Buzz Cut

by James W. Hall

  "Boy, was I out." His voice frail, Sugar taking shallow breaths. "Dreamed I was in that canoe. Stroking, stroking. Getting nowhere. Paddling like a maniac, the thing stuck dead in the mud. Terrible goddamn dream."

  He lay back against the table. Took several shallow breaths.

  "Jesus, you're alive."

  "Maybe. I'm not sure."

  "What the fuck happened to you?"

  Sugar closed his eyes, worked on getting his breath.

  "And what the hell is that stuff you're covered in!"

  "Seaweed. A purgative."

  "Man, oh, man. You scared the ever-loving shit out of me."

  Feebly Sugar tucked the blanket into place. "What they do, they microwave the seaweed, get it piping hot, a lady slathers it all over, wraps you in this thermal blanket, turns out the light, leaves you to cook for an hour, sweat like a son of a bitch. It's to get rid of the toxins. I must've been full of them. Must've had twenty pounds of toxins floating around inside me."

  "You sound like death on the half shell."

  "At least I can talk."

  "Well, you sound terrible."

  "You come all this way to give me shit?"

  Thorn sat down on the swivel stool beside the table. "Someone called, said you'd been hurt. You might not make it."

  "I was probably fibrillating at the time," he said. "But they de-fibbed me. Hit me with those paddles, you know."

  "You had a heart attack?"

  "Kind of."

  "Talk to me, Sugar."

  He opened his eyes, stared up into the half-light, sighed, eyes drifting closed. Lying there sweating inside his foil blanket. With his eyes shut, he told Thorn the story, breath coming hard. Stopping every sentence, gathering himself, going on.

  A few hours ago, headed to his cabin, he'd seen a guy duck in a room. It looked weird, so he followed. Guy got around behind him somehow. Same young guy they ran into on the docks in the Glades. He zapped Sugar with that thing on his fingers. After he was knocked out, the guy apparently rearranged him so one hand touched the bulkhead. To ground him. Then he put his current against Sugar's right nipple, making the voltage run from his right nipple across his chest to his left hand.

  "Through your heart."

  "Exactly. Guy was trying to rattle my pulse out of sync. And he succeeded, but somebody walked by, started screaming. Guy ran. They got a nurse down there. She de-fibbed me. Did some CPR and brought me back. Though my ribs, man, it feels like Muhammad Ali's been using me for a heavy bag."

  "This fuckhead tried to electrocute you, you're lying there joking about it?"

  "I'm too weak to get mad. My heart's not up to it."

  "Jesus. I walked in here, I thought you were dead."

  "Well, I believe I may have paid a brief visit to the great beyond. And let me tell you, place isn't all it's cracked up to be. Organ music is for shit."

  "Man, oh, man."

  "Nurse told me a fibrillating heart looks like a bunch of squirming worms. Muscles all separated into strands, jumping and jiving all out of sync."

  Thorn felt his own heart quiver.

  "Know what I found out? Fiesta's policy for heart attacks?" His eyes were open now, staring at Thorn.

  "You're working yourself up, Sugar. You should just relax."

  "Normal procedure on cruise ships, the med staff does what they call a scoop and run. They get the body back to the infirmary quick as possible so none of the paying customers see it and get upset."

  Thorn told him again to calm down.

  Sugarman saying, "But that's not how you're supposed to treat a heart attack. The golden minutes, all that shit. You should put the paddles on right away, crank up the joules. Seven, eight minutes, no oxygen in the brain, after that you got brain damage. But no, Fiesta can't spoil the party, so they scoop and run. Spend the golden moments hustling the body back to the hospital. Got to keep the good times rolling. Can you believe that shit? Public relations versus medicine. PR wins. I got to talk to somebody about that."

  Sugar took several long breaths.

  "Guess I was lucky the ship was in port, all the passengers off. They treated me right where I was, got me de-fibbed. After I stabilized, they took me to the infirmary, put me on an IV, the whole thing. Couple hours later my blood pressure is back, everything fine, so I snuck out, came up here. Felt so goddamn bloated from the IV, decided to indulge myself. Though I gotta say, I'm still feeling puny. Room's moving around a little."

  "Puny! Sugar, you had a fucking heart attack. You should be putting fluids in, not taking them out."

  "Yeah, yeah. But, man, I was so puffy I couldn't make a fist. Felt like I was stuck inside the skin of a dwarf."

  "You idiot."

  "Dizzy as shit too. First-class headache. But all in all, not bad considering I was probably dead for half a minute."

  Thorn stood up, lay his hand on Sugarman's shoulder. "Listen, Sugar. This person who called me . . ."

  "Yeah."

  Thorn stepped back, waved the thought away. "Hell, it was probably a lie. Somebody's idea of a stupid fucking joke."

  "Let me guess," Sugar said. Lying very still, mummified in that aluminum. "Lola Sampson."

  "How the hell . . . ?"

  "She's the one found me. Walking by in the hallway with one of her Hollywood friends. Lola giving the tour of the lower decks. The woman stopped, saw what was happening, and screamed. Lola ran back but by then the guy was loping off down the hall."

  Sugarman eased up, blinked three times, gathering his wits. Gave Thorn a woozy half smile. "Time to hose off this goop. I must've sweated out every damn toxin I ever absorbed in my complete and total life."

  Sugarman boosted himself to a sitting position, caught his breath then edged off the table, hugging the silver blanket around him. He shuffled toward the door, a delicate old man.

  "The woman on the phone," said Thorn, "the one who said her name was Lola, she also claimed she was your mother." Sugarman halted.

  "That was her name wasn't it, your mother? Lola?"

  "That was her name, yeah. Lola Marie Sugarman."

  Thorn came over to him.

  Sugarman swiveled, looked into his eyes. Smiled quietly.

  "I've known it for years," Sugar said. "Where she was, what she was doing, all of it."

  He turned and padded out the door. He went down the short hallway with Thorn dogging him into the shower room. Sugarman peeled off the shiny blanket and stepped out of a pair of paper diapers. He stood there for a moment, the slime oozing off him.

  "Ten, twelve years back, when I was still on the force, I got a wild hair and ran her name on the computer. She'd dropped Sugarman and was using her maiden name, but with a little work I found her. A secretary for Fiesta Cruise Lines. Sampson's personal secretary. Worked her way up from clerical assistant."

  He stepped over to the shower.

  "And your father? You run his name too?"

  "Didn't bother. Could care less."

  "So you've talked to her, worked it all out?"

  "No," he said. "I never been a big believer in wallowing in the past."

  "You traced her, spent time looking for her. What for? To practice your police skills?"

  "I wanted to see what I could find out. When I learned what I did, I dropped it. She had a decent life. Everything was fine for her. I didn't need to rush in, upset everything."

  "You didn't even want to hear her story, why she ran off?"

  "She was barely twenty years old at the time, for christ sakes, her husband leaves her, she's got this screaming kid, no job. How's her story going to be any different from the other ten thousand versions of what I heard already?"

  "How come you never told me any of this?"

  "I didn't tell anybody."

  "That's who I am? Anybody."

  "Hey, buddy, you're a hell of a lot more than anybody. You're my boon companion. But it wasn't something I needed to talk about. It was information, pure and simple. She's alive. She was working for this guy in
Miami. Big deal. I'm glad she's doing okay."

  "More than okay."

  "Yeah, I guess."

  "So that's your mysterious benefactor? Person who got you the job with Fiesta."

  "Right."

  "Why would she do that, get you hired? She's gotta know it's you, her son."

  "She must have her reasons."

  "And why would she tell me who she was?"

  "I don't know. That comes as a surprise."

  Thorn shook his head. "Man, I don't believe you. Your own mother. Never said anything."

  Sugarman turned on one of the showers, kept a hand in the spray till it warmed, then stepped into it and began to rinse. Thorn turned around, looked at himself in the mirror, straightened a few hairs, then mussed them up again. Turned back around.

  "I feel like a pervert standing here watching you shower."

  "You look like a pervert. Those gym shorts, the T-shirt."

  "It was what I had on when I got the call."

  Sugarman stepped out of the shower, went over to the towel bin and pulled out a fresh one, started patting himself down.

  "I don't think you've been honest with me, Sugar."

  Sugarman sawed the towel across his back. "Yeah? How's that?"

  Sugar opened a locker, took out a pair of khaki camp shorts, a blue tennis shirt, and deck shoes. Thorn watching him. Feeling the throb in his arms from fighting that steering wheel for over an hour.

  "You've been lying to me, right from the get-go."

  "I have?"

  "That bullshit about Rochelle. Insulting her. Pushing me away like that."

  "That wasn't bullshit. She's not the right woman for you."

  "Look, Sugar, I was in your office. I dug around, trying to find out where the hell you were, I came across a photograph." Sugar sat down on one of the benches, rolled his head like he was working out the neck kinks. Watching Thorn as he did it.

  "This photo," Thorn said. "It was a shot of Lola sitting on a porch somewhere. You know the one I'm talking about?"

  He stopped rolling his head, held Thorn's eyes.

  "The boy sitting with her, one she had her arm around, he looked familiar to me."

  "How'd you do that, get into my office?"

  Thorn said, "This boy looked a lot like our friend on the docks a couple weeks ago, Freddy Megawatt. A younger version. Guy that tried to kill you. Tried to kill you twice now."

  Sugarman disengaged from Thorn's gaze.

  "Freddie Megawatt," Thorn said. "This guy is your brother, isn't he?"

  The air leaked out of Sugarman. He leaned forward, rested his elbows on his knees.

  "No," he said.

  "You're lying. He's your fucking brother."

  Sugar tipped his head up, gave Thorn a vague nod. "Half brother. Same mother, different father."

  Sugar straightened, holding himself erect, the slightest of wobbles.

  "That day I was studying the casino videos of the guy playing the slots, even wearing a disguise, his head down like that, it hit me. I ran that damn tape over and over. Just that quick glimpse of the guy's profile. But I thought I recognized him."

  "And you recognized him again that day out on the docks."

  Sugar gave another small nod.

  "And you were gonna let that fucking kid roll you over the side, feed you to the alligators."

  "I was fighting him," he said. "I wasn't giving in."

  "Bullshit."

  "Look, I'm tired, Thorn. I need to lie down."

  "Is that true, Sugar? Because the kid's your little brother, you couldn't lift a hand? You've been hired to capture this fucker, but instead you've decided you're going to let him take you down? You're gonna throw the fight?"

  Sugar rose and took a minute or two to pull his clothes on, step into his deck shoes. He walked over to the bank of mirrors, rubbed his hair dry with the towel, then scrunched it for a minute, achieving absolutely no result Thorn could see.

  He looked at Thorn in the mirror. Coughed, wiped at the corner of his mouth. "Go on home, Thorn. You did your good deed, you answered the call. Now you're free to leave."

  "Fuck that. I'm not going anywhere till I know what the hell's going on in your head."

  Sugar rubbed his cheek with the back of his hand. He held himself still as if waiting for his heart to catch up to the moment. "Come on," he said. "I need some fresh air."

  Thorn followed him out of the spa, through a hatch that led to the railing of the Sports Deck. Facing north into the thick city lights. A breeze lifting Thorn's hair, rearranging it. A couple of small fishing boats heading out the long channel toward the absolute darkness of the sea. Sugarman leaned heavily against the rail, drinking in the air. Head bowed.

  "I've been an asshole," Sugar said. "The horseshit I said about Rochelle. I'm sorry. But that day on the docks, when he came out of nowhere like that . . . After you whipped him, I saw that look on his face when he said he'd see us later, both of us. It hit me. The shit I'm in, it's my personal self-created shit. All my doing. I don't have any right dragging you into the line of fire. You got a good thing going, your life is healing up. Rochelle's fine. It was never Rochelle. I'm sorry."

  Thorn was silent.

  "His name is Butler Jack. He uses Lola's maiden name. Jack. He's twenty-three years old. Just a kid. Young enough, he could be my own son. I mean, yeah, he's fucked up. He's dangerous. But he's my goddamn flesh and blood. What the fuck am I supposed to do?"

  "He tried to kill you, Sugar."

  "I know that."

  "He's tried twice."

  Sugar shook his head solemnly. "I know it's stupid, Thorn. It's crazy. I should just treat this kid like any other crazed fuck comes dancing down the boardwalk with a weapon in his hand. I don't know what it is. Something cramps up in me. I looked him in the eye, and all of a sudden I get jelly in my gut, I'm standing there, my dick is waving in the wind, arms wide open. Go on, stick your sword in my belly. Open me up. I don't know what it is."

  "You want to die? You want this kid to do the honors?"

  "I'm telling you, I don't know what it is. I keep thinking about it, what's going on with me. I think, well shit, maybe Butler Jack is the guy I would've been if Lola had stuck around and raised me. That's me I'm looking at. A version of me."

  "What bullshit."

  "Yeah," Sugarman said. "I say it out loud, it sounds crazy. But that's what happens. I cramp up."

  "You need to see a goddamn shrink. And quick."

  Sleek clouds knifed past the heavy moon. There were party sounds coming from somewhere a deck or two below. The tinkle of glasses, quiet laughter. Jaunty big band music.

  "So this cruise, they going to cancel it now? Search the ship and root out this kid."

  "No," Sugar said. "Going ahead as planned. Two thousand people coming aboard. Some tonight, the rest tomorrow, sailing for six days. Sampson won't hear of shutting it down. Show must go on."

  "Even knowing there's a killer roaming around."

  "Even knowing that."

  Thorn watched the city lights shivering in colorful streaks across the dark water. A lone gull sailing low, heading out to sea. "I'm going to need some clothes," he said.

  "What?"

  "I saw a boutique on my way up to the spa. Just as long as they got something besides Banlon and Sansabelt slacks."

  "Forget it, Thorn. This isn't your fight."

  "If it's yours, Sugar, it's mine."

  For a moment more Sugarman continued to stare out at the lights. He blinked. Blinked again.

  Then he raised his left arm and settled it over Thorn's shoulder. They stood like that for a moment or two. Then Thorn turned to face him, opened his arms, and stepped into the embrace.

  CHAPTER 17

  Monica slid open the glass door and stepped onto the balcony. It was a ten-story plunge to the dock. No one walking around down there anymore. The two cops had called it a night, the gangway blocked off. She leaned forward as far as she could but saw no lights in the adjacent cabins.
She called out but her voice was torn to pieces by the steady offshore breeze.

  She came back inside, did a thorough tour of the room. The phone cord was snipped. She found a few electrician's tools in Butler's bag, but nothing she might use to pry the door or pick the lock. The only thing close to a weapon was in the minibar, a corkscrew inside a bamboo holder. She opened it up, gripped the bamboo in her fist, lining up the spiral point so it stuck out between her middle fingers. It might defend her against a sleepwalker, but she doubted it would slow down Butler Jack. She pitched it back on the shelf and went into the john.

  Nothing in the medicine chest, nothing beneath the sink. Just two drinking glasses on an inset shelf. She picked up one of them. Raised it above the sink and let it drop. The longest shard was two inches long. Worse than the corkscrew.

  She went back to the cabin, dragged the desk chair over to the door, and cocked it against the knob. One good shove would probably break it in half, but hell, what did she have? She circled the cabin again, but everything she touched was bolted down. She stared at the bed, considered the king-size mattress. With some struggle she might be able to lean it and the box springs against the door. She lifted an edge, then let it fall.

  Maybe she was overreacting. Butler had stalked off in a rage. He'd jiggered the lock, trapped her there. But that didn't necessarily mean she was in danger. By the time he returned, the storm might have churned itself out. She could apologize. Claim he'd misunderstood, that she'd waited after all. When he was asleep she could sneak off the ship. Get the hell out of there.

  She went out to the balcony again. Took several deep breaths, leaned against the railing and gazed at the city lights. The flashy skyline of Miami's downtown. Butler was right about that much. The men who built those monstrous skyscrapers were obsessives. She knew about their kind. Growing up, she'd watched her father's relentless labor as ship after ship in the Fiesta navy was constructed and put into service. The planning, the focus. The complex engineering, the rivet-by-rivet labor.

  It took people like him, the Morton Sampsons, men capable of brutal concentration, to build such things. People willing to sacrifice everything, their families, friends, their own leisure, so the grand structures of the earth could rise. Like the men she'd studied in college, painters, the great masters. Men driven by fanatical fixations. Madmen, social misfits.