Dead Water Zone

  “Monica Shanks,” the girl said.

  As he hefted his red knapsack, she gave a low laugh. “You look like a cartoon.”

  Armitage Shanks was almost as skinny as his sister, with the same pale skin and piercing eyes. He wore baggy cotton trousers and a black tank top, beneath which Paul could make out the contours of his rib cage. His bare arms were slender, but they had definition—the small, hard bulge of biceps, low hump of the triceps. His jet-black hair was scraped neatly back from his face into a short ponytail. There was a small tattoo of a schooner on his forearm. Paul imagined him with an eye patch, a belt and cutlass slung around his narrow hips.

  “Long way down from Governor’s Hill,” said Armitage, wiping sweat from his forehead. Behind him, four other teenagers unloaded crates from the old cabin cruiser tied up inside the boathouse. “How’d you get across from the docklands?”

  “Water taxi.”

  Armitage smiled. “How much did you pay?”

  Paul chewed at his lower lip sheepishly.

  “Fifty. I got ripped off, I suppose, didn’t I?”

  “Oh yeah. So, is this a family outing? Should we expect your parents soon?”

  The tone was amiable, even playful, but Paul could see the bright spark of suspicion in the other boy’s eyes. All those cardboard crates, stacked up against the walls. He didn’t want to know about it.

  “I came alone.”

  “He brought a big red knapsack,” said Monica, slouched against the wall. “Like he was planning on staying awhile.”

  “Yes, I can see the knapsack,” said Armitage. “It’s a fine knapsack. You can probably fit a lot into a knapsack like that. Lunch box, coloring book, crayons—the works.”

  Paul forced a grin. He wished he’d left the damn knapsack at home.

  “Do they know you came here, your mommy and daddy?” Armitage inquired with a contemptuous twang.

  “No, nobody knows.”

  “Good.” Armitage scratched his nose distractedly. “Last thing we need is hysterical suburban parents trying to send half the police force in here to rescue their son. There’s only one other thing that bugs me, Paul,” he confided. “Let me tell you a story. Once, the police tried to set us up. They got some kid, some nobody punk, to come down here and say he needed a place to stay. When we found out what he really wanted, he ended up swimming back to the docklands.”

  Paul shrugged, meeting Armitage’s gaze evenly. “That’s not why I came,” he said. He turned to Monica. “Look, forget it. I didn’t think it was going to be such a big hassle. I’ll just take my knapsack and—”

  “Hey, Paul, come on!” Armitage said with a disarming smile. “We’re just giving you a hard time. I was getting to know you. I’m in a trusting mood tonight.” He opened his arms magnanimously. “Don’t you trust him, Monica?”

  She shrugged, noncommittal. “I said he could stay one night.”

  “See, we both trust you, Paul.”

  Paul couldn’t help smiling. They trusted him. Great. They were probably the most untrustworthy people he’d ever met.

  “I’m happy to have you stay with us,” Armitage said warmly. Paul expected him to throw an arm around his shoulder at any moment. “So, this brother of yours, he didn’t show, huh?”

  “He said he’d meet me. I don’t know what happened.”

  They’d arranged the time, the place; so why hadn’t Sam been there? What had stopped him?

  “What’d he do, run away from home?”

  “Yes,” Paul lied. He wanted to tell them as little as possible. “I think he came down three or four weeks ago. I’m not sure.”

  “What’s his name?” Monica asked.

  “Samuel Berricker. Sam.”

  Armitage narrowed his eyes, as if thinking hard, but shook his head. “Haven’t heard of him.”

  “A lot of people live here without showing themselves,” said Monica. “You can still be invisible in Watertown.”

  “Look,” said Paul, “I’ve got a picture.”

  He reached into his back pocket and his stomach plunged. His wallet was gone. He hurriedly patted all his other pockets, but it was no use. Now this, on top of everything else. His ID, the rest of his money, the photograph—gone. What a hell of a day.

  “Pickpockets,” Monica said sympathetically. “The place is overrun with them.”

  “Those little kids,” he said, suddenly remembering. “They pressed up close—”

  “They didn’t pickpocket you,” Monica said easily. “I did.” She held out his wallet.

  Paul was too surprised to feel any anger.

  “Just making sure you’re who you say you are. Nothing personal.”

  “Yeah. Right.” He was at a complete loss for words. “So, you’re a pickpocket.”

  “It’s a job,” she replied. “At least it’s a skilled trade.”

  “She’s very good,” Armitage said.

  “I didn’t feel a thing,” said Paul. His eyes rested on her slender hands, half expecting them to dart back into his pockets at any moment. “Is it a good living?”

  “That’s such a suburban question,” Monica snorted. “It’s not bad. And I know the next question you want to ask. The answer’s no, I don’t feel guilty.”

  Paul could only stare.

  “I mostly go into the City,” she went on. “They can afford it. I try to stick to the suits. Anyone else is a waste of time really. I never do credit cards. That’s sleazy. All I take is the cash. If they’re carrying hard currency around, they can afford to lose it. It might be a little upsetting to them at first, but they get over it.”

  Paul turned helplessly to Armitage. “So, what about you?”

  Grinning, Armitage jerked his head at the activity behind him.

  “Right, right,” Paul mumbled. “I guess neither of you go to school, huh?”

  “No time,” said Monica. “Too much work to be done.” She dangled his watch between her fingers.

  “All right,” said Paul, snatching it back. “I get the point.”

  “This is the last,” called out one of the boys, hefting a crate onto a tall stack.

  It looked like hard work and these guys were all so skinny and pale. Shouldn’t they have been tanned, with all the sunlight off the water? Maybe it was too much night work, Paul thought wryly.

  “Good work, guys,” said Armitage. “Let’s lock it up.”

  Outside, Monica and Armitage guided him along the pier to a ramshackle stilt house set back from the edge of the pier. Its bottom floor began well above Paul’s head. Two small boats were tethered among the web of stilts and scaffolding.

  Armitage started up a frail ladder. When he reached the top, he fiddled with a padlock, pushed open the door, and disappeared inside. Lights flickered on behind the windows.

  “You better let me take the knapsack,” Monica said.

  “It’s okay, I can manage.”

  “You don’t get it,” she said. “I don’t want you busting the ladder.”

  Before he could object, she’d slipped the knapsack off his shoulder and danced up the wooden rungs.

  As Paul took his first step, the whole ladder seemed to go rigid with stress. Not meant for big people, he thought. Just as well she’d taken the knapsack. He glanced down and saw the dark water, waiting for him. He decided not to look down again and soon scuttled gratefully inside.

  He’d expected squalor. Instead there were rugs everywhere, not only on the floor but on the walls, too. Ornate tapestries had somehow been fastened overhead—staples, nails?—and billowed down slightly in the middle, so the whole ceiling was an enormous pillowy quilt of red and gold. There were so many intricate designs in the room that Paul felt dizzy.

  “Beats staring at boards,” said Monica, letting her body slide, with feline grace, into a tattered armchair. She made, Paul noticed, only the slightest of depressions in the cushion.

  As he walked into the center of the room, the floor creaked ominously beneath his feet, and he had a sudden vision
of the stilt house as a dilapidated wooden shell, sagging in on itself. But it didn’t change the bizarre grandeur of the place.

  “You live here all alone?” he asked, and immediately wished he hadn’t. Monica’s face hardened, and he could see the mocking glint in Armitage’s eyes.

  “What you mean is, where’s Mom and Dad?”

  Paul faltered. “Well—”

  “It seems they are not at home,” sneered Monica.

  “And haven’t been for, oh, quite a long time now,” said Armitage. “Don’t worry, Paul, we eat and wash regularly. We even floss our teeth sometimes.”

  Paul decided to shut up. No school, no parents—he was a coddled child who knew nothing of the world. They didn’t teach you things like this in Governor’s Hill.

  “So, show us this brother of yours,” Armitage said.

  Paul pulled the snapshot from his wallet.

  After looking at it a long time, Armitage shook his head. “Nope.”

  “Let me see.” Monica pulled the photograph from her brother’s fingers. “He doesn’t look much like you.”

  “No.”

  “What’s wrong with him?”

  Paul felt himself tighten inside.

  “It’s a metabolic thing,” he explained tersely. “He was born with it.”

  “That why he’s so small?”

  “Yes. He didn’t grow right. His body’s weak. He’ll never get any bigger than that. But he’s smart—a genius actually.” He felt he needed to tell them, out of loyalty.

  “Older or younger?” she wanted to know.

  “A year younger.”

  “And a genius, huh?” She handed back the snapshot. “I’ve seen him.”

  “You have?” His voice broke with excitement. “Where?”

  “One of the old boathouses off Nostromo Pier,” she said in a bored voice. “I’ve seen him around there a few times, a couple of days ago even.”

  “Never told me,” Armitage remarked, looking at her strangely.

  She shrugged. “Why would I?”

  “Can you take me?” Paul asked urgently. “Right now?”

  She shook her head. “You can only get there by boat. And night’s no good. There’s too much junk in the water around there, stuff that’ll take an engine right out. We’ll have to wait until morning.”

  Paul tried to rein in his disappointment.

  “She’s right,” Armitage told him. “You’ll have to wait.”

  “He won’t be going anywhere, either,” Monica said, not unkindly. “I’ll take you out at first light.”

  “Thanks,” Paul said.

  “You’re tired, right?” said Armitage. “Big trip from Governor’s Hill. New sights, new people. Come on, I’ll show you where you can crash.”

  He stripped down to his underwear and began to exercise. It was an unbroken ritual—ten minutes before bed. And now, he also did it for comfort. He was in a strange place, about to lie down on a mattress of unknown origin, in a stilt house occupied by thieves. He finished his warm-up stretches and began his sit-ups, the wood floor creaking softly beneath him. Now the push-ups—gut sucked in, nose touching, twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thirty. There. That felt better.

  Body singing, he slid his underwear off and stood before the tall, cracked mirror tilted against the wall. He planted his feet wide, straightened his arms at his sides, then slowly raised them so that they were level with his shoulders, then raised them again so that they were at an angle with his neck.

  He gazed at his reflection, studying the lines of his body. He’d worked hard for it. Hours after school, laboring at the Universal Gym—that gave him muscle mass. Then the training for the track team, running, swimming—that gave him tone, suppleness, stamina.

  The perfect man, perfectly proportioned. It was Sam who had shown him Leonardo da Vinci’s famous sketch: a man inscribed in a circle and a square, striking this same pose. Sam could name every bone in the human body, every tangle of muscle, sinew, and vein. Sam, whose own body would only ever be weak and small. My younger brother. My genius brother.

  Chest heaving, Paul let his arms fall back to his sides. Why had Sam come to this place? Think it through, he told his reflection. Go through the steps again.

  Sam had won early entrance to the university last autumn. He’d been wasting his time in high school. Biochemistry and microbiology had become his passions. He’d done brilliantly in his first year, of course, and this summer he’d been offered a job as a research assistant at the laboratories, working for the City’s new cleanup program.

  The lake had been polluted for as long as Paul could remember. Even as a kid, there had been TV commercials by the City, advertising its cleanup program. Making Your City Shine Again. Glittering clear water, children splashing about, smiling faces.

  DEAD WATER ZONE. Paul had seen a few of the warning buoys dotting the lake, marking out a perimeter around Watertown. In his letters, Sam said the City had been developing a microorganism that would break down the pollution. A garbage gobbler, he called it. Sam’s job was to test water samples brought to the labs from around the lake.

  Paul pulled his underwear back on and stretched out on the bed. The sheets seemed clean enough. He wedged his wallet under the pillow and stared up at the ceiling. It felt good to lie down. He could hear the sound of water, and he thought he felt the house rocking gently on its stilts—maybe it was just his body, still in motion after the long hours of traveling. He closed his eyes. Keep going through the steps.

  The call came five days ago, his brother’s voice wreathed in pay-phone static. They had talked awkwardly about everyday things. Then, in a sudden rush, Sam had told him he was in Watertown. He’d found something unusual in the water samples. No one else knew about it. He’d gone down himself to find out more. It was the only way. And then he said, “Something wonderful is going to happen.”

  Sam’s voice was unbalanced, almost fanatical. What do you mean? Paul had asked. What are you talking about? But Sam was evasive. There was so much work to be done, he didn’t have time to be talking on the phone. Paul kept insisting on the meeting until Sam agreed.

  And he hadn’t even shown up. Okay, maybe he’d changed his mind. But why Jailer’s Pier? Impossible to find, completely deserted. Except for Monica. What was she doing there?

  He was too tired. His thoughts were exploding away from him, dissolving. Everything would be all right. Tomorrow morning he’d see Sam and all his questions would be answered.

  * * *

  “How am I doing?” he panted.

  While Sam checked his math homework, Paul did push-ups.

  “Pretty good so far,” his brother answered. “Only a couple of mistakes, but they were tricky ones. I’ll pencil in the answers for you.”

  “Thanks. Word problems are the worst.”

  “How’d you do on your last test?”

  “Twenty-two out of thirty.”

  “Hey, better than last time.”

  Sam was already two grades ahead of him. He could bring Sam any math problem, and his brother would just look at it for a few seconds and then scribble away, explaining as he went. Paul could ask him questions on any subject, and nine times out of ten, Sam would have the answer on the tip of his tongue. People sometimes asked him if he got jealous, having a brother who was a genius, but he was proud of Sam. And happy enough with his own marks. “Good solid work,” one of his teachers had written on his report. Somehow it didn’t matter if he didn’t get brilliant marks, as long as Sam did. Marks were something they shared. Like Paul’s muscles.

  “Randy Smith was such a pain today,” Sam remarked. “Thanks for thumping him for me.”

  “I like thumping Smith,” Paul replied between push-ups. “If he hassles you again, we’ll give him a working over.”

  “How many push-ups are you doing?”

  “Fifty.”

  “The doctor gave me some new pills today.”

  “Yeah?”

  “They look like hamster food.”

/>   Paul couldn’t finish his last push-up, he was laughing so hard.

  “But they’re not as big as the last ones. I could hardly get those in my mouth! She says these should help me put on weight.”

  “They’ll work,” Paul answered confidently. “Pretty soon you’ll be pumping iron, lifting cars, small buildings.”

  Sam chuckled. “I think I am getting stronger. Last time we arm wrestled, I held out longer, didn’t I?”

  “You did,” he said—convincingly, he hoped. The truth was, Sam seemed just the same, every time. Paul had to be very careful not to twist his pipe-cleaner wrist.

  “When’s your next track competition?”

  “End of the month.”

  “Show me your muscles.”

  Paul stood and flexed his bare arms, watching his biceps harden, the veins swell. He liked doing this for Sam. To the right of his brother, he could see his own reflection in the mirror. But he must have stood up too quickly. For just a moment, as he glanced from Sam to the reflection and back, it seemed that his brother’s head rested atop his muscular shoulders and his own body was suddenly frail and wizened.

  * * *

  He couldn’t sleep. He was all wound up. With a sigh, he angled his watch face to the moonlight: 2:18. He stood, pacing the room, trying to relax. At the window he paused: a clear sky littered with stars and a half-moon reflected brilliantly in the black lake water. Someone was there, on the pier.

  Monica. Her long hair fell free against her back. Her skin seemed luminous in the moon’s light. She paused at the edge of the pier, knelt, and stared down at the water. Her hands dipped in and came back cupped with water. She held it up to her face, then let it slither through her fingers, trailing in silver rivulets down her wrists and forearms.

  Without warning, she pivoted and looked up at him. Their eyes met. He quickly turned away.

  4

  PAUL GAZED DOWN at the opaque green water swelling against the boat’s side. He shivered in the sharp morning chill. He wished he’d brought a sweater. Tendrils of mist swirled around them like miniature tornadoes, and overhead, a pale sun was waiting to burn through.