Mermaid

by Margaret Millar

  “Okay, Donny.”

  “You don’t say ‘okay’ to a captain. Say it right, dammit.”

  “Aye, aye, sir.”

  “That’s better.”

  He went in search of Cleo and found her in one of the guest cabins, lying on a bunk with a blanket pulled up to her chin. The outlines of her thin body could hardly be seen under the blanket, so she appeared to be a severed head.

  “Cleo, wake up.”

  “How can I wake up when I’m not asleep?”

  “Then open your eyes.”

  She opened her eyes and saw Donny looking terribly funny in an oversized hat. “What are you all dressed up like that for?”

  “I was thinking over what you said last night, about how I got rights, so I’m proclaiming myself captain.”

  “That’s nice.”

  “Being as I’m now captain, I can marry you.”

  “I thought I was going to marry Ted.”

  “Sure you are. But I’m going to be like the minister as soon as we leave shore.”

  Cleo threw off the blanket and sat up. “Then this is my wedding day.”

  “Yeah. You got anything to wear besides those crummy jeans?”

  “No.”

  “Come on and we’ll search through my dad’s— that is, my quarters and see if some chick left a fancy robe, you know, something flimsy.”

  Ted was asleep on the opposite bunk, lying on his stom­ach with his arms at his sides and his head twisted to one side. His mouth was open and he was making snorting and whistling sounds.

  They both watched him for a minute. Then Donny said, “Are you sure you want to marry that?”

  “I guess so. I mean, he looks better when he’s awake.”

  “Give me your shoelaces.”

  “Why should I?”

  “Follow orders.”

  “But my shoes are the only decent thing I have on. They’re practically new from Drawford’s.”

  “I need the laces to tie his hands in case he wakes up and tries to mutiny.” Donny showed her the Luger he had tucked in his waistband and the .22 in his pocket. “There’ll be no mutiny on my ship.”

  “Where did you get those?”

  “From my dad’s— from my quarters.”

  “Are you going to shoot somebody?”

  “Maybe. If I have to.”

  “Even me?”

  “We’ll see. Give me your shoelaces.”

  She took the laces out of her shoes and Donny tied Ted’s hands behind his back. At one point Ted’s snoring changed pitch and rhythm as if he was about to wake up, but he didn’t. Cleo watched in silence, deriving some satis­faction from the fact that Ted didn’t look like a bride­groom any more than she looked like a bride.

  She followed Donny back to the captain’s quarters, where they had breakfast served by a mute and sullen Velasco. The change in Velasco and in Donny made Cleo uneasy.

  “Maybe this isn’t such a good idea,” she said when Velasco had left. “Maybe we don’t have all those rights Roger said people had.”

  “We got rights same as everybody else. Now we have to make plans. You know how to use a gun?”

  “Point it at somebody and press the trigger.”

  “No. First you fix the safety.” He gave her the .22 and showed her how to do it. “There. Now you’re ready to shoot someone.”

  “What if I don’t really want to?”

  “You obey orders. On a ship the captain is God.”

  “You don’t look like God to me. He doesn’t wear a hat.”

  “How do you know? Nobody’s ever seen him. Maybe he looks exactly like me, fat as a pig.”

  “Well, I bet when you pass people on the street they don’t say, ‘There goes God.’”

  “Oh, cut that crap and listen. The crew might try to jump ship or sound an alarm. It’s up to you to keep them quiet by holding the gun on them.”

  “What if they won’t keep quiet?”

  “You shoot them.”

  “I don’t think I’m going to like that part. I’ve never shot anyone.”

  “You won’t have to. It’s nothing but a threat, see? If they try to pull anything, you shoot a hole in the floor to warn them.”

  “That might make the boat leak.”

  “It won’t make the boat leak, stupid,” Donny said. “Now there’s one more thing you got to do. I could have saved us a lot of trouble if I’d decided to take over the ship last night. We’d be far at sea by this time. But I didn’t, so here we are, no use crying.”

  “You can’t anyway,” Cleo said reasonably. “God never cried.”

  “Oh, can the God bit and let me think a minute.” He pushed the cap back from his forehead and the toilet paper padding fell out on the floor. His face was very red and all screwed up like a fretful baby’s. “Now here’s the problem. When my dad drives up from Palm Springs he usually leaves very early to avoid the desert heat, so he may be arriving at his condo any minute. If he should look out the window and see the Spindrift missing, he’ll call the Coast Guard and they’ll send the cutter after us right away. So we have to buy time, an hour at least, more if we can get it.”

  “I’ve got an idea. Why don’t we wait for him and invite him to come along?”

  “You loony, don’t you know the first thing he’d do? Send for the cops to take me back to that goddamn school. Yes, and you, too. You got that? You, too.”

  “I don’t want to go back. I want to get married.”

  “Then cooperate. As soon as he arrives he’ll check in at his condo. It’s on the beach and you can see it from the bridge through binoculars. I’ll stand watch, and the minute he arrives I want you to make a call to the condo. I’ll give you the number.”

  “What am I supposed to say?”

  “Tell him that you’re Mrs. Holbrook’s secretary. Then you ask him to come to Holbrook Hall in order to discuss his son’s curriculum.”

  “Curliculum. What’s that mean?”

  “Never mind what it means. Just say it right. Cur-ri-culum.”

  “Curriculum. Okay, then what?”

  “Then he goes to the school and I order the crew to cast off.”

  “What if the crew won’t listen to you?”

  “They’ll listen.” Donny patted the Luger in his waist­band and laughed. “We’re all amigos, all of us. Amigos for­ever.”

  Manny Ocho knocked on the door and entered without waiting for permission. Though he had a well-deserved hangover, he was freshly shaved and uniformed.

  “Hey, Donny, what’s going on? What you say to my crew? And what you doing wearing your father’s clothes?”

  “They’re my clothes. I’m your new captain. Be ready to cast off when I say the word.”

  “You don’t give me orders.”

  “I give you orders.” Donny took the Luger out of his waistband. “And you obey them.”

  “You crazy boy, Donny. You mixed up in the cabeza.”

  “Don’t bother rolling your eyes at Cleo for help. She’s on my side and she has a gun, too. How do you like that?”

  “It’s bad,” Manny said. “Very bad.”

  “So don’t make it worse by trying anything funny. You stay down here with Cleo while I go up on the bridge. Cleo will entertain you. She does a great striptease. She has nothing much to show, but she shows it anyway.”

  “This very bad, Donny.”

  “I’m not Donny. I’m your captain.”

  After Donny left, Cleo picked up the .22 from the table and began clicking the safety catch off and on for practice. She forgot about Ocho until he spoke to her in the voice he used to shout orders to his crew:

  “Stop that.”

  Cleo was so surprised by his tone that she almost dropped the gun. “I’m not doing anything.”

  “
Maybe by accident.”

  “No. Donny showed me how to use it.”

  “You going to use it?”

  “Not really. I mean, I guess not unless Donny wants me to.”

  “You reaching for big trouble, Cleo,” Ocho said. “This Donny, he a bad boy, you a nice little girl. You stay nice, you stay away from him.”

  “I can’t. I want to get married.”

  “You going to marry Donny?”

  “No. It’s—well, it’s like this.”

  She tried to reconstruct the movie she’d seen where the captain married two people as soon as the boat left the dock. But Ocho kept shaking his head and muttering to himself.

  Up on the bridge Donny kept the binoculars focused on his father’s condominium on the beach. The binoculars were too heavy to allow continual observation, so he raised them every three or four minutes on the lookout for his father’s silver-grey Cadillac. He spotted it shortly before ten o’clock, parked in its slot beside the condo. There was no sign of his father or his companion, if any.

  He hurried down to the cabin where Ocho and Cleo had turned on the television set and were watching a children’s cartoon, Ocho from the captain’s swivel chair, Cleo from the table with the gun in front of her.

  Ocho switched off the television set and stood up. “Hey, Donny, you listen to me.”

  “You got nothing I want to hear,” Donny said. “Cleo, make that call now.”

  “I can’t remember the number.”

  “Jeez, I’ve told you twice: 9694192. Now have you got it?”

  “I guess so.”

  “You remember what to say?”

  “Sure. I’m the secretary and then that business about Donny’s curliculum.”

  “Cur-ri-cu-lum.”

  “Okay, don’t scream. Curriculum.”

  “You listen now, Donny,” Ocho said again. “This Cleo, she a nice little girl, you leave her alone, you put her ashore.”

  Donny turned to Cleo. “You want to go ashore, kid?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “In fact, you invited me here, didn’t you? You phoned Holbrook Hall and told me to come down. We were going to have a party, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “So you’re not such a nice little girl after all, are you?”

  “I didn’t mean any harm, Donny.”

  “I want Manny clued in on what actually happened. You started the whole damn thing, didn’t you?”

  “Sort of.”

  “You hear that, Manny? You’re not a hero trying to rescue a poor, innocent girl. She’s none of those things: not poor, not innocent, not a girl. She’s a rich woman, five years older than I am. So I’m the one you ought to feel sorry for.”

  “I do,” Ocho said. “I feel very sorry for you, Donny.”

  “Then get ready to cast off. As soon as my father leaves his condo we’re moving. We’re moving.”

  Ocho shook his head. “I got my family to think of, my job—”

  “You got your own hide to think of first.” Donny patted the Luger in his waistband. It was beginning to feel uncomfortable poking into his stomach, so he transferred the gun to his coat pocket. “Look at it this way. It’s your hide against my hide and I like my hide better. Isn’t that reasonable?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And you’ll spell it out to the crew?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Donny returned to the bridge to watch the condo for any further signs of activity. As soon as he saw the silver Cadillac leave its parking slot he called Ocho, and the two of them went to the navigation room.

  The engine wouldn’t start.

  “Good,” Ocho said. “Stiff. Not used for a whole month.”

  “Goddamn it, you’re supposed to keep the thing ready to go at any time.”

  “You goddamn it yourself. I keep it good. I keep it the best.”

  “Then start it the best.”

  On the second attempt the engine turned over, but al­most immediately Donny reached out and switched it off.

  “The phone’s ringing. Answer it.”

  “What you want me to say?”

  “Just answer it.”

  The call was from the harbormaster’s office and they both knew trouble was coming. That it came in the form of Aragon was the only surprise.

  “Well, well,” Donny said when he jerked open the door and Aragon almost fell into the cabin. “Look who’s dropped in, my old pal that leaves his car keys in the ignition.”

  14

  It took a moment for Aragon to regain his balance and somewhat longer for his eyes to adjust after the brilliance of the morning sun. The curtains were closed and the cabin seemed relatively gloomy. Donny Whitfield sat at a rolltop desk with a gun in his hand, and standing near him was a short, wiry-looking Mexican wearing a blue-and-white diagonally striped shirt and a light-blue peaked cap. Aragon assumed this was Manny Ocho who had answered the phone.

  He started to address Ocho in Spanish but was immedi­ately interrupted.

  “Only English spoken here,” Donny said. “Well, nice of you to drop in, pal. Now suppose you drop out.”

  “Is the girl here?”

  “What girl?”

  “You know what girl.”

  “Oh, her. Yeah, sure. She’s around someplace trying to find the bridegroom. You walked into a wedding. How’s that for luck?”

  “The wedding had better be postponed,” Aragon said. “I intend to take Cleo back to her family.”

  “You’re going to poop the party, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Uh uh. Wrong . . . Manny, you have your orders. Obey them.”

  “Please, you wait,” Ocho said. “Donny, you listen a minute.”

  “Hurry up.”

  Ocho turned to leave, shaking his head. As he passed Aragon he muttered a warning about a gun.

  “You can be best man,” Donny told Aragon. “Or Cleo might even want to change bridegrooms. You’re not bad-looking and at least you aren’t related. What’s your name?”

  “Tom Aragon.”

  “Cleo Aragon. Hmmmm, sort of a nice ring to it. Not that Cleo’s particular. She’d marry any guy that’s still breathing. Weird thing is, I never knew she was like that when we were at school together. Maybe it’s the sea air.” Donny laughed. “How’s the sea air affecting you, Aragon?”

  “Who’s the bridegroom?”

  “She calls him Ted.”

  “You’ve got to stop this crazy thing, Donny. She’s his aunt.”

  “If that doesn’t bother Cleo, why should it bother me?”

  “Who’s going to perform the ceremony? Did they have the necessary blood tests? Did they take out a license?”

  “Details. Screw details.”

  “And did you know that you’re violating the terms of your probation by having a gun?”

  “Screw probation,” Donny said. “Probation is for land­lubbers. At sea it’s only a word.”

  “What kind of stuff are you on, Donny? What did you take?”

  “Nothing. I smoked a little pot last night and had a few drinks, but since then, nothing.

  Nothing from outside anyway. It’s the inside stuff that I’m on. It’s all coming from inside. There’s some pretty strong stuff in there, man, stronger than anything you can buy on the street.”

  Aragon believed him. Whatever Donny’s body was man­ufacturing, it seemed as powerful and unpredictable as the animal tranquilizer the kids called angel dust.

  He said, “Show me where Cleo is and I’ll take her home.”

  “Home? Where the hell’s home for people like Cleo and me? A lousy detention school? Juvenile Hall or the slam­mer? Where the hell is home?”

  “Drop the self-pity kick for a minute and pay attention. I want you and Cleo to come with me,
and we’ll try to straighten out this whole business. I’ll even forget about the gun. I didn’t see it.”

  “You saw it and you better not forget it. That’s my best friend. Him and me, we can go anywhere we want to, do anything we want to—”

  “Cut the crazy talk, Donny.”

  “Okay, suppose I buy that crap about you trying to straighten things out for me and Cleo. What then? We get sent back to Holbrook Hall or worse, so the rest of you can live happily ever after.”

  “I can’t perform miracles, Donny.”

  “No? Well, I won’t settle for less.”

  “Is that your final word?”

  “You got it. Come on, we’ll go up on deck. There might be someone you want to wave bye-bye to.” Donny laughed again. “Or didn’t you know we’ve left the dock?”

  “No.”

  “That’s the trouble with you brainy guys—you start con­centrating on something so hard you’re not aware of an earthquake until a brick hits you on the head. We’re under way, man. We’re off and running.”

  “There are a lot of serious charges against you already, Donny. Don’t add kidnapping.”

  “Kidnapping? Nobody forced you to come along. Nobody even invited you. You jumped on board. You know what that makes you? A stowaway. I could file a few charges of my own.”

  “The punishment for kidnapping can be life imprison­ment.”

  “So? With any luck I’ll get the death penalty. Mean­while you and I are going for a little sail. Come on, we don’t want to keep Cleo and the bridegroom waiting.”

  They went up on deck.

  Manny Ocho was at the helm. He had the Spindrift going several times faster than the harbor speed limit of five miles an hour, and Aragon knew from the glance Ocho gave him that he was doing it in the hope of attracting the attention of the harbor patrol boat. But there was no sign of Sprague or the boat. The only protest came from a small sloop the Spindrift passed in the channel.

  “Slow down,” a man yelled through a megaphone. “You damn near hit me.”

  Ocho made an obscene gesture and yelled back, “Report me. Call Sprague.”

  But the sloop merely rolled and pitched in the Spin­drift’s wake, and the harbor patrol boat remained at its mooring in front of the office and the Coast Guard cutter was still tied up at the Navy pier.