Period 8 - By Chris Crutcher Page 0,60
what’s going on. He stops treading and slides into drown-proofing. Front float, face in the water, push down gently while raising the head, take a breath, front float again. Over and over. He could do this forever if it weren’t so goddamn cold. Where in hell is that float?
Suddenly he lays back in the water and roars; a loud, long, guttural purge. None of those assholes can swim, and if they had a boat they’d be all over the lake with it. The searchlight sweeps and Logs follows it, looking for that black rectangular absence of light. It looms huge, barely six yards from where he hangs suspended in the water.
“This is 911. What is your emergency?”
“My name is Paul Baum,” Paulie says into Ron Firth’s phone. “I’m a student at Heller High School. I was swimming with one of my teachers at Diamond Lake tonight and he started getting hypothermia. We made it to that little ski dock anchored in the middle and I left him there to go for help. He’s out there now, and he could be freezing to death.”
“Is this a joke?”
“Ma’am, believe me, it’s no joke.”
“It’s nearly eleven, young man. You’re asking me to believe your teacher went swimming with you in the pitch-dark and he’s still out there?”
“Some people were chasing us.”
“What people?”
“Bad guys,” Paulie says. He flinches at how this must sound. “And a cop.”
“I can trace this number, you know. It’s not funny to tie up this line. Hang up and I’ll forget this little prank.”
Paulie hears a click.
“Shit!
Carrie stares at him over the seat.
“Sorry. Fuck! Logs is going to die out there!” He bangs his head against the back of the seat, still shaking uncontrollably.
“Chenier’s got his ski boat,” Ron says. “It’s always hitched to their pickup. We can get Logs ourselves.”
“Go!” Paulie says. He calls his father, hears it ring until it goes to voice messaging. “Dad! Paulie. I know you don’t recognize this number but call it back. Big trouble. Big.”
“What can your dad do?”
“He can get that 911 lady to wake the fuck up,” Paulie says.
“Shouldn’t we just go to the police station?”
“I’m scared to do that. If Rankin is part of whatever this is, who else? We get the wrong guy and . . . these guys were serious, Ron. We took Mary’s text to Rankin and the next thing we knew he was running us off the road.”
“What do you think Stack has to do with it?”
“Shit you and I can’t even imagine.” Paulie is sitting on the seat now, pulling the blanket tighter to stop his teeth from chattering.
Ron’s phone vibrates in Paulie’s hand.
“Dad?”
“What’s up? What kind of trouble?”
“Mr. Logs is out on the ski float in the middle of Diamond Lake. He’s probably got hypothermia. I called 911 and they thought it was a prank.”
“I’ll call. What in the hell was he doing in the lake at this time of night?”
“We were being chased.”
“What do you mean ‘chased’?”
“Bad guys, Dad. Really bad. Way too crazy to explain, just believe me. They’re up at the boat landing now. And one of them is a cop.”
“He a city cop?”
“Yeah. Last name is Rankin. He’s why they were after us.”
“It’s county jurisdiction at the landing anyway,” his father says. “I’ll alert them and the state troopers. You better know what you’re talking about, Paulie. If this turns out to be nothing, there’ll be hell to pay.”
“It won’t be nothing. The more people you can get up there, the better chance we’ll have of getting Justin’s boat in the water.”
“Justin’s boat?”
“It’s the fastest way to get to Logs. He can’t have much time. Just get as many people up there as you can.”
“On it.” The line goes dead.
“This is totally out of control,” Rankin says into his cell. “We can’t get to the teacher and the kid. They got into the lake somehow and I’ll be goddamned if we could find them. Hopefully they froze to death, but we can’t count on it. Stack says they both swim like fish.” He listens. “They’re the only ones who saw the Wells kid’s text, along with Hannah what’s-her-name. All bets are off. We gotta move.”
He listens for several seconds.
“I’m outta here tonight. Woody’s got the Wells kid, but that won’t last. If he had the sack to kill her he would have already, so you can bet she’ll surface. A whole bunch of prominent names in this town are going to get mentioned, and when she breaks, others will, too.