Wake of the Bloody Angel (16 page)

“Aye,” the boy said, and got to his feet.

“What are you doing there?”

He put a finger to his lips. “I’m keeping an eye on Cap’n Clift,” he whispered. “He’s in his cabin drinking.”

I whispered as well. “I just saw him on deck. He didn’t look drunk.”

“He’s got no head for it. One drink and he’s off.”

“Why do you have to keep an eye on him?”

Dorsal nodded toward my cabin door. I opened it and he preceded me inside. When the door was closed again, he said, “I have to watch him so he doesn’t come out and hurt himself or someone else. He’s okay when he’s inside, but he tries to pick fights if he goes on deck. Mr. Seaton usually stops him, but I figure if I can keep him inside, it’s better for everyone.”

“What does he pick fights about?”

Dorsal chewed his lip, then said, “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“Is Captain Jane really the queen of the whores?”

I was glad
I
wasn’t drinking at that moment, because I would’ve spit the length of my cabin. “I beg your pardon?”

“Captain Clift talks about her a lot, especially when he’s drinking and he thinks no one is around. He says she’s queen of the whores. I knew she was a captain, but not a queen. So do the whores in port have to bow to her and stuff?”

I tried to think of a good response to this. As I did, I heard the door to Jane’s cabin open and shut; guess she’d made an early night of it as well. Finally I said, “Dorsal, I don’t think you should take anything the captain says when he drinks too seriously.”

“Oh, it’s not just when he drinks. It’s when he’s mad about things, too. He tends to blame her for everything, even the weather.”

“He’s probably just making a joke.”

The boy shrugged.

“And I’m sure he wouldn’t want you telling total strangers about it. He’s the captain, he has to command respect.”

“That’s what Mr. Seaton says, too. That’s why I’m standing watch.”

He took this task so seriously, I could only smile. “Well, you’re doing a good job. If you need any help, let me know.” He saluted. “Yes, sir. Keep this between us, then?” “Definitely.”

I opened the door for him and he went back into the hall. I sat down, took off my boots, and stretched out on the bunk. I tried to relax into the ship’s motion, but I had too many thoughts bouncing around in my head. Jane’s new theory just added to the confusion.

Either Tew was a sailor turned pirate due to Angelina’s influence, or he was a pirate determined to score big to impress Angelina, or he was a pirate who’d dallied with Angelina but was mainly concerned with his own career and riches. He was either dead at the bottom of the sea, or . . . not, I guess. If he’d escaped as Wendell Marteen after murdering everyone on his ship, he was now back on the water but keeping a mighty low profile. Did he know they’d written plays about him?

I closed my eyes. All these possibilities made my head hurt, and the interminable waiting on the
Red Cow
didn’t help.

Someone knocked softly at my door.

I sighed, sat up, and opened it, expecting either Dorsal or Jane. Instead Dylan Clift stood there, or rather leaned there, using the frame for support. He was shirtless, shoeless, and without his ever-present bandanna. His hair was noticeably thin on top, and stood out from his skull like wispy weeds. Dorsal hadn’t exaggerated his intolerance for liquor: in the brief time since the play ended, Captain Clift had gotten hammered.

“Can I talk to you?” he rasped in a drunk’s idea of a whisper. His breath reeked of rum, and his words ran together. Behind him, Dorsal—back at his post in the corner—looked imploringly at me.

“Sure,” I said. “You’re the captain.” He stumbled in and closed the door. I lit the lamp so we wouldn’t be sitting in the dark.

He did that drunk thing where they get way too close before speaking. “I have to whisper,” he said, and pointed at the wall between Jane’s cabin and mine. “I don’t want her to hear.”

I tried to breathe through my mouth. “Yeah.”

“She’s a whore, you know that?”

“I respectfully disagree.”

“Well, you don’t know her like I do, do you? You see her now, all professional and serious.”

“I don’t know about serious.”

He continued as if I hadn’t spoken. “I’ve seen her kill men for looking at her cross-eyed. I’ve seen her kill women for doing it. Ask her sometime about the handmaiden. Just ask. That’s the Jane Argo I know.”

“Why are you telling me?”

“To
save
you!” he cried, and grabbed me by the shoulders. “So you don’t turn into me. So you don’t waste your life waiting for a whore who’ll take everything and then walk away laughing!” He released me and sat heavily on my bunk. “I stood back to back, shoulder to shoulder with that woman. Our blood mingled on the deck at our feet. That should count for something. But would she give me anything? Hell, no. I mean, it’s one thing if she preferred women; that’s understandable. But no, she was stuck on some guy who was such a loser that she ran away to sea to get away from him! And then she went back to him!”

By now he was shouting, and unless Jane had poured wax in her ears, she had to hear. I said, “She gave her word. She takes that seriously.”

“That’s not what counts! It’s who you give it to!”

I wondered if Clift realized he was quoting the play. “She doesn’t see it that way.”

“Then you’re a fucking fool,” he slurred, and stood to leave. Then, his hand on the door, he began to sob. They were big man-sized sobs, the bellow of a wounded animal. No one who heard them would ever doubt how he felt about Jane, and I could only marvel at the composure that allowed him to be near her all the time without letting on more than he did. Unfortunately, he was now loud enough that nearby sea lions might think he was making a pass at them. I had to do something to salvage his dignity, and mine.

I kicked his legs out from under him.

He slammed face-first against the wall, then hit the floor hard. I knelt beside him and said, “Wow, are you okay? You got your feet tangled up there. Maybe you better sit down.”

“Maybe I better sit down,” he said.

“Good idea,” I agreed. He sat on the bunk, and then with no encouragement lay on his side, rolled onto his stomach, and passed out. In moments, he was snoring.

I looked down at him. Between his bare, sweaty shoulders was the final indignity: a tattooed representation of Jane Argo, scantily clad and bearing a sword in one hand and a jug in the other. She literally rode his back all the time.

I eased away from the bunk and opened the door. Dorsal stood there. He said, “Is Captain Clift all right?”

“He’ll have a headache tomorrow, but he’ll be okay. I’m going to go find somewhere on deck to sleep.”

“I’ll watch the captain for you, if you want.”

“Okay.”

I started to give him a coin, but he said, “No, thanks. I get a share of every prize, just like the captain.”

I nodded, mimicking his sincerity. He went in, and I closed the door behind him. I took a moment to compose myself, then knocked on Jane’s door. There was no response, but I heard her moving around. I quietly snarled, “Jane Argo, open this goddamned door right now or I’ll throw you overboard.”

She opened it a crack. “Don’t insult the alligator until you’ve crossed the river, Eddie.”

“Bite me. I assume you heard all that?”

“His voice does carry. That’s one reason he’s a good captain.”

“Did you know he felt that way about you?”

She opened the door some more and looked around to see if anyone was in the passageway. Then she gestured for me to enter. I did and she closed the door.

“Yes, I knew it.” She’d changed into a shift for sleeping that was so sheer, it might’ve given Clift a heart attack. “I thought by now he would’ve gotten over it. Who the hell carries a torch for five years?”

I thought of Janet and Cathy, the torches that still burned me after far longer than five years. “Some things you don’t get over.”

She sat heavily on her bunk. “Fuck you, LaCrosse. His crush is not my goddamn fault. Now, is there anything else you’d like to criticize? Because I’m tired.”

“What about the handmaiden?”

She looked up sharply. “Did he tell you about that?”

“He said to ask you about it.”

“Yeah, well, you can just ask the door as it smacks your ass on the way out.” She crossed her arms and turned deliberately away.

“All right, but I need both you and the captain focused on the job that I’m paying you for.”

“You know damn well I’m focused.”

“And Clift?”

“He only drinks when there’s no danger. Trust me, when we catch up with Marteen, he’ll be on top of his game. I taught him, after all.”

I could think of nothing to say to that, so I left and went on deck. The men on watch nodded at me, then resumed whatever they were doing. I’d lost my novelty, apparently. I looked aft at the ship’s wake, glowing as it stirred up luminescent creatures floating on the waves. I missed Liz so much, the scar over my heart ached.

chapter THIRTEEN

There
was no sleeping on deck, though; the buzz from the play was too strong, and men clustered in groups talking about it as they drank. They weren’t discussing the dramatic presentation so much as sharing stories about Black Edward that hadn’t made it into the show.

“I heard he disappeared in front of the whole crew just before they ran aground. Just rose up into the rigging and vanished.”

“A mate of mine once swore he saw the
Bloody Angel
off Blefuscola. Jet black she was now, with bloodred sails. A flock of red ravens followed her, cawing for the souls of drowned men.”

“I saw him once ashore. No, really, I did. He ran a tavern called Watchorn’s Folly. His hair was still jet black, but he’d throw you out if you mentioned the
Bloody Angel.
”

“They say that he appears to the captain of a ship about to sink, warning him of what’s coming. But his curse is that no captain ever believes him.”

I wandered around looking for a spot to settle, and finally crawled into a sheltered corner on the pile of fake cargo crates. A man sat at the very top, strumming some stringed instrument, and it was actually relaxing. When he began to softly sing, I realized he was the same performer who’d sung during the play. His voice quickly had my eyelids gratefully drooping.

Until a voice I recognized, one that most definitely should
not
be here, began to curse not five feet from me.

I sat up, completely alert. The shadow of my little nook hid me from view. The voice came from a young sailor trying to untangle a coil of uncooperative rope. I waited until he spoke again, cursing the rope and kicking the tangle at his feet.

In an instant, I’d leaped from my hiding place and grabbed him by the back of his tunic. “What the
hell
are you doing here?”

Duncan Tew had grown a scraggly beard and somehow lightened his long jet-black hair. He glared at me with the same insolence he’d shown on our visit to his farm. How had I missed him this long on this tiny little ship? Instantly I knew the answer: I hadn’t been looking for him. I
was
getting old.

“I’m working, what are you doing?” he said defensively, and wrenched out of my grasp. “Get the fuck off me. I’m not bothering you.”

I pushed him toward the nearest rail. “Can you swim?” I said when I held him halfway over the water.

“No!” he shrieked, grabbing frantically at me.

Heads turned toward us and conversations fell silent.

“Then you better start talking.” I let him up, and he didn’t let go of my arms until his feet were flat on the deck.

A shadow fell over us. Suhonen stared down through narrowed eyes. “Problem here, Mr. LaCrosse?”

At first I wasn’t sure whose side he was on, but he fixed Duncan with a stare that might slay a man at twenty yards. I said, “No, just needed to impress on my friend here the importance of being honest.”

“It’s real important,” Suhonen said to Duncan.

“All right,” the boy said resentfully.

“I’ll be around,” Suhonen said, and drifted back into the darkness. For such a big man, he moved like a wisp of smoke. When did he and I become pals?

I returned my attention to Duncan. “So talk. What are you doing here? How did you
get
here?”

“I trailed you to the Mosinee Prison, and when you left, I followed that woman. She hired a boat, and when she wasn’t looking, I signed aboard.”

Part of me couldn’t wait to hold that little bit of obliviousness over Jane’s head.
Pot/kettle, ex-Captain Argo?
But then I’d have to admit my own obliviousness. “And why haven’t I seen you before now?”