DOUBLE KNOT (25 page)

Mother and Bianca Sanders were on their way to 704.

“Let’s go.” I twirled a finger through the air for No Hair and Fantasy to turn the
cart around. “Mother and Bianca are in our room.”

“So, where’s my shoe?”

I aimed Fredrick Blackwell’s V2 at the elevator panel and asked it to take us back
to 704.

“So, my shoe?”

“Since she’s awake shouldn’t we have taken the Zoom?” Fantasy asked.

“Who has my shoe?”

“Where’s DeLuna?” No Hair asked.

“Where’s anyone?” The mirrored elevator wall held me up. “Where’s everyone?”

No Hair put a big arm around me. I dove in. He smelled like rainbow Christmas church
trees. “It’ll be okay,” he said. “We’re going to get through this.”

The elevator doors parted on Deck Seven. Fantasy pushed the tool cart out, Jess hobbled
out, dark hair flying, looking here and there for her other silver shoe. No Hair and
I silently brought up the rear, his arm still around my shoulders.

I spotted her from a mile away, standing at the door of 704. There was no missing
Bianca Sanders, not even at midnight wearing solid black in the recesses of a cave.
There was certainly no mistaking exceptionally pregnant Bianca Sanders dressed in
head-to-toe snow white at the end of a brightly lit passageway. She looked like a
white teepee or a short white triangle, wearing a blizzard white flowing cape secured
at her neck and blooming around her. Her blonde hair was stuffed in a white pill box
hat. She was barefoot (and pregnant) holding her white heels with one hand and her
other hand was working the doorbell. Before I could get her name out she stepped into
704. With everything I had, I hoped and prayed it wasn’t Max DeLuna opening the door.

My prayers were answered.

There’s no mistaking the pump of a bolt-action rifle.

“Well, hello, hello.”

Max DeLuna.

* * *

Instinct dictates a scream-and-run reaction to a gun at your back.

No Hair, Fantasy, and I knew better.

Jess didn’t know better; she was so far ahead of us she didn’t even hear it and if
she had, we might have all died right then and there in the passageway on the seventh
deck of
Probability
. She undoubtedly would have had a fit, charged him, and gotten us all killed.

Keep looking for your shoe, Cinderella.

“What do we have here?” DeLuna was smug, confident, and why wouldn’t he be. “Hands
on your heads.”

What do you do when someone has a gun on you? Whatever they say.

Rule number one: Calm. Don’t scream, don’t run, don’t anything. Rule number two: Follow
instructions. Rule number three: Don’t make any sudden movements. No Hair broke rule
number three in the process of following rule number two. He picked me an inch off
the floor and planted me down directly in front of him as he moved his arms to place
his hands on his head. It was slick and swift and he made himself a human shield for
my babies. Fantasy was directly in front of me, which put us in a straight line.

Jess was still wandering the hall in a zigzag path, now much farther ahead, looking
for her shoe.

DeLuna had leveraged control over us by virtue of the fact he had a firearm on us,
so we had to take psychological control. First, by making him look at us.

“Can we turn around?” No Hair wasn’t asking for permission; he was telling us to turn
around. Which we did. Hands on heads. Now I was behind No Hair instead of in front
of him.

DeLuna was still firmly in control, but now he was uncomfortable, because it’s a lot
harder to shoot someone you’re looking at. Then, it occurred to him he couldn’t shoot
three people at once. He assessed his situation, glancing at his gun, trading his
cocky posture for defensive, probably realizing it would take a rocket launcher to
shoot through us while we were lined up three deep. “Move where I can see you.”

Together, we took a step to the right.

“Move apart.”

We took a step to the left.

He rolled his eyes. “You, here. You, there.” Fantasy and I split. He used the barrel
of the gun as a pointer. “You stay right where you are.” DeLuna tapped No Hair’s heart
with the gun.

“Do you want to do this?”

No Hair kept his voice low, his tone nonthreatening, everything about him tranquil
and soothing as he used his elbows to point out the light fixtures above our heads
hiding surveillance cameras, drawing DeLuna’s attention to the fact he’d never get
away with it.

DeLuna blinked. And with the blink, he reconsidered killing us.

Our next move was to show DeLuna ways out of the predicament he found himself in that,
clearly, he hadn’t thought all the way through. We’d present him with alternatives
to (our sudden deaths) violence, remind him this was about money, something we could
possibly help him with, but we never got the chance. Jess finally realized we weren’t
with her and turned around. I don’t know if she could see her husband, but it was
obvious he saw her. And there went our dialogue with the gunman.

It happened so fast. DeLuna forgot all about us as he leveled the gun on his wife.

Rule number four: When all else fails, surprise the gunslinger. I yelled, “We have
Poppy!”

In the split second DeLuna stopped to hear Poppy’s name, No Hair dropped into a barrel
roll and took him down. I got myself and my babies out of the way as Fantasy rushed
past with the cart and pinned him to the wall. No Hair disarmed DeLuna and turned
the gun on him so fast it was nothing but a flash of cold steel.

We had him.

It was over.

We had DeLuna.

“
Hey
!”

No Hair didn’t take his eyes off DeLuna, but Fantasy and I turned to the sound of
my mother’s voice, our eyes passing over a sleeping stack of Jessica on the floor.

“Get in here!” Mother yelled down the passageway. “Her water broke!”

TWENTY-FIVE

I’d been an officer on the Pine Apple Police Force (of two) for about ten (minutes)
months when the phone rattled on the desk and woke me up from a great nap on a steaming
hot Friday night in July. Without lifting my head, I batted for the receiver, thinking
it would be my father telling me I could lock up and go home early. It wasn’t. It
was Hanny Conklin, who lived in a trailer park off Freedom Farm Road with his wife
Effie and their seven children. He called to say number eight was on the way with
a bullet.

“What, Hanny?
What
?”

“Effie’s dropping the baby.”

Who has a bullet? Who dropped a baby?

I shook myself awake and we started over. Hanny was calling for police escort to the
Women’s Health Clinic in Luverne, Alabama.

“Hanny.” It was almost midnight. “There are ten hospitals between here and Luverne.
It’s on the other side of the interstate.”

“I know where it is, Davis. We go there ever nine months.”

You’d think, the Conklins being frequent flyers and all, that someone at the Women’s
Health Clinic would sit them down for a family planning chat.

“She’s about to spit it out. We gotta go, Davis.”

“If she’s about to spit out a baby, Hanny, why are you still at home talking to me?”

“I’m not home. I’m at Bubba Phil’s using the phone.”

Oh, good grief. Bubba Phil Wilson lived twenty trailers away. Everyone in Shady Acres
Mobile Home Estates had a television the size of a barn door and forty-inch tires
on their trucks, but only one or two had phones. “Get her loaded, Hanny, head this
way. I’ll be ready. But we’re not going to Luverne,” I said. “We’re going to Kizzy.”

“Oh,
hell
no. I’ll let Kizzy touch my wife when
pigs
fly.”

We had one doctor in Pine Apple. Three hundred and ninety-nine of four hundred residents
wouldn’t go to Dr. Kizzy for a Band-Aid, much less procreation.

“Then we’re going to Stabler Memorial in Greenville,” I said. “They deliver babies
all day, Hanny. We can get there in fifteen minutes.”

“We’re in
dig
nant care, Davis.” He was getting short with me. Very short. As if I was part of the
indignant problem. “It’s Luverne or the side of the road.”

As it turned out, it was the side of the road. Effie delivered her fifth daughter
in the back of my patrol car on the corner of West 3
rd
and Montgomery Highway, and I did the honors.

My mother knew this. And she ratted me out.

We stood outside Mother’s stateroom, Bianca inside, but we had to wait to discuss
it until the howling on the other side of the door tapered off enough for us to hear
each other.

“I am
not
going in there,” Fantasy whispered.

I whispered back, “You big chicken.”

“Hey.” Fantasy shook her finger at Mother’s door. “That’s your problem.”

“She’s
not
my problem,” I loud whispered. “She
fired
me.”

“I don’t work for her in the first place, Davis. I work for
you
.”

“Well, you’re fired if you don’t go in there with me.”

“Fine by me.” Fantasy crossed her arms. “Burger King, here I come.”

Mother was between us. I wasn’t getting anywhere with Fantasy so I tried her. “What
happened? She was standing in the casino an hour ago and now she’s having a baby?”

Mother shrugged. “Tale as old as time. Her water broke. She’s in labor.”

“What happened in between the casino and her water breaking?”

“She marched into that casino like she owned the place.”

Not the least bit surprising.

“Which was a good thing,” Mother said. “Because that craydirt man was gunning for
me
’til he saw
her
.”

“Slow down, Mother. What happened? Is this when the slot machines hit?”

“Boy howdy, did they ever.” She had the jackpot look, a look I knew well, but never
dreamed I’d see on Mother. “I did just what you told me. Popped that thing in there.”
She demonstrated. “Those gambling machines, every one of them, had conniption fits.
First a gold anchor showed up, and it went DING DING.” Mother did a little ding-ding
dance. “Then another gold anchor, ding-ding, then another gold anchor, ding-ding,
then BOOM!”

I rolled my hands, hurrying Mother along.

“Oh, Davis, everyone was so happy.” Mother clapped her hands. “Then here comes craybitch,
poking through the crowd looking for
me
until he saw
her
.” Mother pointed at the door. “I grabbed her and said, ‘Come on, Stuck Up.’”

“You called her Stuck Up?” Fantasy asked.

“I couldn’t remember her name right off the bat,” Mother explained. “There was a lot
going on with those anchors.” Mother did her jackpot dance. “Ding ding. And she is
stuck up.”

“You did the right thing, Mother.”

“Well, except for I let the cat out of the bag.”

“What cat?” Fantasy checked our immediate area for Anderson Cooper.

“She asked about her suitcases and I told her most of them were gone.”

There’s another problem solved. We had DeLuna and the Louis Vuitton news had been
broken to Bianca. Now, if I could find my husband and get off this damn ship, maybe
I could live the rest of my life.

“Then, Mother?” How long was this story?

“I told her to wait at the elevator and I’d see about the suitcases,” Mother said,
“but that was a lie. I really wanted to check on my pot ro—”

Mother stopped mid-roast. Or, rather, Bianca stopped her mid-roast. We’d been discussing
how this nightmare transpired and who was going in for just about two minutes when
from the other side of the door, Bianca began working up a shriek. I clocked her.
After forty-five seconds she hit the top and began squealing her way down.

“What is she saying?” Fantasy asked.

“It sounds like she’s saying giddy up.” Mother cocked an ear. “Giddy
up
! Giddy
up
!”

“Oh, holy crap.” I stared at my watch. “Her contractions are two minutes apart and
they’re lasting a minute. She’s going to have that baby.”

“There’s a helicopter.”

I looked at Mother, trying to figure out what a helicopter had to do with anything.

“She got here in a helicopter,” Mother said.

“Let’s get her back to the helicopter.” Fantasy liked the idea.

“And let her have her baby in a helicopter?” I looked at my watch again. “I don’t
think you two get it. Her contractions are right on top of each other. She’s having
this baby. I don’t think we can move her an inch.”

“Well, you’d know,” Mother said.

There was way too much going on for me to know exactly what Mother was talking about.
I’d know because I’m pregnant? Because I had a baby eighteen years, two months, and
six days ago? Because I’d taken a ten-minute first aid and CPR course a million years
ago in Officer Basic Course Training?

“Remember Effie Conklin?” Mother asked. “You delivered her baby.”

Fantasy poked my arm.

“Gotcha! Go for it, Dr. Davis.”

I couldn’t wait to see Fantasy in a Burger King uniform.

Bianca, from the other side of the door, said, “Chugga, chugga, chugga,
CHUGG
AAAAAA!”

“Oh, boy,” Mother said. “You better get in there.”

I put my hand on the doorknob, squared my shoulders, looked them both in the eye,
and told them they were going to be sorry.

I cracked the door. “Bianca?”

“DAVID!”

* * *

Mother ran her legs off gathering childbirthing this and that—ice cubes, pool towels,
boiling water. (“Why are you boiling water, Mother?” “Well, because.” “Mother, we
don’t need boiling water unless someone wants pasta.” “We’re having pot roast, Davis.”)
And she fed me information through the crack in the door. No Hair had DeLuna secured
on the sunporch. Fantasy was on one of our V2 phones with George Town Municipal Airport
waiting for news on Bradley and Baylor and at the same time, running all over
Probability
looking for a doctor. That left Mother to assist the midwife.

And by midwife, I mean me.

“Mother, go to my room—”

“WOULD YOU LOWER YOUR VOICE, DAVID? I CAN NOT HEAR MYSELF
DYING
!”

Bianca’s white pill box hat had slipped from the top of her head and was clapped over
her left ear. I don’t know how she could hear me whispering to Mother.

“IF YOU’RE GOING TO TALK TO ANYONE IT HAD BETTER BE MY HUUUUUUUSSSSBAAAAAND!”

Then Bianca did a full-on back bend in the bed, soundtrack
Poltergeist
.

I spoke through the crack. “Mother, where’s your portable phone?”

“In my pocketbook.”

“Bring it to me.” You bet I’d get her huuuuuusssbaaaand on the phone. “And dig through
my clothes for something I can change her into.”

Mother shuffled off. When she returned I had to get Bianca out of her ten miles of
chiffon dress so I could get her into my maternity sleepshirt. It took four contractions
to get her out of the white cape and into the t-shirt because I had to stop for her
to yell, “GLUGGA! GLUGGA! GL
UUUUGG
A!” and “SWROUP! SWROUP!
SWROOOOUP
!” I worked fast before another one hit, shaking out the t-shirt and pulling it over
her head, and when I did, I knew this would be my last day on earth after all. Printed
across the front in big purple letters were the words I ATE THE WORM.

Then the miracle of childbirth was put on hold while I enjoyed the miracle of communication
with a human not on
Probability
. I flipped open Mother’s old phone, dialed Richard Sanders’s number, and I almost
fell to the floor when he answered.

I paced back and forth at the foot of the bed with Mother’s impossible phone. The
first thing I intended to do if I ever got off this ship was buy her a new one and
donate the old one to a history museum.

“I’d have never left if I had any idea she would go into labor, Davis.”

“I know, Mr. Sanders. I’m sure she knows that too.”

“RICHARD, I AM
LEAVING
YOU! DO YOU HEAR ME? I WANT A
DIVORCE
! AND
DRUGS
! DAVID, GET ME NARCOTICS!”

“Bianca?” I pulled the phone away from my head. “You need to calm down. For Ondine’s
sake.”

“What
happened
?” Mr. Sanders asked. “The last person I talked to before I left was Dr. Durrance.
She assured me at the rate Bianca was going there might not be a baby in a
month
.”

“Because she’s been so sedentary, Mr. Sanders. I guess the minute she got out of bed
and started moving she went into labor.”

“KOOVA! KOOVA! K
OOOOOO
VVVVVA!”

I needed out of the room to talk to Mr. Sanders, to ask what he knew about her blood
pressure, her gestational diabetes, and the apparent loss of all her mental faculties,
but Bianca wouldn’t let me out of her sight.

When we’d talked for two minutes, Mr. Sanders assuring me he’d get here as fast as
God and Gulfstream would let him, but considering the fact he was still in China,
it wouldn’t be anytime soon. Then he asked to speak to his wife.

“Bianca?”

“WHAAAAAT?”

I turned my head for one minute, then looked back to find Bianca backwards, facing
the headboard, riding the bed like a pony, spread eagle with one foot off one side
of the bed, one foot off the other. I cocked my head one way, then the other, trying
to figure out how she’d assumed that pose.

“Mr. Sanders wants to speak to you.”

Blond hair flew. “YOU TELL HIM TO KISS MY ASS! PARUNKK! PARUNKK! PAR
UUUUUNK
!”

Oh, someone save me.

“Mr. Sanders,” I said, “she can’t talk right now.”

“I heard.”

He asked to speak to No Hair, so I stuck my head out the door and watched for Mother
to waddle down the hall. Anything to keep from watching Bianca buck on the bed. No
Mother. I held the phone behind me and yelled, “Mother!”

“I’m coming!”

She peeked in the door. “Heavens to Betsy. What in the world is she doing?”

“GUANTAAA! GUANTAAA! GU
AAAANNNNN
TAAA!”

Mother shuffled off with the phone just as Fantasy rounded the corner in a dead heat.
She bent over, head hanging, hands to knees with the news. “There isn’t a doctor on
this boat. Not one.”

“ZUZZZA! ZUZZZA! Z
UUUUZZZZZ
A!”

“God almighty.” Fantasy raised up, got a peek at Bianca, then crossed herself. We
watched Bianca’s head spin for a minute, I crossed myself too, I’m not even Catholic.

“Have you gone down there yet?” Fantasy whispered.

“What?”

“You know.”

“No, I don’t know.”

“Have you looked?” she asked.

“At what?”

“You know.”

“No, Fantasy, I don’t know.”

“Yes, you do.”

What?
No
! “NO!” I smacked her. “Sick!”

“You have to take a peek, Davis.”

“Oh, hell no, I don’t!”

Mother turned the corner at a full gallop. “We have a problem.”

Exactly what we needed.

“I gave Big Guy No Hair my portable phone.” Mother was patting her chest and panting.
“And the next thing I knew, So and So was in my pocketbook. She got the gun. Davis,
she’s going to kill that little weasel crayman.”