Drumbeat Erica

by Stephen Marlowe

  “What the hell are you doing here?”

  “Crossing the Atlantic,” I said.

  “Very funny.” He waited. I waited. “Got a name?”

  “Of course,” I said, and his expressive face debated doing a slow burn or smiling reluctantly. It opted for the smile.

  “Touché,” he said with a small, mocking bow. “Okay, we’ll begin at the beginning. My name is Ahmed Shiraz, Mr.—”

  “Drum. Chet Drum.” I have a certain amount of fame or notoriety, depending on your viewpoint, among people who need international type private detectives, but compared to Shiraz I was a Little Leaguer. I hoped the name would mean nothing to him.

  It seemed to mean just that. He stuck out a hand and I shook it. “This has got to be a coincidence,” he said.

  “Sure,” I said.

  “Where you getting off? Southampton? Le Havre?”

  “End of the line. Rotterdam.”

  “Business trip or what?”

  “I have an office on both sides of the pond,” I said.

  “Doing what?”

  “Well, keep this under your hat,” I said in a conspiratorial voice. “I’m a white slaver.”

  “Funny guy,” he snarled, and it was a snarl I had heard in three or four movies, while his face, the size of a cargo hatch, got unpleasant looking. He pivoted smartly on his rope-soled shoes and headed for the elevator. I went on into the wireless room.

  A young guy wearing the red and gold stripes of a junior radio officer came over.

  “The name’s Drum. I’m expecting a cable.”

  “It’s a little early, Mr. Drum, but—did you say Drum? Yes, I believe something just came for you.”

  He went away and returned with a white envelope. I opened it in the foyer, leaned against the wall and started reading. The ship was rolling gently. The cable was from Sammy Green, Harry Kretschmer’s boss.

  NOTHING SPECIAL ON LINDA BUDD STUDENT NEW YORK. BROTHER JEREMY BUDD BORN PLATTSBURG NEW YORK LIVED CITY SEVERAL YEARS GREENWICH VILLAGE. SPECIAL FORCES NONCOM VIET NAM GOOD COMBAT RECORD BUT DISHONORABLE DISCHARGE ONE YEAR LEAVENWORTH DISOBEYING DIRECT ORDER SUPERIOR OFFICER THREATENING SAME WITH KNIFE. PRESENT WHEREABOUTS UNKNOWN. UNCLE GERALD LSD PUSHER EQUATES GERALD STANLEY JONES PHD NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PSYCHOLOGY PROF. ADVOCATED UNRESTRICTED USE LSD EMPLOYED SAME CARELESS STUDENT EXPERIMENTS. NEWSPAPER NOTORIETY CAUSED NYU FIRING LATE LAST YEAR. GRAND JURY SUBPOENA UNANSWERED LAST ADDRESS WEST FOURTH CITY PRESENT WHEREABOUTS UNKNOWN. SCHOOL AUTHORITIES REGARD HIRING UNFORTUNATE MISTAKE. WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?

  I took the elevator down to Upper Prom Deck and joined the line of passengers making table reservations in the smoking room. A man wearing the two silver waves of an assistant chief steward sat at a table with a chart of the dining room spread out in front of him and a pile of little paper flags alongside. “I’m terribly sorry, madam,” he was telling the woman in front of me, “but we prefer passengers with young children to eat first sitting, unless of course the children eat separately in the children’s dining room. I’m sure you can appreciate the wishes of the other pass—”

  “They’re really very well behaved.”

  He was polite but firm, and she lost the argument.

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Name’s Drum. Cabin B-31. How’s chances for second sitting, table D?”

  “You’re traveling alone?” He gave me a sharp look.

  “That’s right.”

  He smiled a somewhat tired but knowing smile. “Frankly I don’t understand how word gets around. But it does. Suddenly every unattached man in first class wants to sit at table D. Off the record, I can hardly blame them. I am alluding, naturally, to the charms of Miss—”

  “Nordstrom,” I finished for him. “She asked me to sit at her table. We’re old friends.”

  His smile got less tired and more knowing. “How old, Mr. Drum?”

  I looked at my watch. “About four hours, give or take a few minutes.”

  We both laughed man-of-the-world laughs. Then he nodded, making up his mind. “Very well. Table D, second sitting.” He put a flag on his chart, scrawled something on a card and gave it to me. “Actually,” he confided, “table D is the Chief Purser’s table. Our Mr. Fontein. It was Mr. Fontein who asked that Miss Nordstrom be seated at his table.”

  “Are they old friends too?”

  He looked at his watch. “About four and a half hours, give or take a few minutes. Our Mr. Fontein is a bachelor. Good luck to you, Mr. Drum.”

  One standard operating procedure aboard a luxury liner says that ship’s officers never show up at their tables till the third night out, probably demonstrating by their absenteeism that they are too busy making life safe and enjoyable for the passengers to think about anything as inconsequential as food. Another standard operating procedure says that male passengers in first class will shun their dinner jackets on first night and again on Sunday.

  Both conventions had been broken by the time I got to table D after stoking up with a couple of Jack’s martinis in tourist class. Mr. Fontein, red-faced, red-haired and jovial, was already seated. It was an oval table for eight, with Fontein holding down the head and Erica Nordstrom seated at his right with the chair to her right vacant and the other five occupied by males of various ages, all wearing black dinner jackets and giving Miss Nordstrom the unswerving attention that chorus boys in a dance number give to the star of the show. She deserved it. She managed to look as regal as Ingrid Bergman a dozen years ago and as earthy as Melina Mercouri any time at all. She was wearing a turquoise cocktail dress far, far off the shoulder. It displayed a few acres of creamy Viking lady skin and the interesting challenge of abundant cleavage. Everything about Erica Nordstrom seemed to say: I’m more woman than you ever hoped to meet, why don’t you do something about it?—if you’re man enough.

  I was wearing a charcoal gray worsted, a moderately conservative tie and shoes that had been shined a couple of weeks ago by a bootblack on F Street in Washington. I sat down next to Erica Nordstrom. She smiled a surprisingly demure smile and whispered that she had saved that chair for me. Mr. Frammis introduced himself, and Mr. Shrdlu and a couple of others.

  “Sorry I’m late,” I said. They had already finished their soup course. The wine steward was just taking an order from Mr. Fontein.

  “And you, Mr. Drum,” Erica Nordstrom said, apparently picking up the conversation where it had stalled on my arrival. “Have you ever killed a man?”

  “Who me?” I asked innocently.

  Mr. Frammis, or maybe it was Mr. Shrdlu, smiled smugly.

  “We were just making table talk,” Erica assured me. “The idea being that in this antiseptically packaged and sterile world all the rough edges are rubbed smooth and the basic drives and experiences of our ancestors unknown.”

  “Killing people being a basic drive or experience, according to Miss Nordstrom,” Fontein said.

  “Well, why not?” Erica demanded. “It was once that sort of world. It isn’t any longer. That’s my complaint. Mr. Rogers—” Frammis turned out to be Rogers—“says he may have killed a couple of Japanese during the war. But he isn’t sure.”

  “I was pretty good with an M-l rifle,” Mr. Frammis allowed. “But hell, you rarely saw who you were shooting.”

  “Precisely,” Erica passed judgment. “Even warfare has become horribly, depressingly impersonal. It’s even worse now. You press a button and a city of a million people can go up in a mushroom cloud.”

  The steward gave me a menu. I ordered a rare steak.

  “We’re still waiting for Mr. Drum’s answer,” Erica said. She seemed amused.

  “How many men I’ve killed? The truth is I’ve lost count.”

  Fontein tilted his chin up and laughed. Erica Nordstrom was watching me.

  “I know when my leg is being pulled,” Frammis said, a shade on the surly side.

  “Okay,” I said.

  But Erica shook her lovely head. “I’m not so sure. Doesn’t any of you recogni
ze Mr. Drum’s name?”

  They all gave her blank looks. Nobody recognized Mr. Drum’s name right away. Then Mr. Shrdlu snapped his fingers, pointed an index finger at me and said: “Drum, hey, wait a minute. Didn’t they do a thing on you in View magazine once?”

  “Guilty,” I said. I wanted to change the subject. A private detective, especially a private detective on a case, thrives on anonymity. “It was just a couple of paragraphs,” I added modestly.

  Mr. Shrdlu snapped his fingers again. “You’re a private eye,” he said, remembering the couple of paragraphs in View magazine. Only they hadn’t been a couple of paragraphs. There are over five thousand private dicks in Washington, the highest concentration of peepers to people anywhere in the world. It works out to one snoop for every two hundred people, and View figured those statistics worth a cover story. I had just come back from the Near East after the fun, games and notoriety of an oil sheikdom revolution, which made View concentrate its prose on me.

  “Do I detect a look of acute discomfort on Mr. Drum’s face?” Erica asked innocently. “It could mean he’s on an assignment.”

  “Sure,” I said. “Holland-America’s convinced Fontein here’s been dipping into the till and they hired me to get the goods on him.”

  “I give up, I admit everything,” Fontein said, holding his hands out for me to put the nippers on them.

  Everybody laughed. “No, really,” Erica persisted, “what sort of case are you on?”

  “I’m on holiday,” I said.

  “Well, if the man doesn’t want to talk about it,” Erica smiled. “The reason the subject came up in the first place, Mr. Rogers claimed that crimes of violence are on the rise because we live in a predictable, lackluster, cradle-to-grave-security kind of world.”

  “I mean,” Frammis said, “how dull can the scene get—no offense meant.”

  “None taken,” Fontein said gravely.

  “And I claim,” Erica said, “there’s another way out. You don’t have to shoot your neighbor or rape his daughter just because the lowest common denominator of our culture is boredom. If the outside world makes you want to climb the wall you can always turn—inward.”

  “Hold on there,” Frammis said. “I never claimed the whole scene would put you to sleep. The trouble is, only a few lucky people can get involved in the real exciting stuff—like the exploration of outer space.”

  “What’s wrong with inner space?” Erica asked. “Anybody can explore inner space for about two and a half dollars a trip.”

  Fontein looked at her. “Inner space?”

  Erica tapped her forehead. “Right inside here, my friend. With the help of hallucinogenic drugs.”

  “Do which?” Frammis demanded.

  “Consciousness-expanding drugs such as LSD,” Erica said. “Anybody at this table ever take a trip?”

  Nobody at the table, with the probable exception of Erica, had ever taken a trip.

  She laughed. “Don’t look so shocked. The hallucinogenic drugs have been around almost as long as hard liquor, and not only are they less harmful, they’re far more fun.”

  “What exactly is LSD?” Frammis asked. “You hear a lot about it, but—”

  “Lysergic acid diethylamide. It’s the most potent psychedelic.” Erica asked abruptly: “Did you ever chew morning glory seeds?”

  Blank glances were exchanged.

  “Morning glory’s a weak psychedelic. So are nutmeg and marijuana. Mescaline, used by the Indians of the Southwest, is stronger. LSD is strongest of all.”

  “Yeah, but just what happens when you take it?” Frammis wanted to know.

  “Why,” said Erica calmly, “you go on a trip. You get out of the dull, predictable world by exploring and—well, exploiting—the inner space of your own consciousness. The banal habit patterns and stereotypes of the average dull life are shattered. Everything is new and fresh, supercharged with excitement. Also, you can go into rap with just about anyone or anything.”

  “Rap?” Fontein asked.

  “Rapport. Spatial and temporal boundaries go up in smoke. You think you can read other people’s thoughts. Maybe you can. You think you can short-circuit logic and gain tremendous insights. Maybe, temporarily, you become a genius.”

  Frammis grinned. “Don’t you also become an addict?”

  “LSD,” said Erica, “is not narcotic. You can buy 100 micrograms for little more than two and a half dollars, and that’s enough for an eight hour trip. If you don’t like it—and some weak types come up with some pretty awful trips—you never have to try it again.”

  “You sound like you’re selling,” Fontein said mildly.

  “Wrong,” Erica told him. “I’m not proselytizing either. I’m merely saying it’s one answer to a dull and frustrating world. I’m also saying that, used properly, it can be a great aid to psychotherapy because it brings the mind out from under wraps.”

  The wine came. Fontein made a big thing about sampling it before the wine steward filled our glasses. “I suppose I am old-fashioned,” the purser said, “but I’ll stick to good old Château Lafite Rothschild. Sniff it, won’t you? The bouquet—”

  Everybody agreed it was delicious.

  I looked at Erica. “I know a couple of acid-heads,” I said, just to be saying something. “A girl named Linda Budd and her, or maybe everybody’s, Uncle Gerald.”

  “Gerald Stanley Jones,” Erica said. “What a perfectly delightful old gentleman.”

  “The university trustees didn’t think so. But then again, Linda sure did. Know her too?”

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t get the name.”

  “Linda Budd.”

  “No, I don’t think I know her.”

  “Or Jeremy Budd,” I shot out quickly.

  “Her husband? There are lots of acid-head couples. It’s delightful going on a trip together.”

  “Her brother.”

  Erica shook her head. “How’d you meet them?” she asked.

  “Business.”

  “My, you are communicative when you want to be.”

  We stopped cross-questioning each other and joined the table in general conversation. Nobody brought up the subject of LSD again.

  They had a Get-Acquainted Dance for first class passengers in the Ritz-Carlton room that night. Ordinarily I steer clear of such activities, preferring to get acquainted on my own time and in my own way, but the Ahmed Shirazes showed up in the big, double-decker room, and so did I.

  The music stopped as I came in. Couples stood on the dance floor, swaying to the gentle roll of the ship. An emcee got up on the small stage and smiled at the passengers. The smile hung and faded. Nobody was looking at him. They had all turned to look at Erica Nordstrom, who made her entrance on Mr. Fontein’s arm. Naturally they got a ringside table. A couple of stewards had a foot-race to pull Erica’s chair out for her.

  “Hello to you one and all,” the emcee said in a professionally Irish accent. He was a big, hulking, dark-haired specimen with a pouting smile and bloodshot eyes. “I’m Tommy Donovan, your social director, here to make sure you have the good time you’re entitled to on the S. S. Rotterdam, not that you’re going to need any help from me or anyone. Right? Right.”

  He laughed. “The thing we do tonight, laddies and lassies, is we get to know each other. In a few minute’s the music’s going to start again. Right, maestro? Right. Then we play this little game to make sure the wallflowers get themselves plucked from the bulkheads, not that I see any wallflowers in this assemblage, unless Mr. Ahmed Shiraz sitting over there with his lovely wife is a wallflower, which I very much doubt.”

  There was a small smattering of applause for the Ahmed Shirazes. “Sure and after each brief medley,” Tommy Donovan went on, “you get to change partners. Mind you, I’m not saying you can, I’m saying you must. All right, maestro, here we go.”

  The band struck up a medley of fox trots. They had a quick and catchy dance tempo. Shiraz followed his lady to the floor. Carol Shiraz was a small, dark g
irl, pretty in a subdued way. She was wearing a black shift, its hem well above the knees. She had very good legs. In fact in her own understated way she had the best body on the dance floor—until Erica Nordstrom flowed into Mr. Fontein’s arms.

  I sat the first round out, smoking a cigarette and sipping Cognac out of a little tulip-shaped glass. At the Rotterdam’s tax-free prices you couldn’t afford not to sip Cognac.

  Pretty soon the music stopped. There was a self-conscious shuffling and looking around on the dance floor. Shiraz made straight for Erica. Oddly enough, no one else had seemed in a hurry to do so. Frammises and Shrdlus fighting their way to her table in the dining room was one thing, but dancing with her was something else. There is an odd aura of intimidation about a gorgeous dame who also happens to be six feet tall waiting for a partner on the dance floor. If you step on her toe or make a pass or perform in any awkward or unsatisfactory manner she’s liable to haul off and deck you.

  Carol Shiraz stood where Shiraz had left her, wearing a slightly pained smile on her pretty face. Nobody had asked her to dance yet. She seemed ready to head unobtrusively for their table. I got up quickly and went over to her.

  “Mind?” I said.

  “No, I’d love to. I love to dance.” She was looking past my shoulder, watching Erica and Shiraz. “She’s really lovely, isn’t she?”

  “The girl I’m dancing with is the loveliest girl on the dance floor,” I said lightly.

  The band began to play a rhumba. Carol Shiraz had good rhythm and was an adept follower. I didn’t try anything fancy. I don’t know anything fancy.

  “They’re really magnificent together,” she said after a while.

  “Who?”

  “My husband and that blond woman.” She said it matter-of-factly.

  Shiraz and Erica were doing fancy ballroom stuff. The floor had cleared around them. Everybody was watching.

  “They’re okay,” I said.

  Carol smiled a quick and grateful smile up at me. “What’s your name?”

  “Chet. Here comes a cha-cha, I think.”

  “It is. Can you do it?”

  I started doing it. “The basic C. Drum step covers all contingencies and emergencies on the dance floor,” I said.