The Sound of Many Waters Read Online Free PDF

fashioned from the lip of a conch shell. Francisco trembled and watched the blade move toward him, resigned to the fact that he was about to be sliced apart. To his surprise, however, the muddy native used the blade to slash the twine that bound him.
    “He was my Saint Michael,” said Francisco. “My archangel.”
    Despite his discomfort, Dominic lay there engrossed by Francisco’s story. “Why?” he asked. “Why did they save you?”
    Francisco peered into the dark forest. “To entrust in me a grave secret.”

 
    Chapter Four
    “I’ve decided,” said Zane. “I’m gonna ask her to marry me.”
    Skip chortled, but Zane remained resolute. The amusement drained from his father’s face. “What, you’re serious?”
    “Serious.”
    “Dude. You’re only—” Skip looked at his fingers as if to count them.
    “Nineteen. And that’s how old you were.”
    “Yeah, but she made me.”
    “What?”
    “Nothing. I’m rambling.”
    Skip sat sucking rum and pineapple juice through a red cocktail straw that looked far too dainty for a man’s mouth, but Zane had never known his father as someone who fretted about appearance. A faded T-shirt, flip-flops and baggy shorts comprised his daily uniform. When not shacking up with one of his many girlfriends, he enjoyed a carefree life aboard his houseboat. He spent most days idling at waterfront bars—sometimes playing Jimmy Buffett songs on his guitar to cover his bar tab—but if the waves were big, Zane could a l ways find Skip longboarding, somehow keeping pace with the younger surfers and never declining an invitation to party with them afterward. In fact, many of Zane’s own friends spent more time with Skip than he did; such was the burden of having a boyish father who had no misgivings about bu y ing booze for minors and flirting with women as young as his own son.
    Having never held a real job, Skip was always energized about some new business idea or money-making scheme. After ordering Ricky Rogers’ Roadmap to Radical Real Estate Riches from an infomercial he saw one Tuesday morning at 2 AM, Skip made a small fortune flipping properties during Florida’s housing boom, but he lost it all—and then some—when the market plunged. These days, most of the local bill collectors and loan sharks knew Skip Fisher by name. He stayed perpe t ually broke despite occasional and mysterious bursts of cash which he’d squander on lavish gifts for girlfriends, meals at gourmet eateries, and rounds of cocktails for everyone at his favorite bars—temporarily satiating himself, it seemed, with fleeting doses of his bygone prosperity and pomp.
    Despite Skip’s flaws, Zane cared about him and was secretly happy that his father had gone bust. There were no more luxury cars in which wet bathing suits were forbidden, no more haughty words like dividend and amortization being thrown about, and no more enthusing about foods that were encrusted with other foods or drizzled with reductions of any kind. Skip had returned to his freewheeling, cheesebur g er-loving self, and Zane could not have been happier.
    Perched on a barstool beside Skip, Zane now ran his fingers over a dripping glass of ice water packed with lemon wedges. He had requested his usual—water with lemons—and then sweetened it with a packet of cane sugar filched from the coffee tray. Despite the doctoring, the acidity of his improvised lemonade was nearly intolerable and he winced at each bitter sip. It was the only free drink available to him that had any flavor, the alternatives being tap water or plain tonic. His father always said that he would never trust a man who didn’t drink, but Zane had not yet reached the legal age—not that Slick Rick, the bartender, would complain.
    “Let me get this straight,” Skip blurted after several minutes of awkward silence. “You’re not even twenty years old, not even twenty , and you’re ready to commit to the same vag i na for the rest of your life?”
    Zane thought