Dead in the Water

  “Jesus,” she said, “I hope everyone’s all right.”

  Reade left her and walked to the semicircle of windows.

  “So does he,” the other officer confided. “He hasn’t slept more than an hour at a time since your boat was first reported. And then, when we heard about the second one …” He sighed and shook his head. Donna wondered how you got that kind of loyalty. She thought her own big boss was a total asshole, no matter how many sleepless nights he put in for the good of the department.

  “They’re coming!” the other officer cried. “Sir! We’re practically on top of them!”

  “Steady on, then,” Reade ordered, coming over to the radar screen.

  The keel of the Pandora, slicing through the water.

  You must not acknowledge me, Cha-cha, when I rescue you.

  “But you’re my big kahuna,” Cha-cha murmured, surveying the fog. The king was nearby. He could hear him so clearly. But he couldn’t see anything, man, not even the cargo that lay at his feet.

  You have done everything I’ve asked thus far, Cha-cha. Don’t disobey me now.

  “Yessir,” Cha-cha murmured, chastened.

  Good, Cha-cha. Very good. Now listen: one of them is still alive. The black man. Quickly.

  Surprised, Cha-cha sat up very straight and listened. Sure enough, he heard a sad little moan. He nodded.

  “Yessir.”

  Down on the main deck, John, Ruth, and Matt stood together, straining to see. Ruth had rousted the other two from a nap and they’d run to the railing. Now John held Matt tight, preparing himself in case he was needed. Dr. Hare had gently but firmly refused his offer of assistance unless he found himself confronted with something he couldn’t handle. John prayed he wasn’t needed.

  The Pandora’s horn blared and a cheer rose from the assembled passengers and crew. John leaned over the railing. “I don’t see them.”

  “There! There!” Matt jumped up and down. “Look!”

  And suddenly John could see them, where he thought he’d looked and seen nothing before. Figures moved inside the boat, standing and waving.

  “Yes!” John shouted and flailed his arms above his head, laughing when the woman next to him threw her arms around him and gave him a big kiss. He picked Matt up and hugged him; and it didn’t register when Matt pounded on his shoulder and said, “That’s the lady, Dad. The lady that’s a statue.”

  Beside him, Ruth dabbed her eyes with a Kleenex. Touched, John put his arm around her and gave her a squeeze.

  “I know you’ll think me callous,” she said, so low he could scarcely hear her, “but just now, I was sure that … that Stephen would be in that boat.”

  Her words jolted him: a thought had flashed through his own mind, quicksilver, like a school of anchovies: Now Matt will live, like the captain said.

  The captain was a religious man, maybe even a fanatic. That was all there was to it. But when John had been with him these last couple of days, when he was near, he could almost envision Matt running and playing and growing up. He could almost feel his ulcer healing. A form of paradise, some kind of mild, unrealistic euphoria, filled him when he was around Reade. Or was that called hope? Was it in such short supply in his psyche that he’d forgotten how it felt? And if it was this good, who cared where it came from?

  My son is full of barnacles, he thought, squeezing Matt’s hand as the boy danced with excitement.

  And the cold can kill them, a voice replied down in his brain where he couldn’t detect it, but he heard it just the same.

  * * *

  Donna accompanied the captain to the landing and watched them hoist up the boat, men and all. There were sixteen, laughing and joking, shaking fists of triumph. A big black man clapped Mr. Saar on the shoulder. The white man’s face was bright red, but otherwise he appeared fine.

  Cha-cha saw Donna and stood up. “Officer Donna!” he called. “It’s me! Don’t shoot!”

  Reade chuckled and nudged her. “That must be Cha-cha.”

  “Absolutely.” She cupped her mouth with her hands. “Hey, Chach! How are you?” God Almighty, his skin was red as—

  red as—

  a rose.

  “Cool, baby. Cool as ice! Right on!”

  “Well, sit down or you’ll kill yourself!”

  He flashed her a peace sign and plopped back down.

  “Jesus, he looks like he’s been skinned,” she muttered.

  “A bad sunburn,” the captain agreed. “Dr. Hare will have something for that.”

  The boat was hauled up even with the landing with the men still in it.

  “How come you didn’t bring us up like that?” Donna asked the captain.

  “This way is more dangerous,” he replied, as if that should satisfy her. Which, of course, it didn’t, since it only led to more questions in her mind.

  The crew was carefully helped out. Men in greens arrived with a squadron of wheelchairs and a stab of vertigo rattled Donna for an instant as she remembered her arrival on the Pandora: She’s the one.

  Ice water in her brains.

  Whoah, girl. She took a slow, deep breath.

  “Shit, we don’t need those things,” the black man said. “We’re a little burned, but we’re fine.” As he climbed out of the boat, he held his hand out to Cha-cha. “Sorry I gave you such a hard time, brother.”

  Shaking with him, Cha-cha wagged his head and made a peace sign. “Hey, Eskimo baby. Peace and love.” He winked. “King made that fish come. Told me a lot of groovy things.”

  “Fish?” the captain queried.

  “Yes,” Cha-cha began, and then he paled. His mouth dropped open. He staggered a little and said, “Your Maj—” Cupped his hand over his mouth and bobbed like a pigeon. Backed away and started whistling tunelessly. Poor old wacko, Donna thought. He must have had a real time of it.

  Suddenly he said, “We knew how to get here ’cuz we heard you singing, Officer D.”

  Donna jerked. “What?”

  Saluting, Mr. Saar stepped forward. “Our supplies were defective, sir. We were starving.”

  Reade knit his brows. “But you were only at sea for six days,” he said.

  “No way!” Eskimo interjected, looking incredulous. “No way!” The others nodded.

  “We were starving!” one of them said. “We wouldn’t starve in less than a week.”

  “I want to get these men to the infirmary,” the doctor said impatiently.

  Reade rubbed his chin, lowered his hand. He said to Donna, “I’m afraid I’ll have to see you later. I’ll be accompanying these men to sick bay.”

  “We were gone twenty-three days,” Mr. Saar insisted as the group moved away. He sounded more hurt than puzzled that no one was agreeing with him. “I counted them.”

  Donna chewed the inside of her cheek. “Welcome to the Bermuda Triangle,” she murmured. Bad counting and phantom songs. Well, hey howdy, things were curiouser and curiouser.

  The crowd drifted away once the men had left for the infirmary. She stood around for a while, monitoring the scene. Twenty-three days, and the guy was positive. One little, two little, sixteen little Indians. Holy moly. And Cha-cha knew she liked to sing, too.

  Maybe it was time to do some real digging.

  John walked over, Matt in tow. He looked sheepish as he said, “Are you going to change for dinner now?”

  She regarded him. Pink on his cheeks, eyes cast downward. Too sweet for words.

  “Yeah.” Maybe he’d open up on the way to the stateroom. The still-weird stateroom, where her heart still thundered for an hour or two before she fell asleep.

  “We’ll walk you, okay, Matt?”

  The boy silently nodded; his eyes huge and round and pleading. What, baby, what? Donna tried to ask, but his attention was distracted as John urged him along and the three began to walk.

  “How you been, kiddo?” Donna asked.

  “He’s fine,” John said shortly.

  Those were the last words anyone spoke until they reac
hed Donna’s door. Then John muttered, “See you at dinner,” and split.

  Ah, geez. She took a deep breath and let herself into her room.

  Her heart thundered, but she got dressed anyway.

  Up periscope, later, and privately:

  “Cha-cha, I’m so pleased with you.”

  Cha-cha, on his knees before King Neptune with his hands folded across his chest, nearly wept with joy. He couldn’t believe all this was happening to him. It was too psychedelically supercalifrage.

  Up in the crow’s nest, the two of them surrounded by fresh red canvas—red sails, how cool—the yards vibrating with the force of the gale, Cha-cha raised his face to the darkening sky as the rain began to fall. Captain, his king-captain, in a ball of golden light. Cha-cha could and couldn’t see him, but he knew he was there. The light danced up and down the yards like Tinker Bell, but he knew it was the king. It was the gold of his aura, yeah, baby, the halo crown of the god of the sea. Hare rama, hare Krishna, oh, yeah.

  “Rise, Cha-cha.”

  Cha-cha stood easily, rolling with the ship on his old sea legs. The ocean rose, swelled, pregnant with life that swam and slithered and plunged. And ate. Dark shapes burrowed through the black water on either side of the ship.

  Below, on the black, black deck, men dressed in old-time clothes cowered on the poop. One held a small, chestnut-haired boy in his arms and rocked him. Beneath the lightning, something rolled along the deck, crack, roll, crack.

  “There are more tasks that you must accomplish for me, Cha-cha, before you can come aboard. You know that, don’t you?”

  Cha-cha grunted. “Aye-aye, sir. Yessir.”

  “And then I’ll let you have a reward.” Cha-cha brightened, and the king smiled. “And what would you like?”

  Cha-cha toyed with the end of his rainbow T-shirt. “My ghosts, king baby. I want my ghosts. I thought they’d like, come with me, but I think they stayed on the Morris.” He swallowed hard. “I don’t think all of them can swim.”

  The king waved his hand over Cha-cha’s head like a magician. At least, Cha-cha thought it was his hand. It could have been his scepter, or a sword, or the sparkly green bottle he’d found in his net. His mind jigged. Had he found something in his net?

  Had he sunk the Morris?

  “Your ghosts have been on my mind, Cha-cha. I sent lifeboats for them, and they’re on their way. So you must hurry and do everything I tell you, so you’ll be ready for them.”

  Cha-cha rubbed his hands together. “Right on. Right on.”

  Come.

  Blackness.

  Loneliness.

  Cha-cha started. “Say what, Your Maj?”

  The ball of light fluttered and for a moment, a very brief moment, Cha-cha thought he saw—

  That there was nothing but a handful of—

  No. No, there was the king now, coming into focus, oh, yeah. Cool. Trippy. Yeah.

  “I am the captain,” the king said, and Cha-cha thought he sounded just a bit freaked out. That freaked him out.

  “What? What’s wrong, Your Majesty?” he pleaded.

  “I am the captain,” the king murmured. Then he whispered it. “I am the way, and the power, and the light.”

  Cha-cha flashed his brown teeth at the lightning, and the ball of gold karma that was his cosmic commander.

  “Hallelujah. Right on,” he said, shaking with cold. He wished he had his denim jacket. There hadn’t been time. The rain splashed down, down, down, filling the crow’s nest, covering the deck to the gunwales, submerging the hold where the livestock and chickens were caged. A pig squealed.

  “Sacrifices,” the king said. “The sea demands many, and is still not appeased.” Then he leapt out of the crow’s nest and stood on the yardarm. Jumped up, down. Began to dance.

  “I’ve cracked her head open, Cha-cha. She feels the ice water, now and then.”

  The lightning flashed around him, and Cha-cha clapped his hands in time to the music

  that was, and wasn’t

  there.

  Ramón had no idea how long he’d been tied to the periscope, but he judged the water was rising at a slower rate. It had remained at his lower thighs for some time and—

  “Help! Help!” he shouted, losing control. He couldn’t stand there and analyze how fast the sub was filling with water, hijo de puta, not when he had to stop it, stop the curse, stop the dead men and the dead captain, and stop everything.

  “Help! Ayúdame!” He shouted the words over and over and over, until they ceased being words, and then he felt the first thrust of the knife as it sliced open his arm. Tissue and muscle ripped and tore in a white-hot waterfall of blood.

  Ramón screamed. Now it came, now death came, oh, dear God, Madre de Dios, was he imagining it?

  “Bad, bad,” a voice said as the knife thrust back into the wound, deepening it. Cha-cha? Could it be Cha-cha the cook?

  “Nnnnno! Cha-cha, no!” Ramón thrashed against the pole. “It can’t be you!”

  Cha-cha’s face was covered with his blood. The old bandanna, sopping with it. “King says to tell you it’s this or drowning. You can, like, choose.”

  Pain, hot as coals; so much pain. Mama, Mama. “Fight him, viejo. He can’t do anything to us. He can’t alone, he …”

  And more pain. And more.

  “King says choose.”

  But Ramón couldn’t answer. He couldn’t do anything but hang there, and bleed.

  Down periscope.

  Sprawled on her bed, Donna glanced idly through Flotsam, at the clock. Turned a page. Mmm, guy named Wagner wrote an opera called The Flying Dutchman. A girl named Senta throws herself in the sea to redeem the soul of the damned man, who, as far as Donna could tell, had gotten in trouble with the devil for boasting he could round some cape.

  “Senta, you bimbo,” she muttered, closed the book. No way would she ever sing opera. Would she ever be able to. Jazz, now. That was natural. That was your real voice.

  That was your real suicide. And maybe your redemption. Not for Billy, though. Never made it to heaven, to the other side of the hurt …

  Enough sea lore. Dinner was in twenty minutes.

  Stretching, she got up and headed for the bathroom. Spied her Daily Program under the door, where every night someone slipped it, and every day she tossed it—cultural activities, no way!—in the trash. She picked up the Program again and read it again:

  Shiver me timbers! Soon the ol’ Pandora will go a rockin’ for our ever-popular shipwreck party! We’ve got some real shipwreck passengers aboard this year, so ask them for tips on how to dress! We’ll be honoring them all: Mr. and Mrs. Philip van Buren, Mrs. Ruth Hamilton, Miss Donna Almond, Dr. John Fielder and his son, Master Matthew, and many of the crewmen from the freighter, Morris.

  Ask your steward what it’s all about. He’ll be glad to help you with your preparations. So put on your duds, man the lifeboats, and join us at dinner for a rollicking evening of good (wet!) fun!

  Yo ho ho. She couldn’t believe it. Not her idea of good wet fun. She’d be damned if she’d wear a costume to a thing like that after what she’d been through. For that matter, maybe she’d have room service that night. Whenever it was. Didn’t say.

  She’d like to stay in her room tonight, too. She was feeling so odd. Tired and woozy, disoriented. But she wanted to see if Phil and Elise showed.

  “One more time for the little red dress,” she grumbled, and set about getting ready.

  Tonight was French cuisine night, and Mrs. Hamilton and Captain Reade were both eating snails. Matt thought that was about the grossest thing in the world.

  “Dad, c’ai have a hamburger?” he asked. It was cool on this ship to order anything you wanted. They still hadn’t had their buffalo steaks, but Captain Reade had promised they would before they left.

  “Dad?” he repeated. His father gazed off into space and said nothing. Matt knew he was worried about him. That terrified him. Dad was a doctor, and he knew all about the germs that had m
ade Matt sick, and if he was upset, then that meant the germs were acting up again.

  And that meant Matt might get sick again.

  Visions of hospital beds, needles, and machines twisted inside his head with the gross (and rad) wax statues in the Medieval Torture Museum on Fisherman’s Wharf, where they had gone after Matt’s last visit to the hospital. Guys getting pulled apart on racks, ladies being buried alive with bags of cats tied to their stomachs—at the time it had all seemed so great.

  But the hospital could be like that. And what was the difference if your hair fell out because you were locked up in a dungeon, or ’cuz you got zapped by the radiation machines?

  And the witch, eating up Hansel and Gretel. Wouldn’t it be gross if grown-ups did eat little kids sometimes? Like if you were starving, and there was this baby, and … he shivered. Sometimes he managed to gross even himself out.

  What was dying? He knew he didn’t understand it, ’cuz his dog, Julie, had died the last time he was in the hospital, and sometimes he thought she’d be waiting for him when he came back from somewhere. He had looked at the pictures of bodies in one of his dad’s medical books, but they didn’t look real. In his head, they were mixed up with horror movies and comic books, and the stuff other kids talked about in the hospital. Like how you rot, even though they fill you up with formaldehyde.

  That word was cool and scary at the same time.

  “Daddy?”

  His dad started. Matt said, “C’ai have two hamburgers? I’m really hungry.” He was trying to reassure his dad. Because the first thing to go was always his appetite. Especially when he had to stay in the hospital.

  There was a trick to it: if he could convince his dad he was okay, then his dad could convince him. And then, maybe, he would be safe.

  Matt’s dad looked down at him for a long time. Then his lips curled downward and he cupped Matt’s cheek.

  “You are so good,” he said in a choked, funny voice. “I don’t deserve you.”

  Matt was more afraid than ever.

  “Would you like three hamburgers?” Captain Reade asked. Matt shrank. He used to like the captain, but he had changed his mind. Captain Reade talked to his dad a lot now, about Matt’s cancer, and Matt knew it was upsetting his dad. He wanted to tell him to shut up about it, but Captain Reade was an adult and anyway, Matt was too nervous around him to say much.