Quarry in the Middle - Max Allan Collins [51]
“Somethin’ about me,” the white guy was saying, as they spoke across my prone form, “might surprise your black ass.”
“Such as?”
“I like that soul music.”
“You do, huh?”
“I ain’t no redneck. That’s racial. You shouldn’t say that kind of racial shit.”
“Yeah. Sorry. So. What do you listen to? Otis? Wicked Pickett? Aretha maybe?”
“Who? No, no! I like them Blues Brothers.”
“…You gotta be fuckin’ shittin’ me…”
“What?”
“Them pasty white boys can’t sing that shit.”
“Hell they can’t!” Then he started singing “Soul Man,” which I thought was pretty funny, though I didn’t laugh, too busy taking a chance lifting the edge of the tarp near my head just enough to get a fix on where the black guy was…
The black guy, who told the white guy to shut the fuck up—which only made the bastard sing louder, intermingling it with laughter—was wearing gray running shoes. Big ones—size elevens, anyway, with some miles on them. I got a good look, because those stompers were about five inches from the edge of the tarp.
Then the white guy started singing “Rubber Biscuits,” and this the black guy found funny as hell, lightening up, and he was laughing right up until my hands gripped his ankles and brought him sliding down hard onto the floor of the boat, rocking the little craft.
I stood up, like a ghost waking, and flung the tarp off and at the bearded bouncer at the stern, getting a glimpse of the sawed-off, which wasn’t in his hands, rather down in the floor of the boat, a nice break for me.
The black bouncer, whose nine mil was still in his waistband, had let go of the stick guiding the motor (and the boat), which now ran sort of on automatic pilot. He was fumbling not for the gun but for something to push up on, so he could get on his feet and deal with me. He was also saying, “Fuck!” over and over again.
The guy was big all right, but right now he was just a bug on its back, and I didn’t have that much trouble shoving him over the side, rolling him off; he made a smaller splash than you’d think, and—on my knees on the metal floor—I grabbed for the stick and swung the boat hard left, sending the bearded guy, still tangled in the tarp, over the right side (the dope still had the amber sunglasses on—at night!), and a hand that had just got hold of the sawed-off lost its grip, leaving the weapon behind.
As the boat swung around, the triple rotors of the Evinrude 25 HP came in contact with the black guy, who was splashing around and treading water desperately. The blades sheared his face off and a noseless red mask remained; as his screaming split the night, I swung the boat around in a circle and the bearded fucker managed to swim just out of its path, but his scarlet-masked partner got another helping, hands coming up protectively and fingers flying like sausages. Somewhere along the line, a rotor blade must have caught his neck, because a geyser of red headed for the moon and didn’t make it.
The bearded guy was still swimming away from me—I had straightened the craft around—but he hadn’t got very far, not far enough to avoid the sawed-off’s blast, which exploded his head and those stupid goggles with it and left him with his neck making its own fountain, not that the moon was ever in any danger of stain.
Then they were both bobbing there, with the night nicely quiet, the river otherwise empty, the full moon giving the water an ivory sheen. The gaseous masses of the universal galaxy made reflections, except where the river had gone frothy with reddish foam.
I headed upstream. Never had much experience with motorboats, but I was getting the hang of it.
Chapter Eleven
On the trip upriver, I grew increasingly uncomfortable in the cold. Some dark clouds had started rolling in, smudging the moon, a wind kicking up, making the water even choppier. I was in a short-sleeve shirt and all I had to put over me was that fucking tarp, and that wasn’t going to happen. But it was good for my head, the chill, because I could think with more clarity.
I was missing my wallet,