When you’re being hunted, you look at faces and wonder which one means to kill you. The ones that look most likely hardly ever are. Just because a guy has shifty eyes and a bulge in his pocket doesn’t mean he’s an assassin with a too obvious gun. That bulge may be nothing more lethal than a transistor radio or a ham sandwich.

  A man sitting beside me tried to strike up a conversation, and I let him. He sounded like a New Englander or someone who had gone to school there. Early forties, thin brown hair that might have been dyed, cord suit, button-down oxford shirt, striped tie. A vacationing professor? A magazine writer? A hired killer? No way to tell.

  “Haven’t seen you on board,” he said. “My name is Blake.”

  “De Pauw,” I said. “I came aboard at Davao. I’d seen enough of the islands. There was a vacancy. Somebody had to go to the hospital at Cape Town.”

  “Ah yes, that would be old Mr. Peters. I think he was some kind of academic. A pity, having his trip cut short like that.”

  Blake said he was taking the cruise for his health. “I’m in town planning in Hartford. Just been through a nasty divorce and it got me a bit rattled. My doctor advised me to get away from it all. Expensive, though, but I suppose this will be my first and last cruise. I don’t know about you, I find it sort of dull.”

  “It can be,” I agreed.

  I told him the yarn Van Dalen had prepared for me. It was as good as any other. After fifteen years in the army I had come into an inheritance from a Texas bachelor uncle. Now, six months later, I was still undecided about what I wanted to do.

  “You want my advice?” Blake said. “About how to handle your money?”

  A con man, I thought, but I was wrong. “Don’t do anything,” he said. “Put your money in the bank and live off the interest. Investments can be a headache. All my life I worked to put away a little nest egg and look at me. Nervous as a cat. Enjoy life, Mr. De Pauw. That’s what it’s there for.”

  I could see that he wanted to talk about himself. The story of his dull life unfolded like a featureless road with nothing but NO EXIT signs on it. He was drinking scotch and water, but his self-pity was more intoxicating than the booze. I didn’t mind too much; all I had to do was nod and grunt once in a while. People came in and went out. A different piano player was there, a middle-aged fag with a worn face who ran his fingers over brittle cocktail music.

  Blake was telling me about the professional jealousy he had to contend with in his job. “I know town planning sounds dull, but it can be quite exciting. Like life, it depends on what you put into it.”

  “Uh-huh,” I said.

  A guy seemed to be studying me in the bar mirror. He was by himself, a few stools down, with a tall drink in front of him, tapping the side of his glass with a swizzle stick, keeping time to the music. Tall and thin, any age between forty and fifty. He looked familiar, or maybe it was just his type. He was the kind that got things done. Middle management, highly efficient. I was just guessing, but there are times when you have to trust past experience and hope you’re right.

  “You probably don’t agree with me,” Blake was saying.

  “Not completely,” I said. A safe thing to say, it covers a lot of ground.

  “Well, it happens to be the truth,” Blake went on. “Low cost housing has been a failure in this country. I know that from bitter, hard-won experience. Instant slums, that’s what these projects are. A better solution must be found for the problems of the inner city. Take that St. Louis housing development of not so many years ago. They tried everything to make it work. Finally, someone suggested dynamiting the damned thing. That’s what they did. Sensible but horribly wasteful, millions of dollars down the drain. Surely you remember, or were you overseas at the time?”

  “I read about it,” I said.

  Blake finished his drink and began to look less than steady. “Oops!” he said. “I think it’s time for beddy-bye. Hope to have another chat real soon. De Pauw, that’s the name, isn’t it?”

  I said it was, and after he left I got another beer and waited for something to happen. It took a while. It was getting late and the bar crowd thinned out, and as soon as there was a table available the stranger took it. A waiter carried the stranger’s drink, then came back to me.

  “Gentleman over there thinks you have mutual friends and would you care to join him for a drink? This is his card.” The waiter kept his face deadpan; what went on between consenting adults was no business of his.

  The card gave the stranger’s name as William Paterson, his address was 137 O’Farrell Street, San Francisco. No business was given. I turned and he was watching for my reaction; a polite smile told me I was welcome to join him if I felt like it.

  I took my beer to the table. “The waiter says you think you know me. Where would that be from?”

  “From General Sanders’ diary,” he said, adding quickly, “and there’s no cause for violence. I’d like to talk, all right?”

  I sat down. “Talk costs nothing, so talk.”

  “Sometimes a talk can be very profitable. But I won’t beat around the bush. I know you have the diary. How much do you want for it?”

  “It’s not for sale.”

  “Everything is for sale. For instance, how much is your life worth to you?”

  “That’s not for sale either.”

  “So you say. Look at it this way. You’re many miles out at sea. You can run but you can’t hide. Joe Louis. You can’t even run. You can’t call for the police. I know you’re armed, but so are we. You know what I look like, but not my friends. We’ll kill you if we have to—make no mistake about that—but where’s the profit? If we were on land you wouldn’t be given a choice. Out here, it’s different. We could probably put you over the side and let the sharks have you. Why risk it?”

  “Then don’t do it.”

  “We’d prefer not to,” Paterson said.

  “Did you kill Van Dalen and Mrs. Sanders?”

  “Yes. I want you to know how serious we are. Look here, you have a great gift for survival, but it can’t last indefinitely. Give it up, take the money, and that’s the end of it. Case closed.”

  “How much money?”

  “I’m authorized to pay you fifty thousand dollars in cash. None of it counterfeit. I’m sure you can tell real money from queer.”

  “Fifty thousand doesn’t sound like much.”

  “Fifty thousand and a bonus, your life. It’s well worth considering.”

  “I’ve already got my life,” I said.

  “But not for long,” Paterson said.

  “How would it work if I agreed?”

  Paterson sipped at his tall drink. “We know you gave the diary to the purser. A wise move you might have made sooner. Don’t deny it, you were seen. Get the diary back, I’ll hand over the money, and we’ll be gone from your life.”

  “Gone how? It’s still a long way to Manila.”

  “A boat will take us off shortly after you give us the diary. Arrangements have been made. Money talks. I hope it talks to you. If you have any doubts, you can wave to us as we take off. I don’t know what can be fairer than that. Don’t fight it, Rainey. You’ve given us a good run, but now it’s over and you have no place to go.”

  “You aren’t afraid I might talk later?”

  “Talk about what? There’s no proof—you can’t have Xeroxed the diary in the jungle. No one will listen to you. Any sensible person would regard you as a publicity-seeker or a crank. Talk if you feel like talking, although you’d be a fool if you did. Now what’s it going to be?”

  “No deal,” I said. Paterson might have the diary and leave the ship, but there would be someone left on board to get rid of me.

  “Seventy-five thousand?” Paterson said.

  I shook my head. “I’ll take my chances.”

  “One hundred thousand?”

  “No deal.”

  Paterson got up and went out without another word. There was no head shaking, no sighs or exasperation of regret. Our talk had been nothing more than an exercise, a way of sounding me out. Now he knew, and so did I.

  What Paterson would do next could only be guessed at. There would be a meeting with his associates. He spoke of them in the plural; there might not be more than one. The meeting would decide how they were going to deal with me. True, I was confined to the ship, but so were they, at least for the moment. Killing a man is easy enough; it’s getting rid of the body that makes it messy, and a cruise ship never settled down completely. Lovers taking a turn on the deck in the moonlight, a playful drunk passed out in a lifeboat, an insomniac gazing at the sea. The kind of chance that Paterson couldn’t afford. No, they might not come at me tonight, but they’d be along just the same.

  I got on the phone in the bar and asked for Mr. Paterson’s cabin number. The operator said no such person was on the passenger list. But there was a Mr. Parsons and perhaps I had the names confused. I thanked her and hung up. It didn’t matter. It was no big maneuver on Paterson’s part. He just didn’t want to be surprised in his cabin.

  I wondered how he planned to get the diary away from the purser’s care. A stick-up would be dumb unless he wrecked the ship’s radio system and had a chopper waiting to take him off. That would be one way of doing it, yet it wasn’t his style as I had come to see it.

  I left the bar and went to the dance for the passengers. Like the bar, it had thinned out, but there were enough die-hards left to give me some protection.

  It was a dance without too much disco, which can be rough on middle-aged hearts. The music was brassy and bland at the same time. This was what cruise ship musicians call The Corset Crowd, and many of the revelers were of an age where they still preferred gin to vodka drinks. The women were in better shape than the men. Now and then streamers and balloons floated down from the ceiling. Behind the service bar, rows of empty champagne bottles stood in their cases. Paterson wasn’t on the dance floor or on the sidelines.

  The dance wasn’t going to last much longer. Even now, all but the most energetic dancers were starting to look tired. There is nothing more tiring than having a good time. A woman with too many face lifts asked me to dance and I went out on the floor with her. She was one of those dancers that know how good they are and like to show off. I was only fair to middling and she begged off in the middle of the dance, saying she thought a strap on her shoe was coming undone. I think we’d been doing a rumba, but maybe it was a samba. That’s the kind of dancer I am. Her shoe must have been self-repairing, because she was back on the floor within minutes. This time her partner was a youngish guy with false hair woven into his own thinning locks. I guess it was better than a toupee, which I’m told are sometimes snatched off in moments of passion. They were very good together and got some envious glances, and if they learned what they did at Arthur Murray, then the money hadn’t been wasted.

  It was getting late and I still had no plan of action, and locking myself in my cabin was no way to handle the situation; they can always get at you if you don’t have the right defenses.

  The band played on: disco for the agile, more stately music for the corset crowd. I got a drink at the bar and stayed there. A guy was telling another guy how much he liked to disco but couldn’t because he had a bad back. The other guy winked and said, “I trust you suffered it in the line of duty.” That got a laugh and the first guy told a story about a roller derby queen he shacked up with in Kansas City. To judge by his winks and pauses it was a story he had told many times before. He looked like a supporting player who used to play young, wisecracking G.I.’s in 1940’s war movies. Now he was old enough to play retired generals.

  “Actually, it didn’t happen in bed,” he said. “She was a regular little hell-raiser, but I gave as good as I got. What happened was, I stepped on one of her skates when I tried to rush off to catch my flight to Chicago. Zip! Crash! Down I went on the flat of my back. I lay there groaning and you know what she said, the sexy little bitch? ‘Should I call a chiropractor or what?’ she said, and even with the pain I had to laugh. You know, there isn’t a time I get a pain in my back I don’t think of that little devil. A non-stop sex machine was what she was. You’ve heard of someone having a motor mouth? Well sir, this little doll had a motor pussy.”

  “I envy you,” the other man said.

  I moved away from the dirty old men, still trying to decide what to do. As happens so often, the decision was made for me.

  Chapter Twelve

  A FIREBELL CUT loose, drowning out the mellow sounds of the orchestra. The orchestra stopped playing and the leader got on the microphone and urged the partygoers not to panic. He was still urging calm and cooperation when his mike went dead and the captain took over on the general public address system. The captain was as calm as a deacon.

  “A fire has broken out, but will be shortly under control. You will see smoke and men with fire-fighting equipment, but there is no cause for alarm. I repeat, there is a fire in progress, but you need not worry. All my men have been trained for emergencies of this kind. Stay where you are. Stay where you are. Wait for the instructions of the ship’s officers. There is no immediate danger.”

  The captain went off the air and the band began to play. They did that on the Titanic after it ran into the iceberg. God didn’t listen. The woman who was showing off got back on the floor with a different partner. Her friend with the woven hair was at the bar gulping down a double. A florid-faced drunk applauded the exhibitionist’s courage, tried to find his own partner, was turned down. So he danced by himself, making elaborate dips and bows. He wasn’t afraid because he was so drunk. Most of the others were afraid and showing it or not showing it in different ways. There are few things as bad as a fire at sea. All too often the lifeboats burn like matchwood and even when they’re not made of wood something goes wrong with them. Fire drills are supposed to help. They do help, but they’d help a lot more if the passengers took them seriously. No smoke was coming under the door. So far it wasn’t that dramatic.

  The captain cut in on the orchestra, but wasn’t too specific about the progress being made. I disobeyed his order to stay put and went to take a look. Other people were wandering about looking for reassurance. Some had the dazed look that comes with being tumbled out of bed without any clear idea of what’s happening. Ship’s officers, not so dapper now, were doing their best to prevent a panic.

  I grabbed one of the stewards and wouldn’t let go till he told me what was happening. “A fire. What do you think, sir? A fire?” He looked ready to go over the side.

  I shook him hard. “I know there’s a fire. Where is it?”

  He was no seaman, just a seagoing waiter. “There’s several fires. I don’t know how bad they are. Let me go, sir.”

  I turned him loose and he darted up a companionway. Paterson, I thought. The son of a bitch had set fires—had them set—as a cover for knocking over the purser’s cage. I went up on deck and saw smoke coming from a ventilator. No flame yet, but plenty of smoke. The smoke smelled like burning celluloid and that can be as bad as tear gas. I bumped into the dancing drunk from the ballroom. He got in my way. I stepped to one side. He stepped the same way. I shoved him into a deck chair and he lay there, laughing.

  The purser’s office and strongroom were located amidships, and lung-searing smoke billowed from that direction. It was a nightmarish scene, the great white ship moving smoothly through a glassy sea, trailing oily black smoke. A ship’s officer, not the captain, probably the first mate, was talking on the PA system. People turned their faces toward the speakers, but I’m not sure they understood what he was saying. Panic is like that.

  Fighting my way through the mob on deck, I finally reached the purser’s office. The door was closed but not locked. I went in and closed it behind me. My eyes jumped to the steel door to the strongroom. It was open and the purser and the guard lay together with their mouths taped, their hands cuffed behind them. Lockbox 30 was open and the diary was gone.

  I couldn’t find a key to the handcuffs, but I removed the tape from their mouths. The purser was conscious and red-faced with indignation. Beside him the guard lay with his eyes rolled back. His breathing was weak and shallow. Concussion, maybe a skull fracture. I helped the purser to his feet and steadied him.

  “There are fires all over the ship,” I said. “I don’t think it’s serious, but it looks bad. Are you all right?”

  He nodded.

  “Then go get help for the guard. I’m going to look for the men who started the fires. Did you see them? How many?”

  “Two men.” Quickly he described Paterson. “The other man was shorter and heavier. Both had pistols. What are they to you, sir? What did they steal from you?”

  “Never mind that. Get help for the guard.” I pushed him toward the door. “There must be bolt cutters on board. They’ll get the handcuffs off. If you have to take to the boats, you can’t do it with your hands behind your back.”

  I followed him out. He disappeared into the smoke, coughing hard, unable to cover his mouth. Looking for Paterson was a hopeless job, and if I found him at all it would be by accident. The captain was back on the sound system, still telling the passengers not to panic, there was no danger, but just the same he was putting in as close to the shore as he would manage without endangering the ship.

  “We are getting the fire under control,” he repeated. “A most unfortunate accident. Do not panic. Damage has been minor and there have been no injuries.”

  The smoke did seem to be lessening, but the passengers remained in a state close to total panic. A woman screamed, “We’re all going to die!” until another woman slapped her, warning her to shut up. I thought I heard a boat, but couldn’t be sure because of the uproar. At the rail, trying to listen, I heard it again. It was a powerful boat. I could tell by the deep rumble of the engine. It was coming through the smoke that drifted down from the ship and hung over the water. Other people heard it and began to call out, begging to be taken off. The boat moved along the side of the ship; somebody was talking through a bullhorn. The voice was shouting, “Let it down, then come down after it.”

 

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