"This afternoon. You went off with them. Morton and Lola and the security guy. I've been asking around. The black guy, his name is Sugarman, the head security guy."
"Sugarman, yes. He's a friend."
"So you're security too."
"Not exactly."
"But you carry a weapon," she said. She lifted the leather sap and let it flop back on the bed.
"What're you doing here, Monica?"
"I need security," she said. "A lot of it."
"Doesn't everyone."
She cocked an arm, rested her head on her hand, reaching out to him with the other.
"I'd settle for a weapon," she said. She touched his cheek with a finger. It was cool and seemed to be trembling, or maybe that was him. "A gun would be good. Would you do that, let a close friend of yours borrow your gun for a while? Personal protection, just until we get to Nassau."
"There aren't any guns."
She traced the stubbly line of his jaw, came to his chin, drew a tingling line down to his Adam's apple. He reached out, took hold of her arm, and laid it firmly on the bed between them.
"Sure there are. There are always guns."
"Not on this boat. No guns. These are all we have. Meat cleavers, truncheons."
She took her hand away. "You're kidding me. No guns?" Thorn shook his head.
She blew out a breath that she seemed to have been holding for hours. She eased away and lay on her back and one arm snaked up slowly to cover her breasts, as if the drug she'd been on had suddenly worn off and now she was aware of her nakedness.
Saying quietly "Did you tell anybody you saw me? Does my father know?"
"I told Sugarman, but it wasn't a high priority. That's as far as it went."
She stared up into the darkness.
"You thought you had to seduce me to get me to help?"
"You're a man, aren't you?"
She drew a breath, dragged the edge of the bedspread up and drew it over her. He could hear her swallow.
"I know what's going on," she said quietly. Her voice changing, losing the last of its moxie. "I know why he's doing what he's doing. I know what he's planning to do next."
"Who're we talking about?"
"Butler Jack," she said. "The rogue elephant. Who else?"
"How do you know that?"
"It's all written down. I've got the paper."
***
He wasn't crazy. He wasn't a psychopath. Not mad. Not nuts or loony or irrational. None of those things. He was sane. He had a damn good logical reason for doing everything he was doing. He had a plan, he had values and codes and beliefs and doctrines. He believed in God. He believed in Jesus Christ. He believed in driving sober, in the value of team sports. He was a good citizen. He supported the poor and underprivileged. He believed in Gandhi and Mother Teresa. The President of the United States. The Constitution, the Gettysburg Address. We hold these truths to be self-evident, and all that.
There had been blood, yes. There had been murder and violence and the ugliness of death. Yes, it was true. These things were true. But that didn't mean he was insane or psychopathic or had lost touch with the difference between right and wrong, good and evil. He knew exactly what he was doing. You could be bad and not be psychopathic. You could be a villain without being nuts. That was hooey. That was bullshit. Result of too many temporary insanity defenses. These days no one could commit a crime without some lawyer calling them insane.
But Butler Roger Jack was not nuts. Not schizo, not a maniac. He knew what he had to do, and he was doing it. Pure and simple. He'd gladly sit down and take whatever tests anybody wanted to throw at him, the cubes, the multiple choice, say a word, tell them the first thing that comes into his mind, the ink spatter. Yeah, he'd do any of those.
Sure, there'd been extreme moments in the last twenty-four hours, losing Monica, his uranium, the pressure in his brain like a crashing jet, when maybe for a few minutes he'd been off in some La-La place. The synapses shorting. But that was over. And name someone who hadn't been insane like that for a few minutes sometime in their life. Losing their faith, cutting loose from the thing that had guided them all their life. Show him someone who hadn't known that. If that was insane, everyone was insane.
But the killing wasn't insane. It was ugly. It was vile. It was evil bubbling up through the ground like toxic waste. No question. But evil wasn't insane. Evil wasn't nuts or crazy. Evil was necessary. It was what kept good from growing too powerful. Saving the world from turning white and pure and sterile. Evil stirred the pot, kept it percolating. Without it there was no change, no movement, no growth, nothing. Pain, violence, blood, those were the twin sisters of change. Hard change, rapid change. Revolution.
Look at Jesus. There was a time when people had called him evil. Throwing the moneychangers out of the temple, hanging with whores, making the lame walk, preaching revolution. They said he was evil and they hung his hide up to dry. In the world he walked through they were right. He committed violence on their safe and happy arrangements. He brought down empires and shook the foundations of business as usual. They fought him, killed him, fed his followers to the lions. They didn't think of themselves as evil.
Now it was the other way. All new arrangements. A different status quo. One century's evil was another century's good. They called themselves Christians, but look at the world. Look at how people lived. Who got thrown to the lions now? One car at the front of the train with velvet wallpaper, stocked with china plates, silver dinnerware, dishwashers, microwaves, the wine flowing, the steaks, the lobster, while the rest of the world rode in the cattle cars. Straw and dung. Lucy, Ben Aram. Look at them.
Butler Jack wasn't insane. That was what they'd like to believe. Like there was a disease at the root of all he'd accomplished. Like he was just some aberration that could be cured with drugs or extensive counseling. As if to say that all his hard work, his years of focus didn't count.
Standing at the bottom of the stairs, Crew Deck, ten feet from the door to the infirmary where they'd put Murphy and Sugarman. Trying to resurrect them.
He stood there a minute thinking. The hallway was still.
He had killed. He had brought on death. He had raised the stakes, more than just money now. He was risking his own death. Wondering about that. He knew a lot, but he didn't know this. How it felt to die. Probably it wasn't special. Like most things. A big buildup, then nothing. Like dropping a stone down a well. You stand there waiting for the plunk, but nothing happens. No noise, nothing. You wait and wait. But there's no water in the well. Because nothing happens. Everybody saying how extraordinary this was, or that was. But it always turned out the same way. All the great secrets and mysteries, they were never anything special. Not love and probably not death. Nothing special. No plunk.
Butler Jack squared his shoulders, drew a long breath and blew it out. He walked down the hallway. His balls hurt, but his blood was glowing.
When he turned into the infirmary door, the first thing he saw was the meat cleaver.
CHAPTER 24
Sugarman knew his brother was coming to kill him. He saw a little movie of it in his head. With sound and everything. The clatter in the waiting room. The grunt, the moan, McDaniels' heavy body falling to the floor. The squeak of rubber soles headed toward the ward. Sugarman lying there, waiting for his killer to arrive. Seeing him enter the room, come over to the bed, the glitter of his knife. The knife flashing down.
Then the quick little movie would replay. No intermission, no coming attractions, just that loop, over and again. Only problem was, Sugarman wasn't sure if the story was set in the future or the past. Either some telepathic message warning him to get ready, or just a dying brain cell screaming out its final image.
The loop repeated. A man coming into his room, standing over his bed, looking down. The knife rising into the air. Sugarman watching him. Looking up at the man, seeing the shine of a knife blade. His heart hammering, Sugarman unable to move. A blip of Thorn in there. Thorn out of seq
uence, Sugarman's arm slung over Thorn's shoulder. A battlefield scene, fallen comrade helped from the field. Then back to the footsteps squeaking, rubber soles against the high polish of the infirmary floor.
Butler Jack on his way. And the dream told him what to do. Gave him a chance to rehearse. Roll out of bed, slide underneath the bedsprings. The dream warned him. Which was impossible, of course, because dreams were just your own brain doing its little jig of nonsense, a wacky movie that meant nothing half the time and the rest of the time meant something you'd never figure out.
But this dream felt like it was coming from somewhere else, piped into his head from an outside source. A whisper across the dark universe. Though that too was something Sugarman didn't swallow. Whispers from above. Sugarman's universe was too practical for that. What you saw was what you got. No ghosts, no goblins, no guardian angels. Fun to watch in movies, but not real. Not in Sugarworld.
On the other hand, Sugarman had never had a heart attack before. Never paid a call on heaven like he'd done yesterday, so he didn't know what new gifts he might have acquired, the holy winds of Heaven blowing through his soul. The fact was, the dream told him exactly what to do. Showed him without words. Put it into the easy sign language of a movie dream. Coaching him. Giving him an idea he never would have had on his own. Get under the bed, roll onto his back, reach out, grab Butler Jack's ankles, yank. Lever his shins against the bed frame, send him sprawling. The movie showing him the physics of it. Like the universe had chosen sides, decided for reasons of its own to save his ass. Save his worthless, sorry ass.
The clatter in the waiting room. The grunt, the groan, the clumsy sound of McDaniels' body slumping to the floor. The squealing footsteps headed toward the ward where he lay. A whisper across the dark universe.
***
Butler raised the meat cleaver above his head and chunked it into the corner of the front desk, left it there, stepped over the security guard, and went down the hallway toward the small ward to visit the sick and dying. He had the dagger and he had his zapper. He felt himself straighten as he walked down the short hallway. Feeling confident, secure, carrying his head erect. His balls still ached. They ached every second. They ached in the seconds between the seconds. But Butler Jack was at peace with the pain. He was at peace with his loss of Monica. At peace with his destiny. However bad it might be.
***
Dream, reality, dark whisper across the universe. Whatever the hell it was, it was happening. It was happening as clearly as anything ever happened. With all the little gasps and heartbeats and shadows and stutters of a real moment, the right flesh tones, everything. Sugarman lying there in bed, knowing now he should have obeyed the dream, gotten up, crawled under the bed. Wishing he'd done it, but he'd debated it too long, once again letting his brain interfere with his instincts, missing the moment, and now it was happening.
"Hello, brother."
Sugarman didn't stir, staring back into the shadowy eyes.
"That's who you are, isn't it, my brother? Your name is Sugarman. My mother's name before I was born. I know that. I saw it in her things, her papers. I prowled through her desk and I saw the documents. A marriage license. A divorce agreement. Sugarman. That was her first husband, when she was a young girl. A black man like you. Her first husband, Sugarman."
Butler Jack was smiling, a broad empty grin like Sampson's.
"My mother hired you to stop me, didn't she? That's why you're here. To stop your brother. Kill him."
Sugarman looked nothing like Butler Jack. Nothing except the nose, straight and delicate. A little around the mouth. But the rest was different. The eyes were smaller. Butler's lips had a girlish preciseness. Lola's influence. Lovely Lola.
Butler moved closer to the bed, his thighs touching the mattress.
"Covalent bonds," Butler said. "That's what we are. You and I are chemically connected, sharing pairs of electrons. Two things, but one thing. The black fish chasing the white fish. Interdependent. Do you understand me, Sugarman? Do you hear me?"
Butler Jack raised the dagger. He raised the zapper. Both hands sparkling.
"We're the same. We're covalent. The black fish has the tail of the white fish in its mouth. And the white fish has the black fish's tail in its mouth. Round and round they go. Who is going to swallow first?"
***
"What's the Juggernaut?"
"It's a ship," Monica said. "It was in Baltimore, in dry dock, Bethlehem Shipyards. We flew up there yesterday, early afternoon. I guess it was yesterday. Seems like weeks ago. I stayed in the cab while Butler went to the ship and came back in a half hour. I don't know what he did."
"We can probably guess."
She'd put on the pair of sage chino shorts, a V-neck long-sleeved jersey. White. Thorn watched her dress. The clothes were simple but she did something to them, gave them flair. The shape of Monica's naked body was still radiant in his head. Storing it away in the long-term memory banks, tingling there.
"He sabotaged the Juggernaut somehow," Monica said. "That what you mean?"
Thorn nodded. He studied her a moment. The woman was prettier than he'd thought at first. It was a good deal more serious than pretty. Large blue eyes, bone structure impeccably proportioned. But it was not the dull-eyed, skeletal beauty of fashion models or movie queens. Her face was trim but vigorous, clear of makeup, a sharp glitter in the eyes as though there was much in the world that intrigued her, much she had left to say with those generous lips. A little curl in the right corner of the upper lip, a wisecrack mouth. There was also a delicate tension in the muscles around her eyes as if she were constantly steeling herself for a harsh noise or very bad news.
Thorn asked her what kind of ship the Juggernaut was.
"A tanker, I think he said. Yeah, ultra-large tanker."
"An oil tanker."
"I suppose so."
"Great," he said. "Fucking great."
She was sitting on the edge of the bed, slapping the blackjack against her palm. Thorn was still lying down. He picked up the sheet of typing paper and read the list again.
"Your name is Thorn. Is that first or last?"
"Both," he said.
"Thorn," she said, vaguely amused. She said it again. His name sounding exotic in her mouth as if she'd discovered a syllable no one else had found.
"Who was that on the phone? Your girlfriend?"
"Ex."
"Just ended?"
"Couple of days ago," he said. "Though I don't feel as bad as should."
She looked at him, waiting.
He said, "I'm processing it too fast. Like it wasn't rooted as deep as I'd thought."
She nodded, gave him a shy, sympathetic smile that pinged in his bloodstream. Thorn, the sexual simpleton. All dusted off, ready for action.
"So what happened?" he said. "You and Butler were working together, going to pull off this hijack scheme, it starts getting scary and now you want out?"
"I was with him for exactly one day," she said. "He came and got me where I was hiding out, gave me a load of bullshit. I fell for it."
"You were attracted to him?"
She considered it a moment.
"Maybe I was," she said. "But I'm definitely over it now."
"Where was this? Where were you hiding?"
"Where I've been the last few years in the Keys. Sugarloaf Retreat."
"I know that place." Thorn nodded.
"Little motel with a dolphin in the lagoon, up the road from Mangrove Mama's."
"Yeah," she said. "Butler showed up a couple of days ago, said he had a plan in mind that was going to hurt my father. That interested me. I went along. But I had no idea."
"You're the 'her.' 'Locate her.' 'Study her.' "
"I'm the her."
"So this is about you? This whole thing, to impress you?"
"It's more than that. But yeah, he had a crush on me when we were kids, never got over it. It grew in his head, became something important. An obsession, I suppose."
&n
bsp; Thorn nodded. He could imagine her as a kid. He could imagine not getting over her.
"What kind of security guy are you, no gun?"
"I don't need a gun."
"You're that good?"
He gave her the brightest smile he could muster. "I guess I'll have to be."
"You're going to need more than this, this blackjack."
"Think of it as a truncheon, it's scarier."
"Oh, great. Another word freak."
She crossed her legs, bounced the top one to a fast tune. Thorn looked past her out the window. A distant stab of lightning, gone so quickly it barely registered. A thunderstorm in the chart-less dark.
Out on the open water the only landmarks were the squalls. Small islands of weather swirling into view, their violent ceremonies unfolding quickly, then moving past and disappearing into the gray, anonymous distances. It came as a mild shock for Thorn to see that spear of lightning out across the stretch of empty water. He'd forgotten for a while that he was at sea.
For this was like no boat Thorn had ever been on. A giant hotel with its casino and vast nightclub, a half-dozen bars and restaurants, several pools, jogging track and spa and gym and library and assorted boutiques, its marble hallways and brass and neon and chrome. So big he'd lost the scent and taste of the sea locked away inside the laminated, veneered, ceramic-tiled rooms. Forgotten that he was not in some tasteless resort but afloat on the mile-high ocean. Subject to the same inexorable laws as any sailor in any vessel.
When he drew back to the moment, Monica's eyes were fastened to his, a wry smile, as if she'd caught him muttering confessions in his sleep.
He cleared his throat, squeezed the bridge of his nose. "So when you disappeared, all that fuss, the posters, all that, it was no kidnapping after all? You just ran off?"
"I was in college, about to graduate. It all got to be too much. My father, the way he was, so domineering, managing my life, every detail, my boyfriends, everything. Then my mother's suicide. I just wanted to start over. Get away from my father. Wipe out the past, make a fresh start. Do it on my own."
Buzz Cut Page 24
