Deadlock

27 On Board the Dragon Ship

When I woke up, my head pounded uncomfortably and I felt sick. Bright sunlight was coming in through a window, blinding me. That didn’t make sense-I sleep with heavy drapes pulled across my windows. Someone must have broken in during the night and opened my curtains.

Holding my head with one hand, I sat up. I was on a couch in a strange room. My shoes, purse, and jacket were lying on a glass-topped coffee table next to me with a note.

Vic

I couldn’t get you to wake up long enough to tell me your address, so I brought you back here to the Hancock. I hope you find your proof.

R.F.

I staggered across the room and out into a carpeted hallway, looking for a bathroom. I took four aspirin from a bottle in the medicine chest and ran a hot bath in the long yellow tub. I couldn’t find any washcloths on the shelves, so I soaked a heavy hand towel in the water and wrapped it around my head. After about half an hour in the water I started feeling more like me and less like a carpet after spring cleaning. I couldn’t believe I’d gotten that drunk on one bottle of wine. Maybe I’d drunk two.

I wrapped myself in a dressing gown hanging on the back of the bathroom door and went on down the hallway to find a kitchen, a small but completely equipped room gleaming in white and stainless steel. A clock hung next to the refrigerator. When I saw the time I put my head next to the face to see if it was still running. Twelve-thirty. No wonder Ferrant had left me to go downtown.

Puttering around, I found an electric coffee maker and some canned coffee and brewed a pot. Drinking it black, I recalled last night’s events-the meeting with Paige and dinner with Ferrant. I dimly remembered trying to call the Great Lakes Naval Training Station. The reason why came back to me. Sober, it still sounded like a good idea.

Using a white wall phone next to the stove, I tried the Station again. This time a young man answered. I told him I was a detective, which he interpreted as meaning I was with the police. Many people think that and it helps not to disillusion them.

“Niels Grafalk keeps his private yacht at the Training Station,” I said. “I want to know if he took it out early Sunday morning.”

The young sailor switched me down to the dock, where I talked to a guard. “Mr. Grafalk handles his boat privately,” the guard told me. “We can call around and try to find out for you.”

I told him that would be great and I would call again in an hour. I put my clothes back on. They were smelling rather stale by this time. I was short a corduroy pantsuit, jeans, and two shirts as a result of this case. Maybe it was time for new clothes. I left Ferrant’s apartment, rode the elevator down to the ground, and walked across the street to Water Tower Place, where I treated myself to a new pair of jeans and a red cotton shirt with a diagonal yellow stripe at Field’s. Easier than going back to my apartment at this point.

I went back down to the Loop. I hadn’t been in my office since the morning I talked to Mrs. Kelvin, and the floor inside the door was piled with mail. I looked through it quickly. Bills and advertisements-no solicitations from millionaires to find their missing husbands. I dumped the lot in the trash and phoned the Naval Station again.

The young sailor had exerted himself to be helpful. “I called over to Admiral Jergensen’s office, but no one there knew anything about the boat. They told me to call Mr. Grafalk’s chauffeur-he usually helps out when Mr. Grafalk wants to sail. Anyway, he wanted to know why we were asking, so I told him the police were interested, and he said the boat hadn’t been out on Saturday night.

I thanked him weakly for his help and hung up. I simply hadn’t anticipated that. Calling Grafalk. At least they had said police and not given my name, since I’d never told the sailor who I was. But if there was evidence on the boat, they’d be at pains now to get rid of it.

I debated calling Mallory but I couldn’t see how I could convince him to get a search warrant. I thought about all possible arguments I might use. He still believed Boom Boom and I had been victims of separate accidents. I was never going to be able to convince him Grafalk was a murderer. Not unless I had a sample of Phillips’s blood from Grafalk’s yacht.

Very well, then. I would get a sample. I went to a safe built into the south wall of my office. I’m not Peter Wimsey and I don’t carry a complete police lab around with me, but I do have some of the rudiments, like chemicals to test for the presence of blood. And some self-sealing plastic pouches to put samples in. I had a Timothy Custom Utility Knife in there, so I took that along. With a three-inch blade, it wasn’t meant as a weapon but a tool, its razor-honed blade ideal for cutting up a piece of deck or carpet or something containing the evidence. My picklocks and a magnifying glass completed my gear.

I emptied everything out of my shoulder bag, put my driver’s license and my detective ID in my pocket with some money and stuck the detective equipment in the zippered side compartment. Back to Grant Park for my car, which cost me fifteen dollars to retrieve. I wasn’t sure I was going to remember all my expenses for submitting a bill to Boom Boom’s estate. I needed to be more methodical in recording them.

It was after four when I reached the Edens Expressway. I kept the speedometer at sixty-five all the way to the tollway. Traffic was heavy with the first wash of northbound executives from the city and I kept pace with the cars in the fast lane, not risking a ticket and the delays that would bring me.

At five I exited onto route 137 and headed toward the lake. Instead of turning south on Green Bay for Lake Bluff, I went on to Sheridan Road and turned left, following the road up to the Great Lakes Naval Station.

A guard was on duty at the main entrance to the base. I gave my most vivacious smile, trying hard not to look like a Soviet spy. “I’m Niels Grafalk’s niece. He’s expecting me to join a party down at the Brynulf Nordemark.”

The guard consulted a list in the booth. “Oh. That’s the private boat the admiral lets the guy keep here. Go on in.”

“I’m afraid this is my first time up here. Can you give me directions?”

“Just follow this road down to the docks. Then turn left. You can’t miss it-it’s the only private sailboat down there.” He gave me a permit in case anyone asked me any questions. I wished I was a Soviet spy-this would be an easy place to get into.

I followed the winding road past rows of stark barracks. Sailors were wandering around in groups of two or three. I passed a few children, too. I hadn’t realized that families lived on the base.

The road led down to the docks, as the guard had said. Before I reached the water I could see the masts of the ships sticking up. Smaller than the lakes freighters, covered with turrets and radar equipment, the naval ships looked menacing, even in the golden light of a spring evening. Driving past them, I shuddered and concentrated on the road. It was pitted from the heavy vehicles that routinely used it and the Omega bounced from hole to hole past the line of training ships.

About a hundred yards farther down, in splendid isolation, sat the Brynulf Nordemark. She was a beautiful vessel with two masts; sails furled neatly about them. Painted white, with green trim, she was a sleekly lined boat, floating easily against the ropes that fastened her to the dock, like a swan or some other water bird, natural and graceful.

I parked the Omega on the boat’s far side and walked out on the little jetty to which the Brynulf was tied. Pulling one of the guys slightly to bring her over to me, I grabbed the wooden railing and swung myself over onto the deck.

All of the fittings were made of teak, varnished and polished to a reflecting sheen. The tiller was set in a gleaming brass base, and the instrument panel, also teak, contained a collection of the most up-to-date gadgets-gyro compass, wind gauges, depth sounders, and other instruments I couldn’t begin to understand. Grafalk’s grandfather had bought the yacht, I recalled-Grafalk must have updated the equipment.

Feeling like a caricature of a detective, I pulled the magnifying glass out of my handbag and began to scrutinize the deck-on hands and knees, just like Sherlock Holmes. The tour took some time and I failed to discover anything remotely like blood on the highly polished surface. I continued the inspection along the sides. Just as I was about to give up on the deck, I spotted two short blond hairs caught in the starboard railing. Grafalk’s hair was white, the chauffeur’s sandy. Phillips had been a blond, and this was a good spot for his head to have banged as they dragged him off the yacht. Grunting with satisfaction, I took a pair of eyebrow tweezers from my purse, plucked out the hairs, and put them in a little plastic bag.

A small flight of stairs next to the tiller led to the cabin. I paused for a minute, hand on the wheel, to look at the dock before I went down. No one was paying any attention to me. As I started down the stairs my eye was caught by a large warehouse across the road from me. It was a corrugated Quonset hut, dingy like the other buildings on the base. Plastered with red triangles, it had a neatly lettered sign over the entrance: MUNITIONS DEPOT, HIGH EXPLOSIVES. NO SMOKING.

No guard patrolled the depot. Presumably, if you had clearance to be on the base at all, you weren’t likely to rifle the munitions. Grafalk passed the dump every time he went sailing. His chauffeur probably had the tools to get past the lock on the large rolling doors. As a friend of the admiral’s, Grafalk might even have gone in on some legitimate pretext. I wondered if they kept an inventory of their explosives. Would they be able to tell if enough depth charges were gone to blow up a thousand-foot ship?

I went down the short flight of stairs where a locked door led to the living quarters. It was after six and the sun was starting to set. Not much light made its way into the stairwell and I fumbled with the picklocks for several minutes before getting the door open. A hook on the wall clipped to another hook on the door to hold it open.

The one thing I’d forgotten was a flashlight. I hunted for a light and finally found a chain connected to an overhead lamp. Pulling it on, I saw I was in a small hallway, carpeted in a green that matched the boat’s trim. A latched door at my right opened into a master bedroom with a king-size bed, mirrored walls, and teak fittings. A sliding wardrobe door opened on a good collection of men’s and women’s clothes. I looked at the women’s outfits doubtfully: Paige and Mrs. Grafalk were both thin and short-the wardrobe could have belonged to either.

The master bedroom had an attached bathroom with a tub and a sink fitted with gold faucets. It didn’t seem too likely that Grafalk and Phillips would have fought in there.

I went back out to the hallway and found two other bedrooms, less opulent, each with sleeping for four, on the port side. A dining room with an old mahogany table bolted to the floor and a complete set of Wedgwood in a handsome breakfront was next to them on the port side of the bow. Next, in the very tip of the bow, was a well-equipped galley with a gas stove. Between the master bedroom and the galley on the starboard side was a lounge where the sailors could read or play bridge or drink during inclement weather. A shallow cupboard unlatched to reveal several decanters and a good collection of bottles. The scotch was J & B. I was disappointed-the first sign of bad taste on Grafalk’s part. Maybe Paige selected the whiskey.

Unless Phillips had been knocked out on deck, my guess was he had been hit in either the lounge or the dining room. I started on the lounge as the more hopeful place. It contained a leather-covered card table and a desk, a number of chairs, a couch, and a small fireplace with an electric fire in it.

The lounge floor was covered with a thick, figured green carpet. As I surveyed the room, trying to decide where most efficiently to begin my search, I noticed that the pile in front of the little fireplace was brushed back at a different angle than the rest of the rug. That seemed promising. I skirted around the brushed area and began inspecting it with my glass. I found another blond hair. No blood, but a strong smell of cleanser, something like Top Job. The carpet was still faintly damp to my touch, although it had been three days since Phillips’s death. I smelled other sections of the rug, but the odor of cleanser and the damp only came from the section in front of the fireplace.

I pulled myself to my feet. Now the problem was going to be to get the police up here for a more formal search. Their equipment could detect whether blood stuck to the rug in microscopic quantities. Maybe the thing to do was to cut off a bit of the pile and get them to examine it. If there were blood on it, they’d be more likely to want to see where the rug fragments came from. Using my Timothy Custom Knife, I cut a small section of fibers from the place where I’d found the blond hair.

As I put the fabric into a clean specimen bag, I heard a thud on the deck. I sat quite still and listened, straining my ears. The cabin was so well paneled, you couldn’t hear much above you. Then another, gentle thud. Two people had boarded the boat. Navy children playing around the docks?

I stuck the specimen bag in my pocket. Holding the knife firmly, I went to the door and turned out the light. I waited inside the room, listening. Through the hallway I could hear a faint murmur of male voices. These were grown-ups, not children.

Footsteps moved overhead, toward the bow. At the stern an engine turned over and caught. The boat, which had been floating aimlessly with the water currents, started vibrating and then began moving slowly backward.

I looked around for a hiding place. There was none. The card table and the couch offered no protection. Through the porthole in the lounge’s starboard wall I watched a destroyer slide by, then the gray concrete of a breakwater, and finally a small white channel market, its light flashing green as it swung around. We were out of the channel into the open lake. Straining my ears near the door, I heard the sharp slapping noise of wind on canvas: they were raising the sails. Then more voices, and finally a footstep on the carpeted stairs.

“I hope you’re not going to play hide-and-seek with me, Miss Warshawski. I know this boat much better than you do.” It was Grafalk.

My heart pounded sickeningly. My stomach turned over. I felt short of breath and too weak to speak.

“I know you’re here-we saw your car on the quay.”

I took several diaphragm breaths, slowly exhaling on a descending scale, and stepped into the hallway.

“Good evening, Mr. Grafalk.” Not the world’s greatest line, but the words came out without a tremor. I was pleased with myself.

“You’re a very smart young woman. Knowledgeable, too. So I won’t point out to you that you’re trespassing on private property. It’s a beautiful night for a sail, but I think we can talk more easily down here. Sandy will be able to manage the boat alone for a while now that the sails are up.”

He took my arm in a steely grip and moved me back into the lounge with him, turning the light back on with his other hand.

“Do sit down, Miss Warshawski. You know, you have my heartfelt admiration. You are a very resourceful lady, with good survival instincts. By now you should be dead several times over. And I was impressed with the reconstruction you gave Paige, quite impressed indeed.”

He was wearing evening clothes, a black suit tailored to his wide shoulders and narrow hips. He looked handsome in them, and there was an expression of suppressed excitement in his face which made him appear younger than he was.

He let go of my arm and I sat in one of the leather-covered straight-back chairs next to the card table. “Thank you, Mr. Grafalk. I’ll have to remember to ask you for a reference the next time a client inquires.”

He sat down facing me. “Ah, yes. I fear your clients will be deprived of your services soon, Miss Warshawski. A pity, since you have the brains and the skill to be of help to people. By the way, who are you working for now? Not Martin, I hope.”

“I’m working for my cousin,” I said levelly.

“How quixotic of you. Avenging the memory of the dead Boom Boom. Paige says you don’t believe he fell under the Bertha Krupnik by accident.”

“My parents discouraged a faith in Santa Claus at an early age. Paige never struck me as terribly naive, either-just reluctant to face facts which might upset her comfort.”

Grafalk smiled a bit. He opened the latched liquor cupboard and pulled out a decanter. “Some Armagnac, Vic? You don’t mind if I call you that, do you? Warshawski is an awkward name to keep repeating and we have a long conversation in front of us… Don’t blame Paige, my dear Vic. She’s a very special person, but she has these strong needs for material possessions that go back to her early childhood. You know the story of her father?”

“A heartrending tale,” I said dryly. “It’s amazing that she and her sister were able to go on living at all.”

He smiled again. “Poverty is all relative. At any rate, Paige doesn’t want to jeopardize her current standard of living by thinking about anything… too dangerous.”

“How does Mrs. Grafalk feel about the situation?”

“With Paige, you mean? Claire is an admirable woman. Now that our two children are through school she’s thoroughly absorbed in a variety of charities, all of which benefit profoundly by Grafalk backing. They claim the bulk of her attention and she’s just as pleased to have mine diverted elsewhere. She’s never been very interested in Grafalk Steamship either, unfortunately.”

“Whereas it has Paige’s breathless attention? That’s a little hard for me to picture, somehow.”

“You’re sure you don’t want any Armagnac? It’s quite good, really.”

“I’ll take your word for it.” My stomach warned me against putting any more alcohol on top of last night’s St. Émilion.

He poured himself some more. “Paige is in a position where she has to be interested in what interests me. I don’t mind knowing I’ve got her her attention-it’s quite intense and delightful whether bought or volunteered. And I’m afraid the steamship line is the thing I care most about.”

“So much that you killed Phillips and Mattingly, got Phillips to push my cousin off the wharf, and blew up the Lucella Wieser to protect it? Oh yes. I forgot Henry Kelvin, the night watchman in Boom Boom’s building.”

Grafalk stretched his legs out and swirled the brandy in his glass. “Technically, Sandy did most of the damage. Sandy’s my chauffeur and general factotum. He planted the depth charges on the Lucella-quite a diver. He was a frogman in the navy, served on my ship in World War II. When he was discharged I hired him. Anyway, technically, Sandy did the dirty work.”

“But you’re an accessory. The law holds you equally responsible.”

“The law will have to find out first. Right now, they seem extremely uninterested in me.”

“When they have the evidence that Phillips received his head wound here in this lounge their interest will pick up considerably.”

“Yes, but who’s going to tell them? Sandy won’t. I won’t. And you, I’m afraid, aren’t going to be with us when we return to port. So you won’t.”

He was trying to frighten me and succeeding rather well.

“Phillips called you Saturday night after he got my message, didn’t he?”

“Yes. I’m afraid Clayton was cracking. He was a smart enough man in his way, but he worried about details too much. He knew if you told Argus about the invoices his career would be finished. He wanted me to do something to help him out. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much I could do at that point.”

“Why’d you kill him, though? What possible harm could it do you if word got out that you’d been involved in some kickbacks in assigning cargoes? You own the controlling interest in Grafalk Steamship-your board can’t force you to resign.”

“Oh, I agree. Unfortunately, even though we hadn’t involved Clayton in the-uh-mishap to the Lucella, he knew my feelings toward Martin too well. He suspected I was responsible and threatened to divulge that to the Coast Guard if I didn’t protect him with Argus.”

“So you smashed a hole in the side of his head-What’d you use? One of these andirons?-and sailed him down to the Port. Putting him on the Gertrude Ruttan was a macabre touch. What would you have done if Bledsoe hadn’t had a ship in port?”

“Used someone else’s. It just seemed more poetic to use one of Martin’s. What made you think of it?”

“It wasn’t that difficult, Niels. The police patrol that facility. They were questioning everyone who’d been down there between midnight and six Sunday morning, inspecting their cars, too, I’m sure. So whoever put the body in the holds had to get to the ship without going by the police. Once I realized that, it was pretty easy to see it must have come by boat. A helicopter would have attracted too much attention.”

It pricked his vanity to have his great idea treated lightly. “We won’t run those risks with you, Vic. We’ll leave you a couple of miles offshore with a good strong weight to hold you down.”

I have always feared death by drowning more than any other end-the dark water sucking me down into itself. My hands were trembling slightly. I pressed them to the sides of my legs so that Grafalk couldn’t see.

“It was the destruction of the Lucella I couldn’t figure out at first. I knew you were angry with Bledsoe for leaving you, but I didn’t realize how much you hated him. Also, the Eudora shipping contracts I looked at puzzled me. There were quite a number of orders last year which Pole Star gave up to Grafalk Steamship. For a while I thought you two were in collusion, but there wasn’t any financial advantage to Bledsoe from the Lucella being blown up. Quite the contrary.

“Then he told me Monday that you’d pressured him while he was financing the Lucella-you knew he’d never raise the money if word got out on the street that he’d been in jail for embezzling. So you promised to keep it to yourself if he’d give you some of his shipping contracts.

“That explained the water in the holds, too. Once the Lucella was financed, you could tell the world and be damned, as far as he cared. He started underbidding you-considerably-and you got Mattingly to bribe one of the sailors to put water in her holds. So she lost the load, and in a rather expensive way.”

Grafalk wasn’t so relaxed now. He drew his legs up and crossed them. “How’d you know that?” he asked sharply.

“Boom Boom saw Mattingly there. He wrote Pierre Bouchard that he’d seen Mattingly under odd circumstances. I thought it must have been up here on the Brynulf, but Paige told me Mattingly didn’t go on that expedition. The only other really odd place for my cousin to have seen him was down at the Port. It bothered Boom Boom enough to try to get Bouchard to trace Mattingly, and he wouldn’t have done that for something trivial… But what I really want to know, Niels, is how long Grafalk Steamship has been losing money?”

He got up with a sudden movement that knocked his brandy glass over. “Who told you that?”

“Niels, you’re like an elephant on a rampage. You’re leaving a trail of broken trees behind you and you think no one else can see them. You didn’t have to tell me Grafalk Steamship was the only thing you really cared about. It was obvious the first day I met you. Then your fury with Bledsoe for deserting you was totally irrational. People leave jobs every day for new jobs or to set up their own businesses. I could see you might feel hurt if you gave Bledsoe his big chance. But, my God! You acted like King Richard when one of his barons broke the oath of fealty. Bledsoe didn’t work for Grafalk Steamship-he worked for you. It was a personal betrayal when he left you.”

Grafalk sat down again. He picked up his glass and poured some more Armagnac; his hand wasn’t quite steady.

“Now you’re a relatively smart man, and you don’t need money. Not personally. There wasn’t any reason for you to get sucked up in Clayton’s scheme for your personal gain. But there was if your steamship company needed help.

“My first day down at the Port I heard your new dispatcher on the phone trying to get orders. He just couldn’t get his bids down low enough. You’re operating this antiquated fleet. When the Leif Ericsson ran into the wharf, Martin Bledsoe asked if that was how you were planning on getting rid of your old ships. That was when you needled him about his prison background. He reacted violently, and everyone’s attention was diverted. But you did need to get rid of your old ships. Martin hadn’t been able to persuade you to build the thousand-footers, and you were stuck with these unprofitable clunkers.”

He swept the brandy decanter from the table with a violent movement and sent it flying against the starboard wall. It smashed and a shower of glass and Armagnac sprayed my back.

“I never thought they’d be profitable!” he shouted. “They’re too big. There weren’t many ports that could handle them. I was sure they were a passing fad.” He clenched his fists and his face took on an angry, brooding look. “But then I started losing orders and I just couldn’t get them back. And Martin! Goddamn him to hell! I saved him from prison. I gave him his life back. And how did he thank me? By building that damned Lucella Wieser and flaunting her under my nose.”

“Why didn’t you just build your own at that point?” I asked irritably.

He bared his teeth at me. “I couldn’t afford to. The steamship company was overleveraged by then. I’d mortgaged a lot of my other holdings and I couldn’t find anyone to lend me that kind of money.

“Then I found Phillips and his pathetic wife and I saw a way at least to get some orders. But last fall your damned cousin started nosing around. I knew if he got onto the truth we were all in trouble, so I sicced Paige on him.”

“I know that part. Spare me a rerun-these sentimental stories make me gag… What made you blow up the Lucella?”

“That crack of Martin’s-had I deliberately run the Ericsson into the wharf? At first I was wishing I could blow up my whole fleet and collect the insurance. Then I had a better idea. Get rid of the Lucella and close the upper lakes to the big ships at the same time. I can’t keep the Poe Lock shut forever. But I’ve got three of those bastards stopped up at Whitefish Bay. They’ll have to trundle tiddlywinks between Thunder Bay and Duluth for the next twelve months and there’s no place big enough for them to dock for the winter up there.”

He laughed crazily. “I can carry a lot of freight this summer. I should be out of the woods by next spring-I’ll be able to start capitalizing some new freighters next year. And Martin should be wiped out by then.”

“I see.” I felt tired and depressed. I couldn’t think of any way to stop him. I hadn’t left a trail of my investigation. I hadn’t even told anyone about the documents taped in my old copies of Fortune.

As if reading my thoughts, Grafalk added, “Paige told me you had those invoices Boom Boom threatened Clayton with. Sandy went over there early this morning-no kids with bread knives to get in his way. He had to tear the place up a bit, but he found them. Pity you weren’t there. We wondered where you were.”

The anger had subsided in Grafalk’s face and the look of suppressed excitement returned. “And now, Vic, it’s your turn. I want you to come on deck with me.”

I pulled my utility knife from my back pocket. Grafalk smiled at it tolerantly. “Don’t make it difficult for yourself, Vic. I assure you, we’ll kill you before you go overboard-no unpleasant drowning for you.”

My heart was beating faster, but my hands were calm. I remembered a day many years ago when Boom Boom and I had taken on a gang of South Side bullies. The excitement in Grafalk’s face made him look like one of those twelve-year-old punks.

Grafalk started around the table for me. I let him follow until he was behind it and my back was to the door. I turned and ran down the hall toward the bow, slashing through my shirt sleeve with the knife as I ran. I cut the surface of my arm and blood rolled down it to my hand.

Grafalk had expected me to head for the stairs and I gained a few seconds. In the dining room I whirled and kicked the china cabinet with the Wedgwood in it. Glass shattered across the room and cups and saucers fell from their perches with the rocking of the vessel and crashed to the floor. I ran behind the table and wiped my bleeding arm on the drapes.

“What are you doing?” Grafalk bellowed.

“Leaving a trail,” I panted. I scraped the knife across the mahogany table and rubbed my blood into the scratches.

Grafalk stood momentarily transfixed as I cut chair fabric. I opened the shattered doors to the china closet and swept the rest of the Wedgwood out, ignoring glass fragments that cut my arm. Grafalk recovered himself and lunged for me. I slid a chair into his path and backed into the galley.

The gas-burning stove stood there and a mad idea seized me. I turned on a burner and a blue flame flared up. As Grafalk came through the door at me I tore a curtain from the porthole and dropped it on the burner. It caught fire immediately. I brandished it in front of me like a torch, whirled it around, and set the other galley curtains on fire.

Grafalk came at me in a diving tackle and I jumped out of the way. He fell, heavily, and I ran with my torch back to the dining room where I set the drapes on fire. Grafalk tore after me with a fire extinguisher. He started spraying at me and the curtains. The chemical stung my lungs and partially blinded me. Holding my shirt over my face, I ran back down the hall and up the stairs to the deck.

Grafalk ran at my heels, spraying the fire extinguisher. “Stop her, Sandy. Stop her!”

The sandy-haired man looked up from the tiller. He grabbed at me and tore a piece from my new shirt. I ran to the back of the boat. It was dark now and the water was black as the Brynulf cut through it. Running lights from other boats winked in the distance and I screamed futilely for help.

Grafalk charged onto the deck toward me, his face a maniacal mask, fire extinguisher gripped in front of him. I took a breath and jumped overboard.