 4)

Manny went below and came up with a Heineken and a glass on a silver tray. “There you are; would you like to stay in the cockpit or ride down below?”

“I’ll stay up here, I think,” Stone replied. “It’s a nice evening.” He felt more comfortable now, and he took a seat near the stem and sipped his beer.

“Yeah, it is a nice night, isn’t it?” Manny said. “When we’re clear of the marina we’ll see a hell of a sunset.”

Stone watched the moored boats go past as the sports fisherman moved down the channel toward the breakwater. Five minutes later they were on a calm Pacific Ocean, and Vinnie put the throttles forward. “How long will it take us to get to Mr. Ippolito’s yacht?” Stone asked.

“Oh, forty or forty-five minutes, I guess,” Manny shouted over the rumble of the engines. “It’s about twenty-five miles, and we’re gonna be doing a good forty knots. This baby is fast.”

The boat was roaring through a flat sea now, into a giant red ball of a sun, and Stone began to enjoy the ride. They passed other boats coming from and going to Marina Del Rey, then after a while, they were alone on the water, tearing along.

Stone began to think about what he was going to say to Ippolito. Not much, he decided; he’d listen instead. He doubted if he was ever going to get any legal work from either Sturmack or Ippolito—that had just been the bait to get him out here. He was dying to know what they wanted to tell him.

They had been moving fast for more than half an hour when Vinnie began slowing down. Stone stood up and looked ahead. The sun was gone, Catalina was at twelve o’clock, and the mooring lights on a hundred yacht masts lay ahead. People had anchored for the night and were having drinks and dinner aboard their boats. It occurred to Stone that he was getting hungry. They continued on for another few minutes, and Vinnie slowed down further.

“Don’t want to rock anybody’s boat with our wake,” he said, then made a ninety-degree turn to the left and pulled the throttles back to idle, out of gear. The boat drifted.

“Where’s Mr. Ippolito’s yacht?” Stone asked. Then, from behind him, he heard the metallic sound of a gun being cocked, and he felt cold steel on the back of his neck. He turned to find Manny holding an automatic pistol to his head.

“You’re not going to make it to the yacht,” Manny said.

Stone opened his mouth to speak as Vinnie applied a strip of duct tape to his mouth.

“Hold out your hands,” Manny said, as Vinnie tore more tape from the roll.

Stone didn’t move.

Manny held the pistol against Stone’s left eye. “We can do this neat, or we can do it messy,” he said. “What’s it gonna be?”

Stone held out his hands, and Vinnie taped his wrists together, then bent over and taped his ankles together as well. Vinnie then went to a locker and extracted a fathom of chain and a plow anchor.

Stone’s bowels turned to water, and he contracted his stomach muscles to keep something embarrassing from happening. This was bad enough without making it worse. He began, somewhat late, looking for a way out. Why had he gotten aboard this boat? The sun was down and a nearly full moon had risen, bathing the cockpit of the boat in a pale light.

Vinnie and Manny were talking about shackles now, but their voices seemed distant. Stone watched as one of them took a tool kit from a locker, found a shackle, attached it to the chain, and tightened it with pliers.

Now they were coaxing him toward the stem. At first Stone resisted moving, but then he saw the toolbox. At Manny’s urging, he took a hop forward, then fell on top of the toolbox, spilling implements over the deck.

Vinnie and Manny were swearing and looking for the pliers, while Stone was feeling for something else. He’d seen a marlin spike in the top tray of the toolbox, he was sure, and he

wanted the shiny tool more than he had ever wanted anything in his life. While they rummaged through the tools for the pliers, he got the marlin spike wedged between his taped hands.

He was yanked roughly to his feet, and somebody handed him an anchor. They actually wanted him to hold the anchor! There didn’t seem much point in not holding it, so he did.

“Any last words?” somebody said.

Stone shot the man a hot look, and both the hoods burst out laughing. Then they were dragging him toward the stem of the boat.

“You get us moving a little,” Manny said, “and I’ll handle this end.” Vinnie went forward, the engines rumbled, and the boat began to move.

Stone started taking deep breaths through his nose, deeper each time, packing air into his lungs. Then he was standing all alone in the stem of the boat, holding the heavy anchor, trying not to fall overboard.

“Compliments of Onofrio Ippolito!” he heard Manny yell over the engines.

Stone took one more deep breath, and then he felt a solid kick in the small of the back. He hung on to the breath as he fell astern, striking the cold, foaming water, and then everything went quiet except the retreating roar of the engines and the scream in his head.

31

He was sinking rapidly, head first. He had no idea how deep the water was, didn’t know when the increasing pressure would force the air from his lungs. He held on to that air with all his strength; he needed the buoyancy as much as the air.