The Marital Corporation Ch. 15

Synopsis: Things are coming to a boil. Peter and the AP lady have gone to the boat. Peter is surprised to find the boat open, but when he descends into the cabin, he finds Anne impatiently waiting for him with a pistol in her hand.

Chapter Fifteen

Anne looked at Peter as if he were a misbehaving child. "I promised you a surprise if Sam didn't call," she said. "Well, he didn't call, so here I am." Her voice deepened and strengthened. "Your friends, and the rest of America's queers, will have to learn that the Priesthood is not to be fucked with! Who's with you? Marge?"

For the barest instant Peter wondered if he could be dreaming. He was almost as surprised by Anne's choice of coarse language as he was her appearance -- surprised and frozen with fear!

He tried to shout a warning to Mar, but his mouth was suddenly dry and incapable of forming letters. Instead, half expecting to feel the numbing blow of a bullet smashing into his gut, he made a sound midway between a bellow and a sob, unfortunately loud enough to attract her attention.

"What'd you say, Pete?" she asked as she descended into the cabin.

Anne smiled in a peculiarly crooked way. "Who in hell is this?" she asked querulously. "I thought Marge was here! What's your name?" Anne's eyes had a reptilian glitter in the cabin's subdued light.

Mar's eyes had adjusted to the gloom by this time, and she stared, fascinated, at the pistol in Anne's hands. "Who are you?" she asked timidly. "What are you doing here?"

"You just shut up!" Anne snapped. "I'll ask the questions! Once again, what's your name?" Her voice had taken on a cold edge. This was the voice Peter had heard on the phone the evening before. Before Mar could answer, Anne called over her shoulder, "You can come out, now, Gene."

The door to the head swung open and a big man stepped into the salon. Anne made the introductions as if they were sitting on her patio. "Gene, I'd like you to meet Pete Baylis. You've heard a lot about him. Pete, this is Gene. He's an associate of mine." The men warily nodded at each other.

"Gene, why don't you bring the little queer out? He ought to join the party."

Gene brushed past Peter and Mar, ducking under the overhead, on his way into the after cabin.

Peter watched him out of sight, then turned back to Anne. He still didn't trust himself to speak. Clammy sweat coated his palms.

"I still didn't catch your name," Anne said to Mar.

Peter wondered how Mar would handle this.

"My name is Mary Taylor," she said, "and I work for the Associated Press." As frightened as he was, Peter marvelled at her cool demeanor. She could very well have been a seasoned prisoner of war reciting her name, rank, and serial number.

"A goddamn reporter. Isn't that great!" Anne's cold blue eyes turned toward Peter. "Pete, you should have known better than to involve the media in this," she said reproachfully.

Peter was a fish out of water. His bearings were gone. "What . . . how . . .?"

Anne smiled again, a little less menacingly. "It's really very simple," she said patiently, as if she were addressing a child, "between you and the abortionists, your ideas threaten the values I've fought for all my life. . ." She paused as a bleary-eyed Kenny suddenly appeared, shuffling like a sleepwalker across the cabin sole, closely followed by a grimly threatening Gene. His eyes fell on Peter, and he nodded blankly.

In addition to the boy's dazed and disheveled appearance, and the duct tape that covered his mouth, Peter's eyes were drawn to a dirty, blood encrusted bandage on the boy's left hand. He sighed.

Gene gave the boy a final push, and Kenny slumped lifelessly to the settee next to Peter and Mar.

Anne smiled again, a little less menacingly. "You had to be stopped. Can't you see that? Your silly idea was threatening the foundations of our society! I didn't care about Gordon. He's always been weak. But what if my little boys, Billy and Jimmy, encouraged by your law, decided to become queers, or Kathy decided to spend her life with another woman? And not just my children, but suppose young people like Billy and Jimmy and Kathy, all across this great country of ours, decided to hell with family responsibilities; that the cost of raising and educating children was simply too high?

"I'll tell you what would happen!" Anne's voice with rising with her emotions. "The black races and the yellow races and the brown races would take over. They are already outbreeding us to an enormous degree, and soon we'd be working for them!"

As near as Peter could tell in the dim light, Gene was one of `them.' He wondered how this racist babble was going over with Gene.

Her voice lost some of its frantic edge. "That's why we had to stop you, Pete. Nothing personal, you understand. I was really beginning to care for you, but I love my country more, and now I despise you for what you have done to it and to my family!"

Hoping to look like John Wayne, but sounding more like a frightened adolescent, Peter croaked, "Anne, please put that gun down. This is something we can work out. Now that I understand your point of view . . ."

Mar cut in. There was nothing wrong with her voice. "Anne is that your name?" Anne nodded. "Anne," Mar said firmly but unhelpfully, "your major premise is flawed."

Peter frantically shook his head, but Mar ignored him and put both their heads firmly on the chopping block. Inwardly, Peter moaned If you've got a death wish, fine. But please, please, don't take me with you. Dimly, he heard her continue: "Study after study proves conclusively that homosexuality is not a matter of choice . . ."

Peter held his breath, waiting for the explosion. Instead, Anne smiled sadly at Mar, and asked, "Is that what you really believe? Haven't you read the Bible? Of course, it really doesn't matter, now, because I'm afraid you're going to have to come with us."

Peter tried again. "Annie, come on," he coaxed. "Give me your gun. We'll go up to the club and have a drink, and that'll be the end of it. Isn't that right Mar?"

Probably realizing she had been talking when she should have been listening, an obviously chastened Mar nodded. "Of course," she said.

"I've got the gun; I'm doing the talking. Anyway, it's too late for that," Anne said grimly. "I want you, Mar or whatever your name is to sit right there next to the queer while Pete and Gene start the engine, and take us out into the Sound. Do you hear me, Pete?"

"Then what are you going to do?" Peter asked. His voice had returned. He felt his chest constrict and stomach turn over as he waited for her dread answer.

Anne gave Peter the same sad little smile. "We'll just have to wait and see. However, your little Mar, and this other one," she shot a look of scorn and withering contempt at Kenny, "will pay the price if you try something foolish like jumping overboard."

There was no alternative. With Gene peering over his shoulder, Peter started the engine, then went topside and began casting off the docklines, throwing them up on the walkways.

Being occupied with routine tasks in the fresh air helped Peter clear his head. He studied Gene more carefully. The man apparently wasn't armed, but he didn't need a weapon. He was bigger than Peter, much younger, and presumably much more agile and certainly stronger.

Gene followed him but made no effort to help. Peter was puzzled at first by Gene's apparent reluctance, but suddenly realized that the younger man simply didn't know about boats or boating.

Peter engaged the clutch, and turned the wheel, easing the big schooner out of her slip and into the fairway. Although the wind on deck was calm, he could feel the turbulent gusts coming over the top of the high stone breakwater strike his topmast, and he automatically corrected his course to compensate for the port thrust. The familiar feel of the wheel as the rudder took charge was comforting and steadied his mind.

Intuitively, Peter had known the moment he saw the pistol that he and the reporter and now Kenny were doomed, but it wasn't until he was standing in the warm sunshine, pushing the boat off the fender piling, that the full impact of his pending fate struck him like a physical blow.

If this had been a weekend when the marina was crowded, he could have attracted attention easily by simply brushing Love Boat II against another boat as they moved past the rows of glistening yachts. The harbor patrol or the Coast Guard almost certainly would have stopped them. But since the pier was deserted, he had to think of another way out.

Despite her size, Love Boat II began rising and falling as soon as she met the swells at the entrance to the breakwater. Peter reached down to push the engine's throttle wide open as the boat began to pitch as she met the full force of the wind and rising swell. Peter quickly realized she was hesitating far too long each time her bow was struck by an incoming roller. The sturdy little Perkins was giving her noisy, smelly best, as black smoke poured out her exhaust, but Peter knew that the engine's best might not be enough in the beam wind and sea they were encountering.

Nervously, he eyed the rocks downwind. He had no idea whether Mar could swim. He motioned Gene down into the cockpit, and leaned toward the younger man. Pointing toward the rocks, he shouted over the roar of the engine and the noise of the wind, "I've got to set some sail to keep us off those rocks. You take the wheel and steer straight into the wind!"

The younger man's eyes rolled fearfully and he made a futile gesture with his hands, "I don't know how," he said helplessly.

Peter put Gene's hands on the wheel and showed him how to turn it. "She steers like a car," he shouted. "You keep her headed upwind, and I'll do the rest."

Gene nodded his uneasy understanding. Peter made his way forward, and set the staysail that immediately began luffing so violently, it shook the foremast. Then he set the foresail, and returning to the cockpit, hauled the sheets taut and took the wheel from Gene. He swung the boat far enough off the wind so the sails filled. The boat's wild rolling stopped, and she slowly began drawing away from those dangerous rocks.

Even as he experienced a small glow of pride in his vessel, Peter was startled out of his reverie by a distant sharp crack beneath their feet, followed immediately by a shrill scream.

Both men instantly knew that a shot had been fired, and were frozen by indecision. Peter's first instinct was to rush below and determine whether anyone had been injured, and whether a bullet had penetrated the hull, causing the boat to leak. That impulse faded as quickly as it had occurred when Peter realized there was no one to replace him at the wheel.

Peter turned to Gene. Knowing how frightened the younger man was, Peter shouted, "You take the wheel. I've got to go below and see what happened!"

The younger man shook his head in dismay. "I can't steer this boat! You stay here. I'll go downstairs. Just don't try any funny stuff!"

As soon as Gene disappeared down the hatch, Peter slammed the companionway door closed, and wedged a slender marlinespike in its hasp.

Ignoring the violent hammering sounds and shouted threats and curses on the other side of the door, Peter ran forward to strike the schooner's sails. As the boat lost way and began to fall off before the wind, he ran back to the cockpit and, as the boat began rolling violently in the trough of the waves, he started the engine.

Anne's screamed threats, which included promises of mayhem and mutilation of both her captives, had subsided, and were replaced by heavy rhythmic blows as Gene attacked the door with a hammer. The boat's erratic and violent motion seemed to deter the young man somewhat, as he apparently struggled to regain his balance after each deep roll. Peter sensed the difficulty the young man might be having, and tried to lay a course back to the marina which would maximize the boat's weather exposure and increase the severity of her pitching and rolling.

But the spume covered breakwater seemed as distant as ever when the blows became sodden and the wooden door began to splinter. Peter knew the game was up.

With a final triumphant shout, Gene burst through the broken door and, hammer raised, rushed at Peter as if to crush his skull.

"Gene, stop!"

Although Anne had barely raised her voice above the engine's roar, Gene stopped as suddenly as if he had collided with an invisible stone wall. Almost sheepishly, he slowly lowered the threatening hammer and turned toward Anne for further instruction.

"Don't take your eyes off of him," Anne ordered. "We've got to get further away from land than this."

Peter noticed Mar for the first time. Her eyes wide with fear, she had followed a grimly determined Anne through the broken door, and now stood uncertainly in the cockpit. Anne, still clutching the small pistol, sat in a cockpit seat and looked around.

Anne had never sailed aboard Love Boat II. Peter studied the obvious consternation on her face when she realized how fast we were sailing. There is something elemental and awesome about a large boat moving rapidly through the water. Huge natural forces have been harnessed in a way that almost defies explanation.

She was startled when she realized the direction the boat was taking. "Why you bastard!" she spat. "Turn this goddamn boat around or Mar, here, will get what Kenny got! Only I'll shoot her so it really hurts!"

Peter was afraid to ask about Kenny, but he shot an inquiring glance at Mar. Although she was pale with shock, she silently nodded, confirming Peter's worst fears.

Anne began raising the pistol, so Peter spun the wheel, bringing the little schooner's bow up into the weather. Gene lurched across the cockpit and sat heavily in a seat.

"You'll have to take the wheel again, Gene, just like you did before. I've got to set some sail; the wind's just too strong for our little engine."

Not waiting for an answer, Peter stood and climbed up on the side deck and made his careful way forward to the foremast. He quickly reset the staysail and foresail, then returned to the cockpit where he flattened both sails by hauling their sheets taut on the sheet winch.

The boat immediately steadied. Peter resumed his position at the wheel, much to Gene's obvious relief. Several minutes passed. Then Anne turned to Gene.

"You take Mar downstairs and have her clean up that mess. Then you bring Kenny up here."

Peter closed his eyes as he desperately willed Mar to go to the radio in the navigation center and send a MAYDAY call as soon as Gene was preoccupied with moving poor Kenny's corpse. But he knew it was a futile effort. Even if, by some miracle, she could read his mind, she could scarcely have been expected to know what a MAYDAY call signified, or, for that matter, even how to turn the radio on.

Silently, he watched her as she followed Gene through the door's wreckage and disappeared down the companionway hatch.

Anne turned to Peter. "We'll need something to weigh Kenny down. Chain, lead, anything heavy. Tell me where it is and I'll have Gene get it."

Peter studied Anne for a moment, wondering at the woman's transformation. She was clearly insane, yet she seemed to have a defined purpose that was strangely inconsistent with his understanding of insanity.

Wondering whether his voice would again betray his anxiety, Peter cleared his throat. "Anne, what the hell is going on?"

Just for an instant, her hardened expression slipped, and Peter thought he caught a glimpse of the Anne Schaefer he thought he knew and loved. As she began to speak, however, that momentary flicker of compassionate humanity vanished. Her lips drew back in an ugly snarl. "I never really gave a shit about Gordon, and frankly, when I saw Kenny sticking his cock in Gordon's mouth in the garage last week, I knew I'd have to get rid of one of them!"

Peter felt a thrill of terror as she casually added, "I think Gordon will be hard to find." Her voice dropped as she contemptuously added, "Gordon's always been weak, but you took full advantage of that weakness, first by involving him with those queers on Capitol Hill, then by putting that little fag in his way!"

Out of the corner of his eye, Peter saw Gene backing out of the companionway as he struggled to pull a heavy load up the ladder. Peter's stomach lurched as he realized the load was lifting was Kenny's lifeless corpse.

"What about Gordon? What have you done with him?" Peter heard himself ask.

Anne smiled grimly, but did not otherwise respond as Gene dragged Kenny's limp body over the companionway sill and unceremoniously dumped it on the cockpit floor. Kenny's body lay in a tangled heap.

Peter felt and tasted sour bile burn in the back of his throat as he caught a glimpse of the tiny hole in Kenny's naked chest that was still oozing blood.

"Why did you have to do that?" Peter asked. Even as the words left his mouth, he felt himself gag and begin to retch. He jumped up on the side deck, leaned over the lifeline, and gave way to his heaving stomach.

Feeling somewhat better, Peter wiped the stinging tears from his eyes, and returned to the cockpit where he studiously avoided looking at Kenny's remains.

"I asked you once before for something heavy." Anne's impatience was becoming obvious. Peter winced inwardly. While he knew it was only a question of time before he and Mar could expect to share poor Kenny's fate, he intended to prolong it as much as possible. There was nothing to be gained by stalling her further.

"There's chain in the chain locker forward," Peter said dully. He told Gene how to open the hatch.

Soon Gene returned dragging 50 feet of half inch studded chain. He dropped it on the side deck, and looked helplessly at the chain, then at Kenny's corpse. Anne correctly interpreted Gene's confusion.

"All right, Pete. You're the sailor. You put that chain on Kenny so it won't come off!"

Peter nodded. He had expected this. He bent and gingerly seized Kenny's ankles, forcing the other man to grasp Kenny's arms. Together, they lifted the body up on the side deck.

Then, again fighting his nausea, as Peter gently shackled one end of the chain around Kenny's neck, the young man opened his right eye!

Peter gasped. Kenny was alive! Thankful that his body screened Kenny from Anne and Gene, Peter loosened the duct tape from Kenny's lower lip and whispered, "How bad is it?"

"Hurts like hell," the young man muttered. "Don't let'er get me. I seen her shoot Gordon!"

"Keep your mouth shut; play dead!" Peter whispered. Then he turned, ostensibly surveying the wind and sea conditions. Anne's impatience was beginning to show.

"Can't you sail this thing any faster? she demanded of Peter."

"I've got to get more sail on her, Anne," he shouted. "We're barely holding our own!"

Anne nodded her agreement, so Peter quickly began releasing the sail ties from her mainsail. Then he hurried to the mainmast and slowly began hauling the main and peak halyards together.

Anne quickly relieved Gene at the wheel and sent him forward to assist Peter. The two men quickly set the great mainsail. The gaff peaked up and lifted the heavy boom out of its gallows notch.

Peter tied off both halyards, and after returning to the cockpit, hauled the main sheet taut. Immediately, the little schooner heeled deeply on her lee side and suddenly, when the big mainsail began drawing, Love Boat II seemed to fly!

Gene was plainly frightened when the lee rail first dipped under the water and the boat approached her hull speed. They were actually making less than seven knots, which, in land terms, translates into slightly over eight miles an hour, but to a novice sailor, the lack of familiar reference points such as telephone poles and fence posts, coupled with the boat's dramatic rise and fall and floods of water inundating the leeward side deck and rushing past the hull, invariably create an illusion of enormous speed and tension.