The Probing: Leviathan, The Mind Pirates, Hybrids, The Village Read online

Adrian Pugh’s intent was to end his life, but an awning broke his fall. Still alive, he would have to explain how millions of dollars suddenly vanished—not only from his own portfolio but from the portfolios of his clients. When he could not explain, the task of finding that explanation trickled down via the usual mysterious channels to myself and my teammates. The fact that we basically liked but also could not stand each other had no bearing on the assignment we were given: to retrace Adrian Pugh’s sailing vacation in the Caribbean on a forty-foot sloop.

  McKinney here. James. Sixty, PhD, professor of philosophy and comparative religions, published, and so on and so forth, and no, do not be envious. Our sojourn on the crystal waters, verdant islands, and sugar-white beaches was strictly business, all eyes and ears to find a connection, if any, between Pugh’s enchanting vacation and his precipitous loss. And let me add: A sailboat heeling in the wind with swanlike grace may appear romantic, but I assure you, the Barbee Jay was not roomy, especially with five aboard—especially we five.

  Especially with Andi the Pirate at the helm, living in a world all her own.

  “A stealin’ scoundrel, a rogue I be,

  from the Barbary Coast to the Caribbee,

  to take in m’hand any gold I see,

  with a hey, hi diddle and away!”

  My red-haired youthful assistant, you’ll recall. I believe she composed the ditty herself. It went with the outfit: full, white blouse; thick leather belt and toy cutlass; baggy, striped culottes, a red scarf on her head, and a huge gold earring she’d bought on the island of St. Clemens.

  “Ahoy there, matey! So you be sprung from the brig at long last!”

  I’d just returned to the deck from a nap in the aft state room, which was not much different than sleeping in a drawer. “I was reviewing Pugh’s itinerary. And sleeping.”

  “And now you’ll be wanting a hand at the helm, I’ll lay to that.”

  “No, go ahead. You’re having so much fun—and what in the world are you singing about?”

  She shrugged. “It’s pirate talk.”

  Indeed. Adrian Pugh and family had taken in a raucous and touristy pirate show on St. Clemens, and so, keeping with our assignment, we took it in as well, and now . . . I could only snort with disgust. “Pirates! What sense does it make glamorizing criminals and reprobates?”

  Andi looked up at the mainsail, curved and winging, and smiled as if seeing a vision. “Aye, but there lies the beauty of it. Stow away the rules and the makin’ of sense and sail free!”

  “Oh will you spare me!”

  “What?”

  “Armed thugs committing robbery on the high seas. Don’t you see anything wrong with that?”

  She wagged her head and rolled her eyes—as Andi, not Long John Silver, would do. “Ah, come on, it’s the romance of it! Haven’t you ever read Treasure Island? Or what about Peter Pan and Captain Hook? What about Pirates of Penzance?”

  “What about ‘stowing away the rules’? We’re talking lawlessness here, aren’t we?”

  Oh dear. She gave me her studied look, a forewarning of debate. “Are you suggesting a transcendent morality?”

  “You know I’m not.”

  “‘Don’t I see anything wrong?’ That is what you asked me.”

  “The limitations of language, I assure you. There is no transcendent law because that would presuppose a transcendent Lawgiver, and of course that, my young lady, is the stuff of folklore and mythology.”

  “So how can the pirates be criminals and reprobates if there is no overarching scheme of right and wrong?”

  Enough of this. I checked the compass as if she hadn’t. “I believe our heading should be 070. Andi?”

  She didn’t answer. The big sloop began to turn toward the wind.

  “Hey, careful. The sails are luffing.”

  The boat kept turning lazily into the wind as the sails went limp, flapping like laundry on a line.

  “Andi, you’re—”

  She was leaning on the wheel, her eyes blank and her head quivering. “Aardvark . . .” she said.

  “What?”

  “Aardvark Basil Crustacean . . .”

  I jumped up and took hold of her before she fell, easing her down to the pilot’s bench. “Andi? Come on now, come back to earth.”

  Brenda Barnick’s voice came from the bow, “What’s going on back there?” With the foresail majestically to one side, she’d been able to lounge on the foredeck in straw hat, shorts, and halter, reading a book and looking like a travel poster. Now, fighting off the rude slaps of the foresail, she was groping her way back. Irritation gave way to concern at the sight of Andi slumped on the bench.

  “Aardvark Basil Crustacean,” Andi muttered, her eyes still blank and glassy. “Aardvark Basil Crustacean, 233 997 417709.”

  Andi was given to numbers, patterns, formulae. “Andi?” I said, “What are you giving me—a phone number?”

  “233 997 417709.”

  “Anybody writing this down?” Brenda asked as she stepped into the cockpit.

  “Execute, execute,” Andi said in a monotone.

  “Tank!” I hollered. “Bring a pencil and paper!”

  “Aardvark.” Andi’s eyes began to roam. “Basil. Crustacean.” She drew a breath, propped herself up. “233 . . . 997 . . . 4177 . . .” Her eyes widened as she seemed to wake from a dream. “Zero Nine!”

  She lunged for the stern rail and vomited over the side.

  Tank came up the companionway to see the rest of us leaning over the railing. “Sick again?”

  “Just Andi,” I answered.

  Ten-year-old Daniel was immediately behind Tank, all eyes as usual. Upon apprising the situation he backed down the steps into the galley, apparently to fetch something.

  Brenda was still holding Andi, steadying her as she gripped the railing, gagging, coughing, gasping for breath. “Looks like a flashback.”

  “My fear exactly!” Andi’s mind, so brilliant, so quick, had been sorely traumatized in our “fungus” adventure, hypnotized by a charlatan in Florida, and deluded by the “emotional generator” we encountered in Los Angeles. After all that, I assumed we were witnessing persistent damage.

  “I’m—I’m okay,” Andi said between coughs, spits, and swallows. She started to wipe her mouth on her puffy sleeve.

  “No, baby, use this.” With a praising smile, Brenda took a moist washcloth from Daniel’s hand and gave it to Andi.

  “Was it a flashback?” Tank asked. I noticed he had brought a pen and scratchpad.

  “I wasn’t having a flashback.” Andi turned from the stern rail and rested on the bench, wiping her face and drawing in deep breaths of ocean air.

  “I’m afraid you were babbling nonsense,” I told her.

  “I know what I was saying!” she protested, and wiggled her finger at Tank’s scratchpad. He copied as she repeated quite lucidly, “Aardvark Basil Crustacean—”

  “How do you spell crustacean?” he asked.

  “Later. Fake it. Then there were numbers: 233 997 417709. That’s A, B, C, and then some numbers, the same every time, even the spaces in between.”

  “But you were blanked out, as if having a seizure,” I tried to counter.

  She finished, “And then I said the word Execute. And then I said it again.”

  Now we all stared at her, waiting for the explanation. She only stared back.

  “So what does it mean?” I asked.

  “I haven’t the slightest idea.”

  “How are you feeling now?” Brenda asked.

  “Like I just puked. Where are we?”

  “The Caribbean,” I told her. “We left St. Clemens two hours ago. We were heading for St. Jacob. You were piloting the boat.”

  At that moment, Daniel squeezed around us and took the wheel, swinging the boat back on course. The sails filled, the boat gently heeled, and we started moving again. He also loved the role of sea captain.

  “We were talking about pirates!” she told me as it came back to her.r />
  “That’s right.”

  “And debating a basis for right and wrong.”

  “Which we’ll let rest for now.”

  She was coming fully around. She put her hand to her head. “Well, shiver me timbers.”

  CHAPTER

  3

  Nightmare of Murder

  The winds were steady and gentle when the Barbee Jay reached the island of St. Jacob and we dropped anchor in the harbor. To the west, just over a heavily jungled ridge, the lowering sun was setting the sky on fire, washing the rippled harbor and the little village of St. Marie with gold and crimson.

  Brenda, Tank, Daniel, and I were on deck, all tempted to rouse Andi to see it all.

  “Better let her sleep,” I finally said.

  As for Andi . . .

  As she lay restless in the bow’s V-berth, sleep became a theater of horrors as dark visions tumbled through her mind: the sea, dark and boiling; a pirate with red scarf and stubbly chin; the belly of an old ship at sea, rocking, the planks and timbers groaning; another pirate with a long black beard, laughing, the glint of gold in his mouth; the zing! of a cutlass being drawn; clashing blades.

  Then came threatening faces emerging from the night. Cold, cruel eyes. A blonde, his face wrinkled, his hair thin. A big Asian man, all in black, wielding a knife.

  “You really thought you’d get away?” said the blonde.

  “This is no game,” said the Asian, waving the knife blade closer, closer.

  Banana Peel. The words bore no meaning, but they terrified her.

  The men clamped onto her with a painful, iron grip. Terror. Choking. A slap across the face like a flashing, burning fire.

  She kicked violently under the blanket, writhing, trying to get free. “No . . . no! Not me!”

  The visions continued.

  “Where is the money?” they asked. “Tell us or you will bleed.”

  Can’t remember, can’t remember!

  “Then you will bleed. You will die.”

  The knife—

  “NO!” She wanted to wake up but could not.

  The visions coalesced into a nightmare. . . .

  Grappling, breaking free, she ran down shadowy, empty streets, through alleys and archways in the dark. Can’t shout, can’t call for help, no one must know . . .

  Footsteps behind her. The knife blade flashing in a patch of moonlight.

  A long pier with boats on either side. The hollow clump! clump! of the planks under her feet, the hiss of surf.

  Grabbed! An iron hand on her arm! Blows to her face! Striking back, lashing out, trying to get free.

  Water, all around her. Stinging salt filling her mouth, her throat, her lungs.

  Fire in her chest! FIRE!

  With a muffled scream she kicked off her blanket and leapt from the berth, bounding about the main cabin like a pinball, banging her head on the ceiling, groping for a way out, yelling, screaming, thrashing her arms.

  We collided with each other trying to get down the companionway. Brenda stopped short at the base of the steps while the rest of us piled up behind her, aghast.

  Andi was like a trapped animal—crouching, fists clenched, throwing punches and kicking at enemies who weren’t there. “Touch me and I’ll take your hands for me trophy, by the powers!” She was still wearing her pirate costume, right down to the scarf and earring.

  “Andi . . .” Brenda spoke in a hushed voice, reaching out to her.

  Andi planted a mean punch to her jaw, sending her into the galley cabinets. “I’ll take you all like a man, and you scurvy scum!”

  Tank got close enough to see into her eyes. “She’s walking in her”—a foot to his chest sent him to the floor—“sleep!”

  I took hold of her from behind. “Andi, you’re going to hurt yourself—oof!” Her elbow rammed into my gut, and I lost my grip on her, my vision going dark.

  “Nay,” she said, “but you’ll have me for shark bait if I know my own name!” She leaped up on the dining table, rubber cutlass in her hand. “I’ll be free o’ you all or under the hatches, you can lay to that!”

  Brenda and Daniel blocked the companionway lest Andi find her way overboard. Tank grabbed one leg, I grabbed the other, and we pulled her down as she took to us with her fists. I saw stars, but somehow I held on.

  With a free hand she yanked open the cutlery drawer.

  I grabbed for that hand. I missed.

  She let out a yell. “Take that, Banana Peel!” A knife sailed through the air.

  Brenda ducked and the knife thudded into the paneling right behind her. A perfect throw.

  We pig-piled on top of her, even Daniel, and that seemed to arrest her madness. Or at least she ceased fighting.

  Brenda, warily easing off the pile and shielding Daniel, called to her, “Andi? Earth to Andi, come in.”

  “You awake now?” Tank asked, side-glancing at the knife still quivering in the wall.

  Andi was alarmed to find herself on the floor. “I was having a dream. Somebody was trying to kill me, and I ran away, and then they caught me and . . . they just kept wailing on me, beating me silly till I fell in the water and drowned.”

  Tank and I exchanged a look and slowly let her up.

  The fight was over. We guided Andi to the dinette, where she sat down and, with a trembling hand, removed the scarf from her head. “I could see them. I could even smell them.”

  Brenda pulled the knife from the wall and placed it back in the drawer. Then she turned, arms crossed, and looked at Andi. We all studied Andi, so much it made her nervous.

  “I didn’t ask for this.”

  “Like . . . heck you didn’t.” Apparently Brenda was trying to be gentle with her words. “Playin’ pirate with all that pirate talk and that getup when you got wires loose? Yeah, you were askin’ for it.”

  “And you could have hurt yourself,” I added. “You almost hurt us.”

  “Almost?” Tank said, discovering blood from fingernail gouges near his eyes.

  I waxed fatherly, a role I hardly expected. “The pirate show on St. Clemens captured your imagination, and we don’t fault that, but it’s definitely time to put this fantasy aside.”

  “But—”

  “But nothin’!” said Brenda. “How much is enough for you? You threw a knife at me! That’s enough! That’s plenty!”

  “But . . .” Andi actually marveled. “I didn’t do that. I mean, I did it, but . . . but I didn’t do it really. I don’t know how to throw knives.”

  “You do now,” said Tank.

  Awkward silence.

  “Tomorrow we’ll go ashore and just . . . vacation,” I said. “It’s what Adrian Pugh and his family did anyway, and it’ll give you a chance to have some solid land under your feet. And please, doff that pirate outfit. Just be my bookish assistant for a change.”

  Andi removed her scabbard and rubber cutlass and placed them on the counter.

  Brenda put out her hand. “And how about that earring?”

  Andi’s hand went to her ear. “Oh! It’s still there!” She smiled, relieved. “I dreamed they tore it off.”

  “Who tore it off?” Tank asked.

  “The guys who killed me.”

  Brenda still had her hand out. Andi removed the earring and, with sadness, handed it over.

  “Tomorrow,” I said, “we’re getting off this boat.”

  CHAPTER

  4

  A Pirate at Breakfast

  The next day dawned bright and clear, a perfect day to go ashore and repeat Adrian Pugh’s itinerary: snorkeling, hiking, and a visit to a bird sanctuary. It seemed these benign, diversionary activities held little promise of a revelation, but at the very least they would be helpful toward reconnecting Andi’s “loose wires.”

  When we sat at the table for breakfast Andi remained topside. When she finally descended the companionway, it was with a flourish. “And a top o’ the mornin’ to ya!”

  “Good morning,” said Brenda and Tank.

  �
�Good m—what did you do?” I said.

  As she sat at the table, she looked fairly normal in a sun suit and matching sun visor.

  It was the beard and mustache she’d drawn on her lip and chin that struck us as a little odd—a thin, handlebar mustache with loops at each end, and a tight little goatee. “Am I not fit for your table now, as smart as a bright feathered cock and trimmed for the finest company!”

  Our staring seemed to perplex her. She checked herself over. “Have I overlooked something? Begging your pardon!”

  “You still doin’ that pirate stuff?” said Brenda.

  I gave a little signal with my hand and Brenda, much to be commended, put her lecture on hold. “Andi. You’ve drawn a mustache and a beard on your face.”

  She stared at us for a moment, then looked for something that would serve as a mirror. A shiny cream pitcher served the purpose. “Well—!” She touched her chin in wonderment, and then turned red. “All right, who did it?”

  We went blank, still a step behind whatever was happening.

  Which only fueled her anger. “Don’t give me that innocent look!”

  Tank ventured, “We didn’t do anything. You did it to yourself!”

  I corroborated, “That artwork on your face wasn’t there until you went topside to fix yourself up.”

  Suddenly, with a different demeanor, she set down the cream pitcher, nodded grimly, and crossed her arms. Andi the Pirate spoke again, “Aye, so that’s the way of it. Betrayal again, and by me own shipmates. If you cannot trust your chin to your friends, now where can you leave it, tell me that!”

  We looked at each other. The trouble wasn’t over.

  Where to begin? “Andi, I think maybe you need—”

  “I’ll tell you what old Ben needs!” she spouted, pointing her finger at me. “Maybe just one day, nay, one little moment, when—” She stopped, staring at her pointing hand, rubbing her third finger with her thumb, looking at it as if she’d never noticed it before. “Blimey! Me finger’s back on.” We were nonplussed, so she explained, “Lost it, you see. Had a mainsheet wrapped around it and I weren’t aware. A good gust o’ wind come along, and yank! Off she went. Became food for fish, you can lay to that.”

  “You lost a finger?” I asked.