A Plague of Demons

burp.'

'When does the ship sail?'

'Huh? I dunno.'

'What's your destination?'

'What's that?'

'Where's the ship going?'

'Huh?'

'Skip it, Joel. Just take me to your leader.'

***

After a five-minute walk along crisscrossing passageways, we ducked our heads, stepped into a long, narrow room where three men sat at an oilcloth-covered table decorated with a capless ketchup bottle and a mustard pot with a wooden stick. There were four empty liquor bottles on the table, and another, nearly full one.

The drinker on the opposite side of the table looked up as we came in. He was a thick-necked fellow with a bald head, heavy features, bushy eyebrows, a blotchy complexion. He sat slumped with both arms on the table encircling his glass. One of his eyes looked at the ceiling with a mild expression; the other fixed itself on me. A frown made a crease between the eyes.

'Who the hell are you?' His voice was a husky whisper; someone had hit him in the windpipe once, but it hadn't improved his manners.

I stepped up past Joel. 'I want to sign on for the cruise.'

He swallowed a healthy slug of what was in the glass, glanced at his companions, who were hitching around to get a look at me.

'He says it's a cruise,' he rasped. 'He wants to sign on, he says.' The eye went to Joel. 'Where'd you pick this bird up?'

Joel said, 'Huh?'

'Where'd you come from, punk?' The eye was back on me again. 'How'd you get aboard?'

'The name's Jones,' I said. 'I swam. What about that job?'

'A job, he says.' The eye ran over me. 'You're a seaman, eh?'

'I can learn.'

'He can learn, he says.'

'Not many guys want to sign on this tub, do they, Carboni?' Joel asked brightly.

'Shut up,' Carboni growled without looking at him. 'You got blood on your face,' he said to me.

I put a hand up, felt a gash across my jaw.

'I don't like this mug's looks,' one of the drinking buddies said, in a voice like fingernails on a blackboard. He was a long-faced, lanky, big-handed fellow in grimy whites. He had a large nose, coarse skin, long, discolored teeth with receding gums.

'A chain-climber. I got a good mind to throw him to hell off back in the drink where he come from. He looks like some kind of cop to me.'

'Do I get the job or not?' I said, looking at Carboni.

'I'm talking to you, mug,' the long man said. 'I ast you if you're a cop.'

'Who runs this show?' I said, still watching Carboni. 'You or this talking horse?' I jerked a thumb at the second man. He made an explosive noise, started up from the bench.

'Sit down, Pogey,' Carboni snarled. The lanky man sank back, talking to himself.

'That's a pretty good swim out from shore,' Carboni said. 'You musta been in a pretty big hurry to leave town.'

I didn't say anything.

'Cops after you?'

'Not that I know of.'

'Not that he knows of, he says.' Carboni grinned. He had even white teeth; they looked as though they had cost a lot of money.

'Any papers?'

I shook my head.

'No papers, he says.'

'You want me I should pitch 'im over the side, Carboni?' the third man asked. He was a swarthy man with stubby arms and a crooked jaw, like a dwarfed giant.

'Cap'n wouldn't like that,' Joel said. 'Cap'n said we needed crew-'

'Up the Captain's,' the horsey man said. 'We don't need no-'

'Pogey.' Carboni rolled the eye over to bear on him. 'You talk too much. Shut up.' He jolted his chair back, turned, lifted a phone off a wall bracket, thumbed a call button. The glass eye was rolled over my way now, as though watching for a false move.

'Skipper, I got a bird here says he's a seaman,' Carboni said into the instrument. 'Claims he lost his papers…' There was a pause. 'Yeah,' Carboni said. 'Yeah…' He listened again, then hitched himself up in the chair, frowning. He glanced toward me.

'Yeah?' he said.

I let my gaze wander idly across the room, and switched my hearing into high gear. Background noises leaped into crackling presence; the hum of the phone was a sharp whine. I heard wood and metal creak, the thump of beating hearts, the glutinous wheeze of lungs expanding, the heavy grate of feet shifting on the floor-and faintly, an excited voice:

'… UN radio… a guy… bumped off somebody… Maybe a couple… try for a ship, they said. Cripes, looks like…'

Felix had said that with a little concentration, I could develop selectivity. I needed it now. I strained to filter the static, catch the words:

'… handle him?'

Carboni looked my way again. 'Can a kid handle a lollipop?'

'Okay… look…' The voice was clearer now. '… lousy local cops… we turn this guy in… reward, peanuts… their problem. We need hands. Okay, we work this boy… get there… Stateside cops… a nice piece of change…'

'I see what you mean, Skipper,' Carboni said. He had a corner of his mouth lifted to show me a smile that I might have found reassuring if I'd been a female crocodile.

'Get him down below… Anchors in in an hour and a half. Shake it up.'

'Leave it to me, Skipper.' Carboni hung up, swung around to give me the full-face smile. The bridgework wasn't too expensive after all-just old-style removable plates.

'Well, I decided to give you a chance, Jones,' he croaked. 'You're on. You'll sign papers in the morning.'

'Hey, okay if he helps me out in the hot-room and stuff?' Joel asked. He sounded like a ten-year-old asking for a puppy.

Carboni thrust out his lips, nodded. 'All right, Jones; for now, you help the dummy. Take the flop next to his.'

'By the way, where's this tub headed?' I asked.

'Jacksonville. Why? You choosy or something?'

'If I was, would I be here?'

Carboni snorted. 'Anchors in in an hour.' He leveled the eye on Joel. 'Get moving,' he barked. 'What do you think this is, a rest home for morons?'

'Come on.' Joel tugged at my arm. I followed him out, along corridors to a door. He opened it, flipped on a light, showed me a room identical with his own except that it lacked the plaster saint and the hooked rug. He opened the locker, tossed sheets and a blanket on the bed. I pulled off my wet jacket. Joel puckered his mouth, looking at me.

'Hey, Jones, you better get Doc to fix them cuts you got.'

I sat on the bunk. I felt weak suddenly, sucked as dry as a spider's dinner. There was a humming in the back of my head, and my face felt hot. I pulled the sodden, makeshift bandage from the arm the dog-thing had chewed. There were four deep gouges, half a dozen shallower ones-all inflamed, swelling. The arm was hot and painful.

'Can you get me some antiseptic and tape?' I asked.

'Huh?'

'Is there a first-aid kit around?'

Joel pondered, then went into the corridor, came back with a blue-painted metal box.

In it, I found a purple fluid that bubbled when I daubed my wounds. Joel watched, fascinated. At my request, he applied some to the cuts on my back, working with total concentration, his mouth hanging open. If he saw the glint of metal filaments in the torn skin, he made no comment.

I folded gauze; Joel helped me tape it in place. When we finished, he stood back, smiling. Then he frowned.

'Hey, Jones-how come you didn't get Doc to fix you up?'

'I'll be okay,' I said.

Joel nodded, as though I had clarified a difficult point. He looked at me, frowning. He was thinking again.

'How come Carboni's scared of you?' he asked.

'He's not scared of me, Joel,' I said. 'He took a shine to me on sight.'

Joel thought that one over. 'Yeah,' he said. 'But look; we got stuff we got to do. We got to get a move on.'

I stood up, acutely aware of fatigue, and wounds, and a sensation similar to a ticking bomb behind my eyes. Felix's posthypnotic anesthetic had been a big help while it lasted, but the withdrawal symptoms evened the score.

'I want to go up on deck a minute,' I said. Joel blinked, followed me. I stepped out onto the deck, shivered in my wet clothes as the freshening wind hit me. There were no lights on the shore opposite; half a mile to the left, there was a faint gleam from the windows of the beach shacks. Farther along, the great arc of the dredged harbor was a line of jewels against the night.