'Do you think he wanted the guns for himself or to sell them to someone else?' Tracy asked.
'I'd guess he was going to use them himself. He'd recruit an army, arm them, and start at one end of the state and march lengthwise until he was King of California. He'd do it just to keep his mind and body occupied while it was moving. But he'd also enjoy it.' Blackjack inhaled another lungful of smoke, tapped the end of the joint against the chip of glass until the butt was dead. He slipped the rest into his pocket. 'But according to Mrs. Alabaster back in the hospital, her husband's boat was attacked while they were on their way to meet Rhino. Alabaster was killed, but she managed to hang on to a life jacket for a couple days. We picked her up two days ago. Found Alabaster's body last night.'
'Must have been soon after we were picked up by Rhino's ship.' Eric tapped the gun absently against his palm. 'But if Rhino doesn't have the map, who does?'
Blackjack's lip arced smugly. 'Alabaster may have been a whiz with computers, but when it came to dealing with badasses, he was one dumb white boy. Christine Alabaster filled us in on most of the details.' Blackjack laughed again, but coldly, without humor. 'That lumpy doughboy Rhino wants that map so bad. And he doesn't know how close it is.'
Eric stared at Blackjack, letting his eyes rake the black man's expression. He understood. 'Rhino was double- crossed. He didn't know Alabaster was dead. Someone from his own ship went out a couple days early to meet Alabaster, kill him, and steal the map. Then the double-crosser pretended to be confused when Alabaster didn't show up for the meeting. That's the person with the map. And there's only one person on that ship with enough brains, guts, and arrogance to outsmart Rhino. Angel.'
Blackjack looked surprised. 'You know her?'
'Enough to know that her nickname is short for Angel of Mercy, a cruel irony that street people in Vietnam thought appropriate. She always got what she wanted, most of the time through personal torture of reluctant business associates. She used a balisong knife and knew just where to cut.' He winced remembering when they'd found a whimpering heap of a person she'd just finished with. Lying facedown in a puddle of blood, he was paralyzed from the neck down, almost drowning in his own blood. His exposed spine was slashed with cross- hatches from neck to buttocks. Two of the soldiers with Eric had thrown up. The man begged them to kill him, but orders required he be brought back for interrogation. Col. Dirk Fallows had backed the jeep up to the door as they loaded the man into the back. 'That damn woman is a regular Veg-o-matic.' Fallows had grinned, making his voice deep like a TV huckster's. 'She slices, she dices, she juliennes.'
Tracy reached out to Blackjack. 'Give me a hit.' She inhaled the smoke like a college girl puffing her first cigarette, coughed, handed the joint back. She cleared her throat to speak. 'Never could get the hang of it. And if ever there was a time to be flat-on-your-ass stoned, this is it.'
'As a former doctor,' Blackjack said, sucking in another gallon of smoke, his voice pinched as he tried to speak and keep the smoke in at the same time, 'I have to warn you that smoking can be hazardous to your health.'
Tracy laughed, the sudden movement detonating land mines of pain in her hip. She gritted her teeth, tears welling in her eyes.
'So according to Christine Alabaster,' Eric continued, 'Angel has the map to the stockpile of weapons. But we know that Rhino is unaware of her little treachery. He's still out there searching for Alabaster.'
'Right. That's why Rachel insisted we try to blow them up right away. It doesn't matter whether Rhino or Angel eventually gets the weapons. Whoever gets them, it will be bad for this settlement… not to mention the rest of California.' He hesitated, stared directly at Eric. 'But if we had the weapons, we could at least fight back against any marauders. These people could move back to the land and live like humans, not water rats.'
'So you want the map too?' Eric said.
'Yes. To defend ourselves.'
Eric looked at Tracy. 'How do you feel?'
'Okay. Actually, the hip's better. Probably be good as new in a couple days.'
Blackjack shook his head. 'You'll be able to walk without a cane in a week or two,' he said, then hesitated, tapping the burning end of the joint against the hunk of glass. 'But you won't be as good as new. You'll probably limp slightly for the rest of your life.'
Eric didn't say anything, nor did he move toward her. This kind of knowledge needed to be absorbed alone. He had suspected the bullet had chipped off a bit too much bone, mashed too many nerves.
'What?' Tracy smiled, as if she really hadn't heard him or had thought he was joking. She had the look of most people when told they had a permanent disability, no matter how minor. The pale gaze of disbelief, the ashen expression as all of their confidence drained out of their bodies. If one thing could go wrong, then anything might. Their aura of invincibility was shattered forever.
'It might have been worse,' Blackjack explained. 'You might have lost the leg.'
Tracy glared at the bandage on her hip, then suddenly tore it off as if that were the cause of her injury. 'Goddamn it,' she screamed. 'Goddamn this place.' She threw the bloody bandage in Blackjack's face. He didn't try to stop her, nor did he protect himself. He let it hit, leaving a spongy splotch of her blood on his forehead. The bandage tumbled down his chest and onto the ground. He picked it up, crawled over to Tracy, and silently reattached the bandage. She let him.
'What do you want from us?' Eric asked Blackjack while he was hunched over Tracy's hip.
'Huh?'
'You didn't tell us all this just for friendly conversation. You want something.'
Blackjack tucked the flaps of Tracy's pants over her bandage and looked up at Eric. 'I know who you are, Ravensmith. I didn't at first, but Rachel recognized you from the news on TV. When you testified at Fallows' trial. I know a little bit about your background. I don't mean the history professor jazz, I mean that Night Shift stuff in 'Nam. No matter how much I act like a pirate, I know a hell of a lot more about medicine. But you know about soldiering, I mean real fighting. And we could use you for what we have in mind.'
'Just what do you have in mind?'
He rocked back on his heels and hugged his knees, his dark eyes shining with intensity. 'We've got to figure Rhino will need to recruit a few more crew members after what we did to him earlier. And he'll want to try to pick up a line on Alabaster. There's only one place he can go to do both. Liar's Cove. A little fortress of scum where anything goes. At Liar's Cove there is no law, and nothing is too weird or kinky.'
'Get to the point.'
'I figure that's where Angel will try to slip away and recruit her own crew, then head for the weapons.' He picked up a loose screw from the cement floor, threw it out the broken window next to the Piper. A second later they heard the splash. 'I want to go to Liar's Cove and kidnap Angel. We get the map from her and find the weapons ourselves.'
'Jesus,' Tracy said. 'Talk about limping for the rest of your life. Your brain must be limping along on one cylinder.'
Eric's lips twisted into a grim smile. 'And what do we get out of it if we agree?'
'Eric!' Tracy said.
Encouraged, Blackjack leaned closer, speaking quickly like a conspirator assuring a reluctant ally that the alarm systems have been cut. 'You can have your pick of the weapons. All both of you can carry. And passage to wherever you want. You must have been heading somewhere in that canoe. We'll deliver you there in our ship. Safe and sound. And heavily armed.'
Eric stood up, offered a hand to Tracy. He pulled her to her feet and handed her the spear for a cane. They started walking back toward The Runway, Blackjack trailing behind them.
'We'll think about it,' Eric said.
'Sure, that's all I ask.'
'California,' Tracy mumbled, as if that said it all.
12.
'Are you nuts?'
The question struck Eric as funny so he laughed, his head, thrown back, the.38 he'd taken from Blackjack
