An Evening at the Carnival with Mister Christian

"Your mother?"

"That's a definite no."

"Know the name of the boat? We could go down and take a look now. Before tomorrow, you know? Wouldn't hurt, would it?"

He looked at his watch. "You hungry?"

"A little. No rush."

"Sure," he said as he turned to his carry-on. He opened a flap and took out an envelope and put it in his coat. "Let's go."

They walked downstairs and crossed the street to the marina, then over to an entrance gate -- where he pulled out the envelope. He squinted, entered a code on the keypad and the gate clicked open; he held it open for her and slipped through behind her.

"Slip G7," he said. "Name is Hyperion." They walked out a pier and found her, a huge, chunky beige colored thing, her name splashed across the stern in black and gold.

"Damn, pretty big boat for a single girl to handle. What is it, forty five feet or so?"

He shrugged. "Think so. Friend of mine recommended it to her, based on what she wanted to do with it."

"That Sumner guy? What did she tell him?"

"She wanted to circumnavigate, go all the way around."

"No kidding? Alone?"

"I don't know. We haven't talked much about it in a while."

"But she talked to your friend about it? Did he ask you what you thought about her doing it?"

"No, not really. There was a boat show up here on the lake..."

"This is a lake?"

"Lake Union. You have to lock out of here. Ocean's a couple of miles," he said, pointing west, "that way."

"Got the keys?"

He pulled out the envelope again, fished them out -- just as a man walked over from a nearby boat."

"Can I help you," the stranger asked.

"You know Hopie?"

The stranger looked at him again. "You're her brother? Tim?"

"Ted, and yes, I am."

"How's she doing?"

"I'm going out in the morning. And you are?"

"Nathan. Nate Strickland. I've been taking care of the boat. Keeping the batteries charged, washing her down, that kind of thing."

"Ah, you are a friend of hers?"

"Yes, but only after she moved in down here. Look, there've been some characters looking around down here, poking around the boat..."

"Characters?"

"Well, black suits, those things in the ears, like the Secret Service guys wear?"

"Really? When did that start?"

"Yesterday, and again, this morning."

"If you see 'em around, would you snap an image?"

Strickland pulled out his phone and opened the Photos app and pulled up an image of the men he'd seen this morning, and one of their car, a black Suburban with federal plates on it. "Want 'em?"

"Here's my number." The pictures arrived a second later and he saved them. "Thanks."

Strickland smiled. "You staying down here?"

"Over at the Silver Cloud. I don't know the first thing about boats."

"Well, if you've got some time, I can show you around."

"Sure, lead on."

"You have the keys handy? Mine are back onboard?"

"Yup. Here-go"

"Well, first things first. This is an IP 445, uh, an Island Packet. It's not quite fifty feet, draws around five feet. Two sleeping cabins, two heads, big galley and main saloon. This one's got power everything, winches, windlass, even the halyard winch is electric," he said as he climbed up into the cockpit.

"I vaguely remember. A friend of mine was here when she bought it..."

"That Collins fellow. I remember him. Real straight razor, that guy."

"He is that."

"You know him?"

"We flew together."

"Navy? I think he mentioned he flew once. I did too."

"Oh?"

"Yeah, A6Es, in VA-165."

"A Boomer, huh?"

"Got that right, Amigo."

"On the Connie?"

"Yup. You were an S-3 driver?"

"Uh-huh."

"Wait...you're riding motors, aren't you? LAPD?"

"Yup."

"I'm CID, Seattle PD."

Sherman shook his head. "Small world, ain't it?"

"Damn," Carol said, "isn't anyone going to introduce me to anyone out here?"

"Shit...Nate? This is Carol." They shook hands and Nate looked at her, lingering on her legs.

"Well, let's go below..." he said as he opened the companionway and lifted the boards out. "Watch your step," Nate said as he led them below, and he flipped on lights at the chart table. "I have a girl come in once a month to dust, oil the teak, that kind of thing, but your sister's been gone over six months now. Do you know what's going to do with this thing? You know anything yet?"

"I think the broker is coming by later tonight, they're going to move it someplace up north."

"Oh, hell. Really? Well, sheets are clean. Hell, everything's clean, but, well, you know Hopie."

"Yeah. I'm sure you could eat supper off the bathroom floors."

"The head. Just like flat-tops, Amigo. Heads, galleys, forepeak...all that nonsense, the whole nine yards."

"Gee, great."

They laughed.

"Anyway, everything's controlled by these switches," he said as he pointed at two panels full of breakers, "and the main battery selector is here..."

"I'm familiar with all this stuff," Carol said. "What's this?"

"I'll leave you to it," Sherman said as he walked aft, to Hopie's cabin. There were a few books on the shelves, the drawers were still full of her clothing, the hanging locker too, but the head was spartan, and the galley bare aside from a few dry goods. He walked forward, looked around the cabin up there, all the cabinets and drawers bare, the huge head looked to have never been used. He shook his head as he looked around, wondered how well she sailed.

'Indeed...' he thought...'So long ago, so far.'

He walked back to the chart table, watched Carol as she soaked up all the details of the ship's systems. He sat down and pulled out his phone, was scrolling through his messages and emails when a news alert came through about some nonsense in Paris. He opened the story and read through it with growing horror...

"Have you two heard about this stuff going down in Paris?"

"Yeah, started a few hours ago..." Nate said.

"What happened?" Carol asked.

"Multiple terrorist attacks in Paris, some sort of hostage thing going down at a concert, maybe hundreds killed."

"Oh, no," she moaned. "What does that mean for you guys?"

"Oh, we'll notch up security a bit, ports and airports, that kind of thing..." Nate said, and Ted nodded his head in agreement. "All in all, we act on hard intel more than we do to what happens over there."

"She have a TV onboard?"

Nate shook his head. "Nothing. She even has the boat swept for bugs once a month."

"What?" Carol asked, incredulous. "Why?"

Strickland shook his head. "Yo no se?"

"Paranoid?" she asked as she looked at Ted.

"You know, the thing about Hopie is that you think she's paranoid, but after a while you begin to wonder if she's being paranoid enough."

Strickland looked at him when he said that, his eyes narrowing imperceptibly. "Do you know what she did? Who she worked for?"

"Nope. You?"

"No, she never said a word about it."

"We all tried. No one ever succeeded."

"How many languages does she speak?"

"Not sure. Stopped counting when she started spouting Mandarin one night."

"She had people down here speaking Russian, all the European languages I know of, and a whole bunch of Middle Eastern shit. All kinds of ragheads came here last year, right before she, well, before she got sick."

"Any Israelis?"

"Not sure. Why?"

Sherman shrugged and Strickland wondered again what this guy wasn't saying.

"What do you want me to do if those 'federales' come back?"

"Leave 'em alone. You'll just stir up trouble if you fuck with them."

"Okay. What about you two? You say you have a broker lined up?"

"Yup, if I remember his name I'll text you. Fair enough?"

"Sure."

"We're going to walk up to dinner. What's good around here?"

"What do you like, and how far do you wanna walk?"

"What's close?" Carol asked.

"Crab place down a few blocks is okay. A coupe of other places by the museum, touristy though, and not all that good. Good Indian up the hill, but too far to walk."

"Damn," Sherman said. "I could..."

"What about tomorrow night? I'll meet you at the Cloud and I can drive us up to a great place I know."

"Sounds good," Sherman said. "What time?"

"Seven be too early?"

"Perfect," Carol said. "We should get going, Ted. I'm starving."

"Y'all go ahead. I can lock up and shut things down."

"Thanks Nate," Ted said. "See you tomorrow..."

They walked topsides and hopped off the boat, and neither looked back as they walked out of the marina, so neither saw Strickland watching them, or saw him pull out his phone. He dialed a number just outside Washington D.C., a number in Langley, Virginia, and he only said two words before breaking off.

"Contact made."

+++++

They made the drive out past Redmond the next morning, and found the hospital without too much trouble, but finding a parking space was another matter entirely.

"Geesh, are there really so many psychiatric patients?" Ted said as he circled through the lot again, finally diving into a just vacated spot.

"You have no idea," Carol sighed. "After all the cutbacks to state facilities in the 80s, a lot of older institutions never really recovered, and the few that have are overrun on a daily basis. What time is the appointment?"

He looked at his watch. "Twenty minutes to spare. Okay. Any questions? Know what to do?"

"I'm good."

"You sure you want to do this?"

"I love you," she said.

He looked at her then, and nodded his head. "Well, to boldly go, as the man said."

They walked around the hospital, looking around at the exits, then made it to the assigned conference room and walked-in a minute early, and Sherman did his level best to ignore the two women in the room glowering at him. "Cobra number one there," he whispered as he sat across the table from them, "is my mother. Cobra number two is Mindy."

A lab-coated physician and two nurses walked in right on time and took their seats; the physician had an iPad in hand and was apparently going through notes and lab-work, getting up to speed at the last possible moment. Carol looked at him closely, hardly believing what she was seeing, then the man looked up, his red-rimmed eyes the tell-tale sign she was looking for. Overworked and understaffed, this psychiatrist was in over his head. This would be easy, she thought.

"Well, let's get this out of the way," the physician said as he picked up a legal pad full of scribbled notes. "We're here to talk about...uh...one Hope Sherman. She's stopped eating, refusing liquids as well now for two days and we'll begin to see signs of organ failure soon. We'd like to move her to hospice care if that's all right with her family. Is her guardian here today?"

"I am." Ted replied, looking the man directly in the eye. "Am I to understand she was being fed through a gastric tube?"

The man sifted through his notes, read for a minute...

"Oh, for heavens..." Mindy said. "Can't we just pull the goddamn plug and get this over with? How long are you going to make her suffer!"

The psychiatrist looked up at that, looked at Mindy then shook his head, then he looked at Ted. "Yes, since late last week."

"So," Carol said, "what's her status?"

"Ted? Who the fuck is this?"

"Well Mindy, this is Carol. She's a psychiatrist I brought up here to help me make sense of your, well, of this nice situation we find ourselves in."

"Fuck you, Ted. At least I was here."

"We're not going to let this conference devolve into a family slugfest," the psychiatrist said. "Mr Sherman, as her guardian you have final say in these matters. Would you, and well, your psychiatrist like to join me? We'll go see your sister now."

"Alright."

They stood and left the room, Sherman glad to be away from Mindy and their somnambulant mother. They walked in silence, Carol behind them now, watching, listening.

"That sister of yours," the psychiatrist said at last, "if she says 'pull the plug' one more time...I just may kill her with my bare hands."

"Get in line," one of the nurses said.

"She's got to wash the guilt off her hands one way or another," Sherman said. "Killing Hopie would be the most efficient way she could do that now."

"I know," the psychiatrist said. "What a nightmare of a life she had. You know, I've never been able to get her to talk about what she did...you know, to make a living. I suppose you know?"

"No, sir. I have no idea."

"Well," the guy stammered, "that's just extraordinary...I've never heard of such a thing!"

"Well, you don't know Hopie very well then, I guess."

"She never really trusted me."

He looked at this sniveling turd of a human being and smiled. "She was like that, I guess."

"Well, here's her room. I'd like to go in with you, if that's alright."

"Sure," Ted said, "but could we..." He began talking, and Carol slipped into the room to see how bad off his sister really was.

They talked for a few minutes out in the corridor, then they walked in and Sherman tried to hide his feelings when he saw his sister. Carol came and took his arm as he walked closer, and he saw her nod once.

She was on her side, curled up in a fetal ball, a white sheet over her -- yet even so he could tell she was emaciated. "How much does she weigh now?" Carol asked.

"Last time we weighed her..." a nurse began, "she was at eighty eight pounds. That was two weeks ago."

"Height?"

"Five-ten."

"Jesus..." Carol whispered as Ted knelt down beside his sister's face.

Her eyes were wide open, unblinking as far as she could tell, and Carol watched as he oriented his face with hers, and he remained very still, letting her eyes seek out his own.

"Can we turn a few lights on?" Carol said, and she watched Hope's face for any signs of recognition -- or any reaction at all -- but her wraith-like form seemed completely inert. Like an explosive gas, she thought, trapped in a bottle.

Then her eyes blinked.

"When's the last time she spoke," Carol whispered.

"About two weeks," the nurse whispered back.

"Sumner?"

"No babe, it's me, Ted."

"Ted? You're here?"

"I'm with you, babe."

"Closer. Come closer."

He leaned in, his ear almost on her lips.

"Got to get the stuff in the box," she whispered. "Some stuff for you. A small box inside for him. Got to get it to him. He'll know what to do."

"Okay. What about you? Are you ready for this?"

"I'm done. I need to leave now."

"You're sure?" He leaned back and looked at her now, and she was smiling.

"Yes, I'm ready."

"Okay. I just want to thank you for always being there for me," he said loudly, so everyone could hear.

She barely nodded her head. "I wouldn't have made it this far without you. I love you, kiddo, and tell Sumner I'll see him again one day soon."

"I know, babe. I know."

"There's so much light here...it's beautiful."

He took her hand, watched her take her last breath, and he held her as she fell away.

Carol seemed startled at the suddenness of this death, and she moved in with her stethoscope.

"Do you want me to resuscitate her," he asked -- and Ted shook his head.

"There's no need now," Carol said. "She was ready, and she left."

"What?" the psychiatrist cried out. "What do you mean? That she chose the moment of her passing?"

Ted nodded his head. "You haven't been around death much, have you?"

The psychiatrist shook his head slowly. "And you have?"

Ted stood and walked out of the room, back to the conference room, with Hopie's team running after him, though Carol remained behind. He went into the room and walked right up to his remaining sister.

"She's gone now. And just so you're aware, I have all her documents. She's left each of you exactly one penny. I'll see that her lawyers get that mailed to you straight away."

"Fuck you, Ted! I'll sue, I'll fuckin' sue you for everything you have."

He smiled at her before he turned and left the room. "She goes to the Neptune Society, for cremation. I'll have her lawyer get all the paperwork from you, and I assume the funeral people will be here soon," he said to her psychiatrist.

"I understand."

"Watch out for cobras," he said, pointing to the conference room as he walked out the building. Carol walked by the bewildered psychiatrist and shrugged, then ran after Ted, catching up to him as he got to the truck. He opened her door and got behind the wheel, and without uttering another word backed out and left the lot.

He watched a gray sedan pull out behind them and begin following him as he drove back into the city, and another gray sedan took over the tail as he exited the 5 and made his way down to the lake, and on to Westlake Drive. He pulled into a bank parking lot and backed into a parking place; he asked Carol to stay in the truck, that he'd be gone a few minutes.

Strickland watched from across the street, using a 300mm lens to photograph Sherman as he went into the bank, and again, as he came out 20 minutes later -- with nothing in hand.

He followed them to a lawyers office out on Seaview Avenue, and they both went in that office, and didn't come out for an hour, then two, and Strickland began to wonder what was going on in there when...

...a woman came out and got in the truck; she drove out to the airport and turned the vehicle in at the rental company lot, then left in a taxi -- and he followed her all the way.

Strickland knew Sherman had shaken him then, and he wondered where they'd gone. He called Virginia again. "Lost them," was all he had the nerve to say before he hung up.

+++++

Perhaps a mile away, two people slipped into an executive lounge at SeaTac and waited for their flight to be called, their IDs bogus, their names too. They flew to Los Angeles and were met by agents of the United States Secret Service and the FBI, but as soon as these agents discovered the two people were not who they were supposed to be, they were questioned and released.

Smithfield was informed. Sherman's superiors in the LAPD were as well.

+++++

The Hyperion slipped quietly into Canadian waters a little after four in the morning, after motoring furiously north from Anacortes for almost eight hours.

"How's she doing," Ted asked.

"Still sleeping. I've got a heavy load of nutrients in her IV. She should be strong enough to fly in two or three days."

"Well, we'll know if we've pulled this off before then."

His set waypoints in the chartplotter were reeling off one by one now, but making it into Canada was just the first phase in this evolution. Carol watched his expert seamanship and sail handling, amazed he was an even better sailor than her father, but then again, everything about him was that way. Just when she thought she knew him, he morphed again -- into something new and magnificent -- and terrifying.

She looked at the moon rising over the Cascades, and wondered about all that had happened the past few days. She was embarking on a strange new course in life, a course well away from everything she had ever known, heading off into a strange new world with this monumentally complex man -- and his equally improbable sister.

+++++

Hyperion sailed under full main and genoa now, her sails pulling hard as Carol steered for the Lion's Gate -- and beyond, into the waterfront area along the north side of the City of Vancouver. She checked the chartplotter, adjusted the screen's brightness as sunlight coursed into the cockpit, then she altered her course a little -- to starboard -- as a monstrously huge cruise ship appeared dead ahead, making for the bridge and presumably heading out to sea. Sherman was below with his sister; he had been talking with her for almost an hour, and Carol was enjoying this brief intermezzo at sea. Now that the sun was up -- and the air growing warmer, she laughed with joy as the sun and spray filled the air with glittering diamonds. To simply be sailing again felt wondrous to her, but British Columbia looked even more insanely gorgeous than Maine. Steep-walled mountains, pine-covered and snow-capped, lined the looming shore, yet she looked up as a constant parade of wide-bodied airliners lifted from the nearby runway and climbed into the sky.