Black Water

by T. Jefferson Parker

  She hung up on him and didn't answer when he called back

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  While Merci puzzled over tarp and PVC, Archie Wildcraft pulled the Durango into a parking space outside the Fifteenth Street Surf Shop in Newport Beach. He sat for a moment, looking at the lavender light cast by the streetlamp, the red moths arcing against the bulb. He couldn't get the smell of burned flesh and phosphorous out of his head. He'd blown his nose three times and wiped his nostrils with a wet napkin from a foil pouch but nothing helped. He tried to feel bad for Sonny Charles but didn't.

  He took a deep breath and got out. A blue fog hung over the san and he could hear the waves roaring up the shore. A bright green kid on a skateboard thunked down the sidewalk.

  Archie went to the rear lift gate and opened it. He pulled out the Canadian crutches one at a time and propped them against the vehicle Then the wings. Slipped a screwdriver into his shirt pocket. Swung the door shut and locked up with the key pad. He carried his things down the sidewalk, past the restrooms and onto the sand. He was pleased at how light the wings were, yet so eager to perform: even the faint breeze off the ocean caught the skin of tarp, wrapped tightly and glued to the bones of the PVC. Ingenious

  "They'll work," he said.

  "I hope so," said Gwen, hovering in the fog behind and above him.

  "Sorry you had to hear Sonny scream like that."

  "The gag helped," she said. "But he won't drive another getaway car."

  "No."

  "Won't he tip Vorapin?"

  "That's okay. Let the big man be afraid. He should be afraid."

  He walked across the sand until he saw the orange, luminescent waterline. There, he knelt in the cool sand and laid out the wings, upside down. He fitted the right crutch against the underside of the right wing and screwed it tight with the hose-clamps he'd built into the crossbeams of PVC. Then the left.

  "That's a good fit," said Gwen.

  Archie reached a hand back to touch her. She took it and held it against her warm cheek.

  "I can't wait to try them," he said.

  "Go for it."

  He slid his right hand down along the crutch leg, worked his upper arm into the big C-clip, closed his fist around the padded handle.

  "It really feels good."

  "It really looks good, Arch."

  Archie lifted his right wing and felt for the first time its slight weight and powerful lift. Then he felt a gentle upward nudge from a breeze so light it never registered on his skin. What power!

  "Oh," he muttered.

  "Oh, my," echoed Gwen.

  Carefully as a newborn creature, he folded the great yellow wing to his side.

  "It's indescribable, Gwen."

  "I'm proud of you. You're beautiful. And so were the flowers at the funeral. And the ones you put by my pictures in the hotel."

  He was too excited to answer. He leaned over to get his left arm into place. It was a little precarious but he felt Gwen holding him and he got his hand onto the soft grip and his arm into the C-clip. He righted himself and stood.

  Archie looked out at the bright golden water. Slowly he lifted his wings. The spread was sixteen feet—seven for each wing and twenty-

  four inches across his back, just below the shoulders. First he felt emancipation of weight from his feet. Then the diminished load on his legs. Next, the lightening of his bony middle, then the joyful buoyancy of his back, the tickling freedom of his chest and neck. He felt like a big helium balloon held down by a weight only slightly heavier himself. Like he could glide along for miles between effortless steps. Like he could fly.

  He walked down to the waterline and turned south. Felt the lift. Broke into a trot. Felt the uneven pull of the wings, like a marionette. Heard the slap-slap-slap of his shoes in the water.

  "How's it feel, Arch?"

  "They want to fly. I just need more speed and more air under me.

  He kicked the trot into a gallop then to a sprint. The slap-slap-slap came fast and his horizon line jiggled and he felt the great long muscles of his ballplayer's legs rejoicing in the effort. He veered up onto embankment of the beach, then turned back downhill. He was running on his toes, then on nothing at all. The slap-slap-slap had suddenly stopped and Archie felt as if someone was trying to hook him into sky. An enjoyable confusion broke over him as he suddenly realized the dimensionality of flight: the heart stopping ups and down, the quease of pitch and yaw, the wild potentials of attitude and the azimuth of a body in space.

  "Wow, Gwen!"

  "Arch, it's working!"

  "I'll be coming soon, girl!"

  "Oh, Archie, I can't wait!"

  Then he plunked down to heavy Earth again and came to a stop ankle-deep in the Pacific.

  "Totally cool, man," said a young male voice. Archie hadn't noticed anyone. The boy came out of the ocean with his surfboard, turned north and ran through the whitewater.

  "Thanks!"

  Archie got his breath back quickly, then turned around and walked back to the lifeguard tower at Fifteenth Street. He wanted to get up onto the platform from which the lifeguards observed, but they took the ladder with them at night. Archie had to remove his wings and reach them one at a time onto the platform before climbing one of the legs and chinning himself up and over.

  He worked his arms back into the wings and stood at the edge of the platform facing the ocean. The sand looked to be about eight feet down from his feet. He spread his arms, then started pumping. He felt lighter with each big down thrust. He jumped. Out and up. Timed it with the down stroke and saw the ocean move a small notch away and felt the air-starved tarp lifting him upward.

  Then the sudden exhilaration of ascendance.

  Moving not on Earth but above it, wings stiff and alive with air.

  Gwen out there somewhere, close and touchable.

  And this great new strength that gave him all the lightness and endurance of a bird.

  The next thing he knew the ocean was rushing up at him. Cold! He got his feet under him and stood waist-deep in the bright gold water.

  "Whoa," he said quietly. "Whoa. Hon?"

  Gwen didn't answer. She had a way of coming and going, which was the reason for this whole project to begin with.

  "Gwen?"

  Just the ocean rustling on the sand.

  More speed, he thought.

  More air.

  Catch her.

  Take care of the giant first.

  The brine stung the bullet hole in his head but it wasn't an altogether unpleasant sting. He pushed through the icy ocean toward shore, dragging his yellow wingtips through the golden sea.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Hours later, just after sunrise, a stumbling, disoriented man was picked up by two sheriff's deputies cruising the Ortega Highway outside of San Juan Capistrano. Both deputies dropped from the unit and drew down on him in the uncertain light. When they saw that he was completely blind and in tremendous agony they holstered their weapons with a sense of relief and awe.

  "At first I thought he was drunk," Deputy Maxwell told Rayborn and Zamorra. He was waiting for them at the entrance of Western Medical Center in Anaheim. "Then I saw his face."

  The detectives hustled up the steps and Maxwell stayed abreast them, his belt jangling with gadgetry. "All he's got left of his eyes are black pits."

  "And his CDL said what?"

  "Steve Charles. But the burns and his accent made me think, we ran the name through the Feds and came up with Sergei Cherbrenko. He's a gangster. Dobbs heard it at the morning roll and call you guys."

  Yes, Dobbs again. Marching through the automatic doors of the hospital entrance Merci wondered: how could one formerly host Deputy 1 get so lucky? He'd spotted Cherbrenko and Vorapin coming down the hill from the Wildcraft home. He'd found the abandoned STS Cadillac they'd used. Now, he'd smelled the connection between a freshly blinded man wandering the Ortega and the murder of Gwen Wildcraft.

  She was suspicious of fortune this good. Sh
e wondered if Dobbs might be connected up with the Russians, might be running interference for them. How? By ID'ing them in the car, and sealing off the STS crime scene like a pro? Idiotic. Maybe he was fingering them for a rival. Maybe the sun would rise blue next Tuesday. Was she still pissed about him not protecting the Wildcraft driveway?

  Gad, woman, she thought: you'd shoot an angel out of the sky to make sure she was real.

  And the problem here wasn't that Deputy Dobbs had made a nice leap from Cherbrenko to Gwen. The problem was that Deputy Wildcraft had probably tortured him.

  "Road flares?" she asked.

  "I've never seen anything like it," said Maxwell. "Well, actually, I have, in college. The end of one of those old tragedies, where they put the guy's eyes out."

  "But he wouldn't tell you who did it?" asked Zamorra.

  "No. He just blubbered and cried. Does this have to do with Archie?"

  "We're about to find out."

  Cherbrenko lay in the burn unit with his head and face wrapped in white gauze and his hands in wrist restraints. His fingers were cupped and still. His pale hair was bunched behind the bandage, loose as a pile of straw.

  "He's on a strong painkiller and sedative," said the doctor. He referred to Cherbrenko as if he was absent but would be back soon. "He can answer your questions if he wishes. Do not be surprised if he falls asleep."

  Rayborn stood and looked down at the gauze mask. There were no eyeholes. She thought she should be quiet, but the doctor hadn't been. She wondered what it would be like to have roaring road flares be the last thing you ever saw in your life.

  She told him who she was. The mask moved slightly to the right, toward her. A sigh elongated from the nose opening but that was all.

  "You're Sergei Cherbrenko and you worked for OrganiVen, she said. "Gwen Wildcraft worked there with you."

  No movement, no sound. The head moved again, but away her this time.

  Then a sigh and a soft whisper. "Wildcraft. "

  "Did he do this to you?"

  "Yes."

  "What did he want?"

  "Facts."

  "Of?"

  "Murder."

  "Of Gwen, his wife."

  "Yes."

  Rayborn thought she knew why Archie had done this, but wanted to hear it from Cherbrenko. "He said he'd let you go if you told him who did it and how it happened."

  A nod.

  "You told him."

  Another.

  "And the truth is, you didn't do it."

  "No, I did not."

  Merci tried to square her knowledge of Archie Wildcraft against the hideous thing he had done to the man below her. She understood murder but not mutilation. It took her a moment to find the logic. "Deputy Wildcraft didn't kill you. You told him you didn't shoot her, and he believed you, didn't he?"

  "Yes."

  "Because it was Vorapin who shot her. And Archie."

  No reply. Her mind raced ahead through the possibilities, tasting and rejecting, moving on.

  "You told him it was Vorapin."

  "No. We did nothing."

  "But Archie did this to you anyway?"

  Just a whisper: "He told me I would never drive a car again

  He was right about that, Merci thought. And she realized why Wildcraft had done what he had done. There was only one more thing he could have wanted. "He let you live because he wanted something from you. And you gave it to him."

  A nod.

  "And you understand, don't you, Mr. Cherbrenko, that if you tell me what you told him, there's a good chance we can get to Zlatan before Wildcraft does."

  "Yes."

  "Where is he? Where's Vorapin?"

  It was a long time before Cherbrenko answered. The fingers on both his hands slowly opened and closed, then clenched into fists.

  "His private house."

  "The Fullerton house, with Irene?"

  "No. His other."

  "What's the address, Mr. Cherbrenko? Help me save your friend something worse than what happened to you."

  Another pause. Cherbrenko lay still as a dead man, his fingers again open and relaxed on his tethered hands.

  "We did nothing."

  "I believe you. Now give me the address."

  "Two-two-seven Palacio. Newport Beach."

  Zamorra broke for the door but Merci waited. Another light went on: friends don't let friends die. "The nurse dialed his number for you."

  Another nod.

  "Was he home?"

  "No."

  "You left him a message."

  "Yes. I told him to call the police and let them handle this mistake."

  "I'll bet you did."

  "This is true."

  "And what else?"

  "To pull out his eyes and step on them. "

  "You're a sweetheart, Sonny. You two killed her because you thought she was going to blow the whistle on you about the MiraVen."

  "We did nothing."

  Rayborn and Zamorra made the Newport Beach address in half an hour. Palacio was up in the hills off of Coast Highway, servicing Villagio, one of the new Italianate developments. The homes were built in clusters of three, which allowed them to face away from each and into the tan canyons.

  Vorapin's address had a courtyard and garage behind a gate. The gate was closed but the garage was open. She could see the back end of a clean black car and that was it.

  They walked to the gate and looked through the wrought-iron rail. Merci noted the chrome-heavy back end of the Lincoln Town Car and the livery plates, the Air Glide plate frame.

  "He's home," she said.

  "You want to camp or knock?"

  "I'll knock."

  She popped the snap on her hip leather and drew the Heckler & Koch, holding it down against her leg as she walked around the courtyard wall and into the narrow cones of shade cast by three cypresses. The front door was recessed and rounded at the top, with iron bands bolted to the timbers top and bottom. The knock black iron, heavy and warm against her fingers.

  One rap, two, nothing.

  Three, four, nothing.

  She tried the doorbell next but it chimed back with distance and emptiness.

  Then again.

  Then back to Zamorra, shaking her head, her nerves buzzing, the nine tapping against her thigh.

  Zamorra jumped the gate with the bored grace of a cat and hit the manual opener. It slid open and Rayborn angled in, taking the left of the walkway while her partner took the right.

  .Into the dappled shade of the courtyard and the spicy aroma cypresses. The walkway made an elegant curve toward the house and that was where they found Vorapin, facedown and motionless in of blood, holes gaping from the back of his head, the upper middle of his suit coat and the center of his buttocks.

  Merci stared at him, figuring the high hump of his back would come about to her knees. Why would God make a man that big?

  Vorapin groaned and Merci felt her heart leap into the sky. He coughed a mouthful of black blood onto the pavers.

  "Oh, Damn," she said, staring down the sights of the automatic, which had reflexively jumped into her sightline.

  Vorapin's fingers tightened and slid. His cratered, misshapen head rose and wobbled, like he was a baby trying to crawl. He turned a little, just enough to curse Rayborn with one magnificent, furious eye.

  Then he blew another storm of blood, gave an enormous animal shudder and his head landed with a heavy wet crunch.

  For just a moment Merci couldn't hold thoughts. They swam at her dreamily, only to vanish like spooked tarpon in a bright silver sea. Then her attention refocused with blazing clarity on the soles of Zlatan Vorapin's gigantic shoes.

  "I'll call paramedics," said Zamorra.

  "Versa-Terra."

  "What?"

  "Used by Foot Rite."

  She lowered her gun and looked at Zamorra blankly.

  "Take five, Merci. He isn't going anywhere."

  "In their popular Comfort Strider."

  She half listened
as Zamorra made the call. She couldn't take her eyes off of Vorapin. His bulk was obscene, absolutely. But he was majestic, too, like Ahab's whale or a Tsavo man-eater.

  Her own phone rang three times before she flipped open the mouthpiece and spoke from her heart: "Who are you and what do you want? "

  "Hi. It's Archie."

  A sudden reentry for Merci, swift and complete, all of her attention now focused on the voice in her ear. "Where are you?"

  "I'll be at the top of Santiago Peak in about ten minutes. I'm going to get Gwen. Meet me and we can clear some things up."

  "You blinded Sonny and murdered Vorapin."

  "Hurry up, Sergeant. I'm kind of eager to get going."

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  He got the wings out of the back of the Durango and carried them to the edge. There was a natural platform of sandstone to on, warning signs all over the place, and above him a fenced bristling with radio and communications antennae and more was windy and hot, and when he looked out he could see County spread out in front of him, the blue houses creeping purple hillside below like soldiers storming a fort. According to the map the peak was 5,687 feet above sea level, the highest point county.

  "It's beautiful," he said.

  "It really is."

  At the sound of her voice he swung around, but she wasn't there.

  "Sweetie, I'm sorry you had to see all that. But they made me do it. They started all of this."

  "I know," she said quietly. "They deserved it."

  "I didn't feel anything while I was doing it."

  "It's the bullet."

  "What a thing to happen."

  He sat at the edge of the sandstone, legs dangling in air. He watched the wind work the manzanita, shifting the branches in terse unison. He looked down at the beautiful yellow tarp of his wings. Checked the fittings and the fasteners into which the Canadian crutches were locked."

  What I'm going to do is head off toward the ocean, then turn south. The wind coming up the peak is strong, and I'll ride it up and back toward you. Then, well, it's just us. Hold on to my shoulders. It'll be nothing but blue skies."