whatever-was on the other side and pitched them or it to the floor with a quick, violent jerk of his hand.
It wasn’t an it.
It was a he.
And whoever he was, the moment Saks pitched him to the deck, he let out a wild surprised cry and tried to find his feet. At which point, Saks kicked him in the side with enough force to knock the wind out of him.
“That’s enough,” Cook told him.
The face looking up at them in the yellow light of the kerosene lamp was round and streaked with dirt. Great, sunken half-moons were dredged beneath staring eyes. The lips were trembling. The face belonged to a chubby little man wearing jeans and a denim shirt so greasy and filthy, it looked like they’d been used to clean out a chimney.
“You… you’re not supposed to be here,” he said. “Not supposed to be on this ship… this is my ship… I’m supposed to be here, but not you…”
He was breathing hard with a rattling sound as if his lungs were clogged with phlegm.
“What’s your name?” Cook asked him.
“I… my name,” he said, examining his left hand like maybe it was written there. “I don’t know…”
“What do you mean you don’t know?” Fabrini said. “What the hell’s wrong with you?”
“He’s crazier than a grub in shit,” Saks said with his usual sensitivity.
The man kept babbling, not making a squirt of sense. Something about how they were not supposed to be there, that them being there was just wrong, wrong, wrong.
“Maybe he has amnesia like in one of them movies,” Menhaus speculated.
But Cook found it hard to believe it was something so simple. Not here, not in this place. Whatever the reason was, he knew, it would be overblown and fantastic like everything else. What Cook was really wondering was: How long had this guy been aboard? Had he been here all the time, hiding from them or had he just arrived?
“Just tell us your name,” Fabrini said. “How you got here.”
But the guy just shook his head.
And Crycek, who’d been silent so far over the whole matter, said, “His name is Makowski, Bob Makowski. He was an oiler on the Mara, our ship. Guys called him ‘Slim’’’
Now all eyes were on Crycek.
“So why didn’t you say so?” Saks said.
“I wasn’t sure at first,” Crycek explained. “It looked like him. .. but that don’t mean nothing. Not here.”
They ignored that.
“Help him up,” Cook said.
Everyone stood there. Maybe they didn’t like the idea of touching him, as if maybe he was a ghost that would go to mist in their fingers or whatever had driven him crazy might be catchy.
“Give him a hand, shit-fer-brains,” Saks told Menhaus. “C’mon, Fabrini, get your hand out of your shorts. You heard the man.”
Grudgingly, they helped Makowski to his feet. He couldn’t stop staring at them as if he wasn’t convinced of their reality anymore than they were convinced of his.
“It’ll be okay, Slim,” Menhaus told him. “We’re all friends here.”
Which got a laugh out of Saks.
They brought him up to the main deck and then down to their cabins. They sat him on Menhaus’ bunk and tried to get something out of him. Which was about as easy as squeezing grape juice from a brick.
He just kept shaking his head as all those faces put questions to him.
He clutched his head in his hands, said, “I don’t remember how I got aboard… I remember drifting… I must have drifted here. Do you think that’s how it happened?”
Saks just shook his head. “Now he’s asking us. What a fucking piece of work this one is. Crycek? You sure he ain’t related to you?”
“You must remember something,” Cook said to him. “Just relax and try to remember. The ship went down in the fog… do you remember that?”
Makowski’s face twisted up like he’d bitten into a lemon. “The fog
… oh the fog… there’s voices in the fog… the voices.. . they told me things…”
Crycek had stepped back now, like maybe he’d smelled something on the guy he didn’t like. Or maybe he thought Makowski’s head was going to split open and a monster was going to jump out.
“He was probably hallucinating,” Menhaus said.
But Makowski shook his head. “No, no, no… I heard them, they told me things, they said-” he sketched his index finger in the air like he was writing words “-they told me to come here… they showed me how to get here.”
Saks shook his head. “This guy’s a real fucking treasure.”
“All right,” Fabrini said. “Can you at least tell us how long you’ve been here?”
Makowski just looked at him dumbly like the question had been spoken in Aramaic or low Latin.
“Don’t waste your time, Fabrini,” Saks said. “This guy don’t have no bristles on his broom.”
“You know, you’re not helping a thing here, Saks,” Cook told him. “Let’s just go easy.”
Saks laughed at the idea. Like maybe if he had his way, they’d throw Makowski’s useless ass over the side.
They kept at it another twenty or thirty minutes until it became pointless… if it hadn’t been before. Then they packed it in and decided to get some sleep. Saks’s watch, a digital, was still working and he told them it was getting on around eleven p.m. back in the real world.
“I suppose this crazy squirt of shit gets to bunk with us, eh?” Saks said. “Why not? Me and Menhaus, we already have Crycek. Might as well make it a full set.”
Cook sighed. “Well, I thought-”
“He ain’t sleeping with us,” Crycek said and you could see he meant it. “I’m not having this… guy sleeping with us. No damn way.”
“Now what’s your problem?” Fabrini said.
“My problem? Jesus Christ, are you all blind? Can’t you see it on him? Can’t you feel it? He isn’t right. Something got to him and there’s no way in hell I’d close my eyes with him nearby.”
“Oh, for chrissake,” Saks said.
But Crycek looked stern… and crazy, ready to do just about anything. “I mean it. He’s not sleeping with us.”
“Why, Crycek? Is he a fucking ghost?” Saks said.
“Maybe he is.”
Saks burst out laughing. “Oh, c’mon. Ghost, my white ass. Next thing you’ll be telling me is that Richard Simmons has a dick.”
Menhaus looked unhappy. “You know what? I’m pretty tired here. I’m goddamn hungry, worn out, and I’m not in the mood for this nonsense.”
“I don’t give a shit,” Crycek said. “I won’t sleep with him in our cabin.”
Makowski just looked around, confused.
“Good going,” Saks said. “Now you got Crycek all worked up again. C’mere, Crycek, let daddy hold you against his tit.”
“Shut up,” Fabrini said.
“All of you shut up.” Cook rubbed his temples, massaging away the headache they all gave him. “Crycek? You bunk with us. Menhaus? You take Makowski in with you.”
Saks seemed to approve. “Sounds good. We’ll take Mr. Slim Loony and you get Crycek. Give the three of you time to be alone. You can get a nice circle jerk going in there. Fabrini can do a striptease and show you his pussy.”
And that’s all it took.
Fabrini almost knocked Cook to the deck getting at Saks. He’d had his fill and now Saks was going to get his. He made it right over to him, Saks grinning the whole time. Fabrini reached out for him… and stopped.
Saks had his knife out and the blade was pressed to Fabrini’s belly.
