13. The Man in the Sheets
The only consideration was getting as far away from the undertow as possible. The one thing in my favor was that the ocean had turned choppy and turbulent. As the cold water closed over me I threshed out violently, hands paddling like pistons. A welcome wave picked me up like a cork and deposited me some ten yards farther out. I came up sputtering, keeping my mouth closed, breathing through my nose. Swimming was no problem, I could always swim. But I couldn't stay afloat eternally in the middle of the cold, dark Atlantic, waiting for a friendly ship to pick me up. All that was on my stunned mind was the massive lighted stern of the Francesca moving away with what looked to me like express-train speed into the limitless expanse of the ocean. Mighty engines hummed smoothly. The great liner slid off cleanly now, leaving me in its churning wake.
It was but a twinkle away from becoming a memory.
With the waves washing over me and the night closing in, I did a dead man's float and worked the watch off my wrist. They'd confiscated the rest of my arsenal, but they'd left me my watch, the one that could be transformed into a hand grenade merely by stopping the sweep hand. I didn't know what good it was going to do, but when you hit the end of the road you try anything.
I tried.
I depressed the lever that set the train of fulminate of mercury in motion, and launched myself as high out of the water as I could. With my arm clear only for an instant, I hurled the watch out as far as I could. Then I submerged instantly, going under the mountainous waves, not waiting around to look. The water was as black as midnight. And cold.
The explosion reached me. A dull, far-off thud of sound like a barrel dropping into a hollow well. I surfaced rapidly, legs pedaling, arms flailing to stay afloat. I didn't fight the waves; I used them. That's the whole trick when you're in water way, way over your head.
The grenade watch had lit up the darkness of the night like a signal flare. The last bit of fusing explosive dimmed, but I hoped that for one flashing second it had made as large a sound as I needed. For a moment, the dark night had come alive with fire and flame.
I waited, pedaling in the water, watching the mighty shadow of the Francesca, ablaze with bordering lights from the thousand windows. It was like watching a floating city, all lit up like a Christmas tree. But the lights were getting smaller, and the water was getting even colder now. I began to feel the numbness settling in on my red blood corpuscles. I threshed faster. The sensation of doom lay heavy on me.
Bhudda and Gilda Tiger had kissed me off properly. One nosy detective lost at sea. Who would miss him? Who would care? Vivian Warren, maybe . . . Melissa Mercer—
The miracle happened.
Like something out of the Bible. As far away as the vessel had gone, maybe three nautical miles, I could hear the grinding and clanging of bells. The pounding engines stilled, then picked up again. The lights began to move once more. I looked on in awe at the slow, heart-stopping sight of the Francesca wheeling around, showing me her whole length. Then the outline foreshortened. The mighty funnels blasted a warning. The booming horns filled the air with music. Giant searchlights came on, glaring into the night like huge eyes. Powerful beams stabbed across the chopping waves, trying to pick me out.
I collected myself, feeling the cold water freezing into my bones. I floated dead-man style again, eyes focused skyward. The gibbous moon seemed close enough to touch. The stars looked down. I felt sleepy. I knew what was causing that—the temperature of the ocean. I fought it off. I shouted to clear my lungs, to be doing something, anything. It was a ridiculous night to drown.
It was a ridiculous way to live. Spying and eyeing. Right then, the idea of a martini and a warm bed held all the delights of a century of want for me.
I kept my eyes open. They were getting waterlogged and heavy. My arms were two anvils wanting to sink lower into the ocean. My feet dragged. All my joints were having difficulty bending. The freezing water was doing its damnedest to pull me down.
They tell me I never saw the nice white lifeboat with the men busily churning the oars. Or the searchlight that spotlighted me until they could reach me. Nor did I remember a second of the trip back to the Francesca's gangway, which was lowered to receive my trembling, freezing body. My teeth were chattering so badly they kept me just awake. I moved through the whole rescue scene half awake, half unconscious.
It had been a rough afternoon and evening for Mrs. Noon's little boy Edward.
I was a bit more coherent in the captain's private quarters. They stripped off my wet clothes, substituted some of theirs, and parked me in a mahogany captain's chair; the lights went round and round and pretty soon my teeth had slowed down to a cha-cha-cha. I looked up to see a small round-shouldered man with a moustache like Gambarelli's rolling my sleeve down and snapping the clasp on his little black bag.
Gambarelli the purser was not on hand. Just me, sitting in that chair and swamped with thick woolen blankets, the doctor, and the red-faced, hawk-nosed bald man. And two other officers. The braid, the brass buttons, and the expressions on their faces were overpowering. Everybody looked unhappy. Which was odd, considering they had just saved a poor soul's life.
"Basta," the little man with Gambarelli's moustache said. "I go to bed now. Signor Noon will be all right." With that, and with hardly a look at the three officers, he disappeared from the room.
"Feeling better?" The captain's hawk nose creased when he talked, as if it pointed at you. I nodded, trying to keep my teeth from making like castanets. I felt 90 percent better. Whatever the doctor had shot into my arm was taking hold.
"Thanks for s-saving my life."
He smiled, a cool smile. "We thought it best to bring you here. My cabin. Before you go back to yours, where I suggest you get a good night's sleep, I'd like your version of what happened out there."
I looked around the room. His quarters were highly polished. Deep-stained wood paneling. Orderly bookshelves. Seagoing artifacts lining the four walls. A sextant, serving as a paperweight, was holding down a stack of official-looking forms and papers.
"You're Captain Donelli? Rodericko Donelli?"
He frowned, considering that beside the point. "Yes," he snapped, "I am captain of the Francesca. This is my First Mate Frito, and Junior Ship's Officer Castello. They brought you in."
He paused. "You nearly drowned. And you learned how cold the Atlantic can be. Now tell us what happened. I have a log to fill, and I have to explain stopping an ocean liner in the middle of nowhere, using up necessary fuel and supplies."
"Yeah." I wasn't going to blow the whistle on my playful friends. "What can I say? I fell overboard."
"Is that all?"
"I went out to the rail for some fresh air. I was feeling dizzy—that's all I remember."
One of the two younger officers snorted, I couldn't blame him. He had probably smelled sour mash on my clothes when he was undressing me.
Captain Donelli, who had no accent at all, rubbed his hands across his red face. "You're more lucky than sensible. I won't ask you how you can fall over a ship's railing—unless you were skylarking or walking along it to please a lady. Well, all right. There's nothing else to say, I suppose, unless you care to change your story."
As cold as I was and as grateful, I showed him my teeth. "I'd rather have a good stiff drink than pretend that I heard that last remark, Captain."
His face went stony cold for a second; then he relaxed, jerking his head at one of his subordinates. I heard one of them grumblingly start pouring a drink.
"Will you drink Chianti?"
"Manna from heaven right now."
First Mate Frito or Junior Ship's Officer Castello, I don't know which, handed me a tall tumbler of red Chianti. I gulped it down, letting it vitalize me, recharge my engine. It felt at once like a blanket of peace and a roaring fire. My nose sneezed. I didn't have a thing to do with it.
"You're the luckiest casualty I ever heard of," Captain Donelli continued slowly, watching me drink. "Do you kno
w what the odds are on getting picked up at sea when you fall overboard like that? About ten million to one. You could have frozen to death first."
"Don't remind me. Why did you stop—forgive me, I mean how did you know you'd lost a passenger?"
His eyes were faintly amazed, as if he weren't quite sure I was real. That made two of us.
"I was at the stern talking to some passengers. We heard an explosion and saw a bright red light like a flare toward the wake of the ship. Which was when Surat Singh came running, telling us he had seen you fall overboard. That was lucky, wouldn't you say?"
"I would say." There was nothing else I could say.
"What about the explosion, Mr. Noon?"
"What explosion?" I asked. "I was too busy trying to keep from drowning."
He nodded brusquely, stood up. placed his peaked captain's hat on his broad head. "One of these gentlemen will see you back to your cabin. We managed to keep most of the passengers from knowing what has happened. Bound to be talk tomorrow. I leave it to your own discretion if you wish it to be known whose life was saved."
"Thanks. I can manage back to my stateroom alone now." I stood up, too, stepping out of the blankets to show him I was okay.
"Yes, I suppose you can," he said impassively. "Good night, Mr. Noon,"
"Good night, Captain."
I left them all with that, walking as steadily as a drunk on the wagon. It was tough going, but I managed. The one thing that made it easy to do was the priceless item that had been handed back to me free of charge.
The right to go on breathing.
As I turned into the corridor leading to the passageway that housed my stateroom. I saw Surat Singh. He was poised at the railing, the Ghandi covering obscuring his tall, thin body. He stood like some prophet contemplating the night and the stars. He was alone. A man in a sheet, embracing the wonders of God's making. There was a hushed, reverent aura about his long body. But thanks are thanks in any man's language or country.
I lurched over to his side, tapping him gently on his toga. The body turned. Coal-black eyes, caste mark like a mole on the lofty brow, white teeth: an enigma of a face. Small wonder that he had baffled half the politicians in the United Nations and the heads of a dozen countries.
"Mr. Singh?"
The lips parted in a smileless smile. "Yes, Mr. Noon?"
"I wanted to thank you for what you did. I'd be deader than a lonely mackerel out there right now if it wasn't for your kindness."
"You have no need to thank me, sir."
"Well, I feel I do. Thanks very much. I'll save you from drowning some time."
Surat Singh bowed slightly. "It was not your time yet, Mr. Noon. It is as simple as that."
"Oh?" He was losing me.
"Yes. When your time comes to die, it will not have to be arranged or manipulated. It is preordained."
"Ah. Good night, Surat Singh."
"Good night, Mr. Noon."
I felt cold again. I nearly ran into my stateroom. Locking the door, I flung myself down on the bed. For one long full luxurious moment I reveled in the downy feel of the blankets, the warm pillows beneath my head. I took deep, gulping breaths of fresh air. The Chianti churned in my stomach. I closed my eyes, not bothering to turn on any lights. The moonlight washed in through the portholes. I'd had enough ocean for a lifetime. I might never go to Coney Island again, I might waste all my life in warm beds with warmer girls.
Girls.
That brought Gilda Tiger back. And Bhudda. Only Miss Tiger was no girl. She was all bitch, 100 percent vulture. As for Bhudda, I was going to jump on his stomach with both feet until he hollered Uncle.
Meanwhile, while all the commotion and shouting were going on, what had happened to Henry and Esme Hallmark? And Richards and Barroni? And Jack and Vivian Warren? And the dear Mendelmans, George and overdressed wife?
Of course, it had been late. They all might have been in bed fast asleep. But I didn't think so, and it bugged me a little to realize again that it is indeed a lonely world, and that you damn well better take care of you and yours because nobody else will. And what about Tom Faulkner—why hadn't that curious, suspicious, efficient so-and-so come running to see what all the excitement was about?
I felt unloved, unwanted, and decidedly lonely. If Vivian Warren had come around to say good night, I would have dragged her into bed with me, Jack or no Jack.
In that lovely misanthropic mood. I fell asleep.
It was the first time that day that I had done so of my own free will.
14. Halfway to Doom
There was no sunshine when I woke up in the morning. I came out of a deep sleep, still yawning. The utter comfort of the bed hud drugged my battered body. A quick look through the portholes showed a gray, argumentative sky. No sun, just slate-colored heavens. The waves were choppier than ever, and building high kingdoms in the ocean. It looked grim.
I took a healing shower, shaved, and dressed. I didn't feel like going into the breakfast lounge to be stared at. No telling how much of a commotion I had caused with my night dip. It was a little nettling that no one had come around inquiring after my good health. I thought a lot about that as I dressed. I put on a gray tweed suit with two-button jacket, suede loafers, and skipped the tie. My black turtleneck shirt felt good next to my skin.
My arsenal had been sadly depleted. I wondered what Gilda Tiger had done with my weapons. Maybe she collected them the same way big-game hunters collected trophies for their den rooms. I reminded myself to ask her the next time I saw her.
I had no reserve watch, so I had little idea of the time. I gauged it as maybe nine thirty or so. I didn't bother to call on the bedside telephone to find out. I had things to do. In a hurry.
When I locked the stateroom door, I found E deck fairly deserted. I saw a uniformed sailor adjusting the tarpaulin of the huge lifeboat positioned along the railing. I walked on by him, nodding. He nodded back, smiling wide. It was a polite crew. The passenger was always right, even when he was dead wrong. Luxury liners are like that.
At midships I cut into the passageway. The corridors were elegantly modeled, handsomely tiled, and lined with plush chairs and smoking stands. I found an elevator that would take me down to the main foyer of the Francesca. By that time I had discovered it was actually ten fifteen. The breakfast hour was in full swing, and few passengers were about.
There was another couple in the elevator. Young, happy, having the time of their lives. The way they held onto each other reminded me of the Warrens. I buried myself behind a Camel and didn't invite conversation.
Somewhere on the ship soft music filtered, suddenly broken by a radio announcement. It was incredible, really. You never heard the mighty engines of the Francesca or any of the machinery that made her go, which was why the illusion of being in a floating city persisted.
The main foyer was an underground complex in itself. As large as a parking lot in New Jersey with the supermarket just behind. They had everything on the Francesca. A cigar store, a bookshop, a chic woman's shop, a haberdashery shop, and glass cases filled with things you might want to buy. They also had a long row of ship-to-shore telephones. You could call any part of the world from the middle of the Atlantic. The calls were controlled by a scrambler device, too, just like in spy work, without your even asking for such secrecy. No unauthorized person could intercept the call. You paid your money and took your choice.
I wasn't going to call the Chief. I felt like talking to Melissa Mercer. By mean reckoning, it ought to be about mid-afternoon in New York town.
"Nearly six miles of carpet," a kid's excited voice babbled behind me. "They clean it every day, too,, with vacuum cleaners. And look, it says there are ten million rivets used in the construction. Wow!"
"Yes, it's a fine big boat," an elderly lady's voice agreed. "Jim, watch where you're going!"
"Oh . . . sorry, sir—" The towheaded teen-ager, bright-eyed and alive, with the text of the Francesca in his fingers, smiled, embarrassed. I grinned at
him and his mother or aunt or whoever she was.
"Look up the anchor," I suggested seriously. "We have two of them, and they weigh about sixteen tons apiece."
The woman, in floppy hat and print dress, nodded happily. "His first trip. He just can't get over it."
"I may not either."
They pushed on, the kid looking back grinning, his relative urging him toward the woman's shop. I started for the phones and ran smack into Richards, who had a long panatela jammed into his grim passer.
"Heard you went for a swim last night."
"You heard right,"
"Intentional or otherwise?"
"Intentionally. I often jump into the Atlantic for a dip. I'm busy, Richards. See you around."
He hooked my elbow as I tried to go by. Nicely, easily, without any giveaway. Anyone looking on would have thought an old friend was just jollying another old friend.
"Take it easy. We're on the same side, remember? Wasn't that the deal?"
"Aren't you lonely without Barroni? You'll catch cold all by yourself. Oh, I forgot. Somebody has to look after dear Henry."
He frowned, the hand holding the cigar stiffening. His eyes were surprised. But he let go of my arm. "Don't race your motor. I know what a rotten mood it can put you in when someone tries to kill you. I wish you'd tell me who it was. You'd narrow the field for me. Then I'll know who to look out for, too. You want me to guess? You said you had a date with Tiger."
I liked him for that. I relaxed, realizing I had been showing my teeth. And nerves. I was getting edgy in my old age.
"Yeah. Tiger. She thinks I was sicked on her by one of her ex-husbands. So she tried to dump me. But I don't want to do anything about it just yet. Nothing official. I'm one up on her, and I can use it to good advantage."
He blinked owlishly. "You're crazy. Dame tries to kill you, turn her in and throw the key away."
"Now wouldn't I have a helluva time proving anything on her? Be yourself. I have no witnesses."
He frowned, blowing a smoke ring.
"That's right," I added. "No witnesses. My word against hers. So excuse me, I'll see you later."
Assassins Don't Die in Bed Page 10
