Dead in the Water (26 page)

“They said you almost bought it. Newspapers’ve been calling the station. Randolph’s pissed.”

Donna closed her eyes and shook her head. “That’s our boy. One of his men nearly buys it and he gets pissed because of the extra work it makes for him.” She shifted under the covers and stuck her arm under her neck. “I wonder if they’ve been blocking the calls here. We haven’t had any. Their phone system is for shit. I can hardly hear you.”

“What’s the tub like? They said it was a new one. It’s got an un-American name.”

“
Pandora
. Like the woman with the bottle?” She paused. Oh, so that was the ship’s logo? A mermaid with a bottle? “No, wait. This one had a box.”

“All women have boxes, Donald.”

“Oh, fuck you.” She scratched her thigh. The ship creaked and rolled. “Listen,” she said, “they been talking about the illegal cargo?”

“Say huh?”

“Some kind of crap they dumped, or were gonna dump, in the ocean without permission. In the lifeboat, the first officer confessed …” She stopped herself. Screw it. She was talking
to the man she loved, not her coworker. Her heart quickened and her voice grew soft. “I’ll tell you about it later. Glenn …”

There was a pause. Glenn cleared his throat.

“Donny, I had a talk with Barb. She …” He cleared his throat again. “I’m gonna get a new partner, babe.”

Wham. Donna closed her eyes.

The whiskey voice of Lady Day crooned through her veins, swirling, weeping, through the veins,
no, no, no
, the keening of the lost, of losing, of pain that you couldn’t even feel, it hurt so much, and you needed someone else to feel it, and that was why Billie had died crazy, junk crazy. ’Cuz you needed something to dull it. You couldn’t believe how bad it hurt …

the pain …

Oh, God.

My man
.

Oh, I love him so …

“Sweetheart?” The first time he’d ever called her that. “Donna?” First time in a long time.

“You …” She swallowed down hot tears. Goddamn it, she wasn’t like this. She didn’t care. “You’ve got a really fucked sense of timing, Boelhauf.” Her voice cracked.

“Donna, you know why. You almost said it yourself, when you left. You know I love—”

She hung up, stared at the receiver.

The world is all despair …

It grabbed you under the tear ducts and tore you down the middle and peeled you back, so you sat there gaping, one big wound, all the hoses around your heart pumping out your life. And inside, the life-saving cut-off systems didn’t work, not too good; the pain slipped in over the flanges at the bottoms of the chambers. The sea washed over them, trailing in the things that swam and lurked beneath the surface; bringing in the stuff that made you sink, made you drown, made you.

The phone sat there, staring back smugly. Take that, it told her. You wanted to talk to him? You thought maybe his woman would be out and the two of you could have a cozy
pillow session? You thought just because you lived through a shipwreck you could have him?

God, the pain …

Oh, my man. My man, I …

My man
.

Her eyes were dry as sandpaper. The tears wanted to come. They begged to come.

But big girls don’t, and neither did she.

Ninety-nine bottles of blood on the wall.

Phil looked up from his drink. It was near dawn, and he was alone.

In a storeroom, with an empty bottle of—

—bourbon
, beside his port glass. Bourbon, yes, and an odd, confusing feeling of relief washed through him as he focused in on the Kentucky Thoroughbred on the label.

Bourbon, not—

—anything else, and with a woman, not with a—

—a ghost or a monster or something—

His head pounded unmercifully. Groaning, he grabbed it in an attempt to keep his skull from fragmenting with the pain.

Brooms and pails leaned against a wall and covered most of a poster of a woman in high heels and a bathing suit. Shelves containing large brown containers marked “Industrial Strength. USE AS DIRECTED” lined the other. Above him, a light bulb hung from a cord and fizzed like a moth.

His head sang and he shut his eyes as he forced down a stream of upchuck. Tried to smile at the awkwardness of his thought—down, upchuck—but didn’t make it.

Vomited hard into the nearest bucket.

And as he did so, his hand pressed the deck, and it was covered with something bumpy and scratchy, and the room stank of decomposition, salt, rotten things. The room went dark, completely black—

—and as he finished and squinted into the darkness, the bumpiness smoothed out, and the smell faded, but the light did not come back on.

“Hmmpf.” He rocked back onto his butt and pushed himself
up. The darkness crested around him; he rocked back and forth, teetering to catch his balance, and flailed for the wall. Grabbed a pipe—

—no, a broom—and pictured himself in the pitch-black storage room, swaying like a damn pendulum with a broom in his hand.

Sidestepped toward the door, found the knob, and let himself out.

He stood on the promenade deck, right about where he had let himself into the bar. Where the moon had glowed, the yellow sun rested on top of a fluffy cumulus cloud.

But there was no bar. Only a storage room. He must have gotten turned around. Good Lord, he’d stumbled around the ship, drunker than a danged ol’ skunk. He didn’t remember a thing. Everything past the first drink in the bar was a blank.

Sagging, he turned left and headed down the promenade. Looked back. Darn it, the bar should be there. Right there.

He scratched his head, and even that hurt. It hurt to think. So he put his questions on hold and walked back toward the foyer and the elevators.

Elise wouldn’t be worried about him, but she would be angry.

Maybe he should sleep it off in the storage room. Him and Betty Grable.

The very deep did rot
.

Donna’s own hand, floating white beside her as she swam the black, frigid depths. The ribs of a monster—

—no, no, of a ship. The ribs, and nothing else, nothing but the ribs and her hand. Her hand, which was nothing but bone. Her hand, around which flaps of skin, bone-white, transparent, and empty of blood, wafted and drifted.

Bobbing and drifting, she swam within the ribs of the ship, like something that had peeled away from it. A piece of living tissue, floating inside a prison of rib bones.

No, no, the ship wasn’t alive. Its ribs were wood, rotting wood. She narrowed her eyes. Rotting, and impregnated with worms. The ribs were a writhing mass of them.

The worms go in, the worms go out. The worms, the snakes, the serpents.

No, no, the ship wasn’t alive.

And it wasn’t waiting.

For her RSVP.

Reply, if you please
.

Hours went by.

In her bed, Donna cozied up to the warmth beside her. Her bare ass dipped into the valley created by the weight of
his
body and slid against some part of him, probably
his
hip. Oh, Glenn, oh, darling, please, yes, do it. Yes, do it.

Reply, if you don’t please. Tell me what you want. Is it the man? Have I got it right this time? The boy, or the man? Or something else? Name your poison. Name my bait
.

Name it
.

Donna rolled over on her back.

Ice water into her brain, freezing it. She gritted her teeth with pain, grunted, forcing herself to stop it, stop it.

“Stop it!” She sat up and looked wildly around. Through the open porthole the sun was rising over the water, stippling the sky with turquoise and salmon.

And the other half of her bed was warm.

She thought nothing of it—who wouldn’t toss and turn, after a phone call like that—but despite her desolation she was struck by the irony of it: now that it was over (whatever “it” had been), she’d had a wet dream about Glenn.

And you go on, Donna thought wearily, as she was escorted by a steward into the officers’ dining room. Wan, a little shaky, you say Fuck him and you make it through the morning, because you do. And maybe that’s why he could say good-bye to her; that inner strength of hers, or denial or whatever the hell kept her from begging, and maybe he thought that was evidence that she didn’t need him. While Barb did.

So she tossed her hair, loaded on the makeup, went to breakfast. Good morning, heartache, take a seat in my soul.

And jeez, she thought, better seat Captain Reade up on a dais, on a throne with a papal canopy, for all the deference the other officers gave him. He was king of the bounding main on the
Pandora
, sitting in state at the head of a long table, smack dab in the center of a long, narrow room. All four walls were painted white and covered with a row of dark paintings of ships and seascapes. There were no portholes; it was an interior room. Donna added another square to her mental map of the
Pandora
.

The space at Reade’s right was reserved for Donna with a little white place card (OFF. ALMOND, comforting choice of words and phrases), the one across from her empty, and other officers filled the places in long double rows. So much crisp, starched white, the uniforms, the tablecloth, the napkins. She was snowblinded.

A steward, a young black man, approached with a silver coffeepot. “We should begin,” Reade said, checking his watch. “My day usually starts earlier than this, Ms. Almond.”

“Oh? You didn’t need to hold off on my account.”

“But I wanted to have breakfast with you.” He put his arm around the back of her chair. His cheek was smooth and smelled good. His eye glinted and he smiled as if he had a really good secret.

“What I meant was, I could’ve gotten up earlier. I didn’t … sleep well last night.”

He looked concerned, peering at her very seriously. He said, in a low undervoice, “Has something happened?”

“No, no. It’s nothing.”

“You don’t seem yourself.” That single eye, like some laser beam. What was that old TV show?
Battlestar Galactica
. The Cylons had a single red eye that pulsed and pulsed, just before they cremated you.

“It’s nothing, really. Thank you,” she said to the young steward as he poured her coffee.

“Well, if there’s anything I can do.”

“You’ve done enough already,” she said quickly as she
sipped. Seeing his bemused smile, she added, “Saving us and all.”

“It was nothing,” he answered, the hero’s ultimate cliché. “Let me introduce you to the officers. I believe most of the ones you’ve met are still on duty.”

Bell, Jaros, Baker, Kelly, a dozen others. Nice guys, easygoing, seemed competent; and all a bit familiar, she supposed from their having been around the ship. They appeared fond of the captain, but he was clearly The Old Man, alone at the top. Didn’t seem to mind.

“What’s for breakfast?” she asked.

“Steak and eggs,” Reade told her. “We prefer … simpler fare than what they eat in the passengers’ dining room. I hope you don’t mind.”

“Mind?” She unfolded her linen napkin and spread it over her lap. “Can I eat here every day?”

He also unfolded his napkin. “If you like.”

“That’d be very nice, ma’am,” Kelly said. Hmm, giving her the once-over. Her red T-shirt was on the tight side. She returned the favor and he let her, with a swagger.

“Ma’am, how do you like your steak?” the steward asked Donna as he refilled her coffee cup. She had trouble understanding his accent, some kind of Rasta thing, African, she didn’t know.

“Rare.” The steward nodded and brisked away. “That’s the only way to eat meat,” Donna said.

Reade took his arm from around her chair and picked up the sugar bowl, offered it to her. She shook her head.

“I eat it rare, too.” He put three heaping spoonfuls of sugar into his coffee, stirred. “So rare it’s practically raw. With the blood oozing …”

“Juice,” Donna cut in, grinning. “Call it juice.”

“Lots of juice, then. To your health.” He inclined his head as he drank his coffee. The others raised their cups in a toast.

“And yours. You-all’s.” She sipped. Marveled at how well she was doing, considering that what she really wanted to do was mourn the loss of what she had never had.

“Any word on the lifeboat?” she queried as a number of
Stewards put steaks and fried eggs in front of each diner. Grilled tomatoes, how British. Sausages.

The officers looked at each other, then at the captain, as though there were a tacit agreement among them that only he should discuss the subject.

“Not so far.” He cut his meat with a very sharp knife, slashing it; blood dribbled around the perimeter of his eggs. “I must say, the passengers have been quite civilized about it, our using up their vacation this way. This is quickly becoming a cruise to nowhere.”

He chewed lustily, talked with his mouth full. “There are such, you know, for people who are rather jaded about cruising. They’ve seen all the ports …” He snapped his fingers at the steward. “More marmalade,” he said harshly.

“Aye, sir.” The steward scurried away.

“So they just sail around in the ocean?” Donna finished for the captain.

“Yes. To play and to feed. It’s astonishing how much we go through on a ship this size.”

“ ‘To feed’?” Donna laughed. “You make them sound like horses!”

“Or cattle,” Jaros offered. There was general laughter around the table.

“Well, what are you going to do today?” Reade asked her, coming close again. “There are so many things to do. We have films, and video, and of course, there are dance lessons and lectures and cultural activities.”

Cultural activities? God spare her. “I don’t know. Maybe go swimming.” She’d get a bottle and hole up in her room, cry and scream until she threw up.

He slashed another bite of meat and chewed it thoughtfully.

“What
are you
going to do today?” she asked him.

He made an expansive gesture with his hand. “Keep things going. Show young Matt how to steer the ship.” He looked over his shoulder. “Keelhaul a certain steward for forgetting the marmalade.”

Donna nodded sagely. “A capital offense.”

His face hardened into a mask of anger that set her back in
her chair. The single green eye narrowed, his nostrils flared; his lips pulled back from his teeth in a feral grimace. “On this ship, it is,” he said in a low, menacing tone.