“You look very cool in that contraption, Jerry. Have you driven one of those things before?”
“Shut up, Tagger.”
“If you ever get canned by Cleo, maybe you could get a job on the Seminole reservation. Nature tours!”
“Eat me,” says Jerry. Descending from the driver’s seat, he keeps the spotlight trained on my chest. I guess he wants to make sure I’m not reaching for another frozen lizard.
Pointing my own Q-beam at the bow of the airboat, I see that Emma’s hood is a burlap feed sack. She slumps round-shouldered and unmoving. The man guarding her is none other than Loreal. His eyeglasses are bug-splattered and his lustrous waist-length mane is pulled back in a drenched and unglamorous ponytail—the life of a big-time record producer! Under any other circumstances he’d have me in stitches. His distressed expression suggests he’d rather be anywhere else on the planet but here. Obviously Jerry has given him a preview of what lies ahead.
Easing up to the airboat, I put down my light, slip the outboard into neutral and move to the bow. I’m careful not to step on Juan, who remains motionless under the yellow tarpaulin. When I reach beneath it, a large plastic cartridge is pressed firmly into my hand—Jimmy Stoma’s unfinished creation.
Jerry’s spotlight is scorching the back of my neck, and I know he’s looming over me, a gun in his other hand. The glare is so hot that I can’t look up.
“Give it here,” he says.
“Not until you hand down the lady.”
The spotlight’s beam jiggles as he shifts positions. I’ve already decided to knock him into the water if he tries to board the johnboat. The light clicks off, and as my eyes adjust, I can see Loreal leading Emma by the arm; leading her to me. This I can scarcely believe.
Yet now I’m helping her into the johnboat, gently squeezing her arm and whispering that everything’s going to turn out fine. In the cloud-glow I see the black stripe of Jerry’s eye patch encircling his naked skull. The spotlight bobs restlessly in his left hand, which means the gun is in the other. I expect he’ll shoot us the moment he gets his mitts on Jimmy’s music.
“Now give it here!” he says.
I pick up the computer box and dangle it above the water on the opposite side of the boat, so that Jerry can’t grab at it. “If this baby gets wet, it’s all over,” I say. “The unit is ruined and the song’s lost forever.” With such morons it’s impossible to belabor the obvious.
“Tagger, what the fuck’re you doin’?”
“Your gun, Jer. Throw it as far as you can.”
“Yeah, right.”
“Listen, Cyclops, I’m counting to five. If I don’t hear your pistola hit the water, the package will. Then you can go home and explain to Mrs. Stomarti what happened to her hit single. Explain how you’re a tough guy, and tough guys can’t part with their guns. I’m sure she’ll understand.”
Jerry raises his right arm. It’s not so dark that I can’t make out the shape of the barrel, aimed more or less at my beak. Soiling myself would not be an inappropriate reaction.
Yet I continue to brandish the prized hard drive over the water. “One,” I hear myself saying. “Two… three… ”
“Shit, Jerry, do what he says!” Finally Loreal has something to contribute. “If he drops the damn thing, we lose all the tracks and then we’re screwed. I’m fucking serious.”
“Listen to the man, Jer. He’s a pro.”
The bodyguard emits a crude slur on my ancestry, then he rears back and heaves the gun. From the sound of the splash, it was a big one.
He says, “Okay, now gimme the fucking package.”
I’m a man of my word. “Here, Jerry. Catch.”
I toss the plastic box at his squat silhouette. The hard drive bounces off his chest and falls to the deck of the airboat. While he and Loreal clamber to retrieve it, I shove off.
Stepping to the stern of the skiff, I twist the throttle wide open.
“Jack?”
“It’s okay, Emma. Everything’s fine.”
I reach for the hood and tug it off. She looks haggard and dazed. Smiling numbly, she clutches at my hand. Juan peeks out from beneath the tarpaulin. “We cool?”