Rae was already pointing the pistol at Cattaneo’s head and she snarled, “If Matt or you makes a single fuckin’ move, I’m gonna shoot you in the fuckin’ head, Jack, and I’m not going to miss, and then I’m gonna shoot Matt if I have to. I’m faster than either one of you assholes, so keep that in mind.”
Lange was freaked, looking down at Regio: “What! What! You killed him!”
“That’s right,” Rae said. “He shoulda been quicker. But he was a dumbass, he wanted to enjoy himself, looking at me, seeing the fear.” She was talking street because she wasn’t yet sure she should announce herself as a marshal. If they thought she was street, they might still think they could talk their way out of their problem.
The muzzle of her Sig never moved from Cattaneo’s forehead. “Now, here’s what we’re gonna do. I’m gonna move off to this side...” She tipped her head. “... and Matt’s gonna move up the other side where he can pull Willy out of the water.”
She added, “While he’s doing that, this gun is pointed at yourhead, Jack. From this distance, I could choose which eye to shoot you in. You’re the boss and you better tell your boy not to be fuckin’ around, because if he fucks around, I’ll deal with you first thing, and worry about him one second later. Then you both be dead. But you first, Jack.”
“We can talk this out,” Cattaneo said.
“Maybe we can, maybe we can’t,” Rae said. “Whatever happens, we gonna want more than the pea bag full of cash. We gonna want a couple of those cans that Willy’s bringing up.”
“Deal. Don’t point the gun at me anymore.”
“What, you think I’m stupid? I’m pointing at your left eyeball until I’m on that fuckin’ dock.”
Virgil saw themcoming. Twenty minutes earlier, the wedding cake powercat had gone by, a few hundred yards toward shore, making twenty knots. Now Cattaneo’s boat was coming up, bow lights coming right at him. He flashed his light at them, got a return flash. Cattaneo cut the power and the boat glided up, barely moving when it got to him. As it came up, he saw Rae standing to one side, Lange to the other, with no sign of Regio.
Virgil swam to the boarding ladder, looked up, and said to Lange, “Gonna be heavy. Got eleven cans in the two bags.”
On the first two nights, the recoveries had sparked minor celebrations. This time, Lange said nothing except “Hand me the lines.”
Virgil: “Everything okay?”
Rae shouted: “Fuck no. These motherfuckers were gonna shoot us. Marc, he’s dead. I’m pointing a gun at Jack. If Matt gives youany trouble at all, you yell and I shoot Jack in the fuckin’ eyeball. Then I shoot Matt.”
“Fuck me,” Virgil said. He passed up the lines for the lift bags and Lange struggled to get them on board, and Cattaneo came hurrying to help, Rae shouting warnings at him. When the second bag went over the side, Virgil unbuckled the backplate harness and the tanks went on board, followed by his fins. He got his feet on the ladder, and Rae shouted, “Matt, you go way up on the end of the bow, away from Willy. Get up there.”
Lange moved to the bow and Virgil climbed the ladder. Rae was calling him “Willy.” That meant that she’d kept her fake identity, and for whatever reason, he should as well.
When Virgil was on board, Rae said to Cattaneo, “Willy gonna come over by you. Willy, get down in the cockpit, reach under that asshole’s body and you find a gun. Jack, you make one fucking move toward him and I kill your sorry ass. I got my eye on you too, Matt.”
Virgil carefully stepped into the cockpit and halfway down the ladder to the salon. The floor of the cockpit was awash with purple blood. He tugged Regio’s legs around, picked up a bloody black Beretta 92. “Got it,” he said. He leaned over the side of the boat, rinsed the blood off in the ocean, then shook the water off.
“Get up on deck,” Rae said to Virgil. “Matt, you get down in the cockpit with Jack. I know you probably got a gun, but don’t even think about it. Willy’s not a good shot, but we can’t miss and we’re really worried about all this and you twitch wrong and we kill your sorry asses.”
Lange said, “I don’t have a gun.”
Cattaneo said nothing for a moment, then, “We probably ought to get rid of Marc’s body.”
“Fuck that,” Rae said. “We get back to the dock, me’n Willy gonna put a couple-three cans under our arms and all the cash you got and run for it. What you do then, with the rest of the shit and Marc, that’s your problem. We be gone.”
Cattaneo nodded once.
“I can’t fuckin’ believe this,” Lange said. Then, to Rae, “I tried to talk them out of it.”
“Don’t give a wide shit,” Rae said. “You still an asshole. You didn’t want to shoot me, but you weren’t gonna stop them.”
The ride back was tense: Cattaneo kept trying to come up with alternatives to returning to the marina—he suggested a hard left turn and a trip to the Bahamas, dropping Regio over the side before they got there—but Virgil was silent and Rae wouldn’t take anything but a ride back to their car.
On the way, Virgil watchfully stripped off the wet suit, the Beretta close at hand, and changed into his street clothes, and checked the cut on his calf. It was deep, and bleeding, but Cattaneo had a good first-aid kit and he smeared the cut with disinfectant and covered it with a gauze bandage, wrapped it with a couple yards of medical tape.
At the marina, with Rae’s gun still pointing at Cattaneo’s eye, Cattaneo made the sharp turn into the slip, and as they pulled in, a half dozen men dressed in dark clothing materialized from the moored boats around them.
Cattaneo saw them, looked to Rae. “What the fuck is this?”
Rae: “Oh, shit. Did I forget to mention that me’n Willy are U.S.Marshals? You’re under arrest for God only knows how many drug violations, and now, with Marc dead, I believe you’re up for felony murder.”
