Freaky Deaky

Chris saw the black athletic bag floating in the clear water. He walked along the edge to the deep end, looked down and studied the dark shapes on the bottom, Donnell's voice filling the room now, telling him from a distance how he'd found the bag, brought it in here and thrown it, and the bag must've hit the board and those things came out of it.

Chris looked at his watch.

"What time was that?"

"Was about quarter of eleven."

"You thought if you dropped dynamite in water it wouldn't go off?"

"I was hoping."

"You were wrong."

"Then why didn't it?"

"It still might. Or it could've shorted when it hit the water, blown you through the window. Why don't you come here, so I don't have to yell."

"I been as close to it as I want."

Chris walked back to the shallow end.

"We don't know what time it's set for, do we? If it was put there early this morning, within the past twelve hours…" He reached Donnell and said, "You know you could be arrested, withholding evidence of a crime."

"Man, I didn't make the bomb."

"Doesn't matter. Why didn't you call Nine-eleven?"

"Have the police come, the fire trucks? Pretty soon we have the TV news. Mr. Woody don't want none of that.

Man likes his privacy and is willing to pay for it." Donnell brought a ballpoint pen out of his pants pocket and opened the checkbook.

"Tell me what your shakedown price is these days."

Chris said, "Anything I want?"

"Long as it seems to be right."

"I say ten thousand?"

"I write it in."

"What if I say twenty?"

"I write it in. But now twenty you getting up there. I'd have to sell that figure to the man, convince him."

"He's already signed the check."

"Yeah, but that don't mean the money's in the bank.

See, he keeps only so much in there. It gets low, the man calls a certain number and they transfer money from his trust account to his regular business account. I think I could talk the man into paying twenty, but I'd have to have a cut, like ten percent. Two grand for the service, understand?"

"I don't know," Chris said, looking out at the pool.

"I'd have to take my clothes off, dive in there… the bomb could go off any time. I'm fooling with a fast high explosive under water, can barely see what I'm doing-" "You cut the wire," Donnell said.

"Is that all?" Chris brought out the Spyder-Co knife that was always in his right-hand coat pocket.

"Here, you do it."

"The shakedown pro. I should've known," Donnell said.

"Drive up in your Cadillac, twenty don't meet your greed. Gonna go for what you can get."

"The way I have to look at it," Chris said, "I make a mistake, I'm floating face down in a fucking swimming pool, something I never thought of before." He paused.

"You'd have to look in the Yellow Pages, see if you can find another bomb disposal man."

"For what, if the bomb's gone?"

"The next one. They'd have to try again."

Donnell stared at him.

"You think so, huh?"

"You don't seem to understand what this is about. It's a payback,"

Chris said, "get even for getting snitched on and doing time. Mark and Woody's mom told the feds where to find Robin and her boyfriend, Skip.

The mom's dead, so they go after the boys, thinking, Well, they probably told the mom anyway."

Donnell said, "Robin, huh?" and started to smile.

"First time we met I said you must be dumb as shit, didn't I? I'll tell you something now that we talked again. You still dumb as shit.

You live in your little get-even bomb world, down there bent over taking wires apart. See, that's why people like you get hired by people like me. I write down "Mr. Mankowski' and 'twenty-oh-oh-oh' on one of these checks, man, you'll dive in with your clothes on. It don't matter who's doing what or why and don't tell me different.

"Cause once you on the take, man, you on it, for good."

Chris said, "Let's go sit down."

He walked off, going to the lounge area halfway up the length of the pool-the arrangement of chairs and low tables by the bar and stereo system-and poured himself a scotch. There was water in the ice bucket.

A buzzing sound came from the phone sitting on the bar and a light went on.

Chris took his drink to a table and sat down.

Donnell said, from the shallow end of the pool, "That's Mr. Woody.

Wait half a minute, he'll forget what he wants."

Chris sipped his whiskey. The phone buzzed a few more times. Donnell was staring at the clear water.

"Say that thing could still go off?"

"You never know," Chris said. The phone had stopped buzzing.

"Come on, sit down. Tell me what Robin said when she called."

That got his attention. Donnell looked over but didn't say anything.

"I'm dumb as shit," Chris said, "you have to straighten me out. So it's not a payback, it's a pay up or get blown up.

The anarchist turned capitalist. It used to be political, now it's for money." He thought about it a moment, nodding.

"It makes sense. Get out of that dump she's living in. Or she's bored, uh? Tired of writing those books…" Chris sipped his drink.

Donnell was still watching him.