“Screw probation,” Donny said. “Probation is for landlubbers. At sea it’s only a word.”
“What kind of stuff are you on, Donny? What did you take?”
“Nothing. I smoked a little pot last night and had a few drinks, but since then, nothing. Nothing from outside anyway. It’s the inside stuff that I’m on. It’s all coming from inside. There’s some pretty strong stuff in there, man, stronger than anything you can buy on the street.”
Aragon believed him. Whatever Donny’s body was manufacturing, it seemed as powerful and unpredictable as the animal tranquilizer the kids called angel dust.
He said, “Show me where Cleo is and I’ll take her home.”
“Home? Where the hell’s home for people like Cleo and me? A lousy detention school? Juvenile Hall or the slammer? Where the hell is home?”
“Drop the self-pity kick for a minute and pay attention. I want you and Cleo to come with me, and we’ll try to straighten out this whole business. I’ll even forget about the gun. I didn’t see it.”
“You saw it and you better not forget it. That’s my best friend. Him and me, we can go anywhere we want to, do anything we want to—”
“Cut the crazy talk, Donny.”
“Okay, suppose I buy that crap about you trying to straighten things out for me and Cleo. What then? We get sent back to Holbrook Hall or worse, so the rest of you can live happily ever after.”
“I can’t perform miracles, Donny.”
“No? Well, I won’t settle for less.”
“Is that your final word?”
“You got it. Come on, we’ll go up on deck. There might be someone you want to wave bye-bye to.” Donny laughed again. “Or didn’t you know we’ve left the dock?”
“No.”
“That’s the trouble with you brainy guys — you start concentrating on something so hard you’re not aware of an earthquake until a brick hits you on the head. We’re under way, man. We’re off and running.”
“There are a lot of serious charges against you already, Donny. Don’t add kidnapping.”
“Kidnapping? Nobody forced you to come along. Nobody even invited you. You jumped on board. You know what that makes you? A stowaway. I could file a few charges of my own.”
“The punishment for kidnapping can be life imprisonment.”
“So? With any luck I’ll get the death penalty. Meanwhile you and I are going for a little sail. Come on, we don’t want to keep Cleo and the bridegroom waiting.”
They went up on deck.
Manny Ocho was at the helm. He had the Spindrift going several times faster than the harbor speed limit of five miles an hour, and Aragon knew from the glance Ocho gave him that he was doing it in the hope of attracting the attention of the harbor patrol boat. But there was no sign of Sprague or the boat. The only protest came from a small sloop the Spindrift passed in the channel.
“Slow down,” a man yelled through a megaphone. “You damn near hit me.”
Ocho made an obscene gesture and yelled back, “Report me. Call Sprague.”
But the sloop merely rolled and pitched in the Spindrift’s wake, and the harbor patrol boat remained at its mooring in front of the office and the Coast Guard cutter was still tied up at the Navy pier.
Traffic was light. The fishing fleet had departed hours ago and the pleasure boaters seldom went out before the afternoon winds began. Even when the Spindrift reached the open sea there wasn’t enough wind to take over the job of moving the boat. Donny ordered the sails raised anyway.
Working silently and swiftly, Velasco and Gomez raised the sails and Donny pronounced the boat now ready for the wedding ceremony. It was a picturesque setting, but the bride and groom were missing.
“Cleo,” Donny shouted. “Where the hell are you? Time to get married.”
Cleo appeared on the starboard deck wearing a white chiffon nightgown she’d found in one of the cabin drawers. The gown was too long and she had to hold it up with her left hand while she carried the .22 in her right. Her hair was combed but she’d forgotten to wash her face and her cheeks were still tear-stained.
“I don’t feel like a bride,” she told Donny.
“You don’t look like one either,” Donny said. “Where’s Ted?”
“I couldn’t get his hands untied. You made the knots too tight.”
“Oh for chrissake, can’t you do anything right? You don’t have to untie them. Cut them with a knife.”
“I don’t want to cut them. They’re my shoelaces. They’re practically brand-new.”
“All right, all right, you hold the gun on our guest here and I’ll go and get Ted.”
“Hello, Cleo,” Aragon said. “Do you remember me?”
She stared at him, frowning. “No.”
“You came to my office not too long ago.”
“Why?”
“To ask me about your rights — how to register to vote, for instance. You told me about your brother and his wife and about your counselor, Roger Lennard.”
“Poor Roger is dead.”
“Yes.”
“I mustn’t think about that now. I’m supposed to be happy. It’s my wedding day.”
“No, it isn’t, Cleo. There’s no one on board qualified to perform the ceremony and you don’t have the necessary blood tests or license. And even if you had all these things, the marriage wouldn’t be legal anyway because you and Ted are related.”
“I won’t listen to you,” she said. “I think you’re a nasty man.”
Donny came back with Ted. Ted’s hands were free and he was rubbing his wrists where the nylon laces had bitten into his skin. He looked angry and confused and he’d wet his pants.
“What’s happening around here? I wake up and my hands are tied. My hands are tied, for chrissake. What for? I thought we were having a party.”
“That party’s over,” Donny said. “We’re about to start another one. Cleo has decided she wants to get married, and since she’s a little short of bridegrooms since Roger died, she picked you.”
“Me? For chrissake, why would she pick me?”
“Because she says you’re the father of her baby.”
“That’s impossible. There isn’t any baby.”
“Oh, Ted, there is so,” Cleo said reproachfully. “It’s still very tiny, maybe like sort of a grain of sugar or a grape seed.”
“There isn’t any baby, dammit. We had only started to make love when my father barged in. I didn’t even penetrate. You’re still a virgin.”
“Ted, you know that’s not true. We were doing it exactly like in the movies, no clothes and everything. So now we have to get married.”
Ted appealed to Aragon. “Whoever you are, they’re both crazy. We have to get out of here.”
“Stay cool, and play along,” Aragon said quietly. “That’s our only chance.”
“Why should I marry some half-wit because she thinks she’s pregnant? Whatever happened — and God knows it wasn’t much — happened just a few days ago. I tell you, she’s still a virgin. And even if she weren’t she’d have no way of knowing so soon that she was pregnant.”
Cleo was crying again. She cried as easily as a plastic doll with a water-filled syringe in her head. “He doesn’t want to marry me, Donny. What should I do now?”
“Ask him again, real sweet and polite.”
“Nobody wants to marry me.”
“Maybe he’ll change his mind.” Donny pointed the Luger directly at Ted’s chest. “Go on, ask him again, Cleo.”
“Ted, will you marry me?”
“No. Get it through your thick head, we didn’t have complete intercourse. You are not pregnant. You’re still a virgin.”
“But we had all our clothes off and everything exactly like the movies.”