The Thumb is not a Finger

Lawnmower knife in hand, Zandra descends the stairs to the lounge. She expects to be greeted by the crew members on dish duty as she perches atop the last soggy step, but it's Captain Mel leaning against the bar acknowledging her first.

"You're not in your room," Captain Mel says. He looks up from a cocktail glass full of dark, ruby liquid. His skipper's cap rests on the bar, revealing a matted bird's nest of hair around a bald spot on the captain's head.

Those steely eyes and that bushy beard can hide plenty, but there was a slight drop in his jaw when he saw me. Mild surprise.

"And you're not supposed to drink and captain," Zandra says.

I bet it's grape juice. He wouldn't drink alcohol at a time like this, and it's not cranberry juice. I just know.

Captain Mel raises the glass and tips it toward Zandra. "Grape juice."

I knew it.

Zandra shuffles around the two cases left by the stairs. She gets another good look at the locked one. The small, brass keyholes by the latches show signs of scuffing, almost as if they'd been jabbed with something solid.

Like a key.

How fresh are those scuff marks? Were they there before?

Zandra slides a finger across one of the scuff marks as she walks by. The cigarettes may have charred her sense of taste, but her fingers remain as sensitive as ever. The scuff marks contain the tiny hairs of metal burrs. She can feel the microscopic tingle of them implanting themselves into the skin of her finger.

Fresh.

"Why are you wet?" Captain Mel says.

"I took a swim."

"On purpose?"

"Maybe," Zandra says. "It's deep here. Do you know how deep it is?"

"We're anchored to the lip of a 125-foot hole in the bedrock. They call it the Devil's Hole, because no one's been all the way down to the bottom. Rare depth for a river like this. Only one on the entire Wisconsin."

Interesting.

And I don't mean about the river trivia, although I will remember that.

"Do you like your grape juice cold?" Zandra says.

"Does anyone drink it hot?" Captain Mel says.

Zandra squeezes the paracord-wrapped handle of the knife and walks into the lounge. The two crew members wipe down tables with bleached rags that reek as such. The crew members don't look toward Zandra, not even as she hovers behind one of them.

The faint murmur of the attendees in the conference rooms drifts in and out of earshot. It's a lot cooler in the lounge now that it's emptier.

"I've completed my investigation," Zandra says. She watches for Captain Mel to shift his position so she can get a fuller view of him.

Does he have the Bobcat?

Captain Mel turns 180 degrees away from the bar to face Zandra.

It doesn't matter one way or the other.

A crew member takes a load of glasses to the small, automatic dishwasher behind the bar.

Captain Mel takes a sip of grape juice and says, "Police will be here soon. They'll sort this out."

"When?" Zandra says. "Are they really this slow?"

Captain Mel dabs his mouth with a napkin.

Hiding his face to conceal a lie?

He sets the napkin down on the bar. The napkin is stained red.

No, he's just keeping his beard clean. Must be a full-time job.

"I'll level with you. I told the police to wait until this conference is done," Captain Mel says. "Favor to Ivy. She and Jade, they're in a tough spot, and times are tough enough as it is."

Quite.

Zandra's eyes follow the crew member back from the dishwasher to a table, and then her feet do the same.

"People do desperate things in tough times," Zandra says.

"They can," Captain Mel says.

Captain Mel pushes away from the bar and pulls out the Beretta Bobcat. Zandra grabs the wrist of the crew member at the table and sets the edge of the lawnmower knife against the person's thumb.

"No guns on board, captain," Zandra says, as smooth and calm as she would with any client.

Captain Mel doesn't budge. "I took this for sake keeping until the police get here. I thought maybe Aaron's killer would show up. Turns out I was right."

The crew members aren't as accustomed to these situations as the other two.

"Oh, god, please, no, not my fingers," the crew member says, staring with puffy eyes at the lawnmower knife.

"Come now, child. The thumb isn't a finger," Zandra says as the second crew member makes a quick exit from the lounge.

"Shoot her, captain," the crew member at the table with Zandra says with the terror of a mouse in a glue trap.

"And then what?" Zandra says with a crooked grin toward Captain Mel. "Let me tell you, captain. You become the one pulling triggers on the Curd Queen."

"I didn't shoot Aaron," Captain Mel says.

Flat vocal tone. No ending in a question. Using a pronoun in the declaration. Good eye contact. Breathing unchanged. No fidgeting.

He's telling the truth.

I, of course, already knew that, but as a matter of record, it's worth pointing out.

"I know you didn't shoot Aaron. You never laid a finger on him. But if you pull that trigger on me, none of it's going to matter when the police arrive. Is that worth one of your crew's fingers?" Zandra says.

"I thought the thumb wasn't a finger," the crew member says.

Shut the fuck up.

"Shut the fuck up," Zandra says.

The crew member returns to squealing about not wanting to lose his finger, or thumb, or however that particular appendage happens to be classified.

Digit. Technically the thumb is a digit.

"The dishwasher," Zandra says.

"Huh?" Captain Mel and the crew member say at the same time.

"The dishwasher machine, the one behind the bar. Is it running?" Zandra says.

It's a simple question, but I do need to know.

"Yeah, yeah, it's running," the crew member says. "Is this like one of those pranks? Are you going to ask me to go catch it?"

"How long until it's done?"

"I don't know. Fifteen? Twenty minutes?"

"Bullshit," Zandra says. She gives the lawnmower knife just enough of a wiggle for the crew member to feel the blade against the thumb. "How long?"

Captain Mel remains steady with the Bobcat, no matter how confused the look on his face grows.

That's good. Confusion keeps me in control.

"This is not the time to lie to me, child. A little bar dishwasher like that will cycle through in a few minutes," Zandra says.

This bit of trivia is brought to you by living in Wisconsin. It's another of those osmosis things.

Last I checked, there are 47 bars for every 100,000 people in Wisconsin. If you throw out Montana and North Dakota because of their low populations fucking the math, it's the highest per capita ratio in the country.

I've been to enough bars. I've watched the bartenders watching the quick change artists watching the cash tips on the bar. The glasses in the dishwashers behind the bar cycle through in two or three minutes. If the process went any slower, then the bar would run out of glasses to serve.

"The dishwasher is old. It takes longer," the crew member says.

Zandra didn't notice it before, but the dishwasher is a noisy machine. The crowds in the lounge usually cover the shake, rattle, and roll of glasses being cleaned.

"Twenty minutes longer?" Zandra says.

"Well, yeah."

"Makes your job harder, does it?"

"When it's busy in here, yeah."

Zandra grins toward Captain Mel. "I don't suppose your employer cut corners, did he?"

Captain Mel keeps the gun on Zandra.

"Why don't you tell him that? You may not get another chance," Zandra says to the crew member.

Gotta let myself have a little fun every now and then.

"Buy a new dishwasher. That thing is older than I am," the crew member says to Captain Mel, finding brief relief from the horror of possibly losing a thumb.

Captain Mel shakes his head and sighs. "You're stalling, Zandra."

Far from it.

"Let's call it 10 minutes then. That's how long you have, captain," Zandra says.

"To do what?" Captain Mel says.

"To tell all the attendees to report to their rooms. You can tell Ivy, Jade, and the rest of the presenters to come to the lounge," Zandra says.

Captain Mel glances at the dishwasher. "Is there a bomb in there?"

He's seriously asking me that. Good.

"In a certain sense, yes," Zandra says. She lifts the lawnmower knife away from the relieved crew member's thumb. "My knife doesn't seem so bad now, does it?"

"You're a terrorist," Captain Mel says and lowers the Beretta Bobcat.

"If you say so," Zandra says. She tugs a cigarette loose from inside her pocket. "Clock's ticking, captain. And this time, I don't have a smoke to bum you."