Dead in the Water (13 page)

“Cha-cha made hot chocolate,” he announced happily, like a kid.

“Great.” She took a drag and pushed the smoke out through her nostrils.

“They’re going to show another movie later on.”

Elise turned her head. “Another one?”

Bastard. Blind bastard. Couldn’t he see her tears?

She thought about the list in the nightstand drawer.

She thought about it a lot.

III

Alone in his cabin, Kevin held the corner of the paper in place with his elbow and chewed gum loud and hard while he wrote:

 … crazy dude. Now he’s saying the king gave him a present in the net and “the time is at hand.” So I go to the mate and he just laughs. Everybody thinks he’s a harmless old guy. But he’s scary, man. Only thing was in that net were some fish and some damn shark or something, the one who chomped my finger off, practically
.

The lady cop is right about one thing: if something does happen, like if King Neptune tells Cha-cha to go for it, I don’t think the crew will be any help at all
.

Shit, I’m freaking myself out. We’ll be in Hawaii in two days. Just one more night. Since I got bit, I can’t work in the galley, which is cool. I don’t have to hang around Cha-cha anymore
.

I hope I see you again, Sandi
.

Fuck, I’m weirding out. Of course I’ll see you
.

Love ya
,                    
Kev
                           

IV

Blackness
.

Thirst
.

Loneliness
.

V

The ship pitched through the raging storm; waves like cliffs crashed over the decks as the vessel hurtled through the
thunder and lightning. The sails were tatters, the masts shattered bone. Banshee wind shrieked, insane and vicious.

“No, no, no,” the captain moaned. His eyes as he stared over his shoulder rolled like a calf’s on the way to the slaughterhouse. Without looking, he looped a piece of line around and around his wrist, securing himself to the wheel. The lightning danced in his eyes, reflecting back a figure that glided toward him, a tall man in a cape.

The captain sagged against the wheel and sobbed.

The man, the tall stranger who had killed the others—

The demon—

Donna yawned and idly looked out the window at the fog. Monster movies weren’t her thing, even if Frank Langella did make a sexy Dracula. (She’d only seen the John Carpenter movie about the fog to please her nephew, Bob, whom she’d been baby-sitting at the time. She used to spend a lot of time baby-sitting her brothers’ kids. Other people’s kids.)

Well, it was still better than all those Viking movies Ramón watched. He must have had two dozen of them. They were the weirdest damn things, made in Spain with German actors, made in Germany with Italian actors. Dubbed into English and truly wretched. Kevin told her Ramón had posters of Vikings in his cabin, too. Donna had drawled, “It must be some kind of homoerotic thing,” and Kevin had laughed so hard she thought he was going to pass out. Watching him she had thought, Fuck singing. She was going for stand-up comedy.

Now Dracula was coming after the captain. Now he was a wolf, hoo-wah. Not her bag.

She got out of her chair and walked to the hatch. She was the only passenger in the dining room; the rest of the chairs and the sofa were occupied by officers and crewmen, leaning avidly toward the TV. The colors played on their faces, rainbow fog.

Ramón saw her. Quickly she waved good night before he could get up. She was too tired to deal with him. That, or too bored. There was nothing to do, and she felt drained and listless. Wasn’t sleeping well, tossing and turning. She wasn’t
a reader, like the van Burens, and she didn’t knit, and Matt had declared that he was sick of checkers.

What she wanted to do was run, take a good jog around the ship; but Captain Esposito had ordered the passengers to stay inside the superstructure, where they could be accounted for. No one could see outside in the fog; if you got hurt, or fell overboard, they’d never be able to find you.

So she was reduced to working out in her cabin, and despite the fact that it was larger than Ruth’s, it was still awfully cramped. But there was no way she’d exercise in front of the crew.

She pushed open the hatch and meandered down the companionway. It stood clear of fog (finally), and there was nothing on the deck.

She heard crying, from Ruth’s cabin.

She got as far as making a fist to rap on the door; then she lowered her arm and walked on to her own cabin.

Despite Ruth’s observation, she was not a social worker. Besides, some things—like grief—were private. Okay, maybe not for people like Lady Day. Damn, if she was going to be a singer, she was going to have to loosen up.

The foghorn blared and she barely flinched. They were all used to it.

She faced her door and got her key out of her shoulder bag. Her gun was in there, too—her old .38 and not the natty little Sig she packed on the job. She’d lied to the captain about carrying one—not too smart, she guessed, but she loathed the thought of giving it up unnecessarily. The guys aboard this ship weren’t the brightest bunch she’d run across; what if one of them got put in charge of taking care of it?

She faced the door with her key in her hand. Paused. The crying next door was louder. Between sobs, Ruth was saying something over and over. Bad dreams. Again, Donna considered checking on her, again decided to leave her alone.

Let herself in and flicked on the light.

There. That wasn’t so bad, was it?

Scratching her head, she dropped the shoulder bag on the bureau and yawned. She pushed off her sneakers and began unbuttoning her blouse. A wave of weariness washed over
her, and she left it on, just too damn tired to mess with it. She blinked and yawned, then picked up her Walkman and put on her earphones, pressed Play.

“
Strange fruit.
” Donna mouthed the words softly. She knew all Billie Holiday’s songs by heart. Sang them in the bars. Hardly anyone knew who Billie was, but they liked the blues. Only Billie hadn’t meant to sing the blues. Jazz. Jazz was where it was at, baby.

Quietly singing, she sat on the mattress and flopped backward like a diver into a pool. Christ, it was a gross song. About lynching black people in the Old South. Stuff about burning flesh. Shit, burning flesh. Donna didn’t even use it; why did she even practice it?

Why did she practice at all? There was no call for girl jazz singers these days, despite all that bullshit elevator jazz they played on the radio. Yuppie jazz, she called it. Muzak for the thirty-something crowd. No guts, no glory, no modulation. Just processing.

She sighed and lay still. What did she know about guts anyway? She sang like a piece of cardboard.

Ship sounds filtered through as the number ended and the taped hissed and popped; white noise. She pulled the phones away from her ears for a few seconds and listened to the foghorn, the creaks of the ship, the groans of the containers, the sobs next door. Her mind drifted away; the bed bobbed beneath her like a pool float. The room tipped gently up and down. Donna tried to open her eyes. Had to get up, take off her makeup and her clothes.

Had to get up.

Billie sang in her ears. Donna’s lids were stuck to her face. Heavy weights anchored her legs and arms in their places. Her chest rose two inches, fell one. Shallow, shallow.

She was spinning, spinning, spiraling downward into sleep. In her mind she could see herself going under. Okay. No problem.

Her chest rose. Fell. Images of the day washed through her mind as the other side of the tape clicked on.…
An ache … heavy as stone
. Sing it, Billie, yeah, I know about that. Do it, girl.

My heart has …

Not Donna’s heart, though. No, ma’am.

an ache

Heavy weights.

Rhyme of the Dutchman, alone, alone. Dead birds in the hallway. Frank, you sexy vampire. Bite me, big boy. Dutchman, haunt me, dude.

Had to get up.

And save the boy, poor boy; and her mom, so humiliated after Dad left (always smacking her arm, saying, “Don’t be a big baby. Don’t be a baby.”).

Glenn …

Ghosts were people who haunted you, right? Then maybe she did believe in them. Yes.

Yes.

Spin the bottle. Spin the bed. Spin it. Spin it good, just like Devo. Spin it, spin it, the champagne girl is up for grabs.

With a slow, languid sigh, Donna sank,

down,

down,

down. Donna in Wonderland.

Alone, alone, all, all alone
.

Hold your breath. Hold it good. Oh, yes, because if you inhale, if you suck it in, if you do that …

 … what?

Deeper, sleepier, don’t forget to breathe.

’Night, moon. ’Night, Frank.

’Night, Glenn, my Glenn, wherever you are, good night, good night—

Dutchman, haunt me.

As heavy as stone
.

Something was happening to her …

Down,

down,

down. Hold it—

Freeze—

Blackness
.

VI

April 13, 1797

She sent the bird to me! She sent it as a sign! I am free from the shroud, and the albatross has succored me!

And now she comes! She comes herself, for me!

From the bottle, for me!

“Donna, c’mon, wake up!”

Donna jerked awake at once, automatically reaching for the drawer in her nightstand at home where she kept her .38.

She was on her bed in her cabin on the
Morris
. John’s face hovered inches above her. Light from the companionway threw shadows onto his face like a jigsaw of bruises. His mouth moved, but a shrill, piercing whistle shot the sounds from the air, blasted the low cow moan of the foghorn. Shouts and footfalls rumbled past the open door. She whipped her head around; he grabbed her shoulder and said, “Donna, wake up. The ship is sinking.”

“
What
?” She jumped up, forcing him to step backward. The Walkman thwacked against the nightstand. John stumbled and elbowed the bureau, knocking over an empty bottle of Coors. Caught in the sound vacuum, it plummeted to the deck and rolled toward the door.

She tore the earphones from around her neck and cupped her ears. She couldn’t have heard him right.

“John?”

Sinking
. She saw his lips form the words; his mouth was the color of paste, his face gray. Pushing up his glasses, he glanced to the door, where Ruth stood with her arm around Matt. The boy was sucking his thumb and holding her hand. Both of them had on fluorescent orange life jackets.

The bottle smacked the lip on the threshold and broke, the shatter insinuating itself between the whistles and the blaring and the stampede out on deck. The ship was canted, Donna realized. Listing badly, and that meant … that meant …

“It’s going down,” John yelled in her ear. She could barely hear him. “Captain Esposito’s given the order to abandon ship.”

In the corridor, Ramón sailed by, halted, and stuck his head in the door. He, too, had on a life jacket.

Someone lowered the volume outside and Donna was able to hear him. “Donna! Dr. Fielder! Put on your jackets.” He eased Ruth and Matt out of his way. They moved as one person, clinging together. “
Rápido, rápido
! The lifeboats are being lowered. You must all hurry.”

Donna rose, buttoning her blouse. She’d slept in her clothes and she felt clammy and grungy. “What the hell is going on?” To Ramón: “How?”

He held his hands from his sides and shook his head. “We hit something in the fog.”

Ruth covered her mouth with both her hands. News to her, too, apparently. Above his fist, Matt’s gaze darted toward his father, who went to him and hugged him against his chest.

“It wasn’t another ship,” Ramón went on. Under his breath, he added, “At least, we don’t think so,
chingada.
”

“But I didn’t feel anything,” Donna said, watching numbly while Ramón trotted over to her closet and rattled through it. “Something like that, I would’ve woken up.” And that piercing klaxon, that would’ve woken her up, too. It was inconceivable she’d slept through that.

Ramón turned from the closet and hurried around the end
of her bed toward the bureau. “You got a sweater? Coat? A hat would be very good.”

Mr. Saar appeared in the companionway. “Moncho, everything square?”

Ramón opened the top drawer, turned away to address Saar. Donna crossed and put her hands in the drawer, on top of the sock with the bullets in it.

“We need two more jackets, Brian.”

“Check.” Mr. Saar dashed off toward the dining room.

“Where are the van Burens?” Donna asked, drawing a sweater from the drawer and slipping it on. She lost her balance and Ramón caught her arm.

“They’re by the lifeboats. Someone’s gone to get Kevin. Hurry.” His eyes ticked. His hand was trembling.

He was scared shitless.

“Oh, my God, my God,” Ruth croaked.

Donna picked up her purse and hoisted it over her shoulder. “Are you sure it’s necessary to abandon ship? Can’t whatever’s wrong be repaired?”