by Jason Frost
"I don't know. But she looks tall."
"But she has an English accent?"
"Yeah, it'll give the whole thing some class. Maybe I can affect one when I'm doing all the talk shows. 'Bloody good to see you, Merv, ol' boy.' How's that?"
"Lousy."
"I'll work on it."
Eric noticed the strain in Tracy's voice and knew her hip was getting worse. If nothing happened to them by morning, he'd have to use his makeshift blade and cut some of the infection from her wound.
Shadows fractured the bar of light at the bottom of the door as footsteps approached outside. They heard the door being unchained and sat up straight. Tracy slid her sharpened blade into her pants, hooking one curved edge over the top of her panties. The razor edge lay flat against her pubic hairs.
Eric quickly laced up his boots, wedging the steel blade at the hollow next to his ankle.
The door swung open and a crowd of anxious faces peered into the room. Behind them a dim glow from several kerosene lamps cast a shroud of shadows over them disguising their features with flickering splotches of dark. It gave them all sinister hulking looks.
One man emerged from the crowd and stepped into the room, holding a red railroad lantern in one hand and a saber in the other. He was easily six feet four inches with a leather belt worn bandolier style across one shouder. The empty saber scabbard dangled at his hip. But he also wore a shoulder holster with a.38 Dan Wesson Model 15-2 VH tucked snugly away.
He was about Eric's age, mid-thirties, with light black skin that extended into a little bay at the top of his balding head. He was grinning hugely as he stepped into the middle of the room.
"Wonderful," he smiled, holding the lantern up to see better. "We finally got some poor sonsabitches to walk that damn plank we built." He paused. "Unless you can give us Alabaster's map."
11.
The tall black man leaned on the ornate handle of his saber as if it were a cane. His dark eyes had a mischievous glint to them, but they were deadly serious as they studied Eric and Tracy.
"You were on Rhino's ship," he finally said. "Crew members?"
"Prisoners," Eric answered.
A few people in the crowd laughed skeptically.
The black man smiled. "We've heard that one before, skipper. Care to try a different story?"
Eric didn't respond. His chest ached as if steel claws were shredding their way through skin and bone to grab at his heart. It was taking all of his energy just to maintain consciousness. A glance at Tracy indicated that she wasn't doing much better. But he could see a spark of defiance igniting in her.
"I don't care what you've heard before, pal," Tracy said. "We were paddling along on our canoe when they picked us up."
"In your canoe, huh? Like Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer."
"Christ," she sighed in exasperation. "If you used your head as much as your mouth, you'd realize that we couldn't be part of their crew. If we were, why would we have gotten off The Centurion in a leaky canoe?'' She shifted her hip to show him the wound. "And why would Rhino have shot me?"
The man shrugged. "You got scared when the fighting started. Or you thought the ship would go up in flames. You panicked. Rhino shot you as deserters."
Eric chuckled. "We certainly weren't afraid of the Home Run destroying anything but itself."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, first, you set the timer to blow much too soon. Second, the placement of the explosives was all wrong. You had them strung out along the hull instead of in one location. Also, had you built a funnel around them, you could have blown a hole clear through The Centurion and probably have sunk her." Eric dismissed them with a disgusted wave of his hand. "All you managed to do was destroy your own ship and get some of your own people killed."
The man frowned. Behind him the crowd discussed Eric's statements in urgent whispers. When the man with the saber spoke again his voice crackled with anger. "Unfortunately we didn't have your expertise. We were just doing our best."
"Unfortunately," Eric nodded.
"We managed to take a couple of them out," a man in the crowd hollered. "Killed one myself." The crowd responded enthusiastically to this.
Before Eric could answer, a young man began elbowing his way through the crowd. Tears of grief and anger streaked his tanned face as he pointed an accusing finger at Eric.
"He killed Teddy," he cried. "I saw him shoot an arrow through him."
"I saw him too," a woman said, grabbing the young man by the shoulders. Eric recognized her as the older woman aboard the Home Run.
"What about that?" the black man asked. "Is it true?"
"I did shoot somebody, I don't know who."
"Whose side was he on? Ours or theirs?"
"I couldn't tell."
The black man was incredulous. "You couldn't tell, but you shot him anyway?"
"He shot him," Tracy jumped in, "because the man was burning alive, a human torch, for God's sake. All Eric tried to do was save him a few minutes of agony."
The black man looked at the woman. "Rachel?"
She nodded. "That's the way it looked to me, Blackjack. I just wanted to hear it to be certain."
Blackjack stared at Eric and Tracy, pinching absently at the whiskered skin under his chin. Finally he turned his back and started out the door. "Bring them along," he ordered.
***
"This might sound selfish," Blackjack smiled, passing the canteen to Tracy, "but the quakes are the best thing that could have happened to me."
Tracy swigged the warm water, swallowing greedily. When she finished, she wiped the excess water from her chin with her palm and said, "Care to explain?"
"Maybe." Blackjack's smile widened, displaying more teeth. "If you live."
The three of them were sitting in the middle of a huge room the size of a warehouse that once had been the busy main floor of stockbrokers Finch, Levy, and Treemont. The overworked office staff had snidely referred to it as LAX Annex, calling the path that ran down the middle of the room between the rows of cubicles, The Runway. The Runway continued out of the main room down a corridor, passed the Xerox room, the Conference Room, the Executive Lounge, and finally halted at the private offices of Finch, Levy, and Treemont. Seven years ago Treemont had convinced his partners to take offices in this building because it was quakeproof. He'd been right; hardly any damage had been done to it from the shock of the quakes. However, Treemont, a short stubby man who'd only recently begun to battle his "blossoming behind," as his wife called it, by three-times-a-week workouts on Nautilus
equipment, had been trampled to death on The Runway after the second quake. Forty-three full-time employees, herded together with twelve part-timers and a Xerox repairwoman, had each contributed a footprint or two to the crushed body. Finch had tried to help his partner, but had been too late. The third partner, Levy, had actually been one of the first to stomp on Treemont in his own dash to the exit. Not that it mattered. None of the partners was alive by the end of the day.
The office had originally been designed to house fifty desks, each partitioned off to form semiprivate cubicles, each with its own telephone and video terminal plugged into the company's vast digital computer system. The interior designer had assured the partners that this setup would provide a sense of privacy yet still give the employees the feeling they were being watched. "Guaranteed maximum efficiency," the designer had winked.
The screens were all gone now, neatly stacked against the far wall as if the building's new residents thought they might someday come in handy again. Each little cubicle had a blanket or a flap of carpet hanging down to close it off from the rest and to form tiny apartments. The desks remained, serving triple duty as dressers, dining tables, and sometimes beds for the children. Behind a few partitions, Eric could see a lantern casting a silhouette on the sheet or blanket that was both door and wall. A few feet away, he saw the outline of a woman breast-feeding her hungry baby.
Despite the ventilation provided by the shattered glass, the room s
till was heavy with the smell of unwashed bodies and smoke from the lanterns. Eric didn't mind the odor, having endured far worse in 'Nam. Curiously, the smell of these bodies was different than those on The Centurion. Orientals claim they can barely stand the smell of Americans due to their heavy consumption of meat, compared with the lighter eastern diets of fish and vegetables. That lighter scent was what Eric smelled here, earthy but sweet. He realized for the first time how healthy and well fed they all looked, though he'd seen no animals. They must catch a hell of a lot of fish, he thought.
"Can you think of any reason why we should let you live?" Blackjack asked. The three of them were sitting in his cubicle. The ratty beach towel with CALIFORNIA: A STATE OF MIND printed in electric blue over a smiling surfer was flipped open so the two armed guards could watch Eric and Tracy closely. The woman held a spear, the man a compound bow. Blackjack casually continued, "Any reason we shouldn't toss you back into the ocean, sans canoe?"
"I can't see any advantage to killing us," Eric responded, just as casually.
"Christ," Tracy said. "Listen to you two. We're talking about killing, goddamn it. And you two sound as if you were discussing a garage sale."
"She's right, of course," Blackjack agreed. "It is so uncivilized. But that doesn't change anything. As Walter Cronkite used to say, 'That's the way it is.' As far as I can see, you two are damaged goods." He pointed at Tracy's nasty hip wound. "In her condition, she wouldn't bring me much at an auction. And you, sport…" He nodded at Eric's chest. The blood had soaked through the bandages and blotted through his shirt. "You aren't exactly fit."
"We'll take care of ourselves," Eric said. "Just give us back our canoe and the duct tape, and we'll be out of your way."
His eyes narrowed on Eric. "Duct tape? To fix a canoe."
"It'll keep the water out long enough for us to reach shore."
"Then what? She can't travel by foot, her hip's in pretty bad condition."
"I'll take care of it."
The man laughed. "How? With spit and duct tape?"
"There are many possibilities," Eric said quietly. "Yarrow is a standard treatment, used by both the ancient Greeks and knights of the Middle Ages for battle-wound dressings. Com-frey root and marshmallow root poultices could work, along with some plantain tea taken internally. Horsetail stems, garlic, pot marigold, chamomile, flax seed. There's a whole pharmacy growing out there. One-stop shopping, no waiting at the check-out stand."
"Tell him about the maggots," Tracy added.
"First explosives, now medicine," Blackjack said. "Any other talents?"
Tracy knew Eric wouldn't answer, so she answered for him, turning to face the armed female guard as she spoke. "Just some advice for your women. Sphagnum moss can be wrapped in cloth and used as sanitary napkins." It was something Eric had taught her. At the time she'd been embarrassed that he'd known how to take care of her body better than she had. But it had also touched her deeply that he'd been thoughtful enough to do so. Tracy turned back to Blackjack. "Now, we've proven we're no threat to you, and we've given you information. So there's no need to keep us prisoners here, is there?"
Blackjack leaned his long body against the flimsy partition. On the other side, they heard somebody snoring. "What can you tell us about The Centurion?"
Tracy shrugged. "What do you want to know?"
"Everything."
Tracy looked at Eric.
"It's a seventy-three-foot staysail Schooner," Eric began, taking another gulp of water from the canteen, capping it, and tossing it back to Blackjack, who caught it with one hand. Eric's lips curled in what might have been mistaken for a smile. "The interiors are teak. Very fancy. It's got three double staterooms and a large salon, two heads, and a nifty galley. The planking is three-inch fir over three-inch and six-inch fit frames on sixteen-inch centers. The inner hull consists of alternating three-inch and six-inch planking. It's got two dinghies and a seven and a half kilowatt Onan generator to power its searchlights. The engine is a GM 6-71 diesel. I don't know whether it's fueled or not."
"Finally something you don't know," Blackjack sighed.
"Gets to you, doesn't it?" Tracy added.
Blackjack leaned forward, hovering over Tracy with his lantern. "Let me take a look at that wound."
"Why?"
He smiled. "I was a doctor. Still am, I guess, technically. Dr. Fennimore Cohen, but now I'm called Blackjack. Like the card game. Made it up myself. Can't be a pirate without a nickname, they won't take you seriously. Like professional sports."
"You're a pirate?" Tracy asked, startled. "Like Rhino and his gang."
"They're our number one competitor. For now."
Tracy shook her head. "But all these people, these families. Children, for Christ's sake. You can't be like him."
"Well, we're a little different. We're more of a community." He spread his hands to indicate the whole floor. "But otherwise, there's no difference."
"We're nothing like Rhino and those pigs," the woman guard spat.
Blackjack looked up at her with a frown. "You're wrong, Belinda. We are just like them. We rob other ships that cross our waterways, we trade goods at Liar's Cove with the other thieves and crooks. Maybe we aren't as bloodthirsty as the others, but that's not much of a difference in the long run. And we do kill when necessary. Let's not kid ourselves about who we are and what we do. We aren't noble outlaws." He let his hard gaze fall on Eric and Tracy. "It wouldn't be wise to confuse us with Robin Hood."
"No chance," Tracy said immediately.
"Good. Then you won't hesitate to tell me all you know about Alabaster's map." Blackjack kept his glare fixed on them a moment longer, the flame from the railroad lantern reflecting in his dark eyes.
"We don't know anything about Alabaster or any damn map," she said.
Blackjack ignored the words, returning to administer to Tracy's hip, spreading apart the torn pants so he could examine the wound. "I was a pediatrician, but I thought two years in ER prepared me for just about anything. Until the quakes."
"Here, let me loosen this so you can see better." Tracy unfastened the button to her jeans and began tugging at the zipper. Blackjack looked slightly embarrassed, glancing over at Eric, who was already shifting in preparation for what he knew would come next.
Tracy plucked the honed sliver of steel from her panties and pressed the razor edge of the blade against Blackjack's throat. He started to back away and she grabbed a handful of hair at the back of his head. "No, no," she warned, her voice pitched to a high squeak from the excitement. "Don't move, Dr. Pirate. This is the first time I've ever done anything like this, and I might make a terrible mistake and slit your throat."
"Okay, okay," Blackjack whispered. "Easy does it."
Eric was on his feet, taking the weapons from the startled guards. He motioned toward Blackjack, and they walked toward their leader. "Sit," he ordered. They did.
"Not bad, huh," Tracy said excitedly, looking at Eric.
"Keep your eye on him, not me," Eric said.
"Yeah, right." She turned back, clutching Blackjack's hair even harder. "But not bad, huh?"
"Pretty good."
"Whatta ya mean, 'pretty good.' Damn good."
"No. Damn good would have been if you'd waited until he finished treating your leg. After all, he is a doctor, remember?"
Tracy sighed. "Right."
Eric snatched the.38 from Blackjack's shoulder holster and held it on the three prisoners while Tracy used the spear to climb to her feet. "But otherwise, you did a hell of a job."
Tracy looked at him with a wide grin. "Damn right I did."
Eric handed her the.38, hooked the guard's quiver of arrows onto his pants and crooked a finger at Blackjack. "This way, Doctor."
Blackjack stood up, still massaging his throat where Tracy's blade had shaved off a few whiskers. No matter how much he rubbed, he could still feel the blade pressing against his skin. "There's no place to go. You can't get through this room without one of the o
ther guards spotting you. Just take your damn canoe and duct tape and go."
"What's to stop you from coming after us?" Eric asked. "Our canoe is no match for your ship."
Blackjack laughed. "Why should we bother? You have nothing we want."
"Not even Alabaster's map?"
Blackjack fought to keep his face expressionless, but the eyes flared at Eric's question. "Do you have it?"
"How could we?" Eric asked. "You had us searched."
Blackjack glanced at the steel blades hooked in Tracy and Eric's jeans pockets. "You're a little more clever than we expected."
Eric liked it that Blackjack didn't make excuses or try to place blame. He could have yelled at Belinda, who'd first captured and searched Tracy and Eric. But he didn't. He stood there and tried to keep everyone calm. Defuse the situation, they'd called it during Eric's training for the Night Shift. Pirate or Warlord, in some ways it was all the same job.
"Let's go," Eric said.
"What about Alabaster's map?" Blackjack demanded.
"We don't know anything about it, except-that Rhino and Angel were as anxious to get it as you are."
"Damn!" he cursed, turning to Belinda and the other guard seated at his feet. "That means we've only got one chance to find out where the map is. And even that looks slim."
Tracy nodded to Eric. "Look, none of this concerns us. Shouldn't we be getting the hell out of here?"
"Absolutely." He nudged Blackjack ahead of them out onto The Runway, glancing over his shoulder at the seated unarmed guards. "There's no point in following us yet. It'll just make us nervous and put the doctor here in more jeopardy." Having said that, he ushered Blackjack and Tracy across the room, knowing they'd be followed all the way. Tracy used the spear as a cane, limping and hopping painfully. Every few steps they stopped for her to catch her breath.
Outside the Long Beach Halo, the sun was beginning to rise, bright and cheerful on the rest of the world. Inside the Halo, sunrise was distinguished by smoky orange fingers creeping over the horizon like a skin infection.
As they walked, guards posted at the broken glass openings turned their weapons on the trio, only to be waved back by Blackjack. Eric noted Belinda and the other guard following at a discreet distance. Both had rearmed themselves along the way.