Dead Water Zone

  The water was strewn with debris, but Monica nosed the boat expertly around jagged timbers, car tires, plastic canisters, oil-slicked wooden spools.

  He’d slept poorly—like some machine that wouldn’t shut itself off—and this morning his body ached, and the inside of his mouth felt like cheap carpeting. He found himself sneaking glances at Monica’s face. In the diffuse white light of the mist, she didn’t look as pale as she had last night on the pier. He felt like a voyeur, peeping through windows, hoping for a bit of excitement. He should mind his own business.

  “So why’d he run away?” she asked, her eyes fixed on the water.

  Paul hesitated, then said, “Things weren’t good for him at home.”

  That much was true. Sam had been so eager to get away from Governor’s Hill, from Mom and Dad. From him. It was a kind of running away.

  “He skipped a lot of grades at school. He didn’t have many friends. He was way smarter than anyone his age but too small to mix with the older kids. He was always getting beaten up.”

  “So you were the bodyguard.”

  Paul nodded slowly, pleased. “I was always running interference for him on the way back and forth from school. Couldn’t be with him all the time, though.” He paused, uncomfortable. “A lot of it was his fault. He was lippy, pissing everyone off. If he’d have shut up, it would have been better for him.”

  “It must have been a pain, babysitting.”

  “It wasn’t babysitting,” he snapped angrily. But she was right; how many times had he used the same word himself?

  Babysitting. It was a complicated feeling. He’d always felt like Sam’s protector. Sometimes he’d have been happy to let him fend for himself. But whenever he thought of that one time, his throat contracted. They’d made him watch. No. He’d be seeing Sam soon, and everything would be all right.

  Dark shapes loomed, then broke through the mist, a long line of decaying boathouses, some half submerged.

  “That’s the one,” said Monica, pointing.

  “How many times did you see him around here?”

  “A couple,” she answered.

  “What was he doing?”

  “Looking around. That’s how I knew he was a stranger. It was funny, because at first…” She trailed off.

  “What?”

  “Nothing. You sure don’t look like your brother.”

  “You never talked to him?”

  “Why would I?”

  She maneuvered slowly through the tangle of broken jetties. The outer doors of the boathouse were wide open, and she pushed the gears into neutral and swung inside. At the back, a set of stairs led up to a loft, partially concealed behind a low wall.

  Monica nudged against the deck, looping the painter deftly around a rusted metal cleat.

  Paul was over the side at once.

  “Sam!”

  No answer.

  “You sure this was the place?” he asked.

  “This is it. Watch the planking. It looks rotten.”

  “Sam!”

  He climbed up to the loft.

  It was the disorder that sent the first shriek of alarm through his head. Clothes were scattered about, jeans, shirts, socks, underwear—he even recognized one of the T-shirts he’d given Sam on his last birthday. Sam never left anything lying around.

  Paul’s eyes picked out the broken remains of laboratory glassware. Several metal racks and some small lab implements were strewn nearby. Surely he’d brought more equipment than this! Where was it? And what about a sleeping bag? Food? He’d been down here for weeks. What was he living off?

  “Looks like he cleared out,” Monica said behind him.

  But then he saw his brother’s glasses, lying on the floor. Sam was almost blind without them. He’d never leave them behind.

  There were endless possibilities here. You could slip from a pier, dash your head to pieces on the timbers below. You could drown, get mugged, murdered for an empty wallet. But none of these things explained the glasses. Sam would have been wearing them. Broken equipment, clothes all over. Signs of a struggle? Maybe. With whom? Sam, what happened here?

  “Maybe he’s planning on coming back.”

  Paul slipped the glasses into his pocket.

  “No. He’s not coming back.”

  What was Sam doing down here, holed up in a deserted boathouse with test tubes and beakers, like some kid on a demented school field trip? Maybe if he’d come right after Sam’s phone call, instead of waiting a few days. Maybe it would have made a difference, maybe, maybe. He took a deep breath. There was nothing else to see here.

  He gathered up the clothes. They still smelled of Sam. He brushed past Monica and headed down the steps, numb.

  “We should have come last night,” he muttered, knowing it was unfair.

  “You saw what the waters are like around here,” she said dispassionately.

  “Something’s happened to him!” he shouted. “He could be dead! And you didn’t want to scratch your crappy boat!”

  “Paul, I’m sorry! But it’s not my problem!”

  “Not your problem! That’s great, that’s just—”

  He hit the last step and felt it give way. The crack of splintering wood sounded in his ears as he lurched headlong toward the water, the bundle of clothes spilling out ahead of him. Suddenly Monica’s hand closed around his right arm, snapping him back. He was less surprised by the strength of her grip than by its coldness—an uncanny chill through the fabric of his sweatshirt.

  He toppled clumsily to the deck, wrenching his foot free from the rotted wood. Sam’s clothing floated atop the filthy water, already sodden. He started snatching it out with furious determination, slapping it against the deck. He hardened his face, biting back tears.

  Monica knelt beside him and fished out a few T-shirts and socks. Paul couldn’t look at her. He felt like a fool. He was captain of the track team, he could bench-press his own weight and more, and here he was, tripping on steps. She’d had to pull him back like a mother grabbing a little kid who’d wandered too close to the deep end! It wasn’t his fault. This whole stinking place was rotting under his feet.

  They carried the clothes back to the boat in silence.

  “Thanks,” he said grudgingly. “I’m sorry.”

  “You missed something up in the loft.”

  “What?”

  She handed him a small square of plastic. It was a computer diskette. He blew off the dust and examined the label: S. B. Sam.

  “Where was it?”

  “Jammed against the wall.”

  The motor shuddered to life. Her pale hands tapped the steering wheel as she stared straight ahead. “Look, I hope you find your brother, really I do. Where do you want to go? I’ll dump you anywhere you want.”

  Paul was still looking at the diskette. “Do you have a computer?”

  “Paul, this is really none of my business.” She hesitated, then said evenly, “What I mean is, I don’t want to do this anymore.”

  He couldn’t blame her. He was a total stranger and she’d already done a lot. He rubbed his arm. It was sore where she’d grabbed him.

  “Yeah, I’m sorry,” he said. “I really appreciate everything you’ve done.”

  She shrugged, avoiding his eyes. “Where do you want to go?”

  “Can you take me back to the main pier?”

  “Done. Get in.” She started backing the boat out but then flipped it into neutral. “What are you going to do at the main pier?”

  “I’ll try to get a computer.” He had no idea how.

  “I can’t stand people like you, Paul,” she muttered. “I really can’t. You are so damn helpless. How is someone like you going to get a line on a computer in Watertown? Yellow Pages?” She gave a snort of irritation. “I can’t stand it. Ask Armitage about the computer when we get back. Maybe he’s got something kicking around. If not, I want you out of my life for good.”

  Paul couldn’t help smiling in relief.

  “And I don??
?t want another one of your suburban thank-yous.”

  The last of the morning fog was burning off. Monica reached for a pair of sunglasses and perched on the back of her seat for a better view of the debris-strewn water. Paul turned the diskette over and over in his hands, as if it would suddenly offer up secrets. It might give him an idea of what Sam was doing down here, what had happened to him.

  “Bad news.”

  “What?” He scanned the water for menacing debris.

  “Listen.”

  Paul heard nothing but the growl of their engine. Monica pulled the boat around in a sharp turn and opened up the throttle.

  “What’s going on?” Paul asked uneasily.

  It was a few seconds before the rhythmic thumping of rotor blades reached his ears. Then the helicopter broke through the veil of mist and drifted lazily over the boathouse roofs, in their direction.

  A piece of debris knocked against the boat’s hull, then deflected off the propeller with a sharp grinding noise. Monica swore but didn’t slow down. But the helicopter had overtaken them, hovering low, shattering the water’s surface. Paul clamped his hands over his ears, wincing.

  “Who are they?” he shouted.

  “Don’t know,” she yelled back. “But I don’t think they’re tourists.”

  With a sudden burst of speed, Monica aimed the boat straight at a high pier.

  “Hey, what are you doing!” he shouted in alarm.

  She hunched tighter over the wheel. Paul’s fingers dug into the plastic upholstery of his seat. The boat veered crazily around pilings and timbers and then shot underneath the pier and into shadow, with about two feet of clearance overhead. The boat slowed to a gentle glide.

  “How did you know we’d fit?” Paul asked weakly.

  “I’ve done it before. If there’s one thing I hate,” Monica muttered, steering the boat carefully between the pilings, “it’s unmarked helicopters.”

  “I think I saw that one yesterday.”

  “Me, too.”

  “It took a good long look at me.”

  She glanced over at him. “Armitage is not going to be happy.”

  “It’s probably just some cops on their lunch break,” said Armitage easily. “I wouldn’t worry about it.”

  He was sitting cross-legged in the boathouse, a laser disc player in his skinny lap, a metal file in one hand. He paused to study his handiwork.

  “What do you think?” he asked Paul. “Can you read that?”

  Paul obligingly peered at a metal plate on the back of the machine. The serial number was completely filed away.

  “Looks good to me.”

  “Take it from the expert,” said Monica with soft sarcasm. Paul felt his face flush. The closest he got to the world of crime in Governor’s Hill was the movies.

  Armitage waved his file at the diskette in Paul’s hand. “Runaways don’t usually drag around portable computers.”

  “Sam’s a strange guy,” Paul replied awkwardly, hoping Armitage wouldn’t pursue it.

  Armitage replaced the laser disc player in its box and stood up, dusting metal filings from his trousers.

  “I don’t have anything here right now,” he said. “Tell you what, though, I’ve got to go into the docklands today for business. Why don’t you let me take it in? I can get a hard copy run off for you.”

  Paul desperately wanted the magnetic secrets, but he knew he couldn’t give the diskette to Armitage. Tell no one: Sam’s words.

  “I’d rather keep hold of it,” Paul said. “If you don’t mind.”

  Armitage looked at him for a long time.

  “You don’t trust me, Paul?”

  Paul shuffled his feet awkwardly. “It’s just that—”

  “You’re smart,” Armitage said. “It’s safer not to trust people. But I’m a busy man, Paul. You can’t really expect me to bring back a computer, just for you.”

  “No.” He’d overstepped again. “If you can’t do it, you can’t do it.”

  “I didn’t say I can’t do it. The question is, Will I do it? I can get anything I want out there.”

  “I’m sure you can,” Paul said quickly; he didn’t want any raised hackles.

  “You don’t believe me?”

  “I do. Really.” He didn’t want a scene.

  “I can get anything I want out of this town. I’ll get your computer. I’m going to further your education, Paul. You can do a project on it when you get back to school—something on bristol board maybe. But it might take a day or two.”

  Paul couldn’t help smiling. “Um, all right.”

  But Monica was shaking her head angrily. “Forget it, Armitage. It’s time for him to go.”

  “What are you talking about?” asked Armitage.

  “I’ve got a bad feeling about this. There was an unmarked helicopter out there. He said it spooked him yesterday as he was coming here. And there it was again when we were leaving the boathouse. Am I the only person who sees a connection? For all we know, this brother of his could be wanted by the cops.”

  “He’s not—” Paul began to protest.

  “They got a good look at me, Armitage, and I don’t like that. You shouldn’t either. If they trace him here, we go down.”

  “Paranoid,” her brother said dismissively.

  “What the hell’s wrong with you?” she demanded.

  “They were probably just standard pass-overs.”

  “You’re getting careless.”

  “I’m not getting careless. I know exactly what I’m doing! I’m staying real sharp. All you have to do is go through people’s pockets, okay? The rest is for me to worry about!”

  “What about your rule? No strangers on the pier.”

  “You brought him, Monica.”

  “For one night. I felt sorry for him, okay? And now I’m getting edgy.”

  Paul could only watch, mortified. He’d grown up with tense silences, unspoken words, dark looks at the dinner table. People weren’t supposed to fight like this, especially not in public. People were supposed to keep it in.

  “You’re talking crap!” Armitage said. “I haven’t screwed up yet. I’m holding things together for us—better than Mom ever did.”

  “Shut up, Armitage!”

  “Mom’s not here anymore! Good thing, too, ’cause she was useless!”

  “She taught you,” Monica said coldly. “Stealing—and lots of other things, too.”

  “Yeah, she did. And then she let it all fall apart!”

  Monica seemed to lose all her fire. She shrugged indifferently. “So you want me to stick around here all day, that it?”

  “I wanted you to have a look at the cabin cruiser, anyway,” said Armitage. “The engine’s been acting up, and you know it better than anyone else. Work some magic with it, okay?”

  It was a kind of peace offering, but Monica didn’t seem particularly pleased. “Fine, but I’m not going to babysit the boy genius.”

  “I don’t need a babysitter,” Paul said quietly.

  Monica shook her head wearily. “You sure as hell do. I’m just sorry we don’t have any board games.”

  * * *

  “Have you finished?” Paul asked.

  “Not yet.”

  Board games were a passion with Sam. The most complicated ones, war games, with rule books as thick as school texts, boards that folded out over half the living room floor, and hundreds of tiny cardboard counters with symbols and numbers in every corner.

  “You said you wouldn’t take so long this time.”

  “I’m almost done.”

  Paul rolled his eyes. Sam seemed to spend an eternity analyzing every possibility. Paul didn’t have the patience for games that dragged on all afternoon and sometimes longer. He couldn’t take it all that seriously. Besides, he always got decimated.

  “Ready,” Sam proclaimed.

  “Let’s hear it, General,” said Paul sarcastically.

  Sam read out his orders, expertly annihilating Paul’s best tanks and artillery.
Paul shook his head, dazed. Sam always seemed to be three or four moves ahead of him. Paul didn’t stand a chance. He reluctantly read out his orders and actually fired mistakenly on his own troops.

  “This is boring,” he said.

  “It’s just getting good,” Sam said distractedly, already studying the board for his next set of victorious moves.

  “Boring,” Paul said again.

  “You’re not concentrating,” Sam scolded him. “Honestly, Paul, you have to think it through.”

  “Let’s go outside.”

  Sam sighed. “You’re just angry because you’re losing.”

  “I’m not angry. I’m just bored! Come on. We can call David and Barry and get a game of touch football going.”

  He knew Sam hated playing games outside, but he wanted to go to the park, get his body into the sun, stretch his muscles.

  “No thanks,” said his brother in a tight voice.

  “All you want to do is sit on your ass reading books or playing these games.”

  “The doctor said I shouldn’t overexert myself.”

  Sam’s doctors—the names changed every few months or so, as his parents became dissatisfied with the treatment. His brother would come back from his appointments with more pills, more instructions. And the fact was, he hadn’t put on a single pound in months. Paul knew he was supposed to be understanding, but he spent enough time playing bodyguard at school. Was he really expected to stay indoors on weekends and let Sam pulverize him with his war games?

  “Maybe if you got more exercise—” he began testily.

  “Playing football with your half-wit friends is not the solution.”

  “Don’t be such a wimp!”

  “Look, you always want to stop in the middle of the games. Grow up. If you put in more of an effort, there’s a small chance you’d make fewer moronic mistakes!”

  Paul swiped his hand across the playing board, knocking all the counters onto the carpet.

  “That was stupid!” shouted Sam.

  “This game is stupid.”

  “There’s more to life than track meets and bodybuilding, Paul.”

  Before Paul could stop himself, he shoved Sam sprawling against the sofa. He’d never hit him before.