His daughter slid the shotgun out the broken window and started shooting directly into the hull of the motorboat. There was a pause as she reloaded and then two more giant blasts followed, ripping holes into the fiberglass of the cruiser, opening it up for the ocean to pour in.
It was like they were one person, not two. When he thought, Loo acted. She continued reloading and blasting holes into the sinking cruiser, while Hawley used the boat hook to catch the back of Jove’s windbreaker and drag him to the leeward side. He reached under his friend’s arms and pulled both him and the bear into the boat. Jove’s eyes were still moving, but he was bleeding badly. Hawley pressed his hand against the wound, the blood pumping out with each heartbeat between his fingers.
The door to the cabin opened and there was Loo, carrying Hawley’s orange toolbox. “What do you need?”
“Israeli bandage,” said Hawley.
Beside them, the cruiser continued to take on water. There was a thud as a wave spun the bow and knocked into the sailboat. The whole deck tilted and Loo dropped to her knees. She threw down the case. She grabbed a sealed package and ripped it open.
“Is he going to die?”
“Probably,” said Hawley.
“Fuck you,” Jove groaned.
“Ha,” said Hawley. “See?”
Together they got the bandage around him. Hawley tightened it as best he could. Something glittered and caught the light. He looked at his daughter.
“There’s glass in your hair,” he said.
“The cabin windows got blown out.” Loo raised her arm and tiny fragments fell sparkling to the deck like crystals.
“I’ve got to check on King. Stay here,” said Hawley. “Keep pressure on the dressing.”
“All right,” said Loo. She put her hands where his had been and her eyes did not leave the blood running out all over Jove’s windbreaker, beading up and streaming off onto the floorboards.
Hawley ducked under the mainsail. The cruiser was foundering, tilted to its side but not yet underwater. The sailboat was wedged against the broken hull. It was close enough to climb across and Hawley did, the fiberglass echoing as he landed. The door to the cabin where King had disappeared was still open. He picked up the Glock and the Colt from where he’d thrown them on the deck. He started down the ladder. The cabin was flooded, food and clothing and garbage floating in the tight space, which was foul-smelling and dark except for a single hatch at the tip of the bow.
Hawley waded through the wreckage toward the opening. When he reached the hatch he found a torn piece of fabric on the hinge. Then he heard music. At first he thought it was coming from a radio, and then he recognized the song. It was Debussy, each note both hopeful and sad, played by man-made gears buried deep inside a timepiece, so that the bearer would know the marking of an hour.
Hawley scrambled through the hatch, stumbling against the rail as the deck heaved and tilted. The old boxer had crawled on top of the roof above the cabin. His shadow stretched across the mainsail of the Pandora. A shadow in the shape of every imaginary monster that had ever lived underneath Loo’s childhood bed. Every nightmare that Hawley had soothed and rocked away from his little girl and then tucked back inside his own dreams. King’s shadow pointed a gun and the boom echoed across the water, and beneath the canvas Hawley saw Loo doubling over. She stumbled and tried to stand and then another blast came and she was rolling over the side of the boat and Hawley saw her fall into the water. His daughter. His Loo.
Gone.
King’s shirt was ripped from going through the hatch and his hair was wet from the water but there wasn’t a spot of blood on him. Hawley never missed, but he had missed him somehow. King was holding up the handgun he’d shot Jove with and shot Loo with and now he was shooting Hawley with it, too. The bullet hit above Hawley’s heart and below his shoulder, and right off Hawley felt the difference, how this bullet did not slide through his body like a visitor but instead tore and split and sliced as if it were building a home for itself out of his insides, as if it intended to stay and put down roots.
Hawley’s hands fumbled for the Colt, but King jumped down from the roof and knocked it away before he could pull the trigger, and then the cruiser tilted as the men wrestled and both their guns fell into the water. He could feel the heat of the old boxer winding up and then the man was punching Hawley, first in the stomach and then in the face and then where he had shot him, each blow landing like a burning ember across Hawley’s scarred body. He remembered what Jove had told him about the men King fought, how their minds would be sheared into a place of forgetting, a place where they no longer remembered who they loved or why they loved them.
Hawley struggled to his knees and threw himself into King and knocked the older man down. He crawled to the edge of the boat to look for Loo in the water but there was only water, only waves, and then King was on him again and threw one last blow to the side of Hawley’s head and Hawley felt his skull crack and then he saw stars. Bright and shining sparks of light that broke into flames and streaked through the night that swept over him.
And the stars began to fall together, to pull and form a body that sparked and shone into a greater brightness and out of that brightness stepped Lily. She was standing behind King, her long black hair dripping wet, as if she had decided not to drown and had instead been waiting all these years for just the right moment to rise from the water.
“Get away from him,” she said.
And like a miracle, the beating stopped. The shadow of King moved and Hawley could feel the air on his face again. He could taste the blood running down the back of his throat. He coughed. He listened.
“Over there.”
Lily was holding Hawley’s father’s rifle and she was pointing it at King’s chest. She backed the boxer to the edge of the sinking boat. She kept enough distance so that he wouldn’t be able to grab the rifle if he lunged or tried to snatch it away. Her finger was on the trigger and her elbow was tucked in tight and the grip was braced against her shoulder and the barrel was steady enough to balance a quarter and the sight was leveled up for a shot to the head. Hawley had taught her that. She remembered. She knew it all, he thought. His girl.
“The watch.”
King slipped the gold out from his pocket.
“Throw it in the water.”
“What?”
“You heard me.”
The boxer glared at her. “This piece is priceless. One of a kind.”
“It’s a stupid watch.” She set her eye to the scope.
King turned his face as if he couldn’t bear to look and dropped the watch over the rail, the gold catching the light and flashing, a beating heart lost between the waves, turning end over end until it disappeared into the gloom.
“Your turn.”
“I don’t know how to swim.”
“Then you better hope the Coast Guard finds you. Here.” She threw him a life jacket. King slipped it over his head. Pulled the buckle around his waist. He was still eyeing the place where the watch had gone in. Hawley could see him wondering if he should dive for it, if there was a chance to snatch the gold before it hit the bottom of the sea.
“Now what?”