Serge returned to his seat, and Coleman pulled his shirt back down. “So right now your friend Gustave is standing on a block of ice inside the barrels. Yesterday, Serge used a sharp pick to carve out a cavity in a block, which we got at the liquor store. Then he rubbed a wet rag over the top of the ice to get it slick and melty so it would fuse together with a second block that he placed on top of it and stored in a freezer back at the warehouse. Finally, after Gustave was sealed in the tube, Serge and I poured in a bunch of mixers that we also got at the liquor store.”
Serge looked at Sasha. “I see you have a question. You can go ahead and speak.”
“I don’t get it. What’s going on? What are we doing now?”
“Waiting for the ice to melt,” said Serge.
“Because the mixers were Coke,” said Coleman. “And inside the ice-block cavity are twenty rolls of Mentos.”
“Look,” said Serge. “The ice just melted.”
A dozen jets of soda foam shot high into the night.
“That’s got to be a record,” said Coleman.
“And it’s not stopping.”
“Must be hitting other rolls deeper in the ice,” said Coleman.
“Excuse me,” said Sasha. “So he’s going to drown?”
“No,” said Serge. “That’s why I drilled all those air holes. Otherwise the thing wouldn’t be safe.”
She watched the relentless fountain of suds form a pretty pattern over the water. “Then what will happen to him?”
“The real tragedy is that the carbon dioxide from the soda evacuates all the oxygen in the barrels, and of course you can’t breathe carbon dioxide because you’ll suffocate. It’s like committing suicide by putting a plastic bag over your head, except this . . .”—Serge looked toward the tube, where the fountains were subsiding and foam sheeted down over the sides.—“. . . is more like assisted suicide.”
Sasha began absorbing the full scope of Serge’s mental condition. Normally, one in her position would be shaking uncontrollably and stuttering: “W-w-w-what are you going to d-d-d-d-do to me?”
Instead, Sasha took measured breaths. “What are you going to do to me?”
“I’m not going to do anything to you,” said Serge. “In fact, I’m letting you go. It’s part of my plan . . .”
A deeper voice: “I said, ‘What are you going to do to me?’ ”
“I just told you—”
Coleman elbowed him. “Her hand is rubbing the side of her breast.”
“Oh, so that’s what it is?”
“Is what?”
“She’s into bad boys. It’s a sexual paraphilia.” Serge stood and began unhitching his shorts. “Would you like to see what I’m going to do to you?”
Coleman raised his hand. “I would.”
Without looking back, Serge put a foot in the middle of Coleman’s chest and shoved him backward into the water.
Coleman bobbed to the surface, “Serge!”
“Stay, Fido.” Serge dropped his pants to the deck and charged.
Sasha came at him with equal velocity. They crashed together in the middle of the boat and hit the hull hard. They smacked and kicked each other. Arousing profanity. Bruises, bloody lips. Their naked bodies slammed one side of the boat and then the other, over and over, fighting for the top position and making a racket like a flopping, just-caught marlin trying to get back in the sea.
It became so loud that lights came on in all the seawall mansions. But instead of grabbing the phone for the police, they grabbed binoculars and video equipment. The predatory lovers finally reached a quivering, simultaneous conclusion. Serge jumped up, grabbed his shorts and casually flicked a wrist as he walked away. “That’s what I’ll do to you.”
The still-nude Sasha sat up panting. “Will you call me?”
“Who knows?” Serge pulled Coleman aboard. “I got a nutty, nutty schedule.”
“But I’m a witness. You can’t just let me go.”
“That’s precisely what I’m going to do.” He steered the skiff back toward the boat ramp.
“No, you’re supposed to take me hostage and tie me up again,” said Sasha. “And stick a gag ball in my mouth, and do other unspeakable acts with the devices in my purse. I promise I won’t scream.”
“Jesus,” said Serge. “Okay, okay,
“Yes, ice cream. And then you’ll force me at gunpoint to lick it off your—”
“Enough!” Serge held his hands to the sky. “Out of the boat or I swear I won’t call.”
She reluctantly climbed over the side into three feet of water. “I’ll do anything for you.”
Serge threw her clothes in her face. “Now that has possibilities.”
Sasha slipped into her top. “Name it.”
“I’ve been hired to help some scam victims. And even though I’m starting to crack cases left and right, my boss has been getting on me just because I keep forgetting to retrieve the money.” He pointed back at a large metal tube standing on a shoal in the bay. “I’m easily distracted.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Go back to the streets, and if I get a case I’m having trouble with, I might give you a call to see if you know anything.”
“So that’s the reason you’re deliberately freeing me?”
“No, that idea just popped in my head when we were cumming. I do some of my best thinking then.”
“So what’s the real reason?”
