Breathe

Miguel killed the engine on the motorboat after an hour’s journey southeast from the number nine buoy. Per his jefe’s instruction, he had kept the boat at an even twenty-eight knots. The current here would carry the body away from Key Largo into the Straits of Florida, and then into the Gulf Stream and the vast expanse of the Atlantic ocean. He felt an electricity course through him, out of his feet and through the wood floor, blazing a zigzag trail that tapered out before reaching the moon.

It was profoundly quiet. The only sound was the lapping of the waves against the boat. He spun around slowly several times, searching the horizon for light. Finding only stars, he removed the blanket covering el hombre muerto and stooped to put him into a fireman’s carry. His skin broke into goose flesh upon discovering the body was still warm. Tonight was a night of pivotal firsts: first time strangling a man, first time hiding a body. Fortunately, Horacio Alvarez had been one of theirs--un anónimo--and so the procedure could stay simple. The fish could have his fingers and teeth.

Trouble was, Horacio was muy grande. Miguel’s quads burned as he balanced the man onto his shoulder. Sweat broke out on his brow as he maneuvered him the five feet to the edge, then lowered him onto the gunwale. Gravity must have had a sense of humor, as Horacio’s body stayed comically upright, his left arm caught against one of the metal bars that formed the skeleton of the canopy, head slumped forward, poised precariously on the edge of civilization. All he needed was a little push.

Miguel thought about cracking a joke, but the vastness of the ocean around him with its steady migration of waves held a certain sanctity that he was hesitant to profane. Instead, he settled for crossing himself, something he did regularly despite his occupation, and reached out toward his amigo to send him on his way.

Horacio’s eyelids flickered open and he inhaled loudly. Miguel stumbled back.

The big man’s chest heaved from the effort to draw air through his crushed trachea. The sound of his breathing was a cartoonish, high-pitched whine. His face was still blue when recognition hit.

Miguel was reaching for the gun tucked in the waistband of his jeans when Horacio plowed into him like an offensive lineman. The starry sky spun as he toppled backward out of the boat and into the water. The cold hit him a second time, harder than the first. His whole body stiffened from shock.

He came to rest floating upside down, preposterously face to face with the man he had failed to strangle. Shadows danced hideously across Horacio’s corpse-face, his mouth locked in a grimace, teeth bared. And then it was lost in a flurry of bubbles as he screamed something unintelligible.

Miguel’s lungs were hollow. He floundered, tried to right himself, and felt Horacio’s thick hands grapple his shoulders, then seize his neck. His mouth opened involuntarily and was engulfed by frigid salt water. His heart danced in his chest as a black halo grew around his vision.

The sliver of rationality he clung to reminded his left hand of the gun. It was still tucked in his waistband, a metallic beacon of hope that now felt warmer than he was. He redirected his right hand, which had been fighting in vain against Horacio’s meat hooks, to retract the safety, raised the gun to his Grim Reaper’s temple, squeezed his eyes shut, and prayed to God it still worked.

The shot was deafening. An uncanny pressure rippled over his face and body, as though he was being jerked through the water at impossible speed. His cheeks puffed out and his eyeballs vibrated. The piercing pain that appeared at his right ear suggested a burst eardrum.

When he opened his eyes, he saw only red. Horacio’s grip relaxed from his neck and he wasted no time spinning himself around and kicking upward. When he broke the surface, not the splitting pain in his ear nor the tinnitus drowning out all thought could detract from the supreme pleasure of that moment. Miguel breathed.