Clear Water Read Free

easy.
    And the car was filling up from the driver’s side—he could see that now—and it was starting to tip sideways and trap air in the passenger’s side. Fuck.
    Whiskey worked out like a madman to keep his over-thirty-five love handles at bay, and he was damned grateful when he managed to wriggle in that window along with all of the water. When he got there, he flailed for a minute before he remembered that episode of Mythbusters that said the electronic windows would work even when wet.
    He reached over the passenger—a young man who was still breathing out but not quickly—and rolled down the window, feeling some relief as the car leveled a little in its descent to the bottom of the river.
    It was the eeriest thirty seconds of Whiskey’s life. He kept his face above water (and propped anonymous kid’s face up with his) until it was no longer possible and then went to work on the seat belt. Great. Floppy kid in his arms, seatbelt undone, no air… no air… no air… blurg-thump. The car made a sound as it hit, front wheels first, then back, and then Whiskey had endured about enough of that crap and opened the door.
    Oh God bless Mythbusters and Adam and Jamie and their whole goddamned crew, because the door opened and he could drag anonymous teenager to the surface.
    He got there, dragging air into his lungs with more appreciation of oxygen than he’d ever had before, his arm around his crash victim’s chest, keeping the kid up, and… was he breathing? Aw, fuck. Whiskey couldn’t be sure, but he couldn’t give him mouth to mouth in the river either.
    Still gasping, he kept swimming, strong and steady, until his long legs found the silt under his feet and he started hauling himself and the boy’s body through the weeds and the muck at the riverbank. His battered tennis shoes squelched uncomfortably with every step, and the stench of the decaying marsh plants and diesel oil was almost overwhelming here. The next day, he’d be grateful they hadn’t surfaced at one of the parts of the river with the ankle-breaking rocks—but that would be the next day.
    He had the kid under the arms, and when he got to a flat spot, he dropped him perfunctorily and got on his knees, prepared to do the mouth-to-mouth thing before calling for help. (Somewhere out there was a proscription against starting mouth-to-mouth without witnesses, but Whiskey had never been great at rules anyway.)
    He didn’t need to—the boy’s body collapsed down enough to force a little water from his lungs. He started coughing, still unconscious, and Whiskey turned him over on his side, where he proceeded barf nasty water for a few minutes before settling down a little.
    Not once did he wake up or even open his eyes.
    Whiskey looked at the boy helplessly and then looked out to the river to where the car was probably being dragged by the current to parts unknown. He knew that somewhere downstream, where the river opened up into the Delta, there were breakwaters and places where bodies and junk and sunken motorboats washed ashore, but he was pretty sure the car was a write-off, no matter what. He looked around, expecting to hear sirens at any second, and realized that the boy’s companion, the driver of the damned car, had taken off.
    Whiskey frisked the kid and came up with a small prescription bottle for—squint at it in the light—“Patrick. Patrick Cleary.” Whiskey blinked. Well. Wasn’t that name familiar. “So, Patrick Cleary, what are we taking?” He read the label. “Concerta. What in the holy hells is ‘Concerta’, and why would it put you in a coma? Should be called ‘Comerta’, oh yes it should!” Whiskey’s sense of humor was not always appropriate, he was aware, but since the only person there to hear him was asleep , he decided he didn’t give a fuck and laughed at his own joke.
    “Okay, Patrick Cleary, who was your skeezy friend, why did he run, and what in the fuck are we going to do about your car? These are things