Red Tide (23 page)

“Right,” said Nicky cheerfully, “We’ll have you dancing in no time,” and he swung into “Penny Lane.”

I had said something. My mouth had opened—only a little, sure, but sound had come out.

And Nicky had been expecting it.

It didn’t even begin to make sense. Which one of us was really crazy?

Did he know what had happened to me—and how to fix it? It seemed impossible. But Nicky was rubbing my feet briskly, poking at the same two or three spots on both feet, and humming at full blast—now it was “Good Day Sunshine.” And as he did—as a 
result
 of what he did?—I felt a slow flush spread outward from my heart and climb from the base of my spine up to the top of my skull.

I pulled in a deep breath. It felt better than anything else I could remember.

“Ee-hah,” Nicky said softly.

More deep breaths. The flush spread outward to my toes, my fingers. I wiggled my index finger and felt like the world was starting all over again. And finally, after “When I’m 64,” with the first notes of “Mother Nature’s Child,” my right eye opened.

“G’day, mate,” said Nicky. He didn’t stop rubbing my feet.

The other eye struggled open. It was like trying to lift a Dodge van, but I finally got it open. For a minute there were two Nickys rubbing four feet. Terrifying. I felt his thumbs dig in at a different spot, on my two middle toes. Gradually the Nickys on the right and the left swam together and there was one Nicky with two feet in his hands.

“Nuh,” I said, trying to say “Nicky.” But “Nuh” was all I could manage.

“I know, mate, I know,” Nicky said cheerfully. “It’ll come, never fear.”

Two fingers moved now. The thumb joined them. I wiggled them at my face. Hello, Billy. Welcome back. We missed you.

I remembered the terrible burning and the bone dreams and with great effort and a lot of fear, started scanning what I could see of my body. It seemed okay. I couldn’t see all of me; my neck wouldn’t move. But what I could see looked all right.

I was alive. Everything seemed to have gotten faster and brighter while I was away, but I was back. I felt a terrible thirst and my head was pounding with a pain that made all other head aches I’d ever had seem funny, but under the circumstances I didn’t mind. Maybe I was going to be okay.

My whole hand moved now, and I rolled my head to the side. It felt wonderful, even when the head movement made my headache flare up higher. I looked at the grey steel wall. The rust specks were beautiful, the grey paint seemed lush and colorful.

I turned my head the other way. I was laid out on the floor in a small storeroom. There was a row of hanging mops and brooms, some buckets, and a shelf of cleaning supplies, all packed in with nautical efficiency. One dim light bulb hung from the middle of the ceiling, and a small porthole was rusted and bolted shut on the far end of the wall.

There was also a little more space than you might expect to find in a place where a ship’s cleaning supplies were kept. There were several spools of chain and rope hanging from spindles. and something looked familiar about the wall over there but I couldn’t say what. I frowned, trying to remember. I looked at the wall again. I had seen it before, but when? Something was different, missing, in that part over by the ringbolts fastened to the wall—

I remembered. The pictures I had taken from the sailor in the wheelhouse, of women begging. The women had been fastened to those ringbolts. Slowly, painfully, I came back to life. It was a long and awful trip. One small piece of me at a time would wake up and sluggishly, awkwardly, start to talk to the other parts. Nicky kept rubbing my feet, kept singing, and eventually rolled me over and rubbed my back, too.

I didn’t object. I didn’t have the strength yet. But as soon as I could form a thought and make my mouth work I asked him to please stop singing for the love of God.

He looked hurt, but he stopped, only mid-way through “In My Life.”

In the background, now that Nicky was quiet, the drums were overwhelming. I could hear other noises over them, sounding like a really wild fraternity party at the end of spring term.

Finally I sat up. For a few minutes I just sat there. I felt stupid and stiff, as if I had been stitched together from mismatched parts and there must be little bolts in the sides of my neck.

Nicky watched me, beaming, and hopping on one foot like a kid who has to go to the bathroom. When I finally tried to stand he was there to catch me if I needed it.

I almost did. The roaring and pounding in my ears nearly drowned out the sound of the drums. After a few lifetimes of standing and enjoying the pain I sat back down again.

I took a couple of deep breaths and managed not to throw up. Then, when the world steadied again, I looked up at Nicky.

“How?” I said. It was very tough to put thoughts together. “How you… here?”

“You put us through the wringer, you did,” Nicky said, dropping to the floor next to me. “We didn’t hear from you. Didn’t have a clue if you were out of fuel and drifting, or maybe eaten by sharks. Not a fucking clue, mate.”

“How long?”

“I waited three days, Billy. Three awful fucking days. Going right off my nut. Finally Deacon called a mate of his in Port Au Prince. Fella calls back and says 
Petit Fleur
 is in port. Has a racing boat in tow. So now we know he’s got you, too.

“I caught the first plane. Spent a day nosing around, buying a few things.”

“What?”

He chuckled. “
Things
, Billy. Things I couldn’t get through customs, or couldn’t get in the States. Some special medicines, like what I fed you. Some other stuff.” He leaned close and whispered, “Guns, Billy. World’s greatest gun market out there. I’ve got three of ’em stashed on this ship. Good ones. If we can get out of this room we’ll be all right yet.”

I grunted. The thought I wanted to tell him was too long and hard to put into words, but there was a heavy accent on how stupid it had been to buy guns in a place like Port Au Prince. It wasn’t much brighter to think that having one in his hand was going to make everything all right.

But that was Nicky. New Age gunslinger. Guru with a gun. In his mind a pistol was a magic charm to ward off evil. He’d spent hundreds of hours firing at targets, practicing his quick draw, changing magazines as fast as he could.

I’d tried to tell him it wasn’t the same as hearing that unique flat ripping sound of a bullet just missing your head, and trying to fire back without wetting your pants. He’d never quite believed it could be all that different.

And now, unless I could remember how to work my feet, he was going to get us into a shooting match with a bunch of guys who killed for fun and profit.

I shook my legs. They were still numb, but a little better. With time I might make it.

“They caught you,” I said to Nicky. Good, Billy; almost a full sentence.

“They did that,” Nicky admitted. “I slipped on board right after they cleared all the cargo off. Looked around a bit, stashed a couple of bundles. Three small backpacks, Billy. Food, water, weapon. So if they find one, I got a back-up.” He looked so proud of himself; so damned clever, sneaking around stashing guns and granola, out-foxing the enemy.

He went on. “I watched ’em start to load on people. Another full day. I was up on top, in the big life raft up there. Couldn’t move around, look for you. People everywhere.” He shrugged. “I waited. Figured they had to blink sometime, eh? Then I could sneak round about, have a peek, see if I could find you.

“Well, it got night, and just as things slowed down a bit, the boat starts up and heads off to sea. And I figure all right, Nick-lad, time to earn your keep. I slip out of the life raft and down the stairs.”

He paused and I turned to look at him. I could hear my neck creak from the effort and a pain shot straight up my spine and out my eyeballs, but I looked.

Nicky was looking at his toes. He kicked his feet, left, right, left. “Shit-peppers. They grabbed me before I got three steps down. Dragged me in to see Cappy. The fella with the snake tattoo. He knew me right off. Thought it was pretty funny, us sneaking aboard one at a time. ‘Now I ’ave you all,’ he says in that horrible silky froggish accent he’s got.

“And then he raises up that eyebrow of his and wants to know, is anybody else of our merry little gang going to come a-calling? And I figger if I say yes, lots more, he’ll think I’m bluffing. So I say no, that’s the lot. And he looks at me a good long time, smiles, and says, ‘Bon.’

“Then he has his boys bounce me around a little and asks me again. And I say all right, there’s one more boatload, they’re waiting in the Gulf Stream. And I can’t tell if he believes me or not, but they bounce me around a little more and then they throw me down here.”

“And here we are, mate. Here we are.”

He sounded almost happy about that. I managed to grunt, “Anna—”

He was a quiet for a moment. “Billy—I don’t know, mate. I—tried to look for her, but… I don’t know, mate.”

I closed my eyes and let the sound of the drums rolls over me, mixing with the pounding of my headache. I couldn’t make my brain work fast enough to be sure but it seemed like Cappy had had Anna almost a week. I had to find her, had to get my stupid brain and wooden body together and find her. It was impossible that she was all right, but I had to know.

Which meant I had to get on deck into the middle of what sounded like a cannibal’s dinner party, get past a gang of pet killers, and face the Man With The Snake. Simple enough.

But first I had to remember how to walk.

It took some more time to get my legs back. The party overhead didn’t slow down. If anything it got louder and wilder. By the time I had walked back and forth for a few minutes and felt ready to go, it had gone way beyond wild frat party. Now it sounded like after hours at the Republican convention.

I still felt slow, stupid and stiff, but it wasn’t going to get any better anytime soon. “All right,” I told Nicky.

“Right,” he said. “What’s the plan?”

I looked at him. He was all eager and confident, looking like he didn’t have a doubt in the world that we would waltz up on deck, clean up the rascals and sail away into the sunset.

“It sounds like everybody is on deck, so I’m going to search below-decks,” I said. “Try to find Anna.”

Nicky nodded. “Then we’ll split up,” he said. “I’ll go for that pack I stashed, so we’ve got some artillery to back us up.”

I wanted to tell him he had seen too much American TV. A gun doesn’t always save the day. He didn’t have a clue, and I could barely function, and we were about to take on a crew of killers on their home turf. And he was convinced that a gun would even things out. If I only had enough gripping strength I would have grabbed him and shaken him.

But what the hell. If he realized how bad things were, he might experience aura meltdown. So if looking for his gun kept him from jumping into the ocean screaming, maybe it was a good thing. It was all right if one of us had hope.

In any case, I wanted him out of the way. I was going to kill Cappy, no matter what it took, and I didn’t want him there for something he might not be able to handle. Let him look for his gun. It was better than looking at murder.

“Go,” I said. “I’ll find Anna.”

“Where do we meet?” he asked.

“At the wheelhouse,” I said.

“Gotcha,” he said. “Luck, mate,” and he turned away. A second later he turned back. “Door’s locked.”

We got the door open in about five minutes, using a screwdriver we found with the cleaning supplies, and then Nicky shook my hand and disappeared in the darkness.

I wondered if I would see him again. I wondered if either of us would ever see Key West again. And when I stumbled as I took my own first step into the darkness, I wondered if I would make my legs work anytime soon.

I hung onto the screwdriver. It was big and flat bladed and the weight was re-assuring. I felt my way along the passageway to the office where I had met Cappy.

There was no light showing this time. I listened carefully at the door and heard nothing. I bent over the knob with the screwdriver. It took me a couple of minutes, fumbling around in the dark with what still felt like somebody else’s fingers, but I got the door open and slipped inside.

The room was empty. I pushed the door closed again and felt for the desk light I had seen the last time I was in here. I found it; the snake was gone—the whole coat rack was gone.

I found a large key ring in the desk and stuck it in my pocket. There was a lot of other stuff in there that might have been interesting another time—ledgers and other business stuff, and a lot of things that looked like charms, magic powders, and small vials of liquids.

It might have made Nicky very happy. I didn’t really feel like getting too close to any of it. I left it and turned out the light.

I slid back into the passageway and went from door to door. I listened for a minute at each one before trying the keys. It seemed like I was working through the entire key ring each time, but I did get all the doors open eventually. The screwdriver might have been quicker.

All the rooms were empty. I found crew quarters, cargo holds, the galley, machine shop, engine room—everything you would expect on a small freighter in the Caribbean, and not a sign of life anywhere. One of the holds was loaded down with cheap-looking luggage, bundles of clothing, paper bags filled with food. The kind of stuff Haitian refugees might carry into a new life.

But that was it. If Anna was on board this ship, she was somewhere above decks.

Either she was at the party or she was already over the rail, and it was hard to figure which was worse. In any case, it meant the same thing to me. I had to go up on deck and check.

The noise up there hadn’t let up at all. As I got closer I wondered why Cappy would put on a party like that for a crowd of people he intended to kill.

Maybe he really believed the dark voodoo stuff, and he was making a sacrifice to whatever evil spirits he worshipped. And maybe he enjoyed toying with them; go on, have a drink, by the way—you’re dead.