Butcher followed her, ducking almost to a squat to get through from the low passageway. He was wearing white shorts and was barefoot. Didn’t have a shirt on. He was fat, but below the layer of blubber muscles rippled like separate live things trapped in cellulite. Might have been a sumo wrestler. He was wearing the obscene rawhide necklace of cured earlobes around his fat, perspiring neck. One of the lumps of flesh was a lighter color than the others. There didn’t seem to be a hair on his body, not even on his tree-trunk-thick, slightly bowed legs.
He gave his piglike little grin and said, “Well, looka what we got here.” He’d been holding his right hand behind him. Moved it around now to show he was gripping a knife with a long, thin blade. “I got me a new charm on my necklace, Carver. But you know about that, don’t you? How’s the ear feel today?”
“Feels like it’s time for you to shut up.”
Wesley stood up and faced Carver. “To what do we owe the dramatics, Mr. Carver?”
Carver said, “Sit back down.” He didn’t like Butcher and Wesley both standing. Not to mention Courtney, who didn’t yet know the game. His eyes shifted to the grotesque necklace. A new charm.
Wesley didn’t move. Instead he said with something like impatience, “We all know it’s not in you to squeeze that trigger. It takes a certain type of man to kill face-to-face. You’re not that type. Butcher is. So let’s waste no more time pretending.”
“I have the gun,” Carver reminded him.
“Means nothing.”
“Guns always mean something.”
“Not in this case. Because you’re the product of your morality. Of too many books, TV shows, and movies that taught you how to behave. Made you what you are. You’re a hard man, but you have compunctions, Mr. Carver, and they’ll freeze your finger on the trigger.”
“Can you be sure?”
“I certainly can,” Wesley said in a condescending voice. “Because I know about people. How they think. What they become. How they can’t help what they are and, under extreme stress, can’t be anything different. Being sure, and acting on it, is how I’ve reached the pinnacle. Why I don’t fall off.”
“You might make a mistake.”
“Haven’t made one yet. Sheep never attack wolves; it isn’t in nature’s plan. No mistake here, Mr. Carver, except for yours.”
Ogden stood up now. He’d been listening. Wesley had convinced him. He nodded to Butcher.
Butcher put on his dreamy grin and moved toward Carver. The boat rocked gently, as if influenced by his weight.
Wesley said, “You made the mistake by coming on board, Mr. Carver. But we can talk about it. Sit here at the table and sip fine wine and make our respective positions clear. Be men of reason. Agreed?”
Carver squeezed the trigger. Butcher’s head jerked and blood sprayed. He remained standing but the top of his skull was gone. Red and gray matter patterned the teak wall behind him. There was a stupid, incredulous look on his face, as if he’d just been told a joke he didn’t understand. No top to his head, he had to be dead, but he wouldn’t fall. Hadn’t even dropped the knife.
Carver shot him again, this time in the chest, and he dropped in the lifeless, limb-splayed heap of the dead.
Wesley sat back down.
So did Ogden. Farneaux was slumped in a corner, vomiting, stinking up the place. He’d been standing close to Butcher and his white shirt was spattered with blood and brain matter. The cook was shaking violently on the bench, his chefs cap cocked at a crazy angle on his head. He’d dropped the wine bottle but it hadn’t broken on the soft carpet. Wine was gurgling from it. Everyone at the table looked sick; no one could take his eyes off Butcher.
They hadn’t seen killing firsthand, none of them. They’d caused plenty of deaths since the King assassination, but their victims had been rival middlemen and burned-out addicts. Poor, trapped kids and desperate dealers they’d never met. This was different. This was someone they knew, even if they didn’t like him. This was blood and bone and gristle. Violence right here with them and about them, where they could see it and smell it and couldn’t deny or escape it.
Courtney was trembling like the cook, but her expression was still impassive.
Ogden was the only truly calm one. He said, “What the fuck you want out of this, Carver?”
Carver said, “Edwina Talbot. Get her.”
Ogden didn’t answer at first. Then he laughed. Wesley glared over at him as if he’d done something obscene.
Ogden said, “She’s not on board. Never was.”
Carver swung the Colt toward him. “I don’t mind squeezing the trigger again.”
One of the men at the table said, “Jesus, no! Don’t!”
Ogden seemed unconcerned. “We don’t have her. Didn’t take her. If somebody told you we did, they were lying.”
Carver looked at Courtney. Courtney, no longer trembling, said, “He’s telling the truth. She’s not on board.”
Wesley was regaining his composure, though his face still had a greenish tint. He swiveled in his chair to face Carver and said, “Search the boat if you’d like. It’s not that large.”
Carver told him to stand up.
Ogden said in an amused voice, “Minute ago you wanted him to sit down.”
Carver gripped Wesley’s soft arm and jammed the Colt’s barrel hard into his temple. Wesley made an involuntary whimpering sound and backed with Carver into the narrow passageway, leaving the door open.
Quickly Carver checked the two staterooms and the bath. They were empty. Wesley was right; the boat wasn’t that large, there weren’t many places to look. And if Edwina were on board, Courtney probably would have said so. Somebody would have admitted it. Shooting Butcher had made the desired impression.
Carver shoved Wesley back out into the main room. Told him to sit down again. Wesley obeyed.
But the action seemed somehow to have cleared Wesley’s mind. It was clear that Carver had miscalculated; Wesley saw that as a weakness to be exploited. He said, “You believe us now? That your lady friend isn’t on board?”
Carver said nothing. Trying to figure it. Why he’d been lied to and what was the angle.
“Which means,” Wesley said, “that we’re guilty of nothing. On the other hand, you’ve forced your way on board and killed a man.”
Carver said, “I doubt you’ll radio the Coast Guard.”
“Point is,” Wesley said, “your heroic rescue turns out to be a farce. Where’s that leave you?”
Carver knew where it would have to leave him. He’d known it from the moment he’d heard the powerful twin diesels as the boat nosed out to sea.
He said, “There a lifeboat on this thing?”
Wesley laughed, feeling the balance of power shift. “Only an inflatable raft, I’m afraid. Not a very romantic way for you to make your exit.” The rest of the men at the table were gaining confidence along with Wesley. One of that prosperous group actually smiled. Nobody was looking at Butcher’s body now.
Carver said, “Call your man on the bridge. Tell him to set the boat on course and to get down here.”
Ogden shrugged and stood up. Leaned over an intercom and said, “Harry, set her on course and come below.”
In a minute or so a pair of jeans-clad legs were descending the companionway. Rubber-soled deck shoes touched carpet.
Harry was only in his twenties, but he was solidly built and tough-looking, like the man Carver had taken out at the dock. He looked around and sized up what was happening. When he saw Butcher his face got hard. His eyes got older. He’d been around enough, this one.
Carver said to Courtney, “You know where the raft’s stowed?”
She nodded. Still trying to understand what was happening. She knew it had to be Jefferson or Palma who’d told Carver Edwina was on board. Obviously didn’t know why.
Carver instructed her to sit on the bench where Ogden had been. Then he motioned with the gun for everyone else to go through the door into the hall leading to the head and cabins.