High Seas Drifter (Cruise Confidential 4)

by Brian David Bruns

  "Did you know that under Wind Star's main mast is a U.S. silver dollar from 1889?" Ardin asked. "That's an old shipbuilding tradition. I'm impressed they remembered, considering it was the first tall ship built in two generations."

  "How on Earth do you know that?" I asked.

  "I'd imagine the same way you knew about Napoleon's penis," Ardin said. Then he mused, "I wonder if Surf has one, too."

  "No, ships are girls."

  Ardin wisely ignored my dick joke.

  Surf slowed to allow Star to pull up along side. Both sisters slipped into the harbor of Portoferriao, side by side and sails full, with nary a dozen feet between. Together they passed the ancient city, dazzling the locals observing from shore. Old men watched silently, sitting heavily on benches, whereas boys squawked like birds atop stone walls clambered upon for a better view. Both ships loosed blasts from their air horns in greeting. The blares bounced off the flanks of Elba in sodden echoes. The unexpected baritones brought even more people out to look. Excitement was in the air.

  The closest point of contact between the ships, the wings of both bridges, slid ever closer to each other. Suddenly two lone, white-clad officers stepped out onto the respective wings. Closer, ever closer, then closer still, they came. Had their bridges been on comparable decks the captains could have shaken hands. Alas, Wind Star's bridge wing was thirty feet above the waterline and Wind Surf's closer to forty. The captain of the Star looked up stiffly as his counterpart on Surf looked down. As one, they saluted each other. Cameras bristled. Cheers sounded. I yawned.

  The captains then disappeared back into their vessels and readied to dock. Surf, having arrived first, once again pulled ahead and led the way. As the ships turned, the still-rising sun decided to enter the play. The silhouette of Surf's sails projected onto Star's, shadow upon white, triangle upon triangle.

  Ardin raced off to capture the moment, leaving me to ponder whether or not I was impressed by any of it. No doubt alone of the thousand combined souls on the two ships, I was not. I was mentally and emotionally done with ships—certainly done with this one even before I started.

  A renewed flash of officer's whites upon the bridge wing caught my eye. I recognized the strong build of Barney. At least my sense of humor wasn't completely gone: meeting Barney a few days ago still brought a chuckle. It had been the strangest meeting of an officer in my three years at sea.

  It had not begun with Barney, however, but rather a bratty youth named Jeff. He was the departing art auctioneer I was sent to replace on über-short notice. It had not been an auspicious beginning. Indeed, it had the distinction of being the shortest handover in my company's history.

  I had signed on in Pireaus, the port of Athens. Before both my feet had left the metal gangway at the waterline, Jeff had already cajoled the security guard into handing him my luggage to expedite things. So encumbered, he was not able to accept the handshake I offered. Jeff's sunburned face flushed under the load of my baggage—he was a small man—but he managed to excitedly wheeze, "I'll show you your cabin."

  Without a further word he rushed down the corridor, knocking my garment bag upon each and every door along the way. A dozen heads popped into the corridor, looking about in confusion. I felt naughty as a flock of children knocking on neighborhood doors and fleeing. We descended one deck and strode a mere hundred feet before he stopped up short. In one hurried motion he unlocked a door, dropped my bags within, closed the door, and resumed his 'tour' of the ship. Seconds later we were on the main deck beside the ship's small casino. Jeff nodded to a set of metal double doors even as he dropped keys into my palm.

  "There," he panted. "Most of the art's in there. Some's in your cabin. Supplies are in a hidden locker by the central stairs. You'll find it. I'm outa here!"

  Jeff skipped away. I was so surprised, and he so fast, he crossed half the lounge before I called after him.

  "What?" I shouted. "You're leaving? I just got here!"

  "Small ship," he called back, only half turning to answer. "Go to the bridge for your paperwork."

  He resumed his departure.

  "We haven't done the inventory," I reminded him. "We haven't done the handover documents. We haven't done anything!"

  "Sundance can stick it up their ass!" he screamed back. An elderly couple relaxing in a nearby booth nearly tumbled out of their seats in surprise.

  "Hey!" I reprimanded angrily, striding across the lounge to catch him. "What's the matter with you?"

  Jeff retreated with an almost pathological desire for escape. I caught up to him, grabbed his arm, and demanded again, "What's the matter with you?"

  "I hate this job and I hate this ship!" he snapped, wiggling free of my grip. "Put whatever you want on the handover report, 'cause I quit!"

  I said nothing, knowing well how the stress of the job caused art auctioneers to snap. I had seen better and more seasoned men than this kid crack under the pressure. My very first auctioneer—rookie of the year, no less—had first gone alcoholic, then ulcerated, then impotent, and then bananas. It had taken only two contracts. The second auctioneer and his wife had nearly divorced before quitting. The third went on vacation to Thailand and literally disappeared. An auctioneer trainee friend of mine, so nerve-wracked that she chewed her fingertips to bloody stubs, had nearly endured an emotional breakdown on my last handover. The fact that I hadn't broken yet was clearly a testament to how stupid I was.

  "Fine," I finally said. I understood. My first sight of Wind Surf had been so disheartening I had nearly gotten back into my taxi with orders to the airport. "Whatever. I'll walk you to the gangway and you'll answer my questions for at least that long, okay?"

  Jeff nodded. He calmed upon realization that I wasn't going to force him to stay any longer.

  "You didn't even show me the purser," I began, resuming our walk.

  "Go to the bridge for all that," Jeff said quietly.

  "Where's the handover documentation? You know, your business plans and schedules?"

  "I didn't do any. Doesn't matter. Every cruise is totally different: new ports every day, new homeports in new countries every week. No employees. No auctions. No sales. Ever."

  I stopped up short. "What?"

  "Get used to it. Wait'll you hear about the auctioneer before me," he said derisively. "It'll blow your God damn mind."

  "We're here," Jeff said brightly. It had only been one minute. The Wind Surf was truly one tiny ship!

  "So no advice at all, then," I said bitterly, succumbing to the sickening knot tightening in my stomach.

  "Yeah," he said, jumping onto the sunlit gangway. "The tour bitch is psycho."

  And he was gone.

  To say it was a disheartening introduction was an understatement. My mind reeling, I left to find the bridge. I had never been on a ship's bridge before. Having joined ships after the terrorist attacks of 9/11, bridges had been strictly off limits to unnecessary personnel. Barring the extraordinary revenue we generally secured, art auctioneers were surely the least necessary persons on board.

  The search for Wind Surf's bridge did not take long. With only three decks of public space, and one clearly labeled Bridge Deck, even Yoyo would have found it proficiently. I approached from an outside deck, nerves growing more taut by the minute. Gathering sign-on paperwork seemed far too trivial a task to be bothering the bridge officers. Small ship or not, these men were responsible for the very lives of hundreds of people. Squinting against the glare, I stepped through the wide, open doorway.

  The bridge was a long, wide chamber extending the length of Wind Surf's beam, excluding the outside walkway and bridge wings. To the fore was an entire wall of glass stretching above an entire wall of electronics. The panels were only sparsely populated with gauges and buttons, reminding me of the low budget bridge set from the original Star Trek. The back of the room was uneven with nooks for reading paper charts, if officers were so inclined, and racks of clipboards and duty rosters and maintenance schedules and such. Overall, the
bridge was spacious and bright, clean and airy. Only one man was posted inside. He wore officer's deck whites, which on the Surf meant a white dress shirt with epaulets over white shorts.

  And he had a guitar.

  The officer—second officer, as denoted by his epaulettes—sat upon a stool with his feet propped onto the electronics. He hunched forward and gazed down at his acoustic guitar. Forehead creasing above Oakley sunglasses, he concentrated on placing his fingers properly upon the strings.

  I stepped up to introduce myself when he suddenly threw his head back and belted out, "SHOT THROUGH THE HEART!—AND YOU'RE TO BLAME—darlin' you give lo-ove... a bad name!"

  His guitar thrummed into the opening riff of the Bon Jovi classic. The sound filled the chamber beautifully. I stood there, immobile and listening, astounded the song continued beyond the opening. After several minutes a slight, handsome man in a stained boiler suit entered from the opposite entrance. He stepped up behind the singer, gave me a smile, and listened along for a moment. Finally he tapped the officer on the shoulder.

  The second officer, whose name tag read 'BARNEY', ceased playing immediately. Barney did not rise, however, but merely craned his head back to look upside-down at his visitor.

  "We're done painting the rails," he said. "I'll be in the engine room."

  "Aye aye," said Barney, even as the other man departed.

  With a big grin, Barney looked back at me. "Good morning. What can I do for you?"

  "Signing on," I replied. "I'm the new art auctioneer."

  "Oh, okay," he said, jumping gamely to his feet. Though we were both over six feet in height, his build was significantly huskier. Offering his hand he said, "Welcome to the family! I'm Barney, Second Officer."

  "Brian," I said, shaking his hand. I smiled and teased, "I'm sorry to interrupt your important business."

  "Bon Jovi is important," Barney agreed. "We're in port anyway, so there's not much to do. Still, one of us needs to man the bridge. Come on, I'll get you squared away."

  That had been several days ago. Since then I had discovered Wind Surf was indeed a laid-back ship. No name tags were fine, as were shorts, sandals and no shaving. Hats were fine, too, which I was informed of several times with a rather unusual emphasis: Barney saying cryptically, "Please, man, no more duck hats. I miss hunting and I just wanna grab for my shotgun."

  Returning mentally to the present, I saw Ardin speaking with the hotel director, Francois. The Frenchman had distinctly skinny limbs that looked out of place emanating from a middle thickened with age. A bowling ball with sticks. His round head had features rather pinched together and was topped with thinning, oily hair a bit too black to be natural. Dangling from his wrists were several gold chains. His mannerisms were subtly flamboyant, just enough to hint he was probably gay.

  "Brian, perfect!" Francois called excitedly with a thick accent. He was so enthusiastic he even clapped his hands together. "You're as big as two Asians. I want to see you in a T-shirt, on the pier, in ten minutes."

  "Sure," I said, somewhat hesitantly. I didn't have a chance to ask him why, for he strode away briskly, shaking a fist at the Wind Star with a jangling of gold. "This time is ours!"

  "What's this all about?" I asked Ardin.

  "Sibling rivalry," he answered sardonically. "Welcome to the family."

  2

  The rivalry played out on Portoferriao's pier. Wind Star and Wind Surf docked nose-to-tail, white masts rising high over the ancient 'port of iron', as the city was called. Very close to the embanked shore rose stacks of tall, Italian-style houses, higher and higher, as the land lifted away from the sea. Between the clusters were moments of stone, shaggy with green. The pier itself, however, was merely a hard strip of soiled functionality. The air was hot and fishy, the concrete just hot.

  Francois waited at the gangway with orders to gather all staff members. I joined those indicated, perched atop a line of concrete barriers. Being all young white women in street clothes, I presumed them to be gift shop or spa employees from Canada, perhaps England, based solely and stereotypically on the fact that all had extra meat on their bones. I had learned size to be a surprisingly accurate gauge of first worlders in my three years plying the seas. And, of course, almost no Americans worked on ships but entertainers, who are held to different standards. Near us waited a group of trim brown-skinned men in boiler suits.

  With a rattling of gold on wrist, Francois gestured Star-side to a gangly man with a particularly prominent nose towering over his own gathering of boiler-suits. "That ugly Frenchman over there is the Star's hotel director," Francois explained. "He is a horrible, horrible man. He is also my friend. Last time our ships met, the Surf lost. If I have to buy him another bottle of Montrachet after today, I'm firing the lot of you. I'd rather spend my money on celebratory drinks for you."

  This announcement perked the ladies right up. I snorted quietly at the edge of the group. Alcohol was the last thing I needed on Wind Surf, for a wide variety of reasons.

  Francois selected three staff and ordered us to a designated spot between the two ships. I followed a spa girl named Natalie, who was astonishingly long. She stood a whopping six foot two inches tall, even in flip-flops. Long black hair trailed all the way down her back to partially cover her butt in tangles thick with humidity. As if these two rare characteristics were not enough, at the ends of her long arms were two-inch nails painted glossy blue, studded with silver stars. Our third member was a shoppie named Janie, who had obviously been a cheerleader at some point in her life. She pumped her fist into the air enthusiastically, crying, "Let's go Surf! Let's show them the stuff we're made of! Whoo whoo!"

  We were assigned two yard-long planks fitted with three loops apiece.

  Natalie and Janie both bubbled with excitement. I was decidedly less enthusiastic, and remarked sullenly, "Those look like some sort of old school navy tool used to enforce discipline."

  "Put your stuff in the loops," Janie explained. "And then the fun stuff happens!"

  "Put my stuff in the loops so the fun stuff can happen," I repeated deadpan. "Back in Vegas we have to pay for that."

  "Brian first," Francois commanded. "You power through, so the girls are forced to go with it."

  "Men always think it works like that," Natalie said sarcastically.

  I looked up at Natalie the Oak and observed, "I think I'd like to see a macho guy try that with you."

  Seeing that I still didn't understand what was expected of us, Janie explained further. "There are three loops on each plank. That's for six feet. It's a race, silly!"

  "My career is languishing and I'm ordered to a footrace?" I complained.

  We began sliding our feet into the loops, when short Janie suddenly stopped and craned her neck to exclaim to Natalie, "Your nails are so beautiful! When did you go blue?"

  "This morning," she beamed, showing off her nails. "I got tired of red, and last week was black, so I needed something new."

  "Focus, women!" Francois snapped.

  "Gets kind of lonely down in the spa," Natalie explained sheepishly, leaning closer and nearly tumbling us all.

  "They like to do stuff to each other," Janie added brightly.

  "We pay a lot for that in Vegas, too," I quipped.

  While waiting for the race to begin, we nearly fell over. Our wobbling bodies pressed together so tightly I doubt even a game of Twister offered more intimacy. Natalie was behind me, and gripped my waist with tremendous strength. Her nails dug into my flesh. Painted pretty or not, they scared the bejesus out of me.

  Finally the Star's team was ready, a trio of small brown seamen standing smoothly in unison beside us. Francois' eyes narrowed.

  "No fair!" Janie protested. "They're all boys!"

  "Philippe!" Francois called sternly to his counterpart. "Don't you play me."

  The opposing Frenchman spread his arms in feigned innocence. The grin beneath his gargantuan nose was evident. "But monsieur!" he protested with a muddy accent, "I give you the advan
tage, do I not? Even your woman is two meters tall!"

  Before Francois could answer, Philippe raised his arm, then brought it down with a shout. "GO!"

  We surged forward sloppily. I hauled hard, but hadn't bothered to tell my team which foot to lead with. I led right. They didn't. They didn't go anywhere. I did. I fell forward, nearly crashing to the concrete. Just before I struck, Natalie hauled back on my shirt to save my stuff from a nasty scrape on the ground. Within moments the Wind Star team was already halfway to the finish line.

  "Get going!" Francois ordered. He shot a glare at Philippe, who was all smiles.

  We pushed onward, but Natalie's stride was just too long for me to keep pace with. Poor, short Janie was hopeless in the back. She started going over, and with a wail we all followed. We yelped as soft flesh met hard, hot concrete. Good-natured laughter rose from the audience of both ships, not to mention the locals who had gathered to watch. Despite our second set-back, the race was not yet over, for the Star team also tumbled.

  "Get up!" cried Francois. "You can do it!"

  Untangling our entwined bodies was not an easy procedure. Suddenly Twister seemed easy in comparison: our strapped feet made bodily extraction most... revealing. Natalie's nails nearly ripped my shorts off. Ardin swooped in to document the carnage for posterity.

  Surprisingly, we won the race. How is still a mystery, other than perhaps divine intervention. What followed were a handful of races, each with a different combination and order. The all-Asian races were the most exciting. After witnessing the first loss, they regrouped and created a new strategy. They placed their hands on each others' shoulders to stride in better harmony. Asian-on-Asian races moved at an amazingly rapid pace. But the highlight was yet to come. A long rope was laid across the pier alongside the two vessels, the center marked with a prominent ribbon.