Dead in the Water (12 page)

Forcing herself to remain calm, she turned on the water and put his hand under it. He cried out.

“You going to faint?” she asked calmly. He shook his head.

“No.” Kevin’s face was papery white. Behind him, the fog tumbled into the galley, crawling up and over the lip and cascading along the floor. “Dr. John. Get Dr. John.”

She cupped some cold water and splashed it on the nape of his neck. “Hold on. I’ll be right back.”

She dashed out of the kitchen and through the lounge. Phil had his arms around Ruth as she sobbed against his chest.

“… pincers!” she said, catching her breath. “Sharp, and I stepped on it!”

Phil looked up with a puzzled expression on his face.

Donna said, “Kevin’s had an accident. Go to him.” Threw an expression of disgust at Elise, who was standing apart from her husband and Ruth, and hopped over the transom to the hall.

She popped on the door. He opened it at once, as if he were expecting her. Maybe he’d heard the shouting; if so, why hadn’t he come to check on it? “Yes?” he asked.

“Your turn.” She jerked her head. “You’ve got a chomped-up hand in the galley, and Ruth in hysterics in the lounge. The rules of triage say you should go to the galley first.”

“Okay. I’ll be right there.” He started to shut the door, but she stopped him.

“If you need me, send H.R.H. Elise for me. I’m falling-down tired.”

“Okay. Matt,” he said over his shoulder, “I need to …”

The rest of his sentence was lost to her in the foghorn. With a sigh, she lifted her hair off the back of her neck and continued down the hall. Ruth’s monster was there somewhere. She kicked the fog, trying to clear a view to the floor. Nothing. As she expected.

Feeling only slightly guilty about leaving all the mess to John, she flopped on the bed. Raised her leg and worked off the sneaker on her right foot with the toes of her left.

The foghorn bellowed.

And beneath it, a
roll, crack. Roll, crack
. Something was loose. Probably the same mop that had scared the bejesus out of Ruth.

Roll, crack
. Shit. She’d never get to sleep, listening to that.

Roll, crack
.

A bird beak, she thought drowsily. You could step on a large beak and think it was pincers.

Yeah, so? Did that mean a bird had flown into the companionway, somehow crashed to the floor, and now lay flat on its back with its beak pointing to the stars?

Roll crack. Roll crack
. And a funny little
chatter-scrabble, chatter-scrabble
, up and down the hall.

In five minutes, she was gone.

April 10, 1797

Thomas Reade, formerly the captain of the
Royal Grace
, in the sea, in his own boat of Charon, dying.

Blackness
.

Thirst
. The two words echoed through his being; they shook and rattled the water. They vibrated beneath the waves in a titanic plea to the gods.

The sea, alone, all alone, with his death shroud wrapped around him.

And then, a bottle bobbed upon the water.

Blackness, thirst
.

The sea, and Thomas Reade; and his lips shredded inside the shroud as he chewed on the canvas, the blood and brains of the boy a dried paste that cracked and peeled off like a
second skin. The cabin boy, Nathaniel, his beloved, his darling, his treasure.

Roll, crack
! The belaying pin he had dropped when they came for him in his cabin, saw what he was doing. Roll, crack along the deck, like the cadence of the death watch! While they beat him and sewed him into the shroud, deaf to his explanations, his entreaties, his threats.

Nathaniel, his love. Him he had given to her when she asked, Salome to his Baptist.

No, not Salome. Maria. Maria, most holy, virgin of the waters. Stella Maris. Oh, she. She, who gave the ocean life. She had come to him in his dreams, and told him what to do. She had promised so much; she clung to the exquisite vessel of his reasoning like an exquisitely carved figurehead, whispering, pledging. She would not let him down. He knew she would save him.

Reade’s cock sprang into an erection. He stopped chewing and grabbed it through his salt-stiff trousers. Oh, yes! Yes! When she came for him, he would be ready.

He wanted with all his heart to fuck the sea.

And know ye, all ye dead men who tell no tales:

Desire is a kind of Spirit.

And the Spirit moves upon the waters.

En route to the Owhyees, and a bottle bobbed beside the boat, beautiful and green, with golden tracings and sparkling jewels, smacking against the side of the dinghy—

—roll crack!—

—as the dying man lay in his shroud. A wave lifted it up, up, up; it gleamed like a crown atop the crest! and tossed it into the vessel—

—just as a huge, white bird swooped down from the sky and grabbed it, cawing with glee.

Then something wrapped around the bird’s leg. Alarmed, the bird flapped its wings harder. The leg was ripped off. The bird shrieked in agony. In a spray of blood and tendons, the bottle fell inside the boat

—crack—

And Thomas Reade, emerging from his prison, picked up the bottle and shouted, “She comes!”

It was psychedelically beautiful. Green with sparklies, his net treasure.

The minute Cha-cha saw it fall out of the fishing net and roll down the foggy deck, he knew King Neptune had sent it to him. Sendin’ out an SOS. And he’d grabbed that sucker and stuck it in his jacket, yessir, all the time Kevin was going ballistic over his hand, ’cuz Cha-cha knew it was a great big secret, just between him and His Sea-ness.

As Cha-cha lay in his bunk, he raised the bottle toward the single bare bulb that swung back and forth from the ceiling of his cabin. Rock, rock, rock, and roll. A memory surged: a vase made out of a 7-Up bottle, purple wildflowers. A house-boat.

Rocking, rocking, rocking. Before the Vietnam Conflict, the house like a baby in a macramé hammock. And he’d been happy there. His scene had been beautiful. Psychedelically beautiful.

Yeah, and if you put the bottle up to your ear, it spoke to you in His Voice.

And it told you what to do.

What to do next.

Come to me, Cha-cha. A thousand times a thousand
.

“Yessir, Your Highness,” Cha-cha told King Neptune.

en route to Hawaii, past and present

I

April 21

 … checked the stitches this morning. The cut was quite severe. Kevin swears something bit him, but there’s no sign of teeth marks. Donna told me there was a knife involved, but in all the excitement, it’s been lost. Cha-cha said it was his favorite, sharpest one, and has charged “Officer Donna” with finding it
.

That man gives me the willies. He keeps making all kinds of sly comments about something he found in the net. I wouldn’t be surprised if he cut Kevin himself
.

The fog still hangs around us. We’re going into our second night of it and it’s making all the passengers edgy. Crew, too, though they’re trying to hide it from us. Capt. Esposito ordered
us not to move around outside. There’s something very unsettling about not being able to see where you’re going
.

At dinner (steak and pasta; Cha-cha, amazingly, can cook very well), Elise VBH (H, you peasant, H) confronted the captain and demanded he explain why we had all this fog. He just looked at her with contempt and said, “I’m sorry, but I can’t control the weather.” And she looked at him like she wanted to ask, Why the hell not
?

Matty slept like a log last night, but he was listless all day. I think he had nightmares, but he won’t talk about them. Cha-cha, bless his bizarre old soul, located Capt. Nemo, who is now curled next to Matt on the bed. Both are asleep. Nemo is purring. I didn’t know cats purred in their sleep and I wouldn’t have guessed she’d let him near her, pregnant as she is
.

Ulcer’s flared up again. I’m running out of Tagamet. Don’t think the captain’s got any in his slop chest
.

I think I had a bad dream last night, too. It seemed to have had something to do with a man. Maybe after Ruth’s hesitant confession last night, I appropriated the image of her husband. I boozed her up a little to stop the tears and she told me he disappeared eleven months ago, in these very waters. How gruesome! She’s going to Hawaii to consult a medium who claims to have received messages from him indicating that he’s alive. Poor Ruth. At least she’s highly skeptical of the whole thing. On the other hand, she
is
going all the way to Hawaii to check it out. I guess you do desperate things when you love someone
.

I know you do. I’d do anything for Matty. I’d sell my soul if I could
.

Dear God, don’t let him get sick again
.

Dear God, take care of him
.

If you listen to lapsed Catholics, God, listen to me
.

Later—

Can’t sleep. Every time I close my eyes, I jerk awake. I keep thinking I hear talking, something about a bottle? Some kind of dream—nightmare, really. I feel threatened, and then I wake up. I think Matt might be in it. That makes sense, about feeling threatened, with Matt in the dream, I mean
.

He and the kitty seem to be snoozing through it all. A while
ago, Donna came by to ask for a sleeping pill. Looked worn out. She’s a honey. Mmm, been a long time. I think Matty’s falling for her, too. ’Course, she lets him win at checkers. She doesn’t let the big boys get away with anything. I think Ramón wants her to hurt him. Ha
!

Oh, yeah, we never did find anything in the corridor, though Ruth insists something was there
.

I almost told her about the face. I know I imagined it, but at the time, it seemed real. But I was too embarrassed—guess I don’t want Donna to know I still think about it
.

But I do think about it
.

II

Assets
.

Liabilities
.

With a shaking hand, Elise poised her hand over the page of the Steno pad she’d purchased from the captain’s “slop chest” (charming name) earlier that evening. Continued the list: the condo in the city, the house on Fire Island. The Jag. The stocks, the bonds, the bank accounts. Jewelry, art.

So many assets.

So little love.

Dots of ink marred the paper as she held the pen above the last item on the list. It swung back and forth between her fingers as if on a gimbal.

Tears blurred the ink.

She closed the steno pad and stuffed it in the nightstand, aware that Phil might find it there and know exactly what it was. Her face impassive, she capped the pen and set it beside her pack of cigarettes. She pulled one out and lit it, watched the blue smoke rise. The tears fell at a forty-five-degree angle down her face, dampening her earlobes.

The cabin door opened and Phil blustered in, whistling, carrying a tray loaded with porcelain cups and a coffeepot.