Sons from Afar (28 page)

James didn't know what he was supposed to say.
Wow
somehow seemed like the wrong thing.

“That's some scar,” Sammy said.

“Boiler blowout,” the chief told him, buttoning his shirt again, tucking it in. He drank from his glass. “That kind of thing happens. Tell you what though—” He turned heavily around in his chair and yelled out to a booth behind him. “Nairne, hey, Nairne—over here.”

The man he'd summoned brought his beer to their table and sat down with them. He was tall and thin, and his features all drooped down, eyebrows and mouth, mustache, giving him a look like a bloodhound, sad and tired.

“These kids are asking about Frank Verricker. You sailed with him a couple of years ago, didn't you?”

“Yeah, he was on my ship. So what?”

“So what about him?” The chief asked the question, then sat back.

“What about him? Frankie? What I think about him, is that what you're asking? He should have been at least third mate by this time, long ago, probably a first mate. But he'd never take the tests. He always spent his time figuring out how to get around the regulations. He could have been making good money and really using his abilities.”

“Nairne went to college,” the chief leaned over and spoke to James, in a voice that was supposed to carry. “That's why he doesn't know how to answer a straight question straight.” Then he leaned back away. The thickened vowels and the blast of alcohol on the chief's breath worried James. The other man,
Nairne, didn't like what the chief had said, but he didn't say anything, or look up from his glass of beer.

“Nairne's a baker—you know?” James didn't. “The baker's one of the galley crew, a cook's assistant. Nothing like a college education, is there, Nairne? If his parents could see him now . . .”

“Okay, Chief, but Verricker
is
smart, even you have to give him that. And he's good in a fight, too. A good man to have on your side in a fight.”

“So long as you don't turn your back on him. Long as you're not losing. Long as you don't lend him money,” Chief listed off.

“He jumped ship on us,” Nairne said. “I'm not sticking up for Frank Verricker, Chief.”

“I heard you talking.” The young clean man stood beside James, asking the chief for permission, “You're talking about Frankie. Can I sit down?”

“Alex, come sit down, we're just having a talk about Frankie,” the chief answered.

For a second, a puzzled expression was on the young man's face. Then it cleared. He brought a chair over, and squeezed it in between James and Nairne.

“You remember Frank, don't you?” Chief asked him.

“Yes,” Alex said. “You know that.”

“Frank Verricker?” the chief insisted.

“Yes,” Alex repeated, his expression not changed at all by the repeated question.

“He owes me twelve hundred dollars,” the chief said, as if it was Alex's fault, somehow.

“I know that. I'm really sorry, Chief,” the young man said, and he sounded like he meant what he said.

The only good face in the whole place, and he didn't even know when he was being made fun of, James thought. What had Sammy gotten them into?

“Whaddaya say, anybody want to have a round? The kids are buying,” the chief announced.

“Un-unhh,” Sammy said. The man's eyes fixed on Sammy's face. If eyeballs could grow hairs, James thought, he'd have little grizzled stubbly hairs growing out of his eyeballs. “You're the man we came to see,” Sammy told him.

The chief didn't like being crossed. “Then
I'll
have another,” he said, watching Sammy's reaction. James thought the man probably shouldn't have any more to drink. He still had some brandy left, and he sounded a little drunk, and he looked like a mean drunk anyway. But Sammy went ahead and paid for it. Which left them about six dollars, which wasn't much at all. James didn't know how much longer he could just sit there, silent at the table, being anxious, being afraid, being worried. He felt like he'd been in this room all his life practically, and it would be easier to die and get it over with than to sit much longer.

“Where did Frank Verricker leave the ship?” Sammy asked Naime.

“Fiji, where else? We were loading on copra which really stinks—”

“He said Fiji is like heaven,” Alex interrupted to tell Sammy. “He said of all the oceans, the Pacific is the best, and in all the Pacific, Fiji is the best. Like heaven is the best.”

As soon as Alex stopped, Nairne started again, as if Alex hadn't even spoken. “He just disappeared one night. He just wasn't there in the morning.”

“Somebody maybe might have slit his throat for him and tossed him overboard,” the chief suggested.

Nairne didn't disagree, but Alex did. “I don't think so. Frankie always said he'd like to settle down there. Because of the beaches, and how happy life is,” he explained to the chief. “And the girls, too.”

“And the girls, too, I'll bet,” the chief answered, angry for some reason, growing more angry. “Tell these kids how old you are, Alex.”

“Why?”

“They want to know. Don't you, kids?”

He asked them both but he was looking at Sammy. Sammy didn't move a muscle.

“I'm thirty-one. My birthday's in August, and I'll be thirty-two then.” Alex was pleased with himself. “Frankie talked to me a lot, and he liked to talk about the islands. He'd take me ashore with him, too, if I wanted to go. And help me—change money and pick out a present my mother would like—because he wanted me to be his friend.” He raised his voice to speak over the others' mocking responses, but he wasn't upset by them. “He didn't have friends but he wanted them.”

The chief made laughing noises, but he wasn't laughing. “And how much money did he take off you?” he asked Alex.

“I gave it to him,” Alex said. “That's different.” But he didn't entirely believe himself, and James was sorry for that. He didn't think the chief should have raised that doubt. You made allowances for someone like Alex, you handled him differently. But these men didn't. Maybe men didn't? But Francis Verricker had.

They had run out of things to say at their table. James noticed then that the rest of the room was pretty quiet too—like an audience sitting ringside, they'd been watching the conversation. He looked around at all the watching faces, and at the unwatched flat face of the TV screen. The bartender was back safe behind his bar again, leaning on it with his elbows.

There was something wrong about to happen. James knew it in his stomach. He tried to tell Sammy, without words, that it was time for them to get out. Sammy wouldn't meet his eyes. James
didn't dare do anything more than look at his brother, hard, and will him to realize what was about to get started—whatever that was. James didn't have the nerve to get up himself and leave; he just felt the blood racing around his body, warning him, scaring him, the blood itself panicky like a mouse cornered by the cat. The proverbial mouse. Or the proverbial rabbit, he thought, his body frozen where it was, not responding to his will, the rabbit mesmerized by the snake.
Sammy,
he yelled out inside his head, and his brother didn't answer. He couldn't tell from the voice whether it was a warning or a cry for help.

“Now,” the chief leaned forward, practically pushing his face into Sammy's, “you tell me something. You tell me what your interest is in Frank Verricker. What's a piece of slime like that got to do with you?”

Words caught in James's throat, because fear had cramped up the muscles around his voice box.
Say money,
he silently urged Sammy. That lie had been given to them. Telling it would put them on the side of these men.
Say he owes us money. Pick any number, anything reasonable, two hundred dollars would be good.
His heart was being squeezed and the words being pushed up—like toothpaste—but his throat was capped by fear and he couldn't speak.

“He's my father,” Sammy said, quiet and angry.

The chief smiled, showing his two dead teeth. “Well, well. Imagine that. Frankie Verricker's your daddy.”

James couldn't even think. He could only wait to see what happened next, and hope it would be over soon. “Your daddy too?” the chief asked him.

James wanted to say no. He wanted to stay clear. He looked at Sammy—Sammy didn't mind whatever James said, because Sammy was speaking only for himself. James nodded his head, yes. He couldn't do any more than nod.

“Really?” Alex asked him. James nodded again. “No kidding?” Alex's smile was entirely happy. His blue eyes shone. “I didn't know Frankie had any kids. He never said. Wow.” He reached out to shake James's hand. Dazed, not thinking, James shook hands with the young man. “I'm really glad,” Alex said, turning to Sammy, shaking Sammy's hand. Sammy smiled back at him, looking like he meant it. “That's so great,” Alex said to the rest of the table. “Isn't it?”

“I guess,” the chief said, “old Frankie really did take your old lady—”

Frozen in his seat, riveted down by fear, choked by it, James tried to warn his brother's face—
don't.

But Sammy went ahead and interrupted the man. “I'd rather have him for a father than you. Any day.”

The man lifted his arm and hit Sammy, backhanded him across the face. It happened so fast, James didn't really see it. Then it was over, and Sammy's head was back where it had been. Maybe, James hoped, it hadn't happened. Maybe that would show Sammy they were in over their heads. Maybe the chief wouldn't remember that he, James, was there and then he, James, would get off without being hurt.

“Any day,” Sammy repeated. “And twice over.”

Shut up, Sammy,
James thought.
Please.

But Sammy hadn't, and the big hand returned, and when Sammy's face was back in place again, there was some blood coming from his lip.

“Hey,” James protested, squeezing his voice out. Alex laid a hand on his shoulder, to quiet him.

“I said,” the chief told Sammy, “I'd take my twelve hundred in cash, or in blood.” He was threatening Sammy, menacing him, challenging him. The whole room waited, as if this was what they'd been waiting for.

Sammy didn't hurry and he didn't hesitate. He got up out of his chair and stood clear of the table.

“Kid,” Nairne protested. “Don't be a fool. Sit down.”

Sammy ignored him.

The chief got up, satisfied. James looked around the room, to see who would help. Grown men didn't fight a kid; it wasn't even a fight. Somebody had to stop the chief. The bartender had moved back against the mirror, as far into safety as he could, and his little black eyes watched eagerly. You could almost see his nose twitching over the thin mustache.

“You're as dumb as your father,” the chief said to Sammy. The chief was huge, thick chested, thick muscled.

“He's just a kid,” James squeezed out the words. “You can't—”

The chief looked at him then, and his heart shriveled up inside him, and his voice faded away, slinking back down his throat. “It's like the good book says,” the chief said, to a round of laughter, “the sins of the fathers shall be visited upon the sons. Until the seventh generation.” He was pleased with himself, at the Bible quote, at the joke.

James got up then—he didn't know what he was doing. He moved around toward the space between Sammy and the man, and he talked at the same time. “That's ridiculous.” He didn't want to move closer, but he couldn't stop himself now, any more than he could make himself move just a minute before. “It's entirely irrelevant.” He could barely hear his own voice, his heart was beating so loudly in his ears. “That has nothing to do with—”

James thought, in the rush of movement that followed—which he was somehow at the center of although he had no time to figure out what was happening—he thought he heard Sammy's voice. But he wasn't sure. He wasn't sure what was happening. Until he felt his chest slammed into the wooden front of the bar,
he didn't know he couldn't breathe. Until he could breathe, he didn't realize that his head was being held down, his ear in some wet smelly unwiped spill, held by hands that were more like rat claws, clawlike fingers digging up his nose and wishing they could dig into his eyeballs. His feet barely touched the floor and he was held there. He'd been tossed across the room, like—like a duffel bag or something.

Thumping noises behind him. Men's voices saying things he couldn't distinguish and didn't want to. James didn't fight—he didn't know how to fight. He didn't want to—but he couldn't see. And he couldn't see his brother.

He wrenched his body free, which was a mistake. Fear had gone to his legs and he collapsed onto the floor. He wasn't angry, he was frightened—every cell in his body wanted to curl up and be invisible. He was frightened that he'd be hurt and frightened of fighting and frightened of standing up because he couldn't and frightened he'd wet his pants and—

James forced himself up. He saw Sammy sort of catapulted toward a booth, his arms loose and flailing. Sammy crashed into the side of the booth and his arms crashed down. The men nearby backed away.

Sammy didn't even hesitate, he just turned right back—with his head lowered and his nose bleeding too, now, along with his mouth—moving toward the man in the center of the room.

James pushed his body off from the bar, like pushing a boat away from the dock. An arm went across his chest, pinning him back. He didn't look to see whose it was. His eyes were on Sammy, on his brother's yellow head which the big man held now under his arm, choking Sammy's neck. A voice spoke low in his ear. “Chief's always mean when he's lost at cards. He lost a month's wages in there tonight. It'll be over soon.”