WHEN I GOT BACK TO the boat, Albert was on the couch, wearing a white T-shirt and gray slacks and watching “Valdez Is Coming” on the small television in the galley. He clicked off the television, picked up the orange life vest from the floor, slipped his arms through the holes and snapped the plastic buckles on the front.

“You don’t have to turn that off just because I’m here.”

“I’ve seen it before. Valdez wins.” He pulled the white nylon straps, and the life vest cinched around him. “Let me have your car keys.”

“Why? Where are you going?”

“I thought about going to the library or just out to get a pop or something.”

“There’s pop in the mini-fridge.”

He snatched the keys out of my hand. “I don’t know where I’m going. I just need to get off this damn boat. It’s like a floating prison.”

“I’m sorry you feel that way, but I wasn’t expecting a roommate.”

“You’re an ass.” He stepped over the back of the boat and grabbed a pole on the dock for balance. I stepped closer to help him. “I got it,” he said, brushing me away. “Look, we’ve got to seriously talk about our housing options here. I don’t know how much longer I can live on this deathtrap. We need to find someplace else. An apartment. Maybe a house.”

“We? You got a mouse in your pocket?”

He patted his front pants pocket and then looked up at me. “Mouse? No, goddamnit. We, as in you and me. I’ll pick up a paper while I’m out and we can sit down tonight and see what’s available.” He started up the dock.

“Maybe you can knock over a bank while you’re out and get us a down payment,” I said.

He stopped, turned around and returned to the boat. “I got money. Not enough to buy something outright, but enough to get us into a house.” He waited for me to ask how much he had, but I didn’t. “But, I need you to go get it.”

“You need me to take you to the bank?” I said.

He lowered his voice. “No. It’s not in a bank. It’s six feet underwater. At the cabin in Maine. Under the boathouse.”

I set my foot on the back of the boat and crouched toward him. “Are you having a stroke or something? Do I need to call an ambulance?”

Albert’s eyes narrowed to a squint. “I’m not having a stroke, dumbass. It’s in a watertight container anchored under the boathouse. You just have to go and haul it up.”

“You’re serious?”

He leaned closer. “You’re goddamn right I’m serious.”

“How long’s it been there?

“I don’t know. Awhile. A few years.”

“And how much is it?”

“Twenty grand. Give or take.”

I stepped back and sat in the deck chair. “And why do you have twenty grand, give or take, submerged under the boathouse?”

“Because I didn’t want to dig a hole.”

I tried to think of something to say, but the words didn’t come. All I could do was stare at my father.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” he said. “It’s not like I stole it.”

“I’m not sure I want to know where you go it.”

“It’s my money. Let’s drive up tomorrow. We can spend a few days at the cabin, come back and find a new place. Maybe do some fishing. It’ll be fun. I’ll pay for the gas.”

“I should hope so, given you’re sitting on a thick stack of soggy bills.”

“So it’s settled then. We’ll drive out tomorrow.”

I was about to agree until I remembered the reason I’d come back to the boat in the first place: to come up with a plan to permanently remove Rollo Watkins from Bishop’s business plan.

“I’ve got to take care of something for a client on Friday, but we can go up next week.” I needed to get out of Cincinnati anyway until things blew over with Rollo.

“Fine with me.” Albert turned and started walking toward the parking lot. I cracked a smile and fought the urge to laugh as my father, wearing a T-shirt, slacks and an orange life vest, wobbled along the center of the dock, his arms outstretched like a kid struggling to stay on top of a balance beam.

IN COLLEGE I CAME UP with a coffee drink I called the Deathbringer. It cleared my head, helped me focus and was a lifesaver during exam week, when I had to pile three months of learning into a few days of studying. I’d called upon the Deathbringer a few times over the years, and I needed to summon it again to figure out how I could walk into Rollo’s office, put a bullet in him and walk out again in one piece.

I grabbed the coffee pot, filled it with water from the jug in the refrigerator and poured it into the coffeemaker’s water reservoir. Then, I packed lose grounds into a coffee filter and slid it into the plastic cone-shaped filter basket and clicked the “brew” button. I waited for ten minutes for the coffeemaker to gurgle as the last drops of water made it through the filter and into the pot. When the coffeemaker made a satisfying beep, I dumped the used coffee filter, packed more lose grounds into a new filter and placed it into the basket. Then, I poured the coffee from the pot into the water reservoir and pressed “brew” again. The coffeemaker drew the dark-brown liquid from the reservoir and passed it through another round of crushed Colombian beans. Ten minutes later, I stared at a cup of steaming coffee darker than a black bear’s asshole. I closed my eyes, sipped and waited for the Deathbringer to ignite the deepest parts of my brain.

Two hours later, I had an empty coffee pot and a plan to kill Rollo Watkins.