“Well, I see we finally roused you boys,” Else said. “Well, eat up and then off with you. Is there school today? No, oh well. Go out and play. Eat up! Eat up!”
“She thinks you’re her sons,” Elizabeth told them. “They died years ago.”
Pollard and Chesbro looked like a couple of actors who’d just walked out on stage and couldn’t remember their lines.
“Just play along for the time being,” Cushing told them.
As she ate, Aunt Else would pause from time to time, gesture with a fork full of scrambled eggs. “I’m trying to remember all the details, trying to keep it fresh in my mind. I think it’ll be important at the trial.”
“What trial?” Pollard said.
George just shook his head. “Never mind. She thinks I’m Captain Hook or something.”
Which got him another one of those acidic looks from Elizabeth. He supposed he could have been more understanding, more compassionate. But the truth of the matter was that he’d seen too much, experienced too much by that point, and things like sympathy were hard to come by. He was just making friends all over the place. Chesbro wouldn’t even look at him anymore since he’d punched him out. Thing was, George didn’t give a shit. He honestly just didn’t give a shit.
He thought: Give me another six months of this bullshit. Give me a year. By then there won’t be much human left in me… or in any of us.
Pollard, who seemed relaxed now, at ease for the first time since George had met him, finished his food. “It was nice to sleep in a bed. I can’t tell you how nice it was to finally sleep in a bed. I was beginning to think there weren’t such things as beds anymore. I know how stupid that sounds, but, shit, that’s exactly what I was starting to believe. Maybe… maybe once we’re settled, we can start giving some serious thought to where we are and how the hell we can get out.”
Cushing raised an eyebrow at that.
Elizabeth just said, “There’s no way out.”
“She likes it here,” George said. “She never wants to leave.”
Which got him yet another evil look from her. “Did I say that? Did I ever say I liked it here? That I wanted to stay?”
George was loving it. The old ice queen was beginning to thaw a bit. Apparently, there were some decent human feelings under the permafrost.
“Yes,” Aunt Else said, carefully counting the tines of her fork over and over, “but what you say, dear, and what you mean might be two different things.”
Elizabeth was looking really pissed-off now. They were forcing her into a corner and her claws were coming out. It had been a long, long time since she’d had to answer to anyone, to justify her actions or her lack of them.
“All right,” Cushing said. “Let’s take it down a notch here.”
“Prisoners,” Pollard said. “I don’t think I can live like that.”
“Elizabeth?”
“Yes, Aunt Else?”
“How long are you going to keep us here as prisoners?”
“Aunt Else…”
“Don’t deny it,” Aunt Else said, shaking a finger at her recalcitrant niece. “You’ve kept me here under lock and key for far too long. I think I’m within my rights to ask how long you intend to keep this up. Well? What have you got to say for yourself?”
Elizabeth had nothing to say for herself. She just stood there, under attack by her own aunt, looking suddenly older, heavier, ungainly like maybe she just didn’t have the strength to hold herself up anymore. She looked at Cushing, because he was the only one she felt a connection with. Then, blushing, she cleared plates and cups onto a platter and took them into the galley.
“Where’d she go?” George said.
“Oh, silly girl,” Aunt Else said. “Probably off to pout. You’ll find her sleeping in the cabbage with one purple wing.”
George tittered under his breath. “What?”
“ Don’t encourage this,” Cushing told him.
He stalked off after Elizabeth, leaving George with the perpetually-brooding Chesbro, the unconscious Gosling, the very-confused Pollard, and… yes, Aunt Else of course, who was maybe a little of all of those things and a few others, too.
“I think what we need here is a man in charge,” Aunt Else said, stroking her chin thoughtfully. “Yes, yes, yes. A man in charge. I don’t think my niece is up to it.”
“Looks like she’s done okay so far,” George said.
Aunt Else was looking over at Gosling like she was having the conversation with him. She threw back her head and laughed. “Oh, listen to that, will you? Men. They only want one thing and they’ll say just about anything to get it!”
George was laughing now. “Did I miss something here?”
“Maybe she’s right,” Pollard said.
“About me wanting one thing?”
“No, about somebody else being in charge. Maybe Elizabeth needs a break. Maybe she’s been here way too long. Maybe she can’t see the forest through the trees. Maybe you should take over.”
“Me?”
“Why not you?”
“Cushing’s in charge.”
But Pollard shook his head. “No, he’s not. Ever since the First… well, ever since Mister Gosling has been sick, you’ve been in charge. Cushing’s like an advisor or something. He’s smart, but he doesn’t like making decisions. You should be in charge.”
“Don’t listen to him,” Aunt Else said. “He’s only a boy, Captain. A lying little boy and you can’t trust lying little boys. He’ll say anything to get his way. He’s always been like that. Manipulative.”
George felt overwhelmed. He was having trouble keeping up. “That’s a hell of a way to talk about your son.”
“Captain,” she said. “I’ll ask you not to interfere in family matters.”
“I’m just saying that maybe you’re the guy to be in charge is all,” Pollard said. “That’s all I’m saying.”
George held his tongue. He didn’t want to be in charge. It was the last thing in the world he really wanted… yet, if Elizabeth was going to maroon them all here without a single hope of deliverance, then maybe they did need different leadership. But then again, she knew this place. She knew what they were up against… and what really did he know?
“I prefer a democracy,” was all he would say.
“Just an idea,” Pollard said.
“I’ve never cared much for politics,” Aunt Else told them. “I lost interest after McKinley was assassinated. I think Roosevelt was an idiot. A lot of us thought Roosevelt was an idiot. But he was smart, wasn’t he? Crafty, wasn’t he? He knew the common man believed as he did and he used that power, that popular appeal. My father lost money during the coal strike.”
Cushing came back in. “What are you people talking about?”
“Politics,” George told him. “Did you favor Roosevelt, sir?”
“Bully,” was all Cushing would say on that matter.
12
Saks had it all figured out.
Maybe they thought he was really stupid, but he saw what was going on. He knew what Fabrini and Menhaus were up to. Same way he’d known what Fabrini and Cook had been up to. Jesus, you try to help these guys and first chance they got, they started scheming behind your back. Now that was gratitude. And it was just too bad, just too damn bad when you thought about it, because Saks had been starting to think that maybe Fabrini wasn’t so bad after all. Maybe he could mold the guy, make him into a real man, but that wasn’t going to happen.
Minute you trusted a guy like Fabrini, you were finished. First time you turned your back on him he’d slit your throat.
All right then, all right, he thought as he laid there on the captain’s bunk. You guys want to play it this way, you want to play games with me? I’ll show you a couple fucking games you never even heard of. This is where you sonsofbitches learn what it’s all about.
Saks calmed himself.
No, he wasn’t going to kill them. At least not Menhaus or Crycek, but Fabrini was a different matter. That little prick had to be made an example of. He was the same rotten apple that had gotten Cook thinking funny and now he was turning Menhaus.