He smiled and pulled on his gray trousers. He went to the sink and washed his face. How many songs like that were there? he wondered, and then he wondered why he was so concerned with things musical this morning. Songs that could be twisted around, of course.
“My Devotion.” There was one.
“My abortion,” he sang, “was painful, and cost me a fortune...”
That was an old one. He’d learned it years back when the song was popular. He’d learned another one at that time, too, and it was probably the most disgusting distortion he’d ever heard. It was a take-off on “Jealousy.”
Leprosy, he sang silently, you’re making a mess of me. There goes my right ear. There goes my left ear.
He brushed his teeth vigorously, taking the taste of the song and the preceding night’s Scotch out of his mouth. Does Le Page ever wash? he wondered. I think all the sonofabitch does is eat. I don’t think he’s taken a shower since he came aboard. Someday I’ll tell him. Le Page, I’ll say, I have put up with this godawful stink for a good many moons now, Le Page my good man.
What godawful stink, Chuck? he will ask.
The godawful stink emanating from your rotund little form, Le Page, I shall answer. I suggest you take a shower, Le Page. I suggest you wash off all the crawling little vermin that are suffocating the opening of your navel and perhaps other apertures, Le Page. I suggest you do that right this minute, Le Page, and in case you were wondering about the strength of my motivations, that is an order, Le Page, that is a goddamned order! Now hop to it!
Someday.
Not now. Not right now. Right now I’m going to the wardroom, where I’ll stuff myself full of the garbage they call morning mess, which is exactly what it is. And then quarters for muster, and then I shall sneak away from this floating cracker box and make a call to the nurses’ quarters, and perhaps Jean will agree to see me this evening.
He dried his face and hands, flipped the towel onto his sack, and then walked out into the passageway and then onto the main deck. When he got to the wardroom, he studiously avoided sitting next to Le Page. He sat between Reynolds and Carlucci instead, and then he waited for the steward’s 64 mate to take his order. There was a choice of eggs this morning. He chose scrambled, and then asked for an immediate cup of coffee, which he downed almost the instant it was poured.
“How do you feel this morning?” Reynolds asked.
“Just dandy,” Masters said. “How do you feel?”
“Lousy. I always feel lousy. What I meant, though, you weren’t very chipper yesterday.”
“That was yesterday. I feel fine today.”
“You’ve forgotten all about dead people?”
“I didn’t say that,” Masters said.
“Hey,” Carlucci said, “how do you rate pancakes, Mike?” He glared at Reynolds’ plate, and then looked back to the sunnysides on his own plate.
“I’m executive officer,” Reynolds answered, smiling. “I’ve grown accustomed to the privileges of rank.”
“How about spreading the largess a bit?” Carlucci asked. “You’re better off with the eggs,” Reynolds answered. “Where’s the Old Man this morning?” Masters asked.
“I think he’s still asleep. When have you ever seen him at morning mess, anyway?”
“Never. I was just hoping he’d fallen over the side or something.”
“You’re too hard on him,” Reynolds said seriously. “He’s got a lot of headaches.”
“Even now that the FBI has cleared up our nasty little scandal? Hell, I thought the Old Man’s worries were over.”
“How’d you ever get to be an officer, Chuck?” Reynolds asked.
“I brown-nosed my way through boot camp,” Masters replied.
“Shake, pal,” Carlucci said, starting to eat his eggs, an obvious look of distaste on his face.
“No, seriously,” Reynolds said.
“Seriously? Truth is, I wanted to be an FBI man. I—”
“Oh, horse manure.”
“God’s truth, s’help me. I flunked the course, though. Wretched was that day,” Masters said woefully. “But, still being obsessed with the idea of performing a government service, I joined the Navy. The Secretary of the Navy immediately gave me a commission. That’s the story, Mike.”
“Yeah,” Reynolds said dryly.
“And here are my eggs,” Masters said. He took the plate from the steward’s mate and began eating. He glanced over to where Le Page was seated, marveling at the amount of food the Ensign could stuff into his mouth and apparently swallow without chewing.
Reynolds and Carlucci left before he finished his eggs. He ordered another cup of coffee, sat drinking that and smoking until the boatswain announced quarters for muster. He swallowed the remainder of his coffee, squashed the cigarette in an ash tray, and left the wardroom.
The men he passed seemed happier today. A ship was a funny thing, all right. Nothing but a small community. A tight little community of men living in extremely close quarters. You find a dead nurse in the radar shack, and the smell of the corpse will most naturally spread to the rest of the ship. People don’t like corpses where they live. And nobody likes the idea of a killer roaming the decks, which are the streets of the community that is the ship. Nobody likes that idea at all. So Schaefer put an end to the crew’s discomfiture. Schaefer, allegedly, leaped over the fantail. He took the stink of the corpse with him, and he also rid the streets of the killer.
The crew, one-track-minded as it was, probably liked Schaefer better now than they had when he was alive. Schaefer had lifted the pall for them. And he had also, incidentally, lifted the restriction. The crew could go awhoring now. The crew could inhabit the dimly lighted dime-a-dance joints in the city that was Norfolk. Or the crew could shoot their pay at the many penny arcades and shooting galleries. Or the crew could get tattooed, or buy tailor-mades, or spend their time and their money in various other ways, none of which were particularly entertaining.
But would the crew ever stop to wonder whether Schaefer had actually strangled the nurse? Does an ordinary citizen ever wonder about the methods of the police? If a rapist is plaguing a neighborhood, and the police claim they’ve captured him, does the community still lie awake nights wondering? No. The community relaxes.
The crew had relaxed, too. There were smiles now. There was whistling. The cursing had always been there, but it seemed more forceful now. Things were back to normal.
Almost.
They were not back to normal if either Jones or Daniels was a killer. They were not back to normal at all, if that were the case.
And no one cares but me, Masters thought.
Charles Stanton Masters, protector of the innocent, upholder of the righteous, seeker of justice.
Charles Stanton Masters, Jerk First Class.
I should have stood in bed.
Colombo, the quartermaster first, handed Masters the master sheet. Colombo was tall and lean, and he always showed up for muster with clear eyes and a smiling mouth. Masters envied that fresh look. He never seemed able to attain it in the morning. The communications crew — consisting of radiomen, radarmen, sonarmen, signalmen, and quartermasters thrown in for good measure — lined up every morning in the space between the aft sleeping compartment hatch and the rail. They faced the sea, and they inevitably faced it bleary-eyed. Masters and Colombo faced the men. On the mornings when Masters was too groggy to read the sheet, Colombo took over. Colombo was never groggy. Aft of this muster spot, the gunnery men lined up between the aft mounts. Elsewhere along the ship, the other members of the crew faced other officers with similar muster sheets.
The names were read off. If a man were AOL or even AWOL, it was T.S. for him. If a man were below catching forty winks, someone would always answer to his name — but only if they knew he was there. The officer always knew that someone else was answering for an absentee. In fact, he usually sent someone down below to rustle him out of his sack.