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I looked up and down the passageway. We were totally vulnerable. “Leslie, this isn’t the time for it.”
“I know.” Paradoxically, she stood on the tops of my shoes and put her arms around me and pressed her chest and head against me. I could feel her heart beating and her breath on my skin.
“You’re a good man,” she said. “So is Clete. No evil can ever destroy you.”
Then she was gone. She didn’t walk away. She was just gone.
“Dave, don’t just stand there,” Clete said. “Haul ass.”
“I was talking to Leslie.”
“Leslie? There’s nobody else here. Come on, big mon. We’ve got to get out of Crazy Town.”
* * *
THE ELECTRIC LIGHTS began flittering as we worked our way forward. Then they went out altogether and came back on. Two popped, the glass tinkling on the deck. A tall figure came down the ladder from the main deck. He was wearing flip-flops, his face in shadow, his hands tanned, his midnight-blue silk shirt unbuttoned on his chest and stomach, his tight white bell-bottoms hanging below his navel. He looked high.
“What are you doing here, Johnny?” I said.
“Trying to save you from getting killed,” he replied. “I saw you on the surveillance camera.”
“Who else saw us?” Clete said.
“Nobody,” he said. “It’s chaos up there. Half of the electrical system is down. Uncle Mark is going apeshit.”
“You don’t look like you’re about to lose the love of your life,” I said.
“My uncle shot me up.”
“You let him?” Clete said.
“I was asleep. That tin box Adonis had, those were my works. I put a hotshot in there. I was gonna use it on myself if I didn’t get Isolde back.”
Clete looked at me. If Johnny was telling the truth, Clete had jabbed the hotshot into the neck of the man in the silver overalls and killed him. “What’s going on with the green monster out there?” Clete said.
“He wants to talk with you,” Johnny said.
“Don’t tell me that,” Clete said.
“He said it over our radio. Just before it went dead.”
> “Can you get us some heavy firepower?” I said.
“Bell has all that stuff,” Johnny said.
“Where does he store it?” I said.
“I don’t know.”
“You’re not being helpful,” Clete said. “You’ve got to get out a Mayday.”
“There’s some kind of shield around the yacht,” Johnny said.
Clete looked at me again, then at Johnny. “Go back down the passageway to the cabin where Father Julian is and stay there.”
“No.”
“No?” I said.
