Chameleon (5 page)

III

A bank of monitor screens along one wall gave Lansdale a closed-circuit view of the control rooms and the exterior of the Thoreau. Sleet was sweeping through the rigging and almost straight out across the deck.

The wind’s up to a hundred and ten, maybe twenty, knots already, he thought, Gale force and picking up.

There was a tap on the door.

‘It’s open,’ Lansdale said.

Marge came in and closed the door and smiled at him for a couple of seconds and then snapped the lock on the door without taking her eyes off him.

‘You’re downright shameless,’ he said.

‘There’s no such thing on this barge,’ she said.

‘Barge! Jesus, that’s sacrilegious!’ He laughed. ‘You’re just going with me because I’m captain of the football team.’

‘Naw. I wanted to see if hardhats really make love with their socks on.’

‘Depends how cold it is.’

‘It’s about twenty below out there and falling.’

‘Then maybe I’ll keep them on.’

‘The hell you will.’

She walked across the living room, stopping for a moment at his bookcase. Shelley, Coleridge, Shakespeare, Franek’s Zen and Zen Classics, French and Spanish dictionaries, copies of Red Harvest and Blood Money by Dashiell Hammett. Through the porthole she looked out over the gray, bleak, endless sea, the waves lashed by sleet and wind.

‘It’s scary,’ she said. And then she turned her back on the window. ‘God, I’ll be glad to get back to civilization where it’s light in the daytime and dark at night.’

He made her a rum and Coke and carried it across the room to her. ‘Why the hell did you stay out here for the holidays anyway?’ he said. ‘It sure as hell wasn’t the bonus.’

‘It helps. Sixty-two fifty a day on top of a hundred and twenty-five. That’s almost a thousand dollars for two weeks. Anyway, one of my sons is someplace in Vermont with the college skiing team, and the other one is at his girl friend’s house in Ohio. What’s to go home to?’

‘That’s it?’

‘Well ... you’re here, too.’

‘I thought you forgot.’

‘Not likely.’

‘Are you divorced?’ he asked. They had never talked about personal things before.

‘Widowed. Married at twenty-two, widowed at thirty- seven.’

‘What happened?’

‘He worked himself to death. Forty-two years old. One day he went off to the office and the next time I saw him he was lying in a funeral home with some creep dry-washing his hands over him, trying to sell me a five-thousand-dollar casket.’

‘A little bitter there.’

‘A little bitter? Maybe. Just a little. It sure turned my life around.’

‘Did you love him?’

‘Oh, I ... sure. Sure I loved him. He was a nice man.’

‘Christ, what an epitaph. Here lies Joe, he was a nice man.’

‘His name was Alec.’

‘It’s still a lousy epitaph.’

‘Well, he wasn’t a very exciting man. He was ... comfortable. Alec was wonderfully comfortable.’

‘So how come you end up a carpenter? On this barge, as you put it.’

‘I was into restoring antiques. It got out of hand. Next thing I know I was a full1ledged hardhat. How about you? A master’s degree in engineering and an armful of tattoos. That doesn’t fit, either.’

‘You can thank an old bastard name of Rufus Haygood for that.’

‘Rufus Haygood?’

‘Yeah. I was finishing my thesis at the University of Louisiana and these hotshot interviewers from ITT and Esso and AT&T and Bell Labs were giving me all this steam about how good it was gonna be workin’ for them, and one day old Rufus comes up to me and says he’s ramrodding a wooden jack-up rig out in the Gulf and he says, “I’ll give you ten silver eagles an hour, which is more than you can make dancin’ with those goddamn lard-ass bastards, and I’ll teach you everything there is to know about the oil game and you can teach me about books”—and I find out, you know, he never went to school. So for the next seven years I dragged around with him from one rig to another and he’d give me shale and blowholes and rigging for an hour or two, and I’d give him Shelley and Coleridge and Hammett for an hour or two back. But I learned about oil, yessiree.’

‘Where is he now?’

‘He’s with your Alec, wherever that might be. Drowned. Fishing in some dipshit lake in Florida. Got drunk and fell out of the boat. The old bastard never did learn to swim.’

Outside, the wind wailed past the window, peppering it with sleet.

‘Wonderful night to stay in,’ Marge said. ‘We could build a fire and snuggle up.’

‘If we had a fireplace.’

‘We can make believe,’ she said.

‘I haven’t been laid for three months.’

She held up four fingers. ‘Gotcha beat by a month,’ she said.

‘You’ve got a reputation as the Thoreau virgin,’ Lansdale said.

‘Been checking up on me, hunh?’

‘Well, it’s my job, make sure everybody on this rig is happy. We can’t afford morale problems.’

‘I’ve got one you can take care of right now,’ she said, closing in on him.

Lansdale said, ‘You are shameless.’

‘Yeah,’ she said, ‘ain’t it a kick in the ass.’

He laughed, a big laugh, and nodded. ‘Ain’t it, though,’ he said.

And laughing too, she ripped open her work shirt. She was not wearing a bra. Her breasts, firm from the hard work on the rig, stood out, the nipples already signalling her desire.

Lansdale stood near the wall, staring at her. He shook his head. ‘Incredible,’ he mumbled, tearing off his shirt and throwing it on the floor.

She was still seven or eight feet from him. She zipped down the fly of her jeans very slowly.

‘Need some music?’ he asked.

‘Unh unh.’

He sat down on the bed, leaning back on his elbows, watching every little move she made. She was swaying back and forth as she slowly slid the jeans over her hips and let them fall away. A curl of black hair peeked over the top of her bikini panties. She turned away from him, still swaying, and began to tighten and loosen her buttocks. She had an absolutely incredible ass.

‘Hard work sure becomes you,’ he said.

She hooked her thumbs under the edge of the panties and slipped them down partway, still moving, still swaying to the music in her head.

He zipped down his pants and pulled them off. He was rock-hard and bulging against his Jockey shorts. She looked at him over her shoulder, began moving backwards toward him, turning as she reached the edge of the bed and sliding her hand under her panties, caressing herself as she looked down at him. He could hear her fingers sliding through her lips, She knelt between his legs on the edge of the bed and began massaging his hard penis through the shorts, then finally she slipped her hand under them, pulled them down to his thighs, and began stroking him. He jerked, involuntarily, surprised by her callused hand. But she had a special talent, rubbing the underside of his penis with the palm of her hand while her fingers stroked the top.

Lansdale closed his eyes, ‘Christ,’ he said, ‘you ought to patent that.’

‘Just the beginning,’ she said, and leaning over, sucked him into her mouth, her teeth nibbling at him. He leaned forward, reached out, and took one of her breasts in his hand and caressed it with his fingertips, letting the palm of his hand barely touch the nipple. Her tongue darted and traced the length of him and he sat up a little more, sliding his hand down to her hard belly, his fingertips just touching the edge of her panties. She began to hunch, moving against his hand. He could feel the moisture through the silk, feel her distending clitoris as he stroked the length of her vagina.

She started to laugh, but then the laugh became a soft moan. ‘Goddamn,’ she cried out. Her legs began to tremble and she fell on her side next to him, grabbed his head and thrust it between her legs. He ripped her panties off and sucked her hard clitoris into his mouth, moving his head in tight little circles and flicking his tongue.

Her fists tightened in his hair, guiding his head as she moved with him. She began to tighten all over. She sucked in her breath, held it, then let it out in short spurts. And again. And again. She rose against him, hooking her heels behind his hips.

The tempo increased, her breaths coming shorter, the movement faster. Then all the muscles in her body seemed to freeze, her head moved slowly back, her legs straightened, her breathing stopped for a moment, and then she began to cry out and thrash her head back and forth and she came.

‘Oh God,’ she cried, ‘enough,’ but he didn’t stop and she felt it building again, felt the trembling, the fire streak down her nerves and envelope her entire body and she began coming again and she could not talk and her breath seemed to be caught in her throat and then suddenly it all burst out at once.

He rolled over on his back, slipped his arm under her waist and dragged her to him, lifting her so she was lying on her back on his chest and she reached down, found him and shoved him into her, while he stroked her breasts with one hand and masturbated her with the other.

‘No... more,’ she gasped, but he couldn’t stop. He thrust harder and harder, faster and faster, his fingers fleeting over her mound and as she tightened around him, he finally exploded with a great cry of relief and then he began to laugh, and a moment later she came again. He raised his knees and pressed down on her thighs and stayed in her as long as he could as the storm howled past the window.

IV

Lansdale awoke sharply from a deep, untroubled sleep. He lay on the bed for a moment, blinking his eyes, wondering what had awakened him so abruptly. The lights in the bedroom were still on and Marge lay beside him, sleeping soundly. it was 3:05 A.M. He sat up and grabbed the hot-line phone and punched out the number of the stabilizer control room. It only rang once before someone answered ‘Hello.’

‘This is Chief, who’m I talkin’ to?’

‘Barney Perkins.’

‘Everything all right down there?’

‘I’m not sure.’

Lansdale was stunned by Perkins’ response. He jumped up, cradling the phone between his shoulder and ear, and grabbed clothes from the floor, chairs, wherever they had fallen a few hours before.

‘What d’ya mean, you’re not sure?’

‘We got a... uh . .. like a tremor, Chief.’

‘Tremor?’

‘Yeah. There was like... I dunno, it was like . . . the whole rig shivered...’

‘Shivered? What the fuck is that supposed to mean?’

Lansdale was watching the monitor as he spoke, looking at the exterior of the Thoreau, draped with ice, like some primitive ice castle. Searchlights played the seas around the rig.

The waves were battering the legs, smashing small ice floes to bits.

‘I think maybe ... uh, maybe we took a hit from . .. maybe a small iceberg or something.’

‘“Or something” my ass. There’s no “or something” out there, for Christ’s sake. I’ll be right down.’

He slammed down the phone, Then he picked it up and punched out the number for the radio room.

‘Radio room. Harrison.’

‘Harrison, this is Chief. Check the area for surface craft right now. Find out if we got anything in the area.’

‘Jesus, what’s—’

‘Don’t fuck around, do it! Call me back.’

Marge turned over, eyeing him sleepily.

‘What is—’ she began, but he cut her off abruptly. He was across the room, pulling life jackets and thermal suits from the bottom of a closet. He tossed them to her. ‘Get this on fast and come on.’

The phone rang again and he snatched it up.

‘Yeah?’

‘Chief? It’s Harrison again.’

‘What’ve ya got?’

‘A Greek tanker, running the troughs at quarter speed.’

‘Where?’

‘Hell, if the weather was clear we could see it. About three miles northwest, heading toward the Strait,’

‘Listen to me, Harrison. Something may have bumped us. Call the tanker and tell her we may need help.’

‘You want me to give her a May Day?’

‘Just do exactly as I said, tell her we may be having trouble and we’d like a courtesy call. I’ll get back to you from Stabilizer Control.’

He was still watching the monitor, then he felt it again, it was a tremor, like a light earthquake. Glasses jingled on the bar. Then it settled again.

She was pulling on the thermal long johns and there was panic written in her earthy features. ‘What’s happening?’

‘I dunno,’ Lansdale said. ‘Maybe something hit us. I got to get down to Control. Ready?’

He was dressed only in long johns with a life jacket over them.

‘Can I put some clothes on?’ she asked.

‘No! Let’s get going — now. Right now.’

At 3:04:58, the thermal explosives attached to the north leg of the Thoreau had gone off on schedule. There were actually two blasts. The first was an implosion, which rent the welded joint of the steel leg and split it open. The second was more formidable. The shock wave from it rippled the water despite the raging waves. It almost finished the job, but not quite. As the terrifying power of the second explosive was released, it split the leg, the crack edging up the column, ten or twelve feet. Air bubbles poured from the wound. The air seal, meant to provide additional buoyancy, was destroyed. The sound was largely drowned out by the storm, but the explosion itself telegraphed up the leg and jarred the rig. The leg, although buffeted by the heavy seas, held valiantly at first. But the joint began to oscillate as the twenty-foot sea wrenched it back and forth. Then it separated, and another tremor riffled up to the station. Still it held, flexing before the storm, the welded seam gradually tearing around the girth of the steel shaft. Above, the wind wailed torturously at the buildings, adding extra stress to the already shattered leg. Then with the agonizing screech of metal tearing, the leg finally surrendered to the sea and separated. It seemed poised for a moment, this spidery shaft tossed by the sea, and then the twenty thousand tons of steel and concrete above it, urged on by the wind, leaned into the ruined column and it plunged, like a needle, toward the bottom, four hundred feet below.

On the surface the Thoreau, mortally wounded, yielded to the storm and as the north leg collapsed it listed, bobbed back and was immediately struck by a mountainous wave. Steel cables snapped like twigs. Its wintery shroud crumbled and shards of gleaming ice, caught in the wind, whistled through the air. Then the Thoreau tipped over. Its north perimeter plunged into the sea and the tower collapsed, smacking the waves and shattering immediately, bits and pieces of it washing back over the partially submerged deck. As it keeled over, the eight lines pumping crude oil into its tanks were torn loose, twisting in the wind like snakes, spewing crude into the wind. Electrical circuits exploded like fireworks, and the raw oil flooded through the cavernous room where the system converged. When the oil reached the hot lines, the room exploded. The six men on duty were roasted as the room blew up in an enormous mushroom of fire that filled it and burst through the side of the building before it was swept away by the wind and sea.

Inside the stricken rig, men were tossed about like toothpicks, crushed under furniture, thrown through smashed portholes. The lights went out. Most of them, trapped in darkness, died in panic and fear.

The Thoreau lay on its side, held momentarily by the other legs, as the sea pounded it and the waves crashed against its five-story superstructure, which now lay sideways in the water.

Lansdale was standing in the doorway of his apartment, urging Marge to hurry, when suddenly the earth seemed to tip crazily underfoot.

‘My God, we’re rolling over!’ he screamed as the floor bounded up at him. When he fell, his legs dangled through the open doorway. He clutched frantically at the walls, which now, insanely, had become the floor, trying to keep from falling back into the apartment. As the Thoreau tipped, there was a crescendo of destruction. Glasses, furniture, anything not tied down, poured through the hallways of the five-story build-

As Lansdale struggled to pull himself out of the gaping doorway he could hear shrieks echoing up through the corridors of the dying structure. He turned back, looking down into the apartment. Marge lay crumpled in the corner, covered by furniture and debris. She was unconscious. Lansdale needed a line to get down to her. Then he heard the oil explode and felt the whole structure tremble. At the far end of the corridor the force of the oil explosion tore the door off and blew away half the wall. Frigid, damp air rushed through the hail. The lights went out. Lansdale turned his flashlight down into the ruined topsy-turvy apartment. The porthole, now submerged in the raging sea, could not withstand the pressure. Its rivets suddenly began popping like champagne corks. The round window burst open and a geyser of freezing water gushed up through it. Lansdale jumped to his feet and started down the hallway. Then the rig rolled again and this time he was thrown against the ceiling, now the floor, of the hallway. And then the sea rushed through the doorways and he saw the mountain of water pour down and engulf him.

The shock of the below-freezing seawater numbed him. He held tenaciously to his flashlight as he was swept along the hallway by the torrent. He clutched at an open doorway, but his fingers slipped away from it and he was trapped in the submerged corridor. His lungs were bursting as he frantically felt the walls, trying to find an opening, anything to get free of this watery trap. But the frozen sea was already taking its toll, and the shock of the icy water robbed him of breath.

My God, I’m drowning, he thought.

And then he was in a glistening underwater wonderland, numbed beyond pain or caring, his lungs wracked with spasms, and as the flashlight slipped from his fingers and tumbled away, its beam diminishing to a pinpoint, he opened his mouth, like a fish in a bowl, and the sea flooded in, and his life, too, blinked

The Henry Thoreau lay upside down. The cables that had held it firmly to the bottom were either uprooted or had snapped. Its once mighty legs pointed straight up. Buffeted by the storm, they bent before the gale and then were torn from their mounts on the deck. Their air pockets burst. The escaping air hissed out. And the Thoreau plunged straight down, four hundred feet, leaving in its wake a trail of bubbles, debris and bodies which bobbed upward, like innocent toys from a stricken dollhouse, toward the raging surface of the Chukchi Sea.