Maggie sat up. "Let's work backwards. Today is December 19th." She was penciling out the dates above the banner on an old newspaper.
"Mookie said that Chauncey Packer showed up right after the storm or explosion or whatever it was."
"He also used the expression 'two months ago' earlier this evening," I reminded Hannah.
"So let's fix that date somewhere around the middle to late October," Maggie insisted.
Queet rocked back in his chair and rolled his eyes. "The big storm was Halloween night."
Maggie giggled. "Seems appropriate."
Hannah got up from the bed and began to pace back and forth. My swollen eyes tried to follow her, gave up and fluttered shut.
"Wake up, E.G.," she snapped, "we're playing your favorite game — 'what if?' — and you're part of the team." She sat down beside Maggie and propped her chin on her hand. "Suppose, just suppose, Chauncey Packer was handed the same kind of assignment we were. Suppose his boss man found out about the Garl and sent him to the Cluster to retrieve the cylinders. Chauncey figures it the same way Elliott does — the best way to handle the assignment is to hire this guy Crompton. So he does. Crompton dives, locates the cylinders, tells his boss, and Chauncey sends Crompton packing because he doesn't want him to know anything more about the mission. Crompton comes back to Negril. Packer can't get the cylinders out and decides to blow a hole in the Garl so he can complete his mission. The effort backfires, the cylinders are scattered, and Chauncey the creep needs Crompton the diver to find the cylinders all over again. He comes back and rehires Crompton, but this time Elliott's friend knows too much and Chauncey decides the whole effort is best served if Crompton never resurfaces. Now, if I'm right up to this point, the Bay Foreman actually retrieves one of the cylinders and is ready to get the rest of them, but the now infamous Halloween storm brews up. The Bay Foreman has to break off the salvage effort, which would explain why it was moored at the far end of the reef, the safest place in the area to ride out a storm and a long way from the wreck of the Garl."
I had to marvel at the lady. If she was right, it explained a lot of the mystery surrounding the whole mess. It certainly explained why the Foreman had only the one cylinder. "But that doesn't explain the cylinder on the beach at Deechapal."
"What if the storm shook one of the cylinders loose and somebody found it and took it back to Deechapal?" Maggie asked tentatively.
Hannah wrinkled her nose. "Too easy… but Maggie's right. There has to be a logical sequence of events to all of this — and a logical explanation."
"Nor does your little theory explain what happened on Deechapal," I insisted. At the same time I was trying to read Queet's reaction, but I couldn't tell if he was buying it.
"One thing at a time," Hannah snapped. "It may not tell us everything, but it could explain why we can't find the cylinders."
Maggie slumped back in her chair again. "Okay. Assuming most of what Hannah said is true, what's our next move?"
Hannah Holbrook probably had an answer for that too, but I missed it. Chauncey's handiwork had taken its toll. There wasn't any more of Elliott to give. I closed my eyes and slipped into a comfortable and peaceful world that didn't give a damn about Bearing Schuster, his cylinders, cryonics, Chauncey Packer or what had happened at Deechapal.
I've always said that I didn't dream. It was one of Gibby's favorite questions. "What did you dream about last night?" I think I was supposed to tell the lady that I dreamed about her, but I didn't. Maybe that's one reason why she's gone. But I awoke fully aware that I had been dreaming, and it was the same dream over and over. I was in a small room, counting, taking inventory and testing to see if the things I had counted actually worked. Woven throughout each of the dreams was the thread of disappointment as I realized half the things I was counting were broken.
It was a half world — half-aware, half-asleep — and I couldn't decide which one I belonged in. When I tried to wake up, things hurt; when I drifted back into the world of sleep, the pain was blocked out.
There was a metallic sound — a click — and I moved back into a semiconscious world again. With one eye cocked partially open, I could see a shadow move across the room in the thinly veiled darkness.
"Are you awake, Elliott?" It was Hannah's voice, trying to jostle me back into a world of accountability.
"E.G.," she repeated. This time her voice was louder.
"I'll buy you a new Mickey Mouse watch if you'll go away."
"I've got a new watch," she informed me.
"Then tell me what time it is."
"Almost nine o'clock. Here, Sylvia made you some coffee."
Coffee, especially Jamaican coffee with honey and milk, the way Sylvia makes it, is one of my passions. It ranks right along with Black and White and Gibby. I opened both eyes, endured both the pain and indignity of having to scrape together the fragmented pieces of my 50 year-old battered body right in front of the lady, and sat up.
"Good grief, Elliott, you look like a piece of shit."
Despite her depressing proclamation, I did what I had to — pushed the covers back and tested the component parts. There was a certain gratification in knowing that the parts were all there even if they weren't all working efficiently. Hannah handed me the coffee and conducted a quick assessment of the damage.
"Will I live?"
"You may wish you hadn't," she said objectively. She watched me drink the coffee and, after monitoring my progress, decided to start talking again. "After you checked out last night, Queet, Maggie and I put our heads together and did a little planning. Before we head back to the Sloe Gin, we've got some things to do."
"Like what?"
"We've still got some supplies to round up, and we've got a special assignment for you."
"I'm supposed to be the one calling the shots around here," I groused.
"I'll turn the reins back over to you when you've got your bearings."
"All I need is somebody to get me a bottle of Scotch."
"That's not what we have in mind."
"Physician, heal thyself," I grunted.
Hannah leaned back in the chair, propped her feet up on my bed, reached in the pocket of her canary yellow shorts and came up with a piece of paper. "You're going to do some traveling."
"Like hell! I'm gonna lay right here and do my impression of 'hurt boy'."
"Remember Bearing telling us that there were some survivors off the Garl?"
"Vaguely. Why?"
"Well, I got to thinking about that last night. So I did what you were going to do before your run-in with Packer. I reported in to Schuster. I told him we had located the Garl but I didn't give him any of the gory details nor tell him about the cylinders."
"Good girl — but what's that got to do with traveling?"
"While I had Schuster on the line I had them run down this bit about the survivor of the Garl. I remembered correctly — there were three. The only problem is that two of them are dead, and the third is locked away in an asylum in Kingston."
"Kingston?"
"Kingston," she repeated, "and that's where you're headed."
"Didn't anybody ever explain to you that the reason they lock people up in asylums is because those very people have demonstrated a certain lack of dependability? Why drive all the way to Kingston to verify that the sole survivor of the Garl is a certifiable looney?"
"Because it needs to be checked out. In case you hadn't noticed, this whole effort is tainted. There is something going on around here that we can't seem to completely grasp."