I had truly underestimated this girl. "Why do you think that?" I repeated.
"You've been asking questions galore, you've been following all of us around like a dog; you watch us all the time." She grinned. Her teeth were small, square, strong looking. A meat-eater. "Well, what you don't know is that when you're not looking, I'm watching you back. So there. If you really were Aunt Charity's advisor, you'd be spending time with her, not us. You're looking for something. You're looking for whichever one of us is trying to knock her off.”
Rightyroo. But I wasn't about to admit it.
"Right?" she pushed in a whiny tone available only to teenage vocal chords. "You're a private eye, right?"
"I'm an advisor to your Aunt Charity. If I've been hanging around your family it's because I'm trying to be sociable."
She snorted. "Yeah, now I know you're lying. Who'd want to be sociable with this family?" She checked her bad makeup in the blank computer screen's reflection. "So what have you found out so far? Huh? Any suspects? I got some for you."
Excellent. "Oh yeah. Like who?"
"Whaddayou care if you're just an
advisor?"
She didn't wait for an answer that was never gonna come anyway. "It's kind of easy isn't it? All you gotta find out is like who needs the money most?" She stared at me as if I was a big dummy. "Like try Harry's dad," she said as if introducing me to the back of my hand.
I still hadn't had the chance to confront Jackson with the fact that I'd seen him in Tunis when he was supposed to have been aboard The Dorothy Had he arranged the attack on Charity and hid in the medina to see how it turned out? Then, hoping to make something from the aborted attempt, he sends her the threatening note? "You think Jackson is involved?"
"Yeah, dude. He's little better than a skid row bum from what I hear. He needs money real bad. He could easily be the killer." With that bit of slander, she rose from her chair and attempted an ill-advised seductive exit. "And I know you're gay," she told me, throwing her heavily mascaraed eyes over her undulating shoulder, "because you pay no attention to this." She whacked her ass.
"Anyone else?" I asked without blinking an eye, proving her right. "Any other suspects you've identified?"
She stopped mid-step, thought about this, turned back to me and said, "Harry's grandpa too."
Patrick Halburton? Kayla really seemed to have a hate on for all of her cousin's relatives. "Why?" I asked.
She smirked. "Just because
he's a really creepy old man."
While the other passengers were subject to the prescribed departure and arrival times of tenders arranged by FOD, we had our own tenders that would come and go as
we
pleased. Lucky us. Or so I thought until I saw them. The FOD tenders were large and modern and resembled mini-pleasurecrafts. The tenders arranged for us by Richard Gray and Charity looked to have been supplied as a result of a late-night negotiation with a shifty, nameless Sicilian who insisted upon being paid ahead of time in chickens. They were little more than wooden rafts, each piloted by a non-English-speaking youth. And as we boarded, our sixteen-year-old captain welcomed each of us with a suspicious gaze, as if calculating whether our added weight would be what finally sunk his boat.
It was a beautiful afternoon. A powerful sun lit up the sky into its brightest hues of blue, the sound of lapping water was playful and cheerful, and the air smelled of salt and spicy
meatballs, but all of it meant
nothing to me. While the others seemed oblivious to what doubtlessly would result in dire circumstances, I privately feared for our lives. My life in particular. Sure, I can swim-like a cat that's been thrown into a pool by surprise. And sure, I can save my life if I have to.. .I think.. .who can account for the panic factor?
But why would I knowingly want to put myself into a situation where that possibility was pretty much inevitable? Was I insane? As I gingerly stepped onto the piece of driftwood that was our boat, noted that there were fewer life vests than passengers, and braved the puerile captain's assessment, I certainly believed myself to be so.
I spent the voyage to Palermo silently repeating every Ukrainian prayer my mother ever taught me and promising myself I would make the return trip aboard one of The Dorothy's more seaworthy tenders-all the while smiling like some crazed maniac for the benefit of my fellow passengers. And then, after about a month we reached shore.
When I stepped off the boat-thing onto wondrous, hard, dry land, I experienced my first ever case of rubber legs. I looked like Gumby as I boarded the shuttle that ferried ship passengers to and from town.
But I didn't care. I was alive!
A short drive later the bus came to a lurching halt and expelled us into bedlam. Unceremoniously deposited onto an unfamiliar sidewalk, we hesitated to get our bearings. The street itself was one car wide but seemed to support up to four lanes of zigzagging traffic roaring by us at blurring speeds. Cars, trucks, motorbikes, scooters, bicycles, even tractors, rocketed about as if powered by Concorde engines.
Pedestrians-no doubt fresh from lunches of amphetamines and undiluted caffeine-moved about like fast forward versions of real people. We felt as if we'd been tossed into a blender set to puree. It was Italy on crack.
In the span of less than sixty seconds we were yelled at, scolded for holding up traffic, one of us stepped into freshly poured cement, and another somehow offended a passing old woman resulting in a rather inventively worded curse against all of our families and pets. Dottie got dust in her eye and Errall nearly lost her shoe in a sidewalk grate. We smelled the competing aromas of freshly baked bread, water that had sat too long in the sun and unwashed bodies. We were honked at and glared at and witnessed an anorexic cat narrowly avoid being run over with little more than a backward glance. All the while our bus driver was yelling instructions in half-Italian, half-English about where he'd pick us up and at what time as he drove away, the door already closing. Of course all this activity caught the attention of everyone within a half-block radius. They began to stare, some catcalled, some laughed at us, one fellow even spit.
Welcome to Sicily.
The five of us instinctively clasped hands and shuffled down the street en masse in search of some small safe space where we could grab back some dignity and unfold a map. With Dottie a bit slow, it was a cumbersome task that took us a fair bit of time and earned us a few more profanities, but we were becoming inured to this new reality in a hurry and Charity even managed to get in a few epithets of her own.
"I absolutely adore this!" she exclaimed when we'd finally found a few millimetres to call our own, at least momentarily. "Don't you absolutely adore this, Flora, Dottie? Oh of course you do! What's not to adore!"
Flora, now completely
de-Pygmalionized,
looked, if possible, even paler and drabber than usual. Dottie seemed a bit discombobulated by all the clangorous activity. Even Errall appeared as uncomfortable as a worm in a birdcage.
"I couldn't hear what the bus driver said," Flora whinnied anxiously. "Did anyone hear what he said?
How will we know when and where he'll pick us up?"
Charity wrapped a protective arm around her granddaughter's bony shoulders as she propelled her forward. "That, my dearie, is what taxis are for." Then in a louder voice meant for all of us she proclaimed, "Let's meet this Palermo and demand of her the time of our lives!"
And so we did.
Many cathedrals, museums, clothing stores and outdoor coffee shops later we ended up at a restaurant called Cucina Papoff on Via Isidoro La Lumia near the Politeama Opera House. After several courses, all including sausage in one form or another, and three litres of a hearty Sicilian red, Nero d'Avola, we had our waiter call for a cab and contact our tender operator to tell him to expect us soon. Over the course of the afternoon and evening, I had settled down and gotten my paranoia of unparalleled danger lurking behind every corner under control. I even managed to eventually enjoy myself. A little
. Perhaps Charity had it right.
One of the many wonderful things about alcohol is that it blunts one's fears, rational and otherwise, and as we stepped again into the dinghy that was our tender I was full of manly courage. The dark sky, the choppy water, the fact that our pubescent boat operator did not smile when we joined him no longer fazed me. I did notice there was no sign of the other two tenders. But seeing as it was 9:30 p.m. and we were to be back on the boat by 10 p.m. for a scheduled 11 p.m. departure, I assumed the others had returned to The Dorothy long ago.
Charity and Dottie sat at the front end of the tender, giggling away between themselves as only long-term couples know well how to do. Flora sat on her own just behind them and Errall and I behind her. Our teen captain piloted from the rear. It was a twenty-minute voyage and we settled in with only the boat's meagre running lights guiding our way.
Once we were away from the dock I felt a nudge in my ribs.
"I didn't mean the things I said the other night," Errall whispered into the dark, taking advantage of the protection it offered her. "I just needed to be alone, you know?"
I had been thinking about my argument with Errall and what it really meant. Errall is one of those people who hide their true feelings, often by disguising them as something else-anger, even illness. I was certain I knew the truth. But did I have the courage to reveal it? "She's gone, Errall," I whispered back, biting my tongue at the same time. I hoped I wouldn't say something to raise the ire of Errall's famous temper, enough to cause her to do something rash.. .like toss me overboard. "She's gone. She left you."
The words sounded cold, harsh. But they were true. "She left me too. We both have to accept that."
A muffled sound but nothing more.
I soldiered on. "Kelly was.. is my friend. But she's not around anymore. Maybe she needs time away to regroup, think things over, get a new life. Maybe she'll be back, maybe not, I don't know. But you've got to move on, Errall. If you think that because I'm Kelly's friend you can't go out, have fun, meet people, maybe even other women, well, that's my mistake for not making it clear to you. You can. I expect it. Just go for it. Don't hang out in our room moping."
"Why did you bring me on this trip, Russell?"
Oooboy. Good question. I wasn't sure I had the answer. Or did I? "Maybe...maybe during all these years, you and I were becoming friends.. .and we just didn't recognize it...until now."
She let out a sigh. I could feel her shift next to me. "Maybe," she whispered.
That's where we ended it. Something else came up.
The first sign of trouble was the motor. It sounded as if it were attempting to clear its throat of a mighty huge hairball-unsuccessfully.
It sputtered, it choked and then.. .fell silent. And so did we.
Our young captain, dark and scrappy and in dire need of a hairdresser, made no effort to speak to us or reassure us, instead focusing on a restart by yanking the motor's cord. Great, I thought to myself, we're stuck on the mighty sea at the mercy of a boat powered by a Weed Eater engine.
"What's wrong?" asked Flora. "Can't you start it?"
Why do people insist on asking the obvious in times of stress? Did she think he'd turn around, suddenly understanding and speaking English, and say, "Well, actually I can, but this is all part of the
Authentic
Sicilian Tour Package
you signed up for. I will start the engine in thirty-four seconds as outlined in your brochure. So please be patient, sit back and enjoy your authentic experience."
Our skipper made a show of knocking the side of the gas tank, which I guess sounded full because he followed this up with a scratching of his head as if mightily confused. He dug around in a basket and pulled out a flashlight, directing its face into the blackness around us. It flickered on and off several times, but finally caught. Now I'm no mechanic, but I wondered if the repair process would go smoother if he'd shine the flashlight on the motor rather than off the bow of the boat. That should have been my first clue that all was not right aboard the S.S. Minnow. The next came when the running lights faltered, plunging us into total blackness except for the weak halo of light coming from the flashlight in the Sicilian's hand.
"Do you have a cellphone?" I asked him, feeling foolish doing so. But maybe he really was only pretending not to know English earlier, playing the surly, silent, Sicilian youth. "Telephono?" I tried.
"Walkie talkie-oh?"
And then our captain disappeared.
The splash was as horrifying a sound as the shark music from
Jaws.
My stomach tightened, my head grew dizzy and a stampede of clawed insects began a painful climb up the length of my raw esophagus.
"Oh no! He's fallen overboard!" screamed Dottie. "Someone help him!"
Errall and I scrambled to the back of the boat where the youth had been only seconds ago and tried to peer through the inky blackness for any sign of the young man. From behind us I heard a whipping sound and then a "phlop." A wave of terror hit me again like the flat of a hand against my face. Had someone else gone overboard? Or worse...was some dark, anonymous creature of the sea
pulling
us off the boat..
.one by one?
"What was that? What was that?" Errall demanded of the dark.
"It was me," this from an invisible Flora. "I threw out a life jacket for him. But it's too dark.. .I can't see where it landed. I can't see where he is!"
Errall began searching the bottom of the boat for the flashlight, hoping the captain had dropped it before going overboard.
Time was precious. I knew that if the boy was in distress, he needed help now. I couldn't allow myself the luxury of thinking too long about what had to be done. Because if I did, I feared I would not do it.
I jumped.
"Russell!" I heard a choir of voices call out after me.