Off the Chart

by James W. Hall

  “I only did it for a month,” Marty said. “It’s not like I’m some expert. Far as I could see, it wasn’t anything special. Like knocking over a fucking warehouse, that’s all, except it’s out on the water. Most times the sailors, they drop down on their faces, give up without a fight. It’s not very exciting.”

  “Yeah, except that last time when they were waiting for you.”

  Marty nodded. “Yeah, that time was different. Real different.”

  Vic could tell Anne was listening. Paper still in front of her face, but eyes not moving anymore.

  “But look, Marty, you’re missing the point about movies. There’s a long tradition here. An illustrious history of swashbuckling cinema. A wider frame of reference we have to pay homage to. So how I see it is, the first few seconds of our movie, like when the credits are rolling, we show the audience what they’re in for. Make it pop from the first frame, snap and crackle. Pirates boiling out of their little boat, crawling over the side of the big ship, bippity-bop, bippity-boom. Don’t hold a fucking thing back. All our cards on the table. Then later on, five, ten minutes into it, we find a way to top that scene, explosions, lasers, nukes, whatever. That’s creativity: You start with everything you got, then you dig down and you find more and after that you find more, and more after that.”

  Vic Joy gave Marty Messina a quick look to see if he was absorbing this.

  “Snap, crackle, and pop,” Marty said. “Like the cereal.”

  Vic smiled, but he could feel a spurt of bile stinging the back of his throat. He wasn’t a fan of sarcasm, irony, whatever the fuck you called it. Words were for saying things straight out. You put your words up against the other guy’s to see which ones were stronger. No tricks. You didn’t say one thing, then mock what you’d said with a grin or your tone of voice.

  “Okay, Marty. So then the other thing to remember is, we can’t shy away from something that’s already been done. I don’t know how you guys did it, but as you already witnessed firsthand, when I storm a yacht, I like a knife in my mouth like the pirates of old. Blackbeard, Captain Blood. Gripping it between the teeth, blade out. That’s an important detail. Blade out.”

  Vic slugged down his OJ in one swallow, wiped his mouth, and said, “It’s time I took some of this shit I been doing and put it up on the silver screen. Hell, my run-of-the-mill ordinary day is ten times as exciting as most of the shit people buy tickets to see.”

  “These last couple of days,” Marty said, “I’d rather not see them again.”

  “What’s wrong, Butch? What happened to our prison-tough hombre?”

  Marty sipped his juice and flexed his free hand, working the blood back.

  “You know, maybe I made a mistake with you, Marty. Hell, I already let you see more of my operation than I’ve ever shown anyone. That’s something new for me. I’m not the kind to delegate anything. Shit, I don’t even let the right lawyer know what the left lawyer’s doing.”

  Marty looked at him, his big moon face showing a trace of worry.

  “Maybe it was a moment of weakness, bringing you aboard. I thought you had more piss in your blood than you’ve shown me so far.”

  Marty sipped his juice. In his black jeans and dark socks and ankle-high white tennis shoes. His yellow T-shirt was from Snook’s Bayside, one of the two or three good local waterfront restaurants Vic didn’t own. But give him time, he’d be adding Snook’s to the list.

  “Look, Marty. You got an opportunity here, kind of chance doesn’t come around that often. Hell, look at me and Anne, we didn’t have two turds to rub together when we started out. A couple of kids with a drug runner’s car and a couple hundred dollars. All I had going for me was some hick-from-the-sticks anger stewing in my veins, a crazy spunk. Now look around you, boy. Take a minute and absorb the scene. Whatta you think a place like this costs anyway?”

  Marty said, “I’m grateful, Vic. I am.”

  “Eleven million and change, that’s what. After I built the main house, I had that brick house carted down here from Harlan. That’s our childhood home, Marty; ask Anne Bonny. Same furniture, rugs, even the damn washing machine. You think that wasn’t expensive to do, think again. And where’d all that money come from, boy? Did I inherit any from my old man? Shit, no. I worked my bony ass off for this place and all the other goodies I got. I took chances; I went so far out on the limb there wasn’t any limb left. Then I went a little farther. I used the old creative right brain and I used it again. I out-smarted the boys in the suits with their Harvard MBAs and their bullshit lawyers.”

  Vic got up and stripped off his clothes and left them in a pile by his chaise, and buck naked he dived into his own goddamn blue-water swimming pool. Most expensive water in the world, piped down all the way from the well fields in Miami. He did a couple laps, up and back again, and one more time to clean off the kerosene stink of the jet fuel and the sweat and grime and blood from the night before. And climbed out. He stood on the apron and shook the water off his arms and gave his penis a little whip jiggle for everybody’s amusement. But no one was watching. Marty looking off at the ocean, Anne staring into her newspaper, Jewel, the maid, shielding her view with the white terry-cloth robe she was holding open for him.

  Vic put it on, didn’t belt it, and walked back to the chaise with everything hanging out and lay down, exposing himself to the elements, getting a little midmorning sun on his tan lines.

  “Cover yourself, Vic.” Saying it like his mother used to give commands. A schoolteacher’s voice. “No one wants to see your cock.”

  “Hey, we’re all family here,” Vic said. “You and me, we used to take our baths together.”

  “Cover yourself,” she said. And again he heard that echo of his mother’s voice. Pissed off, barely under control, don’t make me swat you, boy.

  He closed his robe and belted it.

  Anne folded her newspaper and set it on the ground and cranked her chaise lower to catch the midmorning rays on her face. His little sister. What was left of the family back together again. Vic felt a flush of satisfaction for accomplishing that. Another thing his mother would love to see. What was left of the Joy clan, together in paradise.

  “Anybody want to hear a joke?” Vic said.

  Marty looked over at him but didn’t reply.

  “Ever hear the one about the two pirates?”

  Anne kept her eyes closed, but he could see she was listening.

  “Okay, so one pirate says to the other, ‘Hey, matey, how’d you get that wooden leg?’ And the second pirate says, ‘Arrr, it done got bit off by a goddamn shark.’ The first pirate is impressed: ‘Aye, you’re one tough son of a bitch. And how’d ya get that metal hook?’ The other one says, ‘Well, I lost her in a sword fight. Bastard cut off me bloody hand.’ ‘Aw, shit, that must’ve hurt like hell,’ says the first pirate. ‘And so how’d you get that patch on your eye?’ ‘Well now,’ says the second pirate. ‘I was up in the crow’s nest, and I looked up just as a seagull flew over the mast, and the damn thing shit right in me eye.’

  “The second pirate, he’s staring at the first one. ‘And how the hell did seagull shit make you blind?’ The first pirate gets a funny look and says, ‘Arrr, it was the first day I had me hook.’”

  Vic laughed, kept on laughing for half a minute. He wiped the tears from his eyes when he was done.

  Marty cleared his throat, took a deliberate breath, and said, “You okay, Vic?”

  “Okay? What the fuck are you talking about okay?”

  “I mean, this joke, all right, it’s kind of funny, yeah. But I’m sitting here, I’m wondering, Who the hell is this guy? This big joker or the guy out on the boat, the shit you pulled out there, which guy is it I’m working for?”

  Vic turned his head carefully and looked at Marty.

  “You want to know who I am?” Vic said.

  Marty shrugged, like he wasn’t so sure anymore, hearing Vic’s voice bubble with acid.

  Marty said, “I’m talking about the knife-i
n-the-teeth thing and all that movie talk. I just want to know if I’m on solid ground here, throwing in with you like I’m doing.”

  “You mean, am I crazy?”

  “I never said crazy.”

  Vic looked over at Anne. She was still soaking up the beneficial rays of the sun, eyes closed like she might be asleep. Though Vic could see her listening.

  “Fuck yes, I’m crazy. Name me anybody worth a shit that isn’t crazy. Go on, Marty, name me one person in the whole fucking history of mankind that made a major mark on the world that wasn’t an over-the-top lunatic one way or the other. It’s the nature of genius to be crazy. Napoléon, Julius Caesar, Marco Polo, Christopher fucking Columbus. You think any of those guys were sane? Sailing off into the blue, without a goddamn map. Is that sane? Where would the world be without those guys, the crazy fucks that took risks, made things happen?”

  “Marco Polo?”

  “Hey, Marty. Listen to me. You want to work for some sane fucking boss, go sell life insurance. Flip burgers.”

  Marty nodded like he was trying to buy Vic’s argument but not quite there yet.

  “Okay, then,” Marty said, “take this movie thing, for instance.”

  “Making a movie is crazy, Marty?”

  “What I think,” Marty said, “nobody’s going to want to see that shit.”

  Vic wiped his lips and craned in Marty’s direction.

  “Screw that,” Vic said. “Pirate movies have a long and celebrated history.”

  “Okay, Vic. So tell me. Whose story is it?”

  “What do you mean? It’s my story.”

  “I mean who’s the audience supposed to root for?”

  “Root for? What kind of crap is that?”

  “I might be full of shit,” Marty said. “But what I think is, that’s why people go to movies, Vic. To cheer when the good guy creams the bad guy. That’s why they stand in line, spend their bread. That’s what I think.”

  “Well, they can root for the fucking pirate this time,” Vic said.

  “Yeah, but why would they? I mean, you and me, okay, we’d root for him, ’cause we’re the way we are. Fucked up. But a normal working Joe. Why would he give a rat’s ass about a pirate? Think about it, Vic. A guy sneaks aboard somebody’s boat and slits their throats and shoots old ladies in the head, kidnaps little girls. Why would anyone care about a shithead like that?”

  “Hey, watch it.”

  Anne propped herself up on her elbows and looked over and asked Marty what the hell he was talking about.

  He shook his head and took another prissy sip of juice. Vic reached over and snatched the glass out of Marty’s hand and slung it into the pool and watched it sink.

  “You’re wrong, Marty. People love pirates. Always have, always will.”

  Marty was looking at the pool, the little ripples the glass made.

  “All I’m saying, Vic, I can’t see anybody paying to watch shit like that.”

  “You kidnapped a little girl, Vic?”

  “Don’t worry about it,” he said. “I invited you along, but you didn’t want to go. So that makes it officially none of your business.”

  “This is about Thorn, isn’t it?”

  “Hey, you hear what I just said? It’s none of your freaking business. Marty’s just passing gas out his blowhole. Aren’t you, kid?”

  “Me and Anne and the others, we knocked over freighters,” Marty said. “We got away with millions in TV sets and dirt bikes and all kinds of shit and we never fired a shot. Not that whole time.”

  “What little girl, Marty?” she said, looking past Vic at the big man.

  Marty shook his head, not about to get into this brother-sister thing.

  “Okay, okay,” Vic said. “You want to know so bad, it was Sugarman’s daughter, that’s who. Sugarman, you know, Thorn’s asshole buddy.”

  “I met that girl,” Anne said. “I served her lunch once. Little blond girl.”

  “Served her lunch. Well, hell, then you’re practically related.”

  “Where is she? What’d you do with her?”

  “What do you care?”

  Darien, the pool boy, slid out of the shade and whisked over to the edge of the water with his long-poled scoop and started going after the orange juice glass. When he had it, he turned around and grabbed up the yellow baseball cap, too, and carried them both away. Best help money could buy. Always hire illegals, that was Vic’s policy. Deportation hanging over their heads kept them focused.

  “What’d you do with Sugarman’s little girl, Vic?”

  “She’s safe and sound off in a secluded location. That’s all you need to know and that’s all I’m telling you.”

  Vic looked over at his sister as Anne was standing up. She picked up her shopping bag and came over and stood at the foot of Vic’s chaise lounge.

  “Forget the FROM code, Vic, I’m out of here.”

  “What? What’d I do?”

  “The little girl.”

  “Hell,” Marty said. “The little girl’s the least of it.”

  “Aw, shit, settle down, Anne Bonny. The girl’s fine. Isn’t she, Marty?”

  “Last we saw.”

  “Hell, she’s got a ton of food, she’s got shelter, a bathroom. I even let her take along binoculars she’d gotten for her freaking birthday. Little thing was whimpering about them so much. Isn’t that right, Marty?”

  “And her laptop,” he said.

  “Yeah, the kid might get bored and want to play some video games. Shit, I was as nice as pie to the girl. I may be a pirate, but I got a heart of gold.”

  Anne glared at Vic, then shifted her eyes to Marty.

  “Is that true, Marty?”

  “It is,” he said. “Computer, binoculars, food. She should be okay for a day or two.”

  “See?” Vic said. “You’re worried over nothing, Anne. The girl’s going to be just fine. We didn’t muss a hair on her pretty little noggin. What do you think, I’m some kind of monster?”

  Sixteen

  “You can’t tell me, Thorn? Why can’t you tell me?”

  Thorn sat on a stool at the breakfast counter and blew on his coffee. Alexandra was on her fourth mug. Already wired, but cranking herself higher.

  “I’m not going to lie to you, Alex.”

  “I’m not asking you to lie, I’m asking where the hell you were all night and where you got those cuts and bruises. That seems like a reasonable request of the man I’m living with.”

  Thorn got off the stool and came over to her, but Alexandra turned away. She’d sent Lawton outside, told him to wait for her on the lawn, and even the old man could hear the iron in her voice and for once didn’t question instructions. She had on a pair of loose-fitting black shorts and a peasant blouse with a flowery trim. Her hair clenched back in a ponytail and her skin scrubbed clean of the workday makeup. Alex swallowed the rest of her coffee and angled past Thorn and set the mug in the sink.

  “I owe you an explanation,” he said. “I don’t blame you for being angry.”

  “Okay then, where were you?”

  “I can’t talk about it right now, Alex. I’m sorry, I wish I could, but I can’t.”

  Tiny muscles flinched in her face. He could see in her eyes that he was now dangerously close to joining that whirling collection of asshole men who’d abandoned or deeply disappointed her in the past, shitheads who’d tried to suffocate her spirit, even one who’d tried to take her life. He was on the verge of becoming just one more in a string of appalling mistakes.

  “I’m working on this thing with Janey,” Thorn blurted. “I was recruited to help. But I can’t talk about it.”

  “Recruited?”

  Thorn reached out and took her hand, tried to draw off some of the heat of her anger with his touch, but after a second she jerked it from his grasp.

  “That’s all I can tell you. None of the details.”

  “Top secret, huh? Agent Thorn called into battle to save the Earth.”

  “I know,�
�� he said. “It sounds absurd.”

  “Thorn, I thought we were getting somewhere. I’d been feeling pretty solid lately about us, about the way Dad is holding his own. Then this. You’re gone all night. I don’t know what to do. Call the sheriff, go driving around, see if I can find you. I’m lying in there worrying. Dad’s out in the living room mumbling to himself. Of course, he’s picked up on it, the tension. He kicked the goddamn dog, Thorn.”

  “What?”

  “This morning. No reason. Just drew back and punted the little thing across the room.”

  “That’s not fair about the dog.”

  “Okay,” she said. “But it’s important you realize what you do has an impact. You stay out all night, don’t explain where you were, it’s not like we can just go sailing merrily along with that hanging there.”

  “A few days,” he said. “Two or three at the most, it’ll be over and I can explain the whole thing.”

  “Is this about Anne Joy?”

  “What?!”

  “It is, isn’t it? This is about Anne Joy.”

  “What the hell makes you say that?”

  “You lie like a little kid, Thorn. You get that squinty, dodgy thing in your eyes. You’re really bad at it. At least that’s something in your favor.”

  He took a breath and went back to the stool and sat down, then got back up and came over and took her hand in his, and this time she left it there.

  “I love you.”

  “And that’s supposed to stop me in my tracks?”

  “It’s true.”

  “You know what you should do? You should get out a legal pad, a couple of pens, make a list, Thorn. It might be illuminating. All the women you’ve said that to.”

  Thorn looked down at the floor. She was right, of course. He’d used those words a few times too often in just such cases. But still. He looked back at her.

  “This is different, Alex. You and me, and Lawton. This is special. It’s what I’ve been looking for. I can’t lose this. I’ll do whatever I can to keep you.”