Dreamboat

by Judith Gould

  “You need my good-luck necklace,” one of the men told Crissy.

  The young man looked so poor and ill-fed that she had to stop. “How much is that one?” she asked, pointing to a necklace of wooden beads with a small wooden disc hanging from it.

  “One dollar,” the young man replied.

  “Let me get it for you,” Luca said.

  “But I’ve got a dollar bill,” Crissy said, taking it out of her wallet. “I bet you don’t have anything but euros.” She paid the young man, and he thanked her profusely.

  They went on their way down the pier. “I’m not so sure that’s going to bring you good luck,” Luca said, watching her put the necklace in her shoulder bag.

  “I’m not, either,” she replied. “It doesn’t seem to have done much for him.”

  Luca led her through the down-at-the-heels town. Every building seemed to be on the verge of collapse, but they were very colorfully painted. The streets were filled with litter, and graffiti was on walls everywhere. Broken glass was embedded into the tops of walls, and windows were covered with iron bars. They walked up and down the blighted streets. Some of the buildings had once been beautiful, their architecture imposing. Peeking into a pharmacy, Crissy saw that it had once been magnificent, with heavily carved paneling and mosaic tile work.

  “It’s a pity to see all of this crumbling to pieces,” Crissy said, “and there seems to be a problem with crime.”

  Luca nodded. “It’s a very poor place. It used to be a Portuguese possession, and it was pretty much stripped bare of everything of value a long time ago. It was also used as a slave-trading center. That’s why nearly everyone is African. A handful of Portuguese own virtually everything.”

  “It’s so sad,” Crissy said, “because the island looks like it could be really beautiful.”

  “There are some nice beaches,” Luca said, “but it’s a pretty desolate place otherwise.”

  They reached a small, run-down town square. In the center was a concrete kiosk, outside which were two or three plastic tables with umbrellas. A sign advertised Coca-Cola. “Want a Coke before we go on?” Luca said. “We can have a seat and people-watch for a bit.”

  “Yes,” Crissy said, fascinated by the poor but colorful spectacle around her.

  Their Cokes were served in old-fashioned glass bottles, which she hadn’t seen in years, and they cost a nickel each. “I think I’ll move here,” she joked. As they drank their soda, they watched tall black women, carrying heavy baskets on their heads, walk in and around the square. Many of the baskets held vegetables and fruit.

  “They’re going to the market,” Luca said, “to sell what they can.”

  They finished their sodas and walked around the small square, looking into the shop windows. Almost without exception, they were owned and tended by Chinese immigrants who sold merchandise from China. Clothing, housewares, sports goods, toys—almost anything one could ask for was available, nearly all of it shoddy in quality.

  “This is amazing,” Crissy said. “Here on the other side of the world the Chinese own nearly all the stores and sell Chinese merchandise.”

  “It is amazing,” Luca agreed, “especially when you think that the Portuguese owned the place and its closest neighbor is Senegal.”

  They walked on for a long time, passing a church, where beggars sat on the steps, then on past a derelict-looking school. Eventually, they strolled into an entirely different neighborhood that was mere yards away but light-years in appearance. There was a large square filled with trees and flowers. Benches were arrayed around a fountain that was empty of water, and an ornate but empty kiosk sat at one end. The square was surrounded by beautifully maintained homes, apartment buildings, and a few office buildings with shops on the ground floor. There were a couple of art galleries and craft shops that sold goods made by islanders and small clothing and sporting goods stores.

  The day was heating up, and the humidity was stifling. “You want to stop for a glass of wine?” Luca asked. “Maybe something to eat?”

  “Yes,” Crissy replied. She hadn’t realized how far they’d walked, so interested had she been in the sights, depressing though many of them were.

  They went into a café along the square. It was very modern, thankfully air-conditioned, and paintings by local artists were hung on the walls. The owners were a very friendly Portuguese couple, who served wine that was made on their estate and simple chicken sandwiches on delicious homemade bread.

  Crissy broached the subject first. “What do you think will happen to Mark?” she asked Luca.

  Luca shook his head. “It’s hard to say. He’s committed a crime, of that there’s no doubt. But he’s also the son of a rich and powerful shipping line owner. I’m a little surprised that the captain is even keeping him in the brig.”

  “No!” Crissy exclaimed. “But . . . but—”

  “Crissy,” Luca said, “you shouldn’t be surprised. You know how most of the world works. If Mark was impoverished and couldn’t afford good lawyers, it might be easy to throw him behind bars for a long time. But Mark is filthy rich, his father has legions of lawyers working for him, and the captain’s livelihood depends on Georgios Vilos.”

  “I understand,” she replied. “It’s going to be very difficult to beat Mark in court.”

  “You bet it is,” Luca said. “They’ll try to crucify you. Knowing the way they work, they’d dig up ‘witnesses’ who are willing to testify that you will have sex with anybody. That sort of thing.”

  Crissy saw the truth in what he said. “But the captain? Do you really think he would side with the Viloses in a matter like this?”

  “I don’t know,” Luca replied. “But I do know that he loves his job, and that he would think long and hard before he put himself in a position to be fired from it. No only that, but he would be persona non gratia in the entire shipping industry. The Vilos family would see to that. He wouldn’t be able to get a job anywhere.”

  “I hadn’t thought about that,” Crissy said. “We’ll have to wait and see how it plays out.”

  When they had finished eating, they left the café. Hand in hand, the lovers walked back toward the dock. It was soon time to board the ship, so they went on ahead in order to beat the crowds who would be coming back from the excursion buses. Luca looked at his watch. “We depart in about thirty minutes,” he said. “Let me check with Voula and see what’s going on. If she’s not swamped, what about a quick . . . drink or something in my cabin?”

  Crissy saw the mischief in his eyes. “I’d love a drink . . . or something.”

  Luca called Voula, who told him that everything in the hospital was under control, so he and Crissy went directly to his cabin.

  “Welcome to my humble home,” he said, swinging the door wide.

  Crissy stepped in to see a cabin much like her own, except that on the desk there were framed photographs. She stepped over to look at them, and Luca joined her. “They’re on double-sided tape,” he said, “so they won’t get thrown off.”

  “That’s clever,” Crissy said.

  “It’s necessary,” he replied, “unless you want to have broken glass all over the place. That’s my parents,” he said, pointing to an elegant couple who appeared to be in their sixties. They were both tall and well-dressed, his mother fair and blond, his father a shade darker, with black hair. “And that’s me with Bocco, my old golden retriever. He died while I was in college. Isn’t he beautiful?”

  “You look so happy,” Crissy said. “And he looks like he’s smiling.”

  “He always smiled,” Luca said.

  “What does his name mean?”

  “Good for nothing,” Luca said with a laugh. “I called him that because when he was a puppy he was always jumping in the shower with me. Or the bathtub. He loved water.”

  “And those are my aunt and uncle and cousins at a wedding. She’s my father’s sister. Me, when I got my medical degree.”

  “I think you’re even better looking now,”
Crissy said, turning to him.

  He wrapped his arms around her and kissed her passionately. “Love does that,” he said.

  He quickly stripped off his uniform, then helped Crissy undress.

  “It’s the heat,” he said. “I think it makes me horny.”

  “Then maybe we should live in the tropics,” Crissy said.

  “I think so,” he said, taking her into his arms and kissing her deeply.

  They made love, quickly but passionately, their desire fed by their close proximity for the last few hours. When it was over, they were both covered with the sheen of sweat. “I would like to lick you clean,” Luca said.

  Crissy laughed. “I don’t think you have time.”

  “Maybe we should take time,” he replied.

  He was still inside her, and Crissy felt him becoming engorged again. She gasped and clung to him as he began slowly moving in and out of her, kissing her tenderly and gently stroking her. When they came, it was sudden and powerful and as one. She didn’t think she’d ever known such ecstacy before. Luca moaned as he flooded her with his seed, then held onto her tightly, as if he would never let her go.

  They heard the ship’s deep horn announcing its departure, and that was the signal that Luca needed to get back to the hospital. Although they couldn’t enjoy the afterglow of the lovemaking for long, they made plans to meet at the disco later.

  As Crissy walked back to her cabin to change clothes, she looked up at the funnel, discharging its dark smoke, which the wind immediately picked up and carried in an almost horizontal line behind them. She remembered that Luca had told her the trip from the Cape Verde Islands to Brazil would only take two days aboard the Sea Nymph, whereas it was often up to five days on most ships. She could hardly believe that she was on her way across the Atlantic to South America and the Amazon River. Glad she’d already eaten something, she decided to bypass lunch and go up to the pool deck and enjoy the sunshine. After two days of gray skies and rain, it would be a welcome change.

  In her cabin, she quickly showered and changed into a bathing suit, over which she wrapped and tied a long, colorful sarong. She was reaching for her handbag when she remembered the envelopes she’d taken from Mark’s cabin.

  Oh, my God! she thought. I can’t believe I forgot all about them. The near rape experience had been so frightening, the envelopes had been wiped from her thought. She dug deeper then, making certain that she retrieved all of them from the bottom of the bag where she had put them. They were most likely of no consequence now, she reasoned, but she decided to have a look. She looked at the plain white envelopes with Mark’s name in black ink on the front of each one, along with a date in the upper right-hand corner. His name and the date were written in block letters that looked almost childish.

  She opened the envelope with the earliest date and unfolded the note that it held. Suddenly she felt as if she were invading someone’s privacy. That’s exactly what I’m doing, she told herself. These notes are addressed to Mark. Yet there might be information that would be useful to the authorities.

  She opened the first one and began to read, noting that the notes were written in the same childish block letters that was used on the envelopes.

  Makelos,

  You must get off the ship at the next port of call. Don’t ask any questions, just do as I say. It is imperative that you get off as soon as possible. This is a situation beyond my control.

  Your Father

  Crissy read it again, then folded it back up and slipped it inside the envelope. Why disembark? she wondered. Was the message just a demand that Mark return home? Was his father simply being the suffocating parent that Mark had said he was? She didn’t know, of course, but she picked up the next envelope and opened it.

  Makelos,

  Get off that ship now. Disembark immediately. The port does not matter. This is a matter of life or death. Please, I beg you. Get off now.

  Your Father

  The man was nearly hysterical, Crissy thought, or he certainly gave that appearance. It didn’t make sense to her that his language would be as dramatic as it was if he was simply trying to lure his son back home. Was it really a matter of life or death, or was that just a ploy on his father’s part?

  Sighing with frustration, she opened the next envelope.

  My Son,

  I beg and plead with you to disembark. You can have anything you want after you do. I cannot emphasize enough that this is a matter of life or death. I am not playing games with you, Makelos. You must disembark at once. Your mother and I beseech you. Please.

  Your Father and Mother

  How odd, she thought. Makelos is suddenly “My Son,” and he’d also included Mark’s mother in his plea, while she’d been left out before. Well, maybe it wasn’t so odd. Was this a ploy to strengthen his argument? Maybe Mark had some affection for his mother that he didn’t have for his father. His initial demand had become a plea, his tone softer. Crissy put the message back in its envelope and opened the next one.

  Makelos, My Precious Son,

  Please believe me and your mother. You must get off the ship in São Vicente. This is your last chance. I beg you, your mother begs you. Anything is yours if you disembark in São Vicente. Please. It is your last chance to save yourself.

  Your Father and Mother

  Crissy knew, of course, that São Vicente was the town where they had just docked in the Cape Verde Islands, the Sea Nymph’s last stop. Why was that the last chance to save himself? she wondered. From what? Or whom? If Georgios Vilos wanted Mark to get off the ship so desperately, why didn’t he spell out the danger to him? She wondered if Vilos knew that his son couldn’t get off the ship now. He obviously hadn’t when he’d sent this message, but she was fairly certain that the captain had informed Vilos by now that Mark was locked in the brig.

  Crissy tapped the note against her chin, wondering what course of action she should take. I’ll have to go to the captain. No one else will do. And unfortunately, I’ll have to confess to him that I stole these notes from Mark’s cabin. He shouldn’t be too upset about that, she thought. After all, Mark did try to rape her, and she was trying to find out if he was the caller and if he’d torn up her underwear. She’d thought the notes might be helpful in discovering if he was the culprit.

  She placed all of the envelopes in her shoulder bag, carefully positioning them in the bottom again.

  She found the captain’s card and dialed his number. When a machine picked up, she left a message indicating that she had information about a possible emergency situation aboard the Sea Nymph and that she would be in her cabin waiting to hear from him.

  That done, she sat down on her bed, waiting for the telephone to ring. After nearly an hour during which she tried to read, she began to lose patience. She tried his number again, and again got his machine.

  At a knock on the cabin door, she went to answer it. Captain Papadapolis stood in the hallway, his perpetual smile in place. “Hello,” he said. “I’ve been trying to reach you for the longest time, but got no response. So I decided to come to your cabin and see what’s going on.”

  “But my telephone didn’t ring,” Crissy said.

  “May I come in?” he asked.

  “Oh, sorry,” she said, “of course.” She opened the door wide and stepped back out of his way.

  “Mind if I have a look at your telephone?” he asked.

  “No, of course not,” Crissy said.

  He went to the telephone, then let out a laugh. “The ringer is turned off,” he said.

  “But I didn’t turn it off,” Crissy replied.

  “Well, someone did,” the captain said. “No matter. It’s working now.” He turned to her. “Care to tell me what the emergency is, if there is one?”

  “First I have to tell you how I came by the information,” Crissy said in a serious voice. “When I suspected that Mark Vilos was making the telephone calls to me, I went to his stateroom for lunch. The day that he tried to rape me. When I got to
Mark’s, he wasn’t quite ready. He went back into the bedroom to finish dressing, and when he did, I took some messages from his desk. I’d seen them the first time I went there for dinner, and he said they were messages from his father. He wasn’t opening them, so I don’t know how he knew. But anyway, I thought maybe they might have information in them that would be useful as far as finding out whether or not he was making the calls. Do you know what I mean? I didn’t know whether they were really from his father or what. I thought he might be lying.” She paused and looked at the captain.

  The captain nodded. “Go on.”

  “Anyway, when he was out of the room, I took a few of them. There were a lot of them, and I picked a few from different parts of the stack. Then with everything that happened, I forgot all about them until this afternoon. I had them in my shoulder bag, so I got them out and read them.”

  Crissy extricated the messages from the bottom of her shoulder bag and handed them to the captain. “I think it’s best if you read them for yourself,” she said. “When I read these, I thought you should see them at once.”

  He took the envelopes from her and looked them over carefully.

  “They’re all dated,” she said, “and I read them from the earliest date to the latest. I felt like I was invading someone’s privacy, but I’m glad now that I did it.”

  “Well, I’ll do what you did, if you’ll bear with me,” he said. He took the earliest message out of its envelope and read it, then went through the others with increasing speed. By the time he had read the last one, the expression on his face had turned to one of concern.

  He looked up at Crissy. “I don’t know what to make of all this,” he said. “The question is, of course, whether or not there is any validity in what Georgios Vilos says at all. I know him quite well, and wouldn’t put anything past him. Georgios Vilos is obviously desperate to have Mark back home for whatever reason.”

  He smoothed his hair back at one side, lost in thought for a moment. “On the other hand,” he continued, “this is a bit extreme even for Georgios Vilos. I can tell you this much. After Mark attacked you, we found plastic explosives in his stateroom.”