He smiled. "You like that?"
"You look like one of them California surfers."
"Hardly likely. I'm from Oakland. That's California, but the only beach is a mudflat where people shoot ducks and watch bodies float by. That's my home town, but I've never been back."
"Wait. Let me guess. Now your address is on your chest, right?"
"Right."
"SSN 593. That your ship?"
"USS Barracuda. The one and only."
"You're a lifer, Sorensen. Admit it."
He opened his eyes and looked at her. "We're all lifers, every last one of us. You, too." He closed his eyes again. "What time is it?"
"Three A.M."
"Listen, be a good girl and let me sleep for an hour. Wake me up at four."
"Sure, sailor."
He listened to her slide out of bed, walk across the room and pour herself a drink. Ice, whiskey, water. From outside came insect noises and the grinding and whirring of a garbage truck. Sorensen pulled a pillow over his ears.
Lorraine sipped her drink and gazed at the naked man on her bed. He fidgeted in his sleep as if he were disturbed by his dreams.
Suzy had told her that Sorensen visited the house once or twice a year, usually the night before Barracuda went on patrol. That evening he had presented Suzy with a silk kimono, explaining that he had just returned from a two-day round trip to Japan. Upstairs he had a drink and relaxed. To Lorraine's delight, he had demonstrated a novel miniature tape recorder he had brought back from Tokyo. The machine fit into his jumper pocket, and he had dozens of tiny reels of ultrathin tape. During the night they had listened to Fats Domino, Mose Allison, Beethoven, Hoyt Axton and the Grateful Dead.
While Sorensen slept she found the Hoyt Axton tape and listened to him sing about junkies and cowboys, wondering lazily what life was like under a city block of ocean.
Sorensen listened to the night. A toilet flushed on the floor above, and he followed the water as it gurgled down through the pipes on its way to Chesapeake Bay. He strained to hear the sounds of the harbor, ships and buoys, but they were too far away, lost in the shore sounds of trucks and trains and the low rumble of a sleeping city. Gradually the sounds of Norfolk were replaced by the ocean sounds inside his head. Submarine sounds, underwater sounds, whales, snapping shrimp, sonar beacons.
Just before passing out, the last thing Sorensen heard was the sound of engine-room machinery pounding in his head. Steam throttled through valves and pumps, pushing turbines and turning gears. It was as if he were listening to his own blood rushing through his arteries. He fell asleep and dreamed he was a steel fish with a nuclear heart, swimming effortlessly through the vast blackness of the sea.
He had surrendered to the dream long ago. Asleep, he became Barracuda. The ship's technology became an extension of his senses; her sonars were as his own ears, plunging him into a world of pure sound. The open sea is a noisy place. Whales signal across thousands of miles. Fish chatter and croak. Surface ships clutter up the medium with their struggle against wind, waves and turbulence. As Barracuda, perfect and invulnerable lord of the deep, Sorensen ignored them all. He was searching for one sound, one unforgettable sound. It was another sub, sometimes far away, sometimes nearby, but always moving and elusive. The sound faded in and out, one moment barely audible, an instant later roaring in his ear. The sound was deeper in pitch than that of any other sub in Sorensen's experience, and conveyed a sense of raw power and terrible menace. Though he taxed his remarkable hearing to the limit, he could never establish its identity.
This time it was closer than ever before, so close he could hear men breathing inside. They wore black uniforms. One of them was the sonar operator, sitting at a console. Sorensen listened to his beating heart, and when the man turned around, Sorensen saw his own face.
After an hour Lorraine gently shook his shoulder.
"Jack, wake up."
"Go 'way."
"Listen, you told me to wake you up at four. It's a quarter after."
She heard him sigh. "Okay. Give me a minute. Turn off the light."
Awake, he realized the dream would never end. It was too deeply rooted in his psyche to disappear completely. Sorensen wasn't sure what it meant. Perhaps he had lived underwater too long. On each patrol Barracuda seemed to get closer to the Russians. Or maybe the Russians were getting closer to him.
Lorraine was standing next to the bed, her dressing gown parted in the middle. Between the wine-red folds of satin, a streak of creamy flesh was visible from her neck to her blond pubic hair. Sorensen kissed her thigh. She smelled of strawberries.
"Did you have a bad dream?"
"Why? Did I say anything?"
"You said, 'It's a Russian,' but the rest was mumbo jumbo."
He slapped himself in the cheek. "Shut up, Sorensen. You talk too much."
She lay down beside him and fondled him until he grew hard. He ran his hand over her rump and stroked the back of her legs. She was a bit overweight, which was why he had chosen her from the lineup in Suzy's parlor. Skinny women reminded him of his ex-wife.
She rolled over and straddled him.
"This one's for free," she said, and leaned over to lick his chest.
It had been a steamy night. After eight years of living on a submarine, Sorensen knew how to get his money's worth. Expensive, but worth it. Blowing his brains out with sex and booze made as much sense as anything else. Nothing he did ashore made any difference because nothing ashore was real. Life ashore was layer after layer of illusion, like the TV news. Nothing important ever got on TV. Anything important was classified. Reality was top secret.
"Can I turn on the light?"
"Sure."
Sorensen shaded his eyes with his hands and looked at Lorraine. She was pretty. At Suzy's they were always pretty. She slipped off and lit a cigarette.
"Is there any beer left?" he asked.
"It's warm."
"That's okay."
He stood up and teetered. "Christ almighty." He grinned his off-center grin. "I must be getting old."
He found a bottle of beer, opened it and sat back down on the bed. The room was decorated in a Victorian style with paisley wallpaper and velour couches. Suzy's was the best whorehouse in Norfolk, and he was comfortable there. He liked the whores. They didn't complain when he babbled nonsense about the navy, the nucs, the officers or even the Russians. They didn't try to pry secrets out of him, or ask him to explain what he did or why he did it. They just fucked him and laughed at his jokes. Sometimes they gave him the clap.
Through an open window he heard trucks passing on a highway. Norfolk droned, a city asleep. The ocean never slept. Underwater there was neither night nor day, only the passing of the watches and blinking numbers on a digital chronometer.
It was time to go. Barracuda sailed at dawn. The reactor in his mind was critical. The chain reaction had started.
While he was putting on his uniform, there was a knock on the door.
"Sorensen, you pinche cabron, are you in there?"
The voice was pure East Los Angeles.
"Who's that?" Lorraine asked.
"Open it up," Sorensen said.
Jesus Manuel Lopez y Corona stood in the corridor, two hundred fifty pounds of Mexican torpedoman dressed in the full regalia of a chief petty officer.
"I ain't gonna let you screw up, Ace. Come on outta there. You're late."
"Want a beer, Chief? Meet my friend, Lorraine."
"Pleased to make your acquaintance. You'll excuse me, but it's a little early in the day for breakfast. The shore patrol has kindly lent me a car and driver. He's waiting downstairs."