The man who seemed in charge of the sharks looked him up and down.
A second asked, “What’ve you got there?” inquiring about the four bottles dangling from his fingers.
“Chips… chips, of course, and I should like to play for a pair of shiny, new shoes,” he replied.
Shoes?” asked their leader, the others laughing.
“I would like a size eight and a half. Anyone here an eight and a half?”
The card players broke into even more raucous laughter, but one whom the others called Konrath snatched off his shoes, slammed them onto the card table, and announced, “I’m a nine. Let’s play cards.”
The leader, a fellow the others called Walker, conferred with his cohorts primarily with eye and head movements, indicating he agreed with Konrath. He finally pointed to an empty seat for Ransom and said, “Join us, Constable.”
“You know who I am then?”
“It’s our business to know who’s who on board,” said Walker with a serpent’s grin, “and you have become something of a celebrity here, chasing a killer they say.”
“Then my reputation precedes me.” Ransom snatched out a cigar he’d saved from his time in Dr. O’Laughlin’s clinic, and on chewing off the end, another player lit it for him. He puffed and sucked in the smoke, whirling it about his palate before exhaling. It appeared these once likely raw riverboat gamblers had traded in their winnings for a chance at men like Astor and other wealthy marks here on the high seas.
“Gambling with the richest men on the planet aboard this floating palace ought to’ve netted you fellows tons of cash.”
“Are you here to jabber or play?” asked the one they called Savile.
Ransom puffed anew, smiled wide, and let out a long sigh. “Ahhh… what more could a man want on his way to Kingdom Come, gentlemen?”
“How much should we concern ourselves, Constable?” asked Konrath.
“Oh, I am just an amateur at the game, I assure you.”
They all laughed and the rough-looking Konrath replied, “I was referring to Mr. Andrews’ call for the life preservers and the boats!”
“Frankly, there’s no place on the ship you can go that will be any better than right here, gents. Unless you can walk on your knees, or fashion a dress and a bonnet.”
The group sent up more raucous laughter over this.
“Looks like it’s every man for himself at this point, Thomas,” said Declan. “I have something I must do before the game’s entirely over.”
“Is it something I can help you with?”
“I think not… at least not at the moment. Wait for me here.”
The two young interns shook hands then grasped one another in a quick, manly hug in the manner of team members at the final bell. Their quick embrace brought gasps from a few tables, and at one, a loud, raucous overly-dressed and feathered elderly lady in her mid-to-late fifties shouted at the ladies at her table for tittering. “I hate that in our gender! It does not serve the women’s movement well at all, ladies, and for God’s sake, they’re twenty years your junior, those boys!”
In their attempt to calm the woman, Declan heard someone call her Molly.
Declan rushed off on whatever chore or mission he had put himself to. Thomas felt the slight tilt of the floor beneath him. He noticed the tables too had seriously begun to tilt as the ship listed to one side; even the card players now sat in chairs tilted awkwardly to one side, nearly going over.
No one seemed at all concerned about the dog, but then Varmint had curled into a ball at Thomas’ feet and remained asleep.
Within his mind, Thomas had hardly resolved to die on board this ship or in the freezing depths below.
His resolve flip-flopping, broken one moment, then set in stone the next, Thomas hadn’t the heart to speak of it aloud, not to Ransom, and certainly not to Declan, as both of them seemed so stoic and manly in the face of death.
He watched Ransom laughing, smoking and playing cards with the other men who had disregarded every word Mr. Andrews had uttered from the stage. The band continued playing, all of them just sitting with their various instruments, playing on as if it were any other night.
“I want off this damned ship,” he whispered to the dog at his feet. “How about you, Varmint?”
The dog lifted its head and nodded successively as if he might actually understand Thomas Coogan.
“We’ll get to Murdoch; he may be having second thoughts as well. Lightoller’s a lost cause—a choir boy, but Murdoch’s the soft one. He talks a big game but in the end… .”
Just then Declan came back down the flowing staircase, his journal in hand. He came directly to Thomas and said, “I recovered it from Lightoller. He’s assured me it will survive the sinking if he has to take charge of it himself.”
“Good… good idea. Give it to Lightoller.”
“No, no. I’ve been working him for some time, and I convinced him that you’re the man for the job, Thomas.”
“Whatever do you mean?”
Declan placed both the book and the sabre tooth into Thomas’ hands.
“What? What’re you saying?”
Declan whispered while grimacing as if in pain, “Go to Officer Lightoller, port side boat deck. He’s already filling lifeboats with women and children. He’s expecting you.”
“I’m hardly a woman or a child, Declan!”
“No, you misunderstand. He’s had a horrible time of it, getting the crew to go along with things, despite captain’s orders. He believes himself clean of the creatures and plans to get on the last boat under his command himself, and he’s promised that he’ll take you along too.”
“But I thought Lightoller resolved?”
“Resolve falters for some.”
Thomas nodded. “We can’t all be heroes, can we now, Declan? So what about you?”
“Me? I’m going back to the freezer compartment where they’ve stacked every bloody diseased body found on board.”
“But why? The war’s over, Declan.”
“I mean to make certain nothing gets out of that freezer, not by anyone’s hand.”
“Don’t be crazy; come away with me.”
“No, I have to do this.”
“But why?”
“Its… the only sure way.”
“How do we know that the women and children on that final boat aren’t diseased? It would only take one to be contagious, and it starts all over again! On land somewhere.”
“We have to believe that at some point the carrier can reproduce no more, and in fact, that last fellow we found, when I cut him open, there was a poor showing indeed… looking like the early efforts we first saw back in Belfast.”
“You think the monster’s played out then?”
“I believe so, yes, weakened at least in terms of reproducing.”
“Come with me, Declan! No need to play the bloody hero. This is no time for dramatics and posturing. You’re a damn fine surgeon, a man the world needs.”
“The world needs a gatekeeper more this time ‘round. Suppose the carrier returns for even a handful of those eggs and makes it onto a lifeboat, and from there to New York? It will’ve all been for naught. Every bit of it!”
“There’s a guard on the damned freezer, remember?”
“Gone already—frightened as we all are.” He shrugged, “Poor fellow looking to save himself with the water rushing in.”
The two young surgeons looked long into one another’s eyes and embraced for the last time. In Thomas’ ear, Declan whispered, “Live on, Tommie—live well for me; live well and prosper! Ya bastard—become a fine old country doctor in the heartland of America, or back to Wales with ya.”
“Aye Wales and family, I suspect.”
“No New York or maybe even Ransom’s Chicago?”
“More likely home and family for me, after this.”
Varmint stood at Thomas’ leg now. Declan petted the dog again, saying, “Off with you both; Lightoller’s a softy. He’ll give the
dog space too if he can.”
“I don’t feel right about this, Declan; I should stay with you. You and Alastair… see it through to the end.”
“No, old friend. One of us needs to live on and keep the record of what really happened this night aboard Titanic alive.”
“Then you do it; it’s your bloody journal, it’s always been your bloody fight!”
“No, we’ve been Dumas’ Three Musketeers, we have!”
“And you are Aramis, me Athos!” Thomas replied with a wane smile.
“And Ransom’s been Porthos—our raucous brag-a-bout, anxious for a smoke and a drink!” joked Declan, but it didn’t work.
“Declan, brother, you-you have Rachel to think of, man.”
“She’s my greatest regret of all, your sister, my secret bride.”
“Then come with me,” Thomas pleaded.
“No , Tommie. It’s for you to do. My destiny is here. Take courage in living on to a ripe old age, as I take courage in doing what I must do—kill this thing once and for all.”
“And that’s what I’m to tell Rachel and your child? That you sacrificed yourself on the altar of Titanic?”
“To kill this thing once and for all,” he repeated. “To slam it with the last blow. I-I wish you could understand. Sometimes one’s fate is written, and we’ve no way to change it.”
With Varmint at his heels, Thomas took the gilded staircase two and three steps at a time, angry, frustrated, rushing now for the boat deck and Lightoller, with Declan’s journal and the ancient tooth in his hands. Watching his best friend and secret brother-in-law disappear, Declan bit his lip, fought back a tear, and steadied himself. He glanced in Ransom’s direction and wondered if he ought to ask him to back his play, but the old copper looked so happy and in his element that Declan balked at the idea. Ransom had already won a wonderful, shiny pair of dress shoes, followed by successive hands at the poker game. He still maintained control of four bottles of whiskey as well. Let this good man, this Porthos character, die happy and successful, he thought.
Declan stepped around the bar and grabbed a bottle of 90 proof Vodka and started for the bowels of the ship, heading for the freezer compartment, armed with the gun that he had secretly managed to lift from Ransom shortly before. Using the liquor and the gun, he meant to burn the remains of the bodies in the freezer, igniting the egg-sacs unless his will and his resolve gave out. A powerful sense of urgency motivated him.
THIRTY EIGHT
Former Chicago Police Inspector Alastair Ransom glanced up to find Thomas going off with the dog and the journal; he watched next as Declan had stepped behind the unsupervised bar for a bottle, and he caught a glimpse of the shimmering clear liquid—Vodka—and when he suddenly stood from the table, knocking over a chair. He’d seen the dark, metal object in Declan’s hand—a gun.
Ransom, knowing it gone, felt for his weapon in the now empty holster he’d strapped on when Murdoch had offered him the firearm.
His sudden action had all the other card players on their feet, each man with a weapon trained on him.
“I am unarmed, gentlemen!” he shouted, a part of his brain chastising him for not following through and getting himself shot dead here and now, a quick escape from death’s plan for him. “Bleedin’ kid’s stole my gun, gentlemen. It’s a sad day when your own good friend pickpocket’s a man. You’ll have to forgive me now.” He made a move to pick up his winnings, a matter of habit, when all the guns trained on him cocked.
One going by the name Klondike Konrath pointed his gun at the shoes on Ransom’s feet. Walker used his gun to indicate the winnings and the whiskey. “You have to give us a chance to win back our lost merchandise.”
Ransom frowned, shook his head, lifted his cane, and said, “Gents, I agree; you should be given a chance to win back my earnings. I’ll just take the shoes and—”
The others protested his sudden departure. “We let you put up the liquor for shillings, and now you’re going to walk off with our cash?”
“And my shoes?” asked Konrath.
“Without giving us a chance to win it back!” asked another he’d come to know as John Fitch the Fifth.
“I see I am outnumbered, gents, but it has been forever ago since I’ve a good bar fight, so let’s have at it!” he sent out a nose-crushing right fist into the closest one, Walker, sending him hurtling to the floor. As they were all drunk and stunned, the others stood for a moment in surprised agitation. One threw up his hands and backed off, but two others came at Ransom, one on either side, as Walker shouted, “Hold him for me, boys!”
Ransom kicked out at a chair and caught it just right at the crook of his foot, sending this handy weapon flying into their leader’s forehead before he could fully recover from the first blow. The chair hit Walker hard enough to knock him back to the floor.
Watching it all transpire, Architect Andrews smiled at the brawl aboard his sinking ship. It made as much sense as the band slipping into a rousing fight song to accompany the brawl aboard at a time like this. It made perfect sense.
Ransom dispatched the other two men on either side of him by side-stepping one’s blow to bring home a whiskey bottle to the other one’s jaw, whiskey and glass flying. This left only one man left standing other than Ransom, Konrath, who went for a small, concealed derringer. Ransom brought his hand around to clutch the gun hand, squeezing it so tight as to make the firearm drop. Both men then noticed that the bone-handled derringer was swept away by the angle of the floor. From her listing to the port side bow, everyone who understood anything about sailing knew now that Titanic, while advertised as unsinkable was in fact at this moment sinking.
Ransom quickly dispatched the fourth and final drunk with a single blow to the cranium when he whipped up his wolf’s head cane and struck the man in the jaw with it, stunning him on the upswing, but then on the downswing, he caught him as he expected—square to the back of the skull. With this, the job was done.
Ransom then rapped the table so hard with his cane that it created the sound of a gunshot. Unlike Andrews before him, Alastair got their attention. “I was about to say, gentlemen, you can divvy up my winnings among you. Take it all to hell with you, but I keep the bloody shoes.”
“W-What about the Whiskey?” asked Savile.
“Are ya all deaf and dumb?” shouted old Mr. Farley who was at the bar now and drinking straight from a fat brandy bottle. “Damn fools, the ship’s going down. There’s all the most expensive champagne, brandy, and whiskey you can drink right here, if only you had the time! But they gotta win it in a poker game to make it worth their while.”
“Best get drinking, fellas,” added Ransom, grabbing one of the whiskey bottles on the table and leaving the other two tilted at a dangerous angle.
“Just wanted a chance to earn back what you won from us,” shouted Walker after struggling to his feet under the influence atop a slanted floor. But Ransom had exited the nearest side door for the promenade, looking in all directions for Declan.
He wondered what Declan was up to as the young man left carrying a bottle of Vodka of all things. The lad looked dejected enough to get besotted and use the gun on himself. Now Ransom raced to catch Declan, fearing it’d be too late if he did not intervene. Despite everything, his raucous lifestyle and all the railing he’d ever done at God, mankind, Mother Nature, and now this monster on Titanic, Alastair still felt that suicide, above all things, was the worst thing a man could do—on even footing with murder. He had himself killed other men both in the line of duty and off duty, but he felt he’d never killed a man who hadn’t had it coming—like that godless maniac Chicago reporters dubbed The Phantom of the World’s Fair.
He raced to the deck from which they’d come, thinking Declan on his way to the top where he would dramatically put a bullet through his head and keel over the side, plunging into the frigid ocean below, but he found no sign of young Declan, here topside where the panic was now palpable.
Try as he might amid the crowd,
he could not find Declan. He did however, run into Lightoller who was arguing with the same woman who had been afraid to cross a gangplank at Cherbourg from the cargo steamer, the one that Ransom had helped along at the time.
On seeing Ransom, the lady shouted, “If I can take the arm of this gentleman, I will do my best to board, sir. Otherwise, I go back to my berth and wait there.”
Charles Lightoller turned to see who it might be and the two came face to face. “Ah, Constable, it’s you.”
“Yes… looking for Declan Irvin; have you seen him?”
“No… no! Rather busy, you see.”
“Please, sir?” came the lady, her arm extended to Alastair. He took it and guided her across the one and a half-foot gap between Titanic’s rail, over which they must step from a ladder, to the rocking lifeboat which was currently less than one-third full. In the boat, a crewman was trying desperately to balance out the weight of passengers, telling everyone where to sit.
“Keep her steady there, man! Keep the boat steady!” ordered Lightoller of his men on board. “And keep in tight around the ship. Don’t venture too far! Do you understand?”
Ransom peered down into the boat from where he stood helping the young lady; he could feel her terror racing through him; she was trembling so hard. Helping her aboard and getting those in the boat to take hold of her, Ransom caught sight of Varmint and beside him, at the tiller with his arm draped around the dog, sat a glum Thomas Coogan who pretended not to see Alastair, or was he trying not to be seen? Ransom frowned but made no remarks to Thomas, instead turning to make his way back onto the deck and away from here when he stopped, turned, and made for the life boat in a rush instead. Lightoller placed a gun to his head, cocked it; ready to fire, he shouted, “Sorry but women and children first, Mr. Ransom, sir.”
“I just want a word with your man at the tiller.”
“Is that it? I swear if you leap into that boat as several others have done, I will shoot you and they can put your carcass over the side when the boat is lowered. The last big man to make me angry broke a child’s ribs, he did, and there’s no getting him out of the boat short of shooting him.”
Titanic 2012 (inspector alastair ransom) Page 48
