She couldn’t be that desperate, he thought; she’d be walking up the bulkhead. It was just that she was afraid of the younger woman and wanted to tie him up with an option. He wasn’t sure whether he was sorry for her, amused, or merely bored. It had been months since he’d slept with a woman, or even thought about it, and he’d assumed, with no particular interest, that he might be impotent.
Haggerty, during that marathon drunk when he discovered the underground skyway, had brought up the subject the night they’d shared the same room, and asked him whether he was gay. He’d said no, he was researching an article for Reader’s Digest; continence was the new hope for alcoholics with a time problem. Exactly, she’d said; something had to go, and she’d always advocated sexual freedom herself. People had a perfect right not to go to bed with each other; all it took was courage. And now that they’d made this bow in the direction of conformity, why didn’t he open the other bottle? He’d never known what particular hound was pursuing Haggerty down the nights and down the days, but he hoped she’d worked it out. She was nice.
There was the sound of chimes in the passageway then, announcing lunch. Goddard excused himself and took the pitcher back to his cabin. There was a dividend in it, which he poured and drank as he dumped the ice in the basin, still thinking idly of Madeleine Lennox. He went aft to the dining saloon. There were two tables, each seating eight, extending fore-and-aft on opposite sides of the room, but only the port one was used. Captain Steen sat at the aft end of it, with Karen Brooke on his right and Madeleine Lennox on his left. Goddard looked inquiringly at the dining room steward.
“You sit there,” the latter said, indicating the place next to Madeleine Lennox. He was a heavyset youth with a florid and rather sullen face. Goddard sat down, wondering what luck of the draw had placed him again within range of that gregarious left leg. Or was it luck? At the same moment Mr. Krasicki entered. He seemed uncertain as to where he was to sit, and the steward indicated the chair next to Karen Brooke. The two women smiled at him, and Captain Steen said, “We’re very glad to see you up, Mr. Krasicki.” The latter nodded and attempted a smile, but said nothing. Goddard noted there were two other places set, the one at his left, and the one at the forward end of the table, which would no doubt be Lind’s. The steward made no move to serve the soup, and Captain Steen appeared to be waiting for something.
“Mr. Egerton said he didn’t want any lunch,” the steward said. “And Mr. Lind won’t be here.”
Captain Steen nodded, lowered his head, and said grace. When he had finished, Krasicki asked, “That is the other passenger, Mr. Egger—Edger—?”
“That’s right, you haven’t met him, have you?” Mrs. Lennox said. “It’s Mr. Egerton. You’ll like him; he’s very nice.”
She turned to Goddard and went on brightly, “He’s English. A retired colonel.”
Krasicki interrupted, his face screwed into a frown of intense concentration as though he had difficulty following her. “An English, you say?”
“Yes,” Madeleine Lennox replied. “But he’s been living in Argentina.”
The steward had begun serving the soup, but Krasicki paid no attention to it. He was still staring at Madeleine Lennox with that rapt concentration. “For many years?” he asked. Goddard noted at the same time that Karen had turned and was looking at Krasicki thoughtfully. Madeleine Lennox replied that she didn’t know how long.
Krasicki appeared to become self-conscious under their regard, and mumbled, “You must excuse me. I have little English.” The corner of his mouth began to twitch. He lowered his head over his soup and began to eat it rapidly.
Both women then demanded Goddard tell them what had happened to the yacht. With apologies to Captain Steen, who’d already heard it, he gave an understated account of the affair, hoping he wouldn’t have to go through it again for Egerton.
Still feeling some of the aftereffects of his three-day ordeal, he took a nap after lunch. It was nearly five when he awoke, logy and dispirited. He showered and went on deck to walk off some of the torpor. After a few laps he mounted to the boat deck. Lind was on the wing of the bridge. Goddard made a gesture of greeting but didn’t go forward; as a passenger he had no right on the bridge unless invited. He was walking back and forth along the starboard side when the wireless operator came up the ladder aft and passed him with a blank stare. He was carrying a message form. At the same time Captain Steen emerged from the wheelhouse. He read the message, and called out to Goddard. Goddard walked forward.
“It’s the confirmation from our agents in San Pedro,” Steen said. “They’ve received the deposit.”
“Good. Fast work,” Goddard said.
The wireless operator spoke to Captain Steen. “The station in Buenos Aires has a message for us, but I haven’t been able to raise him yet.”
“Well, keep trying, Sparks,” Steen said. The wireless operator nodded and left. “Buenos Aires?” Steen said, puzzled. “I wonder what that could be. Unless it’s for one of the passengers.”
“One of my girl friends wishing me a happy birthday,” Lind said. He winked at Goddard. “They pour in from all over the world.”
Goddard went back to his cabin, mixed a pitcher of martinis, and lay back on the bunk propped on two pillows as he stared moodily up at the ceiling. So? After Manila, what? Where did you go from there? And why? Consider the noblest of the apes, he thought; the only rational animal, by his own admission. He throws in another gallon of adrenaline and goes bounding over the landscape like a goosed gazelle to save his life, and then after he saves it he stops and looks back and says, what the hell am I running for, my name’s not Smith. He was roused from these somber reflections by the sound of chimes in the passageway. He finished the martini and went back to the dining room. Karen and Madeleine Lennox were already there, standing talking to Captain Steen. He suddenly remembered he’d forgotten all about the drink he’d promised Mrs. Lennox.
She hadn’t. Somewhat overdressed and made-up, she accused him archly as he walked in, “Mr. Goddard, I must inform you your verbal promise isn’t worth the paper it’s written on.”
“Guilty, with extenuating circumstances, Your Honor,” Goddard said with a grin. “I dozed off.” He turned to Karen. “Mrs. Brooke, if I’m typical of the characters you save, I wouldn’t blame you if you went into some other line of work.”
She smiled, and said, “I don’t believe you’ve met Mr. Egerton.” Goddard turned. Egerton had just entered behind him, looking very striking with the neat gray hair and moustache, the black eye-patch, and a white jacket over a white sport shirt. He shook hands warmly, and said, “Welcome aboard, Mr. Goddard.” Beaming at the two women, he added, “Sporting of you, I must say, to go to all that trouble so we’d have a fourth for bridge.”
Lind came in then, and they sat down. Egerton was on Goddard’s left, next to Lind at the end of the table. This was the side of the table next to the bulkhead, so they were facing toward the doorway. Just as Captain Steen was about to say grace, Krasicki appeared in the door. He stopped abruptly, staring at Egerton. Goddard, watching him, was aware of something faintly disturbing about it. Krasicki gave a start then, and came on in. Karen spoke to him kindly.
“I think you’ve met everyone except Mr. Egerton. This is Mr. Krasicki.”
Egerton stood up and held out his hand. “Delighted, Mr. Krasicki. And happy to see you’re feeling better.”
Krasicki mumbled something and shook hands. They sat down, Krasicki directly across from Goddard. Captain Steen said grace, and the steward began to take their orders. Egerton turned to Goddard, and said, “I understand you’re in the cinema.”
“I used to be,” Goddard said.
“He’s gathering material for his next opus,” Lind said. “Across the Pacific on a Hot-Water Bottle.”
There was a laugh, and Captain Steen inquired, “Was your boat insured?”
“No,” Goddard said. “The theory was that if it went to the bottom, the odds were that I would too. So
und, I thought, but Mrs. Brooke loused it up.”
“Women,” Egerton agreed, “are incapable of understanding dedication to a scientific principle.”
“Exactly,” Lind said. “You have to feel sorry for them. They never experience the deep personal satisfaction of being dead and knowing they were right.”
“Karen,” Mrs. Lennox remarked. “I think we’re outnumbered. Should we counterattack or retreat?”
“Maybe Mr. Krasicki is on our side,” Karen replied. She turned and smiled at the Pole, trying to put him at ease in this exchange that was obviously too much for his English. But the latter was paying no attention. He was staring across the table again at Walter Egerton with almost manic intensity.
“You have—” He stopped, appearing to grope for words. “You are many years in Argentina?”
“Why, yes, about twenty,” Egerton replied.
“Twenty? Twenty?” Krasicki repeated, frowning. He looked at Lind.
“Zwanzig,” Lind translated. He added, for the others, “Mr. Krasicki is actually quite a linguist. He speaks Polish, Russian, German, and Portuguese, but German is the only one I know.”
“Zwanzig. Aha,” Krasicki muttered, still never taking his eyes from the Englishman’s face. “You have—how do you say—become unactive—” He gave up then and spoke to Lind in rapid German. Lind nodded and turned to Egerton.
“He says you must have retired quite young.”
Even Egerton’s natural poise was a little shaken by that unwavering scrutiny, but he managed a smile. “Thank you, Mr. Krasicki; that’s quite flattering. But I was invalided out. Spot of bad luck in Normandy.”
Lind translated this for the Pole. The dining room steward was putting their orders in front of them, but no one began eating. There was another exchange in German between Krasicki and Lind. Lind shook his head as he spoke, and Goddard’s impression was that the Pole had said something he was reluctant to translate. Krasicki turned to Egerton again and tried English.
“The—aye? The—eye?”
The two women turned their attention to their plates, embarrassed by this bad taste, but Goddard continued to watch, aware of some undercurrent here that was more serious than poor manners.
“Ah—yes,” Egerton said stiffly. “That, among other things.”
It was Karen who smoothed it over. She smiled at Goddard, and asked, “You do play bridge, I hope?”
“A little mama-papa bridge,” Goddard replied. “Nothing spectacular. And only after a careful search for weapons.”
The awkwardness passed for the moment, and conversation became general. Goddard continued to study Krasicki between replies to Mrs. Lennox’ chatter on his right. The Pole appeared to withdraw inside himself, eating silently as he bent over his plate, oblivious to the others except to look up now and then at Egerton. Then in a lull he began a rapid exchange in German with Lind. They both smiled. Krasicki turned then and included Egerton in the conversation, still in German. To Goddard’s surprise, Egerton replied in the same language. The Pole stiffened, and his eyes glittered accusingly.
“Ah! You speak German. I thought you were English.”
“Yes, of course I speak it,” Egerton said easily. “I attended Heidelberg for two years. Before Sandhurst, that is.”
The others had fallen silent. Krasicki’s eyes continued to burn into Egerton. “But you did not say this.”
Egerton shrugged, obviously annoyed but still urbane. “Well, really, old boy, one doesn’t normally go about boasting of one’s accomplishments. Bit of a bore to one and all, what?”
Krasicki made no reply, but Goddard noted the nervous twitching at the corner of his mouth. Karen came to the rescue again. “I think what we should do is find out why Mr. Goddard doesn’t speak Hollywood.”
The others laughed, and Madeleine Lennox exclaimed, “Yes. What about this Mrs. Lennox bit? I thought you were supposed to say Madeleine baby.”
Krasicki bent over his plate again, but his lips were moving silently as though he were talking to himself. Then abruptly he stood up, threw down his napkin, and stalked out.
There was a moment of embarrassed silence, and then Karen said, “The poor thing; he’s been very ill.”
Lind nodded. “And I think he had a pretty rough time of it during the war. He has horrible nightmares.”
“Pity,” Egerton agreed. “A frightful shame—all that wreckage.”
The others began to question Goddard about filmmaking, and the incident was forgotten. The dining room steward went out to get coffee. Goddard was relating a comic foul-up of some kind on a sound stage and everybody was laughing when in the edge of his peripheral vision he saw Krasicki reappear in the doorway. He thought the Pole had come back to excuse himself or perhaps to finish his dinner, and by the time he’d got a good look at the man’s face and the foaming madness in his eyes it was too late to do anything but witness it.
Krasicki screamed something that sounded like mire! You go mire!, the tendons standing out on his throat, and the mindless, primordial sound of it lifted the hair on Goddard’s neck. He came on, raving in some language Goddard had never heard, while spittle ran out of the corner of his mouth, and raised the automatic in his right hand and shot Egerton through the chest at a distance of six feet.
Both women screamed with the crash of the gun, and Egerton shook under the impact of the slug. Goddard hit Madeleine Lennox with a shoulder, driving her to the deck on the other side of her chair, while Captain Steen snatched at Karen and threw her down. Lind was out of his chair then, lunging around the corner of the table for the Pole, who went on spraying spittle across it with the demonic force of his outcry which rode up over the continuous screaming of the women and then was punctuated by the crash of the gun as he shot again. Egerton jerked spasmodically against the back of his chair and started to slump.
Lind had Krasicki’s arm then, swinging it up and grabbing for the gun, while Captain Steen and Goddard were trying to get around the other end of the table to reach them. Krasicki was still pulling the trigger. The third shot smashed the overhead light fixture, showering glass, and the fourth, as Lind spun him around, shattered the long mirror on the bulkhead across the room.
Lind tore the gun from his grasp, bumped him under the jaw with a forearm, and shoved. Krasicki slammed backward and collapsed on deck like a bundle of rags. The screams cut off then, and there was an instant of unearthly silence, broken only by the tinkle of glass as another shard of the mirror fell to the deck and broke. The dining room steward came running in, followed by Barset, who braked to a stop, and whispered, “Sweet, suffering mother of Christ!”
Goddard turned and looked at Egerton. A trickle of blood ran out of the corner of his mouth, and under the hand clutching at his chest the white shirt was stained with a growing circle of red. His left hand clawed at the tablecloth as he tried to hold himself erect, and when he toppled and fell over sideways he dragged it with him to the accompaniment of breaking china and a marimba tinkling of silverware.
V
LIND FLIPPED THE SAFETY ON the gun and tossed it to Captain Steen. Already lunging around the end of the table toward Egerton, he snapped at Barset and the dining room steward, “Tie him up and sit on him. Better get help; he’s crazy.”
“I’ll send for the bos’n,” Steen said.
Goddard jumped to help Lind. They got Egerton out from behind the table and picked him up by shoulders and legs. Madeleine Lennox and Karen ran out of the door, sobbing as they averted their faces from the limp and bloodstained figure of the Englishman. Lind and Goddard hurried down the passageway with him and put him on the bunk in his cabin.
“The first-aid kit on the settee in my cabin,” Lind said. “And bring the sterilizer, the whole thing.”
“Right.” Goddard ran up to the next deck. Men were coming out of the officers’ messroom. “What is it?” they asked. “What happened?”
“Krasicki went berserk,” Goddard said. “Shot Egerton.”
The sterilize
r was secured to the desk with catches. He released them, unplugged it, and grabbed up the first-aid kit. When he hurried back into Egerton’s cabin, Lind was bent over the bunk. He straightened, holding a bloodstained towel, and gestured wearily.
“Put ’em down anywhere,” he said. “A couple of aspirin would have done just as well.”
Goddard looked past him, and nodded. Egerton was already unconscious and obviously dying of massive hemorrhage. Lind had spread the jacket open and cut the shirt away, exposing his chest. Blood was everywhere, in the thick mat of gray hair, running down his ribs, and staining the jacket and bedspread beside him. The pillow under the side of his mouth was soaked with it. The eye was closed, and his breathing ragged and labored. There was no froth in the blood on his chest, Goddard noted; he would have thought there would be, since one or both the shots must have gone through the lungs. He was about to mention this to Lind when Captain Steen appeared in the doorway. Sparks, he said, was trying to locate a ship in the area with a doctor. Lind shook his head.
“It’s no use,” he said. He felt Egerton’s pulse, gave a despairing shrug, and gently lowered the wrist. “Just a matter of minutes.”
“Seems dark for arterial blood,” Goddard remarked, wondering at the same time what difference it made. When you lost enough of it, you died, no matter what shade it was.
“Probably the pulmonary,” Lind replied. “It carries venous blood.”
Egerton’s breathing changed to a gasping rattle that went on for over a minute and then stopped abruptly. Lind reached for the wrist again, probing for the pulse that had apparently ceased. He put it down and gently raised the eyelid with a thumb to look at the pupil. He sighed and closed the eye.
“That’s all,” he said.
And the Deep Blue Sea Page 6
