And, damn, what passed between those two… it wasn’t good. Like homicide put on ice, George was thinking. He didn’t need Menhaus spelling it out for him, because he already had a pretty good idea of what it had been like in that lifeboat. Saks and his mouth. Fabrini and his short fuse. It must have been really something.
“Well, Captain,” a voice said, “I see you’ve wasted no time in inviting your drunken cohorts aboard?”
Aunt Else. Fresh from her nap and ready to charge. She looked over the new faces and grimaced, apparently wasn’t caring much for what she was seeing.
“Who’s the old bag?” Saks said, around the back of his hand.
George made a quick round of introductions, but Aunt Else wasn’t exactly listening. Her eyes were sharp, but her mind was dull and drifting. She had, no doubt, already assigned Saks, Menhaus, Fabrini, and Crycek roles in her fantasy and that was enough for her.
“So, what now?” Fabrini said. “We’re all here-”
“And some of us are queer,” Saks said.
“Queer? Queer?” Aunt Else was looking over at the bar. “There’s a great many things queer, I would think. I’m finding this entire voyage queer. I’m finding your actions, Captain… or lack of them… certainly queer.”
“You tell him, sister,” Saks said, enjoying it.
She turned and looked at him. “I find you extremely queer, sir.”
Fabrini burst out laughing. “Yes, ma’am, old Saks… he’s as queer as they come.”
“I should say so,” she said.
George nodded. “Without a doubt. Good Mr. Saks was in the Navy, you know. I’m certain he was doing a lot of queer things in there. Tell us about it, Saks, tell us how queer you were in the Navy. I bet you were about as queer as they came. Yes, our Mr. Saks, he’s a queer sort, all right.”
Menhaus was giggling. “Queer. I like that. Queer. She’s saying and you’re saying and… ha, ha, that’s pretty good.”
“Shut the hell up, you moron,” Saks told him.
“Like I was saying,” Fabrini began, “we’re all here… what now? Where do we go from here? We got ourselves a nice base here, but I’m not about to kick my feet up and take root.”
“Oh, you’d take any root offered,” Saks said.
George shook his head. Christ, it was like being in the tenth grade locker room. Maybe not even that sophisticated, you came right down to it.
Fabrini went on. “We have to make plans. I don’t know what comes next, but we have to be ready. And we have to think about getting out of here.”
“Captain, will you please tell your subordinates to lower their voices?” Aunt Else said. “I’m working on something vital here and I can’t be disturbed.” She held up a book, shaking it at him. “This is a legal manual I have here and I am currently putting together the case against you.”
George saw that it was a romance novel with some woman on the cover busting out of her bodice. It was okay, though, there was some big Fabio-looking stud there to tuck things back in for her. Thank God.
Saks said, “Yeah, that Captain George… he ain’t much, ma’am. I’m about ready to mutiny here. What a mess he got us in. Captain, sir, you ain’t worth a happy fuck.”
George winced, wondering what kind of outburst profanity would bring from Aunt Else, but she was studying her legal manual. That was the way she was, though. She only seemed to hear fragments of conversations, the rest went out the window. She filled in the blanks as she saw fit.
Menhaus took a sip of whiskey. “Saks… you should watch your language, you know. We’re not out on the dock here.”
Saks slapped his knee. “Captain George? I sure as hell hope there isn’t an Uncle Else, because Menhaus is popping wood over the old bat.”
“Okay,” George told him. “That’ll do.”
“Sure, sure, Captain. Don’t throw me in irons or nothing.”
George was getting his fill of Saks real fast here. “Oh, I won’t. At least, not yet. As long as you’re a good little sailor-boy, I won’t have to do anything unpleasant. But I’m a hard master, so don’t cross me.”
It was a joke, but maybe not much of one. Maybe George was saying certain things without actually saying them.
“I can’t believe, Captain, that after all of this, you would still behave like such a terrible brute. Throwing your weight around and threatening your men,” Aunt Else said. “Have you learned nothing from any of this? Generally, I stay out of the affairs of men, but this has gone far enough. You’ve been hard enough on that poor boy as it is.. . just look at him! Dear God, he’s frightened of you.”
Fabrini barked a laugh.
George just shook his head. “I’ll be gentle.”
“See that you are.”
“You’ll protect me, won’t you, ma’am?” Saks said. “You won’t let him beat me or do any of those other awful things he likes to do?”
But she was gone again, scribbling with a pencil in her book. Throwing together an unimpeachable case against Captain George. At least it seemed that way until she looked up and said, “I’m afraid you’ll hang, Captain.”
“Damn,” George said.
“Don’t be swearing in front of the lady,” Saks warned him.
“Shut up.”
Aunt Else slammed her book down. “This has gone far enough! I won’t have you bullying the men! Do you understand me? My husband will have a thing or two to say to you when he returns. Mark my words, Captain.”
“You better listen to her, Captain Bligh,” Saks said to George. “You can’t go on treating us like this.”
“Don’t pay any attention to him,” Menhaus said. “He can’t help that big mouth and small brain of his.”
“I don’t see where this is any of your affair, Doctor,” Aunt Else said. “As I recall you were invited as a guest, not to stir up trouble in general. Why, I’d be surprised if your degree is even from a reputable university.”
“Me, too,” Saks said.
“This place… it’s goddamn crazy,” Crycek said. “Well, you ought to fit right in then,” Saks told him.
Crycek didn’t say anything to that. But George could see it wasn’t just some off-handed jibe. There was more to it than that. A lot more. Crycek had that dazed, scared look in his eyes much like Pollard had when he first met him. He’d seen something that he just couldn’t get past.
“Crycek thinks there’s a boogeyman out in the fog,” Saks said.
“Knock it off,” Fabrini told him.
Crycek wouldn’t even look at any of them. He sat there with Pollard, looking almost queasy that any of it had been brought up in the first place. He buried his face in his hands like he wanted to cry.
“See?” Saks said. “He’s having one of his headaches. You know what that means? That means that the thing out there is getting at him again. Right, Crycek? It’s trying to eat your mind again?”
George reached over and yanked the whiskey bottle from Saks’s hands. “I think you’ve had enough of that on an empty stomach.”
Saks rose in his seat an inch or two, his face red as a ripe tomato. “You do that again, Captain George, and I’ll break that bottle right over your fucking skull.”
Fabrini was ready. “Why don’t you try it, Saks? Because whatever part of you George don’t stomp, I will.”
“I think you’re all forgetting why you’re here,” Aunt Else said. “This is a court of law and you should all behave in accordance. Let’s try and act civilized here. We know who the guilty man is. Let us come together on that.”
George kept watching Saks, trial or no trial. “What makes you think there isn’t something out there, Saks? C’mon, regale us with your wisdom.”
But Saks wasn’t biting. “Because Crycek is crazy. He’s a nutjob and that’s all there is to it. You got to be crazy to believe shit like that, Captain.”
“Then you haven’t felt it?” George put to him.
Everyone was watching them now. Everyone but Aunt Else. They were all watching and listening, wanting, maybe, to have this subject broached. Something they had all thought of, but didn’t dare speak of.
“I haven’t felt shit.”