Home Fires (12 page)

Skip had his finger to his lips.

“Well, you know. Anyway I thought about that, about seven, and the man who stopped Achille made six. We four, Tante Élise, and him. So there was somebody else.”

Vanessa said, “Skip?”

“I simply meant that we would need more luck than four could have.”

The rowers shipped their sweeps as the sails filled. The owner shouted at them, and one climbed the foremast with an agility Skip could only envy.

Vanessa was taking off her shoes. “They make it hard to balance,” she told Chelle.

“You think he’s hiding something, don’t you?”

“Surely not, darling.” Vanessa’s smile was angelic.

The man at the masthead shouted and pointed, then slid down.

“We catch,” Achille said. “Catch today, mon.”

Chelle asked, “Will we, Skip?”

“I think so. There isn’t a lot of wind, and it takes a pretty good wind to move a ship like the
Rani
fast.”

From his place at the tiller, the owner nodded and grinned. “You sleep beeg boat.”

Chelle went to the bow, where Skip soon joined her. “Am I intruding?”

“I was hoping you’d come.” She put her arm through his. “I wanted to talk to you in private.”

“What about?”

“Lots of things. Can I start with the Army?”

“Certainly,” Skip said.

“I’m not going back.”

He shrugged. “That’s your decision.”

“I used to think so.” Chelle sighed. “When you wanted to go on the cruise I thought I could use the time to think things over.”

Skip had seen what the lookout had seen: sails not yet over the horizon. He stared at them, saying nothing.

“Last night—do you realize we haven’t slept?”

“You dozed in the cab coming back,” Skip said. “So did I.”

“That’s right, so you got a little sleep. Enough?”

He shook his head.

“I hardly got any. Mother slept, and Achille slept before either of you, and woke up last. Only I didn’t mean that when I said last night. I meant the night when we screwed and slept together in our cabin.”

“The screwing was Jerry. Not me.”

“Yeah, right. I’m sorry. I forgot.”

“Was he good?”

“Not very. But before that, at the party. Do you remember me telling you that Mother had peeked in?”

Skip nodded.

“That wasn’t really it. Not quite. She came in and handed me a gram. I asked what it said, and she said she hadn’t read it. That was a lie but it was what she said, and she beat it before I could read it myself. It was from Camp Martinez and said I was being discharged. I told you I was taking psych tests.”

He nodded again.

“Well, I flunked them. I’m mentally and emotionally impaired. So discharge, and disability pay for the rest of my life.”

When Skip did not speak, Chelle added, “It’s pretty good, too.”

He put his arm around her. “I can imagine how you must feel.”

“It isn’t that. I can handle my feelings. Now I can. I just wanted to tell you that was why I took Jerry to our cabin. I’d been planning to leave early and lock you out. That’s the truth.”

“I believe you.”

“But I got hammered instead. I grabbed the guy I had been talking to because he had a hand on my—up here. You know.”

“I grasp the concept.”

“You do now. Yes. It’s yours. Only then…”

“It wasn’t,” Skip said.

“Whatever. I wanted to explain, and I wanted to let you know I’m not right. Did you guess?”

“My guesses don’t matter.” He took a deep breath. “I love you, Chelle. That’s what matters, and if you love me, that’s all that matters.”

“I do. I really do. I know you don’t believe me, but it’s the truth. That’s the first thing I wanted to talk about.”

He kissed her; and it lasted for a long, long time and ended too soon.

“Now we’re going to fight again,” she said when they parted.

“You may fight me, but I won’t fight you.”

“Okay. Deal. Have you made it with Mother?”

It took him by surprise. “Certainly not. Why do you ask?”

“Because she wants you to. I can tell, Skip, and I think you can tell, too. What’s the number of her cabin?”

He tried to recall it. “I don’t remember. J Deck, but not the rest of it.”

“She told you, though?”

“Yes. Yes, she did.”

“All you’d have to do is crook your finger.”

“At first, yes. After that, I’d have to keep her entertained. Charlie Blue couldn’t, and I doubt that I’d last as long as he did.”

“Would you try?”

Skip considered, counseled by the gentle roll of the fishing boat. “If she were all I had? Yes, I suppose I would, in a feeble, middle-aged way. I wouldn’t succeed, and I know it. But I’d try to postpone failure.”

“She’s my mother. What if I take after her?”

“I answered that already.”

“Fair enough. Did you notice the corpse in the water? No, I can see you didn’t. It was close to the wharf. You had to look almost straight down.”

“Perhaps we should have reported it,” Skip said.

“I thought of that, but we didn’t have much time and we couldn’t have helped him. He was floating facedown, and part of his head was gone.”

“Don’t cry. Please.” He embraced her.

“It’s just … Thanks for the hug.”

“Anytime.” Skip held her a little more tightly.

“I couldn’t think of his name, but nobody could forget that shirt. He came to stand with us when we were waiting to get off the ship. He was at the party.”

“Albano Alamar.”

“Yeah. Him.” Chelle wept.

Not knowing what else to say, Skip said, “I imagine that could be a rough town at night.”

It did not seem to help. When Vanessa joined them a few minutes later, that did not help either.

*   *   *

Ten or twelve hours later, their captain shouted up at the ship, making a trumpet of his hands. After what seemed a long wait, a dark-faced man with a thin mustache looked over the side. “You desire to come on board?”

“Yes!” Skip called. “Two passengers and an employee! We were left behind!”

The dark face vanished. Vanessa said, “What’s the matter with them?”

Skip was getting out his wallet. “I imagine they’re debating how to get us on board without stopping the ship.”

He had paid the owner when the dark face reappeared. “You, señor. You first. Then the other man. Then the women.”

“Whatever became of women and children first?” Vanessa muttered.

Chelle said, “They don’t want to be accused of feeling us up afterward. Do we want Achille, Skip?”

He shook his head. “I’ll tell them when I get on board.”

A rope was thrown into the fishing boat and tied to a mast. After fifteen minutes or more it became the monorail of a canvas contrivance resembling a pair of trousers.

Vanessa raised her eyebrows. “I thought they’d lower a boat for us.”

Without replying, Skip stepped over the broad ring that formed the waistband, and pulled it up. A moment later, ring and trousers pulled him up, moving him almost horizontally at first, then higher and higher until two swarthy men grabbed him and heaved him across the Main Deck railing.

The man with the thin mustache was leaning against a bulkhead; his arms cradled a submachine gun. “Your cabin number, señor?”

“Twenty-three C.”

“Ah! You are rich. We will discuss your ransom tomorrow, I think. Sit down.” The man with the mustache gestured with the barrel of his submachine gun. “Over there.”

Skip sat, and watched as the canvas contrivance was sent down its rope again. “You’re hijackers, aren’t you?”

The man with the submachine gun pointed it at him.
“¡Silencio!”

Achille was next up. He put the point of a hook through the cheek of one of the men who had pulled him up, and was knocked down and kicked repeatedly.

Vanessa followed; she seemed to grasp the situation immediately, and explained that she had very little money. “Technically, I’m just a petty officer. I’m Virginia Healy, the social director, and a citizen of the North American Union.”

The man with the thin mustache made her a mock salute with his submachine gun. “As I, señora, am not.”

“May I go to my cabin? I’ll stay there, if that’s what you want.”

“No, señora. Sit beside that man.”

“Him?” Vanessa hesitated, looking at Skip. “I was on the boat with him, Señor…?”

“Del Valle, señora.
Su servidor
.”

“He’s really quite unpleasant, Del. I would prefer—”

“¡Abajo!”

Vanessa sat, and Skip watched the canvas contrivance go over the rail once more. “Do me a favor,” he whispered.

“I apologize for being so nasty, I only wanted him to think—”

“Put both hands behind your back. Like mine.”

“We weren’t in cahoots.” Vanessa’s hands moved as she spoke.

“Good,” Skip whispered.

The contrivance returned bearing Chelle. She cleared the railing, and the ring supporting the canvas trousers fell at her feet.

The man with the submachine gun smiled slyly. “I fear, señora, that—”

He staggered backward, dropping his submachine gun. There were more shots, two or three coming so quickly that Skip could not count them, although afterward it seemed to him that everything had taken place in slow motion: Chelle drawing from inside her loose blue blouse; blood oozing from a hole in a man’s face to soak his thin mustache; two men falling toward each other, so that their dying bodies nearly collided; Skip himself struggling to get to his feet, hampered by air far thicker than water.

He stumbled across the deck to the submachine gun and scooped it up.

The deck thundered, pounded by running feet. He felt, rather than heard, another shot and saw the first man fall, saw the dead man’s look of surprise and the dark off-center dot on the dead man’s forehead.

Awkwardly, he braced the steel butt-plate of the submachine gun against his shoulder, so intent upon haste that he did not recall that he had never fired such a gun before, had never fired any gun. Pulling the trigger made the gun jump and rattle in his hand, surprising him so much that he let go of the trigger. There were half a dozen dead men on the deck now, and behind and to his right another gun reported in swift and measured words:
Dead! Dead! Dead!

Eight or nine or ten now.

Skip’s finger found the trigger and he fired again, a five (or six) round burst. A carpet of the dead and the dying stretched toward the bow. Beyond it other men had turned to flee.

Chelle grasped his sleeve. “We’d better get inside before they get on top of us.”

He followed her. Vanessa had gone already, or so it appeared. Achille was searching the body of the man with the thin mustache, searching clumsily but swiftly, tearing at the dead man’s clothing with his hooks. Skip motioned to him.

Then ran, sprinting to keep up. A perforated metal guard kept his left hand away from the hot barrel of the submachine gun. As he ran, he tried to guess how many cartridges were left. His first burst had been … Ten or twelve? More? The second about five. How many shots did these things hold?

Chelle had stopped to look back at him. He slowed and managed to gasp, “Where we going?”

“To Stateroom One!” She pointed up. “Run!” At once, she was dashing away, easily outdistancing him.

“Mon! Mon!”

He stopped and turned.

“They after us!” Achille waved a hook.

“Get down,” Skip told him, and raised the submachine gun.

*   *   *

The veranda had seemed safest, so that was where he was. If they came, there would be no chance for him to run out into the corridor. But if they looked only through the Changeglass veranda doors, they would not see him sitting on weathered teak on the far side of the farthest chair.

This was B Deck, he decided. This veranda was larger than their own, so B Deck or A Deck. And the sun was—oh, blessedly! blessedly!—sinking into the western sea.

Idly, he explored his empty submachine gun. Push this little switch down, and the trigger would not move. Push it up and it would. This button held the sheet-metal box that should (but did not) contain cartridges.

“Here, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, is the very weapon employed by the defendant—that is to say, by me. My esteemed colleague the prosecutor will try to draw your attention from it. I must draw your attention to it. The weapons employed by criminals—”

His mobile phone vibrated. Laying aside the empty submachine gun, he found the tiny, shaking instrument and flipped it open.

His first whisper was so soft that he could not hear it himself. He tried again: “Hello?”