Straits of Fortune - Anthony Gagliano [88]
I looked down toward the end of the pier. Her father was just a shadow, almost invisible against the backdrop of the boat. From that distance I could just barely make out the tall, slender silhouettes of a row of deep-sea fishing rods lined up along the stern.
“So long, kid,” I said, trying to smile.
Vivian gave me one last desperate look, then turned and ran toward the boat. In a few seconds, she, too, was a shadow. A moment later, with a muted roar of its engine, the cruiser made a wide turn and headed out to sea. I watched the boat become small against the night sky. Williams didn’t bother to look; he was too busy watching me.
“Let’s go get that beer,” I said. “I don’t know about you, but I’m getting pretty thirsty.”
“Yeah, that’s a good idea,” he said. He made a brief gesture with his gun toward the north. “Let’s you and me take a walk up to those dunes over there.”
“Why not shoot me here?” I asked.
He smiled. “Who said I was going to shoot you? Now, walk.”
The dunes were about fifty yards away. The stalks of oat grass that covered them were waving like the hair of mermaids in the water. The sand was packed hard. Williams stayed behind me as we walked.
“Stop and turn around,” he said.
I turned in time to catch his fist with my face. I fell backward onto the sand and skidded a few feet. I lay there and did a bit more stargazing before rolling onto my stomach. Judging from the blood filling my mouth, I gathered that my nose was broken.
“Get up,” Williams said from behind me. “We’re just getting started.”
I sat up gradually. For a moment there were two Williamses, identically dressed, each one as big and as ugly as his twin. I stared at them until they merged. It was then I noticed that he wasn’t holding the gun anymore, and it came to me all at once, along with the pain in my face, what he had in mind. He was going to kill me with his bare hands.
“Get up,” he repeated. “I’m giving you a chance. You win, you leave. You lose, you die.”
I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand; it came away as red as a prizefight in the final round.
“I’ve got a better idea,” I said. “Suppose you just leave.”
Williams didn’t answer me; he stood there glaring down at where I sat as though he were looking at a body already dead. Slowly, I got to my feet. Even on my best day, I knew I couldn’t have taken him, and it wasn’t just the steroids either. He had been trained by the best, and he was also crazy. I, on the other hand, was beaten up, half drugged, and badly dehydrated. Still, being pummeled to death was better than being shot like a wounded animal—better, but a lot more painful.
I straightened up and faced him. The blood from my nose ran down my chin. The salty sweetness made me angry—angry, but not stupid. I took a step forward and pretended to stagger, and at that precise moment Williams charged at me from a distance of eight feet.
As he reached for me with his right hand, I spun to my left like a drunken matador, brushing his arm away with my left arm as though it were the branch of a tree. I almost fell, but as he went by me, I kicked him in the back of the knee. It wasn’t a hard kick, not by a long shot, but it made him stumble and lose his balance. I guess he got it back pretty fast, but it didn’t matter, because by the time he recovered, I was already running at full speed down the beach.
I waited for the sound of a gunshot, but all I heard was Williams coming hard up behind me. His fingers grazed the back of my shoulder but didn’t hold, although I knew if I so much as stumbled, it would all be over. If the sand hadn’t been as compressed as it was, he would’ve had me.
People don’t realize how fast a man built like that can run for short distances. The same muscle fibers that allow a weight lifter to hoist a quarter ton over his head can power him for thirty or forty yards at a speed almost equal to that of a sprinter a hundred pounds lighter. I could hear Williams coming, closing fast and breathing hard. I felt his fingers again graze my shoulders, and at that moment I cut to the right