He had arrived about ten minutes after I had begun, loping in with his toothy grin. His tardiness was a good thing, because had he come early I would surely have yelled at him and been too agitated to complete the lecture. He took a seat in the back and observed in merciful silence for the entire forty minute presentation and twenty-odd minutes of questions. Lucifer then remained quietly in the back while everyone left and the stragglers remained to ask more in-depth questions. Finally, inevitably, it was just us. I took a long sip of my now-cold latte and tried to hold back my growing apprehension of speaking to the hyena.
“Aha!” he chortled, arms behind his head. “I see you once again hide behind your coffee when you don’t know what to say.”
“What does that mean?”
“Whenever someone asked you a question you didn’t know, you hid behind your coffee.”
“A pause to think of an appropriate answer,” I defended.
“To hide, you lousy tadpole!”
I regarded him carefully before I said, “I thought you said you were here to help.”
“And so I am, my little tube worm.”
“You call that stunt at the preview helpful? I call it sabotage. And so would Gene, I might add.”
Lucifer rose to his feet and sauntered towards me. “Oh, you think to invoke the name of Gene, do you? You might be surprised to learn that he bet you would fail.”
I tried to hide how much that hurt to hear.
“I don’t believe you.”
“Oh, yes,” Lucifer gloated. “It’s true. And would you believe that I, of all people, bet you would succeed?”
Sensing my disadvantage, Lucifer strut around as he explained further. “Gene thought you had potential, but would buckle under the pressure because you are too nice. I, on the other hand, sensed that the momentum of Bill’s huge sales would carry you through this test cruise, but you will fail when given a ship of your own.”
“I’m going to reach G2 and you can all be damned,” I snapped. “And I’m going to do it my way, lectures and all.”
“You’re right that reaching goal will prove them wrong,” Lucifer agreed. “But you are wrong about your lectures. The money is in the auction. Nothing else.”
“There was a lot of interest in Picasso,” I defended.
He laughed a loud, derisive laugh. “Yeah, right! What a colossal waste of time. What, you think that old guy, Mr. Payne, asking all the questions at the end is going to buy a Picasso? He looks like a bloody school teacher. He’s just retired and has a pension of twenty bucks a month.”
“He claims he already has a Picasso linocut,” I defended. “And he summers in different countries around the world. He was asking me all sorts of very intelligent questions about our Japanese woodblocks the other day, and telling me stories of his travels there. They smacked of the truth. And did you see how hot his Russian wife was? You think a hot piece of ass like that would marry a high school teacher?”
“Bah!” Lucifer scoffed. “Mail-order bride.”
“You never know who has money on a cruise ship,” I continued. “People act different while on vacation, and I’ve met millionaires in jeans and a T-shirt.”
“That’s true,” Lucifer reluctantly agreed. “But anyone with a brain can still tell them apart. Did you see the guy’s watch? It was a twenty year-old Casio. Still had the little calculator built in, for Christ’s sake.”
“Penny pinching doesn’t mean they don’t buy art,” I rebutted. “It means they don’t waste a hundred dollars on a pink tie because GQ says it’s hip today, you damned sheep.”
Lucifer stalked towards the exit, once again shaking his head in disgust over my performance. Just before stepping onto the Promenade, he paused.
“You do know a lot about art history,” he conceded over his shoulder. “But I wonder if fourteen days is enough time for you to learn about art selling.”
“I wonder if four days is enough time for you to kiss my ass.”
Lucifer turned to regard me with his goofy grin.
“I don’t need to watch you auction or any of that other crap,” he explained. “If you reach goal, you prove Gene wrong. But if you want to prove me wrong, you’ll have to sell a Picasso. If you do that, I’ll personally proclaim you the Frog Prince before Frederick himself.”
5
Like everyone else, I had heard of Acapulco as one of Mexico’s oldest hotspots. It was a port of hot nights and midnight seafood dinners, of dancing until dawn or until passion overcame you and your lover. It was a place to sleep off the hangover on gorgeous beaches covered with even more gorgeous bikini-ladies. It was, in short, all things Hot Cocoa. OK, so she was not Mexican but Brazilian. Potato, potahto. But instead of Hot Cocoa, what did I get? A slovenly, dyspeptic Brit.
Ecstasy docked so very early that it was nearly yesterday. Lucifer arranged for early clearance and an early flight, necessitating a wake-up call at 3 a.m.. Since 3 a.m. was the Witching Hour, when the devil chose to mock the Holy Trinity by inverting the hour of Christ’s Crucifixion, this seemed appropriate. Being an atheist, I presumed that such things could not inconvenience me. But I was wrong, because Lucifer woke me up to personally see him off. Why, I have no idea, for we hardly spoke. Asshole. At least I didn’t have to wait for him to lug around his gargantuan, lumpy bag. Security did it for him, because once scanned they didn’t want him near it until off the ship and through the port facility.
We sat together in Ecstasy’s main lounge and sipped our coffee in silence. Not surprisingly, we were the only ones waiting. A cabin steward wandered by to polish the brass railings, and I was shocked to recognize her as the one Bill had ogled while vacuuming his cabin so long ago. I had forgotten that regular crew work any shift, any time, and every day. It was an uncomfortable reminder that being an auctioneer was really my only way to remain at sea with any semblance of comfort.
Time crawled by slowly and the atmosphere grew heavier with each minute of additional silence. We had nothing to say to each other. Neither of us liked or respected the other. Since he was no longer in a position to belittle me and he was in no way inclined to advise me, he ignored me. I was thrilled.
“So,” Lucifer said finally. “You gonna shag that barista?”
I chuckled. “I see that your observations extend to beyond all things Sundance.”
“It’s obvious she wants your johnson or a Green Card,” Lucifer continued. “No doubt it’s the latter. Regardless, I suggest you shag her and get it out of your system. You are too new and too shitty an auctioneer to be sidetracked by quim.”
“Inspiring words,” I said. “I’ll be lost without you.”
The chief of security emerged from the passenger’s gangway and motioned that Lucifer was cleared.
“Yes,” Lucifer agreed as he rose to his feet.
Without further ado, Lucifer strode away. He did not shake my hand or even nod. In fact, he didn’t even say goodbye. I was tempted to let him leave on that note, but my curiosity had been burning too long and hot to let the moment slip away.
“You never answered if any other trainee has their own ship yet,” I called out.
Lucifer paused before the angled hallway descending to the Acapulco terminal. He cocked his head to the side, but did not turn around when he answered.
“You’re the first.”
6
The sun sluggishly rose, and day awoke with a hang over. Because the sun rose over the steaming land of Mexico, it cast a sultry purple and red haze over the sea. Hands in my pockets, I strode along the gorgeous, vast northern curve of Acapulco Bay. This section of town was older and almost exclusively Mexican. It was interesting to see how the tourist-centric areas catering to Mexicans differed from those catering to Americans. There wasn’t a single McDonald’s with requisite concrete parking lot and bored, teenage employees, but instead dozens of cafés right on the beach worked lovingly by grandparents, aunts, and uncles.
I squished through damp sands teased by greenish tidewater, the
n across rusted and ruined night club concrete lapped by floating rubbish, then onward into a forest of towering, swaying palms. I passed a stretch of sand containing thousands of tiny, beached jellyfish. So quickly had they dissolved in the humid air, I needed time to realize what I was looking at. From the beach I watched the fishermen rowing back towards land with the night’s catch.
I opted for breakfast in a café that caught my fancy. It had the thatched roof, open walls, and on-the-sand thing I would have expected from paradise. I was the only guest present and preferred it that way. I was tired of people and the games they played. I was done worrying if Lucifer thought I should or should not be present here or there or wherever. I just wanted an untrammeled port, though this one already felt tainted by Lucifer.
Yet I was, for the moment, Lucifer-free. The morning was rich and soft, much like the air that blew in from the sea. Ah, the morning smell of real life! The air was so thick with humidity that breathing it in was almost difficult, yet certainly more wholesome than the artificially scrubbed air of my cabin. It was so hot, in fact, that I marveled what the atmosphere would be like in summer.
I ordered some chilaquiles, which came with a thick steak in truly American-sized portions. It was matched with minutes-old bread baked by Tía Guadalupe and a huge tankard of papaya juice squeezed by Tío Jose. I was intrigued by the bushel of papayas resting beside the bar, and Jose’s lavish use of them. This gargantuan feast set me back a mere $7.50. Acapulco, I love you!
After breakfast I wandered among the recently arrived fishermen now selling their night’s catch upon the beach. Wooden planks were placed atop coolers and rocks, or balanced upon the gunwales of rowboats. Each board boasted the freshest bonitos, jacks, or Spanish mackerel one could find. Row after row of fat fish glimmered silver in the morning sun, or flashed purple and red being cleaned behind a boat. The youngest boys were invariably assigned to gutting the fish, whereas the shirtless men marched up and down the sand with their wares, also working over the women who came for the day’s freshest and best.
I moved beyond the market in order to pass the strong smell of fish, and scrunched through a sandy parking lot of boats. Dozens of working fishing boats had been pulled up onto the beach away from the morning tide. They wore names that surprised me, such as Patricia, Bella, and Xanadu. Beyond the resting boats the bay curved ever onward, and behind another copse of palms stretched the modern high-rise section of the south bay. They were vast, these modern luxury apartments and resorts, and muscled back the trees along fully half of the huge bay. The flanks of each of the massive buildings was nuzzled by fawning, lush trees.
I expected Acapulco to be cool simply because I had heard of it. I had the same fantasies of Mexico as anyone else. But the beauty of this place was far more stunning than I anticipated, and far different. When Ecstasy passed by famous Cabo San Lucas yesterday, so close that I actually feared we would go aground, I had noted the archipelago was exceptionally arid. But Acapulco is lush, green, and gorgeous.
Too bad I couldn’t enjoy it.
Alas, Lucifer had given me time-sensitive parting instructions. A whole slew of paperwork was due to be emailed him by this afternoon, including a revised auctioneering schedule for the cruise and a detailed list of advertising strategies that was to include flyers, posters, rotating artwork on easels by the vintage Rolls, themed presentations in the Rolls Royce Café, and, for some bizarre reason, auctioning off a wooden horse for the cruise director. By the time I compiled the list of duties and emailed them off to Lucifer, the afternoon had grown long.
But eventually I finished my chores and opted for a late lunch out with a former fashion model from Slovakia. Bitch as I might, it was hard to spin it that life was rough for me nowadays. For all her help, I had promised Petra I would take her out in Acapulco. Regardless of my johnson—a statement rarely made by man—or Green Card as motivation, Petra’s help had been a lifesaver.
Though I usually eschew such touristic places, I planned on taking Petra to Señor Frog’s. I had been assured all day that it had the best view in the entire city, from breakfast through fish markets, from the excursion manager to the ship’s translator. In the back of a tiny Volkswagen Beetle we chugged along through congested traffic, taking nearly thirty minutes to pass beyond the high rise section of the bay and into the southern cliffs. The road wound ever upward, and I stared in awe as we ascended up and away from the beaches. I was fascinated by a huge cargo ship that rested at an angle in the shallows. Its dark, rusting bulk sat empty and forlorn and completely out of place. As the road wriggled higher and higher, the hulk became a long, black smudge against the otherwise impeccable half-moon of Acapulco Bay.
Finally we arrived at Señor Frog’s, which rested right on a cliff overlooking dozens and dozens of world-class resorts. They extended around the southern curve of the bay like tiny blocks. Individual buildings and houses behind them were nothing more than scattered glitter over the rolling green hills behind.
We were thankful for the breeze that blew by the heights. We found a table on the deck overlooking the awesomeness of Acapulco, and ordered ice-cold margaritas as further remedy to the heat. My Tommy Bahama shirt was shamefully soaked through with sweat and my hair tightened into tight, damp curls. I presume it was the heat that made me sweat but, to be honest, Petra’s outfit was a contender. Her skin-tight black dress was designed to show off her trim, muscular figure. The lucky dress clung to her body closer than her own sweat and blushed darker from the moisture.
Petra pulled from her tiny purse a cigarette case with great aplomb. She extracted a stick and lit it with the European’s inherent love of ceremony. Cigarette smoking behavior where I was from, whether male or female, differed from the smoking habits of European women. Though they smoked so regularly as to even light up during a meal—a rarity in the States—European ladies still solicited each and every cigarette as a coy lover. I never once saw a European rush outside in the cold for a ‘quick smoke’, as I saw in the States. As a cigar smoker, I appreciated the courting of the right moment for a smoke and the rituals associated with it.
So we smoked and watched the humidity pulse over Acapulco Bay. Eventually, inevitably, the sun began its slow descent. We watched the orb, swelling orange as it dipped ever closer to the water, eventually drop down right across the bay, right behind the Ecstasy. It was a perfect afternoon of tranquility and accomplishment. And a bikini model. Yes, I had passed the first hurdle and gotten rid of Lucifer. I was on top of G1 and had almost the entire cruise to finish off G2, which wasn’t too far away. Everything was so perfect that I thought something surely had to go wrong.
Something surely did.
A tiny sound caught our ears, teasingly familiar but too far away to accurately identify. It sounded a second time, and I leisurely asked Petra, “What is that, do you think?”
Petra suddenly gripped the table as if in danger of falling. She clawed at my watch and demanded, “What time is it?”
“Chill. It’s only 4:25.”
“But the sun is going down.”
Realization flooded over me: we had changed time zones. “Pluck my Chicken, that was the ship’s horn!”
“Oh my God!” she cried. “It’s 5:25! We have to be on-board at 5:30. It took half an hour to get here!”
The panic of watching your home leaving without you is one I hope most people never experience. It is a gut-wrenching feeling, far more intense than merely the inconvenience of missing a flight. On the surface you feel just fear and anger over having made a bad, bad mistake. But more than having to scramble to fly to the next port, missing the sailing is a firing offense. Too, there is another emotion when your ship leaves you, a deeper, more loathsome feeling. You feel small and insignificant. How could home abandon you?
“Run out front,” I ordered, “Grab one of those taxis. I’ll pay.”
With a frenzy we flew out of there, throwing pesos and dollars both at everyone we encountered to help things move faster. Two taxis
waited outside the front entrance, and we rushed across the steaming concrete towards them. But they weren’t waiting for us—they were waiting for their drivers! Petra pounded on the car door in frustration, while I raced back into Señor Frog’s and demanded the driver. Several painfully long minutes later a portly, late middle-aged woman trudged across the parking lot towards her taxi, where Petra hopped up and down as if she were waiting outside a restroom.
“How long to get to the terminal?” I demanded of the woman as we rushed into the back seat. She took her sweet-ass time looking at me blankly.
“Carnival Ecstasy!” I cried, adding in bad Spanish, “El barco muy muy grande. Sí?”
“Sí, sí,” she answered. “¿Quiere ir a la terminal del transatlántico?”
“Yes!” Petra fairly screamed. “Yes, that!”
“Uh, mucho speedo!” I stammered. I flashed two twenty-dollar bills at her and added everything I could recall from the cartoon Speedy Gonzales, “¡Andale! ¡Andale! ¡Arriba! ¡Arriba!”
Our lady of the taxi certainly proved herself worthy of the extra fare. We must have broken every land-speed record for that trip around the bay. Certainly we broke every traffic law, Mexican or otherwise. To this day, I don’t know how we actually made it back in time. We had to literally run the last few hundred yards through a shopping mall to the gangway, Petra barefoot and clutching her high heel shoes.
We were applauded on our return by security.
Chapter 18. Romancing the Stone
1
Greg Gregg is a very big, very bearded man. His wife calls him Cube—as in Greg times three. That's because he's so big, he counts as two. I suggested that perhaps Cube would be a better nickname for their son, Greg Gregg, Jr., but they told me that he’s called Square. Shows what I know.
Greg and his wife Shirley were guests on the repositioning cruise, and I was exceedingly grateful for their presence. They purchased $15,000 worth of artwork at the first auction, and from there we hit it off personally, as well. Greg liked to bitch and moan that I was fleecing him, but he was a genuine and generous supporter of Shirley’s interests. Actually, he accused her of being more interested in me than the art. He even offered me escalating sums of money to sleep with her and just get it over with, figuring it would be cheaper than buying more art. Theirs was a complex relationship.
Ship for Brains (Cruise Confidential 2) Page 29
