Oasis of Night

by J. S. Cook

  A needle of panic pricked my heart. “Why? You said—I mean, you’re not working tomorrow. I don’t open the Heartache till noon.”

  “You want me to stay?”

  I cupped my hand under his chin and rubbed his full lower lip with the ball of my thumb. “Yeah.”

  He lowered his gaze. “What’s your guy gonna think? That young red-haired fella?”

  “He’s not my guy. He just works for me, and anyway, Tex understands this sort of thing.”

  “Oh.” He leaned close to me. “He does, huh?” He kissed my bare shoulder, his lips warm and soft. “You really want me to stay?”

  I turned my face and kissed him. It was a real nice kiss, and maybe that decided him. He sighed and lay back down, and I moved to lie in his embrace, my head on his shoulder. “Thanks, Rick.”

  We were quiet for a long time, listening to the various night sounds of the city, the far-off moan of the foghorn out on Chain Rock. “You don’t like hospitals, huh?”

  I had been drowsing, drifting close to sleep, but his question brought me immediately awake. “No. No, I hate hospitals.”

  “Ever been in one?”

  I sat up quickly, my face turned from him; it took a few moments before I could speak. “Yeah, I have.”

  “I thought so.” He sighed. “Yeah, I thought so.” He sat up and pulled the blankets around us both. “They did it to you, didn’t they? When they gave you the blue ticket.”

  “Yeah.” I couldn’t help myself; I shuddered. It wasn’t something I liked remembering and truth be told, I’d done my level best to banish the memories of that time to the furthest reaches of my mind.

  “You poor kid.” He wrapped his arm around my shoulders and held on to me. “Those sons of bitches. I hope they burn in hell.”

  I had never told anybody—not even Judy—about my stint in a military hospital, nor had I mentioned it to Chris or even to Sam. It wasn’t part of my life now, and I saw no reason to keep remembering my stay there and the things they had done to me, the battery of tests to which I’d been subjected. You are being discharged from the army, Lieutenant, on what is known as a blue ticket. I’d been naive enough to think it meant I could pack up my things, clean out my footlocker, and go. I’d imagined myself disappearing into some small town somewhere and doing some ordinary job. I’d be okay, I reasoned, as long as I kept my head down. Nobody would ever need to know. In order to release you from the army, we request that you undertake a series of tests—oh, nothing serious. It’s merely for administrative purposes.

  “They took me to a VA hospital.” I had begun to shiver, so violently it seemed my bones were shattering. The room was suddenly too large, and the dark was coming down on me and there was no escape. Rick murmured I should lie down, and he heaped the blankets over us both and held me close, warming me with his body. “They said it would be just for overnight, but I think I was there a week, maybe longer. I don’t really remember. They gave us stuff, and then they asked us all these questions.” Just a little needle prick, it’s nothing. Don’t look at the needle, Lieutenant. It’s just a sugar solution. This is just for experimental purposes. Don’t bother yourself about it. “They asked us all these questions, over and over again, the same questions, and I couldn’t remember what I said to them.”

  I’d like you to look at some photographs, Lieutenant. “Pictures of men… ordinary pictures to start with, men working on cars, men walking with briefcases, men flying planes or reading books and magazines.” Four men standing near the hull of a huge ship, three of them together and the fourth leaning against it, possibly smoking a cigarette; a group of men on a beach, cooking something over an open fire; a bunch of guys sitting on the deck of a destroyer, wearing life vests; Lady Cavendish in a Red Cross uniform, talking to a group of soldiers. The pictures started out general, then became more and more specific: two men, both naked, standing on a beach holding strategically placed volleyballs; a group of German soldiers bathing naked in a stream; a muscular man crouching on a suburban lawn, holding a basketball. What do you feel when you look at these pictures, Lieutenant? Please try and be as specific as you can. Then more explicit images: a young man seated nude on a narrow wooden pillar; a soldier sprawled on a beach, legs apart; two men lying together under a tree, nude except for a picnic blanket, their arms around each other.

  As soon as I began to get aroused, they’d shoot something into me, some kind of drug that made me vomit. Do you still find these photographs appealing, Lieutenant? I made up lies, told them they meant nothing to me, asked them if they had any pictures of naked girls for me to look at, that was the sort of thing I liked. Then they injected something into my other arm and the lies got all tangled up so I couldn’t remember what I’d said. They showed me a picture of a young, dark-haired man lying on his back, touching himself, and asked me what I felt. Nothing. I don’t feel anything. Honest. I don’t feel anything at all.

  Eventually they left me alone, but whatever had been in those needles was messing with my mind: time became strangely dilated as I lay there in the dark, still strapped to the bed. I was convinced that hours had passed when in reality it had been merely minutes. I flushed hot and cold, and sometimes felt as though insects were crawling under my skin. I kept wondering what I’d done to merit this sort of treatment. I was a commissioned officer, which ought to count for something. Why were they doing this to me?

  “They threw me in the stockade.” My voice sounded hoarse even to my own ears, and my face was wet, although I didn’t remember crying. Rick lay beside me, holding me in the dark, not speaking, just listening. “There were three other guys in there, one of them just a kid. He’d only joined up the week before. He’d lied about his age so he could join, and this was what they did to him.”

  “This why you don’t drink?” Rick’s voice was close to my ear. He reached out and brushed away my tears.

  “Yeah. I… hit the bottle pretty hard after that. Trying to forget, you know?”

  “Yeah. I know.” He wrapped his arms around me, holding me, and I must have drifted off because the next thing I knew, there was daylight seeping into the room and Rick was gone. I found a handwritten note propped up on the nightstand: If you need anything, you know where to find me. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t grateful: after last night’s confession, I wasn’t sure I could face him in the full light of day.

  By the time I got downstairs, it was half-past eleven and Tex had been in the kitchen for a while, prepping for the lunch crowd. He was anxious to know how Chris was doing, and I told him everything I knew. “Tex, do you remember what the guys looked like?” Picco’s men had been intently searching the shoreline of Topsail beach. What had they been looking for?

  I waited while he searched his memory. “Gee, Jack, everything happened kinda fast. There were three of them. One guy came in first. He was the tallest one—I mean, he was real tall, taller than normal. They were dressed in black, and they all had scarves on their faces, like blindfolds or masks.”

  I was making mental notes as he spoke. “Yeah?”

  “One of ’em went behind the bar and grabbed Chris—he must have, because when I came out of the kitchen, he was holding the knife to Chris’s throat—and the other two were driving people out of the place, telling ’em to go on home. I tried to stop them, and this one guy came rushing at me with the knife and cut me.”

  “He cut you? Where?”

  He pulled aside the placket of his shirt, revealing a jagged, red weal across the base of his throat. “Aw, it ain’t nothin’. He just sliced me a little. It’s not serious.”

  “Tex, you should get that looked at.”

  “It’s fine. I took care of it. Honest, Jack!” He waved away any further entreaties I might be planning to make. “They dragged Chris toward the door. It kinda looked like they were thinking of kidnapping him or something. One of them—yeah, the tall one—kept asking where you were.”

  “What’d he tell them?”

  Tex was laughing. “He tol
d ’em to fuck off.”

  That sounded like Chris. “Look, Tex, do you think you could hold down the fort for a little bit? I want to check in with Sergeant Picco, see if he’s got any leads.”

  “Sure, Jack. You can count on me.” Suddenly his grin turned sly and knowing. “So, had some company last night, Jack?”

  I had to laugh. “Yeah. And it’s none of your business.”

  Tex gave me an exaggerated shrug. “Good looking guy. Military, is he?”

  “Hey, Tex?” I cupped a hand behind my ear. “Don’t I hear the carrots calling you from the kitchen?”

  THE MAIN office of the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary was plenty crowded by the time I got there. I asked for Picco at the desk, was told he was busy and directed to a straight-backed wooden chair in the waiting area, which was filled with loud-mouthed dock workers and hard-faced prostitutes, some of them sporting a black eye or other facial contusions. I flipped through a copy of the Evening Telegram while I waited, but the only news was that Good Luck brand margarine was on sale at Jackman and Greene.

  The place was warm and overcrowded, so I put my head back and closed my eyes for a bit. I felt pleasantly sated and a little bit sore, and, as I played back the events of the previous night, I wondered if maybe I shouldn’t have told Callan about my Section 8 experience. I’d never told anyone, not even Sam, about that part of my past. But really, who was Callan going to tell? I no longer had any ties to the military, and it wasn’t like they had the power to court martial me. Anyway, Callan didn’t really seem the type to go blabbing: as far as one-night stands went, he was the steadiest I’d ever seen. No expectations and no regrets, no questions asked, he lived entirely in the moment. I envied him that. It was something I’d been trying to master for most of my life, without any luck. Maybe Callan knew something about the future the rest of us didn’t.

  After about an hour, Picco appeared from an inside room and nodded to me. I got up and followed him down a narrow hallway and into a small, dark room with barely enough space to contain Picco’s desk and chair. The only natural light came from a tiny window set high up in the wall and shielded with a sturdy set of iron bars. “What’s that for?” I pointed to the window. “They afraid you’re gonna escape or something?”

  “You’re some funny, you are.” Picco squared his desk blotter and arranged his pencils. He was trying to be nonchalant, but I could see that Chris’s injuries had taken a toll on the young sergeant. “That all you came here for, or did you want something?”

  I got up and closed the door. “Sergeant, I want some information from you.”

  He straightened in his chair. “Is that right?” He tossed a copy of the Telegram across the desk at me. “You can get Good Luck on sale with the coupon on page five.” He was trying to be his usual acerbic self, but the tense lines bracketing his mouth and eyes said otherwise.

  “Phonse.” I reached across the desk and took hold of his wrist. “How is he?”

  His face crumpled and all his carefully tendered reserve vanished. “Jesus, Jack, how do you think he is, boy? He’s lying over there in St. Clare’s all cut up.”

  “I know.” I squeezed his hand. “I know, and that’s why I’m here. I want to try and do something about it, find the bastards who did this.”

  “It’s a police matter.” He pulled his hand away on the pretext of adjusting his uniform tunic. “Best thing for you to do is to stay out of it.”

  I ignored him. “Look, Phonse, the other night when you came to get me, a bunch of your boys were nosing around Topsail beach. What was that all about?”

  He assumed an official expression. “I’m not permitted to comment on an ongoing investigation.”

  “Right. Sure. But this is me, remember? Maybe I can help you find out who did this.”

  He gazed at me for a moment with his strange, pale eyes, then got up and went to the filing cabinet in the corner. “I’m going to get a drink of water.” He drew out a folder and tossed it onto the desk. “I might be a while. But I expect you’ll be gone when I get back?”

  He didn’t have to tell me twice. “Sure.”

  “Right on.” He pulled the door closed behind him.

  The folder contained Picco’s notes on the investigation, and they were extensive. His report of the stabbing jibed with what Tex had told me about there being three assailants, but added that they had fled in a waiting sedan, which his men had tailed to the Topsail area. The car had been found abandoned on a dead-end road half a mile from the beach—that would explain why Picco’s men had been scouring that area—but as yet, no one was in custody. Farther down the page I saw something that really piqued my curiosity: Picco had noted the arrival of the S. S. Chandris at St. John’s harbor a week before and contacted the harbor master to search the ship, “acting on information received from a noted police informant.” The ship had been seized by harbor authorities and towed into port, but the men on board had been allowed the freedom of the city, simply because the harbor master didn’t know what else to do with them. The constabulary had probably been real pissed about that one. No doubt that same harbor master was looking for another job.

  I flipped back through the folder and turned up a copy of Octavian’s mug shot; nothing new there. But just underneath it was a picture of a younger man, perhaps thirty, with dark hair combed straight back. He was handsome, but there was something debauched and languid about the dark, heavy-lidded eyes and a certain cruelty to the mouth. He looked like a man who was capable of anything, but I didn’t know him, and there was nothing written on the reverse side of the picture.

  A Greek ship in international waters was cause for concern. Greece was currently under Nazi occupation, so the only way the Chandris could have left Greece was with German approval, which meant she was as good as a German ship. No wonder she’d been seized. Had the three men who’d attacked Chris initially arrived on the Chandris? I was amazed that they’d even gotten into the Narrows—how the hell had they pulled that off? With the Kreigsmarine’s latest incursions into Conception Bay—

  It hit me like a big, cartoon hammer, and I sat up straight, everything else forgotten. Of course Picco’s men were searching Topsail beach. It fronted directly on the bay, and everybody knew German submarines regularly patrolled the waters around Bell Island. Before the war, German ships had often arrived to pick up precious iron ore from the Island’s mines, so they’d know every nook and cranny of Conception Bay. Callan had mentioned reports of “tin fish”—German submarines—in Newfoundland waters and how this was a cause for concern. Only a couple weeks before, the passenger ferry, the SS Caribou, was sunk by U-69, killing a hundred and thirty-seven people.

  Maybe the Greek ship was intended as a diversion, something to keep the Constabulary busy while the Germans sent their men ashore from a concealed sub, but Picco wasn’t that stupid. He’d have sent a man or two down there, possibly to do some investigating, but mainly to make it seem like he’d taken the bait. It wasn’t hard to launch an inflatable raft from a submarine, and as a mode of transportation it was quick and quiet. Pick yourself a night when there’s no moon, get your raft and your men in the water, and nobody’s the wiser. Picco knew this, and he probably knew or suspected a whole lot more, which meant only one thing: I had some work to do.

  I left the folder on Picco’s desk and went out the same way I’d come in. The wind was steady out of the northeast, and tiny snowflakes were fluttering out of a steel-gray sky. I left Fort Townsend and headed east toward Barnes Road. It was hardly the sort of day for a leisurely stroll, but I needed time to clear my head before I went back to the Heartache. Callan had told me there were rumors of enemy saboteurs in the city, and I’d heard it said by more than one customer the Germans were planning something nasty. I’m not the sort of person who puts much stock in rumor or innuendo, but my investigation of Picco’s case notes pointed past the rumors and toward a singular truth: something bad was coming, something big. The men who’d attacked Chris had come looking for me, wh
ich meant somebody saw me as a threat, so the quicker I could sort this thing out, the better.

  I had just crossed Rennie’s Mill Road into Bannerman Park when the tiny hairs on the back of my neck started to prickle, and not because of the cold wind, either. It’s the kind of feeling you get when you’re sure somebody’s looking at you. I did a quick survey of the park, and sure enough, a man in a long, dark coat was standing by the southwest corner of the Colonial Building. I wasn’t close enough to make out his features, but there was something oddly familiar about his stance and the set of his shoulders; I could have sworn I’d seen him somewhere before. I couldn’t puzzle out why he was just standing there like that: he didn’t have a dog with him, and on such a cold day, there was nobody else in the park. He could have been waiting for someone, but most people would have chosen a more prominent spot—the front steps of the Colonial Building, say, or the fountain that fronted on Military Road. He stood very still until I was maybe five feet away from him. Then he took his hands out of his pockets and started forward.

  “Chilly morning for a walk, Mr. Stoyles.”

  He was waiting for someone, all right. He was waiting for me. The man standing in front of me, his hand outstretched in greeting, was none other than Jonah Octavian. Again.

  Chapter 12

  I’M NOT ashamed to say I turned and ran like a scared kid, all the way back to Constabulary headquarters. I’d be damned if I let that bastard get away again. I found Picco sitting at his desk, drinking a cup of tea and talking on the phone. He held up a hand when he saw me, so I waited till he’d laid down the receiver. “Jonah Octavian’s alive. I just saw him in the park.”