MADRIGAL'S job was to kill Calvin Weiss. My job was to stop Madrigal, and the job was impossible. Weiss was the entertainment director on the S.S.Carnival Queen, a cruise ship that sailed out of Florida 's Port St. James, on a regular eight-day run to Nassau, San Juan, St. Thomas, and St. Maarten. The Queen had seven bars, four lounges, and a casino. She had a swimming pool, a gymnasium, and two saunas. She had a cavernous dining room, three card rooms, two cafes, a sports area, a skeet range, and the facilities of a small city. She carried one thousand and twelve passengers, and a staff of over four hundred, any one of whom could have been Madrigal. And I had to keep Weiss alive.
"Impossible," I told Sammy.
"Difficult," he agreed, "but you'll manage."
"How? If there were twenty of me, I couldn't keep Weiss covered every minute."
"Right, so you don't try to cover him. The job is to find Madrigal before he can do anything."
"Look, I don't know if Madrigal is a man, a woman, or a cocker spaniel. How do you expect me to find him, tap fourteen hundred heads?"
"Just keep your mind open, tune in to anything you can. With your luck, you'll pick up something."
"Is that the best advice you can give me?"
"With your luck, that's all you need."
My luck. He has a thing about that word. He likes to say that I have more luck than brains, and to prove it he points to the way that I win at cards. He ignores the fact that what I do at the card table has nothing to do with luck. I win because I know what everybody else at the table is holding. I go into their heads, and peek at their cards. To put it baldly, I cheat. Yes, I agree that the way I play doesn't fall within the code of the gentleman gambler, but, you see, I don't believe in gambling. Life is uncertain enough.
With those instructions in mind, on the night that the Carnival Queen sailed from Port St. James, I was not shadowing Weiss all over the ship, nor was I desperately trying to tap any of over a thousand heads at the seven complimentary cocktail parties and imitation luaus going on. I was, according to instructions, trusting to my luck, which meant that I was sitting in the card room on the Promenade Deck trying to decide which way to go on a two-way finesse for the queen of hearts. My partner's name was Betty Ireland, our opponents were Jim and Ellen Kreiske, from Cleveland, and the stakes were respectable enough to keep me awake. The contract was six spades, doubled, I looked to be a trick short, and there was no squeeze or endplay in sight. I needed the finesse, and there was no clue from the bidding as to where the queen lay. It was an even shot either way, and anyone else would have flipped a mental coin, but that would have been gambling, and I don't believe in gambling. Instead, I went into their heads. I tried Ellen Kreiske on my left, but she didn't have it. I tried her husband, and there it was, the queen of hearts along with two small ones. I crossed to the dummy, led the ten of hearts, and when Jim didn't cover, I let it run. I cashed the ace and the king, collecting the queen, and claimed the contract.
"Six spades doubled," I announced. "Nine hundred and ten."
"Way to go, partner," said Betty. "Well played."
"Luck," said Kreiske. He was a grumbler. "Could have gone either way."
"Sheer luck," his wife agreed.
But, as you can see, luck had nothing to do with it. Still, I have to admit that Sammy has a point about my luck, for there have been times when I've done something thoughtless, or careless, or downright stupid, and the luck has pulled me through. That's the way it was earlier that day, before we sailed, when I staked out Weiss's home in Port St. James. He lived on a shady, well-kept street lined with cookie-cutter houses, the sort of street where you express your individuality by the color of your garage door and the size of the flamingo on your lawn. Weiss's door was lime green, and his flamingo wouldn't have broken any records. For no good reason, I was disappointed. I had expected more of a statement from a man who made his living making other people laugh.
I got there early in the morning, parked down the street, and waited for him to show. The Queen sailed at five in the afternoon, and so I had plenty of time, but, despite what Sammy had said about covering him, I wanted to see him on his home grounds and familiarize myself with the way he moved. I settled down to wait with the motor running, the air on high, and that was the first stupid thing I did that day. I wasn't there twenty minutes when the cruiser pulled up, and parked behind me. Two cops got out, and came over. They both wore dark glasses, and one of them was chewing a toothpick.
I lowered the window, and said what everybody says. "What's the problem, officer?"
Toothpick said, "Would you step out of the car, please?"
"I'm just sitting here."
"Out, please. Now." I stepped out into the heat, and he said, "License and registration, please."
I gave him the papers. He looked them over, and gave them back. "Mr. Slade, do you have any business around here?"
"No, just passing through."
"Parked at the curb?"
"Is it a no-parking zone?"
He didn't like that. "Do you know anyone in this neighborhood?"
"Not a soul."
"Then I'm going to ask you to keep on moving."
"You running me?"
"That's it."
"I don't get it. What did I do?"
"It isn't what you did, it's what you're going to do." He shifted the toothpick to the other side of his mouth. "You are going to drive straight down Mason Street to the first light, hang a left onto Cordell, and go four more lights to the entrance to the Interstate. You will not stop for a cup of coffee, you will not stop to rest your weary head, you will barely even stop for the lights along the way. You will get onto the Interstate, north or south, makes no difference, and you will leave the confines of Port St. James at once. That's what you will do. Have I made myself clear?"
"Clear enough, but I'm not sure that you can do this."
"Mr. Slade, I assure you I can. I can do it hard, or I can do it easy. Which is it going to be?"
I couldn't figure it. Sometimes a cop will run a stranger in a small town, but not when the small town is in south Florida where strangers are the bread and the butter. Still, I should have done it. I should have tugged my forelock, and gone quietly, but that would have left Weiss uncovered, and so I made my second stupid move of the day. I reached for my wallet, and both cops stiffened. I smiled. I showed them the silver shield and the green plastic card that identified me as Commander Benjamin Slade, Office of Naval Intelligence, Criminal Investigation Division. Toothpick wasn't impressed.
"Around here that doesn't mean shit," he said. "I know a place in Miami where you can buy one of those things for ten bucks." "Not one like this."
Toothpick asked his partner, "What do you think, Eddie?"
"The lieutenant said to run him."
"He didn't say anything about the U.S. Navy."
"I don't work for the Navy, I work for the lieutenant."
"Yeah, there's that." Toothpick asked me, "You gonna move?"
"Sorry, but I can't oblige you."
"Have it your way."
He was quick, and he was good. He hit me once in the belly, doubled me over, and clipped my head with his knee as I went down. The pain burst in my cheek, and went to my neck. I tried to get up, and he gave me the knee again. This time I lay on the ground without moving.
"Get up," said Toothpick."
"Not me," I told him. "I like it down here."
They threw me into the cruiser and took me to the substation, one of them driving my car. They turned me over to a lieutenant named Ford. He was short and tubby, and he looked as if his shoes hurt. When he saw my face, he glared at the cops.
"I told you to run him," he said. "I didn't tell you to make hamburger out of him."
The two cops shifted uncomfortably. Toothpick put my ID on the desk. Ford stared at it, and said, "What the hell is this? The navy?"
Eddie said, "You said to run him, boss, but he wouldn't run."
"The fucking U.S. Navy?"
"He wouldn't run," Eddie repeated stubbornly.
Ford's mouth opened and closed a couple of times. He looked like an unhappy fish. He suddenly shouted, "Get out of here. Get the hell out of here."
The cops went out. Ford peered at my face. "That hurt much?"
"I can live with it."
"Sit down, sit down." He got a bottle of Wild Turkey out of a desk drawer, poured into paper cups, and handed me one. "That should take the edge off it. What the hell have we got here?"
"Your people tried to run me. I got sore, and I showed them the tin. Then the fun started."
"You working?"
"If I were, would I tell you?"
"No, I guess not. You should have let them run you. I mean, what the hell?"
"I know. Like I said, I got sore."
"Not so good in your line of work. If it is your line of work." He tapped my ID with a fingernail. "Take me an hour to check this out. If it's a phony, you could tell me now and save us some time."
"It's real, all right. Look, I'll show you. Port is left, starboard is right. That's sailor talk. Can I go now?"
"Jesus, one of those." He sighed, and pushed himself out of his chair. "Sit there like a good little sailor, and don't move."
He went out, and came back in a few minutes. "Like I said, about an hour."
"What do I do for an hour, just sit here?"
"You want to pass the time, you can tell me why you were staking out the Weiss house."
That didn't figure. I'd been parked up the street. "You've got me. What's a Weiss house?"
He sighed again. "Suit yourself."
He went to work on some papers, and ignored me after that. I sat back, stared at a wall, and wondered how I was going to explain this one to Sammy. He had to find out. The computer check would go to the ONI, but then it would be shunted to the Center. The check would come back confirmed, but Sammy would see the paperwork. Lie, I decided.
The check took less than an hour. After a while, a woman came in and handed Ford a printout. He read it, grunted, and gave it back to her. He pushed my shield and card across the desk to me. He leaned forward, and said quietly, "Okay, so you check out, but that doesn't mean that I can let you hassle Mr. Weiss. He pays his taxes just like everybody else around here."
I shook my head. "I'm not trying to hassle anybody, and I don't know any Weiss."
"Look, you think you're the first one who tried to get at him? You're the fourth, sailor, four that I can remember. One guy actually popped him as he was coming out the door, damn near broke his jaw. We stopped the other two, and now you come along."
"Is that why you tried to run me?"
"We keep an eye on that street, but that wasn't it. His wife called it in. She saw you from a window. So it doesn't make any difference what kind of a badge you're carrying. I want you out of town."
"I guess you know what you're talking about, but I'm still in the dark."
He sat back, and shrugged. "If that's the way you want to play it, but let me give you a piece of advice. If you can't control your wife, get rid of her, but don't try to settle it here on my turf."
"Is that what this is all about? Wives?"
"And husbands. Three of them, and now you."
"This Weiss sounds like quite a guy."
"From what I hear, he's the greatest cocksman since Errol Flynn, but what happens on board the Carnival Queen is none of my business." He gave me a steely cop look. "What happens here in town is very much my business, and I've got enough business to worry about without a bunch of angry husbands buzzing around that house. You understand? You've been warned."
"I understand, but you've got it wrong. I'm not even married." I stood up. "Am I free to go?"
"Sure, I've got nothing to hold you on. You want another piece of advice?"
"I already heard it. Get out of town."
"That definitely, but something else. There are two ways out of this station. You turn to the right, and you go out the front. You turn to the left, and you go out the back. I'd go out the back if I were you."
"Any particular reason?"
"Mrs. Weiss is waiting out front. She says she wants to see you. You don't want to see her, do you?"
"I don't even know the lady."
"Now you're talking." His eyes turned shifty. "What my boys did… can we keep that off the record?"
"I've been drinking your whisky, haven't I?"
He grinned. "Off you go, sailor."
I went out of his office, stood in the corridor, and looked at my watch. It was only eleven-thirty. Left or right, stupid or lucky? I wasn't sure which, but I had the feeling that I had exhausted my capacity for stupidity, at least for one day. I turned right.
She was waiting for me in the reception area, sitting on one of those wooden benches that they make for the cop shops, the hardest, saddest benches in the world. In an age of premolded plastics, they still make those seats of misery, or maybe the old ones never wear out.
She stood up when she saw me, and I knew that my luck had kicked in. She was a beauty, a tall and slender blonde. She was ten years past the best of it, and those years showed in her eyes, but she was still a beauty.
She stood in front of me, and said, "Mr. Slade, I'm June Weiss." Her voice was throaty, with a catch in it. "I've been waiting to see you."
"The lieutenant told me."
She stared at me with a concentration that was disconcerting. "I'm sorry, this must seem strange to you, but you're the first one I've ever seen. I never saw any of the others. I had to see what you looked like."
"Why?"
"It was important to me. Would you mind if we went someplace, and talked?"
"About what?"
She looked at the busy station. There were at least a dozen people in the room. She put a hand on my arm. "Not, here, I can't talk in a place like this. Please?"
She knew how to do it. Come close, touch you lightly, let you breathe her, and use that throaty voice to say please. It worked just fine on me. I felt a soft plum in the back of my throat, and I had to swallow hard.
We walked out into the sunlit street, and I managed to say, "Where do you want to go?"
"My car is right here. Will you follow me?"
To the ends of the earth, I thought, but all I said was, "Yes." I followed her car to an X-brand motel near the Interstate. It was a cheap-looking joint with a faded facade, and the parking lot was a checkerboard of weeds. The bar in the rear was called the Tropic Moon, and it stank of antiseptic. It didn't seem like her sort of place, but I told myself that I didn't know anything about her. We were the only customers in the room. She wanted a gin and tonic, I ordered a beer, and we sat at a table silently. She stared at her glass without drinking, and I wondered what she wanted. I could have gone into her head to find out, but I was reluctant to pry. Instead, I put it into words.
"What did you want to talk about?"
"Do you have a picture of her?"
"Who?"
"Your wife. Do you carry a photo?"
I finessed that one. "No, I never got into the habit. Why?"
"I wanted to see what she looked like." Her eyes shifted away from me. "I'm told… I hear that Calvin's women tend to look like me. I was curious."
"Why don't you ask him?"
She smiled faintly. "It's not something we talk about."
"Maybe you should."
"What good would it do?" There was a tired note in her voice. "I don't know why I should tell you this, maybe because we're in the same boat together, but during the season Calvin goes to sea for eight days, and then he's home for two. Eight days of chasing every woman in sight, and two days of resting up for his next adventure. That's his routine, and it doesn't leave much time for small talk."
"Children?"
"Are you serious? Do you think I'd still be here if there weren't children? Two boys, fourteen and ten. You?"
"No, no children."
"Does she look like me? Your wife, I mean."
Another finesse. "Not really."
"Are you still in love with her?"
And another. "That's not something I talk about."
"I'm sorry, you're right, it's none of my business."
She took a tiny sip of her drink, and fell silent. Again it was time to go into her head, and again I did not want to. It would have been like marching through a rose bed in jackboots.
I asked, "Is that all you wanted to talk about?"
She shook her head. "No, there's something else. It's about Calvin. I want you to leave him alone. You're not the first one to come after him, or did you know that?"
"The cop at the station told me."
"Ben… may I call you that?" I nodded. "Please leave him alone."
"It sounds as if you still care about him."
"He's a miserable son of a bitch, but I don't want him dead," she said calmly. "Marrying Calvin was the biggest mistake of my life, but my children need a father. He's betrayed me, he's humiliated me, he's tortured me with those women of his. But it's my mistake, I'm stuck with it, and he's still the father of my children." She reached across the table, and put her hand on top of mine. "Let it go, Ben. He's gone by now, he's on board the Queen, and he'll be gone for eight days. I'm asking you, please, don't be here when he gets back. I know what you must be feeling, God knows I feel the same way, but I want you to leave him alone."
"You sound as if you thought I was going to kill him."
"I don't know. I don't know what the others wanted, either. Maybe they just wanted to hit out in anger, and maybe they wanted to do more than that. But whatever it is, I'm asking you not to do it." She looked away, and in a voice so soft that I could barely hear it, she said, "There are other ways of taking revenge."
Her words hung between us. For the third time, I knew that I should go into her head, and for the third time, I backed away. I said, "Maybe you'd better spell that out."
"Do I have to?" Her chin came up. "What would you say if I suggested that we get ourselves a room here, and spend the afternoon making love?"
I tried not to smile. That explained the cheap motel, a place where she would not be known. "What would I say? I'd say that you're hurt, that you're angry, and that you don't really mean it." She stood up. "Wait here."
She walked out of the bar. She had a good walk. She was back by the time I had finished my beer. She tossed a room key on the table. "Well?" she asked.
Well, indeed. Part of me wanted her, the sticky plum was still in my throat, and another part of me knew that there was everything wrong with it. Forget that I was on the job; I had dallied on the job before. Forget that my case was her husband; he had nothing to do with the moment. Forget the time factor; I had plenty of time before the Queen sailed at five. Easy enough to forget all that, but what I could not forget was that this was a bird with a broken wing who was trying to fly in the face of a gale. I was a long way past bagging wounded birds, at least I thought I was, but the plum in my throat made me wonder. I stood up, and said, "Let's go."
The room was right on line for a sleaze motel: a waterbed, a VCR with a stack of cassettes, a mended rip in the carpet, a stain the size of a watermelon on the wallpaper, and the same pervading odor of antiseptic. She walked around the room touching things. She ran a finger over a surface, and stared at it.
Without looking at me, she said, "It's pretty bad, isn't it?"
"I've seen worse. Do you want to leave?"
"No, it doesn't make any difference. Or does it?"
"Not to me, but are you sure you want to do this?"
"Of course I do. Just give me a minute.
She went into the bathroom. She wasn't gone long, and when she came back she was naked except for a towel she had wrapped around her. The towel didn't hide much. She gave me a bright smile, and said, "You still have your clothes on."
"I'm slow that way."
"That's all right, I want another drink, anyway. How about you?"
"I’ll pass."
"Please, let's have another drink. Could you order up something from the bar?"
"Not in a place like this. I'd have to go get it."
"Would you mind terribly?" She peered at the bruise on my face. "Did the police do that?"
"Yeah."
"Because of me."
"No, because cops do things like that. Some cops."
She leaned against me, and brushed the bruise with her lips. "Poor you."
I put my arms around her, and the towel dropped away. She smelled of violets. It was like holding a warm, soft statue, but it was still a statue. She put her hands at the back of my neck, and I kissed her. She held the kiss for a moment, then twisted away. She slipped out of my arms, and covered herself again with the towel. She sat on the edge of the bed, and looked down at her folded hands. I could not see her face.
"I'm sorry," she said in a tiny voice. "I wasn't-I wasn't ready."
I took her arm, and pulled her to her feet. "Come on, get dressed. We're leaving."
"No, wait." She pulled against me. "Where are we going?"
"Anyplace. Out of here."
She planted her feet. She wouldn't move. Her face was close to mine, and her eyes were wide. "You don't want me. Is that it?"
"That's stupid, you know what you look like. I'm flattered that you thought you wanted me, but you don't, and we're leaving."
"But I do. I mean… want you." She took a breath. "I came here to make love. That's what I want." She was suddenly in my arms again. She said quickly, "I know I'm doing this all wrong, but I'll be all right, really I will. I just need something to relax me. Please, get us a drink, and I'll be ready when you come back. I promise."
I didn't think much of her promise, and I didn't get us a drink. Another drink wasn't going to change anything. Instead, I did what I should have done earlier. I trampled the rose bed, I went into her head, and it was sad in there.
I saw a time, long ago, when all of her life had been love, and warmth, and friendship, and I saw how much that had changed. I saw a time of decision back then, saw the decision made, and saw how much she later regretted it. I saw a young love lost, and never regained, saw her daydreams of what might have been. I saw her as a girl who once had been adored, and I saw her as a woman who had forgotten her beauty. I saw the man of long ago, the man she turned away. I saw her need, and I saw that I could not supply it. She needed absolution for mistakes of the past, she needed to set back the clock. She needed me to tell her that birds with broken wings can fly, that everyone gets a second chance, and that it all works out in the end. She needed to dream of a different decision, and she needed me to help her with the dream. She needed me for a lot of things, but she didn't need me for a lover.
"Go home," I told her. The plum in my throat was still there, and I had to work to keep my voice steady. "Get dressed, and go home. There's nothing I can do for you."
I turned, and walked away from her. At the door, I looked back. She was staring at me, still clutching that towel. I left her standing there, and went to catch the Carnival Queen.
Nine hours later, I squared the deck for the last time that night, and collected two hundred and twenty dollars from the Kreiskes. I took the money into the Cockatoo Lounge, and spent some of it at the bar. While I was there, I followed Sammy's advice and kept my mind open, taking in the flow from the crowded room. Not completely open, I would have been swamped, but open enough to pick up streams of thought. It was, as usual, a sad business. Unless you do what I do, you have no idea what garbage runs through most people's minds.
… off-white with a skin like that makes her look like an oyster…
… Mary had a little lamb…
… right in the middle, I'm ready to come, and she asks me if I made the car payment…
… wedgies, already, she still thinks it's the fifties…
… Jesus, what an ass…
… to school one day it was against the…
… could have sold at 44, but he had to be greedy…
… can't help it if it hurts, can I help it if it hurts?…
… could bury my head in that all night…
… rules. Mary had a little…
… must have been the lobster at dinner…
… three seventy-five a gross less ten percent…
Satisfied, Sammy?
I lowered the volume. The second purser was at the bar, natty in uniform, drinking slowly. That was part of his job: to stand at the bar, show the uniform, answer questions, and drink slowly. I waited until he was ready, and bought him one.
"Cheers," he said, lifting his glass. "Saw you in the card room earlier. Any luck?"
That word again. "Can't complain."
"Absolutely amazing, you card players. Spend all this money on an eight-day cruise, and never leave the card room."
"I'm not as bad as that," I assured him. "I have other interests."
"Should hope so. Lots of things to see and do. You traveling alone?" I nodded. He looked at me owlishly. "Lots of things."
"Female things?"
"That's the word I was searching for."
"I thought you had mostly couples on board."
"Mostly, yes. We get about three-quarters couples and one-quarter singles. That still leaves several hundred bodies groping around in the dark."
"And the married ones?"
"More so than the singles, some of them. I don't know why it is, but you get people out beyond the three-mile limit and all the rules disappear. Especially with the regulars."
"Who are they?"
"The repeaters. On any given trip, at least one-third of the passenger list has been with us before. Some of them come back two or three times a year. There are people on board who know their way around this bucket of bolts better than I do."
I heard the word then. I was still tuned in, and I heard the word that snapped me back to full attention. Calvin. And then another. Hey, there's Calvin.
And then a flood of it. Calvin's here… look, there's Calvin. "Of course, Calvin has a lot to do with it," said the second purser, looking toward the door. "Some of the regulars come back just to see Calvin."
A strident voice called, "Hey, you people, loosen up. Whadda you think this is, a morgue?"
I turned to see Calvin Weiss come into the room. He was short and sandy-haired, with peaked eyebrows and a button nose. He threw up his arms in a greeting to the crowd. "Never saw so many stiffs in my life," he yelled. "Not that I got anything against something stiff, but there's a time and a place for everything."
"That's our Calvin," murmured the second purser, and explained, "the entertainment director. On the first night out he hits all the lounges and loosens up the people."
"Funny man?"
"He thinks so. Amazingly, so do a lot of other people."
Weiss called over to a fat man at a far table. "Hey, Kaplan, you back again? I hope you brought your wife this time."
The fat man protested, "Come on, I always bring my wife."
"If that's your wife, then I just changed my position on the abortion issue." He paused. "And in her case, I'll make it retroactive."
He got his laugh, and began to go from table to table, saying hello to the people he knew, introducing himself to the others. Watching him work the room was like watching a politician at the state fair. He greeted men with a firm handshake, gripping the elbow with his free hand. He greeted the women with the burlesque of a bow. He never stopped talking, and he never stopped moving, working one table with his eyes already on the next. He bowed over a seated woman, stared down the front of her dress, and said something that made her laugh.
"I'll never understand it," said the second purser. "He's rude, he's crude, and he's obvious, but they adore him. Of course, most of them would also like to kill him."
That sat me up straight. "Do what?"
"Kill him." The second purser said it cheerfully. "Actually, I wouldn't mind killing him, myself."
I heard it then in the ear of my mind. I had missed it at first, but now it was like a mental murmur coming from every part of the room, building in volume as Weiss went from table to table. People were thinking: Kill Calvin, kill Calvin, kill Calvin. Not just one, but dozens of them. They were all thinking the same thing. I couldn't believe it. My eyes went around the room, staring at all the innocent faces that were covering murderous minds. Kill Calvin, kill Calvin, oh God, how I'd love to kill Calvin. Their thoughts roared in my mind.
"Actually," said the second purser, "as much as I'd like to kill Calvin, I can't. I'm ineligible. Only a passenger is allowed to kill Calvin."
I held on to the bar for support, and said, "I think you'd better explain."