The Mushroom People had never spoken to him before. He opened one eye and peered out cautiously. A guard was standing over him.
‘Come,’ the guard said. He reached down, pulled Hatcher to his feet, and led him out of the door. A cold wind, damp with rain, sighed down the stairwell and moaned through the corridors. Hatcher knew better than to ask where the guard was taking him. But the mushrooms were working on him. Colored light patterns blazed around him like shooting stars. He tried to keep steady, but he kept lurching against the wall as they climbed the stairs. On the top level they stopped, and the guard beat on the door. It swung open. Bright lights scorched his eyes and he reeled back, blinking. He squinted and stared up to the top of the second stairwell. Haloed in shimmering bright lights was an enormous hulk of a man, a mastodon in a white suit clutching a briefcase to his chest with both hands. The garish white light turned red, then yellow, then broke into shards like broken bits of colored glass.
‘Mr. Hatcher,’ the apparition in white said, ‘I’ve come to take you home.’
Hatcher fell against the wall and leaned there for a moment, then slid down into a crouch and began to howl like a hyena.
‘He hasn’t said a single damn word since we took him out of that pigsty hellhole,’ Pratt said to the captain. ‘Just lies down there staring at the ceiling.’
The captain, who was standing above him in the thatched wheelhouse, peering intently through the driving rain, shrugged. ‘Hey, what you expect, señor? He doesn’t spoke to another human being for three years. You want him to jump up and down, sing the “Star-Sprinkled Banana” or somping?’
‘You filthy illiterate,’ Pratt snapped, ‘it’s the “Star - Spangled Banner”.’
The captain laughed. ‘Okay, amigo, Star-Spangled Banana, whatever you say. That guy, he’s loco as a jumping bean, at least, watchacall, maybe more so.’
‘Christ, whoever told you you could speak English?’ Pratt shook his head and poured another stiff scotch. He had taken off his jacket and pulled his tie down. Rain seeped through cracks in the bulkhead and dripped on the table. Sweat turned his white shirt and pants gray. A crazy man staring at the ceiling, an illiterate seaman with green teeth and breath like a jackal’s, and a rainstorm that would probably sink the filthy scow before they got to the main river. This was it for him. When he got back he was going to call Father and get the hell out of Madrango. Screw the service, screw the State Department, screw Hatcher and Los Boxes and this rotten, leaky crap of a tub. He knocked off the glass of scotch and poured another.
‘Did Sloan send you?’ a tormented voice growled behind Pratt. He jumped and twisted in his chair. Hatcher, standing shirtless in the doorway leading below, was a living wraith, his green eyes flicking insanely within sunken black circles, his arms as skinny as broomsticks, his matted, filthy hair tumbling down around his shoulders, his thick, gnarled beard covering most of his bone-ribbed chest. Dirt etched the furrows in his forehead.
Pratt stared at him speechlessly.
‘Did Sloan send you?’ Hatcher growled again in his deep, harsh whisper.
‘As I t-t-told you, uh, I’m from the embassy in Madrango,’ Pratt stammered. ‘The ambassador arranged f-f-for . .
‘Did Sloan send you?’
‘Well, I believe perhaps Mr. Sloan. did have something to do with the arrangements. He —‘
‘Shower?’ Hatcher’s frazzled voice demanded.
‘Shower?’ Pratt echoed, raising his eyebrows with the question.
‘The pump she broke, señor,’ the captain answered.
‘The pump she broke, the pump she broke,’ Pratt aped.
Hatcher turned and went out on deck.
‘She’s the wind bad blowing, señor,’ the captain called after him.
‘Jesus,’ Pratt snapped and followed Hatcher. He stood in the hatchway and watched the ex-inmate crawl out on deck and lie on his back with his mouth open as the rain poured down on him.
‘He says to watch the wind,’ Pratt yelled. ‘We wouldn’t want to lose you now, not after all this, would we?’
Hatcher didn’t answer. Spread-eagled on the deck, he fell sound asleep as the wind and rain laced his emaciated body. Finally the captain lashed down the wheel and crawled out after him, put a slack line around his waist and tied the other end to the rail.
‘You keep a look on him,’ he said to Pratt when he returned to the wheelhouse.
The next day was clear and bright with a northeast wind.
‘Stop the boat,’ Hatcher’s tortured voice ordered the captain, who pulled back the throttle and shoved the scow in reverse. In the stern, the engines boiled up the river.
‘What the hell’s going on?’ Pratt demanded.
Hatcher didn’t answer. He peeled off his ragged pants and jumped naked into the river.
‘Jesus, there’s alligators all over the place,’ Pratt babbled. He cupped his hands and yelled to Hatcher as he surfaced. ‘There’s alligators in this river, Mr. Hatcher.’
Hatcher rolled over on his back and floated. Pratt sat on the dilapidated lawn chair and held his head in his hands. ‘That’s all I need,’ he muttered to himself. “Where’s Hatcher?” “Oh, I’m dreadfully sorry, sir, an alligator ate him.”
Ten minutes later Hatcher scrambled back on board. Pratt handed him a terrycloth towel. The United States crest was embroidered in one corner. Hatcher stared at it for a moment or two, then began toweling off.
‘I brought some fresh clothes for you. They’re below,’ Pratt said. ‘Although they may be a size or so too large.’
Hatcher finished and, throwing the towel over his shoulder, stood naked in front of Pratt, waiting.
‘Oh, yes,’ Pratt said, jumping up as fast as a man so fat can jump. ‘I’ll just get those clothes. There’s, uh, also a razor and a toothbrush, toothpaste. Some, uh . . . uh cologne . .
The pants were two sizes too large and the shirt sleeves dangled around his knuckles, but they were cotton and they felt cool and clean. Hatcher stared at himself in the mirror. He had not seen his own face for more than three years. Now clean-shaven, with his hair scissored back to the bottom of his neck and combed, he could have looked worse. His cheeks and eyes were hollow and he was thirty pounds underweight, but it could be worse. He could be dead. He could be sharing heavenly mushrooms with 126. He rolled the sleeves up above his elbows and went back on deck.
‘Well, I must say, you look A-one, sir, just A-one,’ Pratt said.
‘Smoke?’ Hatcher rasped.
Pratt fumbled in his briefcase.
‘Yes, sir, yes, sir, right here.’ He handed Hatcher a pack of Dunhills. ‘Your brand, I believe.’
‘It is?’ Hatcher said, staring at the package. He turned it over a couple of times before he figured out how to peel the wrapper off. He lit one up, took a deep drag, and almost coughed to death. His face turned purple and he gasped for breath.
‘Hands over your head!’ Pratt shrieked and held Hatcher’s arms up. He stopped coughing finally and sat down on the gunwale. He looked at the cigarette for a moment and threw it overboard.
‘We have some fresh fruit, excellent cheese, wine, uh, sliced chicken and roast beef. Also there’s some beer and Coca-Cola down in the fridge,’ Pratt said and, laughing nervously, added, ‘It’s a regular old cruise ship.’
Hatcher stared almost quizzically at Pratt and kept staring until the fat man began to feel uncomfortable, then he said, ‘Coca-Cola. Yeah.’
‘How did Sloan arrange my pardon?’ Hatcher’s ruined voice asked.
‘Well, uh, it’s not exactly a pardon —‘
‘What do you mean?’ he whispered menacingly.
‘You see, Mr. Hatcher, Madrango is going through a rather traumatic upheaval right now. There was a military coup and the new president, his name is Garazzo —‘
‘Garazzo! He sent me up there.’
‘Oh, that’s right. You see, there was a democratic election just after you, uh, went away, and Garazzo and his people were, uh, displaced by Venzio. But then, four weeks ago, Garazzo, uh, pulled off this, uh, coup and he’s president again. Anyway, he arranged for your escape.’