Chapter Twenty-FiveA frantic clanging filled the Suzy Q's cabin the next morning. Neal lurched from his bunk and stumbled across the deck searching for the source of the hellish noise. He found the fat brass windup alarm clock in the head, its clapper batting between two clam-sized bells, and subdued it with frantic slaps. He groped his way back to the bunk and sat rubbing his whisker stubble a moment, thinking, and then he went back to the head to check the time.
Charter clients were due to arrive in forty-five minutes.
Big Jim was laid out like a corpse on the opposite bunk, one arm hanging off the bunk and one eye pulled open enough to show a little white.
"Rise and shine, Large James."
The words produced no detectable reaction.
From all outward signs Perkins could have been brain-
