Off the Chart

by James W. Hall

  “Another mile or two, if the gas holds out. I’ll put it down just short and you can use the inflatable.”

  “Keep Lawton amused, would you? While we’re gone.”

  Sugarman turned and looked back at the old man and Alexandra sitting quietly in the rear. The puppy was curled up asleep in the aisle.

  “And how do I do that, keep him amused?”

  “Ask him about Ohio, where he grew up. He loves to talk about that.”

  Kirk swallowed and looked back at Sugarman.

  “I was a fighter pilot in Nam,” he said. “Went through basic, fired an M-16 on the range like everybody else, but I never was much of a shot. I flinch.”

  “It’s okay, Kirk. We can handle this. You stay with the plane. Wait for us. If someone doesn’t get back to you in a couple of hours, then you make your decision. Fly inland, fuel up, go home. We’ll understand. This isn’t your fight.”

  Kirk kept them skimming low, a mile offshore, the jungle still solid.

  “You got the right coordinates?”

  “I can read a map, Sugar. It’s up ahead. Right around that point, look.”

  And yes, he saw the clearing in the distance. Not much. Might’ve missed it if he’d blinked. A thumbprint carved out of the dense green landscape. Small cabins, a tiny marina. Three good-sized yachts anchored offshore.

  A good distance short of the camp, Kirk swung the plane out to sea.

  “I’ll put it down back near that cove. It’s maybe half a mile, south. That be all right?”

  “I owe you, Kirk. I owe you a big one.”

  “We got here,” he said. “But I don’t know if we have fuel to go anywhere else.”

  “We’ll be okay,” Sugar said. “Don’t worry. I got a good feeling about this.”

  All those years Anne had kept herself shut down. Stopped the feelings. Now here they came. A volcanic spew. Like she was going insane. Or no, maybe what it was, she’d always been crazy, driven that way by her childhood, her tainted blood, by the killings she’d carried out as a kid. Always been crazy, from the very start, and now she was going sane.

  Yeah, yeah, that’s what was happening to her, going sane. Seeing everything clearly for the first time, everything with a bright, stenciled outline. A sharp focus. The world as it was. The world made simple and clear.

  They wanted the code. Whether she gave it to them or not, Vic would go on being Vic. And the world would muddle ahead being the world. It didn’t matter if she did or didn’t. None of it mattered. But as she considered the code itself, the idea hit her. Another lava flow of thoughts, another revelation. All those ones and zeros, that binary stuff. Computers were built on that. Everything was built on that. The whole world could be captured that way; photographs, music, every sense could be caught. If not now, then eventually, just a matter of time before they found a way. Everything was binary. One, zero. Plus, minus. On, off. It was the code, the way it was written. The way her own brain worked. The way her synapses received and passed on data, opening and shutting, yes no yes no. Her heart, too. Pump, relax. Pump, relax. The slow drumbeat. The Morse code of reality.

  She’d been off and now she was on. She’d been cold and now she was hot. She’d been dead, now she was alive. Black white. Up down. Yes no. Everything held together by that simple truth, the positive and the negative charge binding into one unit. The yin and yang, the glue of the world. North meant nothing without south. East needed west. Everything was that. She’d been bad, and now she was good. She’d been dead, now she was alive.

  Out her window she saw Marty crossing the plaza. Love and hate. There was another one. You couldn’t know one unless you knew the other. Hills and valleys. Heaven and earth. Good and evil. It was the universal glue. Push, pull. Watching Marty march toward her cabin. Marty Messina, whom Daniel had trusted. Marty, who had taken over all those contacts Daniel had established from years of careful grooming. And in no time Marty had appropriated them, made them his own. And on one of those phone calls that he was always making, he had spoken secretly to Vic Joy. Offered him a deal. Angry at playing second fiddle to Anne. Wanting a bigger slice. He’d told Vic about the Rainmaker, times, dates, locations. And that night aboard the ship when they’d been ambushed, Anne had seen Daniel die. Not believing it at the time, creating an illusionary memory instead, that Daniel had rolled out of range and escaped. Holding to that version, over the weeks that followed she’d given it the heft and solidity of fact. But he was dead. She’d seen him die. In the shadows. Her own brother striking down the only man she’d ever loved.

  Daniel and Marty were Jesus and Judas. You needed both. No heaven without hell. No grace without sin. Hot cold, life death, good evil, mind heart, truth lies. All of it just an endless balancing of opposites.

  Anne Bonny Joy had never let herself think and now she was thinking. She’d never let herself loose and now she was flying. Seeing how it worked. A universal plan. So simple. Plus and minus. Stimulus, response. The gun in her hand, the bullet in the gun. Even a bullet had its opposite. But as Marty came onto the porch, she couldn’t think what it was. Bullet and what?

  He stepped into the room and looked at her standing by the front window. He hadn’t seen the gun, wasn’t afraid. He was talking to her. Telling her it was time to perform. Time to show the others what she could do.

  Bullet and what? Bullet and what?

  Thorn’s right hand was loose and he was hard at work peeling open the metal joints. Working on the first band across his face, very first one, he sliced his thumb good and deep. But going on. Stripping it back, popping the joint loose. That band and the one below it and the one around his throat. His head was loose now. Stretching it out of the open face of the helmet, flexing his neck.

  While the men and a few women whooped and heckled Janey Sugarman. Reaching out to touch her blond hair, to pinch and poke her snowy flesh, stroke her rumpled party dress. One man tore the binoculars from her grip and pressed them to his eyes and another man ripped them away from him. A scuffle broke out between them. The attention on Janey shifted to the two men who were swatting at each other. The dark clouds massing over the jungle trees sent out a freshening breeze ahead of them.

  Working loose a band across his chest, Thorn sliced the other thumb, and blood ran down both wrists, making the work slippery and nearly impossible till he wiped the stickiness onto his belly, then dug his fingernail under the next seam and pried it apart. Two bands across his chest, another across his belly.

  Popping open the junction at his navel sent him jolting down, driving all his weight against his feet. He pitched forward, had to struggle a moment to right himself.

  The bands around his hips and legs remained, and he had to free the chains that held the contraption to the tree branch. The chains were locked to the thigh bands by stainless-steel fasteners. Sailor’s clips. Those Thorn would save for last. Simple enough to open, but hanging in his position, they might be the most difficult trick of all.

  Thirty feet away one fighter wrestled the other to the ground and found a headlock and butted the man’s skull into a rock, which won an ovation from the crowd. Janey looked up at Thorn and watched him scrabbling at the band around his hips. A stronger joint than any of the others. It took both bloody thumbs to work it loose and then he was hanging precariously by just the chains that went from the branch to an outer clip on the bands around each thigh. As if he were balanced on a swing set, only instead of the flat wooden seat holding him up, the chains of the swing were hooked to the tops of a pair of hip boots. Clumsy and off-kilter.

  Thorn scanned the ground below him. Rocks and patches of weeds. Nowhere particularly inviting to land. The fine mist was turning into a shower.

  It was impossible to predict what would happen when he worked one of the clips open. Wrenched to one side? Spun upside down?

  No time to figure it out. He rocked himself from side to side and got some slack in the right chain and unsnapped the clip and it came away. And he lurched hard to the right, tor
e free, and was dumped straight down into the rocky soil, where he smacked hard on his right shoulder. Lost his breath but kept his eyes open this time.

  The rain was heavier now, but the fighters were still thrashing about, though some of the audience had begun to drift toward the shelters. Janey was headed his way. Behind her one of the Latin men who’d been standing at the back of the crowd was gliding around the edge of the wrestling match, drawing a pistol from the shoulder holster he wore outside his shirt.

  Thorn peeled the last few bands off his legs and pushed himself to his hands and knees and tried to stand, but his legs were weak as a newborn’s and they buckled and he came back down to a crouch. They’d left him in his fishing shorts, bloody and sagging now with the weight of rain. He was on his knees, working one leg up to make another attempt at standing. Janey was a few yards away, calling his name, hurrying through the downpour.

  When the gun blast sounded from a distant cabin, the slender Latino halted and spun around. The fighters continued to scuffle, but the crowd went silent as they watched Marty Messina appear on the porch of the cabin at the end of the row. With delicate steps he came down into the rain, smiling at the assembly, picking his way carefully around the puddles and the piles of trash like a drunk coming home late, determined not to cause a stir.

  He ambled down the slope and the crowd parted for him, and Marty continued his stroll, that smile coming into better view as Thorn rose from his crouch. Not a smile at all, but a grim contortion. Gritting his teeth like a man shouldering an impossible burden while he marched mechanically toward the water’s edge.

  “Marty?” Thorn said as he passed close.

  But Messina didn’t register the sound and continued to advance toward the lagoon. As he approached, Thorn missed the entry wound, probably because it was hidden by the thick dark hair, but as Marty moved by, he saw the ragged breach behind his left ear, the blood washing across his neck, diluted to pink by the rain.

  Janey came alongside Thorn and gripped his hand. Her hair was drenched and hung in matted tangles. The Latino turned and loped off toward one of the buildings, probably to relay these latest events to his boss.

  “I thought you were dead,” Janey said. “You were hanging from a tree. I told Daddy you were dead.”

  Thorn reached down and picked her up and hugged her and cradled her in his arms. Her wet clothes were sour and her eyes had aged in the days since he’d seen her last.

  “Your daddy? Sugar’s here?”

  “He’s coming. He’s on the way.”

  “I hope he’s bringing an army.”

  Marty hobbled across the narrow beach, leaving deep prints in the sand, and staggered into the water to his ankles, then his knees. Then halted and tottered for several moments, gazing out at the sea beyond, then he fell forward, splashing onto his face, and seconds later his body rose up to float with hands outspread on the rain-spattered surface like a snorkeler peering down at some colorful spectacle.

  “Come on, asshole, you’re not going anywhere.” The barrel scraped his ribs. “Go ahead, try something, Kewpie doll, give me reason.”

  It was Marshall Marshall with Charlie as backup. In the rain Marshall’s crinkly red hair had broken into dozens of lank tendrils. It made his face seem larger and his crone’s nose even uglier.

  “Can I set the girl down?”

  “Go ahead, but do it slow.”

  Thorn eased Janey to the ground, took her hand again, then straightened.

  “Things are falling apart,” Thorn said. “Sure you want to stay with this, Marshall? Might be a good time for a strategic retreat to the floatplane.”

  “Yeah, right. Run off and do what? Tie flies the rest of my fucking life?”

  Charlie chuckled.

  Janey tightened her grip on Thorn’s hand.

  “Up that way, to the big building. Come on, cute guy, you got a special part in the show. It’s torture time. The left nut first, then the right one.”

  Thorn started up the slope, Janey holding firmly.

  “What happened to your buddy Marty?”

  “Looks like he bought it,” Charlie said. “That or he sure is good at holding his breath.”

  They moved past the gang of men. The wrestlers were finished now, bloody but smiling as they shared a bottle of gin. The rest of the pack watched them pass, but no one made a move or spoke a word.

  “Sorry about the gibbet cage, Marshall. Hated wrecking your artwork.”

  “You never turn off the comedy shit, do you, Tinkerbell?”

  “I was born to entertain,” Thorn said.

  Marshall poked him in the spine all the way to level ground and then up the stairs into the dining hall.

  Anne was there, sitting behind a laptop computer. A few feet away to her right were three Chinese men, a tall bearded man in faded fatigues, and Vic Joy.

  Anne had a pistol in her right hand, a compact automatic. The handgun was aimed in the general direction of her brother, but it was a twitch away from hitting any of them. And they seemed quite aware of that fact.

  Thorn caught a look passing between Marshall and Vic. Should he shoot her in the back? And Vic giving back a firm negative.

  “I miss anything?” Thorn said.

  “I shot Marty,” Anne said, without looking at him. “Bullet and brain.”

  Her voice sounded drifty and unfamiliar.

  “They want the code, Thorn. The binary code. Ones and zeros. It’s why they’re here. So they can be more efficient in their thievery.”

  “Yeah, I got a pretty good idea of the story.”

  “Love, hate,” she said. “Truth, lies.”

  “Hey, Annie, listen.” Vic took a half-step toward her and Anne lifted the pistol and he froze. “I’m in a fix here. I’m counting on you to help me out. You just need to show these gentlemen how it works and we’ll all be on our way.”

  “A fix.” She smiled, eyes unlocking, playing with a memory, then a few seconds later returning. “Just like old times. Little sister gets you out of a fix.”

  Thorn caught a peripheral glimpse of the slim Latino who’d been stalking him outside. He moved into the room and took a position to their right flank. Thorn didn’t turn to see if he had his gun un-holstered. Pretty sure it was.

  “Why’d you do it, Vic?” Anne waggled the pistol in her hand. “Why’d you kill Daniel?”

  “Hey,” he said. “We’re trying to do some business here, Annie.”

  “It was because of me, wasn’t it? One way or the other, it was about me. The little sister thing. Protecting me, or else proving you were for real. Tough and mean. That’s it, isn’t it, Vic? To make up for what you didn’t do when you were a kid.”

  “I’m sorry, Ramon.” Vic shrugged at the bearded man. “She’s a little spaced out.”

  “I’m just a stand-in,” she said. “I’m Mother and I’m Dad, too. You look at me, Vic, you see ghosts. You need to prove yourself, show them you can do now what you couldn’t do then. Right? Do I have it right, Vic?”

  “Miss Joy, my name is Ramon Bella.” The man beside Vic bowed in her direction. “We all can see that you’re upset about some personal matter. None of that concerns me, however, nor does it concern my colleagues.” He nodded at the Chinese men. “We’re simply gathered here to see for ourselves that this system we’ve been told about actually performs in the manner described. When we see that, our business is concluded and we’ll be on our way and then you are welcome to sort out whatever problems you might be having with your brother.”

  “You’re very polite,” Anne said. “Nice manners. But I’m sorry, I won’t be helping you. I won’t be getting anyone out of any more fixes. Just this.” She smiled back at Thorn and said again, “Just this.”

  She raised the pistol and pressed it to her temple and fired. Her body slumped off the chair and fell to the floor at her brother’s feet.

  In the next second, Thorn shot out his right arm and backhanded Marshall in the nose, and while the man’s eyes were blur
red, Thorn tore the pistol from his hand. But the quiet Latino must have anticipated Thorn’s move, because his own pistol thumped immediately into the middle of Thorn’s back.

  “Raise it into the air. Do it now, my friend.”

  Thorn lifted the pistol and the man snatched it and tossed it to his colleague who had joined the festivities.

  “All right then,” Ramon Bella said, stepping around Anne’s body. “Am I correct in assuming that there is no one else who can demonstrate the code?”

  Vic was staring down at his sister. His mouth was slack and the years had drained away and changed him into a boy, full of wonder and horror and raw panic.

  “You know, Vic,” Ramon Bella said, coming close to him, extending a long slender finger and touching it to the underside of Vic’s chin, lifting it, so he could stare into Vic’s eyes, “I am told by people who should know that at any given moment the average man has four pounds of shit working its way through him.”

  Vic squinted into Ramon’s eyes.

  “But in your case,” Bella said, “I think we could safely assume the number to be at least ten times that.”

  “We can fix this,” Vic said. “Here’s the deal. I’m going to give you a bigger cut of the boats I take. That’s it. We’ll double your profit. That’ll help, right? Compensate for your inconvenience, this trouble and misunderstanding. Right? That’ll work, won’t it? Double?”

  Ramon dropped Vic’s chin and stepped away. The pistol against Thorn’s spine stayed tight. At his side Janey whimpered. She let go of his hand and squatted on the floor and covered her face and shook with silent heaves.

  “No, Vic,” Ramon said. “The only possible way we might fix this situation is for you to demonstrate a process you apparently don’t know. So what will you do, invent something for us right now, make white pigeons appear from your scarf? How will we fix this, Vic? Tell us, please.”

  “Triple, Ramon. Triple the profit on every boat I take from this point on. A slice of my other action, too, casino boat, restaurants, marinas, across the board. We can work that number out. But a healthy slice. Make this all go away. I can see you’re angry. But I’ll make it right, just give me a chance.”