A flush of shadows, p.5
A Flush of Shadows, page 5
"I'd better start making sandwiches," Constance said. "We're all going to be hungry eventually."
"Okay, but keep talking. What else was there?"
She talked as she rummaged in the refrigerator and the cabinets. When she stopped again, Charlie was staring fixedly at the tabletop, deep in thought. She did not interrupt him, but continued to assemble the sandwiches.
It did not make any sense to him. If she had that kind of power, to control people like that, why use it in such a perverse way? Murder was so commonplace, never really dull, but not exciting, either; it was always sad, always futile, always the action of ultimate failure. It was the final admission that there was no solution to a problem, no human solution. But no one needed her kind of power to commit murder. A gun, a knife, poison, a brick, a fire… he had seen them all; death that looked accidental—a fall, car exhaust in a closed garage, a leaky gas stove, overdoses of everything that could be swallowed. All filthy, all irreversible, all committed by ordinary people for ordinary reasons: money, sex, revenge, greed…. All committed without her kind of power. That was the puzzle. Why use such a gift for something so mundane? And why out here in God knew what part of the Gulf? She could be knocking people off every day of the week—running them in front of trains, making them jump from high places, forcing them to put bullets through their brains. Who would suspect? Each and every one would go down as accidental, or suicide.
He remembered what Lou Bramley had said, that she had known he was going to die and wanted to watch. He nodded.
Constance, seeing the nod, stopped all movement, waiting, but Charlie continued to stare through the tabletop.
Bramley had been broadcasting death and she had picked it up somehow. She had planned to watch for whatever insane pleasure that gave her, and she had been cheated. Again, Charlie nodded. She had had her death through murder, not suicide. And she planned to kill the witnesses. Now he shook his head. No one had witnessed anything. What could he or Constance say that could damage her? She could make a better case against them. Of course, if she was a psychopath, none of the best reasoning in the world would apply to her. He rejected that also. She was the boojum, an if, not like other people. He could not fathom her motives in either event—a wacko, or something inhuman. And, he thought, motives were not the issue. What she might try next was the only issue now. She had tried to kill him, damn near succeeded, and she no doubt would try again.
But she had not come out here to kill, he said to himself, and he held on to that one thought as the only clue he had about her, the only thing he was reasonably certain about. If the original plan had worked, Bramley would be dead now, a legitimate suicide passing for accident, and she and Dino would be back ashore. Their stories would have been accepted: Dino was well known; the insurance would have entered into it. Finis. Dino's death was a different matter. No one would believe he had fallen off his own boat in a dead calm, in the first place. And it was less plausible to suggest that he had not gotten back aboard, even if he had managed to fall. Although no one could prove anything else, no one would ever believe that story. What if there were others, like her, who would know the story he and Constance could tell was true? His skin prickled all over at the thought that his people would never believe his story, but that this woman's people, if she had people, would.
He was certain she planned to be the sole survivor of a ghastly tragedy. No one knew he and Constance were aboard. If they vanished, no one would know that. The contract would be found with Bramley's name, and he was in New York, out of it. She could say anything to account for Dino's disappearance, and he was the only one she would have to account for, actually.
Constance froze in the motion of cutting through a sandwich; Charlie lifted his head and listened. June Oliveira was calling them in a shrill, panic-stricken voice.
They went out together, staying close to each other. Constance still carried the butcher knife.
"There is a shark! I saw it! You cannot keep me out here! I will stay in the little room. You lock the door. Please, I did not do nothing. You know I did not!"
In the west, a spectacular sunset was blossoming; the light had turned deep pink, making June Oliveira look flushed, almost ruddy, very normal, ordinary, and very frightened.
"Who are you?" Constance demanded.
"I see him starting to climb over the rail, and I am petrified. I cannot move. I am terrified of water. I cannot to help him or call out or anything. I am coward. I am sorry."
"You don't just watch them die, do you?" Constance said. "You weren't watching Dino. Your eyes were closed. You feel it, experience it. Why? Why don't you feel your own people's deaths? Why ours?"
"She crazy," June Oliveira wailed to Charlie. "She crazy!"
"I saw you," Constance said. "You knew exactly when Dino died. We didn't; we couldn't know, but you did. You planned to experience Lou's death. You come here to feel death without dying yourselves, don't you? Do your people ever die? Just by accident, don't they? Isn't that why you're so terrified of water, of fire, of anything that might be dangerous?"
"Please give me jacket or sweater. I am cold. So afraid," June Oliveira moaned.
"For God's sake," Charlie said, and turned away. "I'll get her jacket."
"How many of you are there?" Constance asked furiously. "How many murders do you commit? How many accidents do you cause?"
The woman was huddled down, her arms wrapped about herself. Suddenly, Constance realized what she had done; she had separated them. She turned, to see Charlie in the narrow passage between the rail and the cabin, coming toward her, carrying the heavy gaff, the iron hook Dino had said they used on the big ones.
Constance put the knife to the rope tethering the raft. "Let him go or I'll cut you loose! You'll drift away. He can't bring you back; he doesn't know how." She began to cut.
She stopped the sawing motion and watched as if from a great distance as the knife turned in her hand, began to move toward her midsection. In the stomach, she thought, so death wouldn't be too fast. There would be time to feel it all, to know it was happening….
Charlie leapt at her, grabbed the knife, and threw it out into the water. His hand dripped blood.
Constance sagged, then straightened. "My God, oh my God! You're hurt! Let's go fix it." Neither of them looked at the woman in the raft as they hurried away, back inside the cabin.
"What are we going to do?" Constance whispered. "Charlie, what can we do? We can't even cut her loose!"
"Get the first-aid kit," Charlie said calmly. "You'll need the flashlight. The kit's on your bed. Bring a clean towel, too."
Constance snatched up the flashlight and ran to the stateroom for the kit and towel. When she returned, Charlie was washing the blood from his hand. She dried and bandaged it and neither spoke until she was done.
"I'm going to kill her," Charlie said. He reached out and gently touched the shirt Constance had on. There was a slash in it; she had not even noticed, had not realized how close it had been.
This was why some people murdered, Charlie thought, because there really was no solution, no human solution. How easy it was to step across that line. He felt as if he had always known that, had denied knowing it, had pretended it was not true when of course it had been true from the beginning. When he had transferred from the arson squad, it had been because he had dreamed too many times that he was the one arranging the materials, pouring the oil or the gasoline, setting the match. The thrill of the pursuer, the thrill of the pursued, who could tell how different they were? Now that he had crossed that imaginary line, that arbitrary line that each cop drew for himself, he knew the thrill was the same, the desperation the same, the fear, it was all the same.
"We can't cut her loose," he said in that deceptively calm voice, "so we cut ourselves loose. We have to go out in the other raft, get the hell away from her. She'll try again, maybe soon. Before it gets much darker." He glanced about the galley. "Start packing up everything you think we might need for tonight and tomorrow. We might not be picked up for hours, maybe a couple of days. Fill whatever you can find with water."
Thank God she didn't argue, he thought, going into the stateroom. She knew their chances of escaping as well as he did, knew their only chance was in getting distance between them and June Oliveira. He lifted the mattress of his bunk. Foam, he thought with disgust. There was a plywood board, and beneath it there were cabinets with linens. He nodded. It would do. He cut a circle out of the foam mattress with his pocketknife and tucked the extra piece under the pillow on the other bed. He had seen a can of charcoal starter in a cabinet in the galley; he went out to get it. He took the flashlight back with the can. He soaked the plywood board and let it air out before he replaced the mattress. In the hole, he now put a folded towel and then added a layer of crumpled toilet paper, then another towel, this one folded in such a way that the paper was exposed in the center of it. He studied it for a minute and sighed. The fumes were gone, the odor so faint that he might not have noticed it if he was not sniffing. He had seen cigarettes somewhere, in one of the cabinets in the saloon. Dino did not smoke, but maybe Petie did, or their guests. He went to the saloon and found the new package and opened it, lighted a cigarette with the flame from the stove. Constance was filling a plastic water bottle, a collapsible gallon jug. There were two at the bottom of the stairs, already filled. She looked startled at the cigarette, but she still asked no questions.
"About ready?" Charlie asked.
She nodded. "It's getting dark fast."
"Yes. Come on, let's tell her our plans."
"Charlie…" She stopped; there was not enough time to spell it out. She followed him to the door.
Charlie went to the comer of the cabin and yelled, "You, you can have the goddamn boat! We're taking off in the other raft. Before we go, I'm going to toss the portable ladder over your side so you can climb aboard. Just leave us alone and let us take off. Is it a deal?"
He puffed the cigarette hard. It was not yet dark, but within half an hour it would be. Already the water looked solid, impenetrable, and there were two stars in the deep violet sky. She must be calculating her chances of getting one of them before dark, making the other bring her aboard. He was not even sure she could make someone do anything as complicated as that; she was not a telepath. Her power was cruder, a total assault, a complete takeover. She cannot read our thoughts, he said to himself, praying it was true.
"If you leave the flashlight. Put it on the flying bridge, turned on, so I can see it." She sounded calmer and was controlling her accent and syntax better, but her voice was still tremulous.
He let out his breath. "Okay. We're taking provisions with us, water and stuff. It'll take us a few minutes, ten maybe."
He nodded to Constance. "Let's get the life jackets and other stuff over by the ladder."
As Constance began to carry things from the cabin to the railing, Charlie entered the stateroom again. He lighted a second cigarette from the first and then put them both very carefully on top of the paper in the hole in the mattress. He pulled the sheet over it, and the bedspread, with ripples in it for air to pass through easily. For years, he had known how easy it would be, how well he would be able to do it. He put the extra life jackets on that bed, and then he was through. He left the stateroom door open when he went into the cabin. One last thing he had to get, he thought, almost leisurely, and he went to the drawer where he had seen an assortment of thread and needles. He chose the largest needle, a darning needle, or a sail-mending needle; it was four inches long and only slightly less thick than an ice pick. He stuck it through his shirt. Constance returned for the last of the items she had put aside, the bag of sandwiches.
"Listen," he said to her softly. "We'll put the raft out, make sure the paddles are in it, and then load. While you're putting the flashlight on the flying bridge, I'm going to swim around the boat. The last thing you do is hang the ladder over the side, make sure it's secure and everything. We don't want her to get suspicious now. Then you get in the raft and start paddling to the front end of the boat. You pick me up there and we paddle like hell."
"What are you going to do?"
He pointed to the needle. "Puncture her escape route."
Constance shook her head and began to strip. "That's my department," she said. "You'd never make it in time, and you splash like a puppy. Same plan, different performers."
"No!" He saw her, arms crossed over her chest, sinking, sinking.
"Yes! Let's move!" She was making a bundle of her clothes. She had on only her bra. Now she reached out and took the needle and put it through the top of the bra. "You know the only way it'll work is if I do that part. You know that. We don't dare have her out in the water alive. We have no idea how far she can reach."
He pulled her to him and kissed her hard, and then they hurried to get the raft into the water, get it loaded. Only one quadrant of the sky was still light now; to the east, the sky and sea merged in blackness.
"Arrange it any way you can," Charlie said, nodding to her, when they were through. She slipped from the raft soundlessly and vanished into the dark water. "That looks good enough for now. When I get in, we can shift things around some. I'll put the flashlight up there and then give her the ladder. You okay?"
It was all taking much longer than he had realized it would, he thought bleakly. What if smoke began to pour from the cabin? What if she got suspicious, caught Constance down there in the water? What if she took this as her last chance to get them both? He climbed to the flying bridge and put the flashlight down, shining toward the stern, away from where Constance might be surfacing. What if there really had been a shark? He felt weak with fear; his hands were trembling so hard, he could scarcely hold the rail as he left the flying bridge to get the ladder.
Constance surfaced at the prow of the boat and waited. There was the ladder, and Charlie was running away to the other side. June Oliveira had to haul herself in hand over hand to reach the ladder; she started to climb. As soon as she started up, Constance sank below the surface again and swam to the raft. She lifted her face only enough to get air, then went under and pulled out the needle and stuck it into the raft. The raft bobbed and she stopped moving, afraid the woman would be alarmed, turn around. She stuck the needle in three more times before she had to surface for air. The next time she went under, she began to swim toward the prow of the boat, praying that Charlie would be there by now.
When Charlie first started to paddle, he found himself moving away from the boat at right angles. Frantically, he pulled with one paddle until he bumped the boat. Keeping against the hull, using one paddle only, he finally got to the front end. Where was she? She should be here by now, he thought with despair, and she appeared at the side of the raft. He grabbed her arm and hauled her in, and she began to pull on her clothes as fast as she could. She was shivering hard from the cold water, the chill night air. Before she got her shirt buttoned, Charlie was putting the life jacket on her. He was wearing his already. As soon as she had the life jacket tied, she took her place by him, took up the paddle, and they both began to row hard. The raft did not move through the water easily; it seemed to be mired in tar. But gradually, they pulled away from the boat, and now Charlie could see the light from the flash bobbing in the windows of the cabin, then the pilot's cabin, stern. She was checking it out, as he had thought she might. She went to the flying bridge and in a minute or two the boat's engines started up.
Constance groaned and pulled harder on her paddle. It was no use, she thought dully. She would run them down, watch them die anyway, feel them die.
"We have to stay behind the boat," Charlie said. "You know how to turn these things?"
"You push; I pull," Constance said, knowing it was no use. They could dodge for a while, but eventually they would tire, or she would make one of them stop paddling, or something.
Slowly, they made the raft go astern. The boat was not moving yet; the engines were idling. Now the lights came on. Constance blinked as the light hit them. "Charlie, she can back up!" she whispered.
"Christ!" He had forgotten.
The boat began to move forward, not very fast; the wake shook the small raft, tilting it high to one side. The boat left them behind, then started to turn. Like steering a car, Charlie remembered. It was just like steering a car, except you need more room. She turned too wide and came out of it far to the right of the raft. She had switched on a searchlight now, was playing it back and forth, looking for them. She seemed not to realize how wide her turn had been; the light came nowhere near them. It stopped moving.
Constance watched fearfully. The boat looked so close. The engines were so loud. She felt herself go blank, felt sleep-heavy, immobilized. When it passed, in a second or two, the light began to move again, this time swinging around to focus on them.
"She reached me," Constance said tonelessly. "We can't hide from her."
Why didn't the damn boat start burning? He knew it had to burn. He visualized the fire that had to be smoldering along the bed board, in the cabinet under the bed. The towels should be blazing by now. The boat was turning slowly; she was being careful. She had all the time in the world, she seemed to be telling them, keeping them pinned by the blinding light, keeping them waiting for her next move. Charlie wondered if she laughed. If she ever laughed.
She was steering with one hand, holding the light with the other, not letting either go to increase her speed. The throb of the engines did not change, only grew louder.
Constance began to pull on her paddle. "At least let's make her work for it," she said grimly. Charlie pulled hard, sending them on the beginning of another circle. Then suddenly, the light made an arc, swung wildly away, up, down, off to the other side.
"I'll be damned," he said, pleased. Smoke was rolling from the cabin windows. He began to pull on the paddle again, harder now. "We should try to get some more distance from it," he said.
Silently, they rowed, not making very much gain, and they watched the boat. The smoke had lessened. Constance was afraid June Oliveira had put the fire out already. Charlie felt almost smug; he knew the smoldering had turned into blazing; there would be less smoke, more heat, more fire. When the first flame showed on the side of the boat, he said, "I think we should get down in the bottom of this thing, as flat as we can." It would blow, he knew, and he did not know how much of an explosion there would be, what kind of shock there would be, if they were too close. He hoped June Oliveira was tossing water on the flames, that she had not thought of the beautiful fire equipment on board, or of abandoning the boat. He had not seen her since the powerful spotlight had come on.
