Buzz Cut (30 page)

"Can't I go, sir?"

"No, you can't. Now give Thorn your nightstick."

Murphy looked down at the black leather sap wedged in his belt. That was all they had. Four saps with three saps. Truncheons. He remembered that word too. His own vocabulary lessons, reading adventure books, James Bond. There was a truncheon in there somewhere, probably gold-plated or with a little transmitter inside, one of those James Bond high-tech tricks. No mother to stick a dictionary in front of his nose. James Bond would have to do for Sugarman. Sap, cudgel. Blackjack. That was it. Blackjack. Use a blackjack on the white Jack. Beat him gray. One, two, three, four, flutter. Beat the sap.

Everyone was staring at Sugarman.

"Give Thorn your truncheon," Sugar said.

And he did it.

Thorn saying "Truncheon?"

Thorn and McDaniels stepped through the door. Sugarman behind them. Two beats, one flutter. Hop, skip, and jump. Maybe his heart had been doing that all his life. Maybe he was just now' noticing. Just now becoming attentive. There were other things like that. It you look for it hard enough, you sure as shit find it. If you worry over it, guaranteed it'll crop up. Maybe that's all this was. Maybe it was the normal way a heart beat when you were half black, half white. One chamber with rhythm, one without. Out of kilter, wobbling, one short leg, one long. Maybe it had always beat this way. Maybe Sugarman had always been light-headed, always had shirts that fit so goddamn tight across his chest they kept him from getting a full breath down.

***

Thorn stayed behind Sugar in case he fell over backward. He looked like he might. Tottering like some lofty pine gnawed to the core by beavers. Wobbly, unstable. Leading the three of them down the hallway, using his passkey on each door, very systematic. Kicking the door open, the three of them rushing in with their billy clubs raised.

Making a quick inspection, closet, bathroom. Then on to the next one. They'd done seven rooms already. There looked to be a couple dozen left. These rooms had balconies and much nicer furniture than Thorn's. Lots more space. The ship was laid out like the class system in miniature. Rich above, poor below. Even if you weren't rich, you could save up, pretend for a week.

Funny thing to Thorn was, up here, on the top deck, the ship swayed a whole hell of a lot more than down in the bowels. Every swell and trough registered. Even on tonight's gentle sea, the floor had a steady rock. In any kind of rough weather the rich folks were going to get banged around a hell of a lot more than the folks riding steerage. Which, all in all, seemed fair. Mild payback.

McDaniels was chomping on his straw. As they worked down the hallway, running out of rooms, the drumroll rising, the man was devouring that strip of plastic.

Sugar continued to sweat. Kept running a finger around the inside of his collar. Clearing his throat over and over.

"Maybe you should sit this one out," Thorn said. "You're quivering like a six-foot pile of lemon custard."

"I'm fine, Thorn. I'm fucking fine."

Sugarman's face was damp, eyes fogged. His gray tennis shirt had soaked dark across his chest in a pattern that looked like the round face and ears of Mickey Mouse.

They were down to the last three rooms. Sugarman used the passkey, stood aside for McDaniels to push open the door. Sugar first, rushing in. Thorn second, McDaniels trailing.

Dale Jenkins sat in the desk chair across the room. Posed for the camera. Handsome man, black hair, thick with just a sprinkle of gray at the curly temples. A tough, muscular face that had looked on more than its share of atrocities, dodged shrapnel, been sprayed with gore. Even Thorn had seen this guy. Seen him while Thorn sipped beers at bars, the relentless TV running. He'd seen Dale Jenkins out on battlefields, the elder statesman of TV journalists bouncing behind the tanks across the desert sands. Looking natural in field jacket and helmet. Once Thorn had seen him trapped in an Arab hotel room while the tracer bullets filled the night sky outside. Dale Jenkins. More than a haircut and straight white teeth. The guy had that old-time, no-bullshit, understated delivery. Things look bad, he'd say. But the spirit of the people is strong.

The kind of reporter who knew how to get out of the way, shut up, let the camera do its work. A word here and there. The right word, the right here and there. As a boy Thorn had watched with Kate Truman as a president was murdered, the film running over and over, the convertible, the young wife. And Dale Jenkins had been there with his dry, roughened cigarette voice. The nation's uncle. Holding back his fury, his grief, explaining in basic, practical words what was unfolding. A young man, a young president, struck down by an assassin's bullet. Thorn had watched him fight his own emotions so he might console a country. Twenty-eight, twenty-nine at the time. Now in his sixties. Distinguished and solemn. Even in death, sitting naked in his chair. Even with the long ragged wound opened from his throat to his navel. A second incision going from nipple to nipple. His bloody crucifix, his last cross to bear.

On the table before him sat a microphone. Wires stretching from the mike to the ceiling. A square piece of ceiling panel had been removed, the wires patched into a thick black cable up there. Dale Jenkins was slumped toward the microphone as if delivering his final report. Things look bad. Things look very bad.

McDaniels had to puke.

Sugarman spun around and flew back into the hall, Thorn following. He slid his passkey into the next lock. Threw the door open. Searched the cabin. No one home. He jostled past Thorn, back into the hall, put his key in the next lock. And at that moment, ten feet away, the big steel fire doors rumbled and began to roll back into their pockets. The other set, the one Blaine Murphy was guarding a hundred feet down the hallway, rolled open as well.

Sugarman yelled at Murphy. What the hell was he doing!

"I didn't do anything!" the kid yelled back. "I didn't open them."

"Well, shut them," Sugarman called. "Close the fucking doors."

Thorn could see Murphy duck into the emergency room down there and then dart back out a few seconds later.

"They don't work!" he called. "They're dead. Doors are dead."

Sugarman took two steps toward Murphy, staring at the boy, transfixed, then broke into a run. Thorn rushed after him. Sugar was halfway down the hall before he staggered and crumpled to his knees. He continued to hobble forward as though he were slogging through deep sand, holding a hand out toward Murphy, the hand with the blackjack, waving it at the kid. Making a strangled noise, a warning. Look out. Look out.

Thorn reached Sugarman's side just as Blaine Murphy went down. Twenty feet away the tall man with swishy blond hair materialized behind the young man's fallen body. Butler Jack with sparks at his fingers. In his other hand was the glint of a knife, its blade smeared dark.

"You didn't think I'd see this coming?" Butler Jack roared. "You idiots are so fucking predictable. Trying to trap me with fire doors. You can't stop me. Not you. Not anyone."

Dropping to his knees, Thorn crouched over Sugarman, rolled him onto his back.

"Sugar?" he said. "Are you all right? Sugar?"

Sugarman's eyes were open. He was staring up at the ceiling. Thorn pressed his fingertips to Sugar's throat, felt the ragged pulse, a few strong beats, a long pause, a few weak ones. He lifted his head and watched as Butler Jack spread his lips into a triumphant smile, then turned and jogged away down the hall.

McDaniels had a meat cleaver sent up from the kitchen. He wedged his sap into his belt and, gripping the cleaver in his right hand, he stood guard just inside the infirmary door.

Dr. Metzger roused Blaine Murphy from his electric shock, asked him a few questions, name, date, birthday, to be sure his brain wasn't terminally scrambled, then gave him a sedative that put him almost immediately back to sleep.

Lying in the bed beside Murphy, Sugar was hooked to an IV, an array of monitors. He was dozing too. He'd had a mild arrhythmia. Nothing to worry about normally, but for someone who'd just suffered a heart attack it could be extremely serious. Metzger stomped around, shaking her head. She pointed her finger at McDaniels, jabbed it at Thorn. She was absolutely appalled to discover that Sugarman had gotten a seaweed wrap, then gone chasing around the corridors of the ship.

"The man had a goddamn heart attack yesterday. Do you understand what that means? What kind of friends are you to let him risk his life like that? It's crazy. Absolutely criminal."

A while later Lola came down, stood awkwardly beside Sugar's bed for a few minutes, but didn't touch him and didn't speak. She seemed to be posing for the benefit of someone who was not there. Demonstrating concern, heartfelt distress as if it were a part she'd studied but until now had not had a chance to perform.

When she left, she walked blindly past Thorn and McDaniels, a measured anxiety showing on her face. Ten minutes later, Sampson bustled in, gave Thorn a nod, and went immediately into the doctor's office and closed the door. Thorn could hear Metzger cursing several times, but nothing more.

When Sampson came out, he shut the door behind him. Thorn catching a quick glimpse of the doctor slumped forward, her head in her hands. Thorn stepped in front of Sampson. The man's smile had died, but its twisted carcass lingered on his lips. He eyed Thorn for a few seconds.

"Get out of my way."

Thorn leaned close and said, "You did this."

"Get out of my goddamn way."

Thorn took hold of Sampson's pink shirt just below his ascot. He twisted the silky fabric and lifted the man onto his toes and drove Sampson backward across the room. Knocking over a chair as they staggered toward a wall. Thorn slammed the big man against it, knocked the breath from him, and held him there. Sampson squirmed but couldn't break Thorn's grip.

"You goddamn idiot," Thorn hissed. Bringing his face close to Sampson's. "Dale Jenkins, Dorfman, Cruz. This is your fucking fault. Pretending nothing was happening, sailing on with this maniac roaming around. You thought you could keep the party going, nobody would notice. Now look. Look at this shit."

Sampson calmed himself. Though he was jammed against the wall, Thorn throttling him, Morton Sampson brought the parts of his face into harmony around a serene smile.

Thorn gave him a final rattle and let go. He stepped back a half yard. Measured a straight right hand to Sampson's chin. But he didn't throw it. Felt instead the tremble in his arm as his warring impulses fought to a standstill. Too much aikido training. Too much nonaggressive propaganda.

Sampson edged by Thorn, nodded to McDaniels on his way out.

"I think he's sweet on you," McDaniels said when Sampson was gone. The young Hispanic nurse chuckled.

Thorn walked back to check on Sugarman. Still asleep. When he returned to the waiting room, Brandy Wong was there. She carried a silver tape recorder and without preamble she launched into her interrogation, asking Thorn and McDaniels what was going on, who was this fellow on the PA, what kind of trouble was he causing? Was this man related in any way to the near collision this afternoon? The two of them looked at her politely but said nothing as she swept around the room. She kept at it for another few minutes. McDaniels went to work on his straw and Thorn looked off down the hall toward Sugar's room.

Brandy Wong made a little huffing noise that was supposed to devastate them and moved on to the nurse. Standing in front of her desk and asking her who'd been injured, why was everyone gathered down here in the infirmary? The nurse stared at Brandy Wong and smiled as if the woman had made a mild joke. The TV journalist glanced around at the three of them, growled something under her breath, then backed away. She stood for a strained moment in the doorway in her bright green minidress then spun around and stalked off.

"I guess she didn't recognize you," McDaniels said. "You know, you being a celebrity and all, I thought the two of you would have one of those rich and famous conversations I've heard so much about."

"Sorry," Thorn said. "I was crazed last night. It was a stupid thing to say."

"Yeah, well, I was pretty much of a jerk myself."

"Well, we're what's left of the army now, you and me."

"I think we're about to be decommissioned."

"Fuck Sampson, we'll do what we have to do."

"It's not about us anymore," McDaniels said. "The Feds. Coast Guard, FBI swat teams, you name it, any guy within two hundred miles who owns a flak jacket will be here in an hour or two. We're about to get the full treatment."

"I don't think so. Sampson's not going to let it leak. Dale Jenkins, any of it. You heard him. He gonna keep playing make-believe. Ride this out, maybe it'll all disappear. Hell, if that reporter doesn't know what's going on, then nobody does."

Thorn went back in to see Sugarman. He was breathing nicely. Heart going, neat, regular mountain ranges on his monitor. Nothing for Thorn to do. The nurse came in, took Sugar's pulse, looked at the monitors, and announced that his vital signs were just fine. She told Thorn she was going off her shift now. The doctor would be spending the night in her office if anything came up. Just knock.

Thorn asked her if he could take Sugar back to his cabin.

"Why would you want to do that?"

"It's next to mine, an adjoining door. I could watch him."

"Dr. Metzger would kill you."

"But can he be moved? Is he in any danger, his heart?"

"He'll be safer here."

"I'm not so sure of that."

"If he were my friend," she said, and put a hand on his arm, "I'd leave him here."

***

The mirror light in the bathroom was on in Thorn's cabin. Nothing else. He left it that way. Lay down on the bed and picked up the phone, held it up to the halo of light and punched in Rochelle's apartment number. He set the phone down as he listened to the half-dozen electronic linkages being made, the double clicks and buzzes and vacuums. Satellite to dish, dish to phone lines. Up to the stars and down again.