Rescue

hungry tonight.“
    I got Howard moving up the ladder and onto the gunwale. Then I heard him say, “Sweetheart,“ and hit the deck of the boat.

    I was in the captain’s chair, steering south instead of north toward the marina. Doris had aimed me at a light on a distant point of shore, wrapping Eddie in a blanket and putting him on my lap before propping Howard up near the engine with some boat cushions behind him. We were heading for the creek between Mercy and Plantation Key that would take us out to the ocean side and eventually past the reef.
    After a long while, Eddie leaned close to my ear. “Can I ask you another question?“
    “I think you’ve earned that.“
    Very quietly. “Is Howard going to die, too?“
    I looked down at the boy and decided, for better or for worse, he’d been told enough lies. “I think so.“
    Eddie closed his eyes, and gave his grave nod, but he didn’t cry. Somehow, that worried me more than anything else.
    Over my shoulder, I said, “Doris?“
    “Yes?“
    “We’re getting close to that light.“
    In a voice I barely recognized, Howard said, “Go ahead, sweetheart. I’ll make it.“

    And he did.
    We’d crossed the reef, me back at the helm, Eddie curled up asleep in the blanket and on some more cushions at my feet to be out of the cooler ocean wind. I was thinking about how we’d have to send a lot of gear overboard before heading back to the marina when I heard Doris say, “Good-bye, Howard.“ Just as she had when he and I had gone into the water earlier that night.
    I turned in the captain’s chair to see her cup his chin in her palm, using a tissue to wipe some blood from the corner of his mouth before kissing him tenderly on the lips. Then Doris swiped at her eyes twice before stuffing the tissue in her pocket and coming up to the helm.
    I held out my hand, and she took it. “Doris—“
    “You’re going to tell me we can’t bring my Howard back in with the bullet wounds.“
    I looked at her under the gauzy moon. “That’s right.“
    A nod. “There’s a place, a little further out.“
    After about a mile, Doris said, “This should be fine. Here, let me.“
    She throttled the engine back to idle, then looked down at Eddie, who hadn’t stirred. “Can you even imagine what it must have been like for him back there?“
    “No.“
    “I’m glad he’s asleep now.“
    I moved aft with her to Howard’s body. We weighted him down, then paused while Doris said something prayerful, maybe in Hebrew, I didn’t ask. Then she nodded to me, and slowly, her at his feet, me at his shoulders, we lifted the man who’d died well up and over the side, his body slipping under the surface.
    I said, “If it weren’t for Howard, Eddie and I wouldn’t be here.“
    Doris took my hand again, nodding to herself rather than to me. “Thank you, John.“
    And then she began to cry. Softly, so as not to awaken Eddie Straw.

29

    F rom a chair in the Greenspan living room, I said to Doris, “He still asleep?“
    “Yes.“
    I set down my drink, another vodka on the rocks. “Hard to figure, after all the time he must have spent in that bunk.“
    She looked at me evenly, spoke the same way. “He’s a little boy, John, and he’s been through an awful lot.“
    “So have you.“
    A nod. “With more to come.“ Doris went into the kitchen, and I heard the clink of coffee pot to ceramic mug. We’d cruised north on the ocean side of Mercy Key, Eddie waking and dropping off again as we bided our time before passing through the creek between Mercy and Key Largo. Even at three in the morning, the sky reflected the haze of official lights and media coverage on Little Mercy to the south as we slipped back into the canal mouth and toward the marina, fortunately, the docking area was deserted, and I was able to carry Eddie, swaddled in the blanket, to the Lincoln, hunkering down with him in the trunk, just in case we were stopped on the short drive to the retirement community.
    I was still too wired to try sleeping, so Doris had dug out some of Howard’s old, larger clothes. I’d been watching television, the constant news bulletins interrupting the inane, insomniac broadcasting. I alternated between two channels, a Latino male reporter and a blond female one furiously conveying the impression that something “truly horrible“ had been going on at the Center for the Study of Sin, despite Lutrice Wyeth’s strident efforts at damage control. Clark the Clerk, however, was