In Laymon's Terms

Projects of immensity were her specialty, but this would be the first piece of art over five hundred feet long she’d ever done. And the first living art, as well. She’d always been fond of destroying her pieces after a finite time, tearing apart the corpse of a muse that didn’t haunt her anymore. There’d be no such luxury this time. This muse would be something greater. Always something greater.

Abandoning the window, she descended the ladder to the main deck and wandered behind the superstructure. There she discovered more doors. Bare passageways and rooms with curious tables. Acrylic walls with maps supported by angle iron from the ceiling. So much to see.

The water was lumpy, but Genuit couldn’t tell any more than that. Not in the scarce lighting the one open hatch offered.

He could see the remains of four army jeeps lined up on the starboard bulkhead. A hammock hung between a mid-deck support and piping just aft of the hatch. Shapes decorated the bulkheads and dangled through the space from lengths of nylon rope obviously tied off somewhere in the shadows. Most confusing was the immense scattering of trash and wretched stench.

He kicked an unlabeled can and it rattled off to splash in the lake making up the fore section of the space. Another watery lump.

Ms. Jolson’s idea was grand. Her best yet. This part of it, the front-end work of making the old Navy LST seaworthy enough to tow to Catalina, would be painful. But Genuit knew the right names to get it done. Lots of folks out of Long Beach Naval Shipyard would jump at the chance to be part and parcel to an Evelyn Jolson project. With the right money afforded, of course.

And, as with any Jolson work, the right money would always be afforded. She had more benefactors than the Queen had crumpets.

He walked port, kicking around the sea of garbage in search of more hatches. There had to be bilge access somewhere.

At the grayish limits of the lighting he found two boxes. One stacked with masking tape, the other piled with newspaper. He bent over to read the date on the top issue.

The echo of bone reverberating through the tire iron nearly made Jong dance. In fact, it did. Just a small two-step, but still a dance. He shuffled some afterwards, for effect. Shuffled right on over to the chain fall hanging from a centerline overhead girder. Jong slowly rolled through the operating chain to feed out the hook, listening to the soft and repetitive clink of the links as they fed into and out of the gear teeth. The smoothest of mechanical hums. He started tapping time with one foot.

With a couple feet of slack on the floor, he dragged the interloper in the suit over and did a quick double-loop around both ankles. Then he looked back at the hatch.

There was still the lady. No time to do this with the music it deserved.

Quickly he pulled the operating chain in the other direction, lifting the load chain, the hook, and the man. Still, it took two, maybe three minutes to get him airborne and hanging straight down. With the man’s head clear of the deck by just an inch, Jong wrapped the body vigorously with the operating chain and knotted it about the man’s arms. Then he grappled it and walked out into the water. Out into the shadows. With the list taking him deeper, he didn’t stop until the upside-down body was waist-deep.

“I miss the lovely pop-pop-pop of bubbles,” Jong whispered.

Evelyn stared at the hatch, suspicious of the silence. Lloyd Genuit couldn’t walk softly on socks through a bed of down. If he was down there, he most certainly wasn’t moving.

Still, he’d gone down. She watched him. And she would certainly have seen him by now if he’d come back up. Lloyd wasn’t a patient man.

But then she wasn’t a patient woman. She tapped her foot.

Three taps floated up from below.

She tapped again...

...and they returned.

Evelyn stared out over the line of ships. There were twelve, maybe fifteen in a row. Some with high decks, some low. Turrets without barrels, hemispherical housings with parallel slots. Conical peaks and geometrically perfect railings. Ragged, spiderweb netting.

But no people. No shapes that moved. No one to go for help. Nothing functional!

He might need help. Nothing sinister...just assistance. He could have slipped. There was water down there, and the decks were steel. Slippery steel.

She tapped her foot one time, and one tap came back.

No way. One tap was playing, and Lloyd wouldn’t be playing if he needed help. In fact, Lloyd didn’t play. Ever.

An echo?

Evelyn tried the first step, then the second. Nothing happened.

She took the rest of the steps in quick succession, stopping only when she stood firmly on the lower deck. Light streaming through the hatch above held her, but cast shadows deep in every direction.