Forever and a Death

by Donald E. Westlake

  She turned her head, and her neck and back gave her twinges of pain. In the thin light that seeped into the cabin under its door, she looked at where she was, simple and plain, but also elegant. She thought to roll onto her side, so she could get up and go over there to open that door, but when she made her first move everything gave her a jolt. The fiercest pains were in her chest, as though she might have broken some ribs, but everything else hurt as well. It was like the soreness after too much exercise, but magnified a hundred times.

  She couldn’t move. The effort made her dizzy with the pain. She very slowly turned her head back to where it had been. She felt weak, groggy. She was afraid she might lose consciousness again. She breathed slowly, carefully, trying to avoid the whip-stroke of pain that came sometimes to her chest, and again she remembered the blur, how fast it came, how immensely powerful it was, unimaginably powerful.

  And once more she remembered her own final thought: Stupid me, now I’ve killed myself. But now she remembered more; she remembered what was inside that thought. Inside the panic and the desperate useless lunge toward the surface, and much more real, had been acceptance.

  Resignation, and calm acceptance. She had known, for that second or two seconds, that she was going to die, and she’d accepted the fact, without challenge. She hadn’t even been unhappy.

  How easy it is to die, she thought, and realized she’d always assumed it was hard to die, that life pulsed on as determinedly as it could until the end. It was a grim knowledge, that life didn’t mind its own finish, and she felt she had been given that knowledge too soon. I shouldn’t know that yet, she thought, and began to cry. She struggled to keep her breathing regular, to avoid the pain, and tears dribbled from her eyes, and then she opened her mouth and sighed and gave up the struggle and faded from consciousness.

  15

  Richard Curtis woke early, feeling doubt. He didn’t like the feeling, had no use for doubt. In his mind, indecision was a sign of weakness, second thoughts the practice of losers. He himself was swift and decisive, and known for it, and relished the reputation. Doubt, on those rare moments when it came to him, irritated him, and he did his best to thrust it immediately away.

  Hard to do, now. It was far too early to get out of bed, with the fresh sunrise a soft pink on the curtains, giving his cabin a soft rose glow, as though he slept inside a ruby. Too early to get up, but could he fall back to sleep?

  He was afraid—this was the doubt, not going away—afraid he’d made a mistake last night. When asked if the diver was dead, he hadn’t hesitated for a second. Yes. Of course she was dead. It was necessary to his future plans that she be dead, so obviously she was dead.

  But was it true? Would it be as true as he needed it to be? Could he rely on Zhang?

  These were murky waters for Richard Curtis. He’d asked men to commit crimes for him before, mostly of a financial nature, or a lie to get around a regulation, and he’d committed such crimes himself without regret. But this was the death of a person, this was something larger, more severe, something of a different kind. Would Zhang do what he knew he was supposed to do?

  In his mind, Curtis didn’t use the word ‘murder’ or even ‘killing.’ She was a severely damaged woman dragged mostly dead from the sea. Zhang was a skilled medic, but hardly a doctor, and this was, as he had taken pains to point out, hardly a hospital —not even a hospital ship. By their deficiencies of equipment and knowledge, enhanced by their neglect, couldn’t they assure she would not survive? And if the flame of life insisted on sputtering inside her, might not Zhang assist its snuffing in some way?

  (Curtis was vague on that part. Some medicine? The wrong one, or given in the wrong dose? Or a pillow pressed for just a moment or two on the face? Something barely intrusive in any event, more an encouragement to nature than anything else.)

  But here was the source of the doubt. Would Zhang do this thing he knew Curtis wanted? Would he too see it as merely assisting nature, encouraging the proper outcome? Or would he think it was something more significant than that, and falter?

  If Curtis hadn’t said yes last night, he would have more room to maneuver now. If the girl’s condition had been left unstated, and if Zhang were to turn out not to be up to the task, then once they reached port Curtis had other people he could turn to. But what he’d done, when he’d told his guests firmly that the girl was dead, he’d made it necessary that the girl be dead, now, while they were still at sea.

  And if Zhang wouldn’t do it?

  Curtis closed his eyes against the pink morning light. If Zhang wouldn’t do it, and if it had to be done before Curtis left the ship, early this afternoon, then there was only one person left to turn to, and that person had never done such a thing, either. He had planned deaths, he was willing that people should die, he could order death, he could be responsible for death at a distance (and planned to be, in a large way, very soon), but could he do this other thing? Could these hands press the pillow down? Could he be present in the room when it was actually happening?

  And so the doubt. And he wouldn’t be sleeping any longer this morning.

  16

  Captain Zhang was on duty on the bridge from eight every morning, but today he arrived fifteen minutes early, relieving the mate, who had stood the night watch. This morning was windier than yesterday, the Mallory rocking more noticeably in the increased swell. To the east, the pale sky was clear, a great pastel wash around the hot yellow furnace of the sun, but to the west, toward Australia, darkish clouds were piled like low foggy hills on the horizon, and would soon be coming this way. Zhang listened to the satellite weather service, listened to radio traffic generally, watched the sky and the sea, and tried not to think about what Richard Curtis wanted.

  Zhang was 43, a coastal Chinese from Qinhuangdao on Liaodong Wan Bay, just across the Yellow Sea from Korea. He’d grown up loving the sea and hating politics, hating having to care about politics, and was 15 when he first shipped out, on a cargo ship from Tientsin. He retained his Chinese passport, but had not lived on the mainland for many years, and now had a wife and three daughters living in Kaohsiung, on Taiwan.

  His wife, Yanling, was Taiwanese, and they had lived in Hong Kong until the changeover, when it had seemed safest for her to relocate back home. Taiwan was still, in all the ways that mattered to them, China.

  The life Zhang Yung-tsien and his wife and children enjoyed was a good one, an enviable one, and it was made possible almost exclusively by Richard Curtis. Without this job, a semi-stateless Chinese with first-mate papers only—he had not yet qualified for master’s papers, and it hadn’t seemed urgent to do so—he could surely find more work, but not at these wages. He would live on a third of his present income, at best. They would lose the house in Kaohsiung, that was certain. The private school his daughters went to would be beyond his means.

  Until now, there had never been any reason to worry about his position. He knew Richard Curtis appreciated his skills and discretion and had no fault to find with him. He did his job well, he was not fearful, and there had been no reason to suspect that anything would change.

  But now. Now.

  If only they hadn’t found the damn woman, out there in the sea! Or, finding her, if they’d only left her there.

  Who wanted her? Why keep her?

  What kind of thing was this to ask of a man? He wasn’t that sort, he never could be. If anything, Richard Curtis was more the cold and emotionless type that was needed for a thing like this. So why did it have to come down on the shoulders of poor Zhang Yung-tsien?

  What am I going to do, he asked himself, and watched the sea, and the slowly approaching storm front from the west. I know what to do, of course, he thought, that’s simplicity itself. I inject a bubble of air into her veins, as plain as that. No one will find it because no one will suspect it, and therefore no one will look for it. She should be dead, anyway, so what difference does it make?

  But Zhang knew the difference. From today on, he would be the ma
n who had murdered a human being. That would be him, that and nothing else; could he live with that self?

  But what else was there? What real choice did he have?

  He didn’t know this troublesome woman; he knew Yanling and his daughters.

  But could he do it? When the instant came, would he be able to do it?

  “Morning, Zhang.”

  Zhang started, yanked from his concentration, and turned to see Curtis standing there. Just inside the doorway, smiling a greeting at him, easy and confident. “Good morning, Mr. Curtis,” Zhang said, and blinked at the man.

  Curtis looked out at the sea. “What news of our patient?”

  “I…haven’t looked at her yet this morning.”

  Curtis seemed mildly surprised. “You haven’t? I should think you’d want to keep tabs on her. For all you know, she took a turn for the worse during the night.”

  “That’s possible, of course,” Zhang said.

  “You will see her for me, won’t you?” Curtis asked him. “You will take care of things.”

  Zhang found it impossible to meet those cold eyes. Looking fitfully here and there, as though some instrument, some gauge, demanded his attention, he said, “Mr. Curtis, I, of course, I have some skills, but I’m not sure I can, I’m not a doctor, of course, I think….”

  Bleak, he now did face Curtis’s bleak eyes, and said, “You might have someone else, someone in all your great organization who’s better qualified than I am.”

  “But no one else is here,” Curtis said. He was almost kindly, explaining the situation. “Only you, master of this fine vessel, which I know you enjoy. Don’t you?”

  “Yes, I do,” Zhang agreed. “Very much.”

  “So here we are, out at sea,” Curtis said, “and you’re the only one I can count on. I can count on you, can’t I?”

  Zhang was silent. He wanted to speak, but he couldn’t.

  “I need to count on you,” Curtis said, his voice a little raspier, a little harsher. “I need word about our patient, Captain Zhang. I’ll be leaving after lunch, if that storm out there holds off. I’ll need word about our patient before I go. Do you see what I mean?”

  Miserable, “Yes,” Zhang said.

  17

  Manville, having slept little, got up early and went looking for Curtis. He saw him, up on the bridge, in tense conversation with Captain Zhang, and thought he might know what the subject was. So he waited in the forward lounge, below the bridge, where he would be sure to intercept Curtis when he came down.

  Standing by the big windows, seeing the flattened island off to starboard and the beginnings of storm clouds to port, far off at the horizon, he thought about what he would do and how he would go about it. There was very little question in his mind that Curtis knew the girl was alive, but he felt, at least at the beginning, he had to give the man the benefit of the doubt. Because if Curtis knew she was alive, but had announced last night that she was dead, it could only mean he was determined to make her dead, and his motive would be the hobbling of Jerry Diedrich.

  Could that be reason enough for murder? Or was Manville about to make a serious mistake, at the very moment his career was assured?

  I’ll have to say it to him straight out, he thought, and see how he reacts. I’m no good at subtlety, anyway, I’ll just have to be myself, and I’ll know, I’m sure I will, the instant I see his reaction. And here he comes now.

  Manville turned at the sound of footsteps coming down the outside stairs. Curtis came through the swing door into the lounge, his expression grim, deep in thought, and he abruptly switched to an enthusiastic smile when he saw Manville: “Good morning!”

  “Morning, Mr. Curtis.”

  “Going in to breakfast?”

  “In a minute,” Manville said.

  Curtis looked at him more closely. “Something wrong, George?”

  “I looked in on the girl last night,” Manville said.

  Well, he’d been right: He would know instantly from Curtis’s reaction. Curtis stared at him for a second, then looked very angry and seemed about to yell something, and then just as quickly gave up anger, shook his head in exasperated defeat, and said, almost pleadingly, “Now why did you do that?”

  “I felt responsible,” Manville said. “I thought she was dead, and I’d done it, and I—”

  “You? For God’s sake, why you?”

  This isn’t the right subject, Manville thought, but he found himself saying, “The fail-safe device, I should have thought to—”

  “All right, all right.” Curtis, always a fast study, understood immediately what had gone through Manville’s mind. “You felt responsible. So you went down there to apologize to a corpse…”

  “And she’s alive.”

  “She’s very badly hurt, you know,” Curtis said. “She’s still alive, but Captain Zhang isn’t at all confident she’ll—”

  “She’s improving,” Manville said. “I’m not claiming any great medical knowledge, but anybody can see she’s improving.”

  “If she were bleeding internally, we wouldn’t—”

  “She’d be feverish by now,” Manville said. “Her skin would be clammy. She’d show the signs.”

  Curtis looked increasingly annoyed. He said, “George, this isn’t our expertise, neither of us. You do what you’re good at, and I’ll do what I’m good at, and that girl will live or die, and neither of us can say which it will be.”

  Manville said, “If she’s dead when we reach Brisbane, I’ll have to tell the authorities that she didn’t die as a result of what happened to her in the water.”

  Curtis frowned at him. “What could you prove?”

  “I don’t have to prove anything, Mr. Curtis,” Manville told him. “I only have to tell them there’s a problem. They’ll do their own proving.”

  Curtis stood thinking, clearly trying to figure out how to handle this situation. Then he said, “Are you particularly hungry, George?”

  “For breakfast?” Manville asked, surprised. “Not very much, this morning.”

  “Neither am I,” Curtis said, and touched Manville’s arm, and gestured at the cluster of soft maroon swivel chairs over by the windows. “Sit with me a minute, listen to what I have to say.”

  “All right.”

  They sat in adjacent chairs, turned slightly away from one another, and Curtis leaned forward, hands on knees, to say, “I’ve already told you, I have another use for this soliton of yours.”

  “Yes.”

  “Something far better than just clearing land to build a resort. Something much more ambitious. And lucrative.”

  “All right.”

  “I told you it had to be a secret, and it still does,” Curtis said, “but I didn’t tell you why. The fact is, I’m not as rich as people think I am. Not anymore.”

  “You aren’t poor,” Manville said.

  Curtis smiled. “No, not poor. But I’ve borrowed a lot, from a lot of banks. No one has seen an accurate financial statement from me in three years, not since before they threw me out of Hong Kong, because an accurate financial statement would show I owe probably four times as much as I’m worth.”

  Manville, surprised, gestured to include the Mallory, Kanowit Island, everything. “But, how can you…then how can you do all this?”

  “Front,” Curtis told him. “I’m spending to create the perception that I’m rich because only the perception that I’m rich will permit me to borrow the money to go on spending.”

  “That’s a—” Manville started, and across the way Captain Zhang entered from the outside staircase, his medical kit hanging from his left hand. He turned aft, and Manville looked at him.

  Curtis looked from Manville to Zhang, then called, “Captain!”

  Zhang turned around. His face was gray and unhealthy and deeply worried. “Yes, sir?”

  “Why not see your patient a little later?” Curtis suggested. “After George and I have had our talk, I’ll come up and we’ll have a word.”

  Zhang
looked confused, as though he wasn’t sure whether this was a reprieve or not. “Yes, sir,” he said, but seemed for a few seconds unable to reverse his motion. What he’d been going to do was so deeply fixed in his mind—because it was so difficult?—that he found it hard to give it up. Then, with a kind of lurch, he did turn around, and go back out through the swing door, and Curtis turned to Manville to say, “You were going to tell me, I think, that what I’m doing can’t last, that eventually I’ll be so deeply in debt there’ll be no way to hide the fact, and that already I’m probably so deeply in debt I’ll never get clear.”

  Manville said, “Are you?”

  “Yes,” Curtis said.

  Manville leaned back. He didn’t know what to think, couldn’t even imagine why Curtis was telling him all this. Bewildered by what Curtis was saying, he found he was thinking mostly about himself. Had he hitched his wagon to a falling star?

  Curtis said, “At first, I thought it was only a temporary expedient, I could dance on the edge of the cliff until I got everything back the way it used to be.” Pointing off to starboard, he said, “Fifteen years from now, Kanowit will be a money machine, but I don’t have the time to wait for it. I have other money machines, but they all require too much priming of the pump, too much money going in before any comes out. And even with all of my efforts, I’m doing most of this for other people. Do you know how much of Kanowit is mine? Ten percent. My three partners here, each of them thinks he’s the only one with thirty, that the other two have ten each and I have fifty. And each of them thinks the other two have been lied to, have been told that he has only ten percent instead of thirty, so none of them will ever compare notes.” With a bitter smile, he added, “None of them will go to apologize to a corpse.”

  “What risks you’re taking,” Manville said.

  “At first, it was because I was angry,” Curtis explained. “That last year in Hong Kong, the bastards were squeezing and squeezing, they wanted me out, but they wanted everything I owned to stay behind. I fought the best way I could, I moved the operation to Singapore, I kept the business going with borrowed money while trying to salvage what I could from Hong Kong, and my anger at those fucking thieves got in the way of my caution. I overextended myself, and the only cure was to overextend myself even more.”