Jack Fish
By J. Milligan
Soho Press
Copyright © 2006 J. MilliganAll right reserved.
ISBN: 9781569474167
Chapter One
Jack walked out of the sea. They had told him to take it slow, to appear to float in after a long swim. "Just sort of drift in to shore on your back," they had said, right before the Big Kiss that oxygenated his blood and the slap on the tush that sent him on his way. Jack tried. He tried to be patient and let the choppy waves push him all the way in, but as soon he sensed that he could stand with his head above water, he charged through the slosh under the pier and didn't stop until he was in the air from his ankles to his hair. That was as far as Jack got before he had to put a hand out to hold on to one of the pilings for balance. He was brought up short by the force of the currents that were pouring down the beach and into the ocean-the overwhelming wash that tried to push him back out to the dark rhythm and brine. He was first assaulted by the lights. Hundreds of them. Thousands. Flashing ones. Moving ones. Neon, incandescent, fluorescent, dim, bright, on, off. Lights that spelled words, lights that pointed to things and places, lights that illuminated the immediate for only an instant and thereafter sent their energy to the far corners of the universe at the Speed of Light. They had warned him not to stare at them, but he was fascinated by the way they looked-bright, unfiltered, honest. They burned with dazzling zigzags that hung like jellyfish. He closed his eyes, and he concentrated on the dry wood of the piling-its crisp feel, its sharp outline and solid form. He took the first breath of air through his nose. He choked. Jack fell to the sand, clutching his face and throat, coughing, gagging on the air. It burned. His tongue felt like a stone pulled from a fire, his lungs rebelled in sharp, tight contractions. Jack's diaphragm began to seize, and as he hacked, he brought up a sour mouthful of his celebration dinner from the night before. He allowed his legs to give way, and he fell back into the ocean, plunging his face into the water. Jack lay there with his feet splayed out in the line of high-tide seaweed and Styrofoam, the wavelets lapping at his back. He breathed deeply, and slowly stopped sputtering. A while later he tried another breath, mixing it with water to get it down. He did this a few times, and then flipped over on his back, drawing air in through clenched teeth and exhaling it through pursed lips. It hurt, but he could do it. Jack smiled. After all the training and the chanting, the lectures and the films, he was finally up there-up here. The classroom simulations were touching the elephant seal blind, getting a sense of the nose or the tail or the odor in little compartmentalized experiences. Now he was riding the damn thing. He had to stop metaphoring. It distracted him from his priorities: 1. Learn to breathe. 2. Find Victor Sargasso. 3. Kill him. Better take them one at a time, he thought, timing his inhalations and exhalations to the rhythm of the waves. It went OK, got better, even. "Hey dude! Dude! Are you all right?" A teenaged couple walked hand-in-hand along the beach, looking for a place to get cozy in the sand. What they found instead was Jack, shivering in his regulation deep-blue mankini, sucking air like a Lamaze Yogi. "Hey! Yo, floating guy!" The boy tried to get Jack's attention. The girl wasn't sure they should mess with a wheezing man bobbing in a tangle of garbage and seaweed. "He looks like Jesus," she whispered. "Let's just leave him alone." Jack sensed her discomfort and tried to dispel it. "It's cool! Don't worry about-hack-me! I'm just learning to breathe!" He began to choke on the dry, dry air all over again. "I'm-akk-OK! Really! I'm cool!-retch-Lemme just-" and he plunged his head under the water for relief. When he resurfaced, the young couple was gone. Jack kept his eyes closed and faced the beach, letting the sounds and smells buffet his face in a sensory storm-he heard the white noise of the waves hitting the sand and voices warning about the undertow and screams set to the arythmic clatter of the old wooden roller coaster and squeaking brakes and honking horns and tinny scraps of carnival music and the cartoon impacts of bumper cars and a Babel of voices casting fishy lies into the water on kite string and twine from the pier above; and he smelled sausages and pink-spun sugar and urine and sunscreen and beer and the acrid sweat of captive Belugas in the aquarium and the smoky boredom from the freakshow and fried clams and popcorn and car exhaust and fear and joy and anger and love-and Jack's knees gave way as the pressure of it all pushed him over and down under the water, again where he could watch the sand move back and forth, and everything was green and blue and gray and brown. Jack bobbed to the surface. He lay in the water, just breathing. Jack found that he was able to control the ragged flow of air as long as that was the only thing he did with his mind. Speculating on what he would do for the next days or weeks made him go twitchy and his breathing short and shallow, which led right back to the hacking. He reminded himself that he was on track. He was following the standard procedures for an Agent-the Left Prong of the Trident of Atlantis-on his First Ascent: Make landfall. He'd done that. Find the Mermaid Diner. That was all he had, so that was all he had to worry about. If he stayed with the breathing, the smells and the lights would work themselves out. There was an empty seat at the end of the counter, and Jack took it, sitting down with a slurpy gasp. His hair and skin were still wet; he was breathing like an asthmatic with a bong stuck in his trachea. He had a plastic coffee-lid stuck to his back, and the only thing he was wearing was his tiny blue mankini. Doris rolled her eyes, sighed, and walked down to Jack's end of the counter. She handed him a menu, and with deft sleight of hand, replaced his list of specials with a handwritten card. "Welcome to the Mermaid," Doris said significantly. "Good. I'm in the right place," Jack rasped. Then he fell forward, unable even to choke. His throat had shut completely. "Quick," Doris hissed. She was prepared. She handed him a glass of oxygenated water and a bowl. "Go to the men's room!" Jack hesitated. "Now!" She spun Jack on his stool and pushed him toward the bathroom. He staggered across the floor leaving soggy footprints, which, if looked at carefully, revealed the slight webbing between his toes. Jack banged through the men's room door and felt like he'd suddenly descended twelve feet into a tropical sea. The sounds from the diner were muffled, as if heard through a couple of fathoms of seawater. The color of the tile perfectly matched Jack's bathing suit. The only source of illumination was the muted light from the street outside, which swept in through the frosted glass at irregular intervals as cars went by. Jack careened off the sink. The glass and bowl flew from his hands and smashed in a puddle of shards. Jack fell to his knees, sucking in through crisp lips. "Fucking air! Aah!" He remembered his training: "OK. Concentrate ... Focus ... Control ... In ... Out ... In ..." He choked, gasped, and then held his breath. He crouched in the wet pieces of broken dishes. Jack's chest, diaphragm, and buttocks clenched as he tried to hold back the spasms, but he knew as soon as he took another breath, he would begin hacking again, probably even more violently than before. Jack let a little air slip in through his parched mouth, and the pain of it hitting his throat pitched him forward. His guttural cry and retch echoed in the bowl; and his nose dipped into the cool water below. Jack plunged his entire face into the toilet, dragging in relief and exhaling great bubbly wafts. Finally, he pulled himself upright, and sat back on his heels, dripping and sniffing and blinking his eyes. The climate in the room was moist and cool, and the sounds of the cars on the road reverberated soothingly against the tiled walls. Jack became lulled by the humid vibe and his head sank sleepily. No! I am on a mission! he reminded himself. He shook off his reverie, stood up, and faced the mirror over the sink. Jack looked into his wide-set and bloodshot green eyes, winked, and smiled. His brown hair was matted, his lips were cracked, his skin had a greenish tinge, but for the first time since he had surfaced, Jack felt like he could make it. He turned to the paper towel dispenser. It bore a rusted scar in the shape of a trident, just like the blue tattoo on his shoulder blade. It pointed to a neatly-folded T-shirt and a pair of jeans that someone had left for him on top of the dispenser. He took down the clothes, put on the pants and the I LOVE NY shirt, and he wiped his face with a stiff, brown paper towel that absorbed almost nothing. Then he took another paper towel from the dispenser and soaked it under the faucet. Respirator in hand, Jack left the submarine isolation of the men's room and shambled back to his stool. As he sat down, his feet found their way into a pair of thoughtfully-placed orange flip-flops. He squeezed the nubbins between his toes. They made his webs itch. "No shirt, no shoes, no service ..." quipped Doris, with a meaningful elevation of her left eyebrow. Her words had an immediate effect on Jack, as if his dial had been left between stations, and Doris had just this moment tuned one in, loud and clear. "Right, uh ..." Jack fumbled for the proper response. Ah! "What's good tonight? Is the fresh fish fresh?" He had to emphasize the proper words in the proper way. "Sure the fresh fish is fresh. It's fresh fish, ain't it?" "Hmm. OK. Maybe I'll have a burger. And a cup o' chowder." Doris had her thumb on the button that would shoot a poisoned dart from under the counter directly into Jack's abdomen. He had to answer the next question correctly. If he said the wrong thing, she would kill him, that's just how it was. Too bad if I hafta, she thought. He's kinda cute. Doris asked, "Manhattan or New England?" This was it. Jack knew that he might not walk out of the diner if he picked the wrong soup. They had told him which one, but they'd also said that they changed it frequently, to stay one step ahead of the Maltese. Jack knew he had to go with his instinct. And his instinct told him that despite the unconvincing combination of clams and dairy products, New England Clam Chowder was still better than the Manhattan variety. "New England ..." He closed his eyes and bit down hard. Cutting through the general murmur of the restaurant-voices complaining about schools and taxes, the mayor, and those pants the kids were wearing these days-he heard a clink, and cautiously opened one eye. There was a steaming cup of creamy soup in front of him. Doris smiled. "Have a look at our specials, before you go with the burger," she suggested firmly and then walked away to refill coffees down the line. The guy at the end with the notebook was shifty and had to be watched. Jack opened the menu and a note fell into his lap. It was a third- or fourth-generation photocopy, the original version of which had been typed on letterhead bearing a trident-in-a-circle logo. His name had been written in blue ink over Wite-Out, by the same hand that had penned "salisberry steak" and "oriental stur fry" on the actual specials cards clipped to the menu. With great anticipation he read: A.T. Landis Swimming Pool Supplies and Filtration Systems Welcome to the Top Jack Fish and congratulations on completing your ascent. You will be contacted with further information as necessary. Enjoy your meal! Poseidon's blessings, -mgmt New York San Diego Honolulu Auckland Venice Bombay Singapore Marseilles Grand Junction Manila Vancouver Istanbul Panama City Halifax Naples Miami Port Au Prince Oslo Hong Kong Rio de Janeiro Jack smiled weakly as he balled the paper in his hand and shoved it in his pocket. Of course Sargasso wouldn't be sitting at the counter next to him, sipping tea, waiting to be killed. No, Jack would have to be patient; he had to find his balance before he could strike. There were things for him to do, preparations to prepare, contacts to make, information to gather. But soup? His first act as an Atlantean spy active in the Topworld theater was to eat a bowl of soup? Yes, he reminded himself, this is the job. Right now, eating this bowl of soup is the job. Jack was suddenly very hungry, and he made quick work of the New England clam chowder. He ordered the fresh fish after all, which turned out to be halibut, and while he waited for the food to arrive, he took surreptitious breaths through his damp paper towel every few minutes to prevent another hacking episode. Doris served him his fish, and said, "Meet me by the Dumpster out back in twenty minutes." When Jack had eaten his halibut, he got off his stool, inhaled through his moist paper towel, and flip-flopped out the door. Doris came out the back just as Jack rounded the side of the chrome-paneled diner. She was holding a six-gallon pickle pail brimming over with potato peels, half-eaten egg sandwiches, coffee grounds, and coleslaw. These she scooped off with her left hand and pushed into the Dumpster. She placed the pail on the ground between them and motioned for Jack to hunker down with her. "OK. Here's the stuff I'm s'posed to give ya," she said as she started pulling things out of the pail and itemizing them for Jack in a bored, singsong voice, placing each thing onto the ground in front of him: "You got your keys to the safehouse, a roll of a thousand US dollars in fives-take it easy when you pull that out-tokens for the subway-a carton of Seaweeds, though I don't know why anyone needs a waterproof cigarette-a Swiss Army knife, the good one with the mini-gaff and the nail file-and here ..." She extracted a light blue Mets backpack from the pail, brushed off a cucumber peel and a teabag. "Put it all in this." She handed the bag over. "When we're finished, turn right, go up two blocks, turn left, and head straight for another two blocks. On your left you'll see Da Wash." Jack stared at her blankly. "It's a car wash, OK? Walk around to the side where the cars come out clean, and get in the gray van being dried by the Mexican kids with the towels. That's Dick Global. He'll take you over by where you'll be stayin'. Here's the address." She flashed a number and a word on a card, then made it disappear into her apron. "Dick will get you close. You walk from there."Continues...
Excerpted from Jack Fish by J. Milligan Copyright © 2006 by J. Milligan. Excerpted by permission.
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