EQMM, December 2009

by Dell Magazine Authors

  "Julia.” I begin using my irritation to fuel my rope-fraying so that I have to huff out the words. “First off, I've got two words for you: helter skelter. Second, you are no judge of men. Look at your track record. And third, here we are, how much more proof do you need?"

  "This is hard, Izzy,” Julia whines.

  "You don't miss much, do you, Julia?” I say. “Just keep working at it,” I add, tapping into my long-dormant patience reserves. “If we can just get one hand free, we're good to go."

  "But I'm leaning and there's something under my jacket that keeps getting wedged up under my butt.” She twists slightly and tries to look back over her shoulder. “Oh, it's my fanny pack, it's gotten twisted around."

  "You've still got your fanny pack?” I ask, drilling her with my one eye. “Is there anything in it?"

  "Well, how would I know, Izzy, I can't see into it,” she answers.

  "Julia,” I say, willing my voice to stay even, “don't you usually carry a Swiss Army knife in there?"

  She smiles, but misses the point. “Yes, Izzy, you know I do. It's that little one you gave me for my birthday, don't worry, I haven't lost it. It was my favorite present. It's so clever how they work all those tools into one little—” She stops abruptly as the dime finally drops. “Izzy, it's got a knife in it, a scissors, and another knife.” She starts bumping around on her rear like a jumping bean on a sugar high. “Put your back to me, Izzy, see if you can get it."

  She doesn't need to tell me twice. I get myself into position, work at the zipper, and close my hand around the knife. I want to kiss every Swiss person in that wonderful nation. Geniuses, all of them! This is the kind of thing you can accomplish for the world when you aren't going to war every two or three years. A big shout-out for neutrality!

  Getting the blade open is a challenge, but at last I am sawing through the rope around Julia's wrist. Just as I hear the satisfying snap signaling the last thread of rope giving way, sunlight floods the cabin. A dark figure clomps down the steps and turns into David Maratea. He's standing still, but weaving in place. One of us is obviously drunk or otherwise impaired. I decide it's him.

  "Who are you?” he asks, his eyes dark and dilated and his blond hair sticking up in a profusion of dirty spikes.

  "You mean you don't know?” Julia asks, turning her head to angle her good eye up to him like a parakeet as she yanks at the knot in her blindfold with her free hand.

  "Well, of course he knows, Julia,” I say. I am frightened by Maratea's appearance, but my irritation with Julia is overriding even that. “He's the one who put us here."

  "What are you talking about?” Maratea asks, his voice rising. He cringes and touches the crown of his head. “Somebody knocked me out, that's all I know. Then I wake up on the deck of a boat that's sinking fast and now I find two women I've never seen before.” He stops and squints at us. “At least I don't think so, it's sorta hard to tell with the way you look and all.” He blinks four or five times, very slowly, then seems to come around again. “Now, can we start again?” he says, trying to put some starch into it. “Who are you?"

  I stare at him and he takes a step back as if the two of us, in our handicapped state, are going to rush him. It's so ridiculous I almost believe him—almost.

  "Well, Maratea, I'm Thelma,” I jerk my head toward Julia, “and this here is Louise. And it seems this tub is now substituting for a 1966 Thunderbird convertible."

  Maratea stares at us wild-eyed. “What—how do you know my name? You mean you two have got me caught up in some kind of suicide pact or something?"

  "Of course not,” Julia says, finally snatching off the blindfold. “Don't pay any attention to her, she's just cranky. We've been following you for a week. You didn't spot us?” A wide band of clean skin across her eyes gives her an ever-so-attractive bandito look. “We really are good,” she beams at me.

  "Following me?” Maratea asks, frowning. “Were you trying to get me out? Who sent you? Who knew I needed...” He puts his hand to his head and his knees buckle. I have to pull my feet up in a quick hurry to keep his head from having a close encounter with the hard soles of my hiking boots. He is out cold.

  "Ah, poor guy,” Julia says as she pulls at her ropes.

  There's no sense getting mad at Julia. She simply cannot help herself. There's something fundamentally wrong with her schmuck radar. It is no surprise to me when she goes immediately into her Florence Nightingale routine. I have to remind her, politely, that I am still in bondage.

  As she is untying me, I mentally review. We had spotted Maratea our first morning in Ushuaia—the world's southernmost seat of government, we were informed by the innkeeper. We'd followed Maratea to a modest house on a street by the waterway. Everywhere he went he was flanked by two beefy guys. They had no necks to speak of, but biceps like bowling balls.

  We'd watched the house and observed a woman matching Verena's height and weight coming and going. Unfortunately, she always wore a scarf, sunglasses, and gloves. It could have been Madonna under there, for all we knew. She too always had at least one of the walking muscle masses for company. I'd taken numerous photos, but they weren't going to prove anything.

  I'd called to give a preliminary report and found—to my great disappointment—that Neil wasn't in and I'd have to talk to Conrad Richter, a tubby sixty-something bureaucrat who looks like a troll and decidedly does not appreciate a strong woman. He told me the clock was ticking—thank you, Mr. Obvious!

  Then, yesterday, we'd gotten lucky. Or so it had seemed at the time. Verena—and we knew in our hearts it was Verena—had taken off her gloves to adjust an earring while perusing the paper at the local newsstand. She'd taken the newspaper with her, but she'd also flipped through a fashion magazine and left it on the rack.

  Julia had swooped in and purchased the magazine as soon as Verena walked away. Her fingerprints all over an issue published six months after her death should be pretty convincing proof. But we wanted to get photos too, preferably of Verena and the grieving—or rather, thieving—husband together. We'd watched the house all afternoon and had been just about to pack it in for the day when Verena came flouncing out, sans bodyguards, and more importantly, sans disguise, and walked off in the direction of the wharf. I broke my personal land-speed record running down side streets trying to get in front of her, Julia coming behind me in her girly run. I was set up and clicking away by the time she caught up. Verena seemed almost to be vamping for the camera. I could have sworn she was looking right into the lens.

  Suddenly something chemical and foul smelling was covering my face and someone larger than your average bear had me in a vice-grip. I could hear Julia squeaking behind me. The next thing I knew I was adrift—and I don't mean that as a metaphor.

  Logic would dictate that Maratea's plan was for his thugs to ambush us and bring us out here to dispose of us. If so, he is a very bad planner, as he is lying unconscious at my feet at the moment. I can see no weapon, and he's got a knot the size of a kiwi on the back of his head. Something's gone awry.

  Julia is patting his cheeks gently, trying to bring him around. I suggest we tie him up till we can find out what's what. She thinks I am mean and cynical. I think otherwise and begin to wind him up like a calf at a rodeo with a length of rope I've found in the corner of the cabin.

  He comes to, struggles against the ropes for a moment, then gives that up and gets down to the crux of things. “I don't know what's going on here,” he says, “but I can tell you we've got to get this rust bucket to land or we're all gonna die. Can't you see we're sinking?"

  He has my complete attention, but I'm still not cutting him loose until I hear his story. He gives us a very succinct overview, the precision of which I appreciate considering our situation. He had no part in the insurance scam. Didn't know anything about it until last week. He'd thought Verena was dead, genuinely mourned for her, and had been perplexed by the insurance policies their lawyer had produced as he hadn't taken them out. Three weeks ago he'
d gotten a call from a woman purporting to be Verena's long-lost half-sister. She claimed Verena was still alive and being held for ransom. “I didn't doubt her,” he said, “she knew so much about Verena—well, she would have, wouldn't she?” he huffed. He sped the story along like a man with pure caffeine in his veins. “I transferred money like she said the kidnappers wanted and came right on down to try to make the exchange for Verena's life."

  When he arrived at the airport he saw that the half-sister looked so much like Verena it had taken his breath away. Then, in the parking garage, her two thugs had actually taken his breath away by punching him in the solar plexus and throwing him in the backseat of the car.

  "And you guessed it,” he said, sounding more sorrowful than angry. “She looked so much like Verena because she was Verena. How stupid could I be?"

  The answer to that question is still pending.

  They'd kept him prisoner in the house, making him fill out bank papers and authorizations for future transactions. He'd been escorted to and from the bank with remote-controlled shock collars strapped to each ankle underneath his pants, the kind used to train dogs—amped up to rabid Rottweiler levels.

  "They gave me a demonstration—they hurt like hell,” Maratea attested, the mere memory making him shiver.

  "It takes five days for everything to go through, and I heard them talking about what to do with me; they were just going to leave me there. They figured they'd be long gone before anybody found me and let me out. But then, a couple of days ago, they got all in a stew—something about insurance investigators. Verena was screaming and Harvey and his brother were pacing and cracking their knuckles. I was locked in my room, but it had one of those big old-fashioned keyholes and I could see a lot if I pressed my eye right up to it."

  "She spotted us,” I say to Julia. “Guess we aren't so good after all."

  Julia looked crestfallen. “Guess not."

  "Anyway, the next thing I know Verena herself is standing there with a gun on me. I mean, up until then I thought maybe they were forcing her too. But there she was—this woman I thought was the love of my life! First she was dead, then alive, then holding me hostage—then holding a gun on me.” He drops his head. “What kind of a world is this, anyway?” He sighs a heavy one. “And then,” he nods toward the deck, “I woke up here."

  "Assuming I believe you,” I say, “Verena must be sure she's got everything set up to receive the rest of the insurance payoff and you are now expendable. If we're all found dead in this leaky boat, it'll look like your doing. Like you brought us out here to kill us and something went wrong."

  "Are you nuts?” Maratea asks. “If we're found? We're in the middle of the ocean. No one is ever going to find a trace of us if we don't do something soon."

  He tries to stand, then realizes he's still tied. “We're just going to disappear—blip,” he says, then again winces from the pain of moving his head. “I'm telling you, we're sinking,” he says now, in a nasally whine that's a good match for Julia's.

  A trip topside confirms both my own suspicions and Maratea's account. The boat is definitely askew. Flat, clear horizon lines in every direction, and not another soul or man-made object in sight.

  I make the decision to trust Maratea, not that I really have options, and we untie him and concoct a plan. I am delighted to hear he knows boats. He has the cover off the engine, scrutinizing something in there. He's having to sit down every couple of minutes to keep from passing out—obviously suffering from a concussion—so the work is not going as fast as I'd like, but I'm not exactly in a position to cast aspersions on his work ethic.

  "Okay,” he says, “I think I can jury-rig the engine and there's still a little fuel in here, but we'll only get one shot at this. I've got no idea where we are, but it will be twilight soon and I can use the stars to figure out which direction to head in. In the meantime we've got to stop taking on water or we'll have sunk by then. One of us will have to go overboard to see if we can find the rupture in the hull. I'd do it, but I think I'd probably pass out again when I hit the water. Did either of you ever do any diving, or are you at least good swimmers?"

  My heart sinks. We are done for. I can do a pretty energetic doggy-paddle, but that's about it. I can't even stand to open my eyes underwater in a swimming pool, much less in salt water—plus I'm a little paranoid about the creatures hiding down there.

  "I'll go,” Julia says, already stripping off her chothes. “At least I'll get this grime off me."

  "Julia!” I bark, “Do you know how cold that water is? You can't do this.” I recall that Julia has a fit if the water in the swimming pool isn't at bath temperature.

  "You don't know everything about me, Izzy,” she says indignantly. “I'm a great swimmer. And I always won the diving medals every year at summer camp."

  "Hang on,” Maratea says, “that's great, but we need to figure out exactly how we're going about this before you try a two-and-a-half gainer into the drink. Let's go see what the situation is with the bilge pump and then we need to look for the rupture and see what we can do about it."

  We both follow obediently and I wonder if we're lambs to the slaughter. But, again, what options do we have?

  I develop a grudging admiration for this seasoned Toyota service manager as he sticks his head up out of the engine hatch and gives us the news—good and bad. We've taken on a lot of water and the gas-powered pump doesn't work. But he's found the rupture. If we can pump the water out manually, we can string a rope cage to keep something we've stuffed into the breach from the outside wedged in by the water pressure.

  I pump until my arm feels like it's made up of strands of cooked spaghetti, then Julia and I haul in all the rope we can find and start weaving a spider's web.

  "What's that, David?” Julia asks as Maratea appears with a bundle under his arm. He is still holding his head as he moves around and I fear the only seafarer among us may be beyond determining which stars are real and which are just swimming in his head by the time night falls. I urge him to sit down.

  "It's rain slickers,” he says, sucking in his breath as he deals with a passing wave of pain. “Found them in the cabin. If we can get some more of this water out, maybe Julia can get these lashed onto the hull. She can stuff these in the crevice if she can stay down that long.” He holds up his socks and I look to his feet, now naked in their Reeboks.

  As I'm standing on the deck I find myself thinking that if I die out here, at least the last thing I'll have seen here on planet Earth is something that surprises me. And, after all, what's the use of living if things can't still surprise you? Julia is phenomenal. She takes in great gulps of air and plunges under, her blond hair floating along behind her like mermaid's locks. Again and again, she goes down, comes up for more rope, another slicker, more socks—mine—and still more rope. By the time she's done, her lips are blue and her teeth are chattering, but the job is done. The boat looks like it's wearing a giant diaper and Maratea—okay, David—is again tinkering with the engine.

  He violates what I suspect are lots of sailor rules and builds a small fire in an empty paint can out of stuff he's chopped up from the cabin. He urges Julia to warm her hands and feet. Once she's gotten her dry clothes back on, he puts an old woolen blanket around her, apologizing for the fact that it smells like a wet dog—a wet, incontinent dog.

  The sun sets and at least we know which way is west. David makes some calculations. He hopes to at least get us into a shipping lane if we can't make shore. We hoist a distress flag made of tattered rags we've found in the cabin and then David turns to us. “So,” he says, “this is it. If I don't make it and either of you do, would you take care of my dog? I'm afraid he'll think I've just deserted him."

  "None of that talk,” I tell him gruffly, though I am touched. I don't even have a dog to miss me, I realize. I vow that if I make it out of this there will be some changes in my life.

  "I really hate hearing that you weren't here to rescue me,” David says glumly, “because th
at means no one will be looking for us. So if this doesn't work—” He stops short and lets us fill in the unthinkable blank.

  "I'm hungry,” Julia says, breaking the silence. I am relieved. Hope lives as long as Julia is grousing.

  "Oh, look!” she squeals in delight, producing half a Snickers bar and a juice box from her fanny pack.

  "Ration it,” David says. “If we make it to the shipping lane, it may take a day or two for someone to come along—'course, that's assuming our patch holds. There's rainwater in an old epoxy bucket over there.” He nods, then winces. “Not the healthiest thing, but better than dying of thirst. Take a tablespoon at a time. You first, Julia, you probably swallowed a lot of salt water."

  David starts up the engine and we open our last gambit, hoping we won't meet the end of our lives here near the end of the world.

  My plan is to keep an eye on David to make sure he doesn't pass out. I fight sleep as the coughing engine moves us along through the night, limping over the black, inky sea toward what I sincerely hope is the Land of Fire. I am exhausted, frightened, and mad at myself for the mistakes I've made on this case. Julia is sleeping soundly, letting off little fluttering snores. I shake my head. How can she sleep at a time like this? I will not allow myself to actually go to sleep, I vow. I am a strong woman. I am an Amazon. I am out like a light.

  The engine sputters and stops and I jolt awake. The boat is very low in the water. Julia stirs beside me, both of us huddled on the deck near David, who has been steering and is now slumped over the wheel.

  "Oh, no, don't tell me we're out of gas,” Julia whines as she rubs her eyes. “Why can't I ever get a break?"

  David lifts his head and stares and I turn to see what he is looking at. I think no place has ever looked so beautiful. It is desolate, bleak, and windswept in the pale pre-dawn light. But it's land. We've made it back to Tierra del Fuego.

  The next days go by in a blur. During that time I come to believe in divine retribution, or fate—or that karma thing. I can't describe it, but like the old judge said about pornography, I know it when I see it.