Revolution Number 9

by Peter Abrahams

  Charlie thought of hitting the throttle. He thought of jumping over the side. Then he raised his hands over his head.

  A sleek cigarette boat slid alongside Straight Arrow. The gorilla man stood in the bow. He had a line in one hand and an automatic rifle, pointed casually at Charlie, in the other. He looped the line around Straight Arrow’s bow cleat. The gorilla head turned to Charlie. The mouth was open wide, revealing fierce plastic teeth. The gorilla man said: “Finis, Blakey. Shut ’er down and climb aboard.”

  Charlie turned the key and stepped onto the cigarette. The bright light went off. Charlie, momentarily blind, felt big padded hands patting him down. “Clean,” said the gorilla man.

  Charlie’s eyes adjusted to the darkness. He soon made out the gorilla man, now leaning against the front of the console, rifle dangling toward the deck. Standing at the wheel was a man in a seersucker suit and bow tie, his gaunt face colored green by the lights of the instrument panel. He switched off the cigarette’s engines. Then it was quiet, peaceful almost, out at sea on a calm night. The boats bobbed together on the water. In the distance a buoy bell rang. Little waves slapped the hulls. The extinguished searchlight crackled once or twice, went silent. The bow-tie man said, “You can remove that ridiculous costume.”

  The gorilla man laid the rifle on the console and fiddled with a zipper on his back. Charlie’s gaze was drawn to the rifle. “Don’t even consider it,” the gorilla man said. He stripped off the hairy bodysuit. Underneath he wore gray sweats with a blue “Yale” on the chest. “The head too?” he asked.

  “Is it part of the costume?” said the bow-tie man.

  The gorilla man began tugging at his head. It came off with a rubbery snap. “Ow,” he said. He didn’t look like the kind of man who would react much to pain. He was in his late twenties, big, just as big as he had appeared in the suit, with a bony white face and hair so light it appeared silver in the darkness.

  “That was fun,” he said, although there was no sign of amusement on his face. “Like Halloween. Do you think I can keep it?”

  “It goes back on Monday,” said the bow-tie man.

  “You’re the boss,” said the gorilla man. He sat on the gunwale, rifle in his lap.

  The bow-tie man turned to Charlie. “Do you need something to stop the blood?”

  Charlie touched his cheek. It was wet and sticky, cut by flying Plexiglas. He made no reply.

  “A stoic,” said the bow-tie man.

  “That’s rich,” said the gorilla man.

  “Is it not.” The bow-tie man moved to the stern, gingerly, as though he had pulled a muscle in his abdomen, and sat on the padded bench that ran from one side to the other. “Come sit down, Mr. Wrightman.”

  “That’s not my name,” Charlie said. He stayed where he was.

  The bow-tie man pinched the bridge of his nose, like a man with a splitting headache. Charlie noticed how scrawny his neck was, much too small for the collar of his button-down shirt. “Are you going to begin on that level?” the bow-tie man asked. “I expected better.”

  “Why?” asked the gorilla man.

  The bow-tie man ignored him. “I’m willing, Mr. Wrightman, to imagine that with the passage of time there may be moments when you actually think you are Charlie Ochs. But the fact is that Charlie Ochs does not exist. He’s a fantasy, backed up with a phony history and a few quaint props. But unreal. A nonperson, if you will.”

  “Which raises an interesting question,” said the gorilla man.

  “It came up a few hours ago, while you were having that heartwarming party,” the bow-tie man said. “Svenson here brought it up. I shouldn’t be surprised of course. He majored in philosophy.”

  “Minored, Mr. G,” said Svenson. “Art history was my major.”

  Again Mr. G ignored him. “The question, Mr. Wrightman, is this: is it a crime to kill a nonperson?”

  “Shoot him in the head, tie an anchor around his neck, and throw him over,” said Svenson. “Or something like that, right Mr. G?”

  Mr. G did not respond. He gazed at Charlie. The boat bobbed up and down. A buoy rang far away. Waves slapped the hull. It could have been a peaceful night on a calm sea. Then Mr. G got down on his hands and knees and vomited over the side.

  7

  “Seasick, Mr. G?” said Svenson. He rose quickly, leaving the rifle on the deck.

  Mr. G waved him back, then wiped his mouth with sea-water. Holding onto the bench for support, he pulled himself to his feet and took a deep breath.

  “You going to be okay?” Svenson asked.

  “Is that a smart question?” said Mr. G in raspy voice.

  “Sorry.” Svenson bit his lip like a schoolboy. He watched Mr. G open a bottle of pills and swallow several. Charlie risked another glance at the gun.

  “He’s still thinking about it, Mr. G,” said Svenson, without looking at Charlie, “even though I told him not to.” Svenson picked up the gun.

  Mr. G sat down heavily and said something too low to hear.

  “I didn’t quite get that, Mr. G,” said Svenson.

  Mr. G cleared his throat, making a sound like steel files being rubbed together. “He’s still in shock.”

  “Shock?”

  “He hasn’t internalized the situation yet. Must I spell everything out?”

  “Sorry,” Svenson repeated. “Maybe this will help him.” He reached into his back pocket. Something crinkled in his hands. He came forward and handed a sheet of paper to Charlie. Charlie held it close to the green console light. The paper was wrinkled with many foldings and brittle with age.

  “John Blake Wrightman,” it read. “Wanted for Murder.”

  There was a photograph of the wanted man, and a list of details—his height, 6 feet; his weight, 195; his distinguishing marks, none; and the warning that he was a terrorist, to be considered armed and dangerous.

  Svenson came around the console and gazed at it with him. “Look how long his hair was.” His eyes shifted to Charlie, then back to the photograph on the poster.

  “But he’s aged well, hasn’t he?” said Mr. G.

  “Like Faust,” said Svenson, abruptly snatching the poster and putting it away, “or Dorian Gray, I can’t remember.” He backed away, lounged once more against the gunwale. “He looks more than one ninety-five, though.”

  “Maybe, but it’s not middle-aged spread,” said Mr. G. “I’d make a note of that, Svenson.”

  Svenson snorted.

  Mr. G turned to Charlie. “I hope you’re not going to waste a lot of time denying who you are. It won’t hold up, you know.”

  Charlie knew that. Did it make him Blake Wrightman? Yes, he had been Blake Wrightman, but that was a long time ago. There was no point saying it, so he said nothing. In the silence that followed came the sound of a splash, not far away, followed by a much bigger one. Hunter and hunted played their parts, down below.

  “Should we explain how we found him?” Svenson asked. “I’ll bet he’s dying to know. If you’ll pardon the double-entendre.” Svenson pronounced the words in the French manner. He had a nice accent.

  Mr. G looked at Charlie, but Charlie couldn’t read his face in the darkness. “Are you dying to know?” he asked. Charlie did not reply. “Let’s just say that a lot of data finds its way to my office,” Mr. G said. “It takes time to sift through it, that’s all.”

  “What office?” Charlie said.

  There was a pause. “I believe he’s trying to establish our bona fides,” Mr. G said.

  “That’s kind of humorous, coming from the likes of him,” said Svenson.

  Charlie, for a wild moment entertaining the thought that these men might be imposters, said, “Let’s see some ID.”

  Svenson laughed, but Mr. G said, “Show him.”

  “You’re my mentor,” Svenson replied with a shrug, and pushed himself off the gunwale. He didn’t appear to be moving fast, but he must have been because he drove the rifle butt into the pit of Charlie’s stomach before Charlie could even flinch,
and Charlie was a quick man. He went down on the deck, rolled over. Svenson kicked him hard in the back. It forced a grunt of pain from Charlie; he couldn’t keep it in.

  “I don’t think we have to worry about that extra bulk after all,” Svenson said.

  Mr. G got to his feet, stepped toward Charlie, looked down. “Can you hear me, Mr. Wrightman?”

  Charlie was silent.

  “The point is that if you choose to handle this in a vulgar manner, we can respond in kind,” said Mr. G. “That’s the meaning of democracy.”

  Charlie, his ear against the deck, heard the slap-slap of the waves. He turned on his side, tried to get up, couldn’t. High above he saw their faces in the green console lights, Svenson’s harsh and young, like a new world uneroded by the elements, Mr. G’s like death.

  Svenson turned to Mr. G. “Vulgar?” he said. “I don’t think violence is necessarily vulgar. It depends on who’s doing it and why.”

  “You’re wrong,” said Mr. G. “Violence is always vulgar, if sometimes necessary.” He backed out of Charlie’s sight and sat down on the padded bench. “I’m talking about physical violence, of course. As violence becomes nonphysical, it ascends the social scale. Like anything else.”

  Charlie got a grip on the side, lurched to his feet. His stomach lurched with him, and the next moment he was bent over the stern, vomiting, as Mr. G had, into the sea.

  “Jesus H.,” said Svenson. “You’re not on chemo, are you?”

  Charlie felt a little better; well enough to do something. He wasn’t a trained fighter, but he knew how to move. He spun around and threw a punch at Svenson’s head. Maybe not as quickly as he would have liked: Svenson was ready. He drove the rifle butt into Charlie’s gut again, striking the same spot. Charlie went down, harder this time, and stayed down. He vomited again too, right where he lay. Then he fought to get a breath inside him.

  Mr. G sighed. “Now,” he said, “perhaps we might begin. It’s late and I’m tired.”

  “Not me,” said Svenson. “I could pull an all-nighter no problem.”

  Mr. G sighed again, more loudly this time. “Let’s start with the girl.”

  “Woman,” Svenson corrected. “Girls are twelve and under.”

  Mr. G didn’t seem to hear him. “Were there other marriages along the way?” he continued. “Or was this going to be the first?”

  Charlie, prone on the deck and panting, didn’t answer.

  “The bride-to-have-been is very pretty,” Mr. G said. It sounded like the introduction to further remarks, but none ensued.

  Charlie didn’t want them talking about Emily. He got control of his breathing, then forced himself up to his knees. His hands squared into fists. Svenson, still lounging, changed the position of his feet.

  “Don’t worry,” Mr. G said. “She’s in no danger. Except psychically, of course—and that’s your doing. It’s a side issue, but did you ever think what in the world she’s going to tell the child?”

  Charlie got to his feet, swayed. Maybe if he could stop swaying for a few seconds he could kick Svenson’s head off. He was still trying to do that when a question arose in his mind: how did they know that Emily was pregnant?

  Mr. G seemed to be following his thoughts. “Naturally we’ve seen the pregnancy test report. And the amnio results. Not so long ago, that kind of information-gathering was a distasteful business—break-ins, burglary paraphernalia, nocturnal excursions, the whole grubby scenario. Now it can all be done during office hours by a clerk in front of a PC. It’s a girl, by the way, Mr. Wrightman. I might as well tell you now, since it isn’t likely you’ll be seeing your daughter for some time.”

  Charlie dove at Mr. G, got his hands around the scrawny neck. Mr. G fell against the console, Charlie on top of him. Mr. G’s skin felt hot. He struggled furiously but not from fear; Charlie saw no fear at all in his eyes. Then something massive collided with the back of Charlie’s head, turning everything fleetingly red, subsequently black.

  · · ·

  “It’s an interesting problem,” Mr. G was saying. “How to explain his behavior. Twenty years of quiet, solitary existence, a life structured—realistically—with nothing to lose. Even penitential, or is that going too far? Then suddenly all this … matrimony. What made him think he was safe?”

  Charlie opened his eyes. He saw the moon, sliding down the black dome of the sky now; still night. He smelled vomit, saw the white of Svenson’s high-top pumps, not far from his head. Svenson squatted down, shone a pencil flash into his eyes.

  “There’s no statute of limitations for what you did,” Svenson said. “No safety.”

  Charlie squirmed away from the light. He hadn’t thought about what he’d done in a long time, not consciously. Now images stirred in his mind, fragments from a day of rage, a night of waiting, a morning that came too soon. Did it all add up to a horrible accident? Charlie had tried to persuade himself of that in the past, never successfully. He didn’t try to persuade the men on the cigarette boat.

  “Now, all of a sudden, you’ve got plenty to lose,” Mr. G said. Charlie turned to the stern. Mr. G had Charlie’s carton of orange juice in his hand. He opened it, tipped it up to his mouth. The tendons in his neck rose like pop-up illustrations in a children’s anatomy book. He licked his lips. “Poor timing on your part.”

  “Is that the home-style?” Svenson asked.

  “Home-style?” said Mr. G.

  “With the pulp.”

  Mr. G squinted at the label. “I don’t know. What difference does it make?”

  “A big one, I hope,” said Svenson. “Dad’s outfit just bought five percent of Tropicana.”

  Charlie sat up on the deck. Poor timing, he thought. It was true, now and before. He pictured the wires coiling from the back of Bombo Levine’s cheap alarm clock, the one with the plain black hands and the words “Big Ben” on the face. The appearance of that image in his mind was followed by the twisting feeling inside, a sensation that awoke the pain Svenson’s rifle butt had caused and then was swallowed up by it. He turned his head and looked back, back through the cut toward Cosset Pond. What had made him dream he could be safe, safe enough for Emily? A cold wave in the face, a monster in his trap, snowflakes on her eyelashes: the stuff of dreams. It was all over. He took a deep breath, blew it out.

  “Relieved?” said Mr. G. “It’s often like that.”

  “Fuck you,” Charlie said, but there wasn’t much force behind his curse. He couldn’t deny a sense of rough justice being served. If it had happened before Emily he might not have cared so much.

  “Did you hear what he said to you, Mr. G?” said Svenson.

  “He’s just exercising his First Amendment rights,” Mr. G replied.

  “So how about me exercising my First Amendment right to kick him in the balls?”

  “I don’t think that will be necessary, will it, Mr. Wrightman?”

  Charlie felt their eyes on him. He put his hands on the rail, got his legs under him, pulled himself erect. The movement awoke a pounding in his head. He took a few steps and sat heavily on the padded bench, not far from Mr. G. “I’d like to talk to her before we go,” he said. “That’s all.”

  Svenson and Mr. G looked at each other and some unspoken communication passed between them. Mr. G turned to Charlie. “Go?” he said.

  “Wherever you’re taking me.” His mind screened a quick panning shot of his future: holding cell, courtroom, prison.

  There was a silence. Charlie was conscious of the paleness of Mr. G’s face, the dryness of his lips, the purple smudges under his eyes. He glanced to the east and saw the faint luminescence of tomorrow on the horizon. “Where you go is up to you,” Mr. G told him. “More or less.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means we’ve got a surprise for you, you lucky son of a bitch,” Svenson said. “We’re going to cut you a deal.”

  “A deal?”

  Mr. G’s teeth appeared for a moment. It might have been a smile. “Puzzled, aren’
t you? A deal means an exchange, and what have you got that we want?”

  Svenson said, “The surprise is we don’t want you.”

  “We’ll take you,” Mr. G said.

  “But only if we have to,” Svenson added.

  “After all, you deserve it,” said Mr. G, “if you want to think in those terms.”

  “But we don’t think in those terms,” Svenson said, “and we don’t really want you.”

  There was a pause. The eastern sky was lightening now, as though something had sliced through the black and photons were pouring in. Dawn reddened the hollows of Mr. G’s cheeks and illuminated the shades of purple under his eyes. “We want Rebecca,” he said.

  “Rebecca?” Charlie said.

  “Correct,” Mr. G replied. “Give me Rebecca and you go free. I mean scot-free. No one will ever know. You can keep your wife, your daughter, your quaint little house, your quaint little job, your identity. You can live out the life of Charlie Ochs, in toto—lobsterman, husband, father. That’s alternative one. Alternative two is spending the rest of your life, or most of it, in a federal penitentiary. It’s not very complicated.”

  “Why Rebecca,” Charlie said, “and not me?”

  “Orders,” Mr. G replied. Svenson turned and gave him an odd look.

  “Whose orders?”

  Mr. G caught the look in Svenson’s eyes. Svenson changed their expression. Mr. G turned to Charlie and said, “They never come from below.”

  “I have no idea where she is,” Charlie said. “I haven’t seen her in twenty-two years, not since …”

  “The big bang?” Svenson said. Under the brightening sky, he looked fresh and cheerful, overfull of life force. Charlie wanted to empty him of some of it. He was trying to think of a way when Mr. G said, “Have you heard from her?”

  “No.”

  “Or of her?”

  “No.”

  “What about Malik?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Was that the plan?”

  “There was no plan,” Charlie said. “It just happened.”

  “Sure,” said Svenson.