by Marino, Andy
At the far end of the bustling line, he found that in addition to the kitchen annex on this level, runners were also receiving trays from dumbwaiters sent down from the deck above. Nico’s Café—Delmonico’s first-class cousin—was used for Automat supply at peak hours. He began to rethink his situation. He’d planned on slipping behind the scenes, grabbing a tray or two to complete his delivery boy disguise, and heading back out among the passengers. But if he could hitch a ride up and sneak out the back of Nico’s, he’d be practically at the entrance to the bridge.
A rough hand on his shoulder nearly made him strike out blindly. He caught himself in time and tried to act like he belonged, averting his eyes as a team leader barked an order and handed him a tub full of food-smeared plates to be washed. The man, whose apron was splashed with a single dot of tomato sauce in the area of his belly button, began rattling off numbers to Hollis’s new coworkers as they hurried past. Hollis struggled to see over the top of the enormous tub. When he reached the end of the line, a pair of hands took it away. Hollis raised the brim of his cap for a better look around.
“These are dishes,” said the runner who’d taken his tub, as if dishes were the last thing he was expecting.
Hollis ignored him and scanned the row of elevators.
“Don’t you turn your back on me. What the hell am I supposed to do with these? Hey!”
Hollis had to stop the runner from doing whatever the Automat crew did when somebody screwed up the chain of dish command.
“Shhh, it’s okay. I’m sorry. Give them back, please.” Hollis extended his arms, trying to stay meek and apologetic behind his hat.
“No, it ain’t okay. Wait a minute.” The runner, who had a few years and about fifty pounds on Hollis, narrowed an eye while the other spiraled lazily. That gave it away—he’d been a busboy at Nico’s on the Secret Wish, where Hollis had eaten lemon meringue almost every night.
“I’ll be damned! Hollis Dakota, bringin’ me the dishes. I know somebody who’s looking for you.”
9
“SHHH,” HOLLIS WHISPERED, glancing around. The runner didn’t seem to care about the bosses seeing him idle. He just cradled the tub and shifted his weight. The dishes clinked. Behind them, a dumbwaiter slid open, revealing a steaming tray of pot pies balanced in a pyramid. Hollis grabbed the tray and held it out to someone passing by.
“Fifty-two,” he said, and the tray was taken away. “Who’s looking for me?”
“Your mama,” the runner said.
“Oh … she is?”
“This fella who popped back here earlier to give us the story with the weather, he also said that you’d gone missing and Mrs. Dakota was worried sick, and if we spotted you, we were supposed to tell a boss, who’s supposed to report it. And also we gotta have you stay put. Did you run away or something?”
Hollis wondered how far the alert had spread. It was probably for the best that he hadn’t known about it until right now, or he’d still be hiding out in Delia’s room. A wave of indecision made him want to climb into the tub with the dirty dishes and curl up.
“What’s your name?”
“George.”
“Okay, George. I need your help.”
“So.” The nonlazy eye was searing into him in a way that made him deeply uncomfortable. “You left her all alone, huh?”
Hollis was speechless. How did George know that he’d abandoned his mother?
“I get it,” George said. “I ran away myself. That’s how I know about you, because I can read it on your face. This one eye has the power of two. It sees things better.”
“Please don’t tell anyone I was here.”
George looked from side to side and lowered his voice to an absurd stage whisper. “You were never here.”
“I need to get up to Nico’s without anyone seeing me—think you can help me with that?”
Without another word, George opened a dumbwaiter and traded his dishes for a heaping plate of croissants. Then he led Hollis down the row to another dumbwaiter with a scrawled note stuck on its door: OUT OF ORDER. Without even checking to see if anyone was looking, he slid the square door up and ushered Hollis and the croissants inside the cramped space.
“Isn’t this one broken?” Hollis protested as the door slammed shut and he was engulfed in darkness. After a surprisingly smooth rail-and-pulley ascension, he thumped to a stop and emerged. His plate was two croissants lighter. He had to will himself not to devour a third, or else the “delivery” would be awfully meager. Now the OUT OF ORDER sign made sense: this was Nico’s wine cellar. Every available inch of space was filled. To get to the door, he would have to wade through a cityscape of corked tops. This was a bad omen: the last time he’d been in such a room, it had been a disaster.
* * *
I THINK WE LOST ’EM!
Rob struggled with the door handle. They were in a passageway beneath the ballroom. Sounds of the gala reverberated through the floor, but the footsteps pounding at their heels had gotten farther away. Hollis’s shoulder, which had supported the flat end of the propeller blade during their mad dash, was covered in thick smears of chocolate.
Come on, come on!
Finally, the knob turned and Rob slammed his hip against the door, dragging Hollis inside. But he moved too quickly. All four feet six inches of chocolate slipped from Hollis’s shoulder, leaving a melted trail along his ear and cheek. Struggling to hold on, Rob fumbled the propeller into the edge of a wine rack. Hollis realized with mounting terror that they were surrounded by hundreds of bottles with French labels.
He closed his eyes to avoid seeing them shatter—the noise was bad enough.
Time to go!
Rob grabbed his arm. Hollis didn’t open his eyes until they were out in the hall, just in time to see the irate pastry chef and two ballroom ushers skid around the corner—followed by a new pursuer. Hollis’s heart sank. It was his father. He looked to be in a state of total disbelief, as if Hollis had just been caught robbing a bank in an evening gown.
* * *
NOW, AS HOLLIS crept past the bottles in Nico’s wine cellar, he ate a third croissant just to distract himself from the memory. With one hand on the door handle, he couldn’t keep from begging his father to please be there waiting for him when he opened it.
But of course there was only a kitchen full of chefs and runners, all gleaming steel countertops and quiet precision. The nearest cook had his broad back to Hollis and was hacking at a mound of skinned flesh with a cleaver. Hollis shut the door soundlessly behind him and hoisted the plate as if he were a waiter, keeping the brim of his hat low and the croissants in front of his face.
“Twelve-nineteen!” called a chef from across the kitchen. Two delivery boys entered through a set of swinging doors, received a pair of dome-topped platters, and moved fluidly back out before the doors had even stopped flapping.
Room twelve-nineteen, thought Hollis. Now that he was back in familiar territory, his mind was practically a passenger manifest. Julius Germain: spiritualist, author, publisher. Croissants held aloft, Hollis marched across the tiled floor.
“Where you headed with those?”
“Seventy-four eleven.” Hollis mumbled, giving the delivery door a businesslike shove with his free hand. At the end of the hall, he was greeted by an enormous portrait of twin girls holding cats. He took a left and found himself awash in humid air—someone had left the door to the first-class steam room ajar. A bright green tropical vine had unfurled itself out into the hallway as if it were mounting an escape. Hollis nudged it back inside to join the rest of the transplanted Brazilian foliage.
When he reached the end of a long corridor decorated with Louis XIV wall sconces, he had the urge to fire off a message to Rob—made it to the bridge!—but didn’t want to break their silence until he had something better to report. Then he peeked around the corner and suddenly felt like a little boy playing a grown-up game.
The bridge was guarded by a pair of mismatched crewmen. One had scra
ggly hair tucked back beneath his cap, a wrinkled uniform, and two pistols in low-slung holsters. The other was well-groomed, with the square-jawed face of an actor and a perfectly round eye patch. He pulled a cigarette from his front pocket, placed it between his lips, and smacked his partner on the shoulder. The unkempt man fumbled with a match, striking it against the side of his pant leg until it caught on the third try.
Hollis hid behind a credenza full of sky-boots arranged behind glass doors—an Automat for shoes. He shoved a final croissant into his mouth, pulled off the apron and cap, and stuffed the disguise into an empty cabinet, along with the plate. The smoking crewman had given him a better, simpler idea. He fumbled in the satchel. Delia always had long-forgotten knickknacks stuffed in every closet, pocket, and knapsack she had used. This particular bag was no exception. Hollis retrieved a ragged handful and spread it out on the carpet.
A hardened piece of spruce chewing gum.
Several faded picture cards with images of holy men and women smiling benevolently; the back of each card said KNOW YOUR SAINTS—Property of St. Theresa’s Industrial School for Girls.
Two stick figures made of twisted wire that reminded him eerily of voodoo dolls.
A bone-white business card, upon which was printed a single black beetle that resembled the Dakota logo without being quite the same.
And finally, just what he needed: a book of matches labeled Secret Wish, leftovers from their last voyage. There was no better diversion than smoke. He flipped open the paper lid.
Empty.
Suddenly his transmitter began to click, sounding like pistol shots in the silence of the hallway. He hugged the satchel to his chest and slid beneath the credenza. Heavy footsteps approached. His heart pounded almost as loud as the sounder, which clicked a message:
CAREFUL SHIP CRAWLING WITH FAKES
Thanks for the warning, he thought.
From his hiding spot, Hollis peered out at one pair of scuffed boots, followed by a second. The long piece of furniture creaked as one of the men leaned against it.
“What the heck was that?”
“Wasn’t nothin’. Noise of the ship, is all.”
“Let’s get back.”
“Well, lemme finish this.”
“Those things stink, Jasper. Anybody ever tell you that?”
“Anybody ever tell you you stink, Bill? How ’bout you let me smoke in peace for once. You’re like a complaint factory runnin’ overtime.”
From his hiding spot, Hollis had to agree with Bill: Jasper’s acrid smoke had begun to fill the hallway and was burning his eyes. A sharp and insistent tickle scraped the back of his throat. He stifled a cough. His whole head felt itchy. It would be such sweet, instant relief to sneeze.…
He pinched his nose and clamped a palm over his mouth until the urge subsided.
“I’m tellin’ you,” said Bill. “Soon as this is over, I’m buying me a bona fide ranch. Montana, maybe. Or Wyoming.”
“You Yankees don’t know the first thing about the life of a rancher.”
“I’ll hire some good old country boys to do the work while I enjoy a never-ending river of fine spirits from my porch swing.”
“I truly cannot believe how many of you Yanks signed up for this here ride.”
“Not for the ride, Jasper. We ain’t aboard this death trap for our health.”
“What about the cause, then? You with us on that?”
“Sure, sure. South will rise, and all that. Long as I get my cut of the ransom, South can rise all day and all night till the end of time, for all I care.”
Hollis wanted desperately to continue eavesdropping—were they holding his mother for ransom?—but this might be his only chance to travel undetected. He scuttled backward beneath the credenza, silently begging Rob not to transmit another message. The shuffle of his knees and toes against the carpet was drowned out by the escalating pitch of the men’s argument. He wiggled around the corner as Bill said, “What’s my sister got to do with any of this?”
Jasper erupted into a fit of hacking coughs, while Hollis found himself in front of the unguarded door to the bridge. He pulled it open a crack and peeked straight down the central walkway to the windows, where the sky had turned as gray and flat as a stage backdrop. Strange crewmen glided back and forth across the aisle, emerging from one great chugging machine only to disappear behind another. Hollis slipped inside the door and darted behind the stabilization gauge. Entranced despite the circumstances, he reached up and slid his hand along one of the smooth glass tubes. Inside, the suspended silver ball hovered slightly left of center: the Wendell Dakota was tilting starboard. The other tubes curved around him like a rib cage, measuring the invisible axis that stretched from bow to stern. He crept forward to the front of the gauge, where a switchboard arranged a coiled mess of wires into rows that fed a bank of telephones marked PROP TOWER 1, LIFT CHAMBER, TURBINE 3, and a dozen more onboard locations.
He eased around the edge of the machine and hugged the wall, running toward the front windows with his knees bent and his upper body in a low slant. When he was almost there, he squeezed sideways down a narrow, dusty space between the backs of two long chalkboards that weren’t quite pushed together. He wiped away the sudden mess of dust and cobwebs that coated his sweaty face. At the end of the chalkboard tunnel, he managed to contort himself so that he could peek out into the center of the bridge.
Ten feet away, a man wearing a crisp uniform with gold trim around the cuffs and collar sat in a chair with his back to Hollis. His hands were tied behind him. His hair was as white as a blank sheet of Miss Betzengraf’s writing paper.
Captain Quincy.
The Wendell Dakota had officially been hijacked.
10
HOLLIS COUNTED two dozen armed men on the bridge—porters, stewards, low-ranking officers, and telephone operators. And according to Rob’s transmission, more were swarming the corridors of the ship like the deadly viruses in Journey to the Center of a Human Being, the only Julius Germain book he’d ever managed to slog through.
Captain Quincy flexed his gnarled fingers and struggled in vain to free his wrists. Hollis couldn’t help but picture his mother’s hands scraped raw against a tightening twist of rope.
Suddenly, Jefferson Castor appeared, hands also clasped behind his back, but comfortably, like he was out for a stroll. Hollis rubbed his eyes, convinced the stress of the last few hours was playing tricks on him. Castor stopped in front of Captain Quincy, regarding him as if he were a tedious chore to be avoided until it absolutely had to be dealt with. Hollis looked from one man to the other. This was no hallucination, and yet he couldn’t quite grasp the meaning of what he was seeing.
Beneath the chalkboard to his left, several pairs of black boots gathered. Someone began tapping the board with a metal pointer. Hollis shrank back into the shadows.
Castor pulled a hand from behind his back and raised it across his body, letting it waver for a moment alongside his head. Then he brought it down in a vicious backhand across Quincy’s face. The old man’s head whipped to the side. The muted crack of knuckle on cheekbone gave the moment a sickening clarity, and Hollis knew exactly what he was seeing: his stepfather had taken the ship by force. Castor shook his wrist and winced.
Quincy spit blood and growled, “That all you got?”
Castor nodded at one of his men, who drew a pistol and pressed the barrel against the captain’s temple. Rather than flinch away, Quincy seemed to push his head into the weapon, driving the hijacker’s hand back a few inches and forcing him to apply even more pressure. Hollis pictured a braver version of himself running from his hiding spot, wrenching the gun from the man, taking control of the bridge. In a series of rapid-fire fantasies, he was freeing the captain, testifying at Castor’s trial, getting his picture taken for the front page of—
Dit dit dit dit.
His transmitter crackled. The men on the other side of the chalkboard fell silent.
HEY DAKOTA ANY SIGN OF YOUR MO
THER?
Nope, he thought. But I found your father.
Hollis had started to edge back through the narrow gap when a head wreathed in a mane of hair appeared ahead of him.
“You there!” The crewman pointed straight at Hollis as if there were other kids sneaking around the bridge. The man turned to get Castor’s attention.
Hollis’s mind hurtled through several stupid ideas and came to rest on one sure thing: if he stayed in this chalkboard tunnel, he would certainly be trapped and caught. He changed direction and crawled toward the man, bursting out inches from his legs before scrambling to his feet. The man spun and swiped at him, missing the strap of the satchel by an inch as Hollis ducked sideways. Castor froze in the middle of buttoning his blazer.
“Hollis!”
The man holding the gun to Captain Quincy’s temple transferred his aim.
My stepfather is about to have me shot, Hollis thought with an oddly calm inner voice. Jefferson Castor, the man who just last week took him on a sightseeing trip to the private sky-dock atop the Statue of Liberty’s crown. Moving automatically, Hollis cut left past a table full of open books and maps, around which a few hijackers were gathered. One of them, he was surprised to see, was a tall, willowy lady wearing reading glasses. Another one managed to yell, “Hold it!”
Hollis clenched his teeth, waiting for the bullet to tear through the flesh of his back. He’d once overheard a sky-dock security guard say that being shot was like getting hit with a searing-hot sledgehammer, and he was fully prepared to be knocked off his feet by a fiery blow. Instead, Castor barked orders.
“Alive, I need him alive! He doesn’t leave the bridge!”
Hollis heard the scrape of wood against the floor, followed by a clattering scuffle. He risked a glance over his shoulder. Captain Quincy had tripped Castor, and they were flailing together in a heap along with the chair.
