—Plucking oyster goo from her choker, Ursula turned her head. And screamed again. Through the yellow gloom, Fionnuala Flood was brandishing a broken bottle, shards racing toward her neck. Her eyes were dancing with delight. Visions of all sorts of pub brawls from her youth sprung to Ursula's mind. Her sitting in the nook with a gin and tonic, Fionnuala, Paddy's new squeeze, center stage, broken bottle in her hand, spewing drunken abuse at all around her.
“Fionnuala!” Ursula gasped, fingers clutching the little of her neck exposed through the choker and necklace. “Here to murder me in cold blood!”
“Och, ye’re talking out yer arse! Wise up, would ye?”
The sneer of her voice was like a stab in Ursula's heart. As the black woman was dragged away by one of the security guards, Slim's hand grabbed for the bottle. Fionnuala smacked it to the side.
“What...what are ye doing here on the ship...?” Ursula gasped, shuddering in shock and fear. Nothing, not even Casino Woman or a sinking ship, was worse than Fionnuala standing before her, sneering into her face.
“Eat yer own shite, you!” the sneering face spat.
“Ladies! Ladies!” Yootha said, but her voice of reason was drowned by their madness.
“That woman's trying to murder me!” Ursula appealed.
“I think we have more important things—” The woman with the hard hair, Ursula guessed she was some sort of ship official, took a startled look up and down her body.
“She be's a thieving, conniving creature, and now she's moved on to murder!” Ursula sputtered.
“Aye, and ye're a sleekit, pence-snatching, Lady of the Manor, nose in the air so the rain'll drown ye, face like a bulldog licking piss offa nettle fecking bloody slapper of a cunt!”
“I'm not gonny sit here and let the likes of her insult me!”
“Would ye feel better if ye stood?”
To Ursula's shock, the ship official was pointing at her, accusation flashing in her eyes.
“You! You're the one who's been nicking all the jewels from the cabins!” Ursula clutched at the scarabs, little animals jingling around her wrist. They were pulled from her. Clips and pins and clasps popped and sprung open. “Security!” The woman turned to the remaining guard, who had been chuckling as much as Fionnuala now did. “Take this criminal down to the brig! Now!”
As Slim tried to pry his body from the seat and protest, as Ursula was hauled with a rough hand through the increasingly muggy darkness of moaning, food-spattered passengers, Fionnuaula threw back her head and roared with laughter.
CHAPTER 37—TWENTY MINUTES EARLIER
“I WANT YOU GUYS TO tell me more about all this, this plan of yours,” Jed said, clutching the money to his chest. Agent Matcham and Nigel flanked him as they made their way through the slots towards the poker room. “Or am I supposed to say our plan? How exactly is winning this poker game going to make that woman hand over this red mercury to you? And she seems strange to be a terrorist. I don't understand. Can it really be true? And what the hell is red mercury again? I seem to remember something about it from the tv, some show I watched, about it not being real. Some sort of hoax...I've been thinking about it since you told me...”
“Don't worry yourself about that,” Agent Matcham said. “All in good time. All will be revealed. You must put all these questions to the back of your mind and focus on the task at hand.”
“For a junior agent,” Nigel snarled, “you're one inquisitive bastard.”
“Nigel,” Agent Matcham tutted. “Manners, please.”
They reached the poker room. But the Britney terrorist was gone. The two horny men were still there, hovering next to a cocktail waitress whose eyes were dancing for tips.
“Great,” Jed said. “Now I can leave. I need to get to this dinner. My wife's gonna kill me.”
“And MI-6 won't?” Nigel countered. “Insubordination!”
Agent Matcham smiled gaily at Jed.
“Would you please excuse me?”
She grappled Nigel by his collar and hauled him around the corner. Jed heard her hissing and Nigel whining, but couldn't make out what they were saying. Her briefcase leaned against a leg of the poker table. The players were paying him no attention. As if it were the most natural thing in the world, Jed hunched down, placed the pile of money on a hardened patch of the carpet, the remnants of sick, he supposed. He moved the bills to a cleaner spot. He clicked the briefcase open. He stared inside the leather-lined depths. There were a few manila folders, empty he saw, her notebook, the latest issue of Hello! celebrity gossip magazine, and a breath mint. He snapped it shut and leaned it back on the leg. He grabbed his and Ursula's nest egg again and held it tight.
His fevered thoughts were interrupted by Britney staggering through the door. From her half-zipped Daisy Dukes, she had apparently been on a comfort break. She toppled into her seat to the left of the dealer, the men surrounded her again, and seconds later Agent Matcham and Nigel reemerged. There was something strange about them now. They were staring so eagerly at the hefty pile of bills clutched in his sweaty hand, Jed half-expected to see drool. They gave him looks which said, “Well...?” Nigel twitched with menace, fists curled. Agent Matcham gave him her best 'bad boys get spanked' look. They blocked the door.
Jed moved reluctantly to an empty seat at the table beside Britney. He sat down. Nigel sat three chairs down. They waited for the game to play out. Britney, Jed noticed, was still winning. She must have thousands in chips before her. Jed wondered about the contents of Agent Matcham's briefcase. She carried it as though it held For Her Eyes Only files, yet... Perhaps the confidential files were locked in a safe in their cabin. The game was over. The man next to Jed won the pot. It looked like a few hundred dollars. He felt Agent Matcham behind his back. She gave him a little nudge between the shoulder blades. Biting his lower lip, Jed slid the piles of cash across the green felt.
“I'd like...um...”
“Hundred dollar chips,” Agent Matcham instructed the dealer. “This is the high limits poker area, after all.”
The dealer's eyes flickered towards the pit boss. Jed wondered it this were a strangely large amount of money to play at this table. Perhaps not in Vegas or Monaco, but considering the detritus of humanity slumped at the chairs around him, he supposed so. But the pit boss gave a subtle nod. Jed watch his and Ursula's security for their twilight years disappear into the little slot in the table, shoved in with a grunt. Well...the British government would soon be paying him back, along with his regular MI-6 salary. Wouldn't they...?
The chips slid across the table. Nigel changed a few hundred dollars into chips, and then the deal began.
Aware of Agent Matcham's breath on his neck, Jed looked at his hand. He felt her eyes inspecting the cards also. A two, a five, two sixes and the ace of hearts. Britney changed a card. Jed threw the two and the five face down across the table. The dealer tossed over two new cards. Jed slid them across the table and peeked at them from the top. The ace of spades and the ace of clubs! A full house! Again! Agent Matcham's excited pants were like an asthmatic perched on his collar. Jed swallowed a yelp.
Nigel changed three cards. He scooped up his new ones and jittered and squirmed in his seat, the buttons straining the shiny brown of his suit jacket.
“I bet two hundred dollars,” Britney said.
She pressed her chips into the center of the table. Agent Matcham ran her fingers across Jed's shoulders and massaged gently. His head shot around for the cocktail waitress, but she was gone. One of Britney's posse leaned over and covered the woman's breasts with slobbery kisses. She squealed and jerked, and Jed caught a glimpse of the cards clutched in her writhing fingers. He was barely aware of four of them, but saw clearly the ace of diamonds. There were none left for the other players.
He jolted as Agent's Matcham's lips pressed against his ear. “Bet it all,” she hissed into it. “For a free world.”
She must have seen Britney's ace as well. He grappled the tops of his little piles of chi
ps with his fingertips. His heart raced. Agent Matcham's fingernails bit into the flesh of his back. He gulped.
“I...I'll match the bid,” Jed said. “And...I'll raise...$24,800.”
There were gasps all around the table.
The dealer cleared his throat. If he thought Jed insane, his week of training didn't make him show it. “For an even $25,000,” the dealer clarified.
“Too rich for me,” said the man to the left of Jed.
“I'm out too,” said the man to his left.
At least, thought Jed, staring mournfully at his chips now so far away on the green felt surface of the table, that snide little shit, Nigel, would be out of the game, what with the piddling few hundred he had left.
Nigel's manic sneer shot across the table. He banged on the edge of the table with quick slaps like a hep cat hopped up on pep pills.
“I'll...” he said, “I'll...” He shot a look above Jed's cowboy hat at Agent Matcham and motioned for her to come over. “Get over here, mum.”
The gasp from Agent Matcham was as surprised as Jed felt; this was a new development to the mission, letting the mark think they were mother and son. But, Jed supposed, they did need alternate personalities.
As Nigel tsked his impatience, she moved from Jed to Nigel.
“Give me your watch. Come on, come on, then!” Agent Matcham began to unshackle her Cartier watch from her wrist. Nigel snatched it off and dangled it under the light of the table.
“I'd like to use this watch as collateral,” Nigel announced to the dealer. “It's worth $25,000 at least. Diamond studded, as you see.”
Jed eyes bulged, and the dealer's eyes shot towards the pit boss. The pit boss seemed to consider, but then gave a barely perceptible nod.
“Most unusual,” said the dealer, taking the watch and placing it beside the chips that towered around him. “But if there are no objections...?”
There were shakes of the head all around the table, including Jed in his shock. Britney shook hers as well, though she seemed not to know what was happening. The men whispered animatedly into her ear and she began a furious counting of her chips with a chipped fingernail. Nigel giggled like a mental patient as the dealer placed the necklace on top of the chips in the middle of the table.
“I'm in,” Nigel said, nodding at the necklace. He turned to Jed, “$25,000.” He smiled at all.
They all started as Britney squealed with excitement. “I got it! I got $25,000 here too! Count me in! Weeoh-yahoooo!”
She threw her chips to the table and did the dancing-in-her-seat-with-her-arms-held-out-and her-elbows-thrusting-from-side-to-side. Her breasts hung unaffected.
The dealer eyed Jed. Jed shook his head. He couldn't raise any more. He had no money left. At all in the world. Until that transfer from the Queen... Agent Matcham's massage was now like talons piercing his back.
Jed slipped his eyes to the lefts of their sockets to see Nigel's nods, though he knew the deal by now. Nigel's overly-gelled head began its journey up and down. One, two, three...
So Britney was winning it all. Jed was a man resigned. His heart was racing so quickly, he feared medical assistance.
...four, five!
Jed's brain froze. Nigel must win. Something clicked in that frozen brain, like a crack in the ice. Under his cowboy hat, Jed's thoughts did gymnastics as he struggled to comprehend why his subconscious knew that Nigel would want to win this hand. Why, when Nigel had called her 'mum,' it had seemed natural. Why the woman clawing his back only had a breath mint in her secret aluminum government briefcase. Why he knew that Cartier was a fake. Just as fake as Agent Matcham and junior agent Nigel. Jed ground his molars. He threw his cards on the table. Face up.
“Full house!” he said.
Agent Matcham and Nigel gasped. Jed reached across and trailed the cards out of Nigel's slimy fingers.
“A two, a four, a six, an eight and a Jack. Jack shit!” Jed roared.
The cards fell from Britney's fingers. The ace, a five and three tens. They were no match for Jed's full house.
Jed roared, thrust his hands around the chips and watch and raced from the table.
“Our mission, we—!” Agent Matcham gasped.
Jed threw open her briefcase, spilled the loot inside, snapped it shut, and raced out of the poker room.
“You daft cunt!” he heard Nigel roar, but soon all he heard was the ringing of the slots as he raced through them.
Jed's feet pounded on the floor, briefcase banging against his thigh, but then there was no floor. He toppled into a slot as the ship thrust to the left and screams rang out around him. He was vaguely aware of the ship shuddering as if it had just been electrocuted, the walls crackling, but he kept thrusting his feet one in front of the other. He shoved past teetering, shrieking bodies and found himself in the hallway.
He stared around wildly for the elevator. It was probably the last amenity he should be using, the state the ship was in now, but he certainly wasn't going to tackle the stairs. He raced towards it and glanced back. The two thugs were fifty feet behind him. Agent Matcham's speed belied her age as, Jed feverishly thought, did his. His heart felt like it would thrust from his breastplate as he pounded on the button. The door pinged open at once. Jed heaved exhausted pants, the sweat lashing from his hat as the elevator seemed to crawl to the main deck. But at least it was functioning as it should, though the lights flickered and went dim. The door creaked open. He squealed at Nigel, bent over, hands on knees, wiping his brow. The enraged face, three slick hairs disheveled, dissolved into a malevolent grin.
“It's all over, pensioner!”
Jed hefted the briefcase in the air and smacked the snide shit-eating grin off his face. Nigel toppled to the floor with a groan. Jed felt his foot shoot forward and land with a satisfying splat in the depths of the little bastard's well-ironed groin.
As squeals of a tortured pig rang in Jed's ears, Agent Matcham appeared from the emergency stairs door, flush with exertion and anger. Her hands flew to her cheeks, disbelieving shock, Jed thought, at the sight of Nigel writhing on the floor. And that noise coming from his mouth! Could a human really emit—? But Jed realized it was alarms or sirens or both, filling the air with an urgency that set his teeth on edge.
There was a roar of hundreds behind Agent Matcham. Jed couldn't comprehend what his eyes were seeing. Hordes of EconoLux staff—he knew from the uniforms—were marching and cursing and swaggering mob-like down the shuddering hall, mops and brooms and strange kitchen-type things brandished like pitchforks, smashing the windows of the upmarket stores that lined the main hall.
His brain didn't have time to understand. Agent Matcham was now flinging herself towards him, her posh mask of intelligence and refinement sliding down her neck to reveal a shrieking shrew.
“You bastard! You horrid, horrid bastard! That's our money!”
The briefcase clutched to his heaving chest, Jed feverishly followed the signs that pointed to the gangway meters away. He was relieved to see the gangway was down. They had docked!
He glanced around and saw the woman wailing as she tried to extract the youthful offender's limbs from the mob of feet that enveloped them and trampled on top of his screaming body. Jed ran onto Puerto Rico. Behind him, the woman pried the young man from the floor and whoever the hell they were raced after him.
CHAPTER 38
“HALLELUJAH!” AQUANETTA bellowed, her talons launched towards the heavens. “Lemme at them Channel bags! Thank you, sweet Lord Jesus!”
She didn't even mind that two of her nails had been broken by the security guard when he hauled her screaming mass from the dining room. As he had marched her past the dining room door to dump her in the brig, the mob in the hallway overran them. The guard's fingers had slipped from Aquanetta's bulging bicep. He had been torn from her as the sirens and alarms rang out, his hands, clutching at the air as if in the throes of drowning, disappearing through the charging, chanting masses.
Aquanetta had been thrown to
the floor, screamed as another nail shattered and, brushing off the footmarks, hauled her mass up.
“What the hell?”
Aquanetta looked around and, as a standing ashtray was thrown through the Apple store window and gangs of workers poured through the shards, whooping, she hooted and praised the Heavenly Father. He had indeed pried open the pearly gates for the meek and huddled lumpen masses of the earth, the disadvantaged, the poor, the pearly gates of Prada, Gucci and Fendi, and Burberry, Coach and Chanel too, that lined the tony main passageway of the Queen of Crabs, showplace of the supposed luxury of the cruise liner. The trampled were doing the trampling now, trampling over any rich white, honkey, passenger that stood in their way, she now saw and, oh, but black ones and Asian too, for those with a bank balance were traitors no matter what the color of their skin. Anyone not in uniform. Except the hated security guards. They were equal opportunity tramplers. And their long-simmering rage was exploding in shattered store windows and hands grabbing only for items with price tags of three figures or more. At long last! Hallelujah! Amen!
Aquanetta's mouth, without her bidding, started chanting into the shrieking bodies around her, “Free Rodney King! Free Rodney King!” at nobody and everybody.
A guy from the engine room grabbed her hands, his eyeballs bouncing with joy, an X-Box under one arm, Nikes under the other, his face stretched with rage. “Been kept down by the Man too long,” he babbled into her face. “It started with us in the engine room. Low pay, long hours. Fuck that shit! Some rioting going on.” He giggled. “And some looting too! These Lebron X Nikes. Go for 30 grand a pop! Get you some!” He raced past the Apple store melée, down the dank, smokey hallway through a cacophony of elbows and arms and flying bodies. Aquanetta supposed he already had an iPad. But she didn't.
The Irish Lottery Series Box Set (1-3) Page 91
