McClendon's Syndrome (v1.1)

by Robert Frezza

  “Hey, stop! Not so rough! Maybe I don’t remember so good!” Clyde drew his legs up, so we lifted him and carried him down the corridor to the bridge, where we plopped him into one of the jump seats beside a completely befuddled Ironsides.

  “What! Where’d he come from?” Davie Lloyd asked.

  “Oh, man. My memory’s gone. I don’t remember so good,” Clyde told him.

  “You came out of a vegetable bin, Clyde. Let’s start with that,” I prompted.

  “Bernie, keep your eyes on the control panel,” McHugh growled. “You, Clyde, maybe we should break off a few of your fingers to help you remember.”

  “You are not a very nice lady!” Clyde observed with alarm, which was probably the first completely truthful thing he’d said in a while.

  “Who’s this guy? What is going on here?” Ironsides asked someone.

  “He’s a goddamn stowaway, and he probably offed Frido,” McHugh said.

  “What’s a probably offrido?” Clyde asked.

  “Huh? Who are you!” Davie Lloyd demanded.

  “Me? Hey, man, name’s Obediah Witherspoon,” Clyde said. He looked at me and added hastily, “But my friends call me Clyde.”

  “Clyde you are,” I said.

  “Ken, back there did you say this guy tried to pick your pocket on Schuyler’s?” McHugh asked.

  I nodded.

  “Oh, no!” Clyde volunteered hastily. “Just a misunderstanding. The lady with the blond hair, she got it all straightened out.”

  Ironsides was still having trouble following the conversation. “Who is this guy?” he asked plaintively.

  “He’s a stowaway who tried to pick Ken’s pocket. He must have slipped on board the shuttle,” McHugh explained. “He must have done the job on Frido.”

  Comprehension dawned in Davie Lloyd’s face. “You were the extra seventy kilos on the shuttle!” He waved his fist. “Do you know what you cost me?”

  “Hang on, Davie, it’s only money. Okay, Clyde, what are you doing on board this ship?” I asked. Clyde hesitated. “Why don’t we ask Catarina to come up? It might jog his memory if she explained to him that it’s traditional to toss stowaways out the air lock.”

  “Oh, yeah, man! I remember real good, now!” Clyde said.

  The problem rapidly became getting Clyde to shut up. The way he explained it, his little encounter with Catarina and me had left him in a slightly nervous state, and he had subsequently had an unsuccessful business encounter with a large gentleman. The large gentleman was apparently a personal acquaintance of several policemen and was considerably less understanding than Catarina. Feeling the need to take air, Clyde had recollected Catarina mentioning a ten o’clock shuttle which would take him off-planet and had acted promptly.

  “I’m just an impulsive guy,” he explained.

  An hour’s worth of questions alternating with threats failed to shake him from his story or turn up more than the usual inconsistencies. Questions concerning Frido met with uncomprehending looks. Bernie kept swivelling his head around to look but sensibly stayed quiet, which would have been out of character had McHugh not been standing within easy reach.

  McHugh finally motioned Ironsides and me to step outside in the corridor. She gave us a puzzled look. “Am I missing something? Is this guy for real? I mean the way he talks.”

  I shook my head. “Not a chance. But I still don’t think he killed Frido.”

  “Well, I think maybe he done it,” Ironsides said.

  McHugh, who was a less than happy camper, snapped back, “You’re as much of a squirrel as he is!”

  “I think it’s all an act!” Ironsides shouted.

  I stepped in front of Annalee so she wouldn’t be tempted to take a punch. “Hold it, gang. Let me try something.”

  I stepped back onto the bridge and propelled Clyde to his feet. “Hi, Clyde, we’re going to take a little trip, but not to the air lock just yet.”

  “Hey, wait, man. Where are we going?” he asked excitedly.

  I pushed him down to Frido’s cabin, where we had Frido temporarily laid out. McHugh and Ironsides followed.

  “Clyde, this is your new cabin,” I said, and shoved him in the door to see his reaction. “And this is your new roommate.”

  McHugh caught on. She threw in, “The guy with his throat cut is the former occupant. Clyde, meet Frido.”

  My buddy Clyde stiffened in every muscle, matching his stuck-up hair. About two seconds later, he let out a piercing shriek and jumped into my arms. “I never stow away before, I never stow away again. You keep me, I’ll be good. Honest, I even muck out your pigs...”

  I let him drop. When he hit the deck, he began wiping my tennis shoes with his sleeve.

  I turned around to stare down Ironsides. “Davie, I’d say his dialogue is corny, but if the man expected to see Frido’s corpse, he’s a better actor than I’ll ever be.”

  Annalee looked at Ironsides and shook her head.

  “All right, you win. He didn’t do it,” Ironsides said disgustedly. “Let’s figure out how to stow Frido in the icebox.”

  We went back, and McHugh and I finished checking stores. We didn’t find anything, and finally gave up. Then we got everybody together again and voted on whether to lock Clyde away, but it was a foregone conclusion—only Bernie’s cat was in favour of the idea. Ironsides and Bobo resumed their watch, McHugh and Dykstra went back to bed, and we gave Clyde back his peaches and turned him over to Wyma Jean as a booby prize.

  After Annalee shut her door, I stopped by the galley. I shoved myself under the sink, disconnected the piping, and took apart the grease trap.

  There was a small wad of hair and other slime, which I sealed away in case somebody was ever in a position to test it. As I was bottling it, something like a small stone caught my eye. I fished it out to hold up to the light.

  I whistled softly. Drab and dull, it looked to be an uncut emerald, about five and a half carats. I could have been wrong, but I didn’t think so—I’m better with crystalline structures than I am with people. I sealed it away with the hair, stuffed the vial in the bottom of my shaving kit, and went to bed.

  Davie Lloyd decided to switch to some sort of four bells, eight bells watch schedule, which would have worked better if we had had a bell. My next watch was bad because I had to take it alone. The one after that was worse, and it blurred into the one after that.

  When I got off, I walked slowly to our quarters. “Hello, Catarina. How are you holding up?” I said as I came in and shut the door.

  “I’m fine, Ken, really. I’ve been catching up on my reading. I’m doing better than you.” The concern was obvious in her voice.

  I’d been spending my free time parked in front of Catarina’s door, she was good therapy. I set my chair next to her door and pillowed my head against the bulkhead.

  “I’m okay. I’m just tired. Wyma Jean doesn’t have time to do the routine stuff before I come on. Let’s talk about something other than work.” I closed my eyes and listened to the ship’s engines rip protons into their constituent fermions.

  “You want to argue philosophy again?” she asked, amused.

  “No, you absolutely astonished me with how many puns you could make on Spinoza.” I turned my head around to stare at the metal bar Ironsides and Dykstra had welded in place. “Catarina, I meant to ask you why you didn’t speak up when Davie Lloyd started trying to pin Frido’s demise on you.”

  “I thought it would be safer all around if our ‘X’ thought I was safely locked up,” she said mildly.

  “Why? If ‘X’ bumped you off, what would he, she, or it do for a fall guy?” “X” was what we had started to call our mystery killer.

  “Ken, if ‘X’ bumped you off, what would I do for an alibi?” she asked gently, and I shut up. “Ken, it’s okay. Trust me. Everything will sort itself out when we hit Brasilia Nuevo. Quit poking around.”

  I shook my head. “Not a chance.” I chuckled. “Dykstra’s already started calling me ‘Inspecto
r Javert.’ I guess trust isn’t exactly one of my strong points.”

  “How long were you married, Ken?” she asked quietly.

  “Oh, I didn’t realise it showed.”

  “It does. Besides, you’ve only mentioned your ex-wife six or eight times.”

  “I did? Careless of me, wasn’t it?” I thought for a moment. “It lasted six months. I don’t think she actually finished unpacking her stuff.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. It’s over.”

  “Is that something you want to talk about?”

  “Yes, no, maybe. It doesn’t bother me much anymore.” I reflected for a minute. “To be honest, I don’t have the vaguest idea what went wrong. I thought we were going to make it work. She was an ad exec. She wasn’t much to look at—I turned her down the first couple of times she asked me out—but she had energy, if you know what I mean.”

  “I think so,” Catarina said slowly.

  “It was funny. When we were going together, every day she’d send me flowers and have a hologram waiting on the machine when I got out of class. She liked the idea I was going to be a spacer.”

  “And afterward?”

  “Well, I graduated and lined up an in-system job, and when I asked her to marry me, she got real strange. I thought she was going to say no, and then she got really enthused. She popped down, got the license, and told me how ready we were to tie our lives together. She had it all figured out.”

  I could feel Catarina’s eyes through the door. “You got married right away?” she asked sharply.

  “Four hours later, if you can believe that. I still don’t. The honeymoon lasted almost as long. After that, I couldn’t do anything right.”

  Catarina sighed. “It fits the pattern, I think. I’ve known a few men like that.”

  “God help them. First she didn’t want kids, then she had to have a kid, then she didn’t want kids. My mind was so screwed on backward, I almost got grounded. Then I cut back on my hours and started spending more time with her, and things just got worse. Damn it, I don’t like being told I can’t cook by a woman who can’t boil water.”

  “What did her friends think?”

  “God knows; she never let me meet them. Does that fit your pattern?”

  “It does. I take it she lied occasionally?”

  “Like a cheap rug. About little things. I didn’t believe it at first, then I’d get so mad...” I stopped and caught my breath. “Would you believe I still get holos from her occasionally?” I shook my head. “It’s my own fault, really.”

  I could hear Catarina chuckle. “Say again?”

  “No, really, for being an idiot, not for screwing up the marriage. Actually, for a while I thought it was all my fault. It took a long time to get myself put back together. But I figured out that if you’re going to walk the railroad tracks, you ought to know what a train looks like. I ended up dangling from the cowcatcher. What is a cowcatcher, anyway?”

  “I saw one in a museum in Baltimore once. It’s sort of like a big sleeve to push animals off the tracks with.”

  “Baltimore? The place in Ireland?”

  “No, it’s part of Washington.”

  “Oh, I’ve been there. That’s right by the Naval Academy. How long were you in Washington?”

  “Oh, not too long,” she said, deftly turning aside my question. “So you went out-system.”

  “As far away as I could get. Which actually turned out to be pretty far.”

  “How long has it been?”

  “Five years, I guess. I was a mess for a while. What was your excuse for going out-system? I mean, before you became a vamp? God, that was a stupid question, wasn’t it?”

  There was a knock on the outside door to the corridor, which saved her from having to answer. “Come on in,” I said. “It’s open.”

  Clyde bopped on in. “Hey man! You still mad at me?”

  “Hello, Clyde. No, it’s okay. Where have you been? I haven’t seen you.”

  “Oh, I mostly been helping Miss Wyma Jean. After she explained what happened, I sort of figured you might not want to see me right away.”

  “You got that straight,” I told him.

  “I also came by to see Miss Catarina.”

  “Hello, Clyde,” Catarina said through the door. “It’s all right. I’m not going to break your arms.”

  “Uh, thanks!” Clyde fidgeted a little bit. “Miss Catarina, can I ask you a personal question?”

  “Go for it.”

  “Are you really, really a vampire?”

  “McLendon’s Syndrome. Cross my heart and hope to put a stake in it.”

  Clyde’s eyes lit up. “Wow, man. That’s neat! I never been assaulted by a real, live vampire before.” He reached around until he found a pocket in that dashiki of his and pulled out a notepad. “Uh, can I have your autograph?”

  I closed my eyes. “Later, Clyde?”

  Catarina said, “It’s okay, Ken. Just slide it through the crooked slot in the door.”

  Clyde sort of danced up to the door and slid his notepad through. Catarina spent a few minutes writing and then passed it back.

  Clyde tucked the notebook away. “Uh, thanks! Sorry I disturbed you, man. Uh, Mr. Ken, do you and Miss Catarina play cards? Miss Wyma Jean thought you might like company.”

  “What do you think, Catarina?” I asked.

  “Sure. Poker or bridge?”

  “Bridge,” I said.

  Clyde sort of shuffled his feet. “Uh, I can’t play bridge, man.”

  “Okay,” I said, “poker, then, tomorrow night, but I don’t play for money. Besides, you don’t have any.”

  “I’ve got a box of raisins. We could count them out and use them for chips,” Catarina offered.

  “Uh, sounds great! I’ll tell Miss Wyma Jean.” Clyde scurried out the door and shut it.

  Catarina started giggling fit to die. It lasted about thirty seconds and then I laid one hand against the door and started in. “Oh, lord,” I said, wiping my eyes, “I can’t believe this trip.”

  “Ken, this has to be a first for me, too. Are you off today?”

  I shook my head. “No. Davie Lloyd juggled the watchlist again. He tells me I’m on at twenty-four bells.”

  “Look, Ken, you need to get some rest.”

  “You’re right. But I really want to talk to some people first.”

  “All right. But make sure you get a few hours’ sack time, anyway. Have a good night. And thanks for telling me about your ex.”

  “Thanks for listening.” I stuck my chair back in my cubicle and went back out into the corridor. Spooner had the conn with Clyde as her gopher, so I stopped off first to see Bernie.

  Ironsides was sawing wood in his cubicle, but Bernie was in their common area shooting craps with his cat. Sasha Louise was an old tortoiseshell tabby with cataracts in both eyes. She was apparently too blind to read the spots on the dice, because Bernie was cheating her outrageously.

  He poked his head up. “Hello, Ken. What were you cooking for dinner? It smelled pretty good.” Bernie’s head is too big for his neck. Overall, he looks as though they built him out of spare parts.

  “Leg of lamb—freeze-dried—with a bordelaise sauce, and some veggies for Catarina.”

  “How did it turn out?”

  I shrugged. “To tell the truth, I wasn’t paying attention.”

  We chatted. I counted pill bottles. Bernie added another twenty-two million to Sasha’s debt and fed her a can of salmon to celebrate. He acted a little nervous, but no more than usual. I found out precisely nothing.

  “Well, thanks anyway,” I told him. On the way out the door, I stopped. “Hey Bernie, this has nothing to do with Frido, but why are you so scared of getting sick?”

  He sat there stroking the cat for a minute. “Ken, if I got sick, who’d take care of Sasha Louise?”

  I walked out of there feeling a lot shorter than when I walked in.

  McHugh was next on my list. I found her in store
s doing a spot inventory, which should have been Davie Lloyd’s job. While I respected McHugh’s competence, I couldn’t say I liked her. Other than Dykstra, I’m not sure who did.

  She was curious about Catarina, so I told her a little of what I knew. She kept her eyes half-closed and kept any expression off her face. She’d have made a good poker player.

  We talked, and she had a lot to say about Frido, none of it nice. She threw in tidbits about Spooner from time to time, and once or twice I caught her sizing me up, trying to decide what to say. We walked back to her cabin. Rosalee was in their common area doing arm-curls with a set of weights, and she gave us a wave and a grunt as we passed by.

  I wasn’t especially good at the investigation racket. It didn’t take me long to ran out of questions, and I found my eyes wandering around McHugh’s cabin. Apart from the quick once-over I’d given the place when we were looking for evidence, it was the first time I’d been inside, maybe the first time anyone had been inside other than Dykstra.

  All along one wall were framed certificates—good framing, too. They were tacked up in neat rows, Navy promotions up through Petty Officer Second in quick succession, plus a scattering of achievement awards and commendations. Her apprentice and journeyman’s ratings were tacked up along with letters of appreciation from previous ships. She’d done well on some good ships.

  She must have been watching my eyes, because she didn’t even let me get the question out of my mouth. “Get the hell out of here, Ken,” she said, looking down at the deckplates. For the first time she put a little emotion into her voice. “Just get the hell out of here.”

  I went across to visit with Rosalee. She was a big woman in her late thirties, the quietest person on board, and also the largest.

  We talked. She switched from lifting weights to knitting, which put me in mind of Madame Defarge. I didn’t know that much about Dykstra’s private life, but after ten months I couldn’t truthfully say that I knew much about any of my shipmates.

  She didn’t have much to say about anyone, herself least of all, and what she said were neutral things that didn’t add up to anything. She didn’t ask me any questions, and I didn’t volunteer much. It was pretty much a waste of time all around.