Two more couples, the males in white jacket tuxes and the females in cleavage-baring gowns, entered the bar laughing. On their heels was the sextet of men I'd seen before who seemed inseparable. The most hulking of the bunch still had a black eye, compliments of Nick Kincaid. All were in black suits but each sported a different colour of the rainbow bowtie and suspenders. Curses was filling up fast. The evening's festivities were getting underway.
"Will you be there? Say you will," Phyllis was demanding to know, her grey eyes boring into me like a corkscrew.
I gave her a toothy one and said, "I wouldn't miss it for the world, Phyl."
"Oh thank God. Mary, that whore, thinks she's going to have the most supporters in the crowd. So when she goes on, do me a favour Russell? Don't clap, don't even breath. Her act stinks anyway. What's she gonna do, get up there and be nice?"
I got an idea, a hunch. "If you'll do me a favour."
"Anything. Do you need a foot rub? Full body massage, maybe? I have magic hands." This was delivered with a wink.
"There's a fellow who's part of the group I'm travelling with. Nick Kincaid. Do you know who I'm talking about?"
She raised an eyebrow. "You're talking about Tom Selleck mixed with...with...well, you can't add anything to Tom Selleck, he's got it all...you're talking about the big hairy hunk, right? I don't know him but I'd like to. Did he ask about me?"
"And do you see that guy over there? He just came in with all his friends, wearing an orange bowtie."
Phyllis nodded in the affirmative. "Sure. That's Mikey P. from San Diego."
"See, I knew you'd be the right person to do this. You are so popular on this ship. You know everyone and everyone wants to know you." I stopped there to let her savour the compliment and flutter her eyelashes a bit. She liked it, I could tell by the way her hand tightened on my biceps. "Well, you see, Nick and Mikey P. from San Diego got into a little fight in Emerald City the other night..."
She made a tsking sound and shook her head. "I know, I know, the hooligans."
"I was wondering if you could ask around. Find out what they were fighting about...and maybe anything else you can get on Nick, on the QT like?"
She eyed me with suspicion and said, "This doesn't happen to have anything to do with you having a crush on one of those two boys, now does it?"
I said nothing but let my smile do the talking.
"Consider it done." She kissed me on the lips. "I have to primp. Later." S›he was gone.
I was only five minutes late getting back to the room but Errall was already gone. The reason was in a handwritten note on my bed telling me she'd been invited for drinks and would meet up with me for dinner in Yellow Bricks. Drinks? With who? There was one other note, in an envelope I'd stepped on when I opened the door. It had obviously been delivered after Errall left. I ripped open the seal expecting another of the daily invitations for yet another cocktail reception. Not that I was complain
ing, mind you. But I was wrong.
Mr. Quant
Can't explain now. Have found something out. Please meet me as soon
as possible on the Pool Deck.
Wait for me. I'll be there as soon as I can.
Flora
What had she found out? Shoving the note into a pocket, I grabbed the phone and rang her suite. No answer. I was about to dash out of the room when someone called me. It was Richard asking if I'd like to join him for a drink. I told him I couldn't, without telling him why, and tried to salve his disappointment by suggesting getting together at the drag show later that night. He agreed and I rushed off, barely settin
g the phone back on its cradle.
The Pool Deck was dark and deserted and even in my tuxedo I could feel a biting wind off the water.
The seas were rough. For the first time since I'd set foot on The Dorothy I could feel her beneath me, the staccato vibrations of her toiling engines. I had to concentrate when I walked and keep my legs a little further apart than normal in order to keep myself from swaying along with the subtle shirtings of the ship.
I wide-walked my way to the right side of the deck and, grabbing hold of the steel railing, peeked over the edge of the boat. I couldn't see much except for a few frothy waves as we sliced through the water from Sicily to the port of Salerno on the Italian mainland. State-of-the-art stabilizers and who knows what other high-tech gizmos, buried deep within the ship's mighty belly, were working hard to make it seem as if we were sailing through air.
I turned away from the sea and let my eyes cover the pool area in search of Flora. She wasn't there, no one was. All the other passengers were either at cocktail hour or prepping to go out for dinner or, for those non-formal types, settling down in their cozy cabins for a night of TV and snacks. Still holding on to the railing, I shuffled towards the shuffleboard court. Beyond it were two hallways, one running down each side of the remaining length of the boat. They were deep enough to allow for a row of chairs and plenty of room for passersby. And that was where I found Patrick Halburton, alone, in a light coat, cradling a cup of coffee in his hand.
"Mind if I have a seat, Mr. Halburton?" I asked, lowering myself into the one next to him. "Not going in for dinner?"
"Already had it," the man said, keeping his eyes trained on the invisible horizon where black/blue met black/green. "In my room. I've never owned a tuxedo or even many suits in my life. Don't like fancy things most times. Just having my coffee out here before I turn in." He gave me an assessing look that lasted about three seconds. "I like looking at the water. Reminds me of the lake."
"I'm glad you're enjoying the cruise."
"Didn't say that. I don't much like her highfalutin get-togethers."
"You're talking about Charity and her Charity Events?"
He nodded. "Stupid. Stupid woman with her stupid events. What we gotta do all this for? Why?"
"So why come?"
"For Harry. I love my granddaughter. She insists I come. She thinks it's good for me to get out, see the world. But I seen enough world on TV I tell her, and I don't like it any. But I'd do anything for that girl, and I got a responsibility for her, to make sure she's okay later in life. So if I have to come to these stupid events to make sure Harry gets what's coming to her, then I guess that's just what I have to do. Of course, now we're all here for nothing, aren't we? Stupid woman with her stupid charities. So, I'm just gonna have to work harder to take care of my Harry, aren't I?"
"Harry has a lot of fine men looking after her," I said. "I was just talking with her father."
"Drinks too much, that Jackson. He's all right I suppose, except for the alcohol and all that."
"All that? What else is there, Mr. Halburton?"
He grunted in a way that told me he wasn't going to answer that question.
I decided to move on to something else. "You share your room with your father-in-law, James, right? Is he all right too?"
"Why wouldn't he be." It was more a statement than a question.
"I heard him arguing with one of the other passengers. Sounded kind of serious."
"Over a woman no doubt. He's a womanizer. Wasn't always, but once he started, couldn't stop. And it's cost him. He had money once. His own and what was left over from what Hope inherited from her father.
Nothing of that left, damn fool. Nothing left for Harry. Women married him for it. And he gave it to them, gave it to them while they were married and even more after they were done with him."
"From what I heard, it was the other way around."
He shrugged, somehow guessing where I was going. "Yeah, yeah, I heard about it. The son thinks James married his mother for her money 'cause when she died there was none left."
"How did the mother die?" I asked at point-blank range.
"What do you mean how'd she die? She died. She was full of cancer. Detected it not long after they were first married. That James, always bad luck with the women."
In the interest of time-and likely futility-I decided to withhold comment on the insensitive remark. "So where
did
her money go to?"
"What the son doesn't know is that there wasn't any to begin with. The woman gambled it all away at one of those crazy casinos they got all over the place now. She died ten years ago for crying out loud, and the boy is still harping about it. James is just trying to save the son's good memory of his mother by not telling him the truth. But he should, I told him, he should, or else he's gonna end up in court, getting sued...or worse."
I didn't know if Patrick was telling the truth about his father-in-law, or just what he thought was the truth, but I did know that men who once had money and found themselves without it, could do some pretty desperate things to get it back. Was James McNichol attempting to woo Charity to gain access to her millions? And if that failed, as it was sure to, what next would he try now that he knew about the change in her will?
Patrick raised his creaking body from his chair, slowed by an agedness greater than his actual years.
"You know about what happened to Charity and the rest of us yesterday?" I asked.
He nodded, preparing to leave.
"Do you have any idea who would want Charity dead?" Or should the question have been who wouldn't want her dead?
"All I know," he said, already moving off. "Is that she's made one hell of a lot of people madder than hatters. That's all I know."
That's all I knew too.
I was soaked, sniffly and feeling sickly and more than a little peckish by 9 p.m. The ride was getting rougher as the sea came alive around me and it had been lightly drizzling for the last half-hour. It was the kind of drizzle where no matter where you try to hide; it still gets you wet. All of this, along with the fact that I had not only missed cocktails and dinner but was being stood up by Flora, w
as making me a rather
cranky fellow. How long did she expect me to wait? Couldn't she have chosen a more comfortable location? I finally concluded she'd either forgotten, changed her mind or, least desirable of all, some trouble had befallen her. I also knew that if I didn't get off the inhospitable Pool Deck soon I would spend the rest of the cruise in bed with a cold or seasick or both. I left.
I passed on the bank of elevators, all too busy ferrying passengers from deck to deck, party to party, and dashed down three flights of stairs and down the long corridor to Flora's Deck Five cabin. Just before I got there I passed one of the ship's multitudinous mirrors (this was a gay cruise after all) and was caught short at the sight of the disheveled wreck of a man I'd become. My rain-slicked hair was sticking out in countless directions like a duck caught in an oil spill, my once-spiffy tuxedo was wrinkled and damp, my bowtie and cummerbund were askew. I was not a pretty sight. Oh well. I marched up to Flora's cabin and rapped on the door.
No answer.
Again.
Nothing. I put my ear to the door. Nothing.
Frustrated and frumpy, I decided a change of clothing was in order, dress code be damned. I headed again for the stairs and ran smack into Faith and Thomas, looking superb in their evening finery.
"Mr. Quant," Faith exclaimed, laying a delicate hand on my wet log of an arm. "Are you all right?"
I laughed, pretending to be light-hearted, which was about as likely at that point as a gay man serving rump roast and mashed potatoes at a dinner party. "I got caught in the rain."
"Is it raining?" Thomas asked, surprised. "We've been at dinner."
I nodded rather than giving him the raspberry I felt that comment deserved.
"We're off to the casino to learn how to play poker. Care to join us?" Faith offered kindly. "After you change, that is. You're bound to catch cold, dear."
"Actually I'm looking for Flora. Have you seen her?"
"Oh yes, she was at dinner with everyone else."
Oh really.
Forgoing a wardrobe change, I stomped into Yellow Bricks, a pesky, squawky pelican that'd mistakenly stumbled upon a gathering of gentlemanly penguins and beauteous swans. The restaurant hosts stepped back, startled by my appearance, as I pushed my way into the room. The place was loud with the clatter and tinkle and sparkling chitter-chatter of late night diners at sup. I stopped about a third of the way in and tried to spot Flora. I didn't see her but I did catch sight of Err all and Captain Giovanna Bagnato at a table near the centre of the room. Errall was absolutely eye popping in a magenta ball gown I'd never before seen her wear and Captain Bagnato looked suitably impressive in full dress uniform. Although they were seated at a table for eight, it was obvious even to me half a room away, that they were dining
a deux.
Verrrrry interesting, I said to myself in the style of
LaughIn'
s Arte Johnson. I was about to intrude on their date when I saw a table of three young Wisers, Harry and the twins, closer by.
"Dude," greeted Nathan, going for the surfer-boy thing, his face hidden beneath a layer of overgrown bangs, "I think there's something wrong in your grooming regimen."