by Jim Nisbet
“Kinda like the Israelis train their fighter pilots,” Few put in.
“How is that?”
“They identify them at birth and go from there.”
“Really? How—”
“Enough with the Israelis. Have they a motto, these eugenicists?”
Protone pursed his lips. “I’d say it would be ‘The greater good for the few.’ They’d never admit to it outside of chambers, of course.”
“But it would look good on the coinage. In Latin, of course.”
Few almost smiled.
“How few is few?”
“I’m Few through and through,” Few offered half-heartedly, with the twitch of an eyelid.
Tipsy smiled. Quentin ignored him. “Ten million, for one random example, seems like a lot.” Quentin narrowed his eyes. “Four million?”
“Far fewer than four million,” Protone assured him. “Far fewer and not, uh, state-specific.”
“And class specific?”
“Now you’re talking.”
“So,” Tipsy interjected impatiently, “what are we talking about here? Fascist horseshit flying in the face of fascist history?”
Protone nodded again, but reluctantly.
“Yeah,” Few said glumly. “It’s the only way.”
Quentin shook his head as if he hadn’t heard correctly. “What?”
“He’s speaking on behalf of the Knights,” Protone assured them. “Don’t pay any attention. Oscar has spent so much time under cover he occasionally forgets who he’s talking to.”
Tipsy regarded Few as if by a new light. “Oscar Few.”
“It’s his nickname.”
“I get it. You’re under-appreciated.”
Few made a gesture of modesty.
“Anybody ever call you ‘Happy’?” asked Quentin.
Few frowned.
“No,” Protone answered for him. “Why?”
“Just curious.” Quentin shrugged. “So you’ve attended their meetings?”
Few nodded cautiously.
“Police business is one thing,” Quentin said, with grave sympathy. “I’m sure it has its moments. But show business?” He shook his head. “Show business is something else.”
“That’s true,” said Few, brightening slightly. “One might even say that show business is the whole story.”
They all looked at him.
“I can’t believe you characterize a royalist conspiracy as show business,” Tipsy admonished them. “So,” she repeated, turning a nervous eye on Officer Few, “you’ve attended their meetings?” But her mind was clamoring: what in the hell had her brother gotten himself into?
“Only low level stuff,” said Protone, speaking for Few, who appeared too disturbed to reply. “The high level guys would bust him immediately. The high level guys are just too weird to infiltrate easily. They’re all graduates of Ivy League colleges, for example.” Protone nodded. “Oscar works security details for them. Perimeters around meeting places, airport runs, the large conventions, stuff like that. Still, it helps us keep tabs on them, when they’re around.” He blew a little air out of his nose. “They don’t come to San Francisco too often.”
“So none of them live here?”
“I didn’t say that.”
Quentin and Tipsy both blinked.
“Anyway, the religious wing of this outfit sees to the careful maintenance of certain rituals they’ve codified and established. It’s not like worship, exactly. They don’t have a swearing-in ceremony, or articles of faith, or uniforms—nothing like that.”
“Except that many of them shave their heads,” Few put in.
“When are you going to shave yours?”
Few nodded glumly. “Pretty soon, probably.”
“Yes, but as a rule they recognize each other by what they’ve published or otherwise communicated, their family connections, and the causes they’re willing to back with real money. In fact, there’s hardly anything untoward, one might say, or anything one might consider seditious. Scenarios of global catastrophe are the business of any number of organizations, after all, from the Pentagon to the United Nations to, well, to dozens of think-tanks, not to mention organs ancillary to every first-world government.”
“Not to mention reality itself,” Tipsy interjected.
“The thing is,” Few blurted, speaking rapidly, “the inner circle of Knights has dedicated itself to certain goals, and they are bound by certain articles of faith. From the outside, there can be little doubt that this group of individuals is committed and serious, almost religiously dedicated to modifying various vectors in world events to accomplish perceived goals and ambitions. There is no doubt, for example, that they are very serious about having a hand on the tiller of not only US foreign policy, but that of the developed world in general. Most of them think it would be nice to eliminate what they perceive as moral turpitude, too—although, so far as that goes, there are just enough adulterers, closet homosexuals, wholesale fanciers of internet pornography, and purveyors of corrupt influence among their ranks to keep a lid on their hypocrisy. Factions want the Holy Land for Jews and Christians, but even within the Knights, these factionals are referred to as The Crazies, while petroleum haves and have-nots comprise the realpolitik dialectics whereby expansionist nationalism or democratization is perceived as a sufficient cloaking device, or justification, for the advancement of national interest. The Crazies listen and are listened to, policy is agreed upon, and the next step is implementation. Once implemented there’s no going back, the end justifies the means, and that’s it. This does not prevent certain elements from pursuing alternate, backup, and even contrarian goals, however, and in fact the organization perceives such subsidiary efforts as generally accruing to their well-being and interest, a kind of healthy discord, within limits, naturally.”
“A leader conceived of selectively procreated genetic material,” Protone added, “raised and educated from birth, represents to them the culmination of an idea they refer to as the charisma of secular fetishism.” He smiled wanly. “You’ve probably never heard of it.”
“Not once,” Tipsy flatly declared, “and I’ve lived in San Francisco all my adult life.”
“Agreed,” Quentin said, “and I’ve been living in San Francisco for twice that long.”
Protone exchanged a glance with Few. “Here’s the long and short of today’s meeting,” he said. “We’ve told you we’re keeping tabs on you. We have reason to believe that, in a short time, other people will be keeping tabs on you. We, and they, expect your brother to show up.”
Tipsy pointed to the floor. “Here?” she asked in astonishment. “In San Francisco?”
Officer Protone looked at Officer Few. The latter shook his head. Protone dealt a pair of calling cards to the table top. “When you notice them, call us. I needn’t note,” he added, “that you’ll be only too happy to have someone to call at that point but …”
“But you just did,” Tipsy said. “And my brother?”
“Him too. He almost certainly will fail to elude both the authorities and these other … people of interest. But if he somehow manages to get to you before we get to him, by all means, call us. Immediately.”
“But he’s … my brother.”
Protone looked at his watch and stood up from his chair. “You don’t want to miss that DUI class. Let’s get going.”
Tipsy shook her head, as if trying to clear it. “I haven’t seen my brother since … since …”
“Since Thailand,” Few said, watching her. “Maybe fifteen years ago.”
Tipsy stared at him. Quentin blinked. She looked at Protone. Protone was standing up. She looked at Quentin. Quentin raised an eyebrow and opened a hand.
Tipsy rounded on the cops. “That’s it?”
“For now,” Protone said.
“You can’t quit now,” she declared.
Few looked puzzled. “Sure we can.” He depowered the cassette recorder.
“If you miss just one of those
DUI classes,” Protone reminded her, “you have to start all over.” He pushed his chair up against the table. “Those DUI statutes are tough.”
FIVE
THE CENTIPEDE WAS LONGER THAN THE TUBE OF ALOE VERA APRÉS-SOLEIL bobbing close aboard it, and not much thinner. Its body was the color of the porphyry grips on a much-fired pistol, its legs a dirty ivory blushing to ochre, and their spiculate extremities sported the fawn-colored translucence of the anthers in a pear blossom. Though he’d heard such an arthropod would, given the chance, feed on a cockroach, a tarantula, or even a bat, and therefore perhaps had its utility, Charley speared the creature to the side of the port cockpit locker with an inch and a half of boning knife and no remorse.
It was nice to nail down if but one of the many distractions current aboard Vellela Vellela. Perched on the starboard gunwale, he soothed his roasted flesh with aloe vera. The improvised dodger flapped. The cockpit drains failed to drain. The genoa tautened and slacked. The tiller and its bungees creaked. The sun blazed. The centipede circumwrithed the implacable axis of the blade of its fate.
Charley retrieved a plastic liter of water from a cabinet just inside the companionway. The water had come from an island aquifer, fetched by himself. Though it tasted miraculous, he sipped it judiciously.
He’d known for a long time that when things go awry at sea, the cascade of events can be very difficult to predict or to stop. Sometimes all it takes is for one insignificant thing to go wrong—a broken shackle, a misidentified light, an accidental jibe, a corroded through-hull—and it’s all over. Every effect proceeds from its cause with impeccable logic. One thing wrong, two more, four, eight …
Or is it sixteen? Do fuckups proceed arithmetically or do they exponentiate? Do they double, or do they square?
What is it called, when right and wrong have nothing to do with it? Contra-Manichaeism?
Reality?
Of course Manichaeus, insofar as one recalls, considered the material world as innately evil, whereas the spiritual one, as embodied by mankind, he perceived as innately good.
Well, opined the bosun, as far as I can tell from an altitude of three and a half feet, the sea don’t care one way or the other. And speaking for myself, I don’t feel so good. Not good at all.
As goes reality, Charley mused, insofar as one has learned in, lo, these many salty years, good and evil are just so many streamers on the maypole.
Is it not always mostly pitiful, the bosun remarked, when a man is thrown upon his own philosophical resources?
Charley, studying the water bottle, grunted.
Its label long gone, only about two inches of water remained in it, and Charley finished it off. As if absentmindedly, he dipped the bottle into the brine that now rose to his knees. When the bottle was about one third refilled, he replaced the screw cap and dropped the bottle into the cockpit brine. The container bobbed up, lay parallel to the surface, and floated. Hmmm, the bosun said. For in the face of an entirely practical problem, the bosun would forget anything else. Charley unscrewed the top, added more water, and tried again. A couple of tries later, the bottle surfaced and floated cap down, leaving about a quarter of its length to bob above the surface.
Feeling the bottle brush against it, the centipede, though lethargic, darted its forcipules at its surface.
Attentively rinsing the area thus touched, for he knew the toxin to be allergenic at the very least, Charley plucked the bottle from the brine and set it on top of the house. Then he retrieved the mask and snorkle from the odds and ends floating about the cockpit, spat onto the inside of the lens, distributed the spittle with the ends of his fingers, donned the apparatus, and disappeared below.
Vellela Vellela wallowed sideways down the face of a mild swell, and the cockpit brine immersed the centipede.
Charley reappeared, wet from the soles of his feet to his sunbleached tonsure, perfunctorily cleared the snorkle of salt water before removing it, and dropped it into the half-submerged cockpit. If he noticed this minor irony, he made no show of it. Rather, he unscrewed the cap of the water bottle, dropped a small electronic device into its mouth, and replaced the cap.
I ain’t believin’ you, said the bosun.
You got a better idea?
Yeah, groused the bosun. Let’s rewind the tape.
I hear you, said Charley, giving the cap a little extra torque.
Speaking of tape, observed the bosun, about one week’s worth is all the UV is going to let that plastic live.
I’ll take it, said Charley, and he launched the bottle as far astern as his good arm could fling it.
* * *
Working unguent into his left shoulder, which burned inside and out, and watching the centipede die, with an occasional glance toward the sun, which was watching him die, and aft toward the drifting water bottle, now separated from Vellela Vellela by two swells, Charley recalled a beautiful yacht he’d once come across at a wooden boat show in Tiburon, California. Though her beauty was unquestionable and what he was really looking for was a berth to Hawaii, it was her name that attracted him. She was called Martin Eden, and this seemed to Charley a strange name indeed to be calling any yacht, never mind a beautiful one. He had read the Jack London novel, Martin Eden, and though he’d found a lot to like about it—indeed, of all London’s novels it was Charley’s favorite—he could not square its final theses—that ours is perhaps the most degraded of all possible worlds; that the only way out is death; that the only question is how to manage that death—with the majesty of this eponymous yacht. Every inch of her teak was oiled, every stay taut, every line hanked or coiled down, her brass buffed, her log in order and neatly penned, too.
It seemed an ominous thing to name a yacht Martin Eden. An invitation to fate, even. And sure enough, asking and receiving permission to come aboard he met not the skipper, who may have known better than to have told the tale, but a salty waterfront type who lived aboard only to keep an eye on her. This individual happily gave Charley a tour, as the vessel was up for sale, and it took but a slow amble aft, after a saunter below decks, to get the prime story of her. Standing by the wheel, Charley noticed right away that the main boom, which appeared to consist of one entire tree of Douglas fir, while extending aft a good ten feet beyond the transom, also lay parallel to the keel a mere five and a half feet above the after deck, which let it run not an inch above Charley’s shoulder, right beside his ear.
Adrift on the Caribbean a mere 2,600 crow-winged miles from Tiburon, Charley thoughtfully rubbed unguent over the trapezius of that very shoulder. The water bottle now lay four swells distant. It had become difficult to discern against the Caribbean dazzle.
“It seems an odd thing,” Charley told the live-aboard, as he ran his hand along the varnished spar, “to have named the vessel after London’s novel.”
The live-aboard perked up. “Aye. …” He was missing several teeth and sported the grizzled rubicundity of a weathered alcoholic, the sun’s rays vying with gin blossoms for the colonization of his parboiled cheeks. “Ye’ve read it, then?”
Charley said he had.
And the live-aboard recited:
From too much love of living,
From hope and fear set free,
We thank with brief thanksgiving
Whatever gods may be,
That no life lives for ever,
That dead men rise up never,
That even the weariest river
Winds somewhere safe to sea.
This startled Charley. “Algernon Swinburne.”
“Martin Eden reads it aloud, right at the end of the book,” the live-aboard confirmed. “His, too: his end.”
Charley shook his head. “I haven’t read that book since I was a kid.”
“Most people will never read it. Do ye recall the name of Eden’s yacht?”
“Sure. Mariposa. Butterfly.”
“That’s true.”
“London’s yacht was Snark.”
“Aye. Always wondered what it mean
t.”
“How about, you’re a frog with an extensible adhesive tongue, able to reach out and nail a fly instantly.” Charley clapped his hands, once. “Snark!”
“Are you crazy?” the live-aboard asked, with no more inflection than if he needed change for a parking meter.
“No,” Charley replied simply. “Are you?”
“Only when I get around people.”
“Onomatopoeic?” Charlie coaxed, reverting to the earlier subject. The live-aboard shook his head. “Okay,” Charlie admitted, “then it has to be Lewis Carroll.”
The live-aboard nodded. “The Hunting of the Snark.”
“A boat name we can understand.”
The live-aboard nodded.
“Not like,” Charlie returned to the subject, “Martin Eden.”
“Aye. …” The live-aboard shook his head. Then he frowned and set an index finger aside his purpling nose. With a glance toward the harbor-master’s office at the top of the dock, he said, “The owner don’t like this story put about, being as the vessel’s for sale and all. But …” He appraised Charley with a frank look. “Ye’ve not got the pelf to replace a bronze screw in the burgee halyard’s horn cleat.”
Charley smiled. “True story.”
The live-aboard lowered his voice. “The man what commissioned this beauty was a doctor. She was built right over yonder, in the Nunes Brothers’ yard, in the late nineteen-twenties.” He hooked a thumb over his shoulder. Although the diminutive and extremely wealthy isthmus of Belvedere stood south into Raccoon Straits between Martin Eden and the town, Sausalito lay just a mile to the west, across Richardson Bay. There the ghost of the fabled shipyard, as Charley knew, now slumbered beneath an Indian restaurant.
“The last refit took three years. It’s still goin’ on. Everythin’ has to be just right. So far it’s cost the owner a hunnert large and he’s hardly ever sailed her. He spares no expense keeping her Bristol, though, all with the ideal in mind of her original glory, as you can see for yourself.”