"Sampson gets a new partner then."
"Like having a brain tumor for a partner. You don't get rid of Wally. And he doesn't leave much behind when he's finished with you."
"That's exactly why I don't read the newspaper. It's full of Wally Bergson."
"I was there when Sampson talked to him," Sugar said. "I couldn't follow how they structured the arrangement, but Sampson was holding the phone with one hand and his nuts with the other."
"Bad sign."
"These people are amazing. The numbers they talk in. Fifty-eight million dollars. Call up a guy, make a deal on the phone. What's he do, run down to the ATM machine, draw out the fifty-eight? Or is it sitting around in a cookie jar? I mean, I'm waiting till Busch beer is on sale at the Winn-Dixie, it's still hard to make the mortgage payment, and there's Wally Bergson and Morton Sampson and all his pals, they can put their hands on money like that in a few hours."
"You wouldn't want that kind of money."
"I wouldn't kick it out of bed."
"Any of these people strike you as particularly happy?"
"Yeah, yeah, sure. But I'd do a better job spending it than they do." Sugar leaned forward, massaged his temples.
"By the way," Thorn said. "Have I thanked you lately for that Orvis fly reel you gave me?"
Sugarman turned his head, looked at him. "Christ, that was a century ago."
"I was cleaning it the other day. It's a beauty, Sugar. The best thing I own. Thank you."
Sugar patted him on the knee.
They ate in silence for a while. Thorn finished his third beer. No buzz. Just a dreary melancholy growing drearier with each sip. Pouring the numbing fluid on an already numb brain.
"Butler Jack has it rigged so we're supposed to ram this other ship, the Juggernaut. That's what you think?"
Sugarman blew out a breath. "Appears that way. Which would explain his little demonstration Sunday, showing us what he could do."
"But our man Murphy's on the job," Thorn said. "And even if he doesn't find the autopilot in time, Sampson's going to pay the money, so I guess we should just relax, enjoy the rest of our goddamn cruise."
Thorn brought the beer to his lips but couldn't drink. He set the bottle down beside Sugar's. Sugarman looked over at him, patted his arm.
"It's okay, man. Don't worry. She's safe. She's probably in her hotel ordering shrimp cocktail from room service, charging it to Daddy."
"Yeah," Thom said. "Let's imagine that."
"You and Monica, I take it you got to know each other?"
Thorn sighed. Couldn't hide a fucking thing from Sugarman.
"I mean, come on. It's pretty obvious, Thorn. I can see that thing you get in your eye. A little twitch of light."
"Twitch of light!"
"You didn't have it with Rochelle."
"Oh, Christ. Here we go."
"I like Monica. She's your basic woman."
"Basic. You like her because she's basic."
"Basic is good. It's simple, earthy. No bullshit."
"Your vote is tabulated."
Sugar let go of a long breath. "What if you're wrong, Thorn, and the fuckhead's not on board? What if Butler left in the lifeboats with the others?"
"He's not here, why the hell does he want the money delivered to the Sun Deck?"
"I been thinking about that."
Thorn swiveled around to see Sugarman's shadowy silhouette. "I think it's Lola."
"What?"
"I think Lola's in on it. In cahoots with him. Or maybe even running the whole show."
Thorn's heart added a couple of extra beats. "Lola and Butler? No way. Can't see it."
"We know there's somebody else. There has to be."
"But Lola? That's your anger talking, old buddy."
Sugar turned and gave Thorn a steady look, then shook his head. "McDaniels would've been on his guard with Sampson, anybody else. But he had a soft spot for Lola. Everybody does. So what if she distracted him, maybe came on to him or something, batted her eyelids at him, then yanked his knife away, took a couple of swipes, and while he was down, she let Butler out of his cell and he finished McDaniels off? That could explain it, the wounds, all of it."
"Jesus, Sugar. I mean, yeah, she's an ice queen. But stabbing McDaniels? No, I'd vote for Sampson."
"Sampson has no motivation. Nobody goes into business with Wally Bergson willingly."
"And what's her motive?"
"Same as always. Money and power. She gets a big chunk of change, then a year from now she divorces Sampson, gets herself a nice alimony settlement to boot, or maybe once she has the money she just disappears."
"She's got all the fucking money she could ever want right now. TV star, wife of a millionaire. I don't see it."
"But she has to work for that money. She has to be on call. She has to smile, make small talk, chat with Rafael every morning at nine."
"Yeah, well, that would do it for me. I don't think I could manage chatting with Rafael more than once a year."
"Lola's spent more than half her life working for Morton Sampson. And here she is, she's still working for him. Sure, she's well paid, but she's an employee."
The hot tub woman gave a giddy shriek and water splashed. Goosey, goosey.
"She's got the money," Sugar said. "But not the power. She may have personal power over Sampson. You can see that, the way he knuckles under to her. But he's still the one who writes the checks. She's on his payroll. On a higher level than before, but still punching the clock. Everything she has is because of him. And I don't think that sits well. I think she wants to be lying on an island somewhere, Bali, Tahiti, look out at the ocean, sip rum drinks. Be waited on. I think she's always wanted that. Thought her good looks entitled her to it."
"You've thought about this. You've given it some serious study. Lola, how she thinks."
"Okay, yeah, I have. And I think when Lola Jack went after Sampson, she must have known how hard the man worked. But what she didn't realize was how hard she was going to have to work too. She got a promotion, that's all. A guy like Sampson doesn't vacation in Bali. He doesn't lounge around, sip drinks. He works and then he works some more. He slaves his butt off every hour of the day. And I think what happened, when Lola finally got inside that world, it turned out to be a lot less fun than she thought. Found out she had to sing for her supper. And I don't think that's what she had in mind when she set her sights on Morton Sampson."
"This is your mother you're talking about."
Sugarman tore off a hunk of his sandwich, chewed it defiantly. Set his plate aside and held his Pilsner Urguell to his lips and slugged down half the bottle. When he was done, he backhanded his lips and turned his face to Thorn.
"I don't have a mother. I didn't have one for the last forty years, and I still don't. She's just another hustler working her con as far as I'm concerned. I used up my year's supply of compassion and understanding on Butler Jack. And that just about killed me."
"So Butler's escaped, he's in Nassau, that's going to be our operating theory?"
Sugarman leaned forward in his chair, forearms against his knees. His shoulders sagged as though the freight he'd carried for years was finally showing its crippling effects. Thorn had never considered it till now. That photograph Sugarman kept on his desk. Lola at nineteen, cigarette smoke curling past her eyes, a can of Schlitz in her hand, sitting on that ratty couch while she laughed at someone's joke. Probably Sugarman's father. But those eyes were somewhere else. Thorn had always thought she was haunted by dreadful memories, but maybe that wasn't it at all. Maybe her eyes were straying beyond the borders of the frame, longing for Morton Sampson or one of his kind, to rescue her, take her off to his mansion, the glossy life she'd only glimpsed on magazine pages or Sunday drives through the glamorous neighborhoods of Miami. The sad and vacuous American Dream. Rising up beyond her class, beyond her birthright. There had to be a way. Some way to get off that ratty couch. That was in her eyes then and it was still there, a harder, colder
version. Desperation. Her time ticking down.
Sugar said, "We have to watch our backs. We don't know for sure, Butler might still be aboard. But we have to keep one eye on Lola too. The money comes, Wally Bergson's money, it sits out there in plain view, and you watch, Lola's going to make something happen. Some kind of distraction, and we're going to take our eyes off of it for a half second, and that money's going to be gone."
"But it'll still be on the ship. Where's it going to go?"
Sugarman picked up his beer and bubbled the last of it down. "Hell, I don't know. She drops it overboard. It's got a radio transmitter on it. Some other high-tech James Bond bullshit. Then Butler comes in a boat, plucks it out of the ocean. Something like that."
"But we won't be distracted. We won't fall for it. We'll sit up here on the balcony, she goes for the money, we nab her."
"Yeah," Sugarman said. "We're too smart for her. We'll nail her."
"So what's wrong? What's eating you?"
He cleared his throat, sat up straight, slicked his hands across his close-cropped hair. Then he gave his forehead a couple of thumps with the heel of his hand as if trying to jar the water from his ear. "I don't know. I feel like I'm missing something. Like there's another aspect to this, something obvious, and I'm missing it."
"Shit, I feel like that all the time."
Sugarman sighed. "You would, Thorn. You would."
***
Booby. From the Spanish bobo, for idiot or moron. With some help from the Latin balbus, meaning stammering or stuttering. Also one of various sea birds related to the gannet. Booby hatch being the nautical term for a small companion or hatch cover. Something so small a bird could use it. Or booby prize, a reward given to the last-place finisher, something to mock the stupid loser. Or booby trap. A practical joke to catch the unwary. An apparently harmless, innocent device masking something quite dangerous. A trap that only a stupid person would fall for. Only a stuttering, stammering, bird brain of a person. Or boob, as in breast, that soft and succulent glob of fat that made men gurgle and stammer from the time they were babies till adulthood. Women. Booby prize. Pap, sap, booby trap.
Butler Jack sat in the lobby of the Hotel Sofitel on Paradise Island. He'd tucked his blond hair inside a wide-brimmed Panama. He had on narrow wraparounds, so dark he could barely see in the poor lighting of the lobby. He had changed into a pair of faded blue jeans and a black tennis shirt. About as nondescript as he could make himself.
He was off in a back corner of the lobby. The fronds of parlor palm shading him. Across the coffee table from him sat two Germans wearing Eclipse T-shirts. Man and woman in their fifties. They were badly sunburned and for the last half hour they'd been ordering rounds of drinks, charging it to their hotel room. They were smoking heavily and speaking German and seemed to be oblivious to him. Fine. That was fine, everything was fine. He was ashore. And he hadn't even had to make the evacuation call himself. Gavini had beat him to it. Fine. Good. It didn't matter who sent them scurrying, just so they did.
He was here now, nursing a Perrier, watching the passengers from the Eclipse trickling down from their rooms. Checked in, showered, maybe had a quick room service meal, now some of them were headed out to walk around the gardens, drink at the outdoor bar, watch the turtle races, join the limbo contest, exercise their luck in the casino. Fine. That was okay. Let them wander.
Butler closed his hand, looked down at his zapper. One of his replacement units. Holding his fingers out, he stared at the steel prongs inside the rubber tips. He could feel the tingle of power asleep in the batteries at his belt. A single touch. Four hundred thousand volts. A single devastating touch.
He was sitting on the leather couch with his sparkling water, feeling his balls throb and his nose too. Nose swollen, eyes growing dark circles. But even that was fine. Even that was no longer a problem. Everything was still on schedule, moving down the list. A little creative twist thrown in. His new number eleven. Sacrifice her. Yes, that was fine. Creative twists were fine. You couldn't expect to follow your schedule in lockstep. You had to remain flexible, be ready to adapt. And Butler had. Yes, indeed he had adapted. He was flexible. He should probably go out now, try the limbo contest. Flexible Butler, double-jointed Butler.
That's where he was now. Limbo. An intermediate state. The place where innocent souls waited their turn. From the Latin lim-bits, which was an ornamental border or fringe. That's where Butler was, on the fringe of the lobby, on the fringe of humankind, just on the border of heaven. That's where he was. Flexible Butler, in limboville.
Waiting for her to come down. Waiting for Monica to join her shipmates, wander the grounds, work off her nervous energy. Sitting in the lobby of the Hotel Sofitel. Thinking about booby traps, thinking about limbo, about number eleven. Sacrificing her. This woman who had betrayed him.
He would wait a little longer. He had time before his other appointments. It was nine o'clock. He had till ten-thirty to get out to the airport, then things would begin happening fast. Until then he would sit on the couch and feel his heart pound in his testicles, watch the Germans drink and smoke, watch them in their short pants and their heavy sandals with their bulging bellies. He would watch them until he could stand it no longer, then he would go up to room 416. Her room. Monica's. And be done with her. Sacrifice. A holy killing. An offering. As all of them had been. Sacrificium. A propitiation of sin. Cleansing her of David Cruz, returning her to innocence.
The Germans were staring at him oddly. Butler didn't know why but a lot of people did that. Always had. He looked back at them, but that didn't stop them. They just kept staring like he'd said out loud all the things racing through his brain.
He craned his head forward, gave them an even uglier look, but they kept staring. So he held his fingers up, V for victory. Something those bucketheads ought to understand. And he let the voltage crackle.
***
Was Monica running away again? She wasn't sure. Was she going to be a poster girl one more time? Definitely not that. This time she was damn certain Morton Sampson wouldn't have any posters printed. Wouldn't be offering any reward.
She showered again. She put on one of the new outfits she'd bought Saturday night. She didn't even remember picking it out. A red lightweight ravon crepe with button front and fitted bodice, thin shoulder straps. White stars printed in the red. Something bright, noticeable. A dress that could be spotted a few hundred yards away. In case Thorn was around, in case he'd come ashore in the last wave. In case he was looking for her.
She'd called down to the desk three times now, asked if a Mr. Thorn had registered yet. By the final time the operator recognized her voice, told her sadly, in an island patois, no, he was not yet arriving. I ring you the moment when he appears.
But the phone sat dead.
Like Monica. Only thing moving in the room was the floor. The rock of the ship buried in her muscles, her inner ear gyroscopes had been knocked cockeyed. She was getting seasick from being ashore. Sitting on the edge of the bed in front of the mirror watching herself sway, glancing over at the dead phone. She was feeling queasy.
Studying herself in the mirror to see if she could spot any changes. The assault she'd delivered to her father still echoed in her ears. The great disgorging of all that hurt. But now all she felt was vacant and ashamed. Frightened as well. Afraid that now she had nothing left inside her. A complete blank.
Perhaps Thorn was right. She'd made a religion of her discontent. She'd worshiped at the daily altar of her hate, made her tormenting memories into a mantra. She'd addicted herself to vexation and now there was not going to be an easy cure. A habit she had practiced and refined for twenty years was not going to be purged by a single morning's gushing. Even if it was in front of twenty million people.
Monica got up, made herself a vodka and tonic from the minibar. She went out on the balcony and drank the vodka solemnly and looked out at the blaze of red, green, and blue festival lights that were strung through the palms below. A group
of people were cheering by the enormous swimming pool. There was reggae coming from a thatched bar down by the beach.
She should have left Thorn a note.
She should have said something cheerful and flirtatious. He was someone she could imagine spending another hour or two with. Hadn't even been tempted to spring the trapdoor beneath his feet. But she hadn't left him a note because when she left the ship she hadn't known if she was running away again or not. She still didn't. Maybe she never would. Maybe the difference between running away and staying put wasn't as great as it had always seemed. You could be running away even when you were staying in one place. Or you could keep running and running and never get a single step away from what you were fleeing. She would have to play with that, consider it. Talk to Irma Slater about it.
The vodka was giving the palm trees a hazy shimmer. It was making her thoughts fly too quickly to be trapped in words. She should go downstairs, join the party. Give herself to the celebration. After all, she was wearing a red dress. She could easily be mistaken for a woman looking for fun. The way she felt right now, she might just turn into whoever she was mistaken for.
She took the elevator to the lobby, headed out a side door toward the grounds, the reggae, the festival lights. The vodka on an empty stomach was putting a fine mist on things, the sidewalk shifting slightly beneath her, sea legs becoming land legs. She recognized some of the other passengers at a long picnic table drinking frothy pink concoctions. She nodded their way and a couple of them smiled back at her. She saw something in their eyes. A little click of recognition and then saw their gazes shift in unison to something a few yards behind her.
Monica Sampson hesitated briefly, didn't turn. She considered running, screaming, but her lungs wouldn't fill. Her legs were woozy beneath her. She increased her pace, a whir of impressions, the manicured gardens, the festival lights, the reggae, the laughter, some whoops of gaiety down on the beach. Not looking back, not having to because now she'd heard it, that unearthly noise she'd come to recognize, the sputter of current arcing like a terrible blue wire between his fingers.
Buzz Cut Page 34
