“This ‘Main Room’ was a close, shadowy, cluttered chamber. The first thing Amadeo noticed was the elegant bar, the second, what was plainly the room’s presiding spirit hanging behind it, a brightly colored portrait illuminated by two lamps. Amadeo stopped for a moment to stare.

The painting depicted a decapitated man seated at a table and toasting the room with a tankard made from a human skull. This convivial gent’s head lay on its side in a pool of blood on the rough boards at his elbow. The artist had done a fine job of making the eyes of the head alive and intelligent, its smile white, its sodden black beard tied into strands with blue ribbons, and tangled like the arms of a squid in the crimson puddle.”

(To see The Captain — if you really want to — you must click the link on his name and enter the toast “tothecaptain.”)