AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Evan nodded as best he could.
“Where is the shit was in that case?”
“With Fresh. It was gone this morning when I got here.”
“Tell you what, Evan, I’ma give you a gift—a gift of passion. You got a passion for finding the shit was in that case.”
Yellow let him go. Evan fell back against the glass case, gasping. The man in yellow reached in his vest, pulled out a business card, and threw it on the counter. “That shit turn up, you call that number.”
Evan nodded.
“And that’s all you know about this encounter, Evan. You got a passion for finding that shit and calling that number. You didn’t see nobody, you didn’t hear nobody, you don’t even know how you got that card.”
Evan nodded.
“And shave your motherfucking neck.” Yellow pulled a silk handkerchief from his breast pocket and wiped his choking hand as he left the shop. “That shit is nasty.”
The bell over the door rang and Evan looked up, surprised that no one was there. No one had been in all morning. Just as well, he could feel a sore throat coming on.
It’s done,” Audrey said. She opened her eyes and looked around.
“What’s done?” said Jane, she looked up from her phone just in time to see a dark shape plummeting out of the fog bank above them. Two things hit the water with explosive impact only about fifteen feet from the boat—Pow! Pow!—a water spout shot up and dispersed over and around them.
“Holy fuck!” Jane said, staring at the water.
“Audrey, can you hand me that,” Minty Fresh said, pointing to the big, gray suitcase at the stern. His diving mask was on his head. He hit a button on his watch.
“Holy fuck!” Jane said.
Audrey stood, grabbed the handle, and swung it over to the big man, who stepped past the console and set it in the bow.
“What’s in there?” Audrey asked.
“Soul vessels,” said the Mint One. “After Cavuto, I wanted them with me.”
“Holy fuck!” Jane said, still staring at the settling spot where Mike had hit the water.
“Jane!” said Minty Fresh. She shook off the amazement and looked at him. “We need to get into the water.”
Jane shook her head. “Too much current, someone has to drive the boat.” She wore a wet suit under a yellow Gore-tex rain jacket, which she had refused to take off because she wasn’t happy about her butt.
Minty looked to Audrey, who shook her head.
“Fine, fold down that swim platform, Audrey,” said Minty. He moved to the rear of the console—his fins now in the space where Audrey had been sitting—sat on the gunwale, then pulled down his mask, put his snorkel in, and flipped over backward into the water. He took one breath on the surface and dove, his fins standing straight up out of the water like the flukes of a sounding whale. Sirens began to sound on the bridge.
“There’s enough foam in those motorcycle leathers to bring him to the surface,” Jane said. “Isn’t there?”
Audrey shrugged . . . who knows?
Jane maneuvered the boat to keep it near the point of impact. Without a word, Audrey reached over the stern of the boat and folded down an aluminum and teak swimming platform that formed a little dock at water level next to the big Mercury outboards. Jane pulled a backpack with the defibrillator in it out from under the console and handed it back to Audrey.
They watched the water fizz where Mike had gone in, looking for any sign of movement. A shadow rose in the deep green water and heads broke the surface. A geyser of seawater sprayed into the air as Minty Fresh cleared his snorkel. He looked around, located the boat, then hooked Mike under the chin in the crook of his arm, and started kicking for the boat.
“Backboard,” said Audrey. She was still in her nun robes, yellow and maroon silk, now beginning to whip in the cold wind.
There was an orange plastic backboard lashed to the rail on the console. Jane slipped the knot and handed one end of the board back to Audrey, who caught it by one of the many handles. The two of them lowered it over the side and waited. Minty Fresh swam Mike’s limp body up to the backboard, then pushed him onto it as Jane and Audrey held it steady. The big man cinched a nylon strap around Mike’s chest, then another around his feet, then kicked back to the swim platform, which he launched himself up and around into a sitting position. He allowed himself one breath, pulled his fins off and threw them into the boat, then was on his feet, reaching over the side to grab the backboard.
“Just pull his head up, we’ll slide him up out of the water,” said Audrey.
