CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
The curtain rose in Pirate Cove, all creaking pulleys and clouds of dust for the men below to choke on. Now Foxy could see them, and they could see him. Four flashlights hit his chest, forming a spotlight every bit as bright as that what used to shine on him during his act. He did not hide from it. He stood proud in the bow of his ship with his hook high and his eyepatch snapping down over his yellowed eye, calling loud enough for all to hear, "AHOY, MATEYS!"
"Jesus," said one of the men, almost respectfully.
"Yeah, he has not aged well, has he?"
"Is…Is he wearing jeans?"
"Those are Ana's jeans," one lad said as Foxy began the usual show-opening take-yer-seats-and-settle greeting.
All the others turned as one to fix him with a singular derisive eye. "How the hell would you know, dipshit?" one of them asked.
"That's paint." The lad pointed at Foxy's hip. "Same yellow color as Jack's mom's kitchen."
"Ahoy, Captain!" called the crows.
"KEEP A WEATHER EYE OPEN, LADS! THERE BE GIANT SQUID IN THESE HERE WATERS AND THEY ALL BE HUNGRY!"
"What does a giant squid eat?" asked the headless crow and the one-winged crow answered, "What else? Fish and ships?" Caw caw caw.
"Heh," said one of the men. "Fish and ships."
"Hey, Captain!" called a crow. "What do we do if a giant squid grabs the ship?"
"WELL, YE CAN TRY TICKLING HIM," suggested Foxy. "IF YE TICKLE A SQUID JUST THE RIGHT NUMBER OF TIMES, YE CAN GET HIM TO LET GO. BUT BE CAREFUL! TICKLE HIM ONCE TOO MANY AND HE'LL LAUGH SO HARD, HE'LL TEAR YER SHIP APART!"
"How many tickles is too many?" asked the crows, all together.
"Ten tickles!" called the octopus, waving all eight of its arms.
Caw caw caw.
"I don't get it," said the observant boy who knew so bloody much about Ana's jeans. He said it with the kind of earnest stupidity that suggested he said those particular words a lot.
"Tentacles, dumbass," someone replied. "Ten tickles? Tentacles? Idiot."
The other two joined in the obligatory mockery, shoving the boy around between them before moving down into the amphitheater and closer to the stage.
"Speaking of sea monsters!" one of the crows called. "What has eight legs, eight hands and eight eyes?"
"EIGHT PIRATES," said Foxy.
"Then what do you call a pirate with two eyes and two hands?"
"I CALLS HIM A ROOKIE," Foxy replied archly and all the crows laughed their timed laughter.
The East Hall door whooshed open and there stood another man. "What the hell is going on in here?"
His audience of four shuffled around some before one of them said, "It's Foxy."
"I can see it's Foxy, fool. What the hell is he doing?"
"I dunno. Just doing his thing, I guess."
"YAR, IT BE QUIET IN PIRATE COVE," said Foxy as the crows finally shut up. "TOO QUIET. GATHER 'ROUND, SWABBIES, AND WE'LL SING US A SEA SHANTY TO KEEP OUR SPIRITS UP. OH THERE'S RUM IN THE CAPTAIN'S BOTTLE, BOYS, AND BLOOD ON THE CAPTAIN'S BLADE…"
One of the men headed for the stage. Foxy sang on, watching without seeming to notice until the man actually put a foot up, and then wrenching his whole body around to focus on him in the most animatronically herky-jerky motion he could manage. "THAT BE FAR ENOUGH, MATEY," he bellowed. "THERE BE NO STOWAWAYS ALLOWED ON THE FLYING FOX!"
"Yeah, Bats, down in front!" someone else called. "I paid good money to see this show!"
"BACK TO YER SEAT, YE SCURVY DOG, OR YE'LL BE WALKING THE PLANK!"
"Come on, quit screwing around," said the man by the door, sounding annoyed. "Just find the fucking girl."
"That's what I'm doing. I'm looking—"
"IT BE AGAINST THE RULES TO CLIMB ON STAGE, MATE. IF YE BREAK THE RULES, YE MAY BE ASKED TO LEAVE AND YE DON'T WANT THAT, DO YE?"
"Dude, she's not back there. If she went anywhere near that damn thing, we'd have heard all this racket. Use your fucking head."
The man below—Bats, they'd called him—finally retreated and Foxy launched again into his song.
The newcomer came a few steps into the room, shining his light up and around. "Hey, sugartits, if you're in here, you need to understand the basic math involved in this game you're playing. There are sixteen of us and one of you. That already adds up to a bad time for you and maybe you think since it's already going to be bad, you might as well go large, but let me tell you, there's bad and there's worse and then there's Mason." He paused in both the warning and his investigation of the mouth of the Treasure Cave to look back at the stage. "This is the same exact song he used to open with when I was a kid. You'd think they'd update his fucking material every ten years or so."
The one called Bats gave a shot at a worldly laugh. "You used to go to the other one too, huh?"
"Shit, listen to you," said the first man contemptuously. "Like it's some select club. Everyone who grew up in this shithole town went to Freddy's. Where'd you go, Circle Drive? When I say I went to Freddy's, I mean the one on Mulholland. The one where they let you fuck 'em. You remember Mulholland, right, Sticks?"
"Yeah, sure," one of them muttered.
"I'm not some stupid kid, dude," said Bats sullenly. "That whole party-room thing is just an urban legend. Everybody knows that."
"Urban legend, my ass. While you were riding the carousel and pissing your diapers, me and the other big boys would rent out the green room for a few hours, drink some beer, smoke some ice and watch old Captain Fox up there fuck his first mate. Hell, first time he saw the full act, little Sticks over there got so excited, he joined right in the fun, so don't ever let him bullshit you with that Juarez story. His first was Foxanne."
"Fuck you. I don't do plastic."
"You did it right up the ass with the whole room watching, you cuntfaced liar. Don't be shy. I fucked her a couple times, too. I ain't ashamed to say it. Six strokes and you went off. If you've got to be ashamed of something, be ashamed of that. She didn't even know you started and Foxy had to tell her she was done." The man turned to Foxy. "You remember Sticks, don't you?"
If this were a real performance, he couldn't let himself be interrupted by an idle question as that asked from across the room, but they didn't know that. Foxy broke mid-verse and showed them his teeth. They probably thought it was a smile. "AYE, I REMEMBER YE WELL. I NEVER FORGETS ONE O' ME LITTLE MATES."
The one called Sticks flushed. The others laughed and made remarks on the word 'little'. Foxy sang on.
"Hey, up there! Hey, Captain! What say you help us find the little bitch…who is absolutely not hiding in the kiddie maze," he called loudly, and snorted. "And you can take a turn with the rest of us. Eye for an eye and all that. I fucked your bitch, you can fuck mine. Sound like a plan?"
"OUR ANCHOR'S AWEIGH, BOYS, TIE OFF THE LINES! LET'S DRINK TO THE LASSES WE'RE LEAVIN' BEHIND! YAR, BUCK UP, ME HEARTIES, HOW CAN YE BE GLUM WITH THE SEA FULL BEFORE YE AND A BOTTLE OF RUM?"
"Right, whatever. Bitch, if you're in there, you better say so right now, because if you make a bunch of grown-ass men crawl around that maze to find you, I am personally going to gouge out your fucking eye and skull-fuck the socket. Three…two…one. Fine. You are officially out of get-out-of-skull-fucking-free cards. Repo, Bats, get in there."
"Hey, since when do you tell me what to do?" A short pause and Bats hurriedly added, "I mean, I'm going, but fuck, man, you don't fucking boss me around," as he rapidly descended the stairs, heading for the opening to the cave there at the foot of the stage.
"Sticks and, uh…you. Whatever the fuck your dumbass name is."
"Riley," volunteered the boy with undiminished enthusiasm.
"Whatever, you two go in on this end. And I will wait right here," he added loudly. "Enjoy the very limited time you have left with both eyes, bitch."
Foxy kept singing. When the song was over, there was another round of jokes with the crows and then Foxy went stage-side and gathered his little hearties close to hear the tale of Blackmane's Mutiny, the source of all their enmity. The sound of men bumbling around in the maze grew more and more distant. The last man began to pace along the rails on the upper level, shining his light around the cargo and, yes, climbing up to check behind the façade of the prop prow.
Foxy told his story, yars and avasts and all, hardly listening to himself. He knew this was about as perfect an opportunity as he could hope to have. Grab his sword, do for the fella on the upper level, chuck the body in a barrel, go into the maze. He might get all four before any of them even knew they were being hunted. The only real danger was in that first rush; there was a fair distance between them, maybe not enough to get clean away but plenty enough to let out a good scream, alerting his mates and maybe everyone else in the building. Then they'd all come homing in, thinking Ana was on the attack, which she damned well might be by then, and he'd have to do the rest of the killing right in front of her, and it would be the messiest of messy killings, because there were so damned many of them and he couldn't let even one get away!
The man dropped off the fake ship and kicked some more cargo around. He opened the door to Kiddie Cove, looked around, closed it, and then someone else moved out of the corridor.
'Mason Kellar,' Foxy thought, although he had no reason to think so. The face was vaguely familiar, as were most of the faces he'd seen in the last ten years or so. He might have known the bloke as a kid, or his mother or father in bygone days, or his nieces or uncles or cousins. Mammon was a small town and the molds that faces were stamped from got to be damned few in small towns.
So he didn't know this man, in the strictest sense of the word, but if ever he could know a man merely by the way Ana talked when she talked of Mason Kellar, then he was seeing that man now. And it was silly, maybe even stupid, but he was telling a story and neither of those blokes were paying the slightest heed, so he drew his sword and pointed it out over the whole of the empty room right at the son of a bitch and snarled, "YE MADE A MISTAKE COMING HERE THE FIRST TIME! AND I MADE A MISTAKE LETTING YE LIVE. NOW HERE WE ARE AGAIN AND ONE OF US JUST MADE THE LAST MISTAKE HE'LL EVER MAKE."
Mason glanced over at him without interest, then at the ball-pit. His head cocked. He nudged his friend and pointed.
Foxy's story-telling animations made it easy to steal a peek in that direction. Ah. The human-sized hole in the mesh wall and a few plastic balls on the floor in front of the stage. He thought she was in the ball-pit.
Well, good. Let him think so. Let him think whatever would bring them right up close, down where Foxy could catch them both in one good jump.
But only the other man came down to investigate. Mason stayed up top, there in the mouth of the corridor, watching. And now here came another one. And another one from the East Hall.
Lord, was there no end to them? Now there were four in the maze and four more in the room with him. No point in jumping now, he could never get them all. The window of killing-opportunity had closed.
He wondered if Freddy and the others were having any better luck elsewhere in the building. He hadn't even made it out to the parking lot yet to have at those tires. It was only a matter of time before these birds were startled into flight and what then? Could they possibly come back with even more of their mates if some of them made back to the nest, or would they fetch the law? Certain folk had a way of forgetting how deeply they were involved in crime when the killing started, and although Foxy himself had no fear of arrest, Ana would have some hard explaining to do.
"She's not here!" the man called after kicking his way from one side of the ball-pit to the other a few times. "There's…stuff…all over, man. It reeks. I don't think—"
"OI," Foxy interrupted. "IS ME STORY INTERFERING WITH YER CONVERSATION? TAKE IT OUTSIDE, JABBERJAWS!"
"Fuck off, Foxy. I don't think anyone's been here for a long—"
"KEEP IT DOWN OUT THERE, YE BLUSTERING LANDLUBBERS! I JUST BE GETTING TO THE GOOD PART!"
"Check up there," Mason ordered, indicating the ship.
"We tried, man. You can't get—"
"STOP YER SQUAWKING! THIS HERE BE YER LAST WARNING!"
"You can't get close to the stage without that shit starting up," the man concluded at a much lower volume, thumbing back at Foxy as he climbed the amphitheater steps. "She's somewhere, but she ain't here."
"Then why the fuck are you still here?" The shouting back and forth had brought the others out of the maze. When Mason saw them, he backed up and swung both arms out, welcoming everyone to the impending tirade. "What the fuck are you all doing here? This is like a fucking lightbulb joke! How many fucktards does it take to search one room?"
No one moved.
Mason looked at them, his brows pinched with mild exasperation, but when he moved, he moved fast, thundering down the amphitheater steps to the lower entrance to the Cave, where he caught one of them by the shirt front. "I find out she ran away while you were in here watching the fucking Foxy show and it's all on you, Bats. Hear me? I came all the fucking way out here on your say-so and you better make it good."
"I know where she keeps her tools," Bats said fast.
"Her tools? Her fucking tools?"
And then Mason slammed the other man against the wall and punched him several times in rapid succession. The first blow knocked a yell out of the man; the rest just got the wall bloody. People shuffled, looking at their thumbs and their shoes. Foxy told his story.
"The fuck do I care about her tools?" Mason shouted, backing up to let Bats slide to the floor, sputtering and slobbering around the ruins of words. "Am I here for her tools, you dumb motherfucker? Am I here to build a fucking deck? Get up!" He kicked. "I said, get up! Get the fuck up! Get off the fucking ground!"
Each command came with a disabling kick, but at last, Bats managed to obey, only to be shoved back against the wall.
"You better find her," Mason said, no longer yelling. If Foxy's mics weren't pointed right at them, he couldn't have heard him at all. Even so, most of what he heard was the other man's own wet blood spitting out of his mouth and nose on every hoarse breath. "It better be you, you hear me? Because if it's anybody else, I am finding those tools, all right, and I'm ass-fucking you with a drill. Hear me? And if I don't find her at all—shut the fuck up, I'm not interested in any fucking thing you got to say right now. If she gets away clean, I am going to carve you up like a fucking turkey and stuff your fucking corpse in that fucking fox, just like all the fucking stories say. Hear me? Nod your fucking head."
Bats must have nodded, because Mason let him go and turned around, pointing at men unlucky enough to attract his eye. "You, watch the truck. You two, watch the doors, and rest of you watch everything but the fucking kid show! I don't know what the fuck you all think we're here for, but let me make it clear. I want Ana fucking Stark! I want her, I want her shit and if I see one more asshole having a good time before I get what I fucking want, I will kill a motherfucker!"
Mason left. He didn't even bother to look at Foxy before he went, and why should he? Just a broken old toy telling stories to entertain kiddies. The others trickled off through the East Hall door, none willing to follow too close on those heels. One man, the one calling himself Sticks, stayed behind, poking through the cargo at the back end of the room.
Foxy finished off his story, making sure they were alone and would stay that way at least a little while. When he came to the end, instead of launching into the next part of his scheduled act, he raised his hook and called, "Oi! I need help with the rigging if I'm to SET SAIL WITH THE TIDE. Who's it to b-b-be? Ye in the back!"
Sticks looked around at all the nobody crowding the Cove, then turned all the way around and pointed at himself.
"Aye, ugly bloke in the b-b—BLACKMANE, ME MORTAL ENEMY!—black jacket. Come here to me," he said, beckoning with his hook and keeping his good hand on the hilt of his sword. "YER OLD SHIPMATE, CAPTAIN FOX, NEEDS A FIRST MATE."
"Naw, man. I, uh…I got shit to do. What the hell am I explaining myself to a fucking robot for?" he added to himself, shaking his head.
"Come on, lad. WELCOME ABOARD THE FLYING FOX!" Foxy nodded toward the ship beside him, although his eye never left the other man and his hand never left his sword. "I'll even g-g-give ye a dip in the birthday booty chest."
"Well…okay." Down he came, even smiling, although he cast one or two nervous glances in the direction Mason had gone. "Got to look everywhere, right?"
"That's the spirit. C-C-Come on up." Foxy bent, offering his hook, and Sticks took it and let himself be pulled onstage, right up close. "What's yer name, bucko?"
The man looked around the empty auditorium and said, "Um…Steven."
"Aye, that's right." Foxy waved him toward the gangplank and followed, his stride easy, hand on hilt. "I remember ye."
"Naw, man," Sticks laughed, going immediately to the ship's wheel and giving it a spin as countless other lads and lasses had done before him. "Naw, you don't know me. I never been to this one before. This is nice. Much better than that fucking closet at the other place, huh?"
"Never heard-d-d ye complain about me accommodations at Mulholland. Course, there's acc-c-commodations and then there's hospitality-ty-ty," Foxy acknowledged with half a shrug. "Ye were far more interested-d-d in the latter than the former, as I recollect it."
The man's back stiffened. He turned in stutters, like a stuck hand on an old clock. "Wh…what?"
"He were right, ye know," said Foxy, nodding out at the upper level like the others were still there, laughing the way such as them always laughed about what went on in the party rooms. "She didn't know ye'd started-d-d yet. In and out, ye were. Must have been the audience what turned-d-d ye off. Eh? A wee bit o' stage fright-t-t, was it? Can be hard, performing for a crowd-d-d, and don't I know it."
His mouth opened, but he didn't answer, didn't make a sound.
"That's why ye c-c-came back without yer mates," said Foxy. "Only Foxanne were booked-d-d to close, as she most always were. Ye c-c-could have reserved her for another t-t—TIME TO SAIL—but ye were there, with that money b-b-burning a hole in yer pocket, so ye said ye'd have whoever was free. And that was me."
The man stumbled around the ship's wheel, holding it between them like a shield.
"And still ye couldn't hold-d-d—FAST TO THE RIGGING—hold it more'n a minute. In and out, just-t-t as before, and then sneaked yerself away. Least ye c-c-could have done was tell the Purple Man ye were finished so's I c-c-could be cleaned, but no. No, I had to stand there in that empty room with yer leavings running d-d-down me leg until the hour were up. Oh, I remember ye. Do ye remember me y-y-y—YO HO HO!—yet?"
The man stared, white enough to see right through.
"Aye, I see ye do. And I sees yer beginning to under-r-r—UNDERSEA KINGDOM O' SIRENIA—understand that I'm not t-t-too bloody keen to see ye again." Foxy started walking; the man backed up until he was trapped in the bow. "Yet ye paid full p-p-price that day and I wants ye to get yer money's worth. As a p-p-point o' professional pride. So." Foxy drew his sword slow, stretching out the moment, wanting it to last even though he knew there wasn't time to do the job right. "How d-d-do ye want it, lad? Standing up-p-p, lying down or on yer knees?"
The man dove for the gangplank. Foxy swung. Blood hit the cabin door in red splatters, but it looked black against the flashing gold and blue starbursts under the octopus's rubbery skin. The octopus must have felt it; it laughed and burbled and waved its tentacles just as it would have done if a child had touched it.
Foxy picked up the body, still trying to crawl and blowing bubbles through its throat, and gave it a chuck into the ball-pit.
"Now remember that that's there," he muttered and opened the cabin door.
Ana was waiting on the other side with one of the dull dueling swords in her hand. She even took a swipe at him, but she was half-gone and easy enough to disarm. "It's Mason," she said groggily as he tossed the sword back in its drawer and kicked it shut. "Mason's here."
"No, he ain't-t-t. Now I needs ye to—STEER HARD T'PORT AND LOAD THE CANNONS!—get back in b-b-bed and stay there while I'm g-g-gone. Can ye d-d-do that for me, lass?"
"I heard him! That is Mason fucking Kellar out there!" she insisted, weaving on her feet as she pointed in entirely the wrong direction.
"Ana, luv—"
"Don't you 'luv' me! You don't know him! You don't know!"
"C-C-Calm yerself. Yer having a bad dream, is all."
"Then wake me up! I don't want to die in my sleep!"
"Ana—"
She lunged for the drawer of swords again, staggering even before he caught her. He tried to hold her still and pet her quiet, but she made a grab at his chest and had her reflexes been just a wee bit sharper, she'd have had him.
"That's me g-g-girl," he told her, shoving her hard against the cabin wall. "No quarter, eh? Ye sees an opening and ye t-t-takes it. Page ten o' the handbook-k-k. I understand. I admire it." He pinned her with his shoulder and the weight of his body while pulling the knot of his rope-belt loose with his unfeeling hook and metal fingers. "And if we had the t-t—TIME TO SAIL!—we'd settle this like pirates, but we don't."
Pulling the rope from the loops of his jeans, he caught one of her hands and tied her wrist, then swung her around and down on his bunk. She fought every second, grabbing for his chest or his eyes whenever she could, but she didn't drum her heels on the walls or scream up the place, and as he fed the loose end of his rope through one of the decorative iron brackets that braced the upper corners of his bunk, she abruptly went limp.
Not unconscious. He glanced at her as he bound her other wrist and saw her eyes open, glaring into space with an expression that could best be described as 'miffed'.
"How's that feel?" he asked lightly. "Too t-t-tight?"
She shook her head.
In fairness, she didn't seem to be answering him as much as expressing a mute denial of the whole situation, but he unmade his knot and tried again anyway, putting a bit more arm in it this time. "And now?"
"Yeah, now it's extremely painful. Thanks." She pulled at her bonds, not to test them, but just to help her sit up in his narrow bunk. "Whose closet is this?" she asked, looking around.
"Mine." Close enough, anyhow. Sure weren't much bigger than a closet. "Ye all right now?"
"Am I? I don't…" The fire in her eyes died to a smoky glow. "My head hurts."
"Aye, it's c-c-called a hangover."
"I can't be hung over, I didn't drink."
"Aye, keep t-t-telling yerself that," he said, petting her poor, achy head. "It'll make g-g-good practice for when ye have to t-t-tell Fred. In the meantime, ye just close yer eyes and go b-b-back to sleep. This bad dream will soon be ove-r-r—OVERBOARD!"
"I don't think I'm dreaming," she said seriously. "I mean, I know I am, but I don't think I am."
"Aye, ye are. Sound asleep-p-p in yer loverbunny's arms, yet dreaming of yer d-d-dashing Captain Fox." He started to go, paused, and turned back, adding, "When ye see him in the morning, luv, make sure ye t-t-tell him this bit."
With that, he dipped in close and pressed his muzzle to her mouth. Neither the time nor the place, but still a kiss and all the sweeter for having stolen it.
When he opened his eyes, hers were already staring into his, not with outrage and certainly not with flattered fluttery. Just waiting for him to finish so she could ask, "Is Mason here? Is he really? I don't…I'm awake and I'm asleep and I don't know. I need to know."
Oh, Freddy would not approve…
"Aye, he is," said Foxy. "But yer g-g-going to stay here, eh? Quiet and still."
"In the closet."
"Aye."
She drew up her legs and wiggled around in the small space. Foxy's bunk had never been meant to be slept in. It was only just big enough for him to sit with a small child beside him, should one of them want to snuggle before taking their birthday swag and scampering off again. It didn't happen often. Foxy knew he was the kiddies' favorite, for all that Freddy's name was on the building, but the same reasons they loved him made it hard to want to be alone with him in dimly-lit spaces with no easy way out. Yet Ana managed to make herself fit and didn't even seem too uncomfortable.
"Are you going to kill him?" she asked, beginning to drowse again.
"Aye." Foxy put a hand on the hilt of his sword and gave his good ear a cavalier flick. "We're all g-g-going to try, luv, but aye, it's going to be me."
She nodded once, then reached up the few inches her bound hands allowed as he started again to rise and pulled him back. This time, she closed her eyes for the kiss, but he kept his open, so startled was he by the fullness and the heat of it, and aye, the taste…
She released him and settled back with a shrug. "If I'm dreaming, what can it hurt?" she asked in answer to his unspoken question. "And if I'm not, then…I'll be dead in the morning, so he'll never know."
With that, she closed her eyes, leaving Foxy to stare like a fool. After a moment, he groped for the door, waking the blasted octopus once more, but Ana never so much as twitched. Sound asleep again. And he had business to be about, so he left her.
By the time his metal feet had hit the stage running, he was himself again—the kiss a burning thing buried deep, as all pirates know to bury treasure—and nothing on his mind but the killing yet to do.