John Gardner - October Light

She no longer pretended to herself that Captain Fist’s business was legal or her personal relationship with the three men strictly proper. Her poor mother and Uncle Fred would be shocked, no doubt. But what was right in Nebraska was not necessarily right for California or out on the Pacific. Also, as she sometimes reminded herself, it was perfectly possible for a person to begin badly but mend his ways later, when he saw the light. Meanwhile, the pay was good, her friendship with Mr. Nit and Mr. Goodman, at least, was comfortable — no one could accuse her of puritanical hang-ups — and she was getting, it might be, valuable experience. More than most anything, she wanted to be something, make something of herself. She wanted to be so rich she could do anything she wanted, anything she could think of; but it wasn’t just crass materialism. She wanted to be famous, do things that would change the world. She’d talked once, in a grubby little bar, to a girl with red hair and a smudged face who was planning to assassinate Dr. Kissinger. Jane’s heart had leaped. She would never do anything like that herself, she wasn’t the type, but she could understand the feeling — the eyes of the whole fucking world upon you! star of the Walter Cronkite show — beautiful eyes flashing, clenched fist raised … “Are you really going to shoot Dr. Kissinger?” she’d said. “Keep it down, will ya?” the girl had said. “Half the people in here are fuzz.” Jane had looked around, more awed than ever. Yes, she would definitely do something like that, except something more reasonable, something her mother and all her friends back in Nebraska would be proud of, it was hard to think what.

Or so she had told herself until tonight. Tonight the stranger had dropped into their lives as if out of heaven, and everything was changed.

What would they do with him? They couldn’t very well just let him go, with his clothes stinking of marijuana. Sure as day the police would trace him to their fishingboat. On the other hand, the longer they kept him aboard, the surer the man was to find out their secret. They’d just have to keep him as their prisoner forever.

The thought blew her mind. She saw him chained up, getting gaunter every year. He’d grow a long beard, like the man in a movie she’d seen one time. She would sneak little presents to him — a bird in a cage, a book of sad poetry, one perfect rose and a cap of LSD, if he liked such things. They’d have whispered conversations. — No, on second thought, she would be, to him, like the Dragon Lady. He would reach out to her, in an anguish of indecision … — No, he would finally force her to see what had become of her: she would weep, facing the stark, awful truth, clinging to his knees. It was she who was in chains; he, in his iron shackles, was truly free. Like the play in San Francisco. She imagined him rubbing her back very gently, as Uncle Fred had done when she was a little girl and had been frightened by a nightmare. The stranger would smile, and she would know she was forgiven, both here and in the life hereafter.

They were in Chinatown. Chickens hanging in darkened store windows. Boxes and cans with Chinese writing. Chinese theaters emitting their weird tinny music. Kee-yong, ka-waiyong, kee-yo, kyo, kyonnnng. Tourists milled on the sidewalks and in the street; little Chinese in business suits bobbed past them. Captain Fist darted from doorway to doorway, his hat-brim pulled down so that nothing showed but his blackish potato of a nose and his eyes. When they came to Wong Chop’s restaurant he darted in and ran upstairs. Jane followed. At the head of the stairs stood a large American flag.

She found him in the last booth in the upstairs room, his back to the doorway, his hat sitting level on his shoulders as if, like a turtle, he’d pulled in his head. She took a chair at the side of the table, and as soon as she was seated he turned away as if everything were her fault. She sighed, removing her glasses. She wondered if the stranger, back on the ship, had come to yet. Perhaps the old man had killed him with that blow.

Music came through the wall. Gongs and something that sounded like tin cans on a string.

“Captain Fist,” she began. She put on her glasses.

He shrank from her voice, and she changed her mind, took her glasses off, and kept still. What was she doing here — a nice girl really — in this den of recooked leftovers?

Then, without a sound, Wong Chop appeared in the doorway, big as a mountain, dressed in gold and scarlet, with tassels. He smiled and bowed. “Good evening, fliends.” He held a menu in front of Captain Fist. Captain Fist pretended to study it, then reached out, his hand shaking violently, and pointing to something. It was the signal, Jane surmised. Now Wong Chop bowed, deeply gratified, and slipped an envelope to the Captain. Even though she was watching for it, she almost missed the pass. Quick as an electric spark it went from Wong Chop’s hand into Captain Fist’s pocket. Wong Chop bowed again, deeply and slowly, and then, as if he had been an illusion, vanished. Captain Fist sat quiet as a mossy stump. Ten minutes expired.

At last, unable to help herself, Jane leaned toward him. “What’s going to happen to the stranger?” she whispered.

He gave a jerk, as if he’d been asleep. “Be still,” he croaked, and raised a trembling finger to his lips.

“I won’t be,” she whispered. “You’ve got to free him.”

He shook his head. “Impossible.”

Everyone in the booths around them had stopped talking and sat perfectly motionless, heads tipped or turned, listening with all their might; the waiter, a few booths down, had his hand inconspicuously cupped to his ear. All federal agents, probably. Too softly for them to hear, she whispered, “But you can’t keep him with us forever. Think!”

“I have,” he whispered.

“Suppose they got onto us. Suppose—” She hung fire, visualizing it herself clearly for the first time. She put on her glasses. “Suppose they send out a destroyer or something and sink us! You’ll be a murderer.”

Captain Fist smiled. She looked away and wished she were back on the farm with the chickens and tractors and dear Uncle Fred.

“I can’t let you,” she whispered. “It’s not ethical.” She whispered it so firmly, so courageously, that it gave her a little thrill. At the same time it occurred to her that she’d done all she could. The murder would not be on her hands. “And then too,” she said, “there’s the Militant. What if—”

The Captain went white. “Don’t mention them!” he whispered. His shudder made the floor shake.

“If the Militant attacks us, and the stranger is killed—”

“Be still!” he whispered. He clutched his hands together; sweat popped out on his forehead. His eyes rolled and his mouth shook, but he managed to bring out, “He’ll be dead already, stupid girl. Do you think he was joking when he jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge?”

“We can’t let him,” she said.

“We can’t stop him,” he hissed. “If I don’t miss my guess, our visitor’s dead as a doornail right this minute.” He jerked out his pocketwatch and glanced at it. It had stopped. He thumped it against his palm.

She studied him, light with alarm. Only now did she fully realize how pleasant the stranger’s kiss had felt, when she was reviving him. “What do you mean,” she whispered, “dead already?” It came to her that Mr. Nit was still on the Indomitable. He always came ashore when they hit San Francisco. He loved the city, would never have missed it for the world, unless … They had whispered, she remembered. She had come upon Mr. Nit and the Captain in the passageway below, by the engine room door, and the minute they saw her they’d stopped whispering and looked guilty. Now it was all coming clear to her. Murder! she thought. Her face felt on fire. It was one thing to smuggle, to steal a little gas in an emergency, or to slow down the harbor police boats with mines, but cold-blooded murder, even if that was what the handsome stranger wanted … He was a sick man, a pitiful person whose life had gone all wrong or he would never have jumped, and they, who should have been his saviours and restorers …